Well, at least one student does.

I understand where he’s coming from, really, I do. I’ve complained here (and at my old job) that things would be so much easier if Firefox were the default browser, instead of IE.

But, the reality of the situation is in most cases the switch cannot be made. I try to make everything I develop work just as well on Firefox as it does in IE, but not every developer follows those rules. Universities and businesses all use outside applications. Portal systems, ticket systems, Exchange servers. Many of those systems simply do not work well with Firefox.

Firefox doesn’t display all the functionality of MS Exchange when using it online. Firefox doesn’t support Window’s domain authentication (it send passwords in unencrypted text). Many web portals (especially academic ones) do not pass information correctly in Firefox.

That leaves the question, where does the responsibility lie. Should Firefox develop future versions with support for those features in mind or should application and software developers ensure Firefox support with future releases? There’s no easy answer, which means there is no easy solution. However, with Firefox (and other browsers) gaining users every day, it’s a question which will continue to come up.