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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?

#291

Post by ameminator »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #210
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.

In my experience, Firefox is not more customizable than Vivaldi. Examples include: custom tab layouts, sizing options, default behaviors and more.

It would be really nice if they went all-in on those custom features, but I suspect it might need to come from the Servo base engine, first.

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

#292

Post by noselasd »

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 can't use Firefox on mobile, its tab management is too annoying, that's the sole reason I abandoned it before christmas.

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

#293

Post by dralley »

jacquesm wrote: post #268
dralley wrote: post #254

Earlier 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. 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.

>99% of browser users is not relevant

You should do that math again.

>And I suspect that the FF users of old care very much

But do they? Firefox's rise was largely due to IE6 being pure trash, and the average user of a web browser in 2008 being a lot more knowledgeable than the average user today.

Marketshare, by definition, is the share of the market. The market has expanded dramatically, but desktop browsing itself has plummeted, and a lot of users are just going to default to whatever they're using on their primary device (their phone), which is Google. "Google" is synonomous with using the internet in the same way that the internet explorer logo used to be in the mid 2000s.

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

#294

Post by xfitm3 »

Jayakumark wrote: post #164
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…

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...

As someone who knew someone who worked there she is absolutely nuts and her thinking is beyond radical. She will destroy Mozilla if she doesn't step down. Assuming it's not too late already.

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

#296

Post by Datagenerator »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #86
sockaddr wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Don't forget to disable all prefetching, landing pages visiting previous sites, studies and pings on each start and shutdown to improve privacy.

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

#298

Post by ameminator »

BlackLotus89 wrote: post #42
silicon2401 wrote: post #29

Firefox makes poor decisions. I've been trying to use firefox for years and just gave up this past weekend. As far as I know, there's no way to customize your firefox home view on android so that you have a permanent, customizable set of links, and nothing else. You can have "recent bookmarks" which disappear eventually, presumably once they're no longer "recent". Can you imagine being the one to approve such a bone-…

* Go into the settings, customize, home * Disable everything. * Visit an important page * Menu -> add to top sites Voila

I mean, this will work, but it seems a far cry from a truly custom home page.

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

#300

Post by Shared404 »

carapace wrote: post #127
Shared404 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>they need to answer the question, why should Firefox exist? If there is no compelling reason, well, there you go. If there is, double down on that make that reason shine. Unfortunately, that reason (browser engine diversity)is compelling to people who understand the situation, but not general consumers - and it's impossible to make general consumers care, unless maybe Firefox went for an edgy "rebel against the man"…

I feel like I understand the situation but I'm doubtful that browser engine diversity is compelling. It seems like duplicate effort. As long as Chromium accepts pull requests, what's the problem with browser monoculture? (In case it's not clear, I'm asking in earnest. I'm not trolling.) - - - - edit: Okay, pull requests alone are not enough, but the objections y'all are raising seem like they could all be answered by…

I know it's in bad taste to complain about downvotes on HN, but why is this downvoted?

It's a legitimate question, in a realm that many people including in HN's general demographic don't consider.

If someone wants to learn something, why not help them instead of downvoting into oblivion because they don't know or disagree with something you know/believe?

Edit to respond to edit:

The biggest reason I think is that there's no way a fork would survive - the only way that it could would be if Microsoft/Apple/Facebook/$SOMEBODY_WITH_MONEY threw their weight behind it, which is unlikely, because any change which harms users will either help or be neutral to any of these companies.

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