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Firefox is compromised by the fact it’s core active users are also its largest liability. It’s the innovators dilemma. They want it to (more or less) stay the s

Firefox is compromised by the fact it’s core active users are also its largest liability. It’s the innovators dilemma. They want it to (more or less) stay the same and not move forward and make changes to compete with Chrome. Whereas for them to achieve a larger market share it needs a radical overhaul. Really what Mozilla need to do is build a “new browser” called something different and put their weight behind that. I thought they were on that path with Servo and the HTML based UI they were developing for it, but I think they bit off more than they could chew and did not move quickly enough. The tight relationship between rendering engine and browser has been broken by Chrome and its “children” (and in some way also by Apples enforced usage of their WebKit implementation in ios). Mozilla need to follow suit in order to survive, rip that rendering engine out, build a new browser and a “browser toolkit” to let other people build their own.

netizen-936824 5y ago
This sounds like a broad generalization. I have been a Firefox user for many years and I'm happy to see it compete with updates. I like seeing it change.
zesterer 5y ago
> They want it to (not or less) stay the same and not move forward I don't think this is true at all. Anecdotally, a lot of Firefox users have been very receptive towards recent changes. Quantum was a huge success and I know very few people that miss the old Firefox with all of its jank. > Mozilla need to follow suit in order to survive, rip that rendering engine out, build a new browser and a “browser toolkit” to let other people build their own This is precisely what Servo is: https://servo.org/ https://servo.org/. Mozilla know what they're doing.
- _wolfie_ 5y ago
  Wasn't lot of servo team fired? Or was that some other team? I remember reading about lot of rust people being let go.
- samwillis 5y ago
  I believe they laid off the Servo development team? Also they moved way to slowly with Servo, starting it as a research project was correct. But they should have gone all in on it years ago. I know they have taken parts of it and folded them into Firefox, but it should have been the the other way round. Take the bits of Firefox they could and combine them into something new with Servo.
  - fault1 5y ago
    The problem is that Servo required a lot of things, including Rust, to be mature. That being said, Servo resulted in the creation of all sorts of technologies.
  - dan-robertson 5y ago
    I think it’s probably easier said than done. Servo did work somewhat for some hardware but there is a very long tail of web and hardware compatibility issues that needs to be chased down.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  > This is precisely what Servo is Great example - because Mozilla binned Servo! https://twitter.com/steveklabnik/status/1295771633320448001 https://twitter.com/steveklabnik/status/1295771633320448001
  - twic 5y ago
    As the Reddit thread quoted in that Twitter thread explains, Servo was not originally intended meant to replace Gecko. It was a research platform to explore new techniques which could be used in Gecko, and it successfully did that. Indeed, i think it was a pleasant surprise when it turned out WebRender could be ported, rather than rewritten in Gecko. It is a shame that Servo was shut down, because now there isn't a codebase focused on developing new technology; innovation has to happen in Gecko, alongside being a production system.
  - hutzlibu 5y ago
    Yes, that was when they seemed to give up, it seems.
- hansel_der 5y ago
  > I know very few people that miss the old Firefox with all of its jank. one vote for the old FF because tabKitv2 is unsurpassed
CapitalistCartr 5y ago
I use Firefox for the obvious reasons, but I desperately want it to be as polished as Chrome, which it is a far cry from, especially on Android.
- smt88 5y ago
  I have been using FF on Android exclusively for 3+ years and never need to switch to Chrome. In fact, switching to Chrome is agonizing because I lose my adblocker.
- cout 5y ago
  What makes Firefox seem less polished to you than chrome? When I use chrome, the feeling I get is one of standing in an unfurnished office space with white walls and few windows. To me, that is the opposite of polished. Firefox in comparison feels like being in a grand old house that was built before plumbing and electricity. You can tell that it used to be beautiful and polished, but the luster has faded over time.
  - pvinis 5y ago
    best comment I've read today! I wish I could double-vote you.
- howinteresting 5y ago
  Both ad blocking and password manager support are much better on Firefox/Android than on Chrome.
xg15 5y ago
Maybe we should better ask the question why a browser dupoly is bad and what we expect from a competing browser. I think the core goal is influence: The ability to meaningfully change the web ecosystem or counteract changes that would be harmful. Of course market share is necessary for influence, but I don't think it's sufficient: If Firefox gained a larger market share but at the cost permanently catching up to Chrome, I don't think a lot would be won.
pizza234 5y ago
> Firefox is compromised by the fact it’s core active users are also its largest liability. It’s the innovators dilemma. They want it to (more or less) stay the same How much of the users are actually technical? The Firefox user share is frequently seen through the lens of technical features, however, I have the suspicion that the vast majority of the audience is regular users who have no idea of anything technical.
throw8932894 5y ago
> Really what Mozilla need to do is build a “new browser” called something different and put their weight behind that Mozilla brand has value in privacy, not browsers. It could start VPN, cloud services, remote backups, smart home, security cameras... Even Android phones with stamp from Mozilla would be great. There are no money in browsers, it is basically a feed tube from big corporation to its drones. Mozilla should not sponsor large corporations.
minimilian 5y ago
> The tight relationship between rendering engine and browser has been broken by Chrome and its “children” (and in some way also by Apples enforced usage of their WebKit implementation in ios). Mozilla need to follow suit in order to survive, rip that rendering engine out, build a new browser and a “browser toolkit” to let other people build their own. Exactly. I would really like to use something google-free, but the interface of Qutebrowser is too good, and Qutebrowser can't use Mozilla's rendering engine, even though the developers would like to.
pdenton 5y ago
> Mozilla need to [...] build a new browser See The Book of Mozilla, chapter 11. >and a “browser toolkit” to let other people build their own XULRunner was essentially this.
- eloisant 5y ago
  XULRunner was mostly like Electron before Electron. And it could have take succeeded before Electron arrived if Mozilla didn't decide to let the project die.
  - fault1 5y ago
    The problem is that XUL just didn't work very well. It was one of the reasons Apple decided to go with forking KHTML for the basis of webkit, and Google decided to with forking webkit for the basis of Chromium.
DoingIsLearning 5y ago
> They want it to (more or less) stay the same and not move forward and make changes to compete with Chrome. Most of the negative feedback from users comes from two paths, changes that break add-ons, changes that remove customization. Either of those two effectively reduce the value proposition, so I think negative feedback is granted. The problem most 'core' users have is this UX ethos that some how we are not having more MAUs because we fail to "make changes to compete with Chrome". This has penetrated the Firefox team and has lead to a copy cat of UX features from Chrome and a 'dummyfication' of UX. The reason Firefox is unable to compete with Chrome or Edge is not because of missing features or performance. Both Firefox and Edge have million dollar advertisement and OEM agreements. Talk to anybody on the street and everyone and their dog will know Chrome, Firefox not so much. The average users will use whatever is pre-installed. They will not go out of their way because of Chrome-like features. This causality that somehow Firefox is missing market share because of features or UX is flawed. Firefox is playing a Goliath and David game, with billion dollar revenue companies. Accepting and embracing it's niche nature is a necessary first step.
- samwillis 5y ago
  I can see that, I was using fairly broad strokes in first part of my original comment. I think it’s the second part that is more important than my initial (potentially unfair) generalisation. In order to fund further development of gecko it needs to become a competitor to WebKit/blink and grab that market share in this new world of many browser front ends that are cropping up. Explore new business models, for example sign revenue share agreements with new browser developers in exchange for supporting (or even helping with initial funding) their development.

netizen-936824 5y ago

This sounds like a broad generalization. I have been a Firefox user for many years and I'm happy to see it compete with updates. I like seeing it change.

zesterer 5y ago

> They want it to (not or less) stay the same and not move forward I don't think this is true at all. Anecdotally, a lot of Firefox users have been very receptive towards recent changes. Quantum was a huge success and I know very few people that miss the old Firefox with all of its jank. > Mozilla need to follow suit in order to survive, rip that rendering engine out, build a new browser and a “browser toolkit” to let other people build their own This is precisely what Servo is: https://servo.org/ https://servo.org/. Mozilla know what they're doing.

_wolfie_ 5y ago
Wasn't lot of servo team fired? Or was that some other team? I remember reading about lot of rust people being let go.
samwillis 5y ago
I believe they laid off the Servo development team? Also they moved way to slowly with Servo, starting it as a research project was correct. But they should have gone all in on it years ago. I know they have taken parts of it and folded them into Firefox, but it should have been the the other way round. Take the bits of Firefox they could and combine them into something new with Servo.
- fault1 5y ago
  The problem is that Servo required a lot of things, including Rust, to be mature. That being said, Servo resulted in the creation of all sorts of technologies.
- dan-robertson 5y ago
  I think it’s probably easier said than done. Servo did work somewhat for some hardware but there is a very long tail of web and hardware compatibility issues that needs to be chased down.
chrisseaton 5y ago
> This is precisely what Servo is Great example - because Mozilla binned Servo! https://twitter.com/steveklabnik/status/1295771633320448001 https://twitter.com/steveklabnik/status/1295771633320448001
- twic 5y ago
  As the Reddit thread quoted in that Twitter thread explains, Servo was not originally intended meant to replace Gecko. It was a research platform to explore new techniques which could be used in Gecko, and it successfully did that. Indeed, i think it was a pleasant surprise when it turned out WebRender could be ported, rather than rewritten in Gecko. It is a shame that Servo was shut down, because now there isn't a codebase focused on developing new technology; innovation has to happen in Gecko, alongside being a production system.
- hutzlibu 5y ago
  Yes, that was when they seemed to give up, it seems.
hansel_der 5y ago
> I know very few people that miss the old Firefox with all of its jank. one vote for the old FF because tabKitv2 is unsurpassed

CapitalistCartr 5y ago

I use Firefox for the obvious reasons, but I desperately want it to be as polished as Chrome, which it is a far cry from, especially on Android.

smt88 5y ago
I have been using FF on Android exclusively for 3+ years and never need to switch to Chrome. In fact, switching to Chrome is agonizing because I lose my adblocker.
cout 5y ago
What makes Firefox seem less polished to you than chrome? When I use chrome, the feeling I get is one of standing in an unfurnished office space with white walls and few windows. To me, that is the opposite of polished. Firefox in comparison feels like being in a grand old house that was built before plumbing and electricity. You can tell that it used to be beautiful and polished, but the luster has faded over time.
- pvinis 5y ago
  best comment I've read today! I wish I could double-vote you.
howinteresting 5y ago
Both ad blocking and password manager support are much better on Firefox/Android than on Chrome.

xg15 5y ago

Maybe we should better ask the question why a browser dupoly is bad and what we expect from a competing browser. I think the core goal is influence: The ability to meaningfully change the web ecosystem or counteract changes that would be harmful. Of course market share is necessary for influence, but I don't think it's sufficient: If Firefox gained a larger market share but at the cost permanently catching up to Chrome, I don't think a lot would be won.

pizza234 5y ago

> Firefox is compromised by the fact it’s core active users are also its largest liability. It’s the innovators dilemma. They want it to (more or less) stay the same How much of the users are actually technical? The Firefox user share is frequently seen through the lens of technical features, however, I have the suspicion that the vast majority of the audience is regular users who have no idea of anything technical.

throw8932894 5y ago

> Really what Mozilla need to do is build a “new browser” called something different and put their weight behind that Mozilla brand has value in privacy, not browsers. It could start VPN, cloud services, remote backups, smart home, security cameras... Even Android phones with stamp from Mozilla would be great. There are no money in browsers, it is basically a feed tube from big corporation to its drones. Mozilla should not sponsor large corporations.

minimilian 5y ago

> The tight relationship between rendering engine and browser has been broken by Chrome and its “children” (and in some way also by Apples enforced usage of their WebKit implementation in ios). Mozilla need to follow suit in order to survive, rip that rendering engine out, build a new browser and a “browser toolkit” to let other people build their own. Exactly. I would really like to use something google-free, but the interface of Qutebrowser is too good, and Qutebrowser can't use Mozilla's rendering engine, even though the developers would like to.

pdenton 5y ago

> Mozilla need to [...] build a new browser See The Book of Mozilla, chapter 11. >and a “browser toolkit” to let other people build their own XULRunner was essentially this.

eloisant 5y ago
XULRunner was mostly like Electron before Electron. And it could have take succeeded before Electron arrived if Mozilla didn't decide to let the project die.
- fault1 5y ago
  The problem is that XUL just didn't work very well. It was one of the reasons Apple decided to go with forking KHTML for the basis of webkit, and Google decided to with forking webkit for the basis of Chromium.

DoingIsLearning 5y ago

> They want it to (more or less) stay the same and not move forward and make changes to compete with Chrome. Most of the negative feedback from users comes from two paths, changes that break add-ons, changes that remove customization. Either of those two effectively reduce the value proposition, so I think negative feedback is granted. The problem most 'core' users have is this UX ethos that some how we are not having more MAUs because we fail to "make changes to compete with Chrome". This has penetrated the Firefox team and has lead to a copy cat of UX features from Chrome and a 'dummyfication' of UX. The reason Firefox is unable to compete with Chrome or Edge is not because of missing features or performance. Both Firefox and Edge have million dollar advertisement and OEM agreements. Talk to anybody on the street and everyone and their dog will know Chrome, Firefox not so much. The average users will use whatever is pre-installed. They will not go out of their way because of Chrome-like features. This causality that somehow Firefox is missing market share because of features or UX is flawed. Firefox is playing a Goliath and David game, with billion dollar revenue companies. Accepting and embracing it's niche nature is a necessary first step.

samwillis 5y ago
I can see that, I was using fairly broad strokes in first part of my original comment. I think it’s the second part that is more important than my initial (potentially unfair) generalisation. In order to fund further development of gecko it needs to become a competitor to WebKit/blink and grab that market share in this new world of many browser front ends that are cropping up. Explore new business models, for example sign revenue share agreements with new browser developers in exchange for supporting (or even helping with initial funding) their development.