Mozilla's Comparison Game Just Doesn't 'Stack Up'

I'm an equal-opportunity critic of bad decisions, regardless of whether they're coming from an open source or closed source purveyor. A few weeks back I wrote that the IE8 "Get the Facts" campaign gets it wrong by showing little respect for the target audience's intelligence. Today, I'm calling out Mozilla for needlessly playing the same game: "See How We Stack Up" in Mozilla-speak.

Someone at Mozilla wants me to believe that Firefox is so much better than IE that Firefox leads 6 to 1 in the "handy browser comparison chart". I don't disagree that Firefox leads in the items that Mozilla included in the comparison. But if Firefox didn't lead in "Thousands of free way to personalize your online experience," Mozilla would not have put that item on the comparison table.

[ See also: "IE8 'Get the Facts' campaign gets it wrong" | Keep up with the latest open source news with InfoWorld's open source newsletter and topic center. ]

Does this comparison really help someone evaluating which browser to download and use? Absolutely not. Product comparisons are better left to a third party that will include criteria important to users, not simply criteria that the owning vendor's product is best at.

This is a waste of time, both for employees of Mozilla or Microsoft and for anyone who has stumbles across these "comparisons."

I don't know why, but I would have expected Mozilla to take the high road in this comparison game.

Follow me on Twitter at: SavioRodrigues.

p.s.: I should state: "The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies, or opinions."