A factual and informative reply?

@Patrick Finch - you come here and tell the truth in a reasoned and calm way...

This is the Register - just what do you think you're playing at?

Why? Well the Firefox user base is sliding almost entirely at the expense of Chrome. It seems that somebody at Mozilla has looked at Google's method of version numbering and decided to copy it in the ridiculous belief that the version numbering must be the reason Chrome is surging ahead.

The thing that they seem to have missed is that Google don't make a big deal, or indeed any sort of a deal, about Chrome's version number. The vast majority of users don't know what version of Chrome they have any more than they know what software version their PVR is running. Visit the Chrome homepage and you have to dig to find the version number. Visit the Firefox homepage and it's right there.

Google have realised that version numbers are for geekboys and that normal people don't care about them. They are useful for internal controls, but customers don't care. I have no idea what software version my PVR is running and I don't care. I only recently found out that my car is a "Phase 2" and as such some parts differ from the "Phase 1" version. That's because I don't really care. And ordinary people don't really care about the version of their browser, their computer is just an appliance like their TV.

Mozilla need to get wise to the fact that in the last few years the market has shifted from being dominated by geeks to being dominated by ordinary people. These people not only don't care what graphics card they have, they don't even know what a graphics card. Mozilla's intrusive policy on version numbering is probably turning these people off in droves. If you're going to change your version number every eight weeks do it quietly. If you're going to make a big deal about your version numbers then only increment the major version when you are introducing big changes.

The way it's going Mozilla are just hastening the slide in their user base.