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Firefox lost 50M users since 2019

• orionblastar 5y ago
  Firefox no longer has XP support. There are a lot of XP users with older Firefoxes that cannot upgrade. Plus Microsoft Edge isn't as bad as Internet Explorer was.
  • Barrin92 5y ago
    According to Microsoft there's about 1.5 billion Windows users, about half a percent are still on XP. So that'd be about 7-8 million XP users. Say a third are potential Firefox users, that'd be a drop in the bucket in this statistic. And for the sake of the market share on other platforms it's probably a good idea that they're not investing resources in XP.
  • kiwijamo 5y ago
    None of the other current browsers support XP either. Chrome stopped supporting XP a few years back. Edge isn't available at all on XP. Even IE wasn't backported so XP users are stuck with the last version of IE with XP support. If anyone is still on XP they should upgrade to an OS (either Windows 10 or even Linux) that can run a modern browser.
  • jaclaz 5y ago
    JFYI, there are forks of Firefox adapted to work on XP, that are not at all bad. I am reluctant to provide a link because they are highly experimental, but if you wish to try them, knowing that YMMGV, here it is what I personally find the best one (serpent/basilisk): http://o.rthost.win/basilisk/ http://o.rthost.win/basilisk/
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• crmrc114 5y ago
  I may be the odd one but I dropped FF after the drama over brendin eich and his support of prop 8. I just did not feel the same after seeing how he was attacked for his personal contributions. There was just some hateful stuff that came from both sides that really uncovered some toxic personalities in the FF legion.
  • toper-centage 5y ago
    When you're a CEO, you're also the face of the company. His "personal contributions" were to support banning of same sex marriage, and it was just 5 years earlier. That's just unacceptable, even in 2014. It really showed how politics work inside companies like Mozilla. But you're not alone. That year lots of users dropped Firefox.
    • Amezarak 5y ago
      Proposition 8 passed in California 52-47. [1] Slightly more than seven million people voted for it. That's a lot of people who did something unacceptable. I wish all disagreements didn't have to be framed in such stark terms. I don't live in or care much for California, so I had no dog in the fight, but I also did not like the gang-up on Eich and I don't understand the argument that he had to be kicked out because of how people might feel - it seems like it's the default position to work for someone who thinks you shouldn't have some right or another, or some other person should have more rights than you. It did not affect my usage of Firefox. I did eventually download Brave and I use it for maybe a quarter of my web browsing, but that happened because a site I like stopped working in Firefox. I use Edge for a lot of other stuff - known safe sites, basically. I use Firefox simply out of inertia and because I like NoScript and the exact way NoScript works. A lot of the stuff I like about it is gone now, as they keep removing features I use. I don't have any affection for Mozilla or Firefox anymore. Metrics-based development is always a fool's errand - removing feature after feature that 1% of your install base uses is a great way to lose half your users when you remove > 50 features. In the end, I don't think Mozilla understood where their strength came from. They weren't installed by default. They didn't have massive marketing campaigns like Google/Chrome. They weren't bundled in installers. They had one thing: power users, and power users evangelizing to their friends and family. They've alienated power users, and now all that's left is people running on inertia and people really worried about open source. Not a winning combination. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_California_Proposition_8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_California_Proposition_8
      • pseudalopex 5y ago
• qersist3nce 5y ago
  In other news: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplatforming/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplat... https://www.ghacks.net/2021/03/14/mozilla-plans-to-remove-the-compact-density-option-from-firefoxs-customize-menu/ https://www.ghacks.net/2021/03/14/mozilla-plans-to-remove-th... https://www.ghacks.net/2020/04/08/how-to-restore-the-old-firefox-address-bar/ https://www.ghacks.net/2020/04/08/how-to-restore-the-old-fir...
  • jasonjayr 5y ago
    These right there, and all the other issues in the same vein are the probably the reason. Sure, make a simplified browser interface by default. But don't forget to give power users an escape hatch to get more control over the browser, and make it do what they want. They are the ones that recommend the browser to other users.
  • 0xy 5y ago
    Here's what one of Firefox's Android developers thought of users after they raised concerns over the abolition of extensions and the rushed, buggy and inferior release: https://web.archive.org/web/20200731235001/https://twitter.com/EmilyKager/status/1289347370430246912 https://web.archive.org/web/20200731235001/https://twitter.c... Meanwhile Mozilla's CEO continues to fleece increasing millions of dollars while being responsible for a massive collapse in market share (she increased her pay 400%, while destroying the company). https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/09/23/1528219/firefox-usage-is-down-85-despite-mozillas-top-exec-pay-going-up-400 https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/09/23/1528219/firefox-usa...
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  • wusher 5y ago
    That about sums up why I switched from Firefox to brave.
• antman 5y ago
  Former Firefix advocate, after the plugins breakage and senseless ui changes I had to check out. Kiwi on mobile from an HN recommendation
  • christophilus 5y ago
    Same. I was 100% FF until they broke my AD blocker on iOS. The internet is unusable without it, so I switched to Brave. I do align philosophically with OSS, and community organization, though, so I may switch back at some point. I do think Mozilla’s executive team needs a real shakeup, though. Edit: haven’t heard of Kiwi. Looks interesting. Why’d you land on that vs Brave or whatever else?
    • foepys 5y ago
      I was under the impression that Apple doesn't allow ad blockers but only request filters that are maintained by the OS and have an upper limit. How can one browser be better than another if that's true?
      • christophilus 5y ago
        I don’t know, but Brave on iOS works very well. I can watch YouTube with no ads (and even a one-click button to download for offline viewing/ listening). Websites load quickly, with no ads that I can see, except in the rare cases where the ads are selfhosted.
        • Kye 5y ago
          They both use Safari's engine. There shouldn't be any difference in performance or support for features.
    • antman 5y ago
      I am on Android, and Kiwi Android accepts desktop Chrome’s plugins.
  • The_rationalist 5y ago
• DL302 5y ago
  I would imagine it's partially because of increased adoption of Brave and Safari.
• berniemadoff69 5y ago
  personally, i knew things were headed in the wrong direction when they added that big orange button in the top left corner. i guess that was version 4. i felt like it was the beginning of the end.
  • wolpoli 5y ago
    Around that time, they also added that Keyhole shaped back and forward buttons that looks off on all platforms. That's one of the first instance where I felt they prioritized what they want - a brand identity, over what the users want - a consistent user interface. https://web.archive.org/web/20120725235602/https://blog.mozilla.org/faaborg/2007/11/15/the-shape-of-things-to-come/ https://web.archive.org/web/20120725235602/https://blog.mozi...
• metabagel 5y ago
  I still use Firefox on my iPhone and computer. It generally works great.
  • Tomte 5y ago
    I would use it if they implemented the content blocking API on iOS. I can use Firefox Focus as ad blocker with Safari, but not with Firefox!
    • user3939382 5y ago
      I adblock with this in combination with iOS Firefox: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/weblock-adblock-proxy/id558818638 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/weblock-adblock-proxy/id558818...
    • stjohnswarts 5y ago
      if you turn on strict mode it blocks just about everything as well as brave does.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
• freediver 5y ago
  Fun fact: Under current conditions (200M users) it looks like Google is paying $2-2.25 per active user annually to be the default search engine in Firefox. "Mozilla renewed its search deal with Google in 2020 for three years. The organization will receive an estimate of $400 to $450 million per year from the deal alone. " https://www.ghacks.net/2020/12/10/mozillas-revenue-jumped-to-828-million-u-s-dollar-in-2019/ https://www.ghacks.net/2020/12/10/mozillas-revenue-jumped-to...
  • tpetry 5y ago
    That is a very good deal for google. As ads on the search results are looking more and more like normal results any user without adblocking will click multiple times on these ads in a year. And the cpc prices depending on the topic are really high.
    • nerdponx 5y ago
      It's also insurance against antitrust intervention.
    • kilroy123 5y ago
      I was thinking the same. It's a bargain and now I understand why Google pays them so much.
  • bluedevil2k 5y ago
    Given how they make a minimum $450M a year in revenue, how on Earth is Mozilla not swimming in cash?! How high can their expenses be?
    • rmsaksida 5y ago
      Mozilla pays millions of dollars per year to their CEO, despite the decrease in usage and user base. Could be a symptom of a larger problem in the organization.
      • Nextgrid 5y ago
• hidden-spyder 5y ago
  I am a Firefox user on all my devices and will be so until the Mozilla Foundation stands, but my gut feeling tells me that Firefox won't bounce back from its downfall. I still wish for it to become the browser with most users.
• pupppet 5y ago
  With Google's relentless Chrome dickbars for anyone daring to use one of their services without it, I don't see how any other browser stands a chance.
  • pjmlp 5y ago
    They even push Chrome when you dare to use their services with another Chrome based browser that isn't theirs like Edge Chrome.
    • ficklepickle 5y ago
      My personal favorite, it complains when it can't update itself on my Debian workstation and tries to get me to re-install it from the web, on every launch. Yes, I know google, it is intentional. That is why I installed it from the repos.
• toper-centage 5y ago
  It's honestly a pity. Firefox is it perfect but the Internet is becoming worse because of chrome. Google is able to fast track any non standard Web tech and the hordes follow. Soon after, that become the standard. I don't want to cheer for a broken browser, but only Safari is able to stop this madness now. Also, Firefox on the Desktop is really good and still let's you do so much more than chrome clones. But it suffers specially when using Google websites.
  • nsilvestri 5y ago
    Chrome is already the standard. Firefox usually works, but more and more often nowadays I encounter a glitchy or poorly performing page, which I switch to Chrome to use properly. I use Firefox to not be part of the Chrome monopoly, not because it's actually a fundamentally better browser.
    • yaomtc 5y ago
      > I encounter a glitchy or poorly performing page When you have the time, you should note it here: https://webcompat.com/ https://webcompat.com/
    • xcambar 5y ago
      Chrome is not better because you witness some pages to render better in Chrome. It is actually the opposite: pages are more and more built for and with Chrome in mind. And that omnipresence of Chrome allows Google to force their own moves as de facto standards, which is dangerous overall. Firefox is better because it follows standards and it is open-source and it is not tied to a behemoth like Google. The authors of pages you see perform better in Chrome are indeed not building for the web but rather building for Chrome.
      • TranquilMarmot 5y ago
        Especially with the prevalence of sites that "work" in browser but really expect you to download yet-another-Electron-app (i.e. Slack) Develop for Chrome first, all other browsers second. Why worry if other browsers don't work when the solution is "download our desktop Electron application :)"
• DJBunnies 5y ago
  I try to use it as my daily driver, but it really sucks. Audio issues, logged out of everything issues, auto fill issues, it just doesn’t work in Firefox issues. Containers made me want to like it, but cmon.
  • yaomtc 5y ago
    If you want to help, report the sites you have issues with here: https://webcompat.com/ https://webcompat.com/
    • effingwewt 5y ago
      Why bother the current version hangs constantly forcing a re-launch to get it moving again, has been a known issue since the new updated version which is quite old now. They removed about:config and most addons. May they burn on the pyre they have built. This is what happens when MBAs fire the engineers and chase the bottom line. Obviously us users are using it wrong.
      • divarre 5y ago
        What do you mean was removed in about:config? The page is still available in Firefox 90/91. Just curious! They even added a new page recently about:third-party though only available on Windows: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/90.0/releasenotes/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/90.0/releasenotes/ You can view all the “about“ pages on about:about, e.g., about:performance, about:processes, about:networking, about:profiles, about:protections, about:crashes, about:support. Have you tried refreshing Firefox using about:support or giving the Troubleshoot Mode a go? It sounds like there may be either something wrong with your profile or some incompatibility somewhere. Hope that helps!
• amatecha 5y ago
  Hmm, conversely, I switched to Firefox (from Chrome) as my main web browser this year!
  • leodriesch 5y ago
    Yeah, me two (coming from Edge). I would argue that Chrome is better in some aspects, but using Firefox is the least thing one can do to stop Googles dominance. I also quite like the UI changes and would say that Firefox now has the best looking chrome after Safari (highly subjective).
• Rebelgecko 5y ago
  I moved back to FF after Quantum but haven't been happy with the latest round of UI changes (which also seems to have turned the buttery performance of quantum into a stuttery mess on my machine)
  • Ygg2 5y ago
    Guess firing those people that brought you those improvement really paid up for Mozilla execs.
    • SquareWheel 5y ago
      Would you recommend they simply stop paying their engineers instead?
      • Ygg2 5y ago
        No. Stop paying the execs. They obviously are steering the ship into the rocks.
        • SquareWheel 5y ago
          Okay you've paid for ten additional engineers. What would you like to do with the remaining 240[1]? [1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/08/firefox-maker-mozilla-lays-off-250-workers-says-covid-19-lowered-revenue/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/08/firef...
        • relativ575 5y ago
          Let's say they fire all existing execs. Poach some talented ones from other tech companies who are capable of righting the ship. How much do you suggest to pay them? If less than what they currently make, how many do you think will be willing to jump?
          • dnzkw 5y ago
            Eich was competent and happy being paid peanuts. Maybe they shouldn't have burnt that bridge ;-)
• bobsmooth 5y ago
  Anyone else install ESR to avoid the new interface?
  • Proven 5y ago
    I did, on both personal and corporate client. I forgot to backup installed extension names and other stuff from the FF version I uninstalled, and ESR corrupted the previous profile after I installed it so even after going back I wasn't able to recover. At that point I wiped all traces of FF and started with FF ESR "from scratch". It was well worth the trouble - no stupid tabs. Who knows for how long.
• djanogo 5y ago
  FF CPU usage is terrible compared to Safari on OSX, they need to put more effort to make it as efficient as Safari. May be increased sales of ARM based Macbooks will help them. Just watch a twitch stream on Firefox vs Safari, there is at least 10c CPU temp difference between 2 browsers
• tedk-42 5y ago
  Each to their own. I'm a happy Firefox user and will continue to be on all my devices (including my phone which I'm writing this now with)
  • radmuzom 5y ago
    Me too. Firefox on both my Windows and GNU/Linux laptops. Firefox Focus in my phone - I use a phone browser only for reading and Focus works perfectly for that use case.
  • seoseokho 5y ago
    switched full time and i'm a hppay camper myself. haven't used firefox since chrome 2 came out.
  • VadimPR 5y ago
    Same. The only device I don't use it on is the Chromebook - ChromeOS doesn't seem to be Firefox' target market.
  • joelthelion 5y ago
    If only. Google's monopoly will make Firefox harder and harder to use.
  • prashantsengar 5y ago
    I have been trying to switch to Firefox since long but have never been able to completely switch. There have always been some problems that send me away. On my phone (Android), Firefox is quite good except a few UX issues (that I don't mind too much) but the sync with my desktop has NEVER worked. On the desktop, FF has always been slow - in booting, loading pages. The same with Edge and Chrome just work. If I could get it to sync, and if the desktop version worked, I would never go back to Chromium.
    • shaan7 5y ago
      I can imagine how frustrating it would feel as a Firefox dev reading reports like this and wondering wth is going wrong. Because I'm "just a user" and I've never seen FF being slow to start or loading pages. Same with sync, I recently install Firefox on a new laptop. Clicked the sync button, logged in with my account and done. In 2-3 minutes all history and addons sync'd \o/ UX wise I really love that Firefox Android has the address bar on the bottom :D Except some Google stuff like the GCP console. EDIT: formatting
• vrocmod 5y ago
  Will Firefox go extinct like Netscape did?
  • yaomtc 5y ago
    Firefox was born from the ashes of Netscape. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla#History
  • tomjen3 5y ago
    I fear it will. I use it daily because it is the best at protecting my privacy, no other browser has containers, but it seems too few people care. At least as long as mobile Safari exist, Chrome isn't able to swallow everything and resistance is not yet futile.
    • shaan7 5y ago
      > no other browser has containers THIS. The first damn thing I do on a new PC/VM. I work with multiple clients, they each have their corporate SSO stuff and its so damn convenient to keep them all in their own containers. Same with Google stuff, containers are so much more consistent to switch between Google accounts than their own switching thingy (just try switching between accounts in AdWords).
    • christophilus 5y ago
      > no other browser has containers I’m pretty sure Brave profiles are the equivalent or at least an analogue.
• rwmj 5y ago
  The recent changes to the address bar and the terrible new "Photon" UI are really annoying. Don't annoy your loyal users.
  • cabraca 5y ago
    Its funny that you mention the not really annoying shit and forget about the push for pocket, the constant push for some of their free services like firefox sync, send, vpn, etc that, the reappearing ebay bookmark i deleted like 12 times by now, the removal of live bookmarks, etc... and those are just the things they can control.
    • CRConrad 5y ago
      > firefox sync, [...] the reappearing ebay bookmark i deleted like 12 times by now Maybe you need to delete it, just the once, from whatever device it keeps getting synced from?
  • elric 5y ago
    They've been chasing Google's tail for a while now. They keep making decisions that make little sense. Given the drop in user count I'd say those decisions aren't even paying off. Every time I update FF, I actively dread to see what they ruined this time. Sadly, creating a new browser is impossible these days, unless you're sitting on a very considerably sized pile of cash. There's over a thousand W3C specs, and you'll need to implement most of them in order to have a functional browser. It's maddening that the steward of the best browser codebase is doing such a shitty job. They fired a whole bunch of people last year, even though they seem to sitting on plenty of cash, they don't seem to give a crap about what their users actually want. But, sadly, there is no alternative, and there won't be.
  • tgv 5y ago
    I'm sort of used to it by now, but I also don't see it as a real reason to stop using Firefox. Chrome also changes. So how big of a factor would UI changes be in this user loss? I'm suspecting there are more trivial and indirect causes too, such as people changing machines: Firefox isn't pre-installed, and then they just pick whatever that also works.
• marto1 5y ago
  had no idea people have that much trouble with the new UI. Looks quite alright to me, although I did lose compatibility for 2 plugins so that was a pain in the butt.
  • rwmj 5y ago
    When you can't tell which tab is the current tab, that means you haven't done any basic hallway usability testing.
• approxim8ion 5y ago
  FF has not done anything to push me away yet. I am open to change and not always happy with their decisions, but their product remains usable and favorable to me.
• rvz 5y ago
  All thanks to the Chromium ecosystem that have made it 'desirable' for web devs to build on, companies like Microsoft, Brave, Opera and Vivaldi all have their browsers depending on Chromium and for users to be running almost everything in either a browser or an electron desktop app. This is a two horse race. Chrome vs Safari and Chrome is still winning. Not only that, Chrome is 'the standard' and we happily helped them become that after pushing out IE. The control of the web standards has just switched hands from one tech giant to another. Firefox has no chance of catching up. They are already on life support by Google.
  • freediver 5y ago
    Allow me to mention that we are adding another horse to the race, a WebKit based browser no less, Orion [1]. There are many things we believe Safari could do better and we are set to do them. [1] https://browser.kagi.com https://browser.kagi.com
• deploydeploy 5y ago
  I don’t understand myself, why I choose chrome over firefox. Mayba as a web dev, I want to make sure most people will get my website right
  • timbit42 5y ago
    You should be testing in the top 3 browsers.
    • hu3 5y ago
      So Chrome, Safari and Baidu?
      • yorwba 5y ago
        Baidu used to have their own browser, but almost nobody used it, so they discontinued it eventually. The third most popular browser globally is Edge: https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share
        • timbit42 5y ago
          Chrome and Edge (and Opera and Brave) use the same engine. I should have said the top three engines.
• KingMachiavelli 5y ago
  The big issue I see with Firefox is that they lost a lot of power user's when the removed XUL extensions and the underlying engine doesn't have good third party wrappers like QtWebEngine (that I know of) so creating reskined browser's is pain. I don't pick a browser for the Firefox or Chromium engine (unless a site needs it), I pick a browser based on the UI and configuration management. So I use Qutebrowser that is keyboard based and a declarative configuration. It happens to use QtWebEngine but that is not why I picked that browser. Since I don't use Firefox... I don't really recommend it to anyone. Firefox's early success was driven by educated user's telling other people to drop IE for the better product. It also means a lot fewer developer's are using the Firefox engine when developing websites... especially the developer's that would put in the effort to submit bug reports & patches. (At least last I checked, recreating a Qutebrowser like experience in Firefox was at best just really annoying and would still lack features).
  • foepys 5y ago
    The end of XUL was necessary to make Firefox faster. Doenload an old XUL Firefox version and surf the web. If you don't notice a difference in page load speed, startup time, and overall responsiveness, you might have a very, very fast computer, which most people around the world don't have. The 3 or 4 thousand power users that needed native interop were (and still are) of no interest compared to the then bad performance of Firefox in relation to Chrome. Even HN was full of people who complained about Firefox' performance. Now it's full of people who recommend to give Firefox another shot because it's fast again. Firefox is also currently the only browser where uBlock Origin can use all of its features, Chrome is intentionally limiting APIs. Are people using Firefox because of it? No. So XUL add-ons would not have helped Firefox. If you still want XUL, there are many forks out there that claim to support it.
    • TiccyRobby 5y ago
      My number one reason to use Firefox is uBlock Origin. It does an exceptional job and web is way more annoying without it.
      • 5y ago
• eth0up 5y ago
  Arbitrarily removing access to about:config (in Android) must account for a loss or two. I personally perceive it as a flagrant expression of contempt for their users. I keep Nightly around, but fully reciprocate perceived contempt and hope such losses grow.
• mickotron 5y ago
  That includes me. Hard to be a huge advocate for Firefox when they continually don't deliver. Brave is my browser for the time being.
• solarkraft 5y ago
  It’s close to losing me too. I stuck with it in a major part to prevent a monoculture, but It’s much slower than Chrome, causes major memory issues on my machine (M1 Mac) and with Mozilla on a kamikaze mission I don’t think it’s going to get better any time soon. Literally the only thing keeping me there are Tree Style Tabs/Sidebery. Give me a Chrome based browser with that and I’ll switch (Edge’s vertical tabs don’t really count, it’s still not a tree). I see many reasons for Firefox’s demise, but TL;DR I’m just done.
  • freediver 5y ago
    Orion (WebKit based) has native tree style tabs, plus runs Chrome/Firefox extensions. Currently in beta (disclaimer: founder)
    • solarkraft 5y ago
      Thanks for the hint, I signed up!
    • jray 5y ago
      Why doesn't it have a status bar? All the software I use has a status bar, but for years it has become fashionable not to have one in browsers.
      • freediver 5y ago
        It does have a status bar. Or we are talking about different things?
        • Kye 5y ago
          They probably mean a bar at the bottom that shows what's going on. All browsers used to have it. Then it dropped to just showing which URL was currently loading. I don't think they even show that now. Most of what it had is accessible in greater detail with developer tools, but it was nice to have a little summary down there.
• zecg 5y ago
  I currently use Fennec on mobile, but it's just sad how they're adding stupid bulls*t (pocket, collections) and removing useful features. The bloody thing can't save a webpage as PDF anymore
• moltar 5y ago
  No idea why. Firefox is an amazing browser.
• elktea 5y ago
  Does anyone know what the browser usage stats are for HN?
• thesimp 5y ago
  And that is the price they pay for trying to be Chrome clone UI wise and not listening to to the "power users". I hate to use the words "power user" but it is the small group of very active and enthusiastic users that you need to give the appears to every one else that they are missing out on something cool. I still use Firefox because it works reasonably for my usage but I stopped promoting it to other people around me. For the average user Chrome is good, very good even. And Firefox lost its uniqueness and UI differences that made it stand out. And if nobody talks anymore about your product then you are done.
  • mfer 5y ago
    We shouldn’t just look at power users. Google and Microsoft, for example, constantly advertise to use their browser when you visit their properties. I imagine this has an impact.
    • vladvasiliu 5y ago
      Google, yes. But Microsoft? I haven't noticed, and I'm on Office 365 all day (my client uses that) while running Firefox / Linux. Microsoft does keep asking me to use Edge on my Windows gaming machine, although it's the only browser I have installed... But I guess the point is... where is Mozilla going to ask people to use Firefox?
      • Phemist 5y ago
        But Microsoft? I haven't noticed > Try installing firefox (or even chrome) on a clean install of an updated windows 10.
        • vladvasiliu 5y ago
          But that's a Windows thing, as opposed to "on the web", right? And as I've said, Windows bugs me about edge even though I've never installed anything else — the "use the recommended edge something or other". Whereas Google bugs me on all my machines (Mac / Linux / Windows, all without Chrome). My point was that using Firefox on Linux, I've never seen anything related to edge on MS sites (but I only use Office 365, Azure and, sometimes, the docs site).
• ostenning 5y ago
  The main thing driving me away from Firefox is the speed. Chrome is notably faster for me.
  • mfer 5y ago
    How did you come to the conclusion that chrome was faster? Personally, I’ve found all the browsers to be fast enough.I did some analysis leg work to come to that conclusion. I look at other characteristics such as privacy.
    • dnzkw 5y ago
      I agree that both browsers are fast enough, and still, Chrome is faster.
  • guilhas 5y ago
    The new Firefox 89 is equally faster
• ostenning 5y ago
  If chrome had a container engine for enhanced privacy I would leave FF in a heart beat. The only thing keeping me to FF is the privacy aspect. Pity FF keep eroding that advantage also
• ladzoppelin 5y ago
  Edge is the biggest threat to Chrome and Firefox is still great. uBlock Origin does not even work as well in Chrome as it does in FF which will always create demand for alt browsers. I can't deal with with Chrome but if everything else goes away, Edge is fine. Ms is doing exactly what Google did with webkit, what can you do?
  • freediver 5y ago
    One of the problems with Edge is that it sends 350+ requests "home" to Microsoft on startup (in good-old fashioned way Windows does). A big no-no from a privacy standpoint.
    • TLLtchvL8KZ 5y ago
      Surely this would show up in dns? The only thing my DNS shows me from edge usage is smartscreen.
      • freediver 5y ago
        My bad for not linking to the source of information: https://brave.com/popular-browsers-first-run/ https://brave.com/popular-browsers-first-run/
  • NullPrefix 5y ago
    >uBlock Origin does not even work as well in Chrome as it does in FF AFAIK Firefox is the only mobile browser that supports uBlock Origin.
    • hu3 5y ago
      Kiwi Browser on Android has support for desktop Chrome extensions, and it's open-source.
  • cube00 5y ago
    Given Edge is based on Chromium, I don't see how it's Chrome's biggest threat, there's all sorts of tricks Google can pull to cripple Chromium so Edge is also punished. Look at what they've done with Android and the massive "Google Play Services" bolt on. If you try and take away any of its permissions you get a warning that "this may cause basic functionality to stop working"
• csmpltn 5y ago
  I've been using Firefox daily for over 15 years now. My experience with Firefox over the last 2-3 years in particular leaves me very disappointed and frustrated. The constant nonsense UI redesigns that come about with every new update. The instability, and ridiculous resources consumption. The slowness and slugishness. I want a browser that works, respects my privacy, stays out of my way and lets me get shit done. A browser built for professionals, by professionals. I want a consistent UI that remains stable over time. I'm easily willing to pay for such a browser. Firefox used to be it, but I no longer feel like it is. Any suggestions for what to try next?
  • sleavey 5y ago
    Just to give a contrasting data point: I always see people complaining about resource consumption in Firefox in these threads, but I have honestly almost never had trouble like this and I use it for hours every day with lots of tabs and lots of rich media websites open. It happened more in the past (maybe 5+ years ago), but I am sure some of the blame in those cases would have been down to Flash. Now that I think more about it, that whole time I've also blocked ads, which surely helps too.
    • foepys 5y ago
      A friend of mine has over 4,000 tabs open in Firefox at the moment - they just never close a tab, ever. Their Firefox' memory usage is only a little higher compared to mine with 3 open tabs.
      • bombcar 5y ago
        I wonder how many of those are actually “open” - disconnect the internet and try looking at them. I suspect many just are the URL and nothing more and on view it reloads.
        • foepys 5y ago
          Yes, Firefox unloads old unused tabs.
• natch 5y ago
  Those annoying Pocket ads maybe? And how do you quickly disable JavaScript for the page you’re on? I can never find that in Firefox.
  • legrande 5y ago
    You can't with Firefox, but with uBlock Origin you can turn JS off globally and whitelist specific pages that require JS (Most pages work fine with JS disabled)
• guilhas 5y ago
  Firefox: Lets remove tab groups, no one uses it Chrome: Lets add tab groups, seems like a good idea Firefox: why are users leaving?.. The constant addons breakage and UI changes, feature removal. I could bare the speed difference, but these inconsistencies are just too much Still Firefox continues to be the best browser in theory
  • itvision 5y ago
    Let's be honest - since the removal of XUL addons, all my add-ons have been working just fine. Let's stop repeating this ... thing - it's long lost its relevance and nowadays it's just a falsehood.
    • guilhas 5y ago
      Until version 89 reaches ESR I will continue to use Waterfox classic with XUL addons archive. Not only is faster but I have more addons All your addons are not everyone's addons. Some people have different, or more, or more specific addons There are addons that disappeared and are not possible to do today. And maybe you can do something similar, even if clunkier or slower. But a lot of developers have moved anyway, which created holes in the ecosystem And just having to go and find replacements was difficult since it took a lot of time for addons to reach parity. And people have a day job to get on with TreeStyleTab still breaks today, sometimes the side bar disappears or is empty I had an addon that would highlight all bookmark link in all pages, including google results, and on mouse over would show the tags and description. Can you find a similar now?
    • patrick451 5y ago
      In what way is it a falsehood? There is an entire class of addons that are simply impossible to create under the new paradigm. These used to work, now that don't. Firefox broke them intentionally.
      • niij 5y ago
        Do you have an example? I didn't have anything break long term, so didn't get affected (luckily)
• tiahura 5y ago
  Look at their CEO and leadership team. Why would you expect anything but failure when a company is run by the HR and D&I departments?
• throw_m239339 5y ago
  I often hear on this website that "Firefox isn't slow". Firefox does feel slower than Chromium based browsers. I don't know the technicalities but this is the reason why I moved to Chromium (Opera). However, I like the fact that Firefox does allow me to mute audio and stop video playback by default, which Chrome does not (Opera does though). Finally I'm not sure I like the all idpol noise coming from the Mozilla Foundation...
• dordoka 5y ago
  I use Firefox since it was Phoenix and I will keep using and recommending it. Chrome was great when it came out, now is Google's trojan horse that everyone is happily embracing. It's one of the clearest Embrace, Extend, Extinguish strategies ever pulled off.
• eitland 5y ago
  I have contacted local authorities twice about anti competitive behavior from Chrome. If two - three other Norwegians do the same that should start to look like an earthquake ;-) Same if ten - twenty Germans or Brits or French do the same. I would mention: 1. that some of their web properties (calendar and YouTube) have been intentionally incompatible with Firefox as evidenced by how well they work in Firefox if one changes how the browser identify itself. 2. How they have pushed Chrome as a "better browser" on the front page of Google (were no one else have been allowed to advertise) to Firefox users since way before Chrome was anywere nearly as good as Firefox, making it both a lie and - more importantly - a massive abuse of dominance in one market to gain monopoly in another just like Microsoft did with IE. As we saw yesterday with AWS authorities are willing to punish rampant abuse if they have a good case and this definitely is one. Edit: since this comment is getting a lot of attention the relevant authority in Norway is Konkurransetilsynet with web address https://konkurransetilsynet.no https://konkurransetilsynet.no (Finding the exact correct form on that site and for this purpose seems to be an art and/or science it seems but if you can't find any just submit somewhere and explain the situation.) It would be beautiful if everyone could post underneath with the address to the equivalent office in your jurisdiction.
  • judge2020 5y ago
    > anti competitive behavior Have some examples? On Desktop, I don't see any, but I would get if you mean Mobile since Chrome is still the default browser there for Android.
    • dmitriid 5y ago
      This thread from a former Mozilla exec: https://twitter.com/johnath/status/1116871231792455686?s=20 https://twitter.com/johnath/status/1116871231792455686?s=20
      • freediver 5y ago
        Very instructive, thanks for sharing.
    • 5y ago
• Vaslo 5y ago
  Not a popular opinion but I’ll say it - Firefox was my daily driver until the CEO made comments about censoring conservatives that went beyond just deplatforming them. I now use ungoogled chromium or Edge.
• omar_kha 5y ago
  went downhill after JavaScript creator left and created brave.
• beezischillin 5y ago
  I'm ashamed to admit that I'm an avid Facebook user, it helps me keep in touch with friends and family living abroad, despite it's obvious negatives quitting it would mean losing out. I'm saying this because to me one of the benchmarks of a browser is how well it runs Facebook's awfully-optimized front-end code. In that regard Safari used to be a disaster and now it works alright but Firefox seems to be consistently worse. It's a shame because FF is very important to the future of the internet, in my opinion, and on macOS their performance is not that great. My backup browser for this sole reason is Brave. I wish that wasn't the case because the browser is stuffed with... things.. that I don't need or want in it so I always have to go and hunt down how to turn all of them off when I install it on a new machine. To me a browser needs a UI that's small, unobtrusive but clean, no BS on the "new tab" page (I don't need random wallpapers loaded from who knows where or news) - just a list of bookmarks, speed and support for the few extensions I use (adguard, sponsorblock, bitwarden). Please fix FF, I wanna use it as my main browser!
  • makecheck 5y ago
    I see no evidence of poor performance on macOS. Have you used a recent Firefox? Could you be blaming the browser for the behavior of a particular extension or web site?
  • stjohnswarts 5y ago
    what specifically is happening? I use Facebook a lot in a "container" in firefox without any issues. The only one I have noticed is when I scroll way way way way down the feed it kind of starts chugging in a way that chrome doesn't. That's the only fail that I've seen.
    • beezischillin 5y ago
      Exactly
• unnouinceput 5y ago
  I have to confess I am the culprit. In 2019 I started to move from yahoo to protonmail and from chrome to firefox. I brought the bad juju it seems
• jasonlotito 5y ago
  Hrm, so many people dunking on FF, and I’ve recently swapped back as it feels like it’s improved a lot. This is within the last month. This is on both Mac and Windows. It’s snappy, doesn’t feel heavy, and generally feels faster than Chrome. And on Mac, better than Safari.
• aetherspawn 5y ago
  Firefox somehow managed to have a prophetic moment and plan their recent reskin to look and feel exactly like Windows 11. So now when you use the newly released Windows 11, the several month old Firefox reskin matches the taskbar and controls perfectly. That was clever. I wonder if they had any inside help.
  • kijin 5y ago
    But by the time Windows 11 becomes popular, Firefox will already have reskinned itself again. Mozilla just can't seem to help it. :(
• abcd_f 5y ago
  At the rate they “improve” the UI it’d be a miracle if even most staunch users won’t jump the ship. That clown act they pulled in the recent release with tabs and decimated context menus was the last drop that forced me, the loyal user of 15+ years, to disable Firefox updates on all machines under my control. FFS, do they put any thought into these pointless disruptive changes that do nothing else but mess up existing users experience? They should stop making changes in a hope of attracting new users and give a long and hard thought to how to retain what they already got. Because they will end up with neither.
  • TranquilMarmot 5y ago
    Hmm, I really love the recent UI redesign. I've also been using Firefox for at least 15 years and every time they change it, it's been enjoyable for me.
• acd 5y ago
  I suggest Firefox implements a premium paid variant without taking away any features from the free version. This is to increase revenue for development.
  • foepys 5y ago
    Chrome is free to download. I click a link and get Chrome, done. Why should I go through the hassle to register, give out my CC info, and pay?
  • gilrain 5y ago
    They make $450 million a year. A premium Firefox would barely move the needle. Revenue is not the issue, but how it's allocated.
• octopoc 5y ago
  I switched from Firefox to Brave for two reasons: 1. Brave is building new tech like IPFS, BAT, and Brave Search that are really compelling reasons to use it. Firefox's main selling point is that it simply exists as an alternative to Chrome. Firefox feels like it's digging its heels in to resist Google, while Brave feels like it's going on the offensive. 2. I disagree with Firefox's politics. They cancelled their CEO because he donated to the Wrong Side(TM). They want more deplatforming, they want more fact checks [1]. That is radical compared to mainstream thought in America just a few years ago. This new direction the left is taking is not good for the Internet, IMO. After January 8, I took a hint and left Firefox for Brave. [1] https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplatforming/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplat...
• devwastaken 5y ago
  Chromium - chrome, edge, brave, V8, V8 isolates, node.js, electron, etc. Firefox - Firefox, Torbrowser, spidermonkey. Chromium project became the cpython of JavaScript and web browsers, because you could package it's components and embed them in your own applications. Firefox does not have competitive equivalents or better features. Therefore it loses users. This was a big topic years ago when FF started removing XUL and any ability to extend the browser. You need a reason for people to use your tech, not just your product.
  • kasabali 5y ago
    > Chromium project became the cpython of JavaScript and web browsers, because you could package it's components and embed them in your own applications. Firefox does not have competitive equivalents or better features. Therefore it loses users. XULRunner was Electron before it was cool. Though they werent prevalent there was a small but promising variety of applications based on XULRunner [0] Then of course Mozilla administration axed it in their infinite wisdom. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Software_that_uses_XUL https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Software_that_uses_...
• kaydub 5y ago
  Been on firefox since it was firebird. It feels like a no-brainer for me. I'm never going to use chrome unless I have to. I use a lot of google products, but I see no reason to give them even more data on my browsing habits by using their browser.
• beebeepka 5y ago
  Firefox threads are ways the same: self proclaimed power users complain about minor changes to colours and shadows. That's been going on since v4, which was what, a decade ago? So, my takeaway is that Firefox has become a punching bag for people to vent on. Sad state of affairs. Especially because it would be really hard, if not impossible, for Mozilla to shed this image
  • remram 5y ago
    The mobile version had quite a deep change and lost a number of features, including bookmark keywords, the tab queue, reordering tabs, and about:config.
    • DoingIsLearning 5y ago
      ...And the great add-on purge! What the hell was that about? Who in their right mind thought that was a good idea or acceptable?
      • christophilus 5y ago
        That is the thing that made me jump ship. The UI changes and Pocket and promoted favorites were a nuisance, but minor. But add-in’s? The web is just broken without ad blocking.
        • soundnote 5y ago
          The mobile version should have uBlock Origin?
  • slipperlobster 5y ago
    Personally, I don't mind the UI changes. I hate how Firefox _forces_ me to restart my browser when it arbitrarily decides to update. Makes webdev a headache.
    • CRConrad 5y ago
• Laarlf 5y ago
  Well, even if you ignore that Firefox is inferior compared to Chromium, Mozilla is not a respectable company anymore in my opinion. So i see 0 reasons to use Firefox. https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplatforming/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplat...
• hmsshagatsea 5y ago
  Librewolf has been a lifesaver, I highly suggest people check it out. https://librewolf-community.gitlab.io/ https://librewolf-community.gitlab.io/
• cs2733 5y ago
  In the last decade, the proliferation of smartphones led to billions of newly "connected" people using the default browser, not knowing or caring about what a "browser" is. Firefox doesn't ship its own hardware so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  • f32jhnjk33jj 5y ago
    I switched to Firefox on Android, because I can use uBlock Origin (adblocker) extension with it and stop watching nonsense ads. It's also good for battery life and protect against some malware. Chrome on Mobile, on the other hand, doesn't allow extensions.
    • soundnote 5y ago
      Yeah, that's what HN readers do. Most people don't even understand what a web browser is, or even use one at that. A staggering amount of modern web traffic is driven by a Google search widget on people's phones. There's a completely depressing number of people who go to even familiar sites by googling them.
  • cs2733 5y ago
    In World War 2 the Allies didn't win because they had the best tanks and airplanes. They won because they - the US, really - could build them much faster than Axis. It's a numbers game. Edit: One could argue this isn't what the news article is about but what's losing 50M in a market of billions? A device, specially a smartphone, is a delivery mechanism for services and in this day and age when internet access (apps) has become massified, having "choice" is irrelevant as far as browser marketshare goes. I do hope Firefox continues because I quite enjoy using it but if they do fold someday I won't be surprised.
• todd3834 5y ago
  Meanwhile: Brave Passes 25 Million Monthly Active Users https://brave.com/25m-mau/ https://brave.com/25m-mau/ This seems relevant as it was started by the former co-founder of Mozilla and creator of JavaScript. Maybe Brendan Eich is good at finding out what people want in a browser.
  • InTheArena 5y ago
    now if it just had multi-account containers. Still running the monoculture problem....
  • Shorel 5y ago
    I can assure you that after 20 years using it, I still don't want JavaScript in my browsers.
    • stjohnswarts 5y ago
      That boat sailed a long time ago.
• sirius87 5y ago
  Switched from Chrome to Firefox around 2017 then to closed-source Chromium-based Vivaldi and haven't looked back since. Whatever architectural changes Firefox made around '17-19 broke the browser for me. Tabs would randomly go dead, accepting no input. Mobile Firefox was worse. The old Firefox was perfectly fine, save for being noticeably but, for me, acceptably slower than Chrome. Then Firefox Aurora or whatever happened and things went from stable went to crap. I'd try and go back to see if things got better occasionally, but then gave up and uninstalled it. Most aggravating is when you have negative feedback about Firefox in forums, including on HN, you immediately get "have to tried" suggestions from avid fans. The intent is good, no doubt. I get that it works for you. But I'm beyond trying already.
  • eingaeKaiy8ujie 5y ago
    closed-source == not secure
• Kenji 5y ago
  This is bullshit. Firefox users simply block analytics.
• tomrod 5y ago
  Do any other browsers support containers? That has been the killer feature for me.
  • christophilus 5y ago
    Brave does. They call it profiles, I think.
    • approxim8ion 5y ago
      Assuming we are talking about the same thing, it's absolutely not the same as containers. It'd be the same as Chrome profiles, or Firefox profiles for that matter. Containers allow you to have separate sandboxes within the same instance of the browser.
      • christophilus 5y ago
        Ah. You are right. Well that’s a very cool feature that I wasn’t aware of.
        • stjohnswarts 5y ago
          Multicontainer add on is invaluable if you like siloing off google/facebook/etc into their own little cookie and context world. Also extremely handy for logging into sites where you have multiple accounts and in general web testing. It's definitely a poweruser must have. Most people can get away without it though or wonder why it would be useful :)
• f32jhnjk33jj 5y ago
  Guys, what do you think about switching Firefox to WebKit or Blink engine? This will greatly cut the development costs and will make Firefox almost 100% compatible to Chrome. FF is the only major browser with an engine different from Webkit/Blink.
  • ducktective 5y ago
    Having a different engine from Chrome itself is a selling point for Firefox. I don't like a world in which every web browser is a re-skin of Google's monopolized product.
• tomcooks 5y ago
  It's almost as if focusing on ugly UX (which hinder power users and do not engage casual users) and useless paid-for services, being sponsored by your main competitor, focusing on anything but making the browser work, and a plethora of well known annoyances was not the best strategy to retain users. (FF user since Netscape-era)
• cbmuser 5y ago
  Looking at the version history, support for version 52 ESR ended in September 2018. Since that version was the last supported version with XUL, the lack of XUL after that might be one of the reasons.
• tudorconstantin 5y ago
  Well, it won me back in the past year, for work related things because, working in the identity space I can be signed in with an unlimited number of different accounts in the same site using Firefox containers.
• jeromenerf 5y ago
  I see no real differences between browsers nowadays feature wise. They are all good enough. However, chrome has better integration with the rest of what google offers. And safari with what apple offers. Synchronization of profiles, open tabs on other machines, etc. Firefox is a good product, the others are commoditized services.
• dathinab 5y ago
  Many major video conference applications don't even try to support Firefox, so I'm not surprised that during this time frame a lot of users where forced/coerced to switch. Offenders include: - Teams - Slack - Zoom Sure there are codec license issues, but all(most) of them do use different codecs depending on the context, so they could totally support Firefox as long as no one in the conference is on a of Android device or similar.
  • perryizgr8 5y ago
    Each of those has a native app. Why would anyone be forced to switch browsers? Just install the app.
    • dathinab 5y ago
      Most people don't want to install apps on their computer for a single or a small number of meetings. Furthermore at least the Teams app in Linux it's really bad.
• LightG 5y ago
  Suprised by some of the comments here. Happy firefox user here for the last 5 years and don't see it changing. I moved to firefox aftet Chrome became like swimming in treacle, and good to get away from the Google ad bullsh!t. Suprised they haven't sunsetted Chrome yet. Pssst, Google, you've ruined Youtube too. Sunset that too.
• svl 5y ago
  I'd say ~30M, rather than 50M. They explicitly call out the summer holidays effect above the first graph: "Generally, MAU fluctuates over the course of a year, dropping in the summer months and during holidays." So comparing the peak of Jan 2019 to the low of Jul 2021 isn't giving a good idea of the total loss. Jan 28 2019: 253.9M Jan 27 2020: 229.5M Feb 01 2021: 219.7M Jul 22 2019: 224.2M Jul 20 2020: 214.1M Jul 19 2021: 200.4M Still, definitely not good; we've seen what happens when web developers believe only a single browser (engine) matters, and we _need_ an organization like Mozilla, which puts user interests above commercial interests, to have a seat at the table.
  • codesections 5y ago
    > They explicitly call out the summer [and winter] holidays effect above the first graph Given that this is a measure of "Desktop clients active in the past 28 days", that means that there are people tech-savy enough to be regular users of Firefox on a desktop – but who go an entire month without using Firefox because it's Christmas. And enough of those people to show up on this graph. That blows my mind a bit. I don't doubt it, but wow.
    • zamadatix 5y ago
      Remember FF has been bundled in installers and OEMs have preinstalled it. Out of 200,000,000 users there are probably more users that simply aren't tech-savvy enough to have changed to a different browser than are still on it because they are tech-savvy.
• wigado 5y ago
  Firefox lost me as a user shortly after the megabar change and the massive reworking of the mobile app UI. I still keep up to date on what's been going on since then, and I can't say I regret my decision in the slightest.
• bsd44 5y ago
  I switched to Opera because Firefox forces invasive updates that require a forced restart. For someone who likes to keep a web browser running for a long time and put their laptop to sleep rather than shutdown, that is not acceptable. I use Linux so I could get around that by excluding the package from updates but I don't want to run an outdated web browser that might have security vulnerabilities. I raised this a few times on their Reddit page, but it became so disturbing to my workflow that I just had to stop using it. Chrome is not a sane alternative, so I resorted to Opera. Good old Opera.
  • hoppyhoppy2 5y ago
    Opera is based on Chromium now, FYI.
  • aftergibson 5y ago
    Good old closed-source, Chinese-controlled, chromium-based Opera.
  • zamadatix 5y ago
    Just use the official version instead of your distro's version if you don't want your distro to control the update timing - seems like a self created problem. Official Firefox has a setting for "Check for updates but let you choose to install them" which will alert you but let you choose when instead of forcing it.
  • tephra 5y ago
    I'm not on desktop ow and can check later. But I'm pretty sure you can disable auto updates on the about:config page.
  • eingaeKaiy8ujie 5y ago
    Opera is closed source which means it is not secure.
    • bsd44 5y ago
      So Apple iOS, Microsoft Windows, Amazon FireOS, Cisco IOS, Netapp ONTAP... they are all "not secure" because they are not OSS?
• arepublicadoceu 5y ago
  Anyone who’s been around /r/firefox this last year or so knows that Mozilla systematically ignores users feedback. Even someone like me that uses Firefox since it’s inception just gave up. I feel like Mozilla is alienating its userbase to cater for new users. It’s a failing strategy as it will never be able to compete with the hand that feeds (google). My hope is that Mozilla fully dies and Firefox is able to continue as a community project like arch or Debian. It will never be popular but the community will have some control.
• XorNot 5y ago
  In general people really need to stop using Chrome. It's a tracking browser for an ad-company. The incentive structure is to send data to the mothership, and show you ads. You can see this, because uBlock Origin works a lot better on Firefox. But worse is also: Chrome just plain isn't fast or memory efficient anymore. It gets big speed ups on one or two things, but for the life of me it seems to consume a huge amount of memory and CPU compared to modern Firefox. That advantage was short lived.
• deadalus 5y ago
  Mozilla(Firefox's parent) has supported pro-social justice and progressive causes that ticked off a lot of users. There were a lot of discussions about it in 4chan from 2017-2019. Many people vowed to never use Firefox ever again and instead switched to alternatives like Waterfox and PaleMoon.
  • InTheArena 5y ago
    Mozilla is far better at delivering social positions then good software.
  • Kye 5y ago
    Somehow I doubt many of the tens of millions of people who switched have any idea about this minor tech feud. Blaming this for Firefox's fall would be just as silly as me assuming the tens of millions of people who use Brave know what kind of person is CEO and support his views. Most people don't look that deep into the tools they use.
  • stjohnswarts 5y ago
    4chan and it's black sheep twin 8chan aren't really very important in the grand scheme of browser wars I would warrant.
  • cherrycherry98 5y ago
    I also doubt that it's a large segment of users but count me as one among the millions who dumped Firefox in 2020. I knew it was going downhill when they started purging words from the project. When your inclusion efforts start alienating moderate users it might be time to rethink them. * Removing "meritocracy" from the governance docs - https://blog.mozilla.org/careers/words-matter-moving-beyond- https://blog.mozilla.org/careers/words-matter-moving-beyond-... * Changing "master password" to "primary password" - https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/primary-password-replac https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/primary-password-replac... * Removing "crazy" from the codebase - https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1675987 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1675987 * Removing words deemed as reference to mental illness - https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1675986 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1675986 The difference in the project from 15 years ago is stark. The Mozilla mission 2005: "Established in July, 2003, with start-up support from America Online's Netscape division, the Mozilla Foundation exists to provide organizational, legal, and financial support for the Mozilla open-source software project." The Mozilla mission 2021: "Our mission is to ensure the Internet is a global public resource, open and accessible to all. An Internet that truly puts people first, where individuals can shape their own experience and are empowered, safe and independent." Where they once were just supporting a software project they're now a political movement. They spout "equity", "justice", and "advocacy" all over mozilla.org. No thanks, I just want a decent software.
• wintermutestwin 5y ago
  Considering that there is no point in using Firefox on iOS due to Apple restricting Add-Ons (and thus the crucial uBlock Origin), I'd say that Apple is having a similar impact to Google on Firefox's user count.
• jl2718 5y ago
  One small thing: Firefox developer edition can’t edit files like chrome or their old firebug plugin. Therefore, apps get developed on chrome; therefore, they work better on chrome.
  • stjohnswarts 5y ago
    That's not even close to the main reason. Chrome has a much much higher share of the market. So much so that web developers can basically ignore firefox users without much uproar. They can justify their lack of testing in firefox as a budgetary trade off.
• InTheArena 5y ago
  I still use Firefox - primarily for the container extension which is exactly the awesome type of privacy and internet control we need. I simply don't want google that into my ecosystem. When they have to be there, I want them in a penalty box. Firefox lost their way technically, and their focus on users when Brenden Eich was forced out. Mozilla's focus seems to be far more on the social to the detriment of their technical efforts. Their fragmentation trying to chase other goals then browser has really cost them. Want mozilla to take a stand on a policy issue? Great. Responsive. Respond to user requests? Not so much. To be clear, I defend anyone's right to have a position and make the world a better place. But please improve the product that you are actually working on. The number of users you claim to speak for is shrinking.
• Shorel 5y ago
  And Firefox gained me. I was a Chrome user since I left Opera in 2017, until short ago, mainly for performance and ease of use. I just love container tabs, and to be able to send URLs from one computer to the other. And Pocket integration, great when you have a Kobo reader.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• thro1 5y ago
  I have no problems with Firefox (with hunderds of tabs open and best set of extensions), and it didn't lost me.. yet. The problem is with modern web, sites excepting JavaScript and things like canvas fingerprinting etc. for working. I have JavaScript disabled, for regular browsing I'm stuck with Firefox version<57 - so, for me, there is no future.
  • minitech 5y ago
    > for regular browsing I'm stuck with Firefox version<57 What? Why? That’s not covered by ESR support anymore; are you just running without security patches?
    • thro1 5y ago
      :( - but 'hardened' by custom configuration, extensions, some caution and no JavaScript. Without those extensions my productivity is 0 and I loose track of everything I do in newer versions. Is there something specific that I shall be aware of ?
• wqTJ3jmY8br4RWa 5y ago
  Browsers are like "commons" in the Internet space. It is super critical to have a neutral provider that adheres to open standards to have a substantial market share. We need to legislate every device sold (smart phone, PC, mac, iPad etc) to be shipped with a Firefox and/or other neutral open source browser. I've been a loyal Firefox user since Day 1. Every time I open an Chrome/Edge I get a pop up or notification to change my default away from Firefox. This is pure anti-competitive behavior by the tech giants and needs to stop.
• agigao 5y ago
  Here comes another sad ex-FF-user. I've been using Firefox since early days and the latest UI bumbling forced me to look elsewhere. Surely I tried alternatives over the years but my main browser has always stayed FF. Now, times has come to actually change the main browser, which turned out to be Edge. UI is slick and functional out of the box.
• ahtaarra 5y ago
  I think a part of it could be explained by the way things have been in recent times. As of July 2021 (according to the linked metrics), ~25% of the displays used are 1366x768px while ~40% of them are 1080p. Yet when the "Proton" refresh aimed to promote usability and while certain level of cross-platform was reached, the increase of padding simply made the experiences of people using displays with "less than optimal" resolutions worse. While the proton's hidden and "unsupported" compact mode had a decent height for a 14" FHD display, the same did not look as good on my 15.6" display with the same resolution. When I complained on reddit like many others about the increase in whitespace, I don't think it was given what I believe to be a proper consideration. Why would the main menu be bigger despite having fewer items? And where are the icons? It was a concern back when it was in nightly and many of the concerns remain now even though it has had a stable release. Another thing that is problematic is the colour-scheme. The newer style incorporates less contrasted colours and does away with what made the preceding Photon design better in certain ways: look at how the tabs on FF used to have a markedly different colour than their backdrop and how there used to be separators between tabs. The fact that the newer design is a bad one somehow eluded those in charge of it and the fact that the contrast between the active tab and its surrounding elements being low being an important issue is an afterthought is telling. Moreover, the dropdown for the megabar suggestions used to have full-window width but now it is limited to the megabar width for no apparent reason other than looking "cool" (which it does not btw; especially when you compare it to Chromium's counterpart). They introduced the megabar-expansion-on-focus behaviour, kept a config to disable it for a major release or two and then dumped the old one. Also, when you selected multiple tabs, upon a right-click, it used to tell you the count of selected tabs - which no longer seems to be the case. Needless to say, looking at userChrome.css to be _the_ solution for undesirable changes would not work well for anyone in the long run. Firefox, unlike Chromium-based browsers, does not support XDG base dir spec. It does not bother me very much and neither does FF flickering every once in a while on my main system. What bothers me is that with each new release I feel like FF is losing bits of its magic. Back when FF Quantum was released and was stripped of what many considered the level of flexibility which appealed to them, I was concerned but ultimately accepted it. But this time around the changes feel like marketing speak. Mozilla already has a discourse instance but post-Proton-release they also have a crowdicity instance... The way things have been going is genuinely upsetting and many users are just reacting to that.
• sir_brickalot 5y ago
  My take: Firefox on Android is one reason for their problem. I tried the new version a year ago and restored my TB backup bcs it was so bad. I thought I'd try it again yesterday but man it sucks so bad! No search in history, no bookmark tag support as far as I see, somehow the synced data from desktop doesn't get searched when typing in the address bar, multiple times my entry in the addres bar wouldn't load, the amount of supported add-ons is abysmal. Thats not all but I stop. My point: If mobile doesn't work it might be one reason people start switching on desktop, too. I won't. I like to be tortured.
• patrick451 5y ago
  Firefox has also been shooting its own feet. Their insistence on automatic updates, especially ones that require a "restart" is infuriating. Especially when the restart fails and loses all your tabs. They are also destroyed tons of useful plugins several years ago. They starting defaulting the home page to Pocket. I'd rather use firefox, but they don't seem to want me as a user.
• tswiszcz 5y ago
  Firefox has been breaking down on me the past few months. This inspired me to go back to Chrome.
• rishikeshs 5y ago
  Are you guys aware of Brave? It's the best browser I have ever used
  • stjohnswarts 5y ago
    I would posit that vivaldi is better if you must use a chrome-a-like browser. Brave is fine but vivaldi has a lot more power user features.
  • PufPufPuf 5y ago
    I find Brave's business model unethical. Blocking ads... well, fine, everybody does that anyways. But monetizing on it by replacing website ads with your own, pocketing the revenue, and pretending that it's fine because you give everyone your custom made-up currency? Genius move by taking advantage of modern trends (ad-blocking, cryptocurrency, micropayments, ...), but it's not the "web revolution" they pretend it to be. If you want to stick to Chromium, both Edge and Vivaldi are better options.
    • soundnote 5y ago
      Wouldn't recommend Edge. They do great work, but their sync features aren't all zero knowledge. Firefox's, Brave's and Vivalid's are by default, and as far as I know stock Chrome's can be made to be, but on Edge there's no way to have all sync categories be end to end encrypted.
    • BrendanEich 5y ago
      We have never replaced website ads with "[our] own". Check your source for this claim. I'm happy to follow up on where you found this false information.
• kgarten 5y ago
  Wondering why this is on the second page? Why would smb flag the story? Using alternative browsers is important. I have the same issues as others described in the chat. Meet-up does not work well in Firefox (video hangs, screenshare not working well ). In chromium no problem. Zoom and others work like a charm.
  • lyonlim 5y ago
    I have the same frustrating problem. Only time I use Chrome is when I need to jump onto a Meet call. Anyone has a solution to use Meet reliably on Firefox?
    • kgarten 5y ago
      yes ... it's super annoying. Zoom does not implement some features on the web and I'm ok with it. Their client works perfectly from the any web browser I use. Right now I have a chromium install just for meetup (as it does not work well in any other browser ... )
• stjohnswarts 5y ago
  It's a shame. I'm dreading seeing the demise of Firefox. I really like it. It's a little slower than chrome, but I swear I don't notice it 99% of the time. It works for all the sites I use, but I extricated myself from the google ecosystem a while back. I hope the trend reverse but I wouldn't bet on it.
• France_is_bacon 5y ago
  I stopped using Firefox because all my apps did not work on it. My Salesforce app, for example, didn't work on it. Part of my VOIP, which I depend on, does not work on it. And when I called support, all they say is to use Chrome. I'm not an assembly language programmer so I can't go to the bare metal to figure it out. That's what Firefox is supposed to do. I don't have time to figure any of it out, I have a job to do. Maybe it is my fault that some toggle is switched wrong, and I gave a cursory DuckDuckGo search to try to figure it out, but after an hour of looking, fruck it, I got other shlit to do, man. Plus, Firefox is slow as molasses over the last year, so much so that I have to reboot several times a day. Starts out ok, but gets up to 100% disk and 100% memory usage. Using Chrome, it works fine without maxing out disk and memory. I've used Firefox forever, and would prefer to keep using it, but it's just reached the tipping point for me this year. It kills me to go to chrome (Brave, actually) and I kept using Firefox a long time after it started giving me issues. But at some point, just gotta let go. I know that the incompatibility is caused by Google on purpose, it pisses me off, but I still have to get work done. What can one do?
• perfopt 5y ago
  I dont use Chrome except on some websites that dont work well with Firefox (some bank and government websites). I am ok with the speed, I dont have too many plugins. I see no reason to every go back to Chrome as my main browser.
• Borlands 5y ago
  Firefox is a breeze to use with great dev tools. Don’t even have Chrome installed atm, but may have to soon because of lighthouse. Definitely pushing for Firefox to be part of default installation at workplace, we need to fight monopolies.
• kart23 5y ago
  Firefox kinda pissed me off. They silently removed the network.trr.bootstrapAddress option, which allowed your browser to not get it's DNS queries hijacked and always use DoH. The workaround now is to... add an entry in your hosts file for the DNS server. I know it's a small thing, but why did they remove such a useful feature? I literally couldn't find any info on it other than this one reddit post. https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/nqqhsl/trr_mode_3_not_working_as_intended_on_89/ https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/nqqhsl/trr_mode_3_...
• kgarten 5y ago
  Why is this article on the second page and not on the first? Continued anti-competitive behavior from some chrome fanboys? As much as I don't like Mozilla's company direction (pocket, VPN etc.) Firefox is a symbol for the free web for me. I recommend it over any other big browser (edge, chrome, safari).
  • freediver 5y ago
    > Firefox is a symbol for the free web for me. Can it really be when/while it is entirely dependent on Google for revenue?
    • kgarten 5y ago
      Just for me, Firefox feels like that. It seems Mozilla tries to break free, yet has trouble. Wondering how to help them. If a non-tech friend asks me about a browser recommendation, I will always point them to Firefox. It's the browser that I trust most. Do you have an alternative? I trust Brave, Opera etc. way less. Not talking about Safari and Edge ... As I mention, I love to use nyxt and qutebrowser currently. Yet, they are really for a niche market (keyboard first browsers).
      • freediver 5y ago
        > Do you have an alternative? Yes, building one ;)
• horns4lyfe 5y ago
  I stopped using it for a simple reason: it bogs down my laptop. I don’t care why, so save your long winded explanations, it just does. And it’s a shame, because hey Mozilla, I like Firefox better than any other browser when it’s not slowing down my machine.
• cloverr20 5y ago
  I find many of the behaviors of google anti-competitive too, and slowly moved away from most of the things related to it. Using a different email provider, storage service, firefox, search engine etc. However I still have to keep chromium/chrome around since some features I noticed just don't work properly with firefox. On reading about recent http/2 and http/3 development (https://ripe76.ripe.net/presentations/10-2018-05-15-bbr.pdf https://ripe76.ripe.net/presentations/10-2018-05-15-bbr.pdf) and google's approach to it, one megacorp deciding what is best for the rest of us feels too much power in someone's hands.
• PikachuEXE 5y ago
  I used Firefox until old extension format abandoned and I switch to Palemoon + Vivaldi. Vivaldi for daily use and Palemoon for tabs opened all the times (with lazy loading). Tab grouping is never done good enough on Chromium based browsers (even Vivaldi). Also those browsers all have memory usage issue and I don't keep them opened for too long.
• dakial1 5y ago
  And it will become worse as Chrome will be (even more) key to Google Business after the death of 3rd party cookies, as FLoC will be running out of it so they will need you to use it to be able to segment you.