Firefox lost 50M users since 2019 • Hacker News Board

Re: Firefox lost 50M users since 2019

#421

Post by TranquilMarmot » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 5:58 PM UTC

abcd_f wrote: post #176

At the rate they “improve” the UI it’d be a miracle if even most staunch users won’t jump the ship. That clown act they pulled in the recent release with tabs and decimated context menus was the last drop that forced me, the loyal user of 15+ years, to disable Firefox updates on all machines under my control. FFS, do they put any thought into these pointless disruptive changes that do nothing else but mess up existin…

Hmm, I really love the recent UI redesign. I've also been using Firefox for at least 15 years and every time they change it, it's been enjoyable for me.

Re: Firefox lost 50M users since 2019

#422

Post by aceazzameen » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 6:03 PM UTC

MiddleEndian wrote: post #323

aceazzameen wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UX. Mozilla is being outpaced by all competitors here, especially on mobile.

I generally am not a fan of mobile browsers, but for me Firefox is the only passable mobile browser because it supports uBlock Origin.

I agree with you, since I use it for the same reasons. But it will be easier for the general user to switch if it has a superior UX. Clearly ad-blocking is not enough for everyone else.

Re: Firefox lost 50M users since 2019

#423

Post by itvision » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 6:04 PM UTC

guilhas wrote: post #133

Firefox: Lets remove tab groups, no one uses it Chrome: Lets add tab groups, seems like a good idea Firefox: why are users leaving?.. The constant addons breakage and UI changes, feature removal. I could bare the speed difference, but these inconsistencies are just too much Still Firefox continues to be the best browser in theory

Let's be honest - since the removal of XUL addons, all my add-ons have been working just fine. Let's stop repeating this ... thing - it's long lost its relevance and nowadays it's just a falsehood.

Re: Firefox lost 50M users since 2019

#424

Post by kasabali » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 6:09 PM UTC

ohgodplsno wrote: post #307

hbt wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

true. their api is now a dumbed down version of chrome. I still remember the days of vimperator and treetabs in xul. firefox did this to themselves. they dont deserve support.

Tree Style Tabs exists: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-ta... Vimperator replacements exist: https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl Additionally, XUL was a steaming pile of shit, and there was no saving it. Multithreading was only possible by ripping out XUL.

> Additionally, XUL was a steaming pile of shit, and there was no saving it. Multithreading was only possible by ripping out XUL.

Nah, multi threading has always been there (because it's doing networking and IO at least) and multi process support landed shortly before Quantum release.

Re: Firefox lost 50M users since 2019

#425

Post by eitland » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 6:12 PM UTC

ohgodplsno wrote: post #325

remram wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am too, but I have telemetry disabled since their stunt with the Mr Robot extension they installed remotely for everyone [1]. I also run uBlock on both desktop and mobile. I am one of the 50M users counted as lost? [1]: https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/mozilla-back...

>Mr Robot extension they installed remotely for everyone Absolute bullshit. The Looking Glass extensions was installed through their SHIELD experiments program, only for people who had enabled it, and to a very small proportion of those, too. Additionally, it did not capture any data, as creepy as it was. https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/retrospective-l...

I got it and I absolutely never willingly signed up for it and I am (and was at that time too) a very competent user.

Re: Firefox lost 50M users since 2019

#426

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 6:18 PM UTC

eightails wrote: post #207

kiwijamo wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just out of interest I looked at Windy.com on Firefox/Linux and it looks fine? No blue/yellow banding. Wind gusts seem to show up fine. I've also had a look at the other stuff (e.g. waves, clouds, etc) which all seem to work as expected. This is with Firefox 78 LTS. Unless things have regressed in between version 78 to 90, I wonder if there is something else causing your issues?

So it seems like it was caused by FF blocking HTML5 canvas fingerprinting. Enabling that allowed it all to load correctly. I guess I must've hit disallow without thinking when I first visited, and that response was saved even after clearing cache, so that example at least is probably my fault. I do wonder if every user would be aware that the 'Allow site to extract canvas data?' popup can break site functionality tho…

[deleted]

Re: Firefox lost 50M users since 2019

#427

Post by antman » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 6:29 PM UTC

christophilus wrote: post #159

antman wrote: post #7

Former Firefix advocate, after the plugins breakage and senseless ui changes I had to check out. Kiwi on mobile from an HN recommendation

Same. I was 100% FF until they broke my AD blocker on iOS. The internet is unusable without it, so I switched to Brave. I do align philosophically with OSS, and community organization, though, so I may switch back at some point. I do think Mozilla’s executive team needs a real shakeup, though. Edit: haven’t heard of Kiwi. Looks interesting. Why’d you land on that vs Brave or whatever else?

I am on Android, and Kiwi Android accepts desktop Chrome’s plugins.

Re: Firefox lost 50M users since 2019

#428

Post by practice9 » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 6:30 PM UTC

rmsaksida wrote: post #144

bluedevil2k wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given how they make a minimum $450M a year in revenue, how on Earth is Mozilla not swimming in cash?! How high can their expenses be?

Mozilla pays millions of dollars per year to their CEO, despite the decrease in usage and user base. Could be a symptom of a larger problem in the organization.

Reminds me of this comment :

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22058629

Re: Firefox lost 50M users since 2019

#429

Post by dralley » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 6:32 PM UTC

eitland wrote: post #360

foepys wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could Mozilla ever compete in technical merit nowadays? Google is siphoning nearly all talent by paying them insanely huge amounts of money. Web is part of Google's core business and they will pour every little penny into it if it means they can be one step ahead and force others to follow them. How can Mozilla, a non-profit, compete with that? Even freaking Microsoft gave up! I'm insanely impressed with Mozilla…

Get back the extension API (not the exact same but a modern equivalent). Keep bugging competition authorities to punish Google harshly over the abusive behavior we've seen lately. I'm using Firefox for now but I admit the moment someone forks it and have a good security foundation I'll start using it and donating to it. I'm fed up with Mozilla thinking everything else they donis more important than their main income…

> Get back the extension API (not the exact same but a modern equivalent).

Another extension API will solve absolutely nothing.

Re: Firefox lost 50M users since 2019

#430

Post by soperj » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 6:34 PM UTC

eitland wrote: post #396

soperj wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for making this personal. I wouldn't have any issue with Safari at all if I was just a chrome developer would I?

The problem was people pretending to be web developers but only testing in IE. Being IE only made life a lot easier. Same today. Some people think it is OK to test only in Chrome. That lets one get away with a lot of bad habits. Dealing with different browsers is part of what makes one a competent web developer.

The problem with their comment is that they're too busy dunking on people.

I do deal with different browsers, hence why I get headaches from Safari. If I didn't, I wouldn't complain about it.

I've been a web developer for a long long time. I know what a pain IE was, and I'm just experiencing it all over again with Safari, although they've gotten better lately.