What a poorly written article. The main gist of the guys argument is that since Mozilla doesn't include some Firefox ad block extensions (which he likes, and perceives to be popular), as default feature's in Firefox and those extensions might be frowned upon by Google, Mozilla must be in Google's back pocket.
His gauge of the ad blocker extension's popularity is that these extensions are "getting to be extremely popular. It has been featured in The New York Times,"
This article reads like a 9/11 conspiracy theory. Esp. when he goes on to contradict himself by pointing out that this add blocking software that he loves does a good job on banner ads but misses many of Google's text ads. If this really is the evil scheme he is hatching it out to be wouldn't Google want an extension included that easily blocked it competitors banner adds whilst letting it's text adverts sneak through?
Maybe next week he can write a follow up about how Firefox3 doesn't include the DOM Inspector by default and hypothesize that Google strong armed Mozilla into removing it so folk wouldn't be able to get at all those juicy Google HTML secrets.
And it doesn't seem much with 8+ million firefox users and considering the fact that there are people who download just to try once + People who might have formatted their system or re-installed Firefox etc
Personally, I agree with you. The following statement you made is totally right.
"His gauge of the ad blocker extension's popularity is that these extensions are "getting to be extremely popular. It has been featured in The New York Times," "
Counting the number of loyal users for any software isn't easy with the download numbers itself. And the post's author seems to rely on the fact that the addons were featured on New York Times :)
I too read about handy freeware every week in my favorite tech magazine every week. And just because I read about them doesn't mean I am going to use them. Its just like the fact that your website gets featured on TechCrunch or Mashable isn't going to get you all their readers as users.
"Maybe next week he can write a follow up about how Firefox3 doesn't include the DOM Inspector by default and hypothesize that Google strong armed Mozilla into removing it so folk wouldn't be able to get at all those juicy Google HTML secrets."
The above statement had me laughing for a long time. I am just going to wait for an article like that on Firefox-3. I just want to see on what grounds someone is going write another anti-firefox post.
And if anyone is going to do any anti-firefox protest, then its not about convincing a group of friends around you for a successful result. Its about convincing approximately 8+ million users not to use firefox. :)
His gauge of the ad blocker extension's popularity is that these extensions are "getting to be extremely popular. It has been featured in The New York Times,"
This article reads like a 9/11 conspiracy theory. Esp. when he goes on to contradict himself by pointing out that this add blocking software that he loves does a good job on banner ads but misses many of Google's text ads. If this really is the evil scheme he is hatching it out to be wouldn't Google want an extension included that easily blocked it competitors banner adds whilst letting it's text adverts sneak through?
Maybe next week he can write a follow up about how Firefox3 doesn't include the DOM Inspector by default and hypothesize that Google strong armed Mozilla into removing it so folk wouldn't be able to get at all those juicy Google HTML secrets.