Fork it, create a new non-profit to oversee its development, a la Linux kernel.
Ask HN: Why is Firefox losing marketshare and how would you save it?
261–270 of 949 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why is Firefox losing marketshare and how would you save it?
#262Earlier quoted context omitted.
> [...] (bonuses tied directly to increase in Firefox market share). This might be a perverse incentive depending on if your goal is to make Firefox a good browser or just a popular one.
True, but at this point it doesn't feel to me that the community has that much to lose. If we're truly sub-5% like Statcounter says, then as long as we minimally muzzle this particular paperclip maximiser (say, the browser engine must remain Gecko or an in-house project and cannot be Blink, user privacy must be no worse than currently, selling data or "partnering with" third parties is disallowed) and let it run for…
> If we're truly sub-5% like Statcounter says
You know, that's the real question we should make before going on this entire exercise. Are the usage statistics any reliable?
Firefox is the one browser that blocks the things those sites use to measure market share. Why would we expect their results to be real?
Re: Ask HN: Why is Firefox losing marketshare and how would you save it?
#263[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: Why is Firefox losing marketshare and how would you save it?
#264I want to be done with Firefox so badly. I just don't want to go to Google. There's this really obnoxious issue where search in the address bar has taken a complete dive recently. For example, if I want to go to reddit.com/r/videos and it's a page I go to often, I can't just type "videos" because the suggestions that come up are links to threads I've visited recently. None of the suggestions are to reddit.com/r/video…
I started using Brave - it's still based on Chromium, but at least it's not really Google.
Brave + DDG (Browser + Essentials) + ublock origin. I don't remember when was the last time I saw an ad.
Re: Ask HN: Why is Firefox losing marketshare and how would you save it?
#265Earlier 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…
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.
How many elderly grandmothers and other non-technical users give two shits about having multiple profiles in their browser?
Re: Ask HN: Why is Firefox losing marketshare and how would you save it?
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The decline of Firefox started with Chrome's JavaScript engine, who was years ahead of Firefox's performance. The focus on JavaScript-heavy websites was already growing, and Firefox was slow to catch up.
Now they're about the same performance-wise, but the mind share lost was brutal. there was a period that the only advantages Firefox had over Chrome were memory use and extensions, and they had to get rid of the NPAPI extensions for security reasons.
Re: Ask HN: Why is Firefox losing marketshare and how would you save it?
#267They 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…
Current CEO is a cancer to Mozilla, her main goal seems like to make more money personally before Mozilla goes bankrupt. As long is as she is there - there is no hope https://itdm.com/mozilla-firefox-usage-down-85-but-why-are-e...
The arrogance is hard to believe.
> In 2018 she received a total of $2,458,350 in compensation from Mozilla, which represents a 400% payrise since 2008. On the same period, Firefox marketshare was down 85%. When asked about her salary she stated "I learned that my pay was about an 80% discount to market. Meaning that competitive roles elsewhere were paying about 5 times as much. That's too big a discount to ask people and their families to commit to." [0]
Re: Ask HN: Why is Firefox losing marketshare and how would you save it?
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> The real (and often downvoted) answer is that Mozilla compromised on their core values. A "death by a thousand cuts", as it were. I expect it's downvoted because it's laughable. 99% of browser users don't give a shit about those things. If a poll were to be taken of the HN users who switched to Chrome, I doubt even a quarter would cite that as the reason. It was indeed a death by a thousand cuts, but the thousand c…
99% of browser users is not relevant, the question is how big a percentage of FireFox' users (the ones that remain, that is). Because if you lose those that is a much harder thing to recover from than to not win back the other 99% that you don't have anyway. And I suspect that the FF users of old care very much, though, of course I'm only speaking for myself here.
Re: Ask HN: Why is Firefox losing marketshare and how would you save it?
#269I 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…
about:profiles
Re: Ask HN: Why is Firefox losing marketshare and how would you save it?
#270Earlier 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…
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. A…
I think Thunderbird gets to piggyback on some Mozilla infrastructure - hosting, CI/CD, receiving donations into a dedicated Thunderbird pool - but has been mostly cut out as you describe for some time. https://blog.thunderbird.net/2012/07/the-community-is-standi...