Ask HN: Why is Firefox losing marketshare and how would you save it?

They should focus on saving Firefox.

- Cut out all (or at the very least, most) initiatives that don't serve the goal of promoting Firefox's market share or sustainability going forward

- Donate the major money drains that aren't Firefox to the Apache Foundation or another worthy custodian

- Fire all inessential staff that don't want to work on Firefox.

- Get a CEO/upper management that are in it for the passion, not the money, and cut their salaries (bonuses tied directly to increase in Firefox market share).

- Make sure that all donations from now on are redirected to things that support Firefox development and nothing else, period.

- Make whatever partnerships are needed to have a steady stream of income, be that donation or selling out to Google or Bing.

Firefox is in trouble. Firefox is also Mozilla's raison d'être, and they should embrace that. We as a community, cannot afford to let Firefox languish until the only browsers in the world are Chromium derivatives. The diversity of truly independent browser engines is far too important to give up without a fight.

They do way too much that's not _Build the best browser in the world_.

Persona, Pocket, a whole bunch of non-technical stuff....

It adds up. I wish they would slim their team down dramatically and become a lean mean killing machine to build the best browser in the world. But unless they get sponsored by some billionaire I don't see that happening.

Chrome is just good enough for the average user.

Taking measures to appeal to a more enthusiast audience won’t do much for the numbers.

Only the masses will, and the masses moved long ago to Chrome because it was a 10x product. The alternative was awful. Not only this, but it was backed by Google, the world’s entrypoint to the internet.

Now, Chrome continues being “good enough” if not great.

For me, I have no reason to move, even being a reasonably privacy-conscious person.

The number one issue with the browser ecosystem right now is Safari. iPhone browsers being forced to render with Safari's engine is already bad. Blocking browsers from having extensions is far worse in my opinion. Most of the reason I use Chrome and Firefox on my desktop is their rich array of extensions.

If I were Firefox, I'd sue Apple to hell for abusing their dominance in OS and device market share to block me from competing fairly in the browser market.

This.

However, I think they need to answer the question, why should Firefox exist? If there is no compelling reason, well, there you go. If there is, double down on that make that reason shine. They have wasted so much money on the wrong things, IMO.