Firefox in China: Almost Unknown
Hi all,
i live since many years in China. I am running a couple of sites (www.xaboo.net for instance), targeting chinese and foreigners in China and one thing is very clear in my logs: Chinese FIrefox users are in the absolute, absolute absolute minority. Most of them are foreigners who live in China as well (I see that in their Firefox language version).
Dominant are those terrible IE6 and IE7 Browsers here. Own talks among my chinese friends and collegues reveals that they do not even know Firefox. I mean zero.. if I ask people in Germany or Spain they have HEARD about "FIREFOX" at least! But here...How comes? Chinas has now the biggest number of Internet users (Well, that is quite easy with ~1,3 Billion people) and I see no serious Initiative from anyone to promote FF to those Users. Yeah, there is a chinese Mozilla/firefox site, but still, almost noone uses it here.
And correct me if I am wrong, but I havent seen any Chinese affiliate button yet and I have never seen a firefox logo on any chinese website (also expat sites, i seem to be the exception). And i have seen MANY Websites in the last many years i spent here!
Anyways, herewith I would like to connect with other Expats in China (not only in Xi'an) and/or Chinese who have little freetime to make something (China FIrefox Fan Website?) together. Just contact me if you have an idea: info@xaboo.net or lets start a discussion here,
Why all that? Because (my) Websites are just faster and look better on Firefox and I wish everyone on this earth would use it. Internet Explorer ist just disgusting and a waste of time! Firefox ist the best choice and better made. Simple.
Thanks! :-)
Hello all,
sorry for my absence. Duties, Duties.....:-). Thanks so far for your participation. Well, i am gonna launch a project (Magazine) soon here in my "home of choice" (Xi'an) and will gonna create an own page for Firefox, advertising its features, describing its advantages, provide a link and so on and so far. I am surely interested in meeting up with chinese friends in Xian (preferably, but if you live in any other chinese city its ok too!) who would like to translate that page into chinese. And surely cooperate further for this project in general. Just contact me please: info@xaboo.net
BTW: I hate IE6 in particular and decided from now on not to care about it in future web-projects. All they get now is a pop-up with a nasty-friendly note and a FAT firefox download button...I really dont mind if i lose users by that measure. But somehow we must break this IE6/IE usage even if it means to lose users/visitors!!
Disgusting M$ politics..(IE6 it is included in any Windows XP Standard installation and still very wide spreaded. WTF!).
Guys, Open Source (such as Firefox) is the only salvation for this world.
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I am the founder of ¡XABOO! - A Community Website for Locals & Expatriates in Xi'an (China).www.xaboo.net
Perhaps this is the board where spreading Firfox to China will take the grassroots approach! Let's get this great Internet service!
I think Firefox is already spread all over the world right now. They are going better and better.
Yes, but you know what I have noticed. BIIIIG sites like QQ (some functions only work with IE..i have tried it) and also big social network solutions like UCenter Home have functions that do not work with Firefox..
I fink i must start affilate in china with firefox :D
That's a great idea. One thing I should worry about is it's language. I used to host a free web mail site (like hotmail or gmail etc) and had always trouble in Firefox to read Chinese Charactors. Hope it doesn't happen.
That should not be the case now anymore! (3.0.10)
I am the founder of ¡XABOO! - A Community Website for Locals & Expatriates in Xi'an (China).www.xaboo.net
Yes i agree in some parts of your statements, but i think right now many of Chinese people are already using firefox
Yap, some of these plug-in can do a-lot of wonders, probably made some 'backdoor' to restricted sites which is common in China. KT
Firefox in China... Excellent idea. I think the browser must be for all countries and all nations, you're on the right track. Good luck!
It could be due to blockage in China. I remember while sharing with some friends about how wonderful firefox is, but when i try downloading plug-ins. many site seems to have problem with the downloading. Probably there are 'loophole' that may allow some user to tap into come control sites (proxies plug-ins)
Asia Pacific Statistics for Firefox is already at 44%. China has got a big following for FireFox Plugins. The only thing that is holding Firefox back is the limitation of Chinese Developers developing Chinese Plugins for Firefox Browser. I think as more Chinese gets bilingual, more and more 3rd party Chinese plugins will appear.
That's interesting due to their leaps in technology and their manpower. However, I agree that the Chinese becoming more bilingual is key. Great comment Christine
What you said is not true.Now more and more Chinese people using firefox, I can see that.
what i said is true for me. What you said is not true for me. Chinese users in their vast majority do not know firefox. they are completely stucked with IE-products. some of my friends are really open minded now and using firefox for their daily internet-tours. big surprise. still just a few until to now. Based on my own site stats and my own circle. It might be different on your side.
At least some people in Germany and Spain have "Heard about" Firefox! That's wonderful. What about the Chinese. A big zero. How sad. The big wall not only senosors news but also sensors technology.
Hi Betsy,
that might be very well the case, yes....