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I thought the reasons that they lost market share was that they started cloning the chrome interface stripping out usable features (i.e. status bar) at the expe

by Khaine 9y ago

I thought the reasons that they lost market share was that they started cloning the chrome interface stripping out usable features (i.e. status bar) at the expense of fixing memory and performance issues. I stopped using Firefox when they removed the status bar and made it an extension and then went and bundled in a read later service extension.

bigbugbag 9y ago
The main reason is google used its piles of cash to push their browser. The side reason is firefox made counterproductive and unnecessary changes: removing the status bar, australis UI, removing the ability to disable script, dropping alsa support and many other useful features removed proving that user have no freedom of choice and no say. While adding unwanted things (DRM, pocket, hello, etc.) and not fixing broken things. Some power users and long supporter would have sticked with firefox despite google's marketing, had it not piled bad move after bad move and not listening to its users.
Sylos 9y ago
To my knowledge, it was actually Google cloning the Australis interface, they just happened to release it earlier. And no, these UI changes were not made at the expense of fixing memory and performance issues. The reason why they didn't fix those memory and performance issues, is because it would have required introducing the (now introduced) multiprocess architecture. That would have required breaking all extensions (which is now being done with Firefox 57, along with breaking them to switch to a new extension API). So, that would have pissed off power users even more. And also just in general, you have to understand that power users are not that important for market share. They make up maybe 1%. If they bring their friends and family all along, then maybe 15%. There's a big number of users that are able to choose their own browser, but are not power users by any means. For example, around 40% of Firefox users don't have any extensions installed [1]. [1] The figure is from Sep 2015, but I don't think things have changed much since then. And if anything, the trend has so far been for this number to increase. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1229949 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1229949

by Khaine 9y ago

bigbugbag 9y ago

The main reason is google used its piles of cash to push their browser. The side reason is firefox made counterproductive and unnecessary changes: removing the status bar, australis UI, removing the ability to disable script, dropping alsa support and many other useful features removed proving that user have no freedom of choice and no say. While adding unwanted things (DRM, pocket, hello, etc.) and not fixing broken things. Some power users and long supporter would have sticked with firefox despite google's marketing, had it not piled bad move after bad move and not listening to its users.

Sylos 9y ago

To my knowledge, it was actually Google cloning the Australis interface, they just happened to release it earlier. And no, these UI changes were not made at the expense of fixing memory and performance issues. The reason why they didn't fix those memory and performance issues, is because it would have required introducing the (now introduced) multiprocess architecture. That would have required breaking all extensions (which is now being done with Firefox 57, along with breaking them to switch to a new extension API). So, that would have pissed off power users even more. And also just in general, you have to understand that power users are not that important for market share. They make up maybe 1%. If they bring their friends and family all along, then maybe 15%. There's a big number of users that are able to choose their own browser, but are not power users by any means. For example, around 40% of Firefox users don't have any extensions installed [1]. [1] The figure is from Sep 2015, but I don't think things have changed much since then. And if anything, the trend has so far been for this number to increase. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1229949 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1229949