7 ms·

Firefox Lost Almost 50M Users: Here’s Why It Is Concerning

62 points by jeremylevy 5y ago

Ygg2 5y ago
At this point, I'm thinking it is entirely self inflicted. Once Firefox is out, Chrome(ium) will be able to ban ad-blocks.
- rightbyte 5y ago
  "In addition to that, there are also a few things that Firefox may have done wrong: Constantly breaking the user experience with major overhauls" Ye. One day my Firefox on mobile moved the URL bar to the bottom from the top. I don't even remember doing any update. It broke my muscle memory and it took months before I got used to it. For current users any UI changes that break the current UI "ABI" is bad. I guess the pressure to do pet projects is big internally as usual.
  - Fnoord 5y ago
    I had to adapt to it, but I really like it because it is easier to access. And that sums up a lot of Firefox UI changes. TL;DR: People don't like change.
  - vikaveri 5y ago
    I couldn't be bothered to learn the new place for URL bar so I just went to options and moved it back to top
  - w4rh4wk5 5y ago
    Not just UI changes. On mobile I lost the ability to block images on metered connections. This was the most important feature for me on mobile :'(
  - Y_Y 5y ago
    I hate every change like this, and it's the worst thing (imho) about Firefox. That said, now that I'm used to it, I think that having the address bar at the bottom on mobile is better and I wish they'd had it all along.
    - rightbyte 5y ago
      Sure, it is better on big screens but it is hardly worth the annoyance of messing with the user's day. They could have had an update nag screen "Do you want our fancy new position of the bar?" at start-up or something for such a big change instead of making it default for current installs.
  - salamandersauce 5y ago
    You can change it to be the top if you want. URL bar on the bottom is half the reason I use Firefox to begin with. It makes 3000x more sense on today's giant screen phones.
    - foxpurple 5y ago
      Firefox can’t win really. They do anything and half the users complain and half the users state it made the browser finally usable. While google does whatever they want and people just nod and move along.
  - ttctciyf 5y ago
    I'm a "diehard" firefox user from back when it was Netscape, and just won't use anything else as my main browser until I'm forced to, but Constantly breaking the user experience with major overhauls is what makes me swear under my breath most. I've learned to dread major updates because of time I've spent working around UI changes that apparently do nothing other than satisfy the aesthetic concerns of some random developer.
  - wayvey 5y ago
    I gotta say that for me this was a really nice change! It's way more ergonomic to use this way. There's also a setting that lets you choose if it's at the top or bottom so you can revert the change.
- roenxi 5y ago
  People who use add blockers are a strict subset of the people who are capable of using downloaded, non-default code to browse the web. It isn't like people will ever lose access to old browsers that work as well as they ever did. This isn't a serious threat.
  - MonkeyClub 5y ago
    Old browsers don't really work "as well as they ever did". The web is a moving target, and after a couple of years an old release will be close to unusable. Firefox is currently the only serious competitor to Chrome, Safari having its known defects and Edge -- well, Edge being Edge. So it's crucial that Firefox remains in the game, even as a (usable) wavebreaker to Chrome.
- rvz 5y ago
  > I'm thinking it is entirely self inflicted. It was 'entirely self inflicted' from the start [0] From [0] > Mozilla can live without Google's money, Baker says > We've spent a lot of time and energy making sure that Google understands that it cannot turn us into an arm of Google Perhaps that was the signal that provoked Google to create Chrome in 2008 since Mozilla was going to walk away from them. Today, Google's millions still makes around 80% of Mozilla's entire revenue. Chrome has become more stronger and Mozilla is still heavily dependent on Google's millions and still haven't figured out how to make money without them 14 years later. Mozilla needs to find itself some significant revenue by themselves which is compatible with their mission statement before preaching about 'privacy' and taking payment from a 'anti-privacy' company which is their direct competitor. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20120105090543/https://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9044160/Mozilla_can_live_without_Google_s_money_Baker_says_ https://web.archive.org/web/20120105090543/https://www.compu...
- tomjen3 5y ago
  If Firefox is out and Chrome bans ad-blocks, Firefox will be in again, reborn from the ashes, just like last time.
AshamedCaptain 5y ago
Still using an ancient Firefox/Fennec version on an Android tablet just because all the Firefox versions since then do not have a tab bar.
Brakenshire 5y ago
Mozilla needs to be run by engineers, and its funding needs to directed into making Firefox better than the competition, otherwise it will die.
- krageon 5y ago
  They've genuinely made such an enormous amount of decisions that are alienating to their core audience (and make no sense besides) that it's starting to feel like it cannot be accidental. At the very least, whoever is driving these culture and technological changes needs to be removed forever and replaced with someone who actually cares about firefox.
- fock 5y ago
  I still don't understand how they spend that much money on projects, which are really not part of the mission, requiring even more funds. Now, let's say there is 1 Mio. people who want an open, trustworthy browser. I bet, these would pay 50 USD/year to have that. For this, it should be possible to get ~500 FTE positions to fulfill all needs of the project (seems reasonable, as a) this would be a really idealistic venture then and b) seems a pretty good salary everywhere except SV...). Hardware and hosting should be pretty easy to come by, if sold to governments/big companies the right way. BUT... for some reason, Mozilla has offices in Mountain View, CA and is lead by a highbrow lawyer earning a 7 figures a year. This is (together with wikimedia, where salaries don't seem that broken) actually the only job, where I am certain, I would be able to offer the same quality of work for a fraction of the cost (first act: ringing up all digital ministries in democratic countries and pushing FF to schools :))...
  - stingraycharles 5y ago
    Also, don’t forget, you cannot actually donate to Firefox. If you donate to Mozilla, it only goes to all projects that are _not_ Firefox, because Firefox is part of a different legal entity. Bonkers.
  - jillesvangurp 5y ago
    I do get it but it isn't good. Basically, what happened was that they were cuddled to death by investors after having some initial success bootstrapping out of the failing company that was Netscape. I say failing company in the sense that they had an golden exit followed by years of incompetent management by AOL just before the peak of the dot com bubble. Amazing timing. I guess one of the lucky spinoffs powered by that exit was Y Combinator (and HN). One stroke of luck was basically the whole thing ending up being open source, which basically meant that the whole team just cut loose from AOL when AOL management got a bit too infatuated with themselves. They continued independently at some point and created the Mozilla Foundation shortly after basically a botched attempt by AOL to get rid of Mitchell Baker; who ended up creating and leading Mozilla after which AOL basically lost most of what remained of their acquisition. From the ashes of that came Phoenix, which later renamed to Firebird and eventually Firefox. Around the time the Mozilla Foundation became a thing it was convenient for Google to back a browser that wasn't Internet Explorer and they were basically rolling in cash since then without too much obligation to deliver anything more and a vague ambition to do something anyway. That was two decades ago. Since then, essentially everything they tried that wasn't a browser kind of failed, got neglected, or got killed before it ever saw the light of day. They blew through many millions in the process with no return on investment. The exception is perhaps Rust, which itself was kind of a happy accident in the sense that it was part of a decade plus long attempt to refactor the browser that is still ongoing that happens to have produced a nice language community as a side effect. They cut Rust loose since they couldn't figure out how to monetize that. But it's arguably the most successful thing they accomplished aside from the browser despite the lack of a return on investment. At this point it's independent from Mozilla who bootstrapped it with a lot of cash without ever reaping the benefits. Lots of money but a complete lack of focus has been their story. Too comfortable and no sense of urgency. Lots of little projects that consistently go nowhere. They should just shut the door on the mozilla corporation part and move the browser development to where it belongs which would be the Mozilla Foundation. Even with a few million users less, there is plenty of money in the user community to keep that going on donations, revenue from deals with Google and others, sponsor ships, etc. Just look at the Wikimedia Foundation, the Apache Foundation, etc. It's a great model for ensuring important OSS software keeps on going. That would mean letting go of a bunch of offices they don't need, a marketing and business development department that has failed consistently to create new revenue streams, and would allow them to focus on the one thing they are good at which is developing and maintaining Firefox. They have plenty of developer mouths to feed. I love Firefox. I love using it. I love not having my browser history being sold out to advertisers. And I love their general attitude of them looking out for me. I rarely use Chrome and only strictly for development purposes (i.e. testing stuff in different browsers). Nothing I care about requires Chrome. I don't really care for the countless spinoffs either (Brave, Edge, Opera, etc.). They all have the same problem: corporations with dollar signs in their eyes chasing revenue, which in the end always takes precedence over user interests. I love the engineering mentality and lack of chasing profits in favor of just doing the right things technically that the Firefox team has. It's not always quick to deliver or efficient or even effective but they get there in the end and keep on producing a great browser. Anyway, important to keep Google honest to have Firefox and Safari around. They are still big enough to matter.
Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
This is extremely bad. I'm doing my part, and will be using FF on all my devices until it stops functioning. Also, Google should probably be broken up, Android/Chrome should be moved to separate companies
- kwonkicker 5y ago
  Wishful thinking
- manishsharan 5y ago
  Move Android /Chrome out of Google and soon the world would be running on Microsoft Edge and Windows. And worse, all of the poor countries would standardize on Facebook browser/OS on cheap devices which will come bundled with their devices with data snoopind deals with the mobile carriers. And should you decide to break up all the silicon valley tech giants, all the non western nations would be running on WeChat or TenCent /AliBaba etc. based technology. There are no easy answers but breaking up Google is the dumbest course of action.
  - majewsky 5y ago
    Do you have any reasoning to back up these grandiose claims?
- rvz 5y ago
  Mozilla is the one to blame for all of this (and the possible reason why Chrome exists in the first place) as they did this to themselves and created Google from once a 'search partner' to a direct competitor; far worse outcome in this.
  - Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
    Google would create their own browser regardless of Firefox's actions, just like they created their own mobile OS despite partnership with Apple.
rvz 5y ago
Mozilla did this all by themselves and turned Google into a competitor since they planned on walking away from their millions in the first place to make money without depending on Google. Turns out that 14 years later, nothing has changed and the Chrome ecosystem is stronger than ever..
shp0ngle 5y ago
Well, I guess the Quantum rewrite thing did not really help, at all.
- Fnoord 5y ago
  It really increased performance. If it had not, I would still be using Chrome or Safari (I swapped away from Firefox for performance reasons).
kunagi7 5y ago
Dupe from 5 days ago, but still a concerning issue: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28015335 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28015335
cinquemb 5y ago
I wish brave forked from FF when Brendan Eich resigned, now im "stuck" removing crap once every so often that ff adds and recompiling and I have no interest in chromium. Oh well, glad for FOSS!
samsaga2 5y ago
My experience (Linux): Firefox is slower than Chrome, especially on Linux. Firefox consume less memory? I don't care, it still slower. It takes longer to startup and load the first web page. Firefox not supports touch scroll out-of-the-box. A lot of problems with video tearing if you have Intel graphics. It can be solved, but I don't want to spend time changing settings. I want to navigate right now.
2Gkashmiri 5y ago
Can anyone confirm if scribens.com works reliably for you on Firefox ? 5/10 the page goes unreponsible and have to nuke it. Dunno
- option_greek 5y ago
  It does on Firefox mobile with ad blocking on.
  - 2Gkashmiri 5y ago
    no. i mean the desktop crashes on me 5/10 times
MattGaiser 5y ago
1. Firefox needs to stop with the UI changes. 2. Every time functionality works differently in Firefox, more companies drop Firefox support. At a prior job, we used datalist and FF seemingly implemented it differently than Chrome. At that point, we told the user that FF was no longer supported. If FF wants to win, they need to at least keep pace and not be a burden on developers.
- remirk 5y ago
  > 1. Firefox needs to stop with the UI changes. For regular users, having software look great can be quite important. Especially when there is strong competition. Firefox doesn't even make that many changes that breaks the workflow of regular users. From memory, the last time seems when the hamburger dropdown 'Applications Menu' was introduced. Normally UI-changes in Firefox are more non-breaking.
  - creshal 5y ago
    > For regular users, having software look great can be quite important. How many of Firefox's UI changes really impacted this, though? There was the big move away from menu bars and to a more minimalist UI, OK, great. But all the other changes since just reshuffled things that have no net impact, other than forcing users to re-train their workflows. Though the bigger problem is all the other crap that doesn't relate to either the UI or browsing experience. Pocket, Hello, VPN, intrusive and forced extension-based advertisements, "Studies", anti-LGBT marketing, a failed mobile OS (justified, it was just awful), some vague IoT experiments nobody knew what the point of was, … Mozilla has half a billion dollars in annual revenue, yet somehow most of it doesn't go to either Firefox nor Thunderbird. XULRunner could've been Electron 10 years before Electron, but Mozilla didn't even care.
    - arkitaip 5y ago
      Those additional services are important to diversify their revenue streams AND they offer people basic solutions from a reliable provider like Mozilla. If anything, they should expand to offering more digital services under the umbrella of Firefox.
roenxi 5y ago
I know it has a userbase that rounds to 0, but Firefox really should look at some of the more innovative up-and-coming browsers like Brave. There are much worse plans than throwing a whole bunch of technologies at the wall and seeing what sticks. Copying Chrome is a safe strategy that just doesn't seem to be working.
- techrat 5y ago
  > Copying Chrome is a safe strategy that just doesn't seem to be working. > more innovative up-and-coming browsers like Brave. Copying Chrome is not a good plan, but copying a browser that engages in shady tactics, referral link hijacking, cryptocoin bullshit and... is a copy of Chrome... is instead your suggestion?
  - roenxi 5y ago
    I'm just saying, one of those two has user numbers going in a better direction than the other. The browser engine really isn't that important, if Blink is doing a better job then damn right we may as well all be using it. It is BSD/LGPL. The "cryptocoin bullshit" is one of the biggest threats to Google's revenue I've seen this decade and closer to genuine innovation than anything I can recall Mozilla doing in the same timeframe. This is the difference between being and not being a beneficiary of Google money.
  - bosie 5y ago
    what shady tactics is brave using?
lovelyviking 5y ago
I cannot even load my personal homepage from local file for the new tab . Can this stupidity be fixed ? It loads local homepage for the first tab, but doesn't load it for the next ... if that is not stupidity then what is? I mean really, browser that cannot load homepage is not functioning in my opinion, and nobody cares? If they can't fix even such a basic thing what else can we expect from those people? What goes in their heads is beyond me.
horrified 5y ago
Since they positioned themselves against free speech and advocate certain ideologies, they have lost me forever. Good riddance. I never worried about the performance of Firefox. It was good enough, and I miss some features like tags for bookmarks. But a betrayal of their original mission is unforgivable. Yes, other browsers belong to evil corporations, but at least they never claimed to be good to begin with.
- tziki 5y ago
  Context?
  - MatteoFrigo 5y ago
    Not OP, but here is some context: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplatforming/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplat...
    - yololol 5y ago
      Now you're putting words in people's mouths :) FF has been involved with politics on way more than that. I don't know about the OP but you don't have to be a Trumpist to be put off by FF's campaigns.
      - horrified 5y ago
        (I'm the OP) It's not about Trump it is about the stated intent to amplify certain news outlets (they link to the New York Times as a "factual voice that needs to be amplified") and tone done or censor ("deplatform") others. I don't want my Browser to do that.
        rvz 5y ago
        Nor do I want my browser to violate its own intended purpose. They are essentially preaching 'privacy' to those wanting to a privacy-focused browser and product and having that as its main unique selling point but then is paid by an anti-privacy company 'Google' which contradicts everything in Mozilla's mission statement. Plus, Mozilla sort of did this to themselves anyway and turned Google into a direct competitor with Chrome.
sannysanoff 5y ago
It's losing because Firefox is now designers-driven product, not engineers-driven. Everything rots to the end when you give designers power over engineers.
- arkitaip 5y ago
  You do realize that without designers and tons of other people, there is no one to do the actual user research, UI, UX or general design work? Who would do this work?
  - creshal 5y ago
    A browser is to 99% a canvas for other software to draw on, and neither Safari, nor Edge, nor Chrome are investing terribly much into constant UX changes, so where does Mozilla's perceived "need" for UX changes come from?
- fleaaaa 5y ago
  This sounds like a false dichotomy but quite makes sense when it comes to browser market I believe. FF 'feels like' lagging behind for majority of users because of the hiccups here and there.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
qwerty456127 5y ago
Firefox lost me for many years because it became unbearably slow. I switched to Chrome solely for it worked much faster (despite using more RAM), especially on my rather old Core 2 computers. Once they upgraded their engine a couple of years ago it became tolerable again but just adding some extensions I find essential slowed it noticeably again. As I have upgraded to modern Ryzen PCs I immdiately switched back to Firefox and am happy although some people still tell me y browser looks very slow once they see me using it. Using Firefox is a privilege many people just can't easily afford. Many people still tell me YouTube is too slow in Firefox but my experience shows a powerful PC solves this.
- hoseja 5y ago
  huh? FF quantum was faster than Chrome when it came out, don't know what the benchmarks are today but it's certainly competitive.
  - foxpurple 5y ago
    I suspect half the experiences being shared in this thread are of a 10 year old version of FF
    - qwerty456127 5y ago
      As I have mentioned, my experience is about both: a 10 year old version of FF was crazy slow, Quantum is tolerable but still slower than Chrome, gets even much slower as soon as you install some extensions and still is uncomfortable to use on old PCs (e.g. 2013 MacBook Air). Chrome works perfectly fast on everything incl a >10yr old Core 2 Duo laptop. I am a huge Firefox fan and don't even mind some tolerable amount struggle but have to admit this. I once tried to migrate my girlfriend (who has the 2013 MacBook Air) to Firefox (Quantum). As she tried it she immediately told me she doesn't want it because it feels slow. Chrome apparently has some bug which makes eat up 100% of the CPU on the same machine often but works faster even when it does this. This still has to be addressed if we want Firefox to become more popular. "Just disable all the extensions" (mostly meaning featured extensions recommended by Mozilla, e.g. uBlock Origin) is not a good answer, neither is "buy a powerful modern computer".
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
chrismsimpson 5y ago
All Firefox needs to do for me to use it, is be the best browser.
avnigo 5y ago
This makes me sad to see. I've been trying to degoogle as much as possible, and Firefox potentially going away eventually seems like another battle lost. I use Firefox as my main browser, but having to jump on a Teams call, or GoToMeeting, or really any Google service requires Chrome to get it to work fully, or even at all. And as I understand it, this is for no good reason at all. At the moment, I find myself opening Chrome just for those tasks alone, but the fact that I have to do that at all says a lot about Chrome's hand in the market. I'm not sure what there's left to do as a Firefox user. One would be to donate [0], but it looks like donations to Mozilla don't make it to Firefox development according to this [1] post from a few years ago. [0]: https://donate.mozilla.org/ https://donate.mozilla.org/ [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/a98gmi/donations_to_mozilla_foundation_are_not_used_for/ https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/a98gmi/donations_t...
AJRF 5y ago
I dropped it because they keep changing it. Extension changes, Pocket integration, UI updates, even the bloody icon keeps getting updated. Just leave it alone for god sake. On Chrome now which seems to change a lot less frequently (in a perceptible manner - I know they add a lot of stuff to Chrome every year, but for the most part its ignorable unlike FireFox changes)
solnyshok 5y ago
I left for edge. vertical tabs out of the box - check. ability to remove window title bar without editing css - check. ublock - check. sending tabs between pcs and mobile devices - check. (actually this one thing drove me away from ffx when it stopped working. about a year ago my android firefox(es) stopped syncing reliably. some devices synced, some synced occasionally, some never synced. related to the arbitrary limit on amount of bookmarks and tabs that could be synced, by ffx devs)
CraigJPerry 5y ago
Firefox has the best cross-platform user experience i've encountered so far. It supports full sync across Windows / Linux / Mac / FreeBSD / Android. Previously Brave was the one i was using but it doesn't do full sync on iOS & can't be built on FreeBSD.
anonyfox 5y ago
Instead of firing Rust/Servo-People, the double down on finishing a technically superior browser would probably have done the same thing that Chrome did years ago: slick, lean, ultra fast -> technical folks would not only recommend it in their circles, but also install it on their parents/friends/... computer -> adoption wave. But what do I know, it seems that "adding features and modernizing the UI" wins everytime in upper management.
opheliate 5y ago
Presumably, given the scale of this loss, there are people here who have recently moved away from Firefox: If that's you, I'd be really interested to hear why. It seems silly, but I can't think of any time recently where I've considered moving, what caused you to move away?
- kunagi7 5y ago
  It has been a while since I switched away from Firefox but my experience was being fed up with UI changes. I used Firefox from version 1.5 to version 30~32 alongside Opera (with the Presto engine), after that I switched to Palemoon since it had a pretty stable UI. A few versions later, before Quantum release, Palemoon felt really slow and webpages broke way too much for my taste. So I switched back to Firefox. I got used to addons like Classic Theme Restorer only to be broken a few months later with the Quantum release and the addon apocalypse. I tried to stick with it for quite a while but it was quite tiresome to update CSS files every new release of the browser to keep the looks consistent. Also, things like Google Docs/Spreadsheets, Office 365, JIRA really felt slow in Firefox... So I discovered Vivaldi, which has a lot of customization settings available and after giving it a few months trial I switched to it. And I've been quite happy with it, personally it's the best browser I ever used since good old Opera Presto, it's fast enough, clean and easy to customize. Heck, it even has CSS support and they manage to not break it with every new release.
- creshal 5y ago
  Constant invasive changes (Pocket, Hello, Mr Robot advertisements, etc. pp.) coupled with performance issues (freezes for a single frame every second on Linux, on top of hardware acceleration issues) and lack of support by video chat softwares (can't get around that during a pandemic) forced me back to Chrome. And honestly, I don't see why I should go back as long as the first issue isn't addressed by significant leadership changes. Mozilla has repeatedly demonstrated their willingness to trample my privacy, why should I ever trust them again?
- robteix 5y ago
  For me it was performance on my mac (esp. YouTube) and having to constantly switch browsers to use some specific sites I need that don't work on Firefox.
12ian34 5y ago
I've gone the other direction. Firefox was my main browser 13 years ago. I switched out of curiosity to Opera which was fun for a while. Around 2011, I jumped on the Chrome bandwagon, which switched to Chromium as Linux became my daily driver. This year when Chromium stopped syncing across devices[0] I thought I'd give Firefox another go. I'm personally avoiding Brave like the plague mainly because it's chromium based, but also because I don't trust them, and when I've tried it out, I didn't care for all the crypto/BAT pushing. Since switching back to Firefox, I've been a very happy user - and I'm surprised by all the backlash they've gotten this year (mainly, seemingly from dev communities like HN) for UI changes, performance, "being funded by google". None of these are issues for me - a relative power user - at all. One huge advantage for me is the mobile app just feels miles ahead of competition. Now that phones IMO are oversized, it's so refreshing to have the option to put the address bar at the bottom, AND I can have uBlock and Dark Reader on mobile! Personally I'm a fan of the v89/90 UI changes - I think people have been over-reacting. Even if I started to feel UI or performance issues, I still wouldn't switch back on account of Firefox not being chromium based. I don't trust Google. I'm trying to de-google and would encourage others to do the same. Support competition! Whether it be cloud providers, web rendering engines. Sometimes this comes at a minor personal cost but it can be for the greater good. Think long term! [0]: https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2021/01/chromium-sync-google-api-removed https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2021/01/chromium-sync-google-api...
rasz 5y ago
I wouldnt worry, they seem to have a highly paid ceo $1mil in 2015 https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2015/11/30/mozillas-money-latest-filings-include-a-few-surprises/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2015/11/30/mozilla... $2.5mil in 2018, and over $3mil in 2020. Someone compensated this well surely knows what they are doing!!
- Ygg2 5y ago
  In 2039 $10.5mil and only %0.01 of all web browsers.
richardfey 5y ago
I say: let it go. We need to stop saying that it's the only alternative to Chromium and thus we must not lose it, because users would not have a choice. Users have already chosen and Firefox is out. In a post-Firefox future we might have bigger Chromium forks and new choices for the user.
Normille 5y ago
Firefox has been dead to me since they got rid of text-reflow. There's an issue about it on Bugzilla dating back 9 years, which has been completely ignored https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=795552 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=795552 Quite simply, I won't use a browser on mobile that doesn't have text-reflow as; with a huge number of websites, a combination of my middle-aged eyesight and developers not designing for mobile, means that text is literally too small for me to read without pinching to enlarge it and I sure as hell ain't going to suffer the inconvenience of having to horizontally scroll back and forward because Firefox's developers are too stubborn to admit they made a mistake and add text-reflow back in. And, since I want to be able to use the same browser across all my devices, so I can share bookmarks / history / etc. that also rules out Firefox on all my desktop machines too.
twobitshifter 5y ago
I think it’s less Mozilla’s fault and more user’s shift to mobile that has eaten away at market share combined with the sync hook between mobile and desktop. People say it’s that they lost their focus on the browser or alienated power users, but really Firefox OS was their best shot at long term survival. There’s a vacuum in the mobile space for true OSS. Google has been effective at cutting them off at the pass with both Chromium and Android, but neither allows the true spirit of free software to flourish.
DigitallyFidget 5y ago
I ended up abandoning FireFox years ago because the constant breaking of addons, and hideous UI changes that went from simple & functional to bulky, cluttery, and full of features I will never ever use while the features I do use get pushed into a more complicated method of accessing. I'd love to use FireFox again, but it's just too much garbage and hassle to deal with. Every other version change felt like it broke some quality or function for worse. I used Pale Moon, a fork of Firefox, but it was too much to tinker with to keep it working with modern websites. Now I just use chrome based browser Vivaldi, and for the past five years of using it, they haven't done anything horrendously stupid like overhauling the entire UI. It's not a perfect browser, but it's a huge improvement from dealing with FireFoxes bullshit.
- foxpurple 5y ago
  The add on breaking issue was solved. Now there is a stable add on api and updates will not break it constantly like they did
IYasha 5y ago
Mozilla has been committing suicide last 10 years or so. I'm forced to use long outdated version because I'm too horrified by looking at screenshots of each new release, not to mention the obvious API and settings cuts. To me it looks like the company suffers from poor management, unclarity of goals, and maybe unbalanced staff (e.g. more "UI designers" than there needs to be and fewer actual programmers than desirable).

62 points by jeremylevy 5y ago

Ygg2 5y ago

At this point, I'm thinking it is entirely self inflicted. Once Firefox is out, Chrome(ium) will be able to ban ad-blocks.

rightbyte 5y ago
"In addition to that, there are also a few things that Firefox may have done wrong: Constantly breaking the user experience with major overhauls" Ye. One day my Firefox on mobile moved the URL bar to the bottom from the top. I don't even remember doing any update. It broke my muscle memory and it took months before I got used to it. For current users any UI changes that break the current UI "ABI" is bad. I guess the pressure to do pet projects is big internally as usual.
- Fnoord 5y ago
  I had to adapt to it, but I really like it because it is easier to access. And that sums up a lot of Firefox UI changes. TL;DR: People don't like change.
- vikaveri 5y ago
  I couldn't be bothered to learn the new place for URL bar so I just went to options and moved it back to top
- w4rh4wk5 5y ago
  Not just UI changes. On mobile I lost the ability to block images on metered connections. This was the most important feature for me on mobile :'(
- Y_Y 5y ago
  I hate every change like this, and it's the worst thing (imho) about Firefox. That said, now that I'm used to it, I think that having the address bar at the bottom on mobile is better and I wish they'd had it all along.
  - rightbyte 5y ago
    Sure, it is better on big screens but it is hardly worth the annoyance of messing with the user's day. They could have had an update nag screen "Do you want our fancy new position of the bar?" at start-up or something for such a big change instead of making it default for current installs.
- salamandersauce 5y ago
  You can change it to be the top if you want. URL bar on the bottom is half the reason I use Firefox to begin with. It makes 3000x more sense on today's giant screen phones.
  - foxpurple 5y ago
    Firefox can’t win really. They do anything and half the users complain and half the users state it made the browser finally usable. While google does whatever they want and people just nod and move along.
- ttctciyf 5y ago
  I'm a "diehard" firefox user from back when it was Netscape, and just won't use anything else as my main browser until I'm forced to, but Constantly breaking the user experience with major overhauls is what makes me swear under my breath most. I've learned to dread major updates because of time I've spent working around UI changes that apparently do nothing other than satisfy the aesthetic concerns of some random developer.
- wayvey 5y ago
  I gotta say that for me this was a really nice change! It's way more ergonomic to use this way. There's also a setting that lets you choose if it's at the top or bottom so you can revert the change.
roenxi 5y ago
People who use add blockers are a strict subset of the people who are capable of using downloaded, non-default code to browse the web. It isn't like people will ever lose access to old browsers that work as well as they ever did. This isn't a serious threat.
- MonkeyClub 5y ago
  Old browsers don't really work "as well as they ever did". The web is a moving target, and after a couple of years an old release will be close to unusable. Firefox is currently the only serious competitor to Chrome, Safari having its known defects and Edge -- well, Edge being Edge. So it's crucial that Firefox remains in the game, even as a (usable) wavebreaker to Chrome.
rvz 5y ago
> I'm thinking it is entirely self inflicted. It was 'entirely self inflicted' from the start [0] From [0] > Mozilla can live without Google's money, Baker says > We've spent a lot of time and energy making sure that Google understands that it cannot turn us into an arm of Google Perhaps that was the signal that provoked Google to create Chrome in 2008 since Mozilla was going to walk away from them. Today, Google's millions still makes around 80% of Mozilla's entire revenue. Chrome has become more stronger and Mozilla is still heavily dependent on Google's millions and still haven't figured out how to make money without them 14 years later. Mozilla needs to find itself some significant revenue by themselves which is compatible with their mission statement before preaching about 'privacy' and taking payment from a 'anti-privacy' company which is their direct competitor. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20120105090543/https://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9044160/Mozilla_can_live_without_Google_s_money_Baker_says_ https://web.archive.org/web/20120105090543/https://www.compu...
tomjen3 5y ago
If Firefox is out and Chrome bans ad-blocks, Firefox will be in again, reborn from the ashes, just like last time.

AshamedCaptain 5y ago

Still using an ancient Firefox/Fennec version on an Android tablet just because all the Firefox versions since then do not have a tab bar.

Brakenshire 5y ago

Mozilla needs to be run by engineers, and its funding needs to directed into making Firefox better than the competition, otherwise it will die.

krageon 5y ago
They've genuinely made such an enormous amount of decisions that are alienating to their core audience (and make no sense besides) that it's starting to feel like it cannot be accidental. At the very least, whoever is driving these culture and technological changes needs to be removed forever and replaced with someone who actually cares about firefox.
fock 5y ago
I still don't understand how they spend that much money on projects, which are really not part of the mission, requiring even more funds. Now, let's say there is 1 Mio. people who want an open, trustworthy browser. I bet, these would pay 50 USD/year to have that. For this, it should be possible to get ~500 FTE positions to fulfill all needs of the project (seems reasonable, as a) this would be a really idealistic venture then and b) seems a pretty good salary everywhere except SV...). Hardware and hosting should be pretty easy to come by, if sold to governments/big companies the right way. BUT... for some reason, Mozilla has offices in Mountain View, CA and is lead by a highbrow lawyer earning a 7 figures a year. This is (together with wikimedia, where salaries don't seem that broken) actually the only job, where I am certain, I would be able to offer the same quality of work for a fraction of the cost (first act: ringing up all digital ministries in democratic countries and pushing FF to schools :))...
- stingraycharles 5y ago
  Also, don’t forget, you cannot actually donate to Firefox. If you donate to Mozilla, it only goes to all projects that are _not_ Firefox, because Firefox is part of a different legal entity. Bonkers.
- jillesvangurp 5y ago
  I do get it but it isn't good. Basically, what happened was that they were cuddled to death by investors after having some initial success bootstrapping out of the failing company that was Netscape. I say failing company in the sense that they had an golden exit followed by years of incompetent management by AOL just before the peak of the dot com bubble. Amazing timing. I guess one of the lucky spinoffs powered by that exit was Y Combinator (and HN). One stroke of luck was basically the whole thing ending up being open source, which basically meant that the whole team just cut loose from AOL when AOL management got a bit too infatuated with themselves. They continued independently at some point and created the Mozilla Foundation shortly after basically a botched attempt by AOL to get rid of Mitchell Baker; who ended up creating and leading Mozilla after which AOL basically lost most of what remained of their acquisition. From the ashes of that came Phoenix, which later renamed to Firebird and eventually Firefox. Around the time the Mozilla Foundation became a thing it was convenient for Google to back a browser that wasn't Internet Explorer and they were basically rolling in cash since then without too much obligation to deliver anything more and a vague ambition to do something anyway. That was two decades ago. Since then, essentially everything they tried that wasn't a browser kind of failed, got neglected, or got killed before it ever saw the light of day. They blew through many millions in the process with no return on investment. The exception is perhaps Rust, which itself was kind of a happy accident in the sense that it was part of a decade plus long attempt to refactor the browser that is still ongoing that happens to have produced a nice language community as a side effect. They cut Rust loose since they couldn't figure out how to monetize that. But it's arguably the most successful thing they accomplished aside from the browser despite the lack of a return on investment. At this point it's independent from Mozilla who bootstrapped it with a lot of cash without ever reaping the benefits. Lots of money but a complete lack of focus has been their story. Too comfortable and no sense of urgency. Lots of little projects that consistently go nowhere. They should just shut the door on the mozilla corporation part and move the browser development to where it belongs which would be the Mozilla Foundation. Even with a few million users less, there is plenty of money in the user community to keep that going on donations, revenue from deals with Google and others, sponsor ships, etc. Just look at the Wikimedia Foundation, the Apache Foundation, etc. It's a great model for ensuring important OSS software keeps on going. That would mean letting go of a bunch of offices they don't need, a marketing and business development department that has failed consistently to create new revenue streams, and would allow them to focus on the one thing they are good at which is developing and maintaining Firefox. They have plenty of developer mouths to feed. I love Firefox. I love using it. I love not having my browser history being sold out to advertisers. And I love their general attitude of them looking out for me. I rarely use Chrome and only strictly for development purposes (i.e. testing stuff in different browsers). Nothing I care about requires Chrome. I don't really care for the countless spinoffs either (Brave, Edge, Opera, etc.). They all have the same problem: corporations with dollar signs in their eyes chasing revenue, which in the end always takes precedence over user interests. I love the engineering mentality and lack of chasing profits in favor of just doing the right things technically that the Firefox team has. It's not always quick to deliver or efficient or even effective but they get there in the end and keep on producing a great browser. Anyway, important to keep Google honest to have Firefox and Safari around. They are still big enough to matter.

Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago

This is extremely bad. I'm doing my part, and will be using FF on all my devices until it stops functioning. Also, Google should probably be broken up, Android/Chrome should be moved to separate companies

kwonkicker 5y ago
Wishful thinking
manishsharan 5y ago
Move Android /Chrome out of Google and soon the world would be running on Microsoft Edge and Windows. And worse, all of the poor countries would standardize on Facebook browser/OS on cheap devices which will come bundled with their devices with data snoopind deals with the mobile carriers. And should you decide to break up all the silicon valley tech giants, all the non western nations would be running on WeChat or TenCent /AliBaba etc. based technology. There are no easy answers but breaking up Google is the dumbest course of action.
- majewsky 5y ago
  Do you have any reasoning to back up these grandiose claims?
rvz 5y ago
Mozilla is the one to blame for all of this (and the possible reason why Chrome exists in the first place) as they did this to themselves and created Google from once a 'search partner' to a direct competitor; far worse outcome in this.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
  Google would create their own browser regardless of Firefox's actions, just like they created their own mobile OS despite partnership with Apple.

rvz 5y ago

Mozilla did this all by themselves and turned Google into a competitor since they planned on walking away from their millions in the first place to make money without depending on Google. Turns out that 14 years later, nothing has changed and the Chrome ecosystem is stronger than ever..

shp0ngle 5y ago

Well, I guess the Quantum rewrite thing did not really help, at all.

Fnoord 5y ago
It really increased performance. If it had not, I would still be using Chrome or Safari (I swapped away from Firefox for performance reasons).

kunagi7 5y ago

Dupe from 5 days ago, but still a concerning issue: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28015335 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28015335

cinquemb 5y ago

I wish brave forked from FF when Brendan Eich resigned, now im "stuck" removing crap once every so often that ff adds and recompiling and I have no interest in chromium. Oh well, glad for FOSS!

samsaga2 5y ago

My experience (Linux): Firefox is slower than Chrome, especially on Linux. Firefox consume less memory? I don't care, it still slower. It takes longer to startup and load the first web page. Firefox not supports touch scroll out-of-the-box. A lot of problems with video tearing if you have Intel graphics. It can be solved, but I don't want to spend time changing settings. I want to navigate right now.

2Gkashmiri 5y ago

Can anyone confirm if scribens.com works reliably for you on Firefox ? 5/10 the page goes unreponsible and have to nuke it. Dunno

option_greek 5y ago
It does on Firefox mobile with ad blocking on.
- 2Gkashmiri 5y ago
  no. i mean the desktop crashes on me 5/10 times

MattGaiser 5y ago

1. Firefox needs to stop with the UI changes. 2. Every time functionality works differently in Firefox, more companies drop Firefox support. At a prior job, we used datalist and FF seemingly implemented it differently than Chrome. At that point, we told the user that FF was no longer supported. If FF wants to win, they need to at least keep pace and not be a burden on developers.

remirk 5y ago
> 1. Firefox needs to stop with the UI changes. For regular users, having software look great can be quite important. Especially when there is strong competition. Firefox doesn't even make that many changes that breaks the workflow of regular users. From memory, the last time seems when the hamburger dropdown 'Applications Menu' was introduced. Normally UI-changes in Firefox are more non-breaking.
- creshal 5y ago
  > For regular users, having software look great can be quite important. How many of Firefox's UI changes really impacted this, though? There was the big move away from menu bars and to a more minimalist UI, OK, great. But all the other changes since just reshuffled things that have no net impact, other than forcing users to re-train their workflows. Though the bigger problem is all the other crap that doesn't relate to either the UI or browsing experience. Pocket, Hello, VPN, intrusive and forced extension-based advertisements, "Studies", anti-LGBT marketing, a failed mobile OS (justified, it was just awful), some vague IoT experiments nobody knew what the point of was, … Mozilla has half a billion dollars in annual revenue, yet somehow most of it doesn't go to either Firefox nor Thunderbird. XULRunner could've been Electron 10 years before Electron, but Mozilla didn't even care.
  - arkitaip 5y ago
    Those additional services are important to diversify their revenue streams AND they offer people basic solutions from a reliable provider like Mozilla. If anything, they should expand to offering more digital services under the umbrella of Firefox.

roenxi 5y ago

I know it has a userbase that rounds to 0, but Firefox really should look at some of the more innovative up-and-coming browsers like Brave. There are much worse plans than throwing a whole bunch of technologies at the wall and seeing what sticks. Copying Chrome is a safe strategy that just doesn't seem to be working.

techrat 5y ago
> Copying Chrome is a safe strategy that just doesn't seem to be working. > more innovative up-and-coming browsers like Brave. Copying Chrome is not a good plan, but copying a browser that engages in shady tactics, referral link hijacking, cryptocoin bullshit and... is a copy of Chrome... is instead your suggestion?
- roenxi 5y ago
  I'm just saying, one of those two has user numbers going in a better direction than the other. The browser engine really isn't that important, if Blink is doing a better job then damn right we may as well all be using it. It is BSD/LGPL. The "cryptocoin bullshit" is one of the biggest threats to Google's revenue I've seen this decade and closer to genuine innovation than anything I can recall Mozilla doing in the same timeframe. This is the difference between being and not being a beneficiary of Google money.
- bosie 5y ago
  what shady tactics is brave using?

lovelyviking 5y ago

I cannot even load my personal homepage from local file for the new tab . Can this stupidity be fixed ? It loads local homepage for the first tab, but doesn't load it for the next ... if that is not stupidity then what is? I mean really, browser that cannot load homepage is not functioning in my opinion, and nobody cares? If they can't fix even such a basic thing what else can we expect from those people? What goes in their heads is beyond me.

horrified 5y ago

Since they positioned themselves against free speech and advocate certain ideologies, they have lost me forever. Good riddance. I never worried about the performance of Firefox. It was good enough, and I miss some features like tags for bookmarks. But a betrayal of their original mission is unforgivable. Yes, other browsers belong to evil corporations, but at least they never claimed to be good to begin with.

tziki 5y ago
Context?
- MatteoFrigo 5y ago
  Not OP, but here is some context: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplatforming/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplat...
  - yololol 5y ago
    Now you're putting words in people's mouths :) FF has been involved with politics on way more than that. I don't know about the OP but you don't have to be a Trumpist to be put off by FF's campaigns.
    - horrified 5y ago
      (I'm the OP) It's not about Trump it is about the stated intent to amplify certain news outlets (they link to the New York Times as a "factual voice that needs to be amplified") and tone done or censor ("deplatform") others. I don't want my Browser to do that.
      - rvz 5y ago
        Nor do I want my browser to violate its own intended purpose. They are essentially preaching 'privacy' to those wanting to a privacy-focused browser and product and having that as its main unique selling point but then is paid by an anti-privacy company 'Google' which contradicts everything in Mozilla's mission statement. Plus, Mozilla sort of did this to themselves anyway and turned Google into a direct competitor with Chrome.

sannysanoff 5y ago

It's losing because Firefox is now designers-driven product, not engineers-driven. Everything rots to the end when you give designers power over engineers.

arkitaip 5y ago
You do realize that without designers and tons of other people, there is no one to do the actual user research, UI, UX or general design work? Who would do this work?
- creshal 5y ago
  A browser is to 99% a canvas for other software to draw on, and neither Safari, nor Edge, nor Chrome are investing terribly much into constant UX changes, so where does Mozilla's perceived "need" for UX changes come from?
fleaaaa 5y ago
This sounds like a false dichotomy but quite makes sense when it comes to browser market I believe. FF 'feels like' lagging behind for majority of users because of the hiccups here and there.
deleted 5y ago
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qwerty456127 5y ago

Firefox lost me for many years because it became unbearably slow. I switched to Chrome solely for it worked much faster (despite using more RAM), especially on my rather old Core 2 computers. Once they upgraded their engine a couple of years ago it became tolerable again but just adding some extensions I find essential slowed it noticeably again. As I have upgraded to modern Ryzen PCs I immdiately switched back to Firefox and am happy although some people still tell me y browser looks very slow once they see me using it. Using Firefox is a privilege many people just can't easily afford. Many people still tell me YouTube is too slow in Firefox but my experience shows a powerful PC solves this.

hoseja 5y ago
huh? FF quantum was faster than Chrome when it came out, don't know what the benchmarks are today but it's certainly competitive.
- foxpurple 5y ago
  I suspect half the experiences being shared in this thread are of a 10 year old version of FF
  - qwerty456127 5y ago
    As I have mentioned, my experience is about both: a 10 year old version of FF was crazy slow, Quantum is tolerable but still slower than Chrome, gets even much slower as soon as you install some extensions and still is uncomfortable to use on old PCs (e.g. 2013 MacBook Air). Chrome works perfectly fast on everything incl a >10yr old Core 2 Duo laptop. I am a huge Firefox fan and don't even mind some tolerable amount struggle but have to admit this. I once tried to migrate my girlfriend (who has the 2013 MacBook Air) to Firefox (Quantum). As she tried it she immediately told me she doesn't want it because it feels slow. Chrome apparently has some bug which makes eat up 100% of the CPU on the same machine often but works faster even when it does this. This still has to be addressed if we want Firefox to become more popular. "Just disable all the extensions" (mostly meaning featured extensions recommended by Mozilla, e.g. uBlock Origin) is not a good answer, neither is "buy a powerful modern computer".

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

chrismsimpson 5y ago

All Firefox needs to do for me to use it, is be the best browser.

avnigo 5y ago

This makes me sad to see. I've been trying to degoogle as much as possible, and Firefox potentially going away eventually seems like another battle lost. I use Firefox as my main browser, but having to jump on a Teams call, or GoToMeeting, or really any Google service requires Chrome to get it to work fully, or even at all. And as I understand it, this is for no good reason at all. At the moment, I find myself opening Chrome just for those tasks alone, but the fact that I have to do that at all says a lot about Chrome's hand in the market. I'm not sure what there's left to do as a Firefox user. One would be to donate [0], but it looks like donations to Mozilla don't make it to Firefox development according to this [1] post from a few years ago. [0]: https://donate.mozilla.org/ https://donate.mozilla.org/ [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/a98gmi/donations_to_mozilla_foundation_are_not_used_for/ https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/a98gmi/donations_t...

AJRF 5y ago

I dropped it because they keep changing it. Extension changes, Pocket integration, UI updates, even the bloody icon keeps getting updated. Just leave it alone for god sake. On Chrome now which seems to change a lot less frequently (in a perceptible manner - I know they add a lot of stuff to Chrome every year, but for the most part its ignorable unlike FireFox changes)

solnyshok 5y ago

I left for edge. vertical tabs out of the box - check. ability to remove window title bar without editing css - check. ublock - check. sending tabs between pcs and mobile devices - check. (actually this one thing drove me away from ffx when it stopped working. about a year ago my android firefox(es) stopped syncing reliably. some devices synced, some synced occasionally, some never synced. related to the arbitrary limit on amount of bookmarks and tabs that could be synced, by ffx devs)

CraigJPerry 5y ago

Firefox has the best cross-platform user experience i've encountered so far. It supports full sync across Windows / Linux / Mac / FreeBSD / Android. Previously Brave was the one i was using but it doesn't do full sync on iOS & can't be built on FreeBSD.

anonyfox 5y ago

Instead of firing Rust/Servo-People, the double down on finishing a technically superior browser would probably have done the same thing that Chrome did years ago: slick, lean, ultra fast -> technical folks would not only recommend it in their circles, but also install it on their parents/friends/... computer -> adoption wave. But what do I know, it seems that "adding features and modernizing the UI" wins everytime in upper management.

opheliate 5y ago

Presumably, given the scale of this loss, there are people here who have recently moved away from Firefox: If that's you, I'd be really interested to hear why. It seems silly, but I can't think of any time recently where I've considered moving, what caused you to move away?

kunagi7 5y ago
It has been a while since I switched away from Firefox but my experience was being fed up with UI changes. I used Firefox from version 1.5 to version 30~32 alongside Opera (with the Presto engine), after that I switched to Palemoon since it had a pretty stable UI. A few versions later, before Quantum release, Palemoon felt really slow and webpages broke way too much for my taste. So I switched back to Firefox. I got used to addons like Classic Theme Restorer only to be broken a few months later with the Quantum release and the addon apocalypse. I tried to stick with it for quite a while but it was quite tiresome to update CSS files every new release of the browser to keep the looks consistent. Also, things like Google Docs/Spreadsheets, Office 365, JIRA really felt slow in Firefox... So I discovered Vivaldi, which has a lot of customization settings available and after giving it a few months trial I switched to it. And I've been quite happy with it, personally it's the best browser I ever used since good old Opera Presto, it's fast enough, clean and easy to customize. Heck, it even has CSS support and they manage to not break it with every new release.
creshal 5y ago
Constant invasive changes (Pocket, Hello, Mr Robot advertisements, etc. pp.) coupled with performance issues (freezes for a single frame every second on Linux, on top of hardware acceleration issues) and lack of support by video chat softwares (can't get around that during a pandemic) forced me back to Chrome. And honestly, I don't see why I should go back as long as the first issue isn't addressed by significant leadership changes. Mozilla has repeatedly demonstrated their willingness to trample my privacy, why should I ever trust them again?
robteix 5y ago
For me it was performance on my mac (esp. YouTube) and having to constantly switch browsers to use some specific sites I need that don't work on Firefox.

12ian34 5y ago

I've gone the other direction. Firefox was my main browser 13 years ago. I switched out of curiosity to Opera which was fun for a while. Around 2011, I jumped on the Chrome bandwagon, which switched to Chromium as Linux became my daily driver. This year when Chromium stopped syncing across devices[0] I thought I'd give Firefox another go. I'm personally avoiding Brave like the plague mainly because it's chromium based, but also because I don't trust them, and when I've tried it out, I didn't care for all the crypto/BAT pushing. Since switching back to Firefox, I've been a very happy user - and I'm surprised by all the backlash they've gotten this year (mainly, seemingly from dev communities like HN) for UI changes, performance, "being funded by google". None of these are issues for me - a relative power user - at all. One huge advantage for me is the mobile app just feels miles ahead of competition. Now that phones IMO are oversized, it's so refreshing to have the option to put the address bar at the bottom, AND I can have uBlock and Dark Reader on mobile! Personally I'm a fan of the v89/90 UI changes - I think people have been over-reacting. Even if I started to feel UI or performance issues, I still wouldn't switch back on account of Firefox not being chromium based. I don't trust Google. I'm trying to de-google and would encourage others to do the same. Support competition! Whether it be cloud providers, web rendering engines. Sometimes this comes at a minor personal cost but it can be for the greater good. Think long term! [0]: https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2021/01/chromium-sync-google-api-removed https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2021/01/chromium-sync-google-api...

rasz 5y ago

I wouldnt worry, they seem to have a highly paid ceo $1mil in 2015 https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2015/11/30/mozillas-money-latest-filings-include-a-few-surprises/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2015/11/30/mozilla... $2.5mil in 2018, and over $3mil in 2020. Someone compensated this well surely knows what they are doing!!

Ygg2 5y ago
In 2039 $10.5mil and only %0.01 of all web browsers.

richardfey 5y ago

I say: let it go. We need to stop saying that it's the only alternative to Chromium and thus we must not lose it, because users would not have a choice. Users have already chosen and Firefox is out. In a post-Firefox future we might have bigger Chromium forks and new choices for the user.

Normille 5y ago

Firefox has been dead to me since they got rid of text-reflow. There's an issue about it on Bugzilla dating back 9 years, which has been completely ignored https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=795552 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=795552 Quite simply, I won't use a browser on mobile that doesn't have text-reflow as; with a huge number of websites, a combination of my middle-aged eyesight and developers not designing for mobile, means that text is literally too small for me to read without pinching to enlarge it and I sure as hell ain't going to suffer the inconvenience of having to horizontally scroll back and forward because Firefox's developers are too stubborn to admit they made a mistake and add text-reflow back in. And, since I want to be able to use the same browser across all my devices, so I can share bookmarks / history / etc. that also rules out Firefox on all my desktop machines too.

twobitshifter 5y ago

I think it’s less Mozilla’s fault and more user’s shift to mobile that has eaten away at market share combined with the sync hook between mobile and desktop. People say it’s that they lost their focus on the browser or alienated power users, but really Firefox OS was their best shot at long term survival. There’s a vacuum in the mobile space for true OSS. Google has been effective at cutting them off at the pass with both Chromium and Android, but neither allows the true spirit of free software to flourish.

DigitallyFidget 5y ago

I ended up abandoning FireFox years ago because the constant breaking of addons, and hideous UI changes that went from simple & functional to bulky, cluttery, and full of features I will never ever use while the features I do use get pushed into a more complicated method of accessing. I'd love to use FireFox again, but it's just too much garbage and hassle to deal with. Every other version change felt like it broke some quality or function for worse. I used Pale Moon, a fork of Firefox, but it was too much to tinker with to keep it working with modern websites. Now I just use chrome based browser Vivaldi, and for the past five years of using it, they haven't done anything horrendously stupid like overhauling the entire UI. It's not a perfect browser, but it's a huge improvement from dealing with FireFoxes bullshit.

foxpurple 5y ago
The add on breaking issue was solved. Now there is a stable add on api and updates will not break it constantly like they did

IYasha 5y ago

Mozilla has been committing suicide last 10 years or so. I'm forced to use long outdated version because I'm too horrified by looking at screenshots of each new release, not to mention the obvious API and settings cuts. To me it looks like the company suffers from poor management, unclarity of goals, and maybe unbalanced staff (e.g. more "UI designers" than there needs to be and fewer actual programmers than desirable).