Firefox desktop market share now below 9% • Hacker News Board

Re: Firefox desktop market share now below 9%

#111

Post by baroffoos » Tue, Dec 04, 2018, 2:21 AM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #58

baby wrote: post #39

And yet, it is one of the only usable browser for most users thanks to the Tree Style Tabs extension. I still don't understand how people can browse the web with Chrome :|

> And yet, it is one of the only usable browser for most users thanks to the Tree Style Tabs extension. You mean, it's the only usable browser for users like you. I assure you, most users don't use this and don't really care for it.

You can't care about something you don't know exists. Most users do things in inefficient ways and don't know the better options.

Re: Firefox desktop market share now below 9%

#112

Post by Osmose » Tue, Dec 04, 2018, 2:22 AM UTC

burtonator wrote: post #64

We just shipped a chrome extension for Polar... I did a big analysis of the distribution of extensions on Firefox vs Chrome. You could expect Firefox to be maybe 1/3rd that of Chrome. Nope... it's 1/40th.... So 40x more people use the same extension on Chrome vs Firefox. I'm not sure why this is... it might be that Chrome users adopt extensions more readily than Firefox users? I think there's a lesson here on long te…

If you're looking to see adoption rate, what you really want to be comparing isn't absolute numbers of Chrome vs Firefox users, but rather the adoption rate of your add-on vs your potential users.

If Chrome has 10,000 potential users of your add-on, Firefox has 100, and you have 98 Chrome users and 2 Firefox users, then the add-on adoption rates are 0.98% for Chrome and 2% for Firefox.

Of course that's just shifting the hard bit, which is figuring out who your potential users are.

Re: Firefox desktop market share now below 9%

#113

Post by EpicEng » Tue, Dec 04, 2018, 2:22 AM UTC

kerng wrote: post #32

How sad... I have switched to Firefox about 8 months ago and have been really enjoying the browser. It's just difficult to compete against the giants of Google and Microsoft. I mean anywhere you go there will be messages like "Try a faster browser- Download Chrome" on any Google site, or the extremely difficult user interface to switch default browser on Windows. I really wish for Firefox to succeed in the long run,…

>or the extremely difficult user interface to switch default browser on Windows.

I agree that it's annoying and user hostile, but "extremely difficult"? It's one button in settings.

Re: Firefox desktop market share now below 9%

#114

Post by saagarjha » Tue, Dec 04, 2018, 2:22 AM UTC

kevindqc wrote: post #89

saagarjha wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since they write the software, I'm sure they have more than a little sway.

Damn I've been working wrong all this time! I didn't know because I write some of the code I get to make the product decisions!

I don't want to attack a strawman here, but your comment makes it seem like you think that programmers simply write code that they're told to write, providing no input on the project at all. This isn't true at all: just because you're not a product manager doesn't mean that you don't have a chance to influence the final product; in the extreme case that you're told to essentially "shut up and code", you can exercise your control by walking away from the project if you don't like where it's going.

Re: Firefox desktop market share now below 9%

#115

Post by Jorge1o1 » Tue, Dec 04, 2018, 2:22 AM UTC

protomyth wrote: post #86

larrik wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure he meant web devs, not plugin devs.

Anyone who ignores prior treatment of folks is foolish. Why would a web developer support one browser over others? They keep everyone honest by sticking to the middle road and not having a badge like "Works Best In FireFox".

And yet there’s scores of websites that barely work on anything except Chrome because it’s obvious that’s what the devs are using.

Re: Firefox desktop market share now below 9%

#116

Post by atombender » Tue, Dec 04, 2018, 2:22 AM UTC

kovrik wrote: post #54

atombender wrote: post #35

I'd like to use Firefox. I've tried it out several times the last year. It's okay. Unfortunately, I always end up going back to Safari. Despite the performance improvements, Safari still feels like a faster, smoother browser. Firefox is still pretty ugly, too. On macOS, it feels chunkier and less natively integrated. Safari's "omnibar" is superior to Firefox's. Safari actually suggests web sites, which I use all the…

I really want to use Safari, but for me the deal breaker is the fact that Safari doesn't seem to block pop-ups properly. Yes, they've changed it in the latest version. I have Block and Notify option selected in Privacy tab. But many popups still go through -- sometimes they open in a new tab, sometimes in a new window. Is there a way to fix that? Also, is there a Tree Style Tab alternative for Safari?

Agreed, popups are annoying. But Firefox doesn't seem to block them all properly, either. For example, try this [1] site. It's notorious for hijacking its own clicks; about 50% of the time you load that site, the search field will open a popup when you click on it to type. Same goes for real links. Unfortunately, I don't think there's a fix for Safari.

I don't know of a tree-style tab extension for Safari, sorry.

[1] http://rarbg.to/torrents.php

Re: Firefox desktop market share now below 9%

#117

Post by ngokevin » Tue, Dec 04, 2018, 2:23 AM UTC

kristopolous wrote: post #3

Being visually nearly indistinguishable from chrome hasn't really worked in its favor. (quick, which is which: http://9ol.es/double-browser.png ). Probably north of 95% don't know about or understand licensing differences or differences in rendering engines or core architecture. Interfaces and obvious features with compelling narratives are what matter because that's how the user engages with the product. Asking user…

I'd kinda agree. As described in Zero to One, to convince shift users to adopt, you need a product that is an order of magnitude superior to the incumbent. Incremental changes or parity mostly won't cut it. A browser would have to be radically innovative or better to gain share which is difficult considering the services Google has hooked into it.

Re: Firefox desktop market share now below 9%

#118

Post by atombender » Tue, Dec 04, 2018, 2:24 AM UTC

Reason077 wrote: post #105

kovrik wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really want to use Safari, but for me the deal breaker is the fact that Safari doesn't seem to block pop-ups properly. Yes, they've changed it in the latest version. I have Block and Notify option selected in Privacy tab. But many popups still go through -- sometimes they open in a new tab, sometimes in a new window. Is there a way to fix that? Also, is there a Tree Style Tab alternative for Safari?

The worst thing about Safari is the “Do you want to receive notifications from this website?” pop-up that appears every time you hit some random notification-supporting website for the first time. There has got to be a better way to implement notification subscriptions than this annoying pop-up.

You can turn this off. Go to Preferences, then Websites, then Notifications, then at the bottom of the window there's a checkbox: "Allow websites to ask for permission to send push notifications".

Re: Firefox desktop market share now below 9%

#119

Post by NelsonMinar » Tue, Dec 04, 2018, 2:24 AM UTC

I switched to desktop with Quantum and love it. But the huge win for me was switching to Firefox Mobile on my iPhone. It may just be a wrapper for WebKit. But it integrates with Firefox Sync.

The killer feature is "send this tab to your iPhone". Great when you're looking at a recipe / restaurant address / funny picture on your computer and want to have it on your phone.

Re: Firefox desktop market share now below 9%

#120

Post by fabrice_d » Tue, Dec 04, 2018, 2:24 AM UTC

kibwen wrote: post #28

jopsen wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

According to Mozilla's own data (https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity) they went from 303M monthly active users at the end of Nov. 2017 to 277M this year. This is a serious drop.