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Comment by buugs | Hacker News Reader

h.264 will probably just be a plugin away and just like that firefox is supported until the user reformats or gets a new computer

Firefox has good support by developers and I don't see anything changing until another browser becomes just as extensible and achieves the same developer niche. Not to say another browser won't take over the mass market though.

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You put too much of a focus on developers. Most people don't care about development within the browser, they care about development within web sites. The philosophy that the browser ought to merely be a window to other sites with as little chrome as possible has been advocated by Chrome's (and Safari's with the advent of Snow Leopard) multithreaded processes. To date, I have still seen no good reason to use extensions, and the majority of people I discuss web browsing with agree. (The biggest sticking points are Greasemonkey and Adblocker, and they're very minority points, particularly when projects like GlimmerBlocker work cross-browser and allow both extensibility and blocking.)

For the average user, I totally agree. But for myself (a web developer/designer and power user), I won't be considering a wholesale switch from Firefox until there are viable alternatives for such Firefox add-ons as the Web Developer toolbar, Firebug, All-in-One Gestures, ColorZilla, MeasureIt and Tab Mix Plus to name a few that I find useful.

That makes perfect sense. I love that Firefox is and always will be an option. I just don't think it'll stay the top (or #2) browser for long.

Yeah well I guess there's always going to be a lot more average users than there are power users.

Completely subjective, but I have always loved the Firefox and Thunderbird logos. I've had them somewhere prominent on my desktops for so long now that I almost don't feel right without them. First app that I install on a new machine is Firefox. Maybe Google or Apple should try and snag Jon Hicks, I read he's working with Opera at the moment.

His work for Opera's been fun to watch, certainly. The logo's no different (I'm not really a fan of any of the current browsing logos, TBH), but the latest beta has made the first step towards not being entirely painful to look at on the Mac. Not perfect, but leagues better than the bland tripe it was just half a version ago.

So he's doing more UI type work for them then?

Yep! Check out the beta to see his latest work in action.

Can't say I've ever been a huge Opera fan but I just made the big switch to Mac, so I just might check out the beta and experience the not entirely painful appearance :P. Thanks.

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