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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?

#581

Post by hammyhavoc »

brnt wrote: post #425
paxys wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 L…

> Google gives me great free services 2005 called, they want their Google-enthusiasm back.

If Google is the new Microsoft, what's Microsoft now?

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

#582

Post by Gigachad »

echelon wrote: post #413
Barrin92 wrote: post #320

>Why is Firefox losing marketshare very simple answer, because Mozilla doesn't control the infrastructure that runs on 80% of smartphones in the world and ships Firefox as the default browser. It really has nothing to do with the bespoke features that people on HN pay attention to. Firefox doesn't control any platform and defaults matter. There's a reason Google pays them a gazillion dollars to be the standard search…

Microsoft was forced to allow browser choice in the EU. I don't see why Apple and Google shouldn't be subject to the same, with the added condition that browser rendering engine diversity gets preferential treatment. Give users a 60% chance to see Firefox as the first option, then show them the multitude of Chrome/Safari-based browsers.

Because no one cares anymore about browser diversity now that the main browser is open source, runs on every platform and complies mostly with browser standards. Not to say it isn't important. But it was way worse when IE was creating a dependency on IE and Windows due to poor standards.

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

#583

Post by Gigachad »

maccam94 wrote: post #525
echelon wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft was forced to allow browser choice in the EU. I don't see why Apple and Google shouldn't be subject to the same, with the added condition that browser rendering engine diversity gets preferential treatment. Give users a 60% chance to see Firefox as the first option, then show them the multitude of Chrome/Safari-based browsers.

The problem is that even when that choice is given, every Google search pushes Chrome, Microsoft constantly pushes you to switch to Edge. I'm not sure how much Apple pushes Safari, but last I heard it actually gives superior battery life on Mac OS so there's a real technical reason to not use Firefox.

Apple literally doesn't allow different browsers on iOS. You can only put a new UI skin over webkit.

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

#584

Post by selfhoster11 »

vi2837 wrote: post #130
waingake wrote: post #119

What if we forked it with a Kickstarter campaign to fund core engineering salaries, followed by a low monthly subscription. Personally I'd happily pay if I knew the money was going where it should.

Probably, Mozilla could try this financing model, to save FF.

They could just jettison most of the dead weight they don't need anyway.

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

#585

Post by Melatonic »

I thought Firefox was making a come back but maybe I was wrong - personally I started using it again everywhere maybe a year ago. And of course I was all about Firefox way back in the day. Chrome going to shit led me straight back and it has been super solid with a decent array of extensions and themes and whatnot.

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

#586

Post by panarky »

bostonsre wrote: post #547
panarky wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't give a shit how nice the developers who made my web browser are It sounds like you do give a shit that they care about "social justice" and you don't want to use their browser because of that? Or are there specific features / functionality / performance / security issues that prevent you from using Firefox and are somehow caused by the worldview of the developers?

Just interpreting what the OP said and not really sure where I stand on the topic, but I think he means that "social justice" controversies have purged asshole devs that were competent developers producing good features and that firefox as a product is not as good due to that. Taking senior engineers off the roster will usually impact the product whether or not they were assholes.

In my experience Firefox has become a much better browser in the last 18 months, so if there was an asshole purge then maybe that helped?

If Firefox is missing specific capabilities that make it noncompetitive, and those deficits are traced to the asshole purge, then @rpnx might strengthen their argument by citing those examples.

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

#587

Post by hammyhavoc »

camjohnson26 wrote: post #303
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…

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.

What is Brave's mission in your opinion?

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

#588

Post by mhitza »

sfink wrote: post #446
mhitza wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the OP, but I consider it a soft crash every time I update Firefox in my OS, and it won't allow me to spawn new tabs until I restart Firefox. Annoying behavior they've included a couple years back.

If I understand what you're reporting correctly, then that's something your OS "included a couple of years back". If you install Firefox from Mozilla's site, it won't have these update problems. What's happening is that your package manager is swapping Firefox's bits out from under it while it's running. Firefox's built-in update system doesn't do that. Which is not to say that I think you shouldn't be using a packag…

Then someone at Redhat was probably bribed by some Googler, cause it only happens with Firefox updates /s

Joke aside, Firefox is aware that it's been updated and the new tab states that I have to restart my browser. I'm not familiar with the inner workings of Firefox, I just expect it to have everything it needs to function, in working memory. I've been using Fedora for close to 14 years now, Firefox always installed from system packages, and the updates always replaced the existing files on disk without it affecting my application experience. No other desktop app I use has this behavior after updates while they where running.

A big fuss? No, got used to it already. But I still consider it a soft crash state that I encounter with Firefox.

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

#589

Post by ashwagary »

snird wrote: post #371
sebmellen wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

And she raised her pay while firing essential engineers: https://www.extremetech.com/computing/313658-mozilla-fires-2... I'm a firefox user for over 10 years. I think I'm now convinced there is no future, I'll have to start to adapt to another browser now. I'll give Vivaldi a try.

>I'll have to start to adapt to another browser now. I'll give Vivaldi a try.

Seems silly, I see no valid reason to switch browsers. What technical or functional limitations are you running into that didnt exist earlier?

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