3 ms·

We just shipped a chrome extension for Polar... I did a big analysis of the distribution of extensions on Firefox vs Chrome. You could expect Firefox to be ma

We just shipped a chrome extension for Polar... I did a big analysis of the distribution of extensions on Firefox vs Chrome. You could expect Firefox to be maybe 1/3rd that of Chrome. Nope... it's 1/40th.... So 40x more people use the same extension on Chrome vs Firefox. I'm not sure why this is... it might be that Chrome users adopt extensions more readily than Firefox users? I think there's a lesson here on long term user growth but it's somewhat complicated. Link to our chrome extension btw. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/save-to-polar/jkfdkjomocoaljglgddnmhcbolldcafd https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/save-to-polar/jkfd...

r00fus 8y ago
Perhaps because Chrome is the new IE? Google has consistently pushed Chrome and profits from it.
Osmose 8y ago
If you're looking to see adoption rate, what you really want to be comparing isn't absolute numbers of Chrome vs Firefox users, but rather the adoption rate of your add-on vs your potential users. If Chrome has 10,000 potential users of your add-on, Firefox has 100, and you have 98 Chrome users and 2 Firefox users, then the add-on adoption rates are 0.98% for Chrome and 2% for Firefox. Of course that's just shifting the hard bit, which is figuring out who your potential users are.
gpm 8y ago
Thanks for sharing your data! I just installed polar. Immediately after install, it prompts you to install a chrome extension, it has a big google chrome icon that takes up 1/16th of my screen. It has no mention of how to do the same in firefox. Naturally, I responded by searching both "polar firefox addon" and "Save to polar firefox addon" on both DuckDuckGo and Google. All return a long list of results that don't include a save to polar addon. I go to addons.mozilla.org and search "Save to Polar", I don't find your extension. At this point I would typically have given up and assumed you just don't have a firefox version of the extension... but since you've just told me that there exists a firefox extension and I'm curious I'll keep going. Your website mentions it nowhere. The chrome store doesn't let me install it in firefox. The GitHub readme doesn't mention it. No GitHub issues mention it. The subreddit linked from the website has no sidebar. Searching on it finds no mention of firefox. Checking the other github repos under the same account as the polar repo I see a "Polar Chrome Extension" and not a "Polar Firefox Extension", but maybe those are the same things these days since both support web extensions. Nope, that repo is a placeholder with nothing in it. Going back to addons.mozilla.org and just searching "polar", filtering for extensions, and scrolling through the results (only 5 thankfully) reveals nothing. I search "Save to Polar" github' on both duckduckgo and google, hoping to at least find the source of the addon. Neither return any relevant results. At this point I'm astonished there are any firefox users of that addon... as far as I can tell it doesn't exist for firefox. Edit: It occurs to me that maybe you meant looking at other people's addons. So I looked at the most popular addon I know of, ublock origin. Chrome says "10,000,000+", Firefox says "4,794,583"... which is 40%!
- burtonator 8y ago
  Sorry.. didn't see your comment. I never said we had a Polar FF extension.. We don't have one yet but should soon. I think since ours is reasonably small it won't take time to get on FF.
  - gpm 8y ago
    No problem, and yeah, I realized about 15 minutes after I posted that that I probably misread your comment, hence the edit at the end. Out of curiosity, are you going to open source the chrome one?
PurpleRamen 8y ago
I don't see your your extension in the mozilla addon-store. How do except them to use sonething that they can't even find?
Sylos 8y ago
You did not say much about your methodology, so just general things that I imagine played into this: - What is a "user"? Is it someone who downloaded it once? Is it just straight up the number of installs that ever happened? Or is it someone who actively uses the extension on a frequent basis? If you go by the numbers on the Chrome Store and on AMO, they likely have different definitions. - Firefox recently introduced support for an extension API which is quite similar to the Chrome extension API (for the most part a superset), so lots of Chrome extensions have been ported over from Chrome just as recently and as a result will naturally not yet have as high user numbers. - Firefox has traditionally had more powerful extensions and still continues to have a more powerful extension API. So, there's going to be extensions that are better, which only exist on Firefox, whereas similar extensions that were ported over from Chrome, therefore exist on both, will largely be ignored. Analysing this on a non-empirical level: - Firefox has less users. - Chrome has somewhat less functionality built-in, which means users will have a higher need for extensions. - With Firefox's extensions having traditionally been more powerful, the user base should still have many tinkerers. - Firefox extensions are much more thoroughly vetted and malware is essentially a non-issue. On Chrome, it happens more often and I have seen people removing non-essential extensions for that reason. - Chrome users are less likely to be privacy-conscious, which somewhat negates the previous point again and means they're more likely to just install an extension without thinking about it too much. On the other hand, Firefox users should be more likely to install privacy-enhancing extensions. - Firefox for Android supports many extensions as well (though its user base is not the biggest).

r00fus 8y ago

Perhaps because Chrome is the new IE? Google has consistently pushed Chrome and profits from it.

Osmose 8y ago

If you're looking to see adoption rate, what you really want to be comparing isn't absolute numbers of Chrome vs Firefox users, but rather the adoption rate of your add-on vs your potential users. If Chrome has 10,000 potential users of your add-on, Firefox has 100, and you have 98 Chrome users and 2 Firefox users, then the add-on adoption rates are 0.98% for Chrome and 2% for Firefox. Of course that's just shifting the hard bit, which is figuring out who your potential users are.

gpm 8y ago

Thanks for sharing your data! I just installed polar. Immediately after install, it prompts you to install a chrome extension, it has a big google chrome icon that takes up 1/16th of my screen. It has no mention of how to do the same in firefox. Naturally, I responded by searching both "polar firefox addon" and "Save to polar firefox addon" on both DuckDuckGo and Google. All return a long list of results that don't include a save to polar addon. I go to addons.mozilla.org and search "Save to Polar", I don't find your extension. At this point I would typically have given up and assumed you just don't have a firefox version of the extension... but since you've just told me that there exists a firefox extension and I'm curious I'll keep going. Your website mentions it nowhere. The chrome store doesn't let me install it in firefox. The GitHub readme doesn't mention it. No GitHub issues mention it. The subreddit linked from the website has no sidebar. Searching on it finds no mention of firefox. Checking the other github repos under the same account as the polar repo I see a "Polar Chrome Extension" and not a "Polar Firefox Extension", but maybe those are the same things these days since both support web extensions. Nope, that repo is a placeholder with nothing in it. Going back to addons.mozilla.org and just searching "polar", filtering for extensions, and scrolling through the results (only 5 thankfully) reveals nothing. I search "Save to Polar" github' on both duckduckgo and google, hoping to at least find the source of the addon. Neither return any relevant results. At this point I'm astonished there are any firefox users of that addon... as far as I can tell it doesn't exist for firefox. Edit: It occurs to me that maybe you meant looking at other people's addons. So I looked at the most popular addon I know of, ublock origin. Chrome says "10,000,000+", Firefox says "4,794,583"... which is 40%!

burtonator 8y ago
Sorry.. didn't see your comment. I never said we had a Polar FF extension.. We don't have one yet but should soon. I think since ours is reasonably small it won't take time to get on FF.
- gpm 8y ago
  No problem, and yeah, I realized about 15 minutes after I posted that that I probably misread your comment, hence the edit at the end. Out of curiosity, are you going to open source the chrome one?

PurpleRamen 8y ago

I don't see your your extension in the mozilla addon-store. How do except them to use sonething that they can't even find?

Sylos 8y ago

You did not say much about your methodology, so just general things that I imagine played into this: - What is a "user"? Is it someone who downloaded it once? Is it just straight up the number of installs that ever happened? Or is it someone who actively uses the extension on a frequent basis? If you go by the numbers on the Chrome Store and on AMO, they likely have different definitions. - Firefox recently introduced support for an extension API which is quite similar to the Chrome extension API (for the most part a superset), so lots of Chrome extensions have been ported over from Chrome just as recently and as a result will naturally not yet have as high user numbers. - Firefox has traditionally had more powerful extensions and still continues to have a more powerful extension API. So, there's going to be extensions that are better, which only exist on Firefox, whereas similar extensions that were ported over from Chrome, therefore exist on both, will largely be ignored. Analysing this on a non-empirical level: - Firefox has less users. - Chrome has somewhat less functionality built-in, which means users will have a higher need for extensions. - With Firefox's extensions having traditionally been more powerful, the user base should still have many tinkerers. - Firefox extensions are much more thoroughly vetted and malware is essentially a non-issue. On Chrome, it happens more often and I have seen people removing non-essential extensions for that reason. - Chrome users are less likely to be privacy-conscious, which somewhat negates the previous point again and means they're more likely to just install an extension without thinking about it too much. On the other hand, Firefox users should be more likely to install privacy-enhancing extensions. - Firefox for Android supports many extensions as well (though its user base is not the biggest).