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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?

#301

Post by mrandish »

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.

FF is slightly more customizable for non-tech users. It used to be almost infinitely more customizable.

The difference has gone from dramatic to negligible and even that much is now hidden behind flags that don't even appear in the UI.

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

#302

Post by sovok_x »

concinds wrote: post #138

The best way to predict the future is to analyse the constraints on what can happen. There is no mass-switching campaign in favor of Firefox. The only foreseeable hope of one happening in the future, is if ManifestV3 kills adblockers, and people decide to switch to Firefox; but now there are so many competitors that oppose ManifestV3 (Brave, Opera, Vivaldi) that Firefox isn't ideally positioned to benefit. Otherwise,…

Well, if they reproduce pre-Proton UI, Developer Tools and userChrome.css this way I'll just use it without complaints, despite being former diehard fan of Firefox. Because when they killed XUL addons and started messing with UI/UX every so often I stopped being one and now already consider it one of the Chrome average lookalikes on PC as there is no practical difference between using ungoogled Chromium (before manifest v3) and latest Firefox in my use-case. With Chromium being slightly better because I don't need to jump through hoops to install unpacked local addons there.

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

#303

Post by camjohnson26 »

paxys wrote: post #52
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…

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…

I know many people who used to use Firefox and moved on to Brave. Brave has a mission that is easier to get behind and till it’s unclear what Firefox is trying to be.

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

#304

Post by CoolGuySteve »

sebmellen wrote: post #267
Jayakumark wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 peopl…

Fuck, I'll do it for a mere million dollars. The market has spoken.

I can't do much worse than losing 85% market share.

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

#305

Post by [deleted] »

phkahler wrote: post #38
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…

>> 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…

[deleted]

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

#306

Post by nicoburns »

throwawayboise wrote: post #265
Jaepa wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I would imagine huge number of non-technical users share a computer and want their own chrome profiles so that they can access their own emails without signing out of their family members. I know my middle-aged parents use Chrome in this way for example, and it would be a blocker for switching them to Firefox.

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

#307

Post by selfhoster11 »

vimy wrote: post #234
selfhoster11 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Firefox dies, the open web dies. It's that simple. For the open web to remain open, there needs to be at least one more truly independent source of authority regarding how a rendering engine should work. Everyone else has thrown in the towel and abdicated that authority to Google by embedding Blink. Google is either actively malicious to the open web, or doesn't care about it other than as something they can strip…

Why does everyone always forget about Safari in these discussions? Safari has a respectable marketshare on mobile / tablets. Not as good on desktop but it’s not a lost cause.

It's not a relevant browser. The last time I have seen Safari installed on a Windows machine was likely 2013-14, if not earlier. It doesn't have an Android version (which makes it less relevant on smartphones). It doesn't support Linux, which lots of the power user/tech trailblazer crowd is using. It's not open source, unlike Firefox or Chromium. It lags in features (which to be fair, isn't bad when they impact privacy).

I don't think there's a good case to be made for Safari outside of Apple devices.

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

#308

Post by cglong »

jasondclinton wrote: post #180
paxys wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it better than Chrome + uBlock Origin/Privacy Badger/Ghostery?

Yes, because Firefox allows uBlock on Android. Browsing the mobile web with ad-block is such a huge quality improvement.

You could also use Brave or (Kiwi + uBlock Origin) on Android, both of which are Chromium derivatives.

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

#309

Post by akdor1154 »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #245
nicoburns wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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've tried using it on Android and it simply doesn't work on my hardware. Takes minutes to load a page.

Since the re-architecture? Its pretty great now.

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

#310

Post by ev1 »

rvieira wrote: post #23
joombaga wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give examples of some very heavy and badly designed sites?

I wouldn't call it "badly designed", but certainly heavy. I've opened a free account with ClickUp. It _feels_ a lot snappier in Chrome.

I'd consider loading several dozen third party tracking scripts leading to thousands of requests on load badly designed.
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