Firefox lost 50M users since 2019 • Hacker News Board

Re: Firefox lost 50M users since 2019

#101

Post by Amezarak » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 12:39 PM UTC

toper-centage wrote: post #22

crmrc114 wrote: post #5

I may be the odd one but I dropped FF after the drama over brendin eich and his support of prop 8. I just did not feel the same after seeing how he was attacked for his personal contributions. There was just some hateful stuff that came from both sides that really uncovered some toxic personalities in the FF legion.

When you're a CEO, you're also the face of the company. His "personal contributions" were to support banning of same sex marriage, and it was just 5 years earlier. That's just unacceptable, even in 2014. It really showed how politics work inside companies like Mozilla. But you're not alone. That year lots of users dropped Firefox.

Proposition 8 passed in California 52-47. [1] Slightly more than seven million people voted for it. That's a lot of people who did something unacceptable.

I wish all disagreements didn't have to be framed in such stark terms.

I don't live in or care much for California, so I had no dog in the fight, but I also did not like the gang-up on Eich and I don't understand the argument that he had to be kicked out because of how people might feel - it seems like it's the default position to work for someone who thinks you shouldn't have some right or another, or some other person should have more rights than you. It did not affect my usage of Firefox.

I did eventually download Brave and I use it for maybe a quarter of my web browsing, but that happened because a site I like stopped working in Firefox. I use Edge for a lot of other stuff - known safe sites, basically. I use Firefox simply out of inertia and because I like NoScript and the exact way NoScript works. A lot of the stuff I like about it is gone now, as they keep removing features I use. I don't have any affection for Mozilla or Firefox anymore. Metrics-based development is always a fool's errand - removing feature after feature that 1% of your install base uses is a great way to lose half your users when you remove > 50 features.

In the end, I don't think Mozilla understood where their strength came from. They weren't installed by default. They didn't have massive marketing campaigns like Google/Chrome. They weren't bundled in installers. They had one thing: power users, and power users evangelizing to their friends and family. They've alienated power users, and now all that's left is people running on inertia and people really worried about open source. Not a winning combination.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_California_Proposition_8

Re: Firefox lost 50M users since 2019

#102

Post by ostenning » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 12:40 PM UTC

The main thing driving me away from Firefox is the speed. Chrome is notably faster for me.

Re: Firefox lost 50M users since 2019

#103

Post by BenoitEssiambre » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 12:40 PM UTC

nsilvestri wrote: post #21

toper-centage wrote: post #15

It's honestly a pity. Firefox is it perfect but the Internet is becoming worse because of chrome. Google is able to fast track any non standard Web tech and the hordes follow. Soon after, that become the standard. I don't want to cheer for a broken browser, but only Safari is able to stop this madness now. Also, Firefox on the Desktop is really good and still let's you do so much more than chrome clones. But it suffe…

Chrome is already the standard. Firefox usually works, but more and more often nowadays I encounter a glitchy or poorly performing page, which I switch to Chrome to use properly. I use Firefox to not be part of the Chrome monopoly, not because it's actually a fundamentally better browser.

That's my experience too. Unfortunately I don't think it's possible for complex standards to be well specified in human language instead of in code so a reference implementation is what will always win in the end.

At least chromium is open source. The best we can hope is maybe that organizations adopting chromium other than Google can wield more influence over it.

As I point out here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27222818 human language is not precise enough to write good specifications. Natural language words are polysemic and contextual. See the meaning of "break" for example: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/break

Kolmogrov showed that fully specified information distills down to computer programs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_description_length

The ideal language for a specification might be a mix of natural language and code with a test suit, something like Literate Programming (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literate_programming) or its descendants along with modern pull request based discussions that are tied to version controlled code.

I wish Mozilla or a similar organization adopted the chromium core. We really need a well funded non-profit managed release of the reference browser.

Re: Firefox lost 50M users since 2019

#104

Post by whatever_dude » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 12:41 PM UTC

nuker wrote: post #90

soperj wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>only Safari is able to stop this madness now Safari is usable on less than 20% of machines, it absolutely will not be stopping anything. It's also the bane of my existence as a web developer.

> Safari is usable on less than 20% of machines, it absolutely will not be stopping anything You forgot mobile, iOS users are big chunk of it and websites want to work on iOS browsers.

The US is not the world.

Re: Firefox lost 50M users since 2019

#105

Post by Xylakant » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 12:42 PM UTC

nightski wrote: post #44

nsilvestri wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chrome is already the standard. Firefox usually works, but more and more often nowadays I encounter a glitchy or poorly performing page, which I switch to Chrome to use properly. I use Firefox to not be part of the Chrome monopoly, not because it's actually a fundamentally better browser.

I have used Firefox for about a decade now and I can't think of a single page that did not work. I'm not saying it's impossible, but incredibly rare. I'd be more inclined to just give up on the site than install Chrome.

Apple business manager requires safari or chrome and will not work on Firefox at all.

Re: Firefox lost 50M users since 2019

#106

Post by bluedevil2k » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 12:44 PM UTC

nightski wrote: post #44

nsilvestri wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chrome is already the standard. Firefox usually works, but more and more often nowadays I encounter a glitchy or poorly performing page, which I switch to Chrome to use properly. I use Firefox to not be part of the Chrome monopoly, not because it's actually a fundamentally better browser.

I have used Firefox for about a decade now and I can't think of a single page that did not work. I'm not saying it's impossible, but incredibly rare. I'd be more inclined to just give up on the site than install Chrome.

Sony PlayStation’s support pages did not work on Firefox. Texas’s franchise tax payment pages did not work on Firefox. Boy Scout certification pages did not work on Firefox. My kids’ baseball registration pages did not work on Firefox. As a front end dev, it seemed really hard to get things to NOT work on Firefox and still work on Chrome.

Re: Firefox lost 50M users since 2019

#107

Post by ostenning » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 12:44 PM UTC

If chrome had a container engine for enhanced privacy I would leave FF in a heart beat. The only thing keeping me to FF is the privacy aspect.

Pity FF keep eroding that advantage also

Re: Firefox lost 50M users since 2019

#108

Post by mfer » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 12:44 PM UTC

thesimp wrote: post #98

And that is the price they pay for trying to be Chrome clone UI wise and not listening to to the "power users". I hate to use the words "power user" but it is the small group of very active and enthusiastic users that you need to give the appears to every one else that they are missing out on something cool. I still use Firefox because it works reasonably for my usage but I stopped promoting it to other people around…

We shouldn’t just look at power users. Google and Microsoft, for example, constantly advertise to use their browser when you visit their properties. I imagine this has an impact.

Re: Firefox lost 50M users since 2019

#109

Post by TiccyRobby » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 12:44 PM UTC

foepys wrote: post #73

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #67

The big issue I see with Firefox is that they lost a lot of power user's when the removed XUL extensions and the underlying engine doesn't have good third party wrappers like QtWebEngine (that I know of) so creating reskined browser's is pain. I don't pick a browser for the Firefox or Chromium engine (unless a site needs it), I pick a browser based on the UI and configuration management. So I use Qutebrowser that is…

The end of XUL was necessary to make Firefox faster. Doenload an old XUL Firefox version and surf the web. If you don't notice a difference in page load speed, startup time, and overall responsiveness, you might have a very, very fast computer, which most people around the world don't have. The 3 or 4 thousand power users that needed native interop were (and still are) of no interest compared to the then bad performa…

My number one reason to use Firefox is uBlock Origin. It does an exceptional job and web is way more annoying without it.

Re: Firefox lost 50M users since 2019

#110

Post by mfer » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 12:50 PM UTC

ostenning wrote: post #102

The main thing driving me away from Firefox is the speed. Chrome is notably faster for me.

How did you come to the conclusion that chrome was faster?

Personally, I’ve found all the browsers to be fast enough.I did some analysis leg work to come to that conclusion. I look at other characteristics such as privacy.