Mozilla is currently taking new steps to improve upon their 50% user retention rate for Firefox. That number means that only half of the people who try Firefox actually continue to use it on a regular basis. So what’s Mozilla going to do to make that number even better? Here’s their plan:
- Force the Firefox icon to easier to find location
- Alter the default browser settings path for better user choice
- Major outbound brand marketing program driving brand recognition and differentiation
- Change Firefox icon label to closer resemble action of getting to web
- Improve download page and first run pages
- Launch support.mozilla.com
- Make common plug-ins work out of the box
- Make add-ons and personas more accessible
- Stickier start page
- Make the web feel more human
- Improve messaging through communication channels
Mozilla recently started a community effort to create more support documentation, and we’ve been contacted by Mozilla to see if Chris from our very own Learn Firefox could contribute some of his work to the project. We’re still trying to work out some of the terms regarding that, but Learn Firefox has everything beginners and advanced users need to know about getting started with the browser. And if you’re looking for a theme there is no better place than Learn Firefox to browse over 200 of them!
There’s no doubt that Mozilla is making some progress as they climb up to 20% of the browser market share, and hopefully by implementing some of these tactics it will increase their retention rate. In the first week of September Mozilla should also be hitting a big milestone: 400 million downloads of Firefox. They are currently close to 390 million downloads, and I’ve estimated the 400 million mark using the current download rate.
Source: Ars Technica
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Tags: Firefox, Freeware, Software, Browser, Mozilla
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I always wondered- how do companies figure out stuff like that. For example, how do they know that the Firefox I downloaded is one I’m using on a regular basis or not. The only thing I could think of is surveys, but not everyone participates in surveys so the results wouldn’t be accurate.
One of the things that popped into my head was that they probably record the browsers that are checking for updates along with their associated IP’s. Firefox is supposed to regularly check for updates, and most people probably don’t disable that. Therefore if someone stops checking for updates after a week or two they can probably assume that they are no longer using Firefox.
They might have some other way of knowning, but that was the first thing that came to mind.
Whatever happened to adding useful features in order to appeal to users? Opera has speed dial, which I have become addicted to. I could never leave it now.
Hmm, I can just hear the questions now ‘Firefox Internet’? I thought I was with BT?
Sadly most non-techy computer users don’t seem to flow like that - they use either whatever is more obvious to them, whatever is forced upon them (hence if they use FF and it sets itself as the default browser they will then also reply ‘Yes’ when IE asks to be made default again, likely making them annoyed with Firefox after a spell) and whatever confuses them the least.
I once saw a little toolbar for IE that added tabs. I was impressed that my friend was trying to improve their web experience this way and sugested that if they liked tabs they should try Firefox. They replied “what are tabs?” and it transpired that the bar had “just appeared” and they had no idea what it did - hadn’t even thought to click it or get rid of it.
Ha, that’s funny! I believe Yahoo! Toolbar added tabs to IE6. IE isn’t all that bad now w/ IE7, but it’s still worse than Fx, which is still worse than Opera.
That whole thing about making Fx take over as default browser sounds kind of underhanded. I thought open source software was supposed to not change things on it’s own without consulting the user. Nonetheless, it’ll probably work.
What I don’t really get is, if people don’t even know what tabs are or that there are different competing web browsers to try out, how does Firefox get installed on their system?
Wow, I suppose it makes sense for them to work on this. I think Ryan is correct on how they monitor this information.
More people using their browser converts to more advertising revenue, which is of course the foundation of open source (sarcasm).
Or maybe they could just make it so that their browser doesn’t slow down people’s computers so much that it takes about ten years for Google.com to load?
Either your computer is terrible/riddled with malware, or you’re using dial up or something, because Google loads instantaneously for me, and the rest of my browsing is really fast too.
Ooo! I know what they should do!! They should make firefox actually continue working properly even after you have had it for a year+….
It freezes and shuts down on me all the time now, wtf?!? Everything is cleared out and set as if it were new, but still I have problems with it….I would use Opera, but it doesnt work well with yahoo or a lot of other sites……..
I think that just goes along with general maintenance where you should clear out your profile and start fresh. It’s kind of like formatting your computer and reinstalling Windows periodically.