You all continue to amaze me. Just two days into the take action campaign, you have added nearly 700 reviews of the Firefox web browser. The reviews are great reading and will really help to inform all of the download.com viewers.
What's so great about this effort is how much people have put into all of these reviews. I've read each and every one and the overwhelming majority are honest, thoughtful, and informative. One of my favorites was from Steve England:
Changing from IE has never been more attractive.That's the kind of message that IE readers need to hear (though only 4 out of 5 stars seems a bit low to me ;-)
firefox has been my primary browser since v0.7 and is now simply indespensible. with each revision the whole browsing experience has become smoother and sleeker and v1.0 is shaping up to be a quality product. it's more secure than IE, it gives you more control over IE, it's easier to use than IE, and with extensions (plugins) like All-in-1 gestures and Tabbed Browser Preferences you can make your browsing experience something special.
If I was allowed to review Firefox, I would say that you all are why I love Firefox. We aren't a 'user base', we're a community and that's what makes Firefox the best browser in the world. Keep up the great work everyone. We're taking this message to the masses.
update Please do not add reviews for software you do not use. If you don't use Firefox, then please don't review it. If you don't use Opera, then please don't review it. Specifically, please do not go to other browsers on download.com and down-rate their applications. Seriously. That's just dirty -- we're above that. Besides, Opera has a great rendering engine. So does Safari. The three of us should be allies, not enemies. Thanks.
Posted by asa at July 9, 2004 09:45 PMIt´s sad to see messages like this though:
" "Pure Juke"
I tried this and I had to format my hard drive to get it off of my computer. It tied every thing up on my computer. I always thot that Cnet had checked their stuff on here but I just found out that they do not. It also put a virus on my computer, and beside not being able to get Mozilla Firefox off of my computer and to get the virus off of my computer , I had to format my hard drive."
This is just a lie.
Most other negative comments are made by opera-fans or IE-fans, so we´re pretty much OK.
Some people complain about this campaign :
(this is a negative comment at download.com)
" "Look at the time of the reviews"
The time of all the reviews were posted are VERY VERY CLOSE to eachother alot within seconds or minutes. Very shaddy"
I really think there is nothing wrong with mozilla firefox fans trying to get people to use it, maybe this guy just thought it was one person posting 500 reviews?.
Keep up the good work.
Posted by: iKe on July 10, 2004 01:09 AMI think it is a little shady as well to ask people to review. If Firefox was good or bad enough for a review, the user should feel inclined to review it. Otherwise, the user doesn't feel there is anything particularly worth noting.
A more elegant way to go about this would be to list several sites where Mozilla is listed and reviewable and users can leave whatever review they want wherever they want.
Anyhow, I left my honest review. Kind of annoying that I have to register.
Posted by: Brant Gurganus on July 10, 2004 05:35 AMIt's a little unseemly in my mind. If Microsoft did it, there'd be 1,000 outraged posts on Slashdot (and Mozillazine).
Plus, the a**-kissing is a little transparent.
Posted by: AC on July 10, 2004 06:53 AMYes, it is really much better if Firefox gets reviewed by boneheads that haven't even seen the program ;)
Lol, I was wondering about the recent negative reviews that didn't make any sense, and of course, here it is: http://my.opera.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=60748
Posted by: Wladimir Palant on July 10, 2004 08:35 AM(I also posted this in Blake's log, but I thought I should repeat this here.)
It seems you guys started a huge Firefox versus Opera war on Download.com. Not good!
http://my.opera.com/forums/showthread.php?s=38a6adf974324c23d37b37a332533c30&threadid=60748
Back in the Firebird 0.6 days, something similar happened with Firebird versus MyIE2. This resulted in 60% of all Firebird 'reviews' being thumbs down. I'm afraid this is going to backfire heavily!
Posted by: Francis on July 10, 2004 09:52 AMFor the life of me i do not understand how opera got involved. Opera (and Safari/konqueror) is our friend. We have several alliances with them. Not everyone will like firefox so maybe opera is right for them. But we simply cannot tolerate a web that's restricted to IE/Windows. That's what this is all about
Posted by: arielb on July 10, 2004 08:37 PM