3 ms·

I'm sad too but the reality is Firefox is being slowly smothered by Chrome's ubiquity. Only a tiny minority of Web developers test on anything other than Chrome

I'm sad too but the reality is Firefox is being slowly smothered by Chrome's ubiquity. Only a tiny minority of Web developers test on anything other than Chrome and mobile safari. Firefox is my favourite browser, I use it every day but I often have to work around bugs in websites caused by this lack of testing. I think Microsoft don't have a choice if they want their browser to be popular it has to just work and the only way that is possible is basically for it to be Chrome.

tinus_hn 7y ago
That can change in a heartbeat. It has changed many times before.
- sequence7 7y ago
  Maybe it could if Google didn't own so much of the web and it's surrounding ecosystem. I'm not aware of any challenger to Chrome in the browser space.
  - stevenjohns 7y ago
    It could change via legislation. The more Google owns, the more it’s opened to potential anti-trust drama.
    - hopler 7y ago
      We already went down that dead end road with Microsoft in the 1990s. What's different today?
    - chmod775 7y ago
      So far only the EU is putting their foot down on that front, leading to mostly localized responses by the likes of Google.
Gikoskos 7y ago
> Only a tiny minority of Web developers test on anything other than Chrome and mobile safari I work in a web dev shop and nearly everyone here uses Firefox as their main dev browser. We do run tests on other browsers as well but we mainly develop with Firefox and its tools. Although part of the reason could be that we know most of our customers use it instead of Chrome. Don't ask me why, but if I had to venture I'd guess it's because Firefox is quite popular in my country for some reason.
- diggan 7y ago
  Depends on the country. Firefox seems more popular in Africa, Europe and Asia, compared to Chrome. While not 100% representative of reality, Google Trends gives that view of Chrome vs Firefox: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore/GEO_MAP/1554809400?hl=en-US&tz=-120&date=all&q=%2Fm%2F04j7cyf,%2Fm%2F01dyhm&sni=3 https://trends.google.com/trends/explore/GEO_MAP/1554809400?...
Piskvorrr 7y ago
s/Chrome/IE/;s/Firefox/Navigator/, hello early 2000s again.

tinus_hn 7y ago

That can change in a heartbeat. It has changed many times before.

sequence7 7y ago
Maybe it could if Google didn't own so much of the web and it's surrounding ecosystem. I'm not aware of any challenger to Chrome in the browser space.
- stevenjohns 7y ago
  It could change via legislation. The more Google owns, the more it’s opened to potential anti-trust drama.
  - hopler 7y ago
    We already went down that dead end road with Microsoft in the 1990s. What's different today?
  - chmod775 7y ago
    So far only the EU is putting their foot down on that front, leading to mostly localized responses by the likes of Google.

Gikoskos 7y ago

> Only a tiny minority of Web developers test on anything other than Chrome and mobile safari I work in a web dev shop and nearly everyone here uses Firefox as their main dev browser. We do run tests on other browsers as well but we mainly develop with Firefox and its tools. Although part of the reason could be that we know most of our customers use it instead of Chrome. Don't ask me why, but if I had to venture I'd guess it's because Firefox is quite popular in my country for some reason.

diggan 7y ago
Depends on the country. Firefox seems more popular in Africa, Europe and Asia, compared to Chrome. While not 100% representative of reality, Google Trends gives that view of Chrome vs Firefox: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore/GEO_MAP/1554809400?hl=en-US&tz=-120&date=all&q=%2Fm%2F04j7cyf,%2Fm%2F01dyhm&sni=3 https://trends.google.com/trends/explore/GEO_MAP/1554809400?...

Piskvorrr 7y ago

s/Chrome/IE/;s/Firefox/Navigator/, hello early 2000s again.