Most developers and manufacturers produce products for operating systems they hope will generate the most revenues for them. Google certainly has the resources to promote Android and Chrome OS, and has produced ads for the Web and commercials for television.
Mozilla doesn't have the resources of Google (almost no organization/company does, of course) so it has a very difficult job trying to convince developers, manufacturers and cellular operators that there's a market for Firefox OS.
At least Firefox has excellent name recognition. So Mozilla doesn't have spend much money for branding, but it has to convince participants that an HTML5 operating system makes commercial sense.
Yep, just about everyone is frustrated with the problems of evolving technology. People with older phones are angry when new applications won't work or won't work well with their older operating systems, which they might not even be able to upgrade.
And since HTML5 hasn't even been approved officially as a standard, browsers will continually evolve to keep up with new Web apps. Even after the standard is approved, developers will try to improve the capabilities of Web apps. It will be a continuing give and take, and irritate consumers and businesses.
Yes, aum007, the various incompatibilities lead to a great deal of wasted time for those of us who create websites or even just simple web pages. We are faced with decisions: Do we use the latest greatest feature even though half the browsers don't support it yet? Do we detect browser type and generate different css and html for each one? Or do we restrict ourselves to code that works the same, or nearly the same, in all browsers? I tend toward the latter solution, as it helps me produce the most work with the least effort. But it means that I tend to be a little behind the curve.
Alan, you are so right that "Browsers and Web sites continue to evolve, and that's not going to change." I wouldn't want that to change. I find it exciting that there are always new features coming along.
But, I do find it frustrating when the new features don't work. Or when old features stop working. Or when for no good reason the browser hangs up.
I'm pretty sure everyone is frustrated by those things, especially those who understand their computers well enough to realize what it is that is hanging up. So I guess I'm preaching to the choir here. Not the first time...
Me, too. In fact, I have both Chrome and Firefox windows on my desktop right now.
Yep, Flash is a problem on any browser, and it seems as if it never will be fixed! BlackBerry OS 10, by the way, has Flash capability -- which still makes sense -- but it's disabled by default.
Browsers and Web sites continue to evolve, and that's not going to change. The BlackBerry 10 browser might be the most HTML5-compliant mobile browser, but even that has problems with some sites, according to reviews. I'm writing a blog about BB 10 that will posted tomorrow.
I go back and forth, sometimes a daily basis, between Firefox and Chrome as my go-to browser. I prefer the developer features of firefox, but it is much more susceptible to runaway memory use and as you mentioned flash is flaky. On the other hand, flash is flaky no matter what browser I use. Some sites work only in Firefox, others only in Chrome, and there are still some that work only in Internet Explorer.
I thought we were past this nonsense; I thought the browser people were getting better about supporting the same features. It seems I was wrong.
I still have a fondness for Firefox on the desktop, although I am finding that recent versions have caused proboems. Also, I've found that Flash is causing Firefox to crash repeatedly -- much more than usual -- and I switched from Chrome as my secondary browser to my primary one.
I like Chrome a lot, especially because all the open tabs on my desktop will automagically be displayed on Chrome on my Android phones, iPad and Chromebook. Extremely useful to me when I switch among devices.
However, the main problem for me is that I will often open dozens of tabs, and unlike Firefox, the Chrome tabs can't be configured for multiple rows. So when too many tabs are open, they lose their icons and it's impossible to know what the tabs are. All I see is a single row of tiny turquoise tabs!
I have the Firefox mobile browser on my Androis phones, although I don't think it's much or any better than Chrome. As for the Firefox OS, we'll have to see whether there's enough interest by handset manufacturers, cellular operators and, ultimately, users.
As I wrote, there are advantages to Chromebooks with the Chrome OS that could be the same with the Web app-only Firefox OS.
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