Today I became very frustrated while trying to get out some emails. I was using Mozilla Thunderbird and at the end of a reply to an email I wanted to add a signature. I could not find any way of doing this in Thunderbird and so I googled the question "Thunderbird insert signature". I was immediately greeted with a link to addons.mozilla.org. I clicked on the link and there it was a brand new shining extension ready to install and make me happy! Once I installed the extension all I had to do was right click and choose a signature [1] to insert.
This experience with Firefox extensions made me think about how similar circumstances with Microsoft Internet Explorer would have lead to a frustrating dead end.
Historically speaking
When IE 5 was released I loved it. I then updated to IE 5.5 without thinking about it. Not only was IE 5 the best on the market at the time but it also had the plus of being extendable. There were not many extensions in the beginning and a visit to Microsoft.com only revealed a list of about ten free extensions. Of those ten extensions I used two. One was a DOM tree exposer and the other a source viewer for the selected web page area. But all the reasons for liking IE disappeared with the release of version 6.
The adoption of a browser
When IE5 took over the number one spot Netscape was all but dead. When IE6 came along and took the top spot the adoption period was short, if you consider a year a short period. Now things are different. Firefox is a strong browser both as software and as a marketing tool. IE7 is just taking over for IE6 which is the dominant browser. No one is going to switch to IE7 because it is a better browser. The switch will be more of an organic and unnoticed transistion. This means that Firefox will continue to gain ground. Firefox will suddenly explode on to the market or it will continue it's fast climb. All previous adoption history points to this. Another big change is coming when private persons and businesses choose a browser and it becomes the most popularly used one. This time the number one spot will be held by the web browser of choice not the one that is most conveniently provided.
IE6 not extendable? What about IE7
When IE6 was released those wonderful extensions did not get updated. I am not even sure if they could be because since the first release of IE6 all extensions seemed to disappear. It looked like Internet Explorer was no longer extendable. Not literally perhaps but in the sense that security fixes and updates made it very difficult to maintain and create extensions.
A lot of features are being talked about in respect to how IE7 will reclaim some lost users. But in all this there is no talk about IE7 being extendable.
Firefox should be marketing the benefits
Taking back the web is an okay slogan. But it really has no meaning and does not deliver a message to the millions of IE users. A better slogan would be "dependable and extendable". Firefox will not take over the top spot by spouting standards and open source to soccer moms and restaurant owners. But they would gain many users by letting them know that if they are not satisfied with the way something works that they can customize Firefox to suit. Corporations not daunted by the fact that IE is nolonger free will be very attentive if they knew that their programmers could go in and make the tools needed to make Firefox work for them. They would not have to wait for Microsoft or become a Microsoft Partner to get what they need.
Mozilla addons are easy
Extending [2] Mozilla Firefox or Thunderbird is easy. There is also an extension wizard [3] that can be used to create the basic skeleton needed. If you run into problems there are support forums and mailinglists. There are also many well written tutorials [4] around as well as XulPlanet [5], a website dedicated to teaching the XUL language basics. If you are a total beginner then take a look at Web Monkeys tutorial [6] which is a step by step guide for creating a simple extension.
The Magic Bullet
So why is the extendability of Mozilla Firefox the magic bullet that will place Internet Explorer in a permanent runner up position? Well it's because IE is very hard to extend without making changes to the underlying Windows platform. Almost all changes require that the Windows registry be manipulated in some manner. There is also the fact that parts of Windows require the use of ActiveX controls which can cause security risks and other problems. The release of IE7 may fix some bugs and modernize IE but it does nothing for the other places that IE falls short. It would have been nice for Microsoft to release some of the more popular extensions for IE5 updated for IE7 and then provide tools to make it easier for developers to extend IE. Similar to what they did previously with ASP.NET
Firefox's extendability though not promoted actively is growing on it's own. Several times in real life developer meetings the need of a certain functionality on a website has lead to "We could make a Firefox extension for this and...". What this means is that web developer's are becoming increasing aware of the potential of Firefox as a development platform. This awareness is causing the Mozilla Addon community to grow at a very rapid pace. Developers are creating addons and releasing them [7] as open source. The availability of new features via Mozilla Addons will be the driving force behind Firefox becoming the number one browser.
Happy Publishing!