{"id":937,"date":"2009-08-21T09:41:12","date_gmt":"2009-08-21T16:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/metrics\/?p=937"},"modified":"2019-09-18T12:05:40","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T19:05:40","slug":"why-people-dont-upgrade-their-browser-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/metrics\/2009\/08\/21\/why-people-dont-upgrade-their-browser-part-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Why People Don’t Upgrade Their Browser – Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in May, we launched one final push to migrate Fx2 users to Fx3 via a major update<\/a> (MU).\u00a0 At the time, 10% of Firefox users were still on Fx2.\u00a0 If you’re curious about the results of that push, that 10% was down to 8% a couple weeks later.\u00a0 Aside from these results, there was one interesting twist integrated into this MU offer \u2013 people seeing the prompt below were also asked if they wanted to provide some feedback if they were choosing not to upgrade<\/p>\n

\"MU_dialog_box\"<\/p>\n

(Please ignore the Fx version numbers in this screenshot.\u00a0 Unfortunately, we don\u2019t have an exact copy on hand.)<\/p>\n

For people interested in leaving their feedback, here is the survey they saw:<\/p>\n

\"MU_survey\"<\/p>\n

In total, nearly 5,000 users provided feedback.\u00a0 Similar to our other recent<\/a> feedback<\/a> efforts<\/a>, we decided to manually read through comments from the second question above in order to extract the most insight and best understand the true pain points and thoughts of these Firefox users.\u00a0 Sorting through the comments, I noticed about fourteen different types of comments\/issues that were cited multiple times\u2026 a distribution breakdown and example comments are below.<\/p>\n

\"2to3PieChart_v2\"<\/p>\n

Location Bar (clearing history)<\/strong> = \u201cThere are several issues with Firefox 3, but the browser is not very secure if browsing history cannot be deleted from the location bar. The Tools->Clear Private Data command was no help.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speed\/Memory Leak Concerns (real or perceived)<\/strong> = \u201cI had heard it made your computer run slowly when it first came out….but after a few months i had forgotten about this tid bit and installed ‘3’. It did indeed bring my computer to a near standstill. My friend did this as well. Another friend then jarred my memory as to why and so…i then un-installed it and re-installed ‘2’ and since then my computer has been running great….so….would you take the chance again?\u201d<\/p>\n

Add-ons Compatibility<\/strong> = \u201cThere are a number of add-ons which will not work with Firefox 3, Getmail, Silverscreen, Feebe and others.\u201d<\/p>\n

Look & Feel (general UI)<\/strong> = “Compared to v2, v3 has an interface that sucks, sucks, sucks big time.\u00a0 Graphically, it’s much worse: harder to read (too dark, type too small), icons lack color, etc.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bookmarks (UI)<\/strong> = \u201cGetting to alphabetized bookmarks with the latest version is a serious pain in the fundament and my wife and I continue to be amazed as to why you decided to take a huge step\u00a0 backwards with what was supposed to be an advance. Cure this problem and we’ll move up. Thank you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crashes<\/strong> = \u201cFirefox 3 Crashes every time I install it.\u00a0 Even with a clean upgrade.\u00a0 It won’t load at all it just crashes restarts and crashes again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lost Stuff when Upgrading<\/strong> = \u201cLast time I took a Firefox upgrade, my entire Favorites list was wiped out.\u00a0 It would take me more than a year of frustration and work if that happened again.\u00a0 So, I’m afraid to take another upgrade.\u201d<\/p>\n

Developer for Testing<\/strong> = \u201cI am Web developer and have to test my page in all browser. So I am keeping ff2 alongwith ff3 and other browser .\u201d<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t Fix What\u2019s not Broken<\/strong> = \u201cI need more time to figure out what to do.\u00a0 I am happy with all the stuff I have and the status quo.\u00a0 My computer works well as it is.\u00a0 Do I really need this update? \u201d<\/p>\n

Fonts (size)<\/strong> = \u201cThe window is huge.\u00a0 the writing is huge.\u00a0 when I go searching only 2 or 3 websites fit in the window.\u201d<\/p>\n

U3 Compatibility<\/strong> = \u201cFirefox 3 does not work on U3 devices in fact it makes the device unusable and so does the latest version of Thunderbird. The U3 device only accepts the mobile versions although I keep getting upgrade versions popping up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cost?<\/strong> = \u201cIf you say this is free. I have always heard there is really nothing free in this world.\u00a0 Times are tough all over, especially for us seniors living on social security.\u201d<\/p>\n

Printing Problems <\/strong>= “When printing from FF3, text comes out as scrambled ASCII. doesn’t work on Win(XP\/Vista), Linux, etc. Big pain in the butt. I love FF3 otherwise, but as a network admin I just can’t make the switch.”<\/p>\n

Enterprise Support<\/strong> = “We can use only software expressly approved and that works together with our network and other older software.\u00a0 We can’t download or install anything on our own.”<\/p>\n

In our next post, we’ll provide some interpretation around these findings and discuss possible implications from a product standpoint.\u00a0 Stay tuned for Part II!<\/p>\n

Lastly, thanks to Sam Sidler for implementing this survey and to Eric Hergenrader for providing much of the analysis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in May, we launched one final push to migrate Fx2 users to Fx3 via a major update (MU).\u00a0 At the time, 10% of Firefox users were still on Fx2.\u00a0 If you’re curious about the results of that push, that … Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[103,101],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/metrics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/metrics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/metrics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/metrics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/60"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/metrics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/metrics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/metrics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/metrics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/metrics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}