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Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

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Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#91

Post by chrisseaton »

zesterer wrote: post #74
samwillis wrote: post #65

Firefox is compromised by the fact it’s core active users are also its largest liability. It’s the innovators dilemma. They want it to (more or less) stay the same and not move forward and make changes to compete with Chrome. Whereas for them to achieve a larger market share it needs a radical overhaul. Really what Mozilla need to do is build a “new browser” called something different and put their weight behind that…

> They want it to (not or less) stay the same and not move forward I don't think this is true at all. Anecdotally, a lot of Firefox users have been very receptive towards recent changes. Quantum was a huge success and I know very few people that miss the old Firefox with all of its jank. > Mozilla need to follow suit in order to survive, rip that rendering engine out, build a new browser and a “browser toolkit” to le…

> This is precisely what Servo is

Great example - because Mozilla binned Servo!

https://twitter.com/steveklabnik/status/1295771633320448001

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#92

Post by xg15 »

samwillis wrote: post #65

Firefox is compromised by the fact it’s core active users are also its largest liability. It’s the innovators dilemma. They want it to (more or less) stay the same and not move forward and make changes to compete with Chrome. Whereas for them to achieve a larger market share it needs a radical overhaul. Really what Mozilla need to do is build a “new browser” called something different and put their weight behind that…

Maybe we should better ask the question why a browser dupoly is bad and what we expect from a competing browser.

I think the core goal is influence: The ability to meaningfully change the web ecosystem or counteract changes that would be harmful.

Of course market share is necessary for influence, but I don't think it's sufficient: If Firefox gained a larger market share but at the cost permanently catching up to Chrome, I don't think a lot would be won.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#93

Post by gjvc »

peakaboo wrote: post #59
gjvc wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... weird chromium only behaviors that websites rely on these days to do things (and egregiously so if they detect an agent remotely resembling chrome). This sounds like the IE6 disaster all over again.

Plenty of people said this would happen when chrome started dominating, but since people refused to switch browsers, here we are.

this guy said it best https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYT2se94eU0&t=1414s

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#94

Post by pizza234 »

samwillis wrote: post #65

Firefox is compromised by the fact it’s core active users are also its largest liability. It’s the innovators dilemma. They want it to (more or less) stay the same and not move forward and make changes to compete with Chrome. Whereas for them to achieve a larger market share it needs a radical overhaul. Really what Mozilla need to do is build a “new browser” called something different and put their weight behind that…

> Firefox is compromised by the fact it’s core active users are also its largest liability. It’s the innovators dilemma. They want it to (more or less) stay the same

How much of the users are actually technical?

The Firefox user share is frequently seen through the lens of technical features, however, I have the suspicion that the vast majority of the audience is regular users who have no idea of anything technical.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#96

Post by cehrlich »

I recently switched back to Firefox after using Chrome and Edge as my main browsers for the past couple of years. So far:

* Performance feels better. Both in terms of being more lean in everyday use, and in not having random issues where CPU/Memory spikes for seemingly no reason.

* I'm sure there are websites that don't work with Firefox, but I haven't found any yet.

* I don't like that tabs in the tab bar are roundrects instead of "connecting" to the content, but it's no big deal I guess.

* Other than that I've basically not noticed that I'm using a different browser, which I mean in the best way possible.

I'm going to continue using it for as long as possible, because while I think Mozilla has made some bad decisions in the past I strongly believe in their mission overall.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#97

Post by tunap »

vvoyer wrote: post #24
DeathArrow wrote: post #12

> Clearly, that market share was lost solely to Chrome & co.3 I can attribute this decline to various factors: >Google’s massive development resources and marketing machine. >Most people not thinking about the long-term ramifications of ending up in a market with a single vendor in it. >Firefox losing its status of a shiny new thing over the years. >Mozilla’s inability to capitalize on the popularity of Firefox in th…

> The true reasons Firefox lost market share I would say: The true reasons Firefox lost market share is because we, developer & tech people started to install Chrome on family computers instead of Firefox because it was safer & faster (way way faster). And we never came back from it. Performance is a feature.

"developer & tech people started to install Chrome on family computers instead of Firefox..."

I'm not so certain those numbers compare with the 10s of millions of people(100s?) who's default browser was hijacked by nefarious bundles in every 3rd party installer under the sun back in the 2000s and early 2010s.. Those people knew no better and have been conditioned(or just don't care) to continue whatever gets them interneting.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#98

Post by maccolgan »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #21

I really love Firefox still.. Though they are starting to annoy me. Especially with GUI changes and the lack of customisation thereof. Like Compact mode disappearing. For the most used app on most desktops, customisation is super important. I think they're jumping on the 'opinionated software' bandwagon too much. It still has some powerful features though, like E2E encrypted sync, multi-account containers etc. I'll k…

The day Firefox disables my one-line UI is the day I leave Firefox permanently, containers are cool and all but I'll live with it.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#99

Post by Yizahi »

That's all true. At the same time people on HN of all places still seriously advertise Chrome clones as if they were a complete alternatives for a Google monopoly. I've lost hope and count the days until either Gecko/Quantum will go down or biggest websites will stop supporting it. I'm already encountering at least one not working website every few months, one of them was my bank portal (BNP subsidiary, not some out of the woods small bank).

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#100

Post by SturgeonsLaw »

technobabbler wrote: post #62
thrower123 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What large companies use GMail like that? Outside of corps ideologically opposed to using Office, like IBM and Oracle, I've almost never seen anybody that didn't run on Outlook. At least since Notes became abandonware anyway.

People still use Microsoft? My experience is largely in small medium biz and academia, both of which use a lot of Google. I haven't seen a Microsoft shop in decades. But that's just my own limited spheres of work. (edit: to be clear, wasn't trying to be snarky. Genuinely surprised. Thought Microsoft intranets were a thing of legacy dinosaur companies, didn't know that modern enterprises still did that. But I don't wo…

It depends heavily on the industry, but in my experience the vast majority of the business world runs on Microsoft products. For a lot of businesses (think more accountants or law firms than devs), Outlook, Excel and Word are must-haves. That means Windows is a must-have. That means if you don't have the supporting infrastructure (Azure or Active Directory) then administration becomes a nightmare, so those are a must-have. And at that point, since everything else is Microsoft, Teams gets used for comms and OneDrive gets used for filesharing.
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