Subscribe by EmailWill Dell Start Pre-installing Firefox on new systems?
May 4, 2007 by Geeks are Sexy | 6 comments
As we’ve already blogged in the past, Dell recently announced they would soon start shipping some of their systems with Ubuntu, one of the most user-friendly Linux distributions out there. This decision was mainly made to answer a request made by thousands of people on Dell’s official forums, IdeaStorm.com. Now, the same users are asking yet another thing from the Texan manufacturer: they want Dell to start pre-installing Firefox in all newly manufactured systems. A petition was created to fulfill this goal, and everyone is encouraged to go sign it. Since its introduction on February 19, just a day after Ideastorm.com, Dell’s new official forum, went live, the petition has collected more then 70,000 names.
If Dell ever starts pre-installing Firefox on their new boxes, it will definitely help the open-source browser gain a larger part of the browser market. According to a recent survey conducted by the Net Applications Institute, Firefox presently has 15.4% of the browser market, while Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, which has been steadily losing ground for the past three years, is now at 78%.
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I’ve already voted. On my part, anyone that comes up to me and tells me they are having problems with IE, I tell them to install Firefox. It takes less time to install it than to try to pinpoint the problem on IE.
I’m converting to Firefox one by one :)
I really wish they would install it. I currently have to install it on every PC the company I work for buys. If they would install it on the Windows PCs it would make my life a lot easier.
It would be nice if they provided an option for an “open source package” to be pre-installed. The package could contain not only Firefox, but also OpenOffice.org, Scribus, Gimp, etc. Maybe something like the The Open CD.
Which will now have to be edited because The Open CD says “Gaim” instead of “Pidgin”
I love the Open CD. I made new labels for the newest version and started burning/printing/sticking/handing-out. “I need Photoshop so I can crop the picture” “$600? No you don’t.”
I hate to admit, but I’m slowly starting to switch over to firefox. I have both installed on my comp but pretty soon I.E is gonna be taken off. It’s just not as stable as firefox.
If it’s Windows, you “can’t” remove IE. It’s apparently a dependency for other junk (for no good reason that I can figure out). If you’re talking about IE4Lin, I’m suprised. If you’re talking about on a Mac, still surprised since there’s Safari.