Disclaimer: I didn’t make these up. Dutch tech site Webwereld (Web World) did. They’re interesting enough though, so I’m listing them here. First paragraph sums up their post, second is my opinion. Fair use, right?

1. Firefox is owned by Google

Not using IE because it’s a product of mega global biz corp Microsoft, but using FF instead because it’s supposedly independent, is an invalid argument. The greater part of Mozilla’s income is based on Google ad revenue. According to Mozilla’s financial statements, that figure is as high as 85%, Webwereld points out.

I agree, but then again: every organization is “owned” by someone. Even the foundations and the not-for-profits have to bow to some industry rep some time. It’s part of wanting to play the game: you gotta get in to be part of it. Or: can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em – sad but true.

2. Firefox is unsafe

Right, you thought you were using this cutting edge, sub-underground piece of software that no hacker would ever be interested in, but by now FF is popular enough for the trolls to pounce on. Webwereld refers to the recent vulnerabilities in version 3 that were exposed only hours after its release.

We’re bound to see this with every piece of successful software. The days that OS X was used by only a couple of happy few are long gone already. And it wouldn’t surprise me if it were to happen to some of the more popular Linux distros as well. Hell, even Twitter gets spammed to bits and no one I know has ever heard of it.

3. Firefox neglects older OS’s

FF3 won’t run on any Windows version prior to 2000 or OS X before 10.4, simple as that. Opera, Webwereld claims, will even trudge along on Windows 95.

Obviously, this is part of how fast FF is evolving these days. Look at all the features of the latest version and you’ll soon realize that some of these tools weren’t even available a few years back. You can’t expect backward compatibility of new technology to an infinite extent. On the other hand, they’re right: Camino for instance, even runs on 10.3 – not a lot of software does that.

4. Firefox is slow

This one speaks for itself. Granted, a lot of this may have to do with running buggy extensions, but apparently Mozilla itself owned up to this fault and promised to bump the Javascript speeds by forty – because apparently it’s really needed.

And I agree. Firefox 1.5 was fast, 2 shuddered, 3 has almost ground to a halt no matter what you say. Again, extensions may be blamed, but that shouldn’t matter. I still love FF on my PC but nothing beats Safari (besides WebKit apparently) on the Mac (or on PC even) – and boy, is Opera fast too – pity it’s so ugly.

5. Addons create instability

This is like shooting sitting ducks: add-ons are the first and foremost cause of any issue you may encounter with FF. And, as Webwereld states, it’s a bitch to fire up in SafeMode and try every extension one by one to discover which one is the problem.

Exactly. And if it’s a combination of add-ons, you’re screwed. But like one of the commenters said on the Webwereld post: “You can’t blame Firefox for badly written add-ons” and I agree. Maybe Mozilla should screen the these more, like Apple does with the iPhone App Store. Or maybe one day, Flock will finally work out its issues and bring us a browser that has it all, right from the box.