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Thank you, Chris

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Thank you, Chris

#161

Post by gregknicholson »

littlestymaar wrote: post #97
jrochkind1 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chrome also has a persistent advantage in being able to advertise Chrome on google search results. Which they do, if you access them using a non-Chrome browser, or at least used to... I confess I'm not sure because I still use Chrome. I agree with you about the advantage of "if you're already using it, something has to be a LOT better to get you to switch".

> Chrome also has a persistent advantage in being able to advertise Chrome on google search results. And also on gmail, googlemaps and YouTube… They even paid for ads in the subway here in Paris! They also bundled it with software like Adobe Flash, which made it available on virtually every computer circa 2010… And they ship it as their default browser on Android…

There's a rule of thumb that says any film advertised on the side of a bus is probably not a very good film.

This is probably just me, but whenever I see an advert for a web service on TV or on a billboard (especially for stalwarts like Google or Ebay), I always apply the same logic: their product must be crap if they're having to advertise it the old-fashioned way — it feels desperate and demeaning to the product.

Re: Thank you, Chris

#162

Post by lucb1e »

cloudytoday wrote: post #85

Just downloaded Firefox again for the first time in ages...what's lame is that some G Suite / Apps / Mail features are only available in Chrome forcing me to use Chrome for work..

You can use Firefox privately though. And for work, if you want to get out of the vendor lock in, you can use a browser just for Google stuff. I do that at work as well because Chromium works better with my GPU for video calling, so I run Wire in kiosk mode. Everything else I do in a nicely configured and customized Firefox.

Re: Thank you, Chris

#163

Post by wolco »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #145
MegaButts wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would the typical user make the effort to download Firefox when they're already happy with Chrome? The typical user isn't on HN with strong opinions on privacy, has little notion of what constitutes a tech monopoly, covets convenience, and has already configured their one browser extension but doesn't remember how (and it turns out that same browser extension isn't in Firefox). For most people, they can already s…

>Why would the typical user make the effort to download Firefox when they're already happy with Chrome? Why would more users make the effort in 2018 than in 2019? This doesn't explain the trend though it's probably an accurate assessment.

Part of the answer is in how they collect those numbers.

Re: Thank you, Chris

#164

Post by lucb1e »

jonathankoren wrote: post #107
rwc wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you leave, one has to be "left behind". It doesn't speak to an amicable outcome.

Do you only leave the grocery store after a fight? I think you’re reading much more into this.

Well, either they are, or the PR department is reading too much into it and s/he's just explaining the reason why PR departments avoid it.

Re: Thank you, Chris

#165

Post by userSumo »

cronix wrote: post #151
_noqo wrote: post #112

I understand why this spark conversations about the current Firefox market share situation. But I also believe that Firefox's dominant past plays against when it comes to analyzing the product right now. Firefox is amazing, it works wonderfully, it continues to improve, respects privacy, adopts Mozilla's ethical values. Yes, not many people use it, but criticizing this point so aggressively I think it is also influen…

I've seen thousands of Chrome ads in my life. On TV, on FB, on other ads on other websites, etc. I really don't think I've ever seen a FF ad. At least, I really can't recall seeing one. From what I've seen, the public has just not really heard of them. It's mostly just us geeks. It's hard to get market share when your audience doesn't even know you exist. And then you have Android, which comes with Chrome and has a m…

Interesting, i have never seen a browser ad in my life... is that in US or something?

Re: Thank you, Chris

#166

Post by wolco »

magicalhippo wrote: post #158
saidajigumi wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say all you want about DDG and alternatives, but they still can't hold a candle to Google's search quality. I'm rather torn on this point. On one hand, yes, DDG for example feels some years behind Google in its relevance ranking. On the other, Google itself has been degrading the quality of its own results with ads, etc. so badly that they've seriously degraded their own "above the fold" relevant results.

DDG is just so bad. Yesterday I found a website on my desktop. I wanted to view it on my Raspberry Pi so I could copy/paste the commands. So I typed in some keywords from the title and the name of the site. By default the Raspbian image uses DDG apparently. The page I was after was not to be found. Well at least on the first page, I didn't bother checking beyond. Did the !g thing and got the page I wanted straight up…

They both return the site tensorflow. What were you going for exactly a specific page?

Re: Thank you, Chris

#167

Post by rapind »

stebann wrote: post #129
est31 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be precise, it was 289 million on July 1st 2018, and 248 million on July 9th 2019. It was 239 million on August 24. Yes, the numbers are huge. Any product that has this many users would be considered a major success, but the trend is still troubling.

Anybody has some idea why that trend? Firefox is wonderful. I don't understand why more people aren't adopting this amazing browser.

I prefer firefox, but I'm on a mac and it runs pretty hot. I believe they're improving this though. Once performance is solved it'll be my default browser.

Re: Thank you, Chris

#168

Post by smichel17 »

magicalhippo wrote: post #158
saidajigumi wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say all you want about DDG and alternatives, but they still can't hold a candle to Google's search quality. I'm rather torn on this point. On one hand, yes, DDG for example feels some years behind Google in its relevance ranking. On the other, Google itself has been degrading the quality of its own results with ads, etc. so badly that they've seriously degraded their own "above the fold" relevant results.

DDG is just so bad. Yesterday I found a website on my desktop. I wanted to view it on my Raspberry Pi so I could copy/paste the commands. So I typed in some keywords from the title and the name of the site. By default the Raspbian image uses DDG apparently. The page I was after was not to be found. Well at least on the first page, I didn't bother checking beyond. Did the !g thing and got the page I wanted straight up…

The top result is the same (for me) in both searches (" rel="nofollow">https://www.tensorflow.org/install/>). What is the page you were trying to find?

Re: Thank you, Chris

#169

Post by lucb1e »

_noqo wrote: post #112

I understand why this spark conversations about the current Firefox market share situation. But I also believe that Firefox's dominant past plays against when it comes to analyzing the product right now. Firefox is amazing, it works wonderfully, it continues to improve, respects privacy, adopts Mozilla's ethical values. Yes, not many people use it, but criticizing this point so aggressively I think it is also influen…

> Firefox's dominant past plays against

I'm sorry, what? It was either the underdog of MSIE or of Chrome, it never was dominant the way the actual dominant browser at the time was dominant. The peak was 30%, and when Chrome took over from MSIE, it had 21% with MSIE and Chrome at 30% each.

Re: Thank you, Chris

#170

Post by gregknicholson »

jimmaswell wrote: post #142
jsgo wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

during Chrome's climb, Firefox was a fairly slow mess and in some ways caused by users having tons of addons enabled at any given time. Firefox was a lot better than IE when Firefox came out (and remained that way even during its slow period), but Chrome was a lot better during its initial rise than both of them too. Firefox is way better from a performance standpoint than it was during Chrome's climb, but Chrome gob…

At this point I honestly wish chrome never happened.

This sort of thing always seems to happen. A shiny new thing comes along that's a little bit faster or cleverer, and all the geeks say “Yeah, well it may be controlled by a single company, but they're probably not evil, and anyway it'll never get big enough to be a monopoly, so it's harmless fun, and I'll use it and advocate it to my non-techy friends!”

And then we end up with Chrome, and Facebook, and Slack, and Twitter, and WhatsApp, and GitHub, and LinkedIn, and nobody ever seems to learn that if you don't insist on an open ecosystem, even if it's “just for now”, then eventually we all lose that option altogether.

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