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Hypothesis on Chrome's recent market share boost

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Michael B.

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Feb 23, 2010, 2:09:20 PM2/23/10
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I've a hypothesis to explain Chrome's recent and sudden surge of usage
share the last couple months. Let me first say that almost every time I
ever ask what web browser someone uses, the answer I get is Google.
After I explain that Google is a search engine, not a web browser they
usually tell me that they have no idea. I later find out that they are
either using Internet Explorer or Firefox. Enter Microsoft's new browser
ballot into the equation. Instead of just saying "Chrome," Google's web
browser says "Google" and then says "chrome" in smaller letter. People
are asked what web browser they want so they think, I want to search
with Google of course so they choose Chrome. If this is the case, it
might be a problem that should be addressed.

Rafael Ebron

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Feb 23, 2010, 4:43:48 PM2/23/10
to mark...@lists.mozilla.org
Google had been promoting Chrome on their homepage over the last
couple months. I would guess, that's where they got their bump.

It's also true that a large number of people don't differentiate between
a web browser/search engine/internet, as far as they're concerned it's
all the same.

-Rafael

> _______________________________________________
> Interested in promoting Mozilla? Check out the Mozilla Community
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> mark...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/marketing

Patrick Finch

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Feb 24, 2010, 5:28:36 PM2/24/10
to Michael B., mark...@lists.mozilla.org

Well, they have a strong brand, for sure, and I am sure you are right
that they are using their strong brand (Google) to promote a weaker one
(Chrome). I actually think they have been capitalising on this all
along with Chrome, and that there are quite a few Chrome users who do
not necessarily understand how they became Chrome users (in a similar
way to how Apple used to push Safari on iPod owners using iTunes).

Chrome's recent gains (December-February) are, I think more to do with 2
things:
1. massive Google ad spend. this has happened in London, Paris,
Amsterdam in Europe and I think in the US too.
2. Chrome on Mac OS. A lot of early adopters are on Macs, and they have
been waiting for Chrome for a while. When it came online in December,
it was like a mini-launch, and they took a lot of market share on Mac OS.

I actually think it is good that people associate Chrome with Google.
It would be weird (it was weird) when Google didn't have a browser. And
I tend to think it is an inferior UX to Firefox, and that for some
people, they do not want to use a browser from Google.

Saying all that means, I guess, that we need to focus on the Firefox
copy in the ballot screen. I wrote the copy that is on there. There
were a few ideas behind it, we wanted to make sure users knew Firefox is
free and we felt we could rightly say that security is our top priotity,
and based on research, this was very important to users. The copy also
calls out privacy features and respect for the user's system in some
locales, where we know it is more important. See
http://blog.johnath.com/2010/01/29/mozillas-eu-browser-choice-submission/ for
more details (and ping me if you want to dive into the data).

Now, this can and will be updated in the future, so I would be
interested to hear other perspectives, and especially opinions backed up
by data.


Patrick


_______________________________________________
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Michael B.

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Feb 24, 2010, 10:45:29 PM2/24/10
to

Hmm...I don't know if I'm the best one to say because I'm from America
(and hence, don't know if I should post this on the page), but I read
the British localization and would have thought there would have been
more emphasis on speed. Both the name, Firefox, and it's emblem make a
person think of speed and Firefox is fast.

Patrick Finch

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Feb 25, 2010, 1:24:26 AM2/25/10
to Michael B., mark...@lists.mozilla.org

Of course you should post - the browserchoice.eu screen only goes to a
subset of Europeans, but Mozilla is a global community and this is a
global list.

So, your point is a very good one - users seem to regard speed as quite
important (although place it behind security). As for associating with
Firefox, what I found was that even if we did not say we were fast,
users (ones who are unfamiliar with Firefox even) associate Firefox with
speed. I am sure you're right it is the name and the image of a fox
with a flaming tail circumnavigating the world in the blink of an eye...
so given that we only had 140 characters, and wanted to "own" a specific
attribute in our copy and also get across something of the philosophy of
Mozilla, that is why speed is not directly called out. This testing
only took place in 7 European countries though, and in one of those
(Italy) speed was *as* important as security. If we have data in other
countries, I'd be really interested.

We also tested a variety of logo forms. We found that the style on the
ballot (a "button" style with the wordmark in a box) performed best, as
did the name "Mozilla Firefox" rather than just "Firefox" - something of
a surprise (and I think it is welcome).


Patrick

Bogomil "Bogo" Shopov - Mozilla Bulgaria

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Feb 25, 2010, 1:25:16 AM2/25/10
to Patrick Finch, Michael B., mark...@lists.mozilla.org
On 02/25/2010 08:24 AM, Patrick Finch wrote:
> Of course you should post - the browserchoice.eu screen only goes to a
> subset of Europeans, but Mozilla is a global community and this is a
> global list.

Let's make a blog post and to publish it to our blogs, etc.

Bogo

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Mozilla Bulgaria
http://bgzilla.org

http://mozgull.bogomil.info
+359 897 615128

Kerim Kalamujic

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Feb 25, 2010, 3:53:25 AM2/25/10
to mark...@lists.mozilla.org
As Patrick already stated, Google has a strong brand. They offer so
many services, some will say great services some disagree, but the
fact is "everybody uses some Google service". So, from the perspective
of an ordinary internet user who uses Gmail, YouTube, Google Maps
and/or GTalk on a daily basis, when Google says "hey, we have the
fastest browser, go and try it" the user will want to try Chrome
simply because it's made by Google.

Also, another reason for market share boost is this: minimalistic
interface. Lots of people use notebooks and netbooks, which, of
course, have smaller screen then a desktop computer. So, people use
Chrome on their notebook/netbook as it takes less of the screen and
shows more of the website. I hope you get the picture.

When we had Firefox 5th Birthday presentation in Sarajevo and when I
showed a slide with Firefox 4.0 mockup design everybody loved it just
because of its minimalistic interface.

Otto de Voogd

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Feb 26, 2010, 5:52:17 PM2/26/10
to mark...@lists.mozilla.org
Hi Patrick,

I've sent you and David a possible new text for Estonian and Dutch. I was also trying to find someone to contribute a text in Russian, when I read this, which had me dismayed:

"Got it overdone, really. Our team noted that while the EU has 23
“working” languages (and two more that are official EEA languages), we
were quite capable of providing several more as well. They also pointed
out that there were some surprises in the list supplied – it was similar,
but not identical, to the EU working languages list. Maltese and Gaelic
had been dropped, Croatian and Norwegian had been added. We offered to
supply the missing ones, along with some others, but we heard back
that, no, the choice screen will be limited to those 23."

Do I read this correctly as meaning that the European Commission has limited it to 23 languages, or is it Microsoft that has placed that limit? I can't imagine any technical reason for such a limitation.

This begs the question: what language will be shown to people who use a locale not present in this list?

First and foremost I am wondering what will happen to people using en-US (which I think is used a lot)?
A tricky one must be what language Catalan speakers are going to see?
And who decides that? The EC, Microsoft or us?

Is there any chance that this restriction may change? And if so, would it make sense to have possible translations into other languages available just in case?

Otto
http://foxysearch.org/ - Search the Mozilla ecosystem

----- Original Message ----
> From: Patrick Finch <pfi...@mozilla.com>
> To: Michael B. <Presci...@gmail.com>
> Cc: mark...@lists.mozilla.org
> Sent: Thu, February 25, 2010 12:28:36 AM
> Subject: Re: Hypothesis on Chrome's recent market share boost
>
> On 23/02/2010 20:09, Michael B. wrote:

> -- Patrick Finch
> Mozilla Corporation
> pat...@mozilla.com
> Mobile: +46 768 444 833
> Office: +1 650 903 0800 ext. 340
> Twitter: @patrickf
> AIM: patrick3finch

Patrick Finch

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Feb 27, 2010, 2:46:02 AM2/27/10
to Otto de Voogd, Alex Buchanan, Staś Małolepszy, mark...@lists.mozilla.org
Hoi Otto,

Thanks for the changes to the translations - I will ask L10N to review.
My Dutch is hardly native standard but the change feels better to me.

On the languages offered I am with you 100%. I think there are 10
languages which are either official or widely spoken in the region where
the browser choice screen is happening. That area, of reasons which I do
not understand and have not been explained is the European Economic Area
(EU, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein) plus Switzerland and Croatia.

So, MSFTs list of languages was:

* Bulgarian - bg
* Croatian - hr
* Czech - cs
* Danish - da
* Dutch - nl
* English - en-GB
* Estonian - et
* Finnish - fi
* French - fr
* German - de
* Greek - el
* Hungarian - hu
* Italian - it
* Latvian - lv
* Lithuanian - lt
* Norwegian (Bokmal) - nb-NO (we are offering nn-NO too)
* Polish - pl
* Portuguese - pt-PT
* Romanian - ro
* Slovak - sk
* Slovenian - sl
* Spanish - es-ES
* Swedish - sv-SE


On top of that, I think these languages are either official languages in
the region or are widely used:

* Basque - eu
* Catalan - ca
* Gaelic - gl
* Galician - gl
* Frisian - fy-NL
* Icelandic - is
* Maltese - mt
* Russian - ru
* Turkish - tr
* Welsh - cy

And of those, we do not offer a Maltese build, but we do offer the rest.
At the moment, if you have one of these locales as your language
preference in IE, you see English in browserchoice.eu and downstream.

MSFT do not seem very interested in making changes to the
browserchoice.eu screen that we request (it also is very hard for blind
people to know which browsers support assistive technologies). So, we
probably have to make a fix on our end.

Alex and Stas (on cc) came up with a plan to address this. Users of
these locales will still see browserchoice.eu in English, but if their
preference is, say Russian (widely used in the Baltics) they would be
directed to a Russian version of our site, browserchoice.mozilla.com and
be offered a Russian build. That's the idea. We will try to get
translations of browserchoice.mozilla.com done and this up in the next
couple of weeks.

My analysis of the locales needed is based on the locales widely used in
the region today.

So, specific answers:


> This begs the question: what language will be shown to people who use
a locale not present in this list?

They get English

> First and foremost I am wondering what will happen to people using
en-US (which I think is used a lot)?

They get English too...

> A tricky one must be what language Catalan speakers are going to see?

English, unless they have Spanish as a second language preference in IE

> And who decides that? The EC, Microsoft or us?

browserchoice.eu is Microsoft, presumably they report to the EC but I
have no insight there

browserchoice.mozilla.com is our site, and we can add locales, and are
trying to get the routing from browserchoice.eu (MSFT's site) to cater
for all locales.


-thoughts?


Patrick


On 2/26/10 11:52

Patrick Finch

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Feb 27, 2010, 2:55:15 AM2/27/10
to Otto de Voogd, Alex Buchanan, zy, mark...@lists.mozilla.org

> On the languages offered I am with you 100%. I think there are 10
> languages which are either official or widely spoken in the region where
> the browser choice screen is happening. That area, of reasons which I do
> not understand and have not been explained is the European Economic Area
> (EU, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein) plus Switzerland and Croatia.
>

Duh- I meant there are 33 languages in the region that are official or
widely used but 10 are not covered by the browserchoice screen...

Patrick

Otto de Voogd

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Feb 28, 2010, 1:54:55 PM2/28/10
to mark...@lists.mozilla.org
Thanks Patrick for the detailed answer, it answers a lot of things I wanted to know.

Will try to help out with http://browserchoice.mozilla.com/ too.
Can we send any texts, corrections to you?

Otto
--

Patrick Finch

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Feb 28, 2010, 2:02:00 PM2/28/10
to Otto de Voogd, mark...@lists.mozilla.org

On 2/28/10 7:54 PM, Otto de Voogd wrote:
> Thanks Patrick for the detailed answer, it answers a lot of things I wanted to know.
>
> Will try to help out with http://browserchoice.mozilla.com/ too.
> Can we send any texts, corrections to you?

Absolutely. Cannot guarantee they will all get integrated, but if you
can also supply comments on why you think it is an improvement, that is
also a help. I will coordinate with the L10N team.

Patrick

Toni Hermoso Pulido

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Mar 2, 2010, 10:04:08 AM3/2/10
to mark...@lists.mozilla.org
Al 27/02/10 08:46, En/na Patrick Finch ha escrit:


Sorry for not having commented yet.
As you can understand, people who care about Catalan language are not
very happy with ballot screen implementation (as any of you for many
other reasons, in the end), and with Microsoft, European institutions
and respective governments for repeatedly looking down our language
(actually spoken by more people than some presently official European
languages).

After this rant, I think it's worth that from our community we can
contribute to improve browser choice among Catalan speakers who use Windows.

Since Catalan language Windows language pack is so poorly designed
(intentionally or not), many users of this langpack browse as if the
system were still in Spanish or French (language pack does not change
useragent locale string in IE). Thus, less technical oriented users,
—actually many of them may not even able to download the language pack—,
may be unaware of applications such as Firefox in their native language.
As a workaround, as it's commented ere:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=534947, Pascal Cheverel has
introduced in Mozilla Europe site some tricks based on geolocation. So,
users could more easily choose other regional languages from, let's say,
Spanish and French language versions.

My request would be adding in Spanish and French versions of:
http://browserchoice.mozilla.com/es-ES
http://browserchoice.stage.mozilla.com/fr
visible links to Catalan version: http://browserchoice.mozilla.com/ca
(now in stage: http://browserchoice.stage.mozilla.com/ca) . The same for
Basque if it becomes available later.
Of course, from Catalan version we would link to Spanish and Basque
versions in Spain, and French version in France.

I do not know how many people will visit this page in the end, and sadly
the linked version in Browserchoice Microsoft page is not likely to be
Catalan for Catalan-speaking users, but preparing Mozilla pages this way
I suggest will show that we care about user's choice in the linguistic
aspect as well.

Could these suggestions be performed, would you like me to fill a bug?
What would you need from me?

Thanks in advance,
--
Toni Hermoso Pulido
http://www.cau.cat

Toni Hermoso Pulido

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Mar 2, 2010, 10:38:44 AM3/2/10
to mark...@lists.mozilla.org
Al 02/03/10 16:04, En/na Toni Hermoso Pulido ha escrit:

> My request would be adding in Spanish and French versions of:
> http://browserchoice.mozilla.com/es-ES
> http://browserchoice.stage.mozilla.com/fr
> visible links to Catalan version: http://browserchoice.mozilla.com/ca
> (now in stage: http://browserchoice.stage.mozilla.com/ca) . The same for
> Basque if it becomes available later.
> Of course, from Catalan version we would link to Spanish and Basque
> versions in Spain, and French version in France.
>
> I do not know how many people will visit this page in the end, and sadly
> the linked version in Browserchoice Microsoft page is not likely to be
> Catalan for Catalan-speaking users, but preparing Mozilla pages this way
> I suggest will show that we care about user's choice in the linguistic
> aspect as well.
>

I have useragent locale ca and from browserchoice.eu, and I'm not sure
if the link to "Tell me more" in Firefox choice is hardlinked to en-GB;
if that's the case, this alternative languages highlighting approach I
suggested should also be performed in a country basis for en-GB pages.
I'm fully sure this would not only affect Catalan, but many other
languages: Romanian for instance. Geolocation is a must in these cases.

My two cents,

Patrick Finch

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Mar 4, 2010, 2:40:52 PM3/4/10
to ton...@softcatala.cat, mark...@lists.mozilla.org

Of course, I can easily understand that. FWIW, we told MSFT this last
year, and I was quite surprised that they are not obliged to cover all
official languages, nor one of the biggest in Europe.

> After this rant, I think it's worth that from our community we can
> contribute to improve browser choice among Catalan speakers who use Windows.
>
> Since Catalan language Windows language pack is so poorly designed
> (intentionally or not), many users of this langpack browse as if the
> system were still in Spanish or French (language pack does not change
> useragent locale string in IE). Thus, less technical oriented users,
> —actually many of them may not even able to download the language pack—,
> may be unaware of applications such as Firefox in their native language.
> As a workaround, as it's commented ere:
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=534947, Pascal Cheverel has
> introduced in Mozilla Europe site some tricks based on geolocation. So,
> users could more easily choose other regional languages from, let's say,
> Spanish and French language versions.

Reading the bug, the region / city level is not yet fixed. I do not
think that we can make this available to route Catalan speakers.
If/when we had that for a Catalonia, it seems like the right fix.

> My request would be adding in Spanish and French versions of:
> http://browserchoice.mozilla.com/es-ES
> http://browserchoice.stage.mozilla.com/fr
> visible links to Catalan version: http://browserchoice.mozilla.com/ca
> (now in stage: http://browserchoice.stage.mozilla.com/ca) . The same for
> Basque if it becomes available later.
> Of course, from Catalan version we would link to Spanish and Basque
> versions in Spain, and French version in France.


At the moment, on every page we have the "other systems and languages"
verbiage ("Otros sistemas e idiomas"). Do you feel this is inadequate?
I have a few concerns with posting specific links for Catalan and
Basque on French and Spanish pages. I am very concerned that Catalan
users do not even manage to install Windows in Catalan, but we do give
them the option to find their locale, whatever locale they come to us in.

But it seems to me that this is basically broken by Microsoft in
Windows, not even in the ballot screen. Fixing it downstream for
specific locales worries me because we potentially should be doing this
for 10 locales, or more (not sure where to draw the line), and I am
worried that the UX for users who are not looking for these locales will
suffer.


> I do not know how many people will visit this page in the end, and sadly
> the linked version in Browserchoice Microsoft page is not likely to be
> Catalan for Catalan-speaking users, but preparing Mozilla pages this way
> I suggest will show that we care about user's choice in the linguistic
> aspect as well.
>

> Could these suggestions be performed, would you like me to fill a bug?
> What would you need from me?

This is a big help. I will post later our first proposed fix, which is
to ensure that those with the Catalan user agent get Catalan.
Basically, we will ignore the linking in the browserchoice screen and
route per user agent string for locales we have, with fallbacks for
those we don't.


Patrick

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Mozilla Corporation
pat...@mozilla.com
Mobile: +46 768 444 833
Office: +1 650 903 0800 ext. 340
Twitter: @patrickf

IM: patric...@12jabber.net

Patrick Finch

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Mar 4, 2010, 2:44:02 PM3/4/10
to ton...@softcatala.cat, mark...@lists.mozilla.org

On 3/2/10 4:38 PM, Toni Hermoso Pulido wrote:
> Al 02/03/10 16:04, En/na Toni Hermoso Pulido ha escrit:
>

>> My request would be adding in Spanish and French versions of:
>> http://browserchoice.mozilla.com/es-ES
>> http://browserchoice.stage.mozilla.com/fr
>> visible links to Catalan version: http://browserchoice.mozilla.com/ca
>> (now in stage: http://browserchoice.stage.mozilla.com/ca) . The same for
>> Basque if it becomes available later.
>> Of course, from Catalan version we would link to Spanish and Basque
>> versions in Spain, and French version in France.
>>

>> I do not know how many people will visit this page in the end, and sadly
>> the linked version in Browserchoice Microsoft page is not likely to be
>> Catalan for Catalan-speaking users, but preparing Mozilla pages this way
>> I suggest will show that we care about user's choice in the linguistic
>> aspect as well.
>>
>

> I have useragent locale ca and from browserchoice.eu, and I'm not sure
> if the link to "Tell me more" in Firefox choice is hardlinked to en-GB;
> if that's the case, this alternative languages highlighting approach I
> suggested should also be performed in a country basis for en-GB pages.
> I'm fully sure this would not only affect Catalan, but many other
> languages: Romanian for instance. Geolocation is a must in these cases.
>
> My two cents,

It is hardlinked to en-GB, but we will override that if the user has the
preference in their user agent.

If I look at Romania, the take up for the Romanian version of Firefox is
low. Another faulty Windows language pack? In these cases, I can see
the Geolocation could fix this. I will discuss with our web developer.

Toni Hermoso Pulido

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Mar 4, 2010, 4:47:39 PM3/4/10
to Patrick Finch, mark...@lists.mozilla.org
Hi Patrick,


Al 3/4/10 8:40 PM, En/na Patrick Finch ha escrit:


>
> Reading the bug, the region / city level is not yet fixed. I do not
> think that we can make this available to route Catalan speakers. If/when
> we had that for a Catalonia, it seems like the right fix.
>

Such detailed geolocation may not be not fully working yet, you are
right. That's why I'm actually suggesting this to be applied to the
whole Spanish Kingdom, not only to Catalan-speaking territories.
That's the default approach in sites such as: google.es (Google version
in Spain).
User's browsing language is firstly used, but local languages are also
suggested.

>> My request would be adding in Spanish and French versions of:
>> http://browserchoice.mozilla.com/es-ES
>> http://browserchoice.stage.mozilla.com/fr
>> visible links to Catalan version: http://browserchoice.mozilla.com/ca
>> (now in stage: http://browserchoice.stage.mozilla.com/ca) . The same for
>> Basque if it becomes available later.
>> Of course, from Catalan version we would link to Spanish and Basque
>> versions in Spain, and French version in France.
>
>

> At the moment, on every page we have the "other systems and languages"
> verbiage ("Otros sistemas e idiomas"). Do you feel this is inadequate? I
> have a few concerns with posting specific links for Catalan and Basque
> on French and Spanish pages. I am very concerned that Catalan users do
> not even manage to install Windows in Catalan, but we do give them the
> option to find their locale, whatever locale they come to us in.
>
> But it seems to me that this is basically broken by Microsoft in
> Windows, not even in the ballot screen. Fixing it downstream for
> specific locales worries me because we potentially should be doing this
> for 10 locales, or more (not sure where to draw the line), and I am
> worried that the UX for users who are not looking for these locales will
> suffer.
>

Despite we link to binaries in their own language (and all others as
well), Catalan-speaking users, of course because Microsoft's fault, are
likely to miss reading the reasons and suggestions we provided in their
own language. As fas as I can see, there doesn't seem to be any link to
other languages version of the page here: http://browserchoice.mozilla.com/
At least, I think we could provide a dropdown list of all the available
languages in which the page is translated, as it is customarily done in
Mozilla Europe. However, in order to improve visibility I must admit I
would prefer them to be horizontally sorted at the top of the page. An
example could be this: http://www.fsfe.org/
If all language versions of the page are included, I do not think there
is any need of geolocation techniques. If the designer considered they
are too many, I would go for it, then.

>
> This is a big help. I will post later our first proposed fix, which is
> to ensure that those with the Catalan user agent get Catalan. Basically,
> we will ignore the linking in the browserchoice screen and route per
> user agent string for locales we have, with fallbacks for those we don't.
>

Thanks to you for helping Catalan-speaking users (and other languages as
well) to make a better choice also in their own language.

Cheers,

Toni Hermoso Pulido

Otto de Voogd

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Mar 4, 2010, 5:10:44 PM3/4/10
to Firefox Marketing

Somehow my previous response went only to Patrick, but I was basically saying the same thing, a language choice on http://browserchoice.mozilla.com/ would be a good idea. In multilingual environments people are quite used to it. Such an option doesn't require geolocation tricks and is then available to everyone anywhere. Initially I thought only of the dropdown box, but I quite like the fsfe example Tony gave.

Otto
--

Patrick Finch

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Mar 5, 2010, 5:15:04 AM3/5/10
to Otto de Voogd, Firefox Marketing


I like the idea of putting all locales on the browserchoice.mozilla.com
(no locale) page, but given the implementation, we need to understand
what we would gain.


Here is what I would imagine:

Scenario 1: user has /%locale%/ match in UA string and we have that
locale available, goes to browserchoice.mozilla.com/%locale%/

Secnario 2: user has no locale in UA string, goes to
browserchoice.mozilla.com

Scenario 3: user has /%locale%/ in UA string and we do not have that
locale available, but we have a fallback defined, goes to
browserchoice.mozilla.com/%fallback locale%/

Scenario 4: user has /%locale%/ in UA string and we do not have that
locale available and no fallback defined, goes to browserchoice.mozilla.com

In the case of Catalan speakers:

-those with a language preference for Catalan would get the right page.

-those with Spanish as their preference would get
browserchoice.mozilla.com/%es-ES%/ with a link, in Spanish, to more
languages

-those with no preference would get browserchoice.mozilla.com with the
link to Catalan in Catalan


I want to press ahead with enabling CA and any other locales (ga-IE,
maybe more) which are ready to go live straight away so that they are at
least presented for those who have that language preference, and
figuring this next steps over time. (The geolocation is especially
interesting...and remember, this routing will be available for all new
Windows installs for the next 5 years.)

Question for Toni and others... how do the language packs perform on
Windows 7 ? Are they an improvement? Do we think Romanian, Latvian,
Catalan etc. speakers more likely to have their own locale in their UA
string?

One more thought, and something I have no data about - I know that some
users prefer to use Firefox in a very widely spoken language if they are
familiar with that language (I am married to one of them!). I think
this is a small %, but I do not know for sure. If anyone has any data
on that, please share.

Patrick

Toni Hermoso Pulido

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Mar 5, 2010, 5:50:55 AM3/5/10
to pat...@mozilla.com, Otto de Voogd, Firefox Marketing
Hi Patrick,

2010/3/5 Patrick Finch <pat...@mozilla.com>:

We are suggesting language list to be added to all versions:
browserchoice.mozilla.com/ca, browserchoice.mozilla.com/en-GB,
browserchoice.mozilla.com/es-ES, browserchoice.mozilla.com/fr and so
on. That way they can browse different versions regardless of their
configuration, which they might not be aware of.
I suggest that plain browserchoice.mozilla.com should be nothing more
than an alias to any of the previous ones depending on the user's UA
string language.

>
> Here is what I would imagine:
>
> Scenario 1: user has /%locale%/ match in UA string and we have that locale
> available, goes to browserchoice.mozilla.com/%locale%/
>

Good.

> Secnario 2: user has no locale in UA string, goes to
> browserchoice.mozilla.com

That's very unlikely. I think this only can happen if user remove all
UA strings explicitly. In this strange scenario I would fallback to
en-GB.

>
> Scenario 3: user has /%locale%/ in UA string and we do not have that locale
> available, but we have a fallback defined, goes to
> browserchoice.mozilla.com/%fallback locale%/

Good.

>
> Scenario 4: user has /%locale%/ in UA string and we do not have that locale
> available and no fallback defined, goes to browserchoice.mozilla.com
>

Good. That is en-GB version.

>
>
> In the case of Catalan speakers:
>
> -those with a language preference for Catalan would get the right page.
>

Good.

> -those with Spanish as their preference would get
> browserchoice.mozilla.com/%es-ES%/ with a link, in Spanish, to more
> languages

If language list is included pointing to different language versions,
this could benefit many more cases than only just Catalan-speakers.

>
> -those with no preference would get browserchoice.mozilla.com with the link
> to Catalan in Catalan
>

That's not possible, as explained above. In any case, language list would help.

>
> I want to press ahead with enabling CA and any other locales (ga-IE, maybe
> more) which are ready to go live straight away so that they are at least
> presented for those who have that language preference, and figuring this
> next steps over time.  (The geolocation is especially interesting...and
> remember, this routing will be available for all new Windows installs for
> the next 5 years.)
>
> Question for Toni and others... how do the language packs perform on Windows
> 7 ?  Are they an improvement?   Do we think Romanian, Latvian, Catalan etc.
> speakers more likely to have their own locale in their UA string?
>

Regarding Catalan, situation is still the same. So even if users
install the language pack, they need to expressly perform some manual
changes to have a Catalan UA string.
I do not know in detail for other languages, we should research from here:
http://www.microsoft.com/unlimitedpotential/programs/llp.mspx
I guess...

> One more thought, and something I have no data about - I know that some
> users prefer to use Firefox in a very widely spoken language if they are
> familiar with that language (I am married to one of them!).  I think this is
> a small %, but I do not know for sure.  If anyone has any data on that,
> please share.
>

Well, it's true that it happens. No numerical or statistical data
available from my side, though.

In case you needed any specific help, you can find me at irc.moznet.org.

Cheers,

Otto de Voogd

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Mar 5, 2010, 6:47:16 AM3/5/10
to Firefox Marketing
First a little good news, Sergey (from the Free Software Group here) chased up on the Russian version and just told me that a translation is available on stage, hopefully this can be put live soon:
http://browserchoice.stage.mozilla.com/ru

Tony wrote:
> We are suggesting language list to be added to all versions:
> browserchoice.mozilla.com/ca, browserchoice.mozilla.com/en-GB,
> browserchoice.mozilla.com/es-ES, browserchoice.mozilla.com/fr and so
> on. That way they can browse different versions regardless of their
> configuration, which they might not be aware of.
> I suggest that plain browserchoice.mozilla.com should be nothing more
> than an alias to any of the previous ones depending on the user's UA
> string language.

This is exactly my preference too, each page should have the option of switching languages.

Patrick wrote:
> > One more thought, and something I have no data about - I know that some
> > users prefer to use Firefox in a very widely spoken language if they are
> > familiar with that language (I am married to one of them!). I think this is
> > a small %, but I do not know for sure. If anyone has any data on that,
> > please share.

Do you mean with this en-US? I can tell you from my own experience, I am someone who always wants all his software in en-US, and I wouldn't want to be forced to use a nl-NL version (my native language) or an other version of English like en-GB. My preference would be for people with en-US set as their locale to also be offered the en-US version for download. This is what I would want as a user. I have no idea how much that opinion is shared by other en-US users, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was the general preference.

In general, I think it's a good idea to respect the locale choices that end-users have made and not try to second guess them. Offering them alternatives, yes, but forcing something on them, no. So basically, I favor also have an en-US version that links by default to the en-US download.

Otto
--
http://foxysearch.org/ - Search the Mozilla ecosystem


----- Original Message ----
> From: Toni Hermoso Pulido <ton...@softcatala.cat>
> To: pat...@mozilla.com
> Cc: Otto de Voogd <ot...@de-voogd.com>; Firefox Marketing <mark...@lists.mozilla.org>
> Sent: Fri, March 5, 2010 12:50:55 PM
> Subject: Re: EU browser choice languages
>

> Hi Patrick,
>
> 2010/3/5 Patrick Finch :

Patrick Finch

unread,
Mar 5, 2010, 6:50:45 AM3/5/10
to Toni Hermoso Pulido, Otto de Voogd, Firefox Marketing

>
> We are suggesting language list to be added to all versions:
> browserchoice.mozilla.com/ca, browserchoice.mozilla.com/en-GB,
> browserchoice.mozilla.com/es-ES, browserchoice.mozilla.com/fr and so
> on. That way they can browse different versions regardless of their
> configuration, which they might not be aware of.
> I suggest that plain browserchoice.mozilla.com should be nothing more
> than an alias to any of the previous ones depending on the user's UA
> string language.


So, you would suggest a language switcher, like on Mozilla-Europe.org
and Mozilla.com today, for all the locales we have for this site?


>> Question for Toni and others... how do the language packs perform on Windows
>> 7 ? Are they an improvement? Do we think Romanian, Latvian, Catalan etc.
>> speakers more likely to have their own locale in their UA string?
>>
>
> Regarding Catalan, situation is still the same. So even if users
> install the language pack, they need to expressly perform some manual
> changes to have a Catalan UA string.
> I do not know in detail for other languages, we should research from here:
> http://www.microsoft.com/unlimitedpotential/programs/llp.mspx
> I guess...

thanks, that's good information (although sad)

Patrick Finch

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Mar 5, 2010, 6:53:23 AM3/5/10
to Otto de Voogd, Firefox Marketing
> Do you mean with this en-US? I can tell you from my own experience, I
> am someone who always wants all his software in en-US, and I wouldn't
> want to be forced to use a nl-NL version (my native language) or an
> other version of English like en-GB. My preference would be for
> people with en-US set as their locale to also be offered the en-US
> version for download. This is what I would want as a user. I have no
> idea how much that opinion is shared by other en-US users, but I
> wouldn't be surprised if that was the general preference.

I think this is an important enough issue for us to do some formal
research on.

Patrick


Otto de Voogd wrote:
> First a little good news, Sergey (from the Free Software Group here)
> chased up on the Russian version and just told me that a translation
> is available on stage, hopefully this can be put live soon:
> http://browserchoice.stage.mozilla.com/ru
>
> Tony wrote:

>> We are suggesting language list to be added to all versions:
>> browserchoice.mozilla.com/ca, browserchoice.mozilla.com/en-GB,
>> browserchoice.mozilla.com/es-ES, browserchoice.mozilla.com/fr and
>> so on. That way they can browse different versions regardless of
>> their configuration, which they might not be aware of. I suggest
>> that plain browserchoice.mozilla.com should be nothing more than an
>> alias to any of the previous ones depending on the user's UA string
>> language.
>

> This is exactly my preference too, each page should have the option
> of switching languages.
>
> Patrick wrote:
>>> One more thought, and something I have no data about - I know
>>> that some users prefer to use Firefox in a very widely spoken
>>> language if they are familiar with that language (I am married to
>>> one of them!). I think this is a small %, but I do not know for
>>> sure. If anyone has any data on that, please share.
>

>> We are suggesting language list to be added to all versions:
>> browserchoice.mozilla.com/ca, browserchoice.mozilla.com/en-GB,
>> browserchoice.mozilla.com/es-ES, browserchoice.mozilla.com/fr and
>> so on. That way they can browse different versions regardless of
>> their configuration, which they might not be aware of. I suggest
>> that plain browserchoice.mozilla.com should be nothing more than an
>> alias to any of the previous ones depending on the user's UA string
>> language.
>>

>>> Question for Toni and others... how do the language packs perform
>>> on Windows 7 ? Are they an improvement? Do we think Romanian,
>>> Latvian, Catalan etc. speakers more likely to have their own
>>> locale in their UA string?
>>>
>> Regarding Catalan, situation is still the same. So even if users
>> install the language pack, they need to expressly perform some
>> manual changes to have a Catalan UA string. I do not know in detail
>> for other languages, we should research from here:
>> http://www.microsoft.com/unlimitedpotential/programs/llp.mspx I
>> guess...
>>

>>> One more thought, and something I have no data about - I know
>>> that some users prefer to use Firefox in a very widely spoken
>>> language if they are familiar with that language (I am married to
>>> one of them!). I think this is a small %, but I do not know for
>>> sure. If anyone has any data on that, please share.
>>>
>> Well, it's true that it happens. No numerical or statistical data
>> available from my side, though.
>>
>> In case you needed any specific help, you can find me at
>> irc.moznet.org.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> -- Toni Hermoso Pulido http://www.cau.cat
>

> _______________________________________________ Interested in
> promoting Mozilla? Check out the Mozilla Community Marketing Guide:
> http://contribute.mozilla.org/Marketing mark...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/marketing

--

Toni Hermoso Pulido

unread,
Mar 5, 2010, 7:20:52 AM3/5/10
to pat...@mozilla.com, Otto de Voogd, Firefox Marketing
2010/3/5 Patrick Finch <pat...@mozilla.com>:

>
>>
>> We are suggesting language list to be added to all versions:
>> browserchoice.mozilla.com/ca, browserchoice.mozilla.com/en-GB,
>> browserchoice.mozilla.com/es-ES, browserchoice.mozilla.com/fr and so
>> on. That way they can browse different versions regardless of their
>> configuration, which they might not be aware of.
>> I suggest that plain browserchoice.mozilla.com should be nothing more
>> than an alias to any of the previous ones depending on the user's UA
>> string language.
>
>
> So, you would suggest a language switcher, like on Mozilla-Europe.org and
> Mozilla.com today, for all the locales we have for this site?
>

Yes. And, Otto and me, we were suggesting to have a horizontal list of
languages at the top of the page instead of a dropdown box.

Patrick Finch

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Mar 5, 2010, 7:38:24 AM3/5/10
to Toni Hermoso Pulido, Otto de Voogd, Firefox Marketing


My preference would be for the horizontal list on
browserchoice.mozilla.com, where the user has a locale we do not offer
(or no locale) and a drop down somewhere on
browserchoice.mozilla.com/%locale%/ where we have matched the locale the
user has.

I will look into getting these mocked up so we can see what the UX could be.

Patrick

Otto de Voogd

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Mar 5, 2010, 7:55:46 AM3/5/10
to mark...@lists.mozilla.org
> Toni Hermoso Pulido wrote:

> > 2010/3/5 Patrick Finch :


> >>> We are suggesting language list to be added to all versions:
> >>> browserchoice.mozilla.com/ca, browserchoice.mozilla.com/en-GB,
> >>> browserchoice.mozilla.com/es-ES, browserchoice.mozilla.com/fr and so
> >>> on. That way they can browse different versions regardless of their
> >>> configuration, which they might not be aware of.
> >>> I suggest that plain browserchoice.mozilla.com should be nothing more
> >>> than an alias to any of the previous ones depending on the user's UA
> >>> string language.
> >>
> >> So, you would suggest a language switcher, like on Mozilla-Europe.org and
> >> Mozilla.com today, for all the locales we have for this site?
> >>
> >
> > Yes. And, Otto and me, we were suggesting to have a horizontal list of
> > languages at the top of the page instead of a dropdown box.
> >
>
>
> My preference would be for the horizontal list on browserchoice.mozilla.com,
> where the user has a locale we do not offer (or no locale) and a drop down
> somewhere on browserchoice.mozilla.com/%locale%/ where we have matched the
> locale the user has.
>
> I will look into getting these mocked up so we can see what the UX could be.
>

In both cases, the language choice should in my opinion be at the top (not at the bottom linke on mozilla-europe.org). So even if it's a drop down box, it's best at the top right, where it's immediately obvious.
Though I tend to favor the horizontal list Tony suggested, it would be good to see a mockup of both possibilities though and make a choice based on that.

Fryske Firefox

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Mar 5, 2010, 8:01:04 AM3/5/10
to mark...@lists.mozilla.org
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