Firefox is great. Just use it and tell your friends to use it. Problem solved
Ask HN: Why is Firefox losing marketshare and how would you save it?
151–160 of 949 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why is Firefox losing marketshare and how would you save it?
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
headscratch I used profiles with Ff for ages... what is the difference to Chrome's?
The usability and discoverability. I use almost exclusively Firefox but I have stopped using the profiles since the UX isn't good enough.
about:profiles looks like a debugging page, not something you use for launching a profile. And I'm not referring to its aspect, but usability. It's not made to be used daily.
I'll have to see if it can be "designed" with userChrome.css or something and I'll give it a try.
Re: Ask HN: Why is Firefox losing marketshare and how would you save it?
#153Earlier 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.
I can't remember Firefox crashing in recent years and that includes times I approached 2000 open tabs. Though after using the same profile for over 5 years now it has trouble remembering the color scheme for whatever reason.
Re: Ask HN: Why is Firefox losing marketshare and how would you save it?
#154Earlier 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 subtitle of the question was "What would you do if you were in charge of Mozilla? How would you save Firefox?" My answer is an attempt at addressing these two questions. My goal wasn't to make Mozilla more profitable, but to ensure that it's focused on what should be its core mission, rather than the mire of sideshows that they engage in at the moment. Also, I don't care how Mozilla the amorphous blob of a corpor…
As a regular end user why do I care about what Mozilla's mission is? Apple makes shiny devices, Google gives me great free services, and in return I use their (perfectly great) browsers. What is one single reason to use Firefox?
As long as these large companies continue to put effort into their browsers (which Microsoft didn't do with IE), users are simply never going to switch, the same way no one is using desktop Linux or LibreOffice or DuckDuckGo.
Re: Ask HN: Why is Firefox losing marketshare and how would you save it?
#155They 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…
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Re: Ask HN: Why is Firefox losing marketshare and how would you save it?
#156I mean, the reason everybody moved to Chrome last time was because it was faster than Firefox/IE and it included Flash so you didn't have that stupid update popup every time you logged in. Flash isn't a thing anymore, but if they could make it faster than Chrome (not just as fast) while keeping up with web standards, it would work. I don't know where you get money for such a venture, but IBM (Red Hat) and Amazon both…
> but if they could make it faster than Chrome (not just as fast) while keeping up with web standards, it would work
This is easier to be said than done, as browsers are mostly limited by I/O nowadays. There's a little you can do about it other than introducing something like AMP. I'm afraid Google is going to win this one.
Re: Ask HN: Why is Firefox losing marketshare and how would you save it?
#157make it the fastest browser in terms of loading and launching. rest will follow
Re: Ask HN: Why is Firefox losing marketshare and how would you save it?
#158Why? Firefox is just an advertising platform for other Mozilla products:
* Mozilla VPN ($5/month)
* Pocket Premium ($5/month)
And a way to monetize users:
* Google search ($500 million / year)
* Paid ads in the search bar
And a way to radicalize you to fight for privacy, so that you'll donate:
* Donations (400,000 donations / year)
Let it die, I say.
Re: Ask HN: Why is Firefox losing marketshare and how would you save it?
#159They 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…
I use Firefox. Not exclusively, but most of the time, on principle.
I would call it usable, but not "very usable". For normal people, Chrome(ium) UX is better. For power users, Vivaldi is a far better choice despite the Chromium browser engine. And for both of these groups, Firefox UX worsens and improves seemingly at random.
Quite frankly, I'm conflicted whether I should recommend Firefox at all. If I say "look, here's Firefox! It's more private than Chrome, and almost as fast and error-free!", and then Mozilla goes on to ruin that perception 6 months later (as they are wont to do), then it's my reputation and credibility at stake. Not only is that an unnecessary ego hit, but also makes me look like a liar (or at best, like an ivory tower dweller divorced from reality).
Re: Ask HN: Why is Firefox losing marketshare and how would you save it?
#160Why losing marketshare? Because it's a statistical error on mobile, and world is going mobile more and more each year. 60-80% of visits are now mobile, depending on country and website type.
Without mobile, any investment in desktop no matter how good would still mean losing marketshare in general.
But winning mobile is not possible IMO. Android Chromium is just too good, slicker, faster, better managing memory etc, and Apple bans other engines and Apple users go all-Apple most of the time.