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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?

#141

Post by BlackLotus89 »

nicoburns wrote: post #117
BlackLotus89 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 co…

In Chrome I can switch from one profile to another as fast as opening a new tab (i.e. instantly). Can Firefox do that?

With containers you can. It's literally opening a new tab.

If you have two profiles open at the same time like described you can easily switch desktops. The clear seperation of work and private browsing sessions helps me as well.

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

#142

Post by scotty79 »

They should copy everything DuckDuckGo android browser does and develop in this direction.

Basically default mode should decruftify all the websites you visit. Destroy all the known garbage on websites that doesn't serve browsing expeirience just tracking and advertising.

Have an easily accessible slider to adjust level of this intervention for current website so you can turn all the crap back on if site doesn't work or complains, or disable event more (javascript, decorative styles).

I'd be also happy if they provided additional tools for modifying the way content is presented, for example influencing order of repeating element like table rows and other. Filtering. Site specific bookmarking. Linking to specific positions in the document. Highlighting.

It should bring back the control to the user and give the users more control they ever had

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

#143

Post by BeefWellington »

I actually have wondered about this. Given the changes in the way tracking protection has been done, have there been any actual studies/analyses that show Firefox is losing marketshare? If it's all based on ad companies and server-side detection, I'm unclear that you could actually correctly make the claim.

If anyone has links I'd be interested in reading; I'm sure there are fingerprinting techniques, but ones that rely on JS would potentially be prone to being miscounted due to NoScript (365k+ users of it according to FF).

For the record, I do not doubt that chrome dwarfs everyone, but I'm curious about the way the numbers are being reported/studied.

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

#144

Post by captn3m0 »

nicoburns wrote: post #126
assemblylang wrote: post #81

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%[…

I feel like Firefox on Android should be more popular than it is. Chrome is default, but it doesn't offer an Ad Blocker. Firefox with uBlock origin is a far superior experience. Although there are other 3rd party chromium-based browsers that are just as good. I suspect that it's poor market share is due the very poor performance of the older fennec implementation.

I’d argue that FF could possibly convince some manufacturers to preload Firefox with uBlock installed as a faster browser (if UCBrowser could, surely FF can).

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

#145

Post by weaksauce »

cassianoleal wrote: post #94
benjamir wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

headscratch I used profiles with Ff for ages... what is the difference to Chrome's?

In Chrome there's an icon you click to switch. Honestly, if someone would create a FF extension that was just that, it would probably cover 90% of what's considered superior in Chrome.

have you used container tabs? those are effectively "different profiles" for what most people consider them. It's still shared extensions and history and bookmarks but you can login with different accounts in different tabs and it keeps that separate.

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

#146

Post by selfhoster11 »

TAForObvReasons wrote: post #87
paxys wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I fully agree. If the consistent messaging is meant to be "use this browser, it's private and respects you", but it's then compromised by advertising and data abuse, it seems hypocritical and damages adoption of the browser.

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

#147

Post by captn3m0 »

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…

Firefox Android does support extensions, Firefox mobile arguable includes iOS - which does not.

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

#148

Post by pdimitar »

At least in my eyes and I suppose in the eyes of other techies and open Web idealists:

Because Mozilla became just another classic corporation that's laser-focused on extracting value for shareholders and executives and nothing else. A year or two ago an article about Mozilla made the rounds here: executives collecting fat bonuses (and some leaving afterwards?). Some mere months later they fired a lot of people.

Is that the right signal to send to a community that wants an open Web browsing experience? Squeeze any money you can and then fire staff. Those pesky people that have the audacity to want money for their work, how dare they!

As the (currently) top commenter @selfhoster11 says, cut out everything that's not Firefox or is not related to its mission.

I could probably agree to use some of their other offerings like Pocket or VPN, assuming they're done well. Mozilla needs the diversified income, like badly. They are at the mercy of Google and always have been. *THIS IS NOT OKAY* and should have been addressed like 10 years ago. If the expenses are so huge, well, again, fire everyone who's not working on Firefox or closely related to it.

Finally, Mozilla needs no "executives". Get a CEO, CTO and CFO who are passionate about the mission, get rid of everyone else at the top. It's a semi-charity organization, the hell does it need a board of directors for?

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

#149

Post by fuzzy2 »

softwarebeware wrote: post #31

Firefox is losing marketshare because Chrome is the default browser on Android devices and Android devices are the number one device in the world. Most people don't even know how to change their default browser. I don't think Firefox needs saving. Those who use it are active and committed to it.

> Those who use it are active and committed to it.

Are they though? Are they so very committed they'll take all the crap Mozilla throws at them? Because Mozilla sure is trying their very best to get rid of Firefox users.

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