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Firefox desktop market share now below 9%

netmarketshare.com

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Re: Firefox desktop market share now below 9%

#23
I have switched to Firefox on mobile as well. There are some occasional hiccups (rare), but the speedup and battery life you gain from ad-blocking makes it totally worth it.

For those who are evaluating, please install AdBlock before you take a call - and do try it for a few days.

Re: Firefox desktop market share now below 9%

#24
post #10

Just my personal $0.02: 1. The biggest thing keeping me tied to Chrome over any other browser is the extension support. Extensions are second class citizens in any other browser. This is partly because other browsers keep overhauling their systems and deprecating old software which discourages extension developers, and mainly because (as an extension developer) why would you code for browser X when you can get more u…

For #2, might be the same issue I posted about on HN a while back, particularly if you have a 13” MBP. I corresponded with Mozilla employees, but I still don’t think it has made much movement toward getting fixed.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18072091

Re: Firefox desktop market share now below 9%

#25
post #10

Just my personal $0.02: 1. The biggest thing keeping me tied to Chrome over any other browser is the extension support. Extensions are second class citizens in any other browser. This is partly because other browsers keep overhauling their systems and deprecating old software which discourages extension developers, and mainly because (as an extension developer) why would you code for browser X when you can get more u…

What extensions in particular do you use that you can't find equivalents on Firefox?

Re: Firefox desktop market share now below 9%

#26
post #10

Just my personal $0.02: 1. The biggest thing keeping me tied to Chrome over any other browser is the extension support. Extensions are second class citizens in any other browser. This is partly because other browsers keep overhauling their systems and deprecating old software which discourages extension developers, and mainly because (as an extension developer) why would you code for browser X when you can get more u…

> 2. Anecdotal evidence, but every time an update of Firefox (and most notably Quantum) is released people laud how fast it is. On my 2015 Macbook running Mac OS Firefox has never been faster. Maybe there are things behind the scenes such as caching playing a role, but web pages load slower, scrolling feels sluggish, videos drop frames and freeze or get out of sync. It isn't an enjoyable experience compared to Chrome or Safari.

This is my experience too, unfortunately. I keep using Firefox instead of Chrome now to support Mozilla and their positive attitude towards end-user privacy, but compared to when I use Chrome it is an annoying product to use with the endless waiting and lag. Using Linux, so maybe it is just really only optimised for Windows PCs (arguably their largest user base)?

Re: Firefox desktop market share now below 9%

#27
post #20

I still use Firefox on my work computers and personal. The reason simply being that I feel the performance is better than chrome most times. I used Firefox / Mozilla for many years, then went to chrome when it was new and shiny, but I’m back to Firefox as I believe it truly is the better product. They just need to somehow market it better to people.

I have not shared the same experience, with Firefox often being much slower than Chromium. Especially on Linux.

Re: Firefox desktop market share now below 9%

#28
post #11

I didn't see any indication as to their methodology for how they're calculating these stats. It's probably been said a zillion times before, but if it's JavaScript-based you can safely assume that they are incorrect as it's likely there is a large intersection between people browsing with an ad-blocker, private browsing, or with content blocker and those people using Firefox.

Does it matter? Even if the measure is somewhat flawed it's hard to argue that drop isn't related to a drop in the underlying number of users. Mozilla is awesome, but growing Firefox is an uphill struggle.

> it's hard to argue that drop isn't related to a drop in the underlying number of users

We would need more data to determine that. What the site here is showing is a decline in the percentage of marketshare, which is a relative measure, not an absolute one. Even if Firefox were seeing a net gain of users, if it's doing so at a slower rate than the market is growing overall, then that would be reflected as a decline in marketshare.

Re: Firefox desktop market share now below 9%

#30
post #11

I didn't see any indication as to their methodology for how they're calculating these stats. It's probably been said a zillion times before, but if it's JavaScript-based you can safely assume that they are incorrect as it's likely there is a large intersection between people browsing with an ad-blocker, private browsing, or with content blocker and those people using Firefox.

Does it matter? Even if the measure is somewhat flawed it's hard to argue that drop isn't related to a drop in the underlying number of users. Mozilla is awesome, but growing Firefox is an uphill struggle.

Probably. Mozilla getting funding would depend on these numbers. And one of the most common addons is user agent switcher. For awhile Netflix allowed Chrome on linux and not Firefox (even though they assured me that wasn't the issue). But I could get around it by doing a user agent switch.

People do this for fingerprinting too. I'm sure there are plenty of people that always have it on and set to Chrome.

Also, Mozilla higher ups might be using these statistics to see how worthwhile the new features and work they have done.

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