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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?

#681

Post by D13Fd »

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 wish Vivaldi wasn't horrible. I gave it a real try on all my devices for about 6 months a couple of years ago, but it is just too unreliable and prone to crashes and random issues. I've been way, way happier on Firefox ever since.

If Firefox goes the rest of the way down the tubes, I'll try Edge before I go Vivaldi again.

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

#682

Post by aeturnum »

selfhoster11 wrote: post #662
aeturnum wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your topline goal, but I am surprised by the way you think about it. Most of what you recommend has no obvious connection to firefox-the-program. Like... > - 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 the money, a…

My impression is that Mozilla is too focused on basically everything that isn't Firefox - to me, it's axiomatic that Firefox wouldn't be in such a horrifying shape if they were focused on it. They are lacking for attention, and not money, which is why they should jettison everything that isn't Firefox or doesn't serve Firefox. Anyone else can do funny extensions or VPN or what have you got, but browser-making is Mozi…

> it's axiomatic that Firefox wouldn't be in such a horrifying shape if they were focused on it

In my experience many things come to be in horrifying shape because of focus as well, so I don't agree with your logic.

> which is why they should jettison everything that isn't Firefox or doesn't serve Firefox.

I mean, 4 / 6 of the products on their product pages have Firefox in the name[1]? Really begs the question on what you mean by "doesn't serve firefox." I guess you mean you don't like the VPN or Pocket?

> if they made Firefox into a power user browser again, somehow, then power users would flock to it again and bring in some of their peers and family

I think maybe the reason we have different views on this is that we might view the user base differently. I'm not sure how you mean "power users" - it's a fuzzy term - but I suggest we start at the number of people in the worldwide IT industry[2]. Probably not all super users, but likely more technically savvy. It seems there are about 55,000,000 of us, but that's in an internet user population of 4.66 billion[3]. That puts the power user population at about 1.4% of the people represented in the market share statistics. So if global relevance is your goal, I'm not sure that the power users are gonna do it. Even if Firefox dominated the market they would need to bring a lot of friends and family along to get the people needed to push Firefox up ~6%.

The web is just way, way bigger than it used to be and is serving way more people. I totally agree that Firefox is failing to find a convincing foothold in the modern web, but I'm unconvinced that appealing to power users would benefit the browser or the web more than any other group. I also think that, if Firefox caters to a particular demographic with unusually deep expertise, that they risk moving the browser in a direction that's less appealing to users who lack that deep expertise.

[1] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/products/

[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1126677/it-employment-wo...

[3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/617136/digital-populatio...

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

#683

Post by Klonoar »

selfhoster11 wrote: post #519
softwarebeware wrote: post #31

Firefox is losing marketshare because Chrome is the default browser on Android devices and Android devices are the number one device in the world. Most people don't even know how to change their default browser. I don't think Firefox needs saving. Those who use it are active and committed to it.

> I don't think Firefox needs saving. Those who use it are active and committed to it. Don't be so sure. I stuck to Android though thick and thin since 2.1 or 2.2, but my next phone will be an iPhone, because I bloody had enough of their nonsense . Firefox is harder to replace, if only because it's the only counter to Google's browser monopoly (so I consider it a moral imperative to keep using it), but if they keep r…

Look, I hate to say it, but Firefox is not the counter to a Chrome monopoly. Firefox lost this fight quite some time ago, and the only thing truly stopping Chrome from owning the web is Apple and Safari.

Yes, it's true that it's fairly anti-competitive behavior to only allow WebKit on iOS, but the painful truth here is that it stops Chrome from being spread around enough devices and taking over. Google cannot push Apple around anywhere near as easily.

Firefox is a literal drop in the bucket compared to that effort.

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

#684

Post by ChristopherDrum »

panarky wrote: post #533
rpnx wrote: post #473

My thoughts on this are that every time I see a news piece about Firefox it's about "social justice", some code of conduct controversy, or something else utterly unimportant to web browser selection. Being "Open Source" does nothing for me when Firefox engages in the same crap as other closed source browsers, like Pocket. Mozilla also allowed social issues to take precedence over retaining good engineers. Whether you…

> 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?

I am someone who does give a shit about not wanting to reward assholes.

There is one thing I think is worth noting. There's always all of this talk about, "It's the talent that matters, not the social justice stance of a developer. Keep the talented assholes; don't hire for social justice posturing!"

Well, I'm waiting to see all of those displaced "talented assholes" band together to create a product so compelling it will *prove* they were replaced by inferior developers for "social justice" reasons. By now there should be so many uber-talented people who aren't given their fair shake because of their abhorent political/social beliefs.

Or maybe... just maybe... those assholes talk a big game (as assholes often do), but aren't as indispensible as they believe themselves to be?

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

#685

Post by simondotau »

mike00632 wrote: post #645
simondotau wrote: post #636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think supporting a mandate to wear a basic cloth mask is a hill anyone should be willing to die on. I'm fiercely, fiercely pro-mainstream-science, and there's no doubt that proper N95 masks (or better) are very effective against respiratory disease transmission. But mask mandates almost always permit basic cloth masks which lack strong evidence of efficacy. If we're not going to mandate an effective mask, I h…

Can you cite why you believe masks don't work? It seems at odds with the scientific consensus as described by the CDC.

N95 masks work. Well designed, well fitted, correctly worn, hygienically cleaned cloth masks probably work okay, though good evidence of this is still limited and based largely upon assumptions. From my own observations, the overwhelming majority of people are wearing a mask of poor quality and/or in a manner which the scientific consensus couldn't possibly agree was effective. And I doubt most people are washing them with soap and water every single day.

If we're not going to mandate an effective mask, I honestly don't see what the point of the mandate is. It makes as much sense to me as seatbelt mandates accepting a knitted scarf as an acceptable seatbelt.

-------

"Cloth face masks show minimum efficacy in source control than the medical grade mask. The efficacy of cloth face masks filtration varies and depends on the type of material used, number of layers, and degree of moisture in mask and fitting of mask on face."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7497125/

"The use of cloth masks during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic is under debate."

"Until a cloth mask design is proven to be equally effective as a medical or N95 mask, wearing cloth masks should not be mandated for healthcare workers."

"In 2015, we conducted a randomized controlled trial to compare the efficacy of cloth masks with that of medical masks and controls (standard practice) among healthcare workers in Vietnam. Rates of infection were consistently higher among those in the cloth mask group than in the medical mask and control groups."

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/10/20-0948_article

"Your cloth face mask isn't protecting you against the coronavirus variant omicron, health officials say. As common as cloth face masks have become, health experts say, they do little to prevent tiny virus particles from getting into your nose or mouth and aren't effective against the new variant."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2022/01/05/cloth-...

"They found that the effectiveness of the masks varied widely: a three-layer knitted cotton mask blocked an average of 26.5 percent of particles in the chamber, while a washed, two-layer woven nylon mask with a filter insert and metal nose bridge blocked 79 percent of particles on average. Other masks scored somewhere in between."

https://www.epa.gov/sciencematters/epa-researchers-test-effe...

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

#686

Post by sciurus »

tomxor wrote: post #339

> Why is Firefox losing marketshare Can we validate that it is in fact losing market share first? It's possible there are other factors such as the increased privacy capabilities and integrated tracker blocking and tendency for Firefox users to value and use these features and plugins, or even useragent string spoofing... I do the later so I look like a chrome/windows user because some sites will block features from…

Those are all valid points, but Mozilla's own telemetry shows their userbase shrinking.

https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity

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

#687

Post by tomxor »

sciurus wrote: post #686
tomxor wrote: post #339

> Why is Firefox losing marketshare Can we validate that it is in fact losing market share first? It's possible there are other factors such as the increased privacy capabilities and integrated tracker blocking and tendency for Firefox users to value and use these features and plugins, or even useragent string spoofing... I do the later so I look like a chrome/windows user because some sites will block features from…

Those are all valid points, but Mozilla's own telemetry shows their userbase shrinking. https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity

many users turn off that telemetry, including me.

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

#688

Post by CuriousSpider »

selfhoster11 wrote: post #437
mulmen wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Get a CEO/upper management that are in it for the passion, not the money, and cut their salaries (bonuses tied directly to increase in Firefox market share). If Mozilla is just Firefox then why to they need a CEO at all? Why does a web browser need an executive team? It doesn't make any sense to me. Linux doesn't have a CEO. Python doesn't have a CEO. Postgres doesn't have a CEO. But all those projects have commerc…

> If Mozilla is just Firefox then why to they need a CEO at all? Why does a web browser need an executive team? It doesn't make any sense to me. Linux doesn't have a CEO. Python doesn't have a CEO. Postgres doesn't have a CEO. It doesn't matter what the top position is called: CEO, the Grand Warlock of Yendor, or Benevolent Dictator For Life. CEO ≈ whoever is in charge and entrusted with enough authority that they ca…

> Apache has a reputation as the graveyard of open source software.

Interesting. I did not seem to know that. I always thought that Apache was a leader in open source since a lot of the notable tools (i.e. Spark, Airflow, Kafta) are maintained by Apache.

Are there any articles that I can learn more about this?

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

#689

Post by artdigital »

hammyhavoc wrote: post #565
artdigital wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot the part that comes after: > By 2020, her salary had risen to over $3 million. In the same year the Mozilla Corporation laid off approximately 250 employees due to shrinking revenues. Baker blamed this on the Coronavirus pandemic. Yikes, makes me also consider just switching off it again

Where would we go though? It's bordering on Chromium-derivative or bust at this point.

Safari or Brave

Brave is the most non-google chromium variant, kind of like a Firefox based on chromium, and safari is still a good browser on Mac

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

#690

Post by ly »

heavenlyblue wrote: post #614
tored wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox is inferior still. It has problems with memory, performance, rendering and battery drainage. Every year I switch to Firefox and use it as a main browser. It usually goes for a month and then I need to switch again because Firefox has too many glitches. Firefox has had a bad policy of not fixing the basics first before new features. I do use Firefox as my main development browser still but that is because I’m…

What glitches?

I’ve encountered annoying bugs like Firefox being unable to render elements when SVG filters are applied to them so they just disappear, or smaller things like extreme banding on gradients that no other browser has.

My biggest issue was (maybe still is, I quit using Firefox last year) is that on wide color gamut displays, like every MacBook Pro, it renders colors completely wrong. So it would render literally every website, save black and white website, completely incorrectly.

My main browser these days is Safari (so I’m still enjoying a lot of browser bugs). When I really need something to work or need specific de tools I switch to Chrome. For me Firefox is in a middle ground between those two browsers, resulting in me never actually using it anymore.

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