6 ms·

Real question, how is Mozilla flourishing when its main product, Firefox, has been declining in market share for years?

darklajid 11y ago
'Declining in market share': I assume you count 'Google throws crappy internal ads at every internet user and encourages mum and pop to "upgrade your browser"', right? I find it difficult to see how that can _not_ damage a free market. Mozilla seems to flourish as far as I am concerned: Servo, Rust and Firefox are surprising me time and time again and seem very well received in all my social circles.
- Touche 11y ago
  > 'Declining in market share': I assume you count 'Google throws crappy internal ads at every internet user and encourages mum and pop to "upgrade your browser"', right? Of course, Firefox numbers are going down, no? The reason is irrelevant.
  - darklajid 11y ago
    I've seen varying sources and while they agree that Chrome leads (see above, unsurprisingly a wildly successful ad company is able to promote their own product), I don't believe that users are actively leaving Firefox. Back to flourishing: Recently an article on this very site explained that Mozilla is in a very stable financial situation. So, they seem to be independent (money) and successful (reach - I guess this is where we might not agree?). I just cannot understand the reasons behind a lot of 'Mozilla is basically dead and irrelevant' style posts on this very site.
    - RodericDay 11y ago
      Firefox's experimentation has been a little bit worrying, but I'm sticking through with them and recommending them everywhere I go so; long as they remain committed to the principles that make Firefox stand out. Chrome's propagation strategy is obviously very effective, but I know many people who eventually switched to Firefox and haven't gone back. It's a long race, and I'm happy that Mozilla is not giving up.
    - simula67 11y ago
      > 'Mozilla is basically dead and irrelevant' Not what was said. He said that the browser market share for Firefox is declining. I know there are plenty of Mozilla fanboys here, but the fact that Firefox is losing is not really disputable : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers Mozilla's success depends hugely on Firefox, which means, even though they are in a stable financial situation now, if they cannot stop the slide, they will be in trouble in the future.
scriptproof 11y ago
- Thunderbird: Dropped. - FirefoxOS : Dropped. - Servo: How many years do they need to build a new browser with the experience they already have? - Rust: I don't expect the world to rush to this language. - Finally, Mozilla is just Firefox now and they are aimed to privacy at all cost, that will cut their sources of revenues, of course.
- pcwalton 11y ago
  Servo is not a new browser. And nobody has "rushed" to any language introduced in the last decade. The "conquer the world" mentality introduced by Java is over. The big programming language success stories—Scala, node.js, Go, etc.—have all flourished with devoted communities using the languages in the niches they're strongest in. That's what Rust is aiming for, and the resulting community has been amazing so far.
  - Touche 11y ago
    Hi pcwalton, I just wish Servo had clearer goals. In some ways the recent faster-browser initiates have all come out empty in my opinion, as they have nothing to truly show the for the work. Flexbox is a great example. We were told the problems with DOM updates was caused by the old layouts and things like floats. So Flexbox was supposed to fix those problems. Where's the proof? I find myself frustrated that now 8 years after the iPhone the web is still incapable of so many things. I wish the browser community would make some very specific goals and say "we'll do whatever it takes to reach these". Here's a very simple goal: A swipeable sidebar. Here's the requirements: * It must retain 60fps no matter how fast you swipe. * It must be easy to create; a virtual-dom shouldn't be a requirement to make up for slow dom updates. A elaborate library that correctly times everything shouldn't be necessary. That's it. Make that happen. Do whatever it takes. Create another new layout if necessary. Create a new touch spec that's faster, if necessary. Whatever. it. takes. And then when the work is done you can point to this new widget and say that the initiative paid off.
    - pcwalton 11y ago
      > Hi pcwalton, I just wish Servo had clearer goals. What is not clear about "parallelize all parts of the pipeline", "get rendering GPU bound", and "write a memory safe browser"? > Flexbox is a great example. We were told the problems with DOM updates was caused by the old layouts and things like floats. Nobody said that. > So Flexbox was supposed to fix those problems. No, it wasn't. > I find myself frustrated that now 8 years after the iPhone the web is still incapable of so many things. Me too. > Here's a very simple goal: A swipeable sidebar. You can do it already at 60 FPS. Make an overflow:scroll div and allow the user to scroll it into view. Or even just do it manually with the DOM. It will easily be 60 FPS in existing engines if you animate transforms. > That's it. Make that happen. Do whatever it takes. Create another new layout if necessary. Create a new touch spec that's faster, if necessary. Whatever. it. takes. And then when the work is done you can point to this new widget and say that the initiative paid off. There's nothing to do here, as you've described it. But your comment is actually illustrative of the real problem (at least, what I think it is). We have a ton of ways to do things on the Web. Some of them are fast, and some of them are not. Web developers don't realize what the fast paths are (which is not entirely their fault). I think that all of the paths should be fast, and I think that many of Servo's technologies (such as WebRender) go a long way toward making that happen. What's frustrating is comments like yours that describe things that the Web can clearly already do and blame browsers for supposedly being unable to do simple things. I used to think the way you did—that the Web is incapable of rendering a 60 FPS scrollable view—and then quickly discovered that, if optimized properly, there is actually no problem. What I think the problem with Web slowness is that Web authors don't know what the fast paths are, and they use things like jQuery.animate() that hit all the slow paths. That is a problem that I think we are well equipped to solve in Servo due to things like parallel style recalculation, off main thread layout, and WebRender, but it's a lot more nuanced than what you describe.

'Declining in market share': I assume you count 'Google throws crappy internal ads at every internet user and encourages mum and pop to "upgrade your browser"', right? I find it difficult to see how that can _not_ damage a free market. Mozilla seems to flourish as far as I am concerned: Servo, Rust and Firefox are surprising me time and time again and seem very well received in all my social circles.

Touche 11y ago
> 'Declining in market share': I assume you count 'Google throws crappy internal ads at every internet user and encourages mum and pop to "upgrade your browser"', right? Of course, Firefox numbers are going down, no? The reason is irrelevant.
- darklajid 11y ago
  I've seen varying sources and while they agree that Chrome leads (see above, unsurprisingly a wildly successful ad company is able to promote their own product), I don't believe that users are actively leaving Firefox. Back to flourishing: Recently an article on this very site explained that Mozilla is in a very stable financial situation. So, they seem to be independent (money) and successful (reach - I guess this is where we might not agree?). I just cannot understand the reasons behind a lot of 'Mozilla is basically dead and irrelevant' style posts on this very site.
  - RodericDay 11y ago
    Firefox's experimentation has been a little bit worrying, but I'm sticking through with them and recommending them everywhere I go so; long as they remain committed to the principles that make Firefox stand out. Chrome's propagation strategy is obviously very effective, but I know many people who eventually switched to Firefox and haven't gone back. It's a long race, and I'm happy that Mozilla is not giving up.
  - simula67 11y ago
    > 'Mozilla is basically dead and irrelevant' Not what was said. He said that the browser market share for Firefox is declining. I know there are plenty of Mozilla fanboys here, but the fact that Firefox is losing is not really disputable : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers Mozilla's success depends hugely on Firefox, which means, even though they are in a stable financial situation now, if they cannot stop the slide, they will be in trouble in the future.

scriptproof 11y ago

- Thunderbird: Dropped. - FirefoxOS : Dropped. - Servo: How many years do they need to build a new browser with the experience they already have? - Rust: I don't expect the world to rush to this language. - Finally, Mozilla is just Firefox now and they are aimed to privacy at all cost, that will cut their sources of revenues, of course.

pcwalton 11y ago
Servo is not a new browser. And nobody has "rushed" to any language introduced in the last decade. The "conquer the world" mentality introduced by Java is over. The big programming language success stories—Scala, node.js, Go, etc.—have all flourished with devoted communities using the languages in the niches they're strongest in. That's what Rust is aiming for, and the resulting community has been amazing so far.
- Touche 11y ago
  Hi pcwalton, I just wish Servo had clearer goals. In some ways the recent faster-browser initiates have all come out empty in my opinion, as they have nothing to truly show the for the work. Flexbox is a great example. We were told the problems with DOM updates was caused by the old layouts and things like floats. So Flexbox was supposed to fix those problems. Where's the proof? I find myself frustrated that now 8 years after the iPhone the web is still incapable of so many things. I wish the browser community would make some very specific goals and say "we'll do whatever it takes to reach these". Here's a very simple goal: A swipeable sidebar. Here's the requirements: * It must retain 60fps no matter how fast you swipe. * It must be easy to create; a virtual-dom shouldn't be a requirement to make up for slow dom updates. A elaborate library that correctly times everything shouldn't be necessary. That's it. Make that happen. Do whatever it takes. Create another new layout if necessary. Create a new touch spec that's faster, if necessary. Whatever. it. takes. And then when the work is done you can point to this new widget and say that the initiative paid off.
  - pcwalton 11y ago
    > Hi pcwalton, I just wish Servo had clearer goals. What is not clear about "parallelize all parts of the pipeline", "get rendering GPU bound", and "write a memory safe browser"? > Flexbox is a great example. We were told the problems with DOM updates was caused by the old layouts and things like floats. Nobody said that. > So Flexbox was supposed to fix those problems. No, it wasn't. > I find myself frustrated that now 8 years after the iPhone the web is still incapable of so many things. Me too. > Here's a very simple goal: A swipeable sidebar. You can do it already at 60 FPS. Make an overflow:scroll div and allow the user to scroll it into view. Or even just do it manually with the DOM. It will easily be 60 FPS in existing engines if you animate transforms. > That's it. Make that happen. Do whatever it takes. Create another new layout if necessary. Create a new touch spec that's faster, if necessary. Whatever. it. takes. And then when the work is done you can point to this new widget and say that the initiative paid off. There's nothing to do here, as you've described it. But your comment is actually illustrative of the real problem (at least, what I think it is). We have a ton of ways to do things on the Web. Some of them are fast, and some of them are not. Web developers don't realize what the fast paths are (which is not entirely their fault). I think that all of the paths should be fast, and I think that many of Servo's technologies (such as WebRender) go a long way toward making that happen. What's frustrating is comments like yours that describe things that the Web can clearly already do and blame browsers for supposedly being unable to do simple things. I used to think the way you did—that the Web is incapable of rendering a 60 FPS scrollable view—and then quickly discovered that, if optimized properly, there is actually no problem. What I think the problem with Web slowness is that Web authors don't know what the fast paths are, and they use things like jQuery.animate() that hit all the slow paths. That is a problem that I think we are well equipped to solve in Servo due to things like parallel style recalculation, off main thread layout, and WebRender, but it's a lot more nuanced than what you describe.