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Firefox tops Microsoft browser market share for first time

arstechnica.com

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Re: Firefox tops Microsoft browser market share for first time

#91

Post by endemic »

Aldo_MX wrote: post #45
distances wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on this? I've tried Chromium once and again, but always fall back to Firefox as it feels better to me. Direct reasons are the address bar functionality and better privacy support out of the box, but also some generic feel is somehow just more familiar to me. Firefox does have global freezes on particularly heavy pages due to the single process model. It's rare enough not to bother me much though. As…

> Firefox does have global freezes That's precisely the issue, it doesn't matter if Firefox just freezes for 250ms, it's enough to be perceptible and annoy me.

I had the same problem, and it was annoying as heck. Try running a multi-process build (Nightly/Aurora/Beta) and see if your experience gets any better.

Re: Firefox tops Microsoft browser market share for first time

#92

Post by epoch1970 »

SimeVidas wrote: post #31
distances wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on this? I've tried Chromium once and again, but always fall back to Firefox as it feels better to me. Direct reasons are the address bar functionality and better privacy support out of the box, but also some generic feel is somehow just more familiar to me. Firefox does have global freezes on particularly heavy pages due to the single process model. It's rare enough not to bother me much though. As…

Multi-process is being tested in Firefox Beta right now, according to https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis#Schedule .

While some progress is being made, it worries me that it's taking so long to get this functionality into the release versions. I'm not suggesting it should be rushed out, of course. But the Electrolysis efforts date back to 2009, if not earlier. That's a long time to make users wait!

Re: Firefox tops Microsoft browser market share for first time

#93

Post by xorcist »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #30
mmastrac wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I didn't see that - I assumed it was just a result of advertising it to everyone who searched on Google. Do you have any specific examples?

Adobe Flash - When you download and installed Flash for Opera or Firefox, it would trick you into installing Chrome as your default browser unless you noticed and unchecked a box: http://i.imgur.com/Uldw6X3.png Java - When updating, Java on Windows would often trick you into installing Chrome as your default browser unless you noticed and unchecked a box Avast, AntiVir, etc - Nearly every free antivirus on Windows wa…

That's so funny. If you install Chrome, why would you want a (separate) Flash?

Especially considering Chrome is currently on track to kill Flash by a click-to-start policy for the majority users. Much irony.

Re: Firefox tops Microsoft browser market share for first time

#94

Post by mdaniel »

neerdowell wrote: post #55
SimeVidas wrote: post #15

Mozilla: We are a non-profit and we protect your privacy; we won’t use your data to make money. Most users: Nah, man. We’ll go with the search engine and ad network company.

Most users haven't made a conscious choice to use Chrome. They install it accidentally by not unticking a checkbox[0] or because they are told it will make the Google work better[1]. [0] https://i.imgur.com/LNFjqzd.png [1] https://i.imgur.com/B3b5iCZ.png

> Most users

Let's not get out of hand here. That may be true of "some users," or most users that you have come in contact with in your travels.

Re: Firefox tops Microsoft browser market share for first time

#95

Post by JohnTHaller »

Aldo_MX wrote: post #78
MOARDONGZPLZ wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not impressive. It's deceptive and a dark pattern.

Google's not at fault; Adobe, Oracle, and every other greedy software vendor are.

Google is knowingly paying for it.

Re: Firefox tops Microsoft browser market share for first time

#96

Post by JohnTHaller »

xorcist wrote: post #93
JohnTHaller wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adobe Flash - When you download and installed Flash for Opera or Firefox, it would trick you into installing Chrome as your default browser unless you noticed and unchecked a box: http://i.imgur.com/Uldw6X3.png Java - When updating, Java on Windows would often trick you into installing Chrome as your default browser unless you noticed and unchecked a box Avast, AntiVir, etc - Nearly every free antivirus on Windows wa…

That's so funny. If you install Chrome, why would you want a (separate) Flash? Especially considering Chrome is currently on track to kill Flash by a click-to-start policy for the majority users. Much irony.

Chrome tries to be snuck in via bundleware when users of other browsers like Firefox and Opera go to install or manually upgrade flash.

Re: Firefox tops Microsoft browser market share for first time

#97

Post by neerdowell »

mdaniel wrote: post #94
neerdowell wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most users haven't made a conscious choice to use Chrome. They install it accidentally by not unticking a checkbox[0] or because they are told it will make the Google work better[1]. [0] https://i.imgur.com/LNFjqzd.png [1] https://i.imgur.com/B3b5iCZ.png

> Most users Let's not get out of hand here. That may be true of "some users," or most users that you have come in contact with in your travels.

You think more than 50% of the people using Chrome deliberately sought it out and installed it after making an informed decision?

Not because it was pushed via bundlware or a Google-owned property?

Re: Firefox tops Microsoft browser market share for first time

#98

Post by gbersac »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #12

I'm curious how this graph would look if you compared only Linux users (obviously IE and Edge would drop off). It didn't strike me how important Firefox is to the FOSS world until I started experimenting with Linux distros and found that it was consistently pre-installed on flavors of Ubuntu/Debian/Mint/Fedora/FreeBSD. It becomes even more valuable on distros that refuse to pre-load any proprietary software.

I tryied chrome on Ubuntu. It is so slow it is almost unusable, so I switched to firefox (that I feel less user friendly). That may be the reason why it is preinstalled on linux distos.

Re: Firefox tops Microsoft browser market share for first time

#99

Post by sangnoir »

EdSharkey wrote: post #76
untog wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This has to be worrisome to the Chrome team. Looking at the data, not really. Their usage continues to grow, Firefox growth is at the expense of IE/Edge, not Chrome.

Yes, Chrome is the current 800lbs gorilla, and they continue to grow. I am still operating under a browser wars mentality where Netscape/Mozilla's marketshare completely collapsed and they slowly recovered over time. I'm just impressed that Firefox is in double digits in terms of marketshare given that they don't have a huge marketing engine driving them (Okay, I guess Yahoo is pretty decent as engines go.) I remembe…

> Largely hitting pause on FirefoxOS and Thunderbird and everything else not Firefox is also the right, if painful, thing to do.

Unfortunately, that's not what they are doing. They are going full throttle on the nebulous "IoT" on an equal footing with Firefox (VP & all). Mozilla seems to have abandoned it's mission statement: email is still an important part of the internet and it is far from solved. Yet they killed Thunderbird and chased after the ill-fated FirefoxOS. Who knows the next fad Mozilla will be chasing? Yeah, I'm not bitter at all. It's just that Mozilla could be more - they are selling themselves short.

Re: Firefox tops Microsoft browser market share for first time

#100

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

zobzu wrote: post #42
wazoox wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BTW I'm using FF on Android too (and it's way better than Chrome, with a true adblocker which is even more important than on the desktop), but since the upgrade to Android 6 applications revert to the stock Android browser without any option to select FF instead, grrrr...

IMO.. FF on android is a great browser. Much better than anything else - yet has like 1% marketshare. Go figure. FF on the desktop is an average browser. Chrome and Edge are slightly better.

I use it (mainly for the adblocker), but FF on Android inexplicably fails to run well on certain pages, even after I disabled uBlock Origin and requested the the Desktop versions of the site. humblebundle.com was the last site I recall where I actually had to open it in Chrome Android to get the site to render properly.
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