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is it just me or more people switching to Firefox these days?

by f430 6y ago

kristofferR 6y ago
That's my impression too. Not surprising though - Firefox has just recently started to get good again (trackpad support, GPU rendering, privacy protections etc), while Chrome gets progressively worse.
StLCylone 6y ago
On the desktop there has been minor movement as percentage of the whole market, but up 9% on their own share. https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/worldwide https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/worl...
- hinkley 6y ago
  Chrome is losing market share since October? What changed?
  - aquova 6y ago
    I downloaded and looked at the raw data. The biggest reason seems to be the new Edge browser gaining popularity. It went from 5.8% to 7.4% market share since October. I'm not sure why this chart displays both IE and the old Edge, when together they're a third of the market share of new Edge. Safari and Firefox also are up since October, but I'm not sure why that is. For Safari I suspect new Apple devices being purchased around the holidays, but that's just a guess.
ff4lyfer99 6y ago
I switched in late 2017 when they released quantum or neutrino or whatever they called it, a huge performance release. As a backend dev and security focused eng I have little reason to test drive changes in all browsers. FF has been smooth and stable for me across desktop OSs. Having no reason to alternate between that and Chrome, I’ve been confused by people saying it’s slow. It’s been, to my memory, a flawless experience for 3+ years. On the flip side, Chrome is a spy app, and a cognitive perception of web devs it’s faster does little to move me to use it.
- kriops 6y ago
  Just interact with the Facebook chat in Chrome and FF, and you'll see that FF is significantly slower. That being said I use 90% FF, 9% safari and 0.999...% Chrome, because FF handling of tabs/containers/add-ons offers superior UX despite the performance annoyances. IMO, obviously.
  - ff4lyfer99 6y ago
    Ah well I nuked my FB account in 2010, as the spyware nature of it was obvious to me then
  - vorticalbox 6y ago
    I think is down to the fact that most websites target chrome first as it has the biggest market share. I've noticed reddit is rather slow in ff but other than that not really nocoed anything massively slow or broken.
- mynameisash 6y ago
  I've had a similar experience. My only gripe is that the Facebook Container extension / Multi-Account Containers[0] stopped working for some reason, and I haven't been able to get them working again. I love that I was able to sequester all of Google's real estate from all of Amazon from all of my work tabs, and so on. [0] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/containers https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/containers
  - wejick 6y ago
    The FB container is working Ok on my side. It's not helpful tho May be try on new profile to isolate the issue.
  - mlok 6y ago
    FB Container never stopped working fine for me. You should be able to use them again, as we do.
  - ff4lyfer99 6y ago
devenblake 6y ago
Not sure. People on-line are switching but I haven't been able to convince many off-line - Chrome is necessary for a lot of poorly coded sites.
- eitland 6y ago
  > Chrome is necessary for a lot of poorly coded sites. Just like IE was. And just like in the IE days some of us are cheering enthusiastically for every better alternative while others are defend the incumbent alternative :-) It will take time but if we all do something sooner or lesser the old "best viewed in IE6/Chrome" websites become an embarrassment to management and then it will get fixed ;-) Edit: Same will probably (IMO) happen with WhatsApp now and possible (again IMO) even Facebook and Google if they don't catch the drift soon. I can sense a massive discontent with them everywhere and for at least a 3 different reasons: spying, ux and functionality regressions and also because of their stance on politics (ironically I think large groups on all sides of politics want to bludgeon those companies over various issues and few except investors really love them).
billiam 6y ago
Evergreen comment.
gilrain 6y ago
Not according to their own metrics. Monthly Active Users and New Profile Rate are the relevant metrics, and both are in decline. https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity
dang 6y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25917559 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25917559.

is it just me or more people switching to Firefox these days?

by f430 6y ago

is it just me or more people switching to Firefox these days?

That's my impression too. Not surprising though - Firefox has just recently started to get good again (trackpad support, GPU rendering, privacy protections etc), while Chrome gets progressively worse.

StLCylone 6y ago

On the desktop there has been minor movement as percentage of the whole market, but up 9% on their own share. https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/worldwide https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/worl...

hinkley 6y ago
Chrome is losing market share since October? What changed?
- aquova 6y ago
  I downloaded and looked at the raw data. The biggest reason seems to be the new Edge browser gaining popularity. It went from 5.8% to 7.4% market share since October. I'm not sure why this chart displays both IE and the old Edge, when together they're a third of the market share of new Edge. Safari and Firefox also are up since October, but I'm not sure why that is. For Safari I suspect new Apple devices being purchased around the holidays, but that's just a guess.

ff4lyfer99 6y ago

I switched in late 2017 when they released quantum or neutrino or whatever they called it, a huge performance release. As a backend dev and security focused eng I have little reason to test drive changes in all browsers. FF has been smooth and stable for me across desktop OSs. Having no reason to alternate between that and Chrome, I’ve been confused by people saying it’s slow. It’s been, to my memory, a flawless experience for 3+ years. On the flip side, Chrome is a spy app, and a cognitive perception of web devs it’s faster does little to move me to use it.

kriops 6y ago
Just interact with the Facebook chat in Chrome and FF, and you'll see that FF is significantly slower. That being said I use 90% FF, 9% safari and 0.999...% Chrome, because FF handling of tabs/containers/add-ons offers superior UX despite the performance annoyances. IMO, obviously.
- ff4lyfer99 6y ago
  Ah well I nuked my FB account in 2010, as the spyware nature of it was obvious to me then
- vorticalbox 6y ago
  I think is down to the fact that most websites target chrome first as it has the biggest market share. I've noticed reddit is rather slow in ff but other than that not really nocoed anything massively slow or broken.
mynameisash 6y ago
I've had a similar experience. My only gripe is that the Facebook Container extension / Multi-Account Containers[0] stopped working for some reason, and I haven't been able to get them working again. I love that I was able to sequester all of Google's real estate from all of Amazon from all of my work tabs, and so on. [0] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/containers https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/containers
- wejick 6y ago
  The FB container is working Ok on my side. It's not helpful tho May be try on new profile to isolate the issue.
- mlok 6y ago
  FB Container never stopped working fine for me. You should be able to use them again, as we do.
- ff4lyfer99 6y ago

devenblake 6y ago

Not sure. People on-line are switching but I haven't been able to convince many off-line - Chrome is necessary for a lot of poorly coded sites.

eitland 6y ago
> Chrome is necessary for a lot of poorly coded sites. Just like IE was. And just like in the IE days some of us are cheering enthusiastically for every better alternative while others are defend the incumbent alternative :-) It will take time but if we all do something sooner or lesser the old "best viewed in IE6/Chrome" websites become an embarrassment to management and then it will get fixed ;-) Edit: Same will probably (IMO) happen with WhatsApp now and possible (again IMO) even Facebook and Google if they don't catch the drift soon. I can sense a massive discontent with them everywhere and for at least a 3 different reasons: spying, ux and functionality regressions and also because of their stance on politics (ironically I think large groups on all sides of politics want to bludgeon those companies over various issues and few except investors really love them).

billiam 6y ago

Evergreen comment.

gilrain 6y ago

Not according to their own metrics. Monthly Active Users and New Profile Rate are the relevant metrics, and both are in decline. https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity

dang 6y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25917559 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25917559.