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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?

#81

Post by assemblylang »

One thing missed when talking about Firefox's market share is desktop versus mobile market share.

If you look at Wikimedia's metrics, Firefox still has ~10% market share of the desktop browser market[0], not too bad considering Firefox is not the default browser on any platform outside of linux systems for the most part, and that Mozilla is much smaller entity than competing browser vendors. Still down from the ~30%[0] desktop share they had, but now they have 2 large competing entities offering default browsers so the decline is somewhat expected.

Also, contrast this with Firefox's ~0.7% share on mobile[0] where Mozilla has never been able to get a good foothold.

As long as Firefox isn't available as a default on mobile and as the share of mobile device web browsing increases, Firefox will keep losing total market share as a percentage.

Strategy wise, refocusing efforts on retaining that 10% desktop share might be a good idea. From there, work on building up more of the desktop share and then try marketing the mobile browser to the desktop browser community to build up mobile browser share.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_market_share#Summary_t...

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

#82

Post by nikanj »

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

I only start FF when I get a customer report about an issue on FF. I guess I start it seldom enough to always trigger some sort of watchdog?

Anyway, here's my 2 cents. I only open FireFox when a customer reports an issue, and I'm always barraged by a deluge of unwanted info, which doesn't encourage me to open FF more often.

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

#83

Post by 2Gkashmiri »

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…

can we just eat the execs?

on a more serious note, what if mozilla fires ALL execs? will it just crumble under its own weight or will that "industry linked remuneration" be replaced with more money for actual developers who get things done and are not in for the quick buck like address bar ads?

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

#84

Post by readthenotes1 »

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.

What he said was: get rid of the people who are not interested in making the Firefox browser better. Get rid of the distractions. Focus on the browser.

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

#86

Post by zelphirkalt »

sockaddr wrote: post #71
phkahler wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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.

Not claiming, that your experience isn't true, but: Firefox hasn't crashed for me in years! And I am a real tab hoarder. 400 tabs and more are not so uncommon for me. Then again I don't allow arbitrary websites to run all sorts of shit scripts. It might or might not be your hardware, or it might be the websites you visit.

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

#87

Post by TAForObvReasons »

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…

The real (and often downvoted) answer is that Mozilla compromised on their core values. A "death by a thousand cuts", as it were.

For me, it started back when "sponsored tiles" were first announced in 2014. On the surface it was obviously advertisements, but many defenders tried to argue that it was a "good thing"

Then there was the proprietary Pocket extension baked into the browser with no easy removal. Again, many defenders tried to argue it was a "good thing"

Then the "studies" channel was used to push a Mr Robot ad. It's unclear how it was aligned with the values, but defenders tried to argue it was a "good thing".

They partnered with Cliqz to collect data and make recommendations. Again, defenders tried to argue it was a "good thing"

They partnered with Booking.com to push advertisements, going so far as to argue that they didn't receive any monetary compensation and that it was just a "social experiment". Again, defenders tried to argue it was a "good thing"

This is just a sampling of the events in the last 8 years (sponsored tiles was 2014). Every single time, they may have received some sort of benefit, but a number of users who bought into firefox for the security and privacy aspects ... felt betrayed and left. Because if it isn't about the privacy, what is the USP of firefox? "Not google" is only a small part of the user base.

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

#88

Post by bentcorner »

garciasn wrote: post #62
phkahler wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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…

They offer nothing I cannot get elsewhere and thus I have no reason to switch. When it first came out, Firefox was faster, lighter and offered way better function than the alternatives at the time. Since then, competition has been fierce in the browser market and they’ve done little to distinguish themselves in any major way from their competitive set. Until they do something so vastly incomparable in the market, the…

Take a look at tree-style tabs. I started using them in FF and have looked several times at chromium-based add-ins and absolutely nothing comes close.

Edge vertical tabs is your best choice if you must use a chromium browser, however it is a weak imitation of TST.

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

#89

Post by nikanj »

iso1631 wrote: post #58
Nextgrid wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's exaggerating a bit bit his point still stands. After an update there's at least one extra tab about the update, and sometimes more like the recent-ish stupid color scheme feature.

Exaggerating isn't particularly helpful, makes me thing the problems the OP has with the browser are more based on perception of "culture" or something rather than the actual product

Perceptions are pretty much 100% of the reason people pick a browser.

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

#90

Post by dylan604 »

ErikCorry wrote: post #51
uniqueuid wrote: post #7

Maybe it has to do with its competitors being a 1.7 trillion dollar company and a 2.5 trillion dollar company! Winning against those requires not only better technology AND marketing AND consumer favor, but also leverage in the legal processes that enable/disable network effects. So anti-trust is unfortunately one of Mozilla's biggest hopes.

You think they don't have enough cash to save FF, when they get $400m a year from Google?

Googs just gave them $400m which means they have soooo much more than $400m. FF has to pay all of its budget with that, so hiring lawyers to take on Googs with that same bucket of money will never work. Googs will continue to give Moz $400m, but then turn right around and spend $401m on their lawyers to fight off whatever Moz can afford.
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