Re: What is Epiphany's role now?

[Jan de Groot <jan jgc homeip net>]

On Mon, 2007-03-26 at 10:57 +0200, Murray Cumming wrote:
> Unfortunately, I think we have lost the battle to get Epiphany installed
> as the default browser on popular Linux distributions. The Firefox brand
> was just something that they couldn't do without.
> 
> So, how do the Epiphany developers see their role now? Is Epiphany now
> just a way to show what Firefox should do, or are you motivated by the
> needs of the few users who do use it, via the few distros that default
> to it?
> 
> Personally, I think it's time instead to fix Firefox as much as
> possible, as difficult as that is.
> 

IMHO Firefox is just a big hype. I see it in our distro (archlinux),
where people install firefox, get "Bon Echo" and ask for "the real
firefox" (which is full of bugs because they don't have good linux
release management). It's all about the name, not the browser. I can
imagine this is the same on Debian and maybe Ubuntu, where Firefox is
called IceWeasel.

When someone installs GNOME on Archlinux, they get Epiphany as default
browser. Sure they can install firefox (bon echo again), but epiphany
gets installed as default browser in the gnome group. (our epiphany is
built with xulrunner)

About fixing firefox: I think firefox is a very unpleasant browser. I
only have it installed for the DOM inspector and the webdeveloper
toolbar, which is something epiphany doesn't/can't offer. As normal
user, I dislike using firefox and prefer some browser that integrates
way better in my desktop. Even as webdeveloper I use epiphany most of
the times, because it offers automatic reloading of files at the moment
I save them.