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From an engineering point of view, it's understandable that XUL add-ons had to go - this article lays out the case very well. But from a product point of view,

From an engineering point of view, it's understandable that XUL add-ons had to go - this article lays out the case very well. But from a product point of view, Firefox lost its "killer app". Now the choice to use Firefox over Chrome is mostly an ethical one. That's a tough sell for most people, and it certainly won't get someone who's never used Firefox excited to try it. Chrome may soon give Firefox a little win here by nerfing uBlock Origin, but is that enough?

Fej 6y ago
uBlock Origin is already a bit nerfed on Chrome, and will likely be completely gone in the near future. That's Firefox's killer app for "regular" users, and power users too. It's a matter of getting the word out. Mozilla likely won't outright bundle its features as to not completely alienate Google, since they are their main source of revenue, but seem to be okay with promoting it otherwise, as it is on the front page of addons.mozilla.org and was the first extension (and the only one, for a time, and still only one of nine) supported in the new Firefox for Android. There are also "normal" users who do not care about blocking ads and tracking, or do not know about the performance issues, malware risk, and other reasons for using a blocker and have not made such a decision, trusting the browser to act in the best interest of the user. (We know that last bit doesn't work anymore.) (Regarding uBlock Origin, gorhill has expressed that he will not neuter the extension to work with Chrome's API change, reference: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/338#issuecomment-456179825 https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/338#iss... )
- totetsu 6y ago
  From that page. w3engine: "Firefox will be abandoned in the next year" 34 downvotes. https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/338 https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/338
  - majewsky 6y ago
    Why should I trust this random nobody who doesn't have even a single commit in their GitHub profile page's activity list? Also, the comment you describe is from May 2019, so their timeline of "within the next year" is already refuted by reality.
- jacquesm 6y ago
  If there are no browsers left supporting the likes of uBlock Origin then that will be a serious loss.
The_Colonel 6y ago
> But from a product point of view, Firefox lost its "killer app". For most of (former/present) Firefox users extensibility wasn't the "killer app". FF gained its marketshare at the time because IE was so crappy on most metrics and that was the main competition.
- anoncake 6y ago
  Not being IE doesn't help much when the competition is Chrome.
  - The_Colonel 6y ago
    Yes, chrome was for a long time simply better browser (mostly because it was much faster/responsive). But as the article explains, this was largely caused by the need to provide extensive backwards compatibility which stifled innovation or completely prevented it (in case of multi-process architecture).
- nextaccountic 6y ago
  > FF gained its marketshare at the time because IE was so crappy on most metrics and that was the main competition. But whoever kept Firefox after Chrome gained popularity probably do so because of the extensions.

Fej 6y ago

uBlock Origin is already a bit nerfed on Chrome, and will likely be completely gone in the near future. That's Firefox's killer app for "regular" users, and power users too. It's a matter of getting the word out. Mozilla likely won't outright bundle its features as to not completely alienate Google, since they are their main source of revenue, but seem to be okay with promoting it otherwise, as it is on the front page of addons.mozilla.org and was the first extension (and the only one, for a time, and still only one of nine) supported in the new Firefox for Android. There are also "normal" users who do not care about blocking ads and tracking, or do not know about the performance issues, malware risk, and other reasons for using a blocker and have not made such a decision, trusting the browser to act in the best interest of the user. (We know that last bit doesn't work anymore.) (Regarding uBlock Origin, gorhill has expressed that he will not neuter the extension to work with Chrome's API change, reference: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/338#issuecomment-456179825 https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/338#iss... )

totetsu 6y ago
From that page. w3engine: "Firefox will be abandoned in the next year" 34 downvotes. https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/338 https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/338
- majewsky 6y ago
  Why should I trust this random nobody who doesn't have even a single commit in their GitHub profile page's activity list? Also, the comment you describe is from May 2019, so their timeline of "within the next year" is already refuted by reality.
jacquesm 6y ago
If there are no browsers left supporting the likes of uBlock Origin then that will be a serious loss.

The_Colonel 6y ago

> But from a product point of view, Firefox lost its "killer app". For most of (former/present) Firefox users extensibility wasn't the "killer app". FF gained its marketshare at the time because IE was so crappy on most metrics and that was the main competition.

anoncake 6y ago
Not being IE doesn't help much when the competition is Chrome.
- The_Colonel 6y ago
  Yes, chrome was for a long time simply better browser (mostly because it was much faster/responsive). But as the article explains, this was largely caused by the need to provide extensive backwards compatibility which stifled innovation or completely prevented it (in case of multi-process architecture).
nextaccountic 6y ago
> FF gained its marketshare at the time because IE was so crappy on most metrics and that was the main competition. But whoever kept Firefox after Chrome gained popularity probably do so because of the extensions.