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Ask HN: Why does Firefox have such a low market share anyways?

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Re: Ask HN: Why does Firefox have such a low market share anyways?

#121

Post by mrguyorama »

fooker wrote: post #47
louzell wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has not been my experience at all. I was compelled to use Chrome at my last job (there was a bunch of internal tooling built around Chrome assumptions). I was there for almost five years, so I did a whole lot more than kicked the tires. My daily driver has remained FF, and I have not perceived any noticeable difference in perf because of it.

I tried Firefox a few weeks ago on a 2015 MBP plugged into a 4K tv, it could basically not play any high res video at any watchable framerate. Safari did the best, Chrome was close.

I also had a 2015 MBP and watched 4k video on it basically every day. I have no idea what you experienced.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Firefox have such a low market share anyways?

#122

Post by fooker »

mrguyorama wrote: post #121
fooker wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried Firefox a few weeks ago on a 2015 MBP plugged into a 4K tv, it could basically not play any high res video at any watchable framerate. Safari did the best, Chrome was close.

I also had a 2015 MBP and watched 4k video on it basically every day. I have no idea what you experienced.

That's exactly how software bugs work, weird setup specific issues that are expensive to triage and fix.

But if you are not convinced see how many others have this issue by googling "site:reddit.com firefox stuttering on 4k video on mac"

Re: Ask HN: Why does Firefox have such a low market share anyways?

#123

Post by tzs »

Beached wrote: post #45
utopcell wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leveraged their monopoly ? How does that work exactly for Windows, MacOS and iOS in your mind ?

they implement features.only supported by chromium. see google meets blur background.

That's what they are supposed to do. The web standards bodies don't like to consider standardizing new features until there is an implementation in the field so they can see how well it works in practice.

So when one browser maker wants a new feature they make a spec and implement it. If it seems to be useful other browser makers will implement it, maybe with changes they think improve it. Then the standards bodies will look at all those and make a standard.

For that particular feature it was actually first suggested by people from Intel and Apple. Google thinks it is a good idea and is the first to write a spec for it and implement it. It seems highly likely that Mozilla and Apple will follow and it will be standardized.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Firefox have such a low market share anyways?

#124

Post by babalulu »

cebert wrote: post #8
seren wrote: post #4

I am still using Firefox as my main browser, but some sites are broken with Firefox and working fine with Chrome. So unless you are particularly motivated to stay on a given platform, practically it does not really makes sense as a user to stay committed.

I use Firefox as my daily driver and have not encountered any sites that work in Chrome but not Firefox.

The website for one of my local news stations, the one I prefer for severe weather coverage, causes Firefox to freeze. That started happening a few months ago, so I now have to use Chrome to check the weather. And last month my electric company's website stopped working with Firefox. It no longer displays any user data, such as amount owed, so I have to use Chrome to pay my bill. I've encountered a few other sites here and there while surfing.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Firefox have such a low market share anyways?

#125

Post by supertrope »

the_snooze wrote: post #72
thesuitonym wrote: post #15

Good points have already been raised, but don't neglect the rise of smartphones. When you get a Google phone that already has Google's browser installed, and it works relatively well, why would you change? Add Chromebooks into the mix, and those meet a lot of people's needs, why change? Then, if you get a laptop, you'll want to have all of your passwords and bookmarks synced, so instead of using Edge, you grab Chrome…

>When you get a Google phone that already has Google's browser installed, and it works relatively well, why would you change? I seem to recall Microsoft getting some unfavorable government attention when they did something similar in the 90s...

The key being they had a near monopoly in the operating system market. The smartphone OS market is a duopoly.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Firefox have such a low market share anyways?

#126

Post by vlod »

fooker wrote: post #120
vlod wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hhmm. I don't remember FF ever trying to reproduce IE6. I remember having to do special hacks to handle IE.

Here's a search query to dig into this: "firefox bugzilla internet explorer compatibility".

Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: Why does Firefox have such a low market share anyways?

#127

Post by freedomben »

JohnFen wrote: post #86

Big picture, I don't know. But I stopped using FF entirely a year or so ago because it reached a point where I could no longer put up with it without irritating me. I find its performance to be awful, it's much less usable, and it's harder to correct the various UI choices that I'm allergic to. These are problems that I didn't have, or that weren't as severe, before the revamp. It's clear to me that FF is set on thei…

Interesting, I've never had any performance complaints with Firefox (except for on Ubuntu where you're forced to use the Snap).

May I ask what browser are you using now?

Re: Ask HN: Why does Firefox have such a low market share anyways?

#128

Post by hamilyon2 »

For me logging into google properties that automagically logged me in the browser was the red line. The last straw. The unthinkable audacity of taking control of my user agent, done in businessy way with a slight innocent smile.

Compared to this, even a hundred pockets and PR lapses and 2007 ignored bugs mean very little.

I wish safari and firefox all the best in fight for free web.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Firefox have such a low market share anyways?

#129

Post by [deleted] »

NoboruWataya wrote: post #106
cxr wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to have fallen into a time machine where it's not 2023 but instead... I dunno... 2010? (I'd have said 2013, but even that would still have been too generous; there's no defensible reason for crediting 2013-era Mozcorp as deserving of the warm fuzzies involved here, either. By then, it had managed to do what Netscape failed at—consolidating power within the distributed and independent mozilla.org project and…

No warm fuzzies here - just a factual summary of Mozilla's legal status and ownership. The boards of most tech companies today have fiduciary duties to shareholders who expect a significant return on their investment, which is not the case for Mozilla.

[deleted]
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