Firefox lost 50M users since 2019 • Hacker News Board

Re: Firefox lost 50M users since 2019

#441

Post by kasabali » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 6:53 PM UTC

devwastaken wrote: post #182

Chromium - chrome, edge, brave, V8, V8 isolates, node.js, electron, etc. Firefox - Firefox, Torbrowser, spidermonkey. Chromium project became the cpython of JavaScript and web browsers, because you could package it's components and embed them in your own applications. Firefox does not have competitive equivalents or better features. Therefore it loses users. This was a big topic years ago when FF started removing XUL…

> Chromium project became the cpython of JavaScript and web browsers, because you could package it's components and embed them in your own applications. Firefox does not have competitive equivalents or better features. Therefore it loses users.

XULRunner was Electron before it was cool. Though they werent prevalent there was a small but promising variety of applications based on XULRunner [0]

Then of course Mozilla administration axed it in their infinite wisdom.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Software_that_uses_...

Re: Firefox lost 50M users since 2019

#442

Post by freediver » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 7:03 PM UTC

TLLtchvL8KZ wrote: post #263

freediver wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the problems with Edge is that it sends 350+ requests "home" to Microsoft on startup (in good-old fashioned way Windows does). A big no-no from a privacy standpoint.

Surely this would show up in dns? The only thing my DNS shows me from edge usage is smartscreen.

My bad for not linking to the source of information:

https://brave.com/popular-browsers-first-run/

Re: Firefox lost 50M users since 2019

#443

Post by freediver » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 7:04 PM UTC

jray wrote: post #346

freediver wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Orion (WebKit based) has native tree style tabs, plus runs Chrome/Firefox extensions. Currently in beta (disclaimer: founder)

Why doesn't it have a status bar? All the software I use has a status bar, but for years it has become fashionable not to have one in browsers.

It does have a status bar. Or we are talking about different things?

Re: Firefox lost 50M users since 2019

#444

Post by approxim8ion » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 7:08 PM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #248

gibba999 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My child's school uses Google Classroom. The Google experience is unusable in Firefox. Meet doesn't work (e.g. he sees nothing when the teacher screenshares). This seems really quite anti-competitive. My child cares about privacy and switches browsers. Chrome for Meet, Firefox for most non-Google things.

Unless Meet and other Google apps are really tailored to subperform under firefox I don't think it's a solid case. If google devs code doesn't run as fast in firefox why should google take the blame ? or maybe google is using non html5 apis to tap into chrome for faster perf in which case things are muddy.. since whatwg kinda allows unofficial apis

> If google devs code doesn't run as fast in firefox why should google take the blame ?

And yet, I get flak if my code isn't performing well on 5 different browsers, including IE6.

Re: Firefox lost 50M users since 2019

#445

Post by patrick451 » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 7:10 PM UTC

Firefox has also been shooting its own feet. Their insistence on automatic updates, especially ones that require a "restart" is infuriating. Especially when the restart fails and loses all your tabs. They are also destroyed tons of useful plugins several years ago. They starting defaulting the home page to Pocket. I'd rather use firefox, but they don't seem to want me as a user.

Re: Firefox lost 50M users since 2019

#446

Post by approxim8ion » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 7:14 PM UTC

bsd44 wrote: post #371

eingaeKaiy8ujie wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opera is closed source which means it is not secure.

So Apple iOS, Microsoft Windows, Amazon FireOS, Cisco IOS, Netapp ONTAP... they are all "not secure" because they are not OSS?

Potentially not secure and definitely not private, for most of them.

Re: Firefox lost 50M users since 2019

#447

Post by approxim8ion » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 7:17 PM UTC

christophilus wrote: post #277

tomrod wrote: post #228

Do any other browsers support containers? That has been the killer feature for me.

Brave does. They call it profiles, I think.

Assuming we are talking about the same thing, it's absolutely not the same as containers. It'd be the same as Chrome profiles, or Firefox profiles for that matter. Containers allow you to have separate sandboxes within the same instance of the browser.

Re: Firefox lost 50M users since 2019

#448

Post by patrick451 » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 7:17 PM UTC

itvision wrote: post #423

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.

In what way is it a falsehood? There is an entire class of addons that are simply impossible to create under the new paradigm. These used to work, now that don't. Firefox broke them intentionally.

Re: Firefox lost 50M users since 2019

#449

Post by foepys » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 7:20 PM UTC

arp242 wrote: post #412

ordu wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Be useful to end users. Differentiate on that. What does it mean today? Most people want a browser that is invisible. They use sites, not browser.

That companies like Vivaldi and Brave can build successful for-profit businesses on top of a browser seems to indicate that it's a bit more complex than that. It's like the old quote about Microsoft Word, which was something along the lines of: "it's true that Word is bloated and that most people only use 10%, but everyone uses a different 10%".

Brave and Vivaldi outsourced the browser engine of the browser part to Google, though. That's the most expensive and work intensive part.

They are also not part of any standardisation committee, as far as I know.

Re: Firefox lost 50M users since 2019

#450

Post by approxim8ion » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 7:22 PM UTC

textgel wrote: post #79

saurik wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So let's say you work for Mozilla and you are gay, or your sibling is gay, or your best friend is gay, or hell: you just are willing to care about people who aren't that close to you and you know that some people somewhere are assuredly gay; and so now, you have to come in to the office every day to work under a guy who, sure, has made an invaluable contribution to the web... but also actively dislikes gay people and…

Some in the world are capable of working without being emotionally incapacitated by the thought that those they work with don't agree with all that they believe in. Mozilla is there to build browsers. Politics should have been left at the door. Instead it wasn't and so Firefox happened and then Brave happened.

Would you say the same about iFixit backing right to repair, or the FSF/EFF etc fighting for privacy and software freedoms while also developing their core products? I feel like "politics" has a very selective definition in this forum.