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

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

#931

Post by edeion »

andoli wrote: post #544
eigenrick wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this post assumes that Firefox is an inferior browser, and that the cause is mismanagement. But is Firefox an inferior browser? I think it used to be, but over the last couple years, it has made massive improvements in features and performance. I use it in both desktop and mobile, and I prefer it over Chrome. As a software engineer, I rely heavily on my browser for work. For me, the multi-account containers i…

> Also, I like how Lockwise on mobile is divorced from the browser, making it easy to use it to manage passwords across websites and apps. I liked that too. That was before they decided to shut it down...

In case you wouldn't know: Firefox for iOS can now act as a password manager. So, even though Lockwise has disappeared, the function is still there through Firefox alone.

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

#932

Post by ashwagary »

mcv wrote: post #821
ashwagary wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Atleast 200% of that payrise makes sense due to inflation. Value of the dollar halved during the past ~10 years.

That would make sense if all the lower wages got the same raise.

Wages cascade from top to bottom. You think CEOs should only get a raise after min. wage employees do?

That's not how this country will ever work but it's a nice fantasy.

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

#933

Post by dzamo_norton »

utucuro wrote: post #804
dvogel wrote: post #710

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What FF mobile fiasco are you speaking of? I am using FF mobile happily and have been for years. I haven't noticed any issues with it. Was there a business level fiasco or something?

One objective fiasco is the inability of FF on Android to keep multiple tabs in memory. Older versions were capable of it without issue, ever since the tab unloading feature, Firefox has been reloading tabs at the slightest pretense. Switch apps? Tabs get reloaded when you're back. Lock & unlock phone with Firefox in focus? Tabs get reloaded Switch tabs in Firefox? Tabs get reloaded... I wish I was just ranting, but…

Cannot reproduce. Android 9 on Nokia 8.

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

#934

Post by kathyreid »

This has been a really interesting debate. One of the assumptions underlying many of the comments here is that the web is still the default paradigm of the internet. This is still true to some extent - we consume content on web browsers on a range of user agents: laptops, desktops, mobile devices, embedded hardware, fridges, and a range of other IoT devices.

But how long is that going to be the case?

Will the web be the default paradigm in the age of the metaverse? What if Firefox was able to be a metaverse platform? There was some early work done on this in around 2014 by @vvuk, which integrated WebGL. VRML integration also progressed. At the moment, Facebook is changing its entire organisation to focus on the metavers (see also their Oculus acquisition), while Google and Apple own the hardware (mobile phones) that it will presumably run on, and have their own browsers. Microsoft's Hololens is also heading in this direction, but they already have Edge.

Facebook needs a web browser for the metaverse. Mozilla needs to remain relevant. Strange bedfellows?

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

#935

Post by mike00632 »

simondotau wrote: post #685
mike00632 wrote: post #645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you cite why you believe masks don't work? It seems at odds with the scientific consensus as described by the CDC.

N95 masks work. Well designed, well fitted, correctly worn, hygienically cleaned cloth masks probably work okay, though good evidence of this is still limited and based largely upon assumptions. From my own observations, the overwhelming majority of people are wearing a mask of poor quality and/or in a manner which the scientific consensus couldn't possibly agree was effective. And I doubt most people are washing the…

> which the scientific consensus couldn't possibly agree was effective

Yeah, and I'm wondering if you have any evidence to back up this belief of yours that masks don't work.

You've so far provided a LOT of evidence that masks work. I'm puzzled why you would assume that others don't work, like that is your base assumption.

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

#936

Post by WCityMike »

To me, they absolutely shunned their core audience -- people who wanted greater flexibility and configurability than existing browsers could give them. As a power user who used to have Firefox humming along exactly how I wanted it (thanks to things like Keyconfig, etc.), I now really perceive next to no difference between Firefox and Chrome. Yes, there's philosophical reasons that make them differ. But in terms of what they offer to the end user? There's no difference. They neutered themselves.

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

#937

Post by [deleted] »

BossingAround wrote: post #900
lenkite wrote: post #899

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IBM revenue was $54.1 billion in 2021. Mozilla around ~0.5 billion - a ratio of ~100. Thus, Mozilla CEO should get only 0.2 million not 2 million.

Well, I'd say not everything is linear. All I'm saying is, this is nowhere near as arrogant as the OP made it sound. The difference between 0.2 million and 2 million for a board of directors is literally a rounding error.

[deleted]

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

#938

Post by soundnote »

saurik wrote: post #784
krageon wrote: post #778

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rust and servo were how they were innovating, and where a lot of the competitive features came from. By firing them, Mozilla made clear that they do not care about these things. The CEO is quite clearly a parasite hell-bent on extracting as much value as she can before bailing for the next victim.

The problem--and I feel the pain here deeply as a security person myself--is that that innovation was primarily along an axis (security) that no users care about (with a small bit of performance from concurrency, but there were clearly other ways to be faster), and was draining resources away from innovation that users cared about... which I'd claim was even going in the opposite direction: for many years now they ha…

It's not even that they're building a clone of Chrome - Chromium is actually adding features like tab groups.

It's more that they're removing not-Chromey bits, not adding the Chromey bits, and removing Firefoxy bits like search keywords via bookmarks and the like.

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

#939

Post by soundnote »

D13Fd wrote: post #681
snird wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And she raised her pay while firing essential engineers: https://www.extremetech.com/computing/313658-mozilla-fires-2... I'm a firefox user for over 10 years. I think I'm now convinced there is no future, I'll have to start to adapt to another browser now. I'll give Vivaldi a try.

I wish Vivaldi wasn't horrible. I gave it a real try on all my devices for about 6 months a couple of years ago, but it is just too unreliable and prone to crashes and random issues. I've been way, way happier on Firefox ever since. If Firefox goes the rest of the way down the tubes, I'll try Edge before I go Vivaldi again.

Edge is a privacy disaster.

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

#940

Post by soundnote »

doetoe wrote: post #896
Jayakumark wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Current CEO is a cancer to Mozilla, her main goal seems like to make more money personally before Mozilla goes bankrupt. As long is as she is there - there is no hope https://itdm.com/mozilla-firefox-usage-down-85-but-why-are-e...

I used to strongly support the mission of Mozilla. When I first read about the practices of upper management I felt like a fool for ever having donated in the past. That is not going to happen again and I don't even like Firefox so much anymore because of it.

The donations go to the Foundation (woke activism), not the Corporation (Firefox etc. development) anyway.
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