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Ask HN: Why is Firefox losing marketshare and how would you save it?

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Re: Ask HN: Why is Firefox losing marketshare and how would you save it?

#71

Post by sockaddr »

phkahler wrote: post #38
selfhoster11 wrote: post #2

They should focus on saving Firefox. - Cut out all (or at the very least, most) initiatives that don't serve the goal of promoting Firefox's market share or sustainability going forward - Donate the major money drains that aren't Firefox to the Apache Foundation or another worthy custodian - Fire all inessential staff that don't want to work on Firefox. - Get a CEO/upper management that are in it for the passion, not…

>> We as a community, cannot afford to let Firefox languish until the only browsers in the world are Chromium derivatives. The diversity of truly independent browser engines is far too important to give up without a fight. There are a lot of people oh HN who agree with that but then use a different browser for whatever reason. I feel like these people are being very hypocritical and should use what they want to succe…

Recently switched to Linux and only installed Firefox. When you force yourself to use it, it's doable. I think only once in the last 6 months did a website not work (my dumb HOA website). Other than that, it's more than sufficient.

It crashes sometimes but if that's the price for not having coercive software controlling my life, so be it.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Firefox losing marketshare and how would you save it?

#72

Post by zelphirkalt »

There are several issues.

Firstly it is much much harder to keep a clean sheet, when you focus on privacy, than when you merely focus on introducing features and pushing your own agenda like the Chrome project does. Just one misstep and you can already lose lots of believers of the good cause. And missteps Mozilla had more than enough of during the recent years.

Secondly they time and time again incorporate things, that privacy minding people do not wish to have in their browser and make the defaults so that it is "on" by default. This erodes people's trust in Mozilla's vision and where the journey is going.

Another reason, which is a huuuuge fail in my opinion is, that I still!! cannot donate specifically for Firefox, for Thunderbird, for whatever, but only to Mozilla overall. I cannot donate with a cause, but only with trust, which has been slowly eroded. They will not get those donations they hope for and then in turn make stupid decisions, thinking that not so many people want, what they are making now, because they do not donate. Duh! I would immediately donate to projects like Thunderbird. You can pry Thunderbird from my cold dead hands! They should shut up and take my money.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Firefox losing marketshare and how would you save it?

#73

Post by Steltek »

temp0826 wrote: post #50
nikanj wrote: post #13

Every time I restart Firefox, I get about 8 different prompts for "See what's new!" "Reset your Firefox profile now!" "See our new diversity initiative now!" etc. It feels like opening a Windows Me installation from 2000. I just want to get browsing done.

That's...not the case (and never has been) for me. You only restart it when you get an update (in which case that wouldn't be very often)? Or you did something whacky in about:config? Or maybe a bad extension. Dunno, not normal

Updates are probably more frequent on the Beta/Aurora/Whatever channel?

Re: Ask HN: Why is Firefox losing marketshare and how would you save it?

#74

Post by BlackLotus89 »

ssorallen wrote: post #49
nicoburns wrote: post #14

I would: - Prioritise getting the new extension framework fully functional. And continue innovating on the capabilities that are exposed. Especially on mobile where the new fenix engine is still limited to a small whitelist of extensions - Sort out the multi-profile story. Container tabs are great, but the chrome model is also a great fit for many workflow (e.g. different people in a house or home vs. work profiles).…

Chrome’s Profiles are the #1 reason I use it over Firefox. If Firefox had as complete of an implementation as Chrome then I would consider switching, but until then Firefox is a non-starter for me. I use all 3 of these profiles all day every day for work: * one personal profile logged into personal Google * one work profile managed by the company, logged into company Google * one development profile with all the debu…

Why not use the firefox profiles?

I also use multiple profiles. My setup is as fallows.

  firefox -ProfileManager
Create 2 profiles work and private.

Change the theme of work to orange and private to black.

Create two .desktop files and append to the Exec line -P work (or private) and the Name to include (work)

I have work on desktop 5 and private on desktop 8 and 9.

Works like a charme for me. Additional bonus. Use container to add additional seperation.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Firefox losing marketshare and how would you save it?

#75

Post by gausswho »

slig wrote: post #28
blinding-streak wrote: post #16

Take a hint from Brave, which is growing fast. Go all in on privacy and ad blocking.

That would surely be bad for their 0.5 billion/year deal from Google. Not going to happen.

That presumes Google is paying Mozilla primarily to secure the search market. But if they're paying primarily to secure staying out of anti-trust court, Firefox culling ads doesn't affect whether big G keeps their wallet open.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Firefox losing marketshare and how would you save it?

#77

Post by selfhoster11 »

missedthecue wrote: post #55
selfhoster11 wrote: post #2

They should focus on saving Firefox. - Cut out all (or at the very least, most) initiatives that don't serve the goal of promoting Firefox's market share or sustainability going forward - Donate the major money drains that aren't Firefox to the Apache Foundation or another worthy custodian - Fire all inessential staff that don't want to work on Firefox. - Get a CEO/upper management that are in it for the passion, not…

Cutting organizational expenses might be good for unrelated reasons, but I don't see how that increases the market share of Firefox, and I can think of a few ways it could decrease their market share.

If the goal is to plow all available resources into Firefox, then cutting down on expenses that don't directly or indirectly support the existence of Firefox seems key.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Firefox losing marketshare and how would you save it?

#78

Post by nwah1 »

paxys wrote: post #52
selfhoster11 wrote: post #2

They should focus on saving Firefox. - Cut out all (or at the very least, most) initiatives that don't serve the goal of promoting Firefox's market share or sustainability going forward - Donate the major money drains that aren't Firefox to the Apache Foundation or another worthy custodian - Fire all inessential staff that don't want to work on Firefox. - Get a CEO/upper management that are in it for the passion, not…

You are answering the question "how can Mozilla make more money", but that wasn't what was asked. Mozilla as a whole is profitable already, and revenues have been growing close to 100% year over year. As a company they are in great health. Except that's not what users care about when picking a browser. Google has too much money, tech, marketing and too big an existing user and device base to make any kind of direct c…

They could pivot to compete with the Big Tech conglomerates in general.

Provide their own suite of integrated tools, search engines, communication platforms, and so on. But with a privacy-focused and ad-free approach.

DuckDuckGo already proved there is an appetite for something like this.

They could go further, and remain relevant and viable in the way that DDG is, even if they never again are the most popular browser.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Firefox losing marketshare and how would you save it?

#79

Post by benjamir »

chockablocker wrote: post #61

Everybody is moving to mobile and almost nobody uses Firefox on mobile. However, Firefox mobile does support extensions. Is that something that could emphasized? However, Firefox speed on mobile is much slower than Chrome. That should probably be improved upon. For desktop there's not much of a distinguishing factor left. Chrome is good enough. I like Firefox for the privacy, but is that enough of a distinguishing fa…

Ff on mobile with uBlock origin is IMO awesome.

I switched angrily to Chrome on mobile ca. 4y ago, but came back ca. 2y to give it a 2nd chance and I'm not missing Chrome.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Firefox losing marketshare and how would you save it?

#80

Post by greatgib »

paxys wrote: post #52
selfhoster11 wrote: post #2

They should focus on saving Firefox. - Cut out all (or at the very least, most) initiatives that don't serve the goal of promoting Firefox's market share or sustainability going forward - Donate the major money drains that aren't Firefox to the Apache Foundation or another worthy custodian - Fire all inessential staff that don't want to work on Firefox. - Get a CEO/upper management that are in it for the passion, not…

You are answering the question "how can Mozilla make more money", but that wasn't what was asked. Mozilla as a whole is profitable already, and revenues have been growing close to 100% year over year. As a company they are in great health. Except that's not what users care about when picking a browser. Google has too much money, tech, marketing and too big an existing user and device base to make any kind of direct c…

I think that the point of the GP is not necessarily about money, but to have the structure focus on Firefox. ie that it should be the source and the objective of the funding to have all the attention that it needs.
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