16/11/04
24Firefox of the Day
This afternoon, Firefox got the honour of being Radio 2’s Website of the Day on the Steve Wright show. For those outside the UK, blissfully unaware of these British institutions, Radio 2 tends to be the MOR music station, and Mr Wright’s show probably attracts the 35yr old plus market the most. I won’t go into how I came to be listening to it, but the level of the piece can be summed up in these wee quotes:
“So Miles, what is a ‘web browser?’”
“So, now there’s more than one ‘web browser’?”
“Firefox? Isn’t that the thing that protects your computer?”
“No, thats the Firewall, Steve”
OK, we’ll ‘know’ that’s what we’re up against, but it always surprises me to hear that level of unawareness.
Still, sites featured on Website of the Day do tend to get a lot of traffic, and it does reach a wide non-geek audience, so we can but hope…
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DeWaun said 1426 days ago:
Oh dear! That must have been painful to experience…Any word on the SPREADFIREFOX.COM website? It’s been down and is still not resolving.
Hmmm…
Jeff Croft said 1426 days ago:
Ouch. Scary. Just scary.Rafal said 1426 days ago:
I try to spread the word about Firefox as much as I can. It is easier to convince the younger group of people to try it out. As usual, the older crowd is pretty stubborn and doesn’t want to change. The only way Firefox can be spread as fast as Internet Explorer is if it came pre-installed with a new computer. Well, that’s what I have been doing lately when working on clients computers. I install it and talk to them about it, show them what they can do with it, and it’s up to them if they decide to use it or not.Denis Radenkovic said 1426 days ago:
Starting with non-geek people around us, like parents and other family members, might work. I started with Sarah, my wife ( 23 ) who isn’t old :-), and now step by step I’m getting other older family members more involved and aware....every little helps ;-)
Pascal said 1426 days ago:
are you really sure, that it is easier to convince young (and even intelligent people)? i just started working at the uni. and i am the only one to use ff.general comment: “ooouw! that’s nice! is this one of those lego-browsy-browsy-thingies?!”
if you tell them about ff and what’s so good about it, they go like “you know, i’ve never had any problems with ie. darn, this web dialer was nasty, but that could’ve happened with every browser, i guess.” or “you know, 90% percent of the market say that ie is better. you can’t fool the market.” (university of basel, department of finance)
Allan Rojas said 1426 days ago:
I re-formatted my uncle’s PC a few weeks ago…I installed FF and explained to him how to use it. Still, I had to come back one week later and replace the ‘e’ icon on the desktop for the FireFox’s icon…
my uncle kept clicking the ‘e’ even tho i told him not to do so… for his own sake. In one week, adaware found more than 64 spyware files brought by IE…
amazing.
Wim said 1426 days ago:
Actually I find this level of unawareness kind of comforting. Puts things in perspective.DeWaun said 1426 days ago:
Allan, I would suggest him looking at SPYSWEEPERhttp://webroot.com/products/spysweeper/
I bought my wife WindowWasher and SpySweeper. It has helped, immensely.
Mark said 1426 days ago:
M FF. I got allt he PC’s at work on FF now, and I even convinced our local library to install FF on all the PC’s in their computer lab. Not a huge dent but a start. All we can do is hope that one day people will stop accepting garbage that is just “Handed” to them and will pick and choose what software works best for them. If it is IE so be it, but you can always show them the light. Of ocurse up to each individual to step into it. I can dream can’t I?Chris Vincent said 1426 days ago:
Reminds me of the typical American voter. :P Except they already “know” everything.Josh said 1426 days ago:
Not to start a flame war or anything, but I just couldn’t resist:DeWaun said:
“I bought my wife WindowWasher and SpySweeper. It has helped, immensely.”
I bought a Mac and that fixed everything :)
Kris Khaira said 1425 days ago:
Spyware, adware, viruses and worms are common problems in my dad’s office of 3-4 networked computers. The staff surf a lot and have no idea about the dangers of spyware; so I’ve ‘forced’ them to use Firefox by removing all of the Internet Explorer shortcuts from the Start Menus and Desktops and replacing them with Firefox.I started doing this in Firefox 0.7. Since then, no spyware problems and they haven’t noticed the difference.
And you’re right, introducing Firefox to the layman market is important. That’s where the 70% of IE users are.
Tony said 1425 days ago:
I’d heard you were a bit of a demon on the old Pop Master, Jon. With a specialism in 80’s hair bands wasn’t it? ;)Jon Hicks said 1425 days ago:
Tony – guilty as charged! Sigue Sigue Sputnik were a specialityMichael Davis said 1425 days ago:
I too use an apple mac and cant understand how long its taking for people to wake up to a computer that just doesnt get affected by viruses, worms pop ups adware or spyware- i mean come on macs are even much easier to use than windows. Why do people think that its normal for a computer to have all these problems-when was the last time their video got a virus or crashed, or their washing machine tell them that theyve performed an illegal operation, it should be normal for a computer to just work- ive used macs now for 4 years and used to use windows-i always thought that there was something better and i found it THANK YOU APPLE.Chris Hester said 1424 days ago:
“Firefox? Isn’t that the thing that protects your computer?”“No, thats the Firewall, Steve”
Steve Wright made his name as a comedy DJ, so he was more than likely telling a joke here. DJ Simon Bates was the one who once said “The internet? What’s that?”. But then it was a long time ago before it got big.
Jon Hicks said 1424 days ago:
It’s always hard to tell if he was being sarcastic or not. He also tends to enjoy winding up Miles Mendoza (he ‘does’ the site of the day) too. Who knows?Steve Wright said 1423 days ago:
Just to say that you guys are doing a great job and Firefox Rules!!Jon Hicks said 1423 days ago:
Ha! Nice try! What’s your real name?paul haine said 1423 days ago:
Steve Wright is a pillock. I know this doesn’t really have any bearing on the conversation at hand, but anybody who could repeatedly invite ex-Mirror editor Piers Morgan on to the show and greet him with “Hello Pier, we love you!” should just be banned.He should also be banned because of his insipid ‘Sunday Morning Love Songs’ show that my parents insist on listening to every damn week.
In fact, let’s ban all DJs.
Rod Begbie said 1422 days ago:
I think I’m going to change my standard usability line of “simple enough that your mum can use it” to “simple enough that a Radio 2 listener could use it”.taestell said 1421 days ago:
[1.] install Firefox[2.] remove all MSIE shortcuts, replace with Firefox shortcuts
[4.] rename all Firefox shortcuts to “Internet”
“Did you change something?”
“Oh, not much. Just click on ‘Internet’ to go online.”
They won’t notice the difference.
taestell said 1421 days ago:
By reading the above comment, it may appear that I can not count. Oops.Frog Blogger said 1416 days ago:
I heard that interview… and I’m in the “35 and under” age bracket – though I suspect, as a long-time listener, I’m still a TOG…I’m going to install Firefox when I go to my relatives’ houses over the Christmas break. I think doing it under the cover of brandy butter and port will help to avoid any tricky “isn’t this little picture that I click to get on to the interweb thingy different?” questions.
(And besides… like children eating the traditional solitary sprout because it’s good for them... they’ll come to love it in the end!)