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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?

#31

Post by louzell »

fooker wrote: post #22

Use Firefox for a day if you are a Chrome user, you’ll quickly realize the experience is far subpar. JS stuff is slower, random websites break, the UI feels a bit sluggish. I understand there are ideological reasons to support Firefox, and that some of these issues are easily attributed to other parties. But for users, there aren’t too many reasons to switch over from Chrome or even Safari, like it was the situation…

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.

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

#32

Post by floren »

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 know you're speaking in the context of the general public, but I've found that uBlock on Firefox Mobile does so much to make the web usable again that I'd never go without it.

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

#33

Post by seti0Cha »

newoldhead wrote: post #11
numbers_guy wrote: post #5

Actually, why does Chrome/ium has such a high market share even amongst tech savvy people? I don't see the appeal.

for most, i would assume it's largely just that during the time of the naïve web, there was a period where google kind of was the company, so people started using it for everything (think shortly before and then during the early google+ era). 10 years later almost every normie who didn't start using apple products uses gmail and chrome simply because they legacied into it from when they were younger and less aware of…

I think you're overplaying the social aspect. For quite a while, Chrome had a serious speed advantage over Firefox and the developer tools were (are?) considered much better. I'm not sure if either is still the case. They both seem fine for my purposes, but I use Chrome because it subjectively feels a bit quicker and I've gotten disillusioned with the practice of choosing software based on political considerations.

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

#34

Post by hinata08 »

Some users don't understand the difference between the web / an ISP / a website / a search engine / a web browser / an OS /... because of massive advertising from Google, that went on all the segments, and also did so much anti competition that it was charged in the EU

For some, Google is the brand for the tech, and everything else like Firefox is a knock off, or a pedantic complication.

It's a scary world we're living in.

And it's the world we IT guys have built, when we taught the elderly and everyone how to be online with hands-on first and no proper explanation. Google has done better with even easier hands-on and absolutely nothing to know before you use your phone or Chromebook.

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

#35

Post by ipaddr »

SoftTalker wrote: post #20
cebert wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

OWA (Outlook Web Access) shows me the antiquated "lite HTML" interface with Firefox on my OS. If I change the user agent to claim to be Chrome on Windows, it shows me the modern UI (which works fine, however it gets the time zone wrong). Accessing Google Docs, Sheets, etc. works OK with Firefox, but if I claim to be Chrome some things don't work. So they are defintely serving up something different to Chrome vs Firef…

That's feature. The light version only takes 3 cores

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

#37

Post by JohnTHaller »

It was a combination of factors. First, Google Chrome was originally faster and lighter weight than Firefox. Second, Google used their market advantage to push Chrome via Google search and other properties. Third, Google used multiple third parties to trick end users into installing and setting Chrome as their default via dark patterns when updating or installing Avast, Adobe Flash, Java, etc. (I had to uninstall it from my mom's computer multiple times during this time period.) Fourth, Chrome focused on their developer tools and they got much better than Firefox's. Fifth, Chrome continued to improve and get faster including much better multi-process support and crash resistance while Firefox was held back by their legacy extension framework and XUL-based UI elements.

Examples of paid Chrome dark pattern installs: https://imgur.com/gallery/WWZxj

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

#38

Post by robertlagrant »

utopcell wrote: post #27
acheron wrote: post #13

Google wanted more control over the Internet, so they created a browser that they controlled and pushed it on people by leveraging their monopoly in a separate area. You know, the kind of thing we used to think was bad in the 1990s.

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

And for any non-Google Android phone!

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

#39

Post by fooker »

ezekg wrote: post #28
fooker wrote: post #22

Use Firefox for a day if you are a Chrome user, you’ll quickly realize the experience is far subpar. JS stuff is slower, random websites break, the UI feels a bit sluggish. I understand there are ideological reasons to support Firefox, and that some of these issues are easily attributed to other parties. But for users, there aren’t too many reasons to switch over from Chrome or even Safari, like it was the situation…

I've been using Firefox for the past 2 years and I've had no such problems.

Yes, if you have been using Firefox you'll not notice problems.

A large number of people used IE5 and IE6 without apparent problems.

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

#40

Post by mdeeks »

Chrome used to be a lot faster years back so I switched. Firefox sadly has never given me a reason to switch back. Chrome is still fast and generally easy to use. (Maybe others here can give me good reasons to switch?)

Chrome also has some obscure features I rely on that Firefox does not have (or just doesn't do well):

  * Firefox does not support Touch ID on macOS. I can't actually log into a lot of my sites

  * I can't create a desktop app version of a site (Chrome > Tools > Create Shortcut as window). I use this to put google meet, jira, and some other internal tools as dedicated dock apps.

  * Chrome lets you run a work and personal profile in different windows. It's just a cmd+` away. It also remembers which profile you had viewed last and opens links in the right one. I didn't like multi-account containers in Firefox because I always had to select the right profile when I click a link.
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