Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

51–60 of 949 posts

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

#51

Maybe it has to do with its competitors being a 1.7 trillion dollar company and a 2.5 trillion dollar company! Winning against those requires not only better technology AND marketing AND consumer favor, but also leverage in the legal processes that enable/disable network effects. So anti-trust is unfortunately one of Mozilla's biggest hopes.

You think they don't have enough cash to save FF, when they get $400m a year from Google?

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

#52

They should focus on saving Firefox. - Cut out all (or at the very least, most) initiatives that don't serve the goal of promoting Firefox's market share or sustainability going forward - 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…

You are answering the question "how can Mozilla make more money", but that wasn't what was asked. Mozilla as a whole is profitable already, and revenues have been growing close to 100% year over year. As a company they are in great health.

Except that's not what users care about when picking a browser. Google has too much money, tech, marketing and too big an existing user and device base to make any kind of direct competition feasible. Giving Mozilla a few hundred million dollars extra isn't going to make a difference.

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

#53
post #13

Every time I restart Firefox, I get about 8 different prompts for "See what's new!" "Reset your Firefox profile now!" "See our new diversity initiative now!" etc. It feels like opening a Windows Me installation from 2000. I just want to get browsing done.

I get none of that - you musty have some odd config.

He's exaggerating a bit bit his point still stands. After an update there's at least one extra tab about the update, and sometimes more like the recent-ish stupid color scheme feature.

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

#54
I left Firefox for political sentiments that most of you do not share, judging from past conversations here. There are enough people like me that those events likely continue to put downward pressure on their market share. But not all that much in the big scheme of things. The larger effect of those politics was a change in leadership. Firefox used to be led by a passionate, opinionated technologist with a clear and consistent vision. His replacement, while more politically palatable, seems to have a weaker grasp of the market and the technology. The direction of the browser's market share reflects that. CEOs are non-fungible.

The primary "author" of Firefox changed, and that had a similar effect to the change in author of the final season of Game of Thrones.

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

#55

They should focus on saving Firefox. - Cut out all (or at the very least, most) initiatives that don't serve the goal of promoting Firefox's market share or sustainability going forward - 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…

Cutting organizational expenses might be good for unrelated reasons, but I don't see how that increases the market share of Firefox, and I can think of a few ways it could decrease their market share.

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

#56

They should focus on saving Firefox. - Cut out all (or at the very least, most) initiatives that don't serve the goal of promoting Firefox's market share or sustainability going forward - 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…

> [...] (bonuses tied directly to increase in Firefox market share).

This might be a perverse incentive depending on if your goal is to make Firefox a good browser or just a popular one.

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

#57
I left Firefox about 8 months ago and I haven't looked back. On desktop, I was tired of these constant "company partnerships" and so I decided to give Vivaldi a shot. I haven't looked back (for a variety of reasons, including how customizeable the whole browser was).

On mobile, I switched to Brave and I grew to really like groups of tabs.

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

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get none of that - you musty have some odd config.

He's exaggerating a bit bit his point still stands. After an update there's at least one extra tab about the update, and sometimes more like the recent-ish stupid color scheme feature.

Exaggerating isn't particularly helpful, makes me thing the problems the OP has with the browser are more based on perception of "culture" or something rather than the actual product

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

#59
For the past years FF updates seem to focus on the fact that: One-two new color themes are available: "Try these out, tune your browser! Look at the 1000th time we're shilling Pocket because people like bookmarks!" instead of appealing to the more important aspects of a browser like firefox which is chosen by "more tech literate people": precisely because it's not chrome; for usability, privacy, features not being removed in the name of "reshaping the web", customization, etc.

Also, let's hit a nerve here: Mozilla& Co, ideologically speaking, and by "following the money", are mostly the same hand dealt as Google.I speak for myself but i'm sure many other people also use FF only because there are legitimately no other options besides Chrome, except maybe some obscure ones like qutebrowser/browsh/lynx/etc which aren't really something you jump to for daily driving due to the pain of installation/usage.That or maybe one still has to close/migrate/transition the google/mozilla account for the bookmarks sync features, which is the only useful feature and reason why one should use these 2(/3 including edge I guess) browsers.

To answer your question(s), I would do nothing, because I won't save Firefox.If they save themselves that's fine, but with a fresh memory of the netscape days and the battle of the browsers for the "advertisement bucks", this is not the first rodeo of the company/project/browser, and the usability of the browser is, again, the only reason i'm using it.As a side note, they're way too political for my taste.

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

#60
My opinion? Mozilla should take a big portion of it's funding and direct it towards the fight for browser choice -- and the biggest offender here is of course, Apple. There's already some tailwinds in their favor here (the Epic court case, general grumbling about the 30% take, etc), take the opportunity and ask openly that Apple support browser choice, and hammer them on it repeatedly.
Post reply on HN