Grass Roots Firefox

While it’s easy to preach Firefox to the converted (“tuned in” techies like you and me), the “vast IE-using masses” are no doubt blissfully unaware of it’s existence.

Have been experimenting with word-of-mouth, recommending Firefox to people I know and been pleasantly surprised by the results. I don’t “hard sell” Firefox, just point people at the URL (and perhaps Texturizer for the intrepid), drop a few encouraging remarks about security, performance and “no more popups” and leave it at that.

What’s been interesting is of those that have tried Firefox (some haven’t bothed), all were converted, coming back to me with very positive remarks about how great it is and how it’s become their browser of choice. Some have even pointed out features I hadn’t found, which is nice. I’m talking about “non-nerds” who could care less about standards compliance or technical issues.

As far is market research goes, this is highly unscientific (in fact I think I can claim only 6 word-of-mouth converts to date) but so far it seems something about Firefox seems to strike a cord with your “average” PC user – enough to get them to switch from IE. Perhaps it’s because they can recognise a quality software despite “limited” technical expertise – that users are not quite as dumb as some vendors like to believe.

Wondering what kind of response everyone else has been getting to “preaching Firefox”?

PS: Yes, my mother is using Firefox ;)