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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?

#201

Post by CamouflagedKiwi »

nwah1 wrote: post #78
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…

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 browse…

The last thing Mozilla needs is to spend more time pretending they're a big tech company and can compete with those guys. They should focus on Firefox (as GP said), not build a communication platform that will then fail versus Signal/WhatsApp/Hangouts/Teams/etc.

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

#202

Post by Jaepa »

BlackLotus89 wrote: post #74
ssorallen wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 co…

So I use this as well, but it utterly fails the elderly grandmother test.

Its not well known. Its not easily accessibly for non-technical users. & its not clear which profile you are currently using when you are using it.

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

#203

Post by feanaro »

selfhoster11 wrote: post #159
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…

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, her…

> I would call it usable, but not "very usable". For normal people, Chrome(ium) UX is better.

I can't imagine why you would say this. Could you point out some concrete examples of better UX?

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

#204

Post by selfhoster11 »

ameminator wrote: post #69
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…

I think that's a bit too far - for example, Thunderbird is a great web client. I do think they should have found a way to hold onto the Servo team and make that engine more useable and better than the base chromium engine. If they had been able to keep the Rust foundation on board, it would have also made sense. However, I do agree that their leadership has made terrible decisions and they've absolutely focused on th…

Thunderbird was on my mind when I was writing this. I think it ultimately comes down to whether they can afford any missteps or side concerns at all - and if the answer is "no", then Thunderbird must be cut loose no matter its value. It can always be mothballed until the times get better, or it can even be given "on loan" for some fixed duration to another trusted FOSS foundation and re-adopted when the time is up.

As good as Thunderbird is, I wouldn't want it to be anywhere near the top of Mozilla's priorities list right now.

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

#205

Post by Volundr »

Brakenshire wrote: post #118
bentcorner wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Multi Account Containers is also good.

Multi Account Containers is the key reason I use Firefox. I have to juggle multiple accounts for the same services for work. Containers makes this trivial. The closest chrome has is profiles which require a separate window and are just generally far more painful to use.

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

#208

Post by ameminator »

Brakenshire wrote: post #131
ameminator wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's a bit too far - for example, Thunderbird is a great web client. I do think they should have found a way to hold onto the Servo team and make that engine more useable and better than the base chromium engine. If they had been able to keep the Rust foundation on board, it would have also made sense. However, I do agree that their leadership has made terrible decisions and they've absolutely focused on th…

The obvious thing to do was continue to invest in Servo. If they could have produced a parallel layout engine, which could provide app like animations without fiddling on desktop and Android, and then make that easy to embed, they could have made real inroads into blink/webkit.

You're absolutely right. The fact that so many other browsers are based on chromium, is a blatant condemnation of how the Servo engine has not met an important demand. If Servo was properly useable outside of Firefox, we would have seen more open-source browsers use it.

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

#209

Post by CodeGlitch »

More and more people are concerned about privacy and security, see the popularity of VPNs in recent years. So Mozilla should concentrate on making Firefox the most privacy enhanced browser along with being the most secure. Marketing should double down on getting that message across.

Additionally it looks like Web Assembly has a promising future, so Firefox should having the best support for that.

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

#210

Post by JohnTHaller »

mrandish wrote: post #191

Restore "User Customizable" as a top-level priority. I came to FF initially over 15 years ago because add-ons could change almost anything including fundamental appearance and workflow. When changing to the new, far more limited add-on infrastructure ~5 yrs ago, Mozilla promised that new APIs would be added to re-enable hugely popular add-ons like Tab Mix Plus yet this and other add-ons users relied on still remain i…

Firefox is already more customizable than Safari or Chrome. If Safari and Chrome were growing in userbase due to being more customizable than Firefox, it might make sense.
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