An Open Letter, Bravo
Dear Firefox Community,
I need your help here: how do you best pimp Firefox in three minutes?
Slashdot recently posed this question in regard to Linux, and at the time, I mostly ignored it, because... well... I didn't find it particularly relevant.
But then, in a coffee shop this weekend, I was getting my morning cup o' awakeness, and the woman behind me in line started up a conversation: "Oh, I have Firefox installed! But I was going to delete it. I like your shirt though..."
I smiled and said "No! You should start using it! We just released a new version."
She asked "Well... why should I use Firefox?"
I first said "Well, because it's more secure than Internet Explorer," and then I quoted the IE was insecure for "like hundreds of days last year," and Firefox was insecure for "like a week or something."
She said "Wow, that's really cool." But then seemed underimpressed.
I then said "It's also one of those 'feel-good' things, you know; Firefox is built and supported by a community of people, and we work really hard to a build a browser with only users and their online experience in mind."
"Yeah, that's true," she said. She then said "I originally downloaded it because Safari wouldn't display something I wanted to see."
Before I could really respond, it was time to order my coffee, and then since she was behind me, we both got distracted, and never were able to really finish the conversation.
So, my question to you: if you only had two to three minutes to talk up Firefox and get someone to keep it on their machine, how would you explain why it's the best browser around to someone who doesn't care a bout (or maybe even understand) "attack surfaces" and "days of exposure," and gets "The Community" in the abstract, but... not enough to make it relevant to their personal livfe.
Which aspects of the 'fox we all know and love so well would you focus on in 150 seconds?
Aaand... go!
Sincerely,
Your Friendly Build Engineer
P.S. I've also been trying to figure out whether or not she was flirting with me, but... that's another post altogether.
Comments
A strange way to start a conversation, but I guess anything can happen in a place where minutes only last 50 seconds. ;-)
Posted by: Jan! | February 5, 2007 2:30 AM
Customisation has got to be under there - depending on how advanced a user she is. Extensions and themes make it YOUR browser.
Inline spellchecking - this totally rocks Firefox 2.
Session restore is cool too :)
Posted by: Cameron | February 5, 2007 3:52 AM
Security's good. And "designed with a total focus on you, because we're a non-profit".
Posted by: Gerv | February 5, 2007 5:01 AM
I originally used IE on my Windows box, and Galeon on my Linux boxes. I switched to Firefox way back when, because it was faster and lighter than IE on my Windows box. (I could open about 3 times as many tabs as IE windows)
The thing that made me really won me over though was the ability to save sessions, which fortunately for the masses, no longer requires an extension. Whether it's a browser/X crash or a reboot, the ability to return to where I was, is invaluable to me.
The next frontier is writing my own extensions, but I don't think that's ever going to be a big selling point for Jane User.
Oh, and I don't bother with Galeon anymore either. ;)
Posted by: Ron | February 5, 2007 5:27 AM
Sorry man, she didn't care about Firefox at all. Looks like that totally went over your head until later :) Don't take those flirting questions as real questions. (I was always just as clueless, but that shouldn't make you feel better).
Posted by: Aaron Leventhal | February 5, 2007 6:08 AM
You should've told her about the weather forecast extension, people really freak out when they hear about it. And if that doesn't work, try adblock, noone ever wanted to go back to any other browser after I told them about that.
Posted by: A. To. | February 5, 2007 7:08 AM
For someone who doesn't care about security I would probably tend to push standards compliance, that it's cross-platform, and the plugins.
Standards compliance seem pretty self-explanatory to me for users. The nice thing about firefox being cross-platform is that you don't have to learn a different browser for every OS you use (I for one now find it frustrating to use something like IE that doesn't support tabs). Of course, some people may never use other platforms, but the option is there for them if they want it. Finally, I've found some plugins for Firefox that just make life easier. This also ties into the community aspect: bigger community means more plugins, more plugins increases your chances of finding something really killer.
Just my $0.02.
-darth_mall
Posted by: Evan | February 5, 2007 8:44 AM
1. tabbed browsing (not everyone has heard of it yet, although it's more something to experience than something to hear about)
2. built-in popup blocking and phishing protection (many people seem to have the former already via an extension to IE6, not as many have experienced the latter in IE7);
3. session saving (always, if you set the preference, not just after a crash)
Posted by: Myk Melez | February 8, 2007 1:54 PM
I think back at spreadfirefox there are few suggestions.
Posted by: JR | February 9, 2007 4:29 AM