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I still ask myself: has FF browser share actually dropped that much, or has FF's privacy focus caused browser share estimates to mostly miss FF users in their c

I still ask myself: has FF browser share actually dropped that much, or has FF's privacy focus caused browser share estimates to mostly miss FF users in their counts? Most of these stats come from the exact kind of skeevy companies that I (and many other FireFox users) are using FireFox to avoid.

ksec 5y ago
> FF's privacy focus caused Even before the whole privacy focused thing FF was already in decline to sub 10% market on Desktop. If you think about it the other way around, it is still hanging on to 5-10% of Desktop market after all is actually quite good. At its peak, Firefox was closing to 40% in some European countries. If you consider IE in Business Cooperate usage and Firefox are not available in those settings, 40% is a really big deal.
doomrobo 5y ago
Unfortunately that's not a likely explanation. If you do even the simplest possible measurement, which is just recording user agent strings and IPs, you won't end up undercounting Firefox clients
- boomboomsubban 5y ago
  Either uBlock Origin or Matrix comes with user agent spoofing, it's not like the practice is that rare.
  - unityByFreedom 5y ago
    Does uBlock Origin turn that on by default? That's the only way I could imagine such stats being wrong by a wide margin.
  - unityByFreedom 5y ago
    Matrix used to do this but doesn't anymore [1] and uBlock never had that feature. Please don't make stuff up. [1] https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix/issues/927 https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix/issues/927
    - boomboomsubban 5y ago
      I don't think it's fair to call not knowing that a feature was removed from a discontinued app "making stuff up." I was clearly wrong, though it is easy to change your user agent it's unlikely that many Firefox users have done it.
      - unityByFreedom 5y ago
        You're right, I misunderstood your comment. I interpreted what you said as in, you can get this feature via either Matrix or uBlock. I see now you meant one of those has the feature and you weren't sure which one had it. Sorry about that. In my defense I think it can be read both ways. I'd add there is a large gap in usage between uBlock and Matrix. uBlock has over 10 million users whereas Matrix is somewhere over 100,000.
  - executesorder66 5y ago
    By mozilla's own metrics only 30% of their users use any addon at all.
boomboomsubban 5y ago
Firefox users avoiding those tracking sites would result in an always low user share, it would not really explain the user share dropping. Maybe an increase in privacy minded users could explain a percent or two, but not most of the drop.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
indymike 5y ago
Firefox has less users than desktop Safari. It shouldn't be that way, but it is. When you factor in mobile it gets worse because Chrome (the Android default) and Safari (the only real choice on iOS) are so dominant. Also, the market share numbers reported by client side trackers like StatsCounter are very close to log file collection and analysis by companies like Kinsta.
- darig 5y ago
  ALL my homies use Firefox. You didn't address the OP's point... how can anyone know how many Firefox users there are when Firefox users refuse to be counted? You think that the subset of people willing to install a client side tracker and the subset of people who choose to use firefox are representative of the whole? You want to believe it is that way, but it isn't.
- eric_cc 5y ago
  How are you so sure? You really didn’t address OP’s point about content blocking and privacy tools.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - indymike 5y ago
    Content blocking does not change requests to the originating server. Firefox would have much better market share in log file analysis method studies than it does in client side tracker based studies if the OP was correct.
- jamie_ca 5y ago
  iOS Firefox is actually quite nice, I've been using it as my default for a year now. Biggest win for me is tab sync, so it's pretty easy to open a tab I had loaded on my phone in my desktop browser. Sure, it's using Safari as a renderer, but these days that's hardly where the differentiating value is.
gilrain 5y ago
Do you trust Mozilla? They share the numbers. https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity I’ve watched the decline for years, straight from the source. These usage numbers are not affected by privacy settings.
jakub_g 5y ago
My take on FF "decline" is that FF user share (%) dropped because the pie started expanding (especially on mobile). New internet users are likely to be Safari or Chrome users for whom the browser they have is good enough. And Firefox on mobile is simply not as fast as alternatives (the bar set by Chromium Android is very high), kinda painful to use unless you have a highend device, esp. JS heavy sites like Twitter work much better on Chromium. This doesn't fully describe situation, but over last 3 years, mobile users went from 50% to 75% users in my prev company's data. And Firefox is nowhere in those mobile stats.
- PostThisTooFast 5y ago
  It doesn't help that Apple effectively bans competing browsers from iOS, by forcing them all to use abysmal WebKit. So they're little better than re-skinned Safari. "You're posting too fast. Please slow down. Thanks." HACKER NEWS, YOU'RE JAGOFFS. SHOVE YOUR DISRESPECT FOR USERS STRAIGHT UP YOUR ASS. THANKS.
- gilrain 5y ago
  Number of Firefox users is dropping, not just Firefox market share.

ksec 5y ago

> FF's privacy focus caused Even before the whole privacy focused thing FF was already in decline to sub 10% market on Desktop. If you think about it the other way around, it is still hanging on to 5-10% of Desktop market after all is actually quite good. At its peak, Firefox was closing to 40% in some European countries. If you consider IE in Business Cooperate usage and Firefox are not available in those settings, 40% is a really big deal.

doomrobo 5y ago

Unfortunately that's not a likely explanation. If you do even the simplest possible measurement, which is just recording user agent strings and IPs, you won't end up undercounting Firefox clients

boomboomsubban 5y ago
Either uBlock Origin or Matrix comes with user agent spoofing, it's not like the practice is that rare.
- unityByFreedom 5y ago
  Does uBlock Origin turn that on by default? That's the only way I could imagine such stats being wrong by a wide margin.
- unityByFreedom 5y ago
  Matrix used to do this but doesn't anymore [1] and uBlock never had that feature. Please don't make stuff up. [1] https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix/issues/927 https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix/issues/927
  - boomboomsubban 5y ago
    I don't think it's fair to call not knowing that a feature was removed from a discontinued app "making stuff up." I was clearly wrong, though it is easy to change your user agent it's unlikely that many Firefox users have done it.
    - unityByFreedom 5y ago
      You're right, I misunderstood your comment. I interpreted what you said as in, you can get this feature via either Matrix or uBlock. I see now you meant one of those has the feature and you weren't sure which one had it. Sorry about that. In my defense I think it can be read both ways. I'd add there is a large gap in usage between uBlock and Matrix. uBlock has over 10 million users whereas Matrix is somewhere over 100,000.
- executesorder66 5y ago
  By mozilla's own metrics only 30% of their users use any addon at all.

boomboomsubban 5y ago

Firefox users avoiding those tracking sites would result in an always low user share, it would not really explain the user share dropping. Maybe an increase in privacy minded users could explain a percent or two, but not most of the drop.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

indymike 5y ago

Firefox has less users than desktop Safari. It shouldn't be that way, but it is. When you factor in mobile it gets worse because Chrome (the Android default) and Safari (the only real choice on iOS) are so dominant. Also, the market share numbers reported by client side trackers like StatsCounter are very close to log file collection and analysis by companies like Kinsta.

darig 5y ago
ALL my homies use Firefox. You didn't address the OP's point... how can anyone know how many Firefox users there are when Firefox users refuse to be counted? You think that the subset of people willing to install a client side tracker and the subset of people who choose to use firefox are representative of the whole? You want to believe it is that way, but it isn't.
eric_cc 5y ago
How are you so sure? You really didn’t address OP’s point about content blocking and privacy tools.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- indymike 5y ago
  Content blocking does not change requests to the originating server. Firefox would have much better market share in log file analysis method studies than it does in client side tracker based studies if the OP was correct.
jamie_ca 5y ago
iOS Firefox is actually quite nice, I've been using it as my default for a year now. Biggest win for me is tab sync, so it's pretty easy to open a tab I had loaded on my phone in my desktop browser. Sure, it's using Safari as a renderer, but these days that's hardly where the differentiating value is.

gilrain 5y ago

Do you trust Mozilla? They share the numbers. https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity I’ve watched the decline for years, straight from the source. These usage numbers are not affected by privacy settings.

jakub_g 5y ago

My take on FF "decline" is that FF user share (%) dropped because the pie started expanding (especially on mobile). New internet users are likely to be Safari or Chrome users for whom the browser they have is good enough. And Firefox on mobile is simply not as fast as alternatives (the bar set by Chromium Android is very high), kinda painful to use unless you have a highend device, esp. JS heavy sites like Twitter work much better on Chromium. This doesn't fully describe situation, but over last 3 years, mobile users went from 50% to 75% users in my prev company's data. And Firefox is nowhere in those mobile stats.

PostThisTooFast 5y ago
It doesn't help that Apple effectively bans competing browsers from iOS, by forcing them all to use abysmal WebKit. So they're little better than re-skinned Safari. "You're posting too fast. Please slow down. Thanks." HACKER NEWS, YOU'RE JAGOFFS. SHOVE YOUR DISRESPECT FOR USERS STRAIGHT UP YOUR ASS. THANKS.
gilrain 5y ago
Number of Firefox users is dropping, not just Firefox market share.