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Reminds me how Mozilla removes various things from Firefox such as [Compact density](https://www.pcmag.com/news/firefox-redesign-will-see-compact-density-option

Reminds me how Mozilla removes various things from Firefox such as [Compact density](https://www.pcmag.com/news/firefox-redesign-will-see-compact-density-option-disappear https://www.pcmag.com/news/firefox-redesign-will-see-compact...) because their telemetry tells them nobody uses them. And oh boy the backlash from the community...

tablespoon 5y ago
> Reminds me how Mozilla removes various things from Firefox...because their telemetry tells them nobody uses them Got I hate telemetry. I usually (and I imagine many people) turn it off because I don't like my stuff phoning back to the mothership, but then some brainless moron mindlessly uses their "data" for decision-making, and rips out good features. This is especially dumb for Mozilla. Who do they think still uses Firefox? The people who want some dumbed down minimalist lookalike? Their overall browser market-share isn't too much more than Samsung Internet, and probably the only reason anyone still uses it anymore is that it's not as dumbed down as Chrome. Maybe they should just run with being the browser for power users, with all kinds of interesting niche features and customization. Honestly, UX telemetery probably should be banned for everything except error reporting. Nothing good seems to come of it. If you want to know what people do with your stuff, just try to empathize and maybe have some focus groups.
- lodovic 5y ago
  You could argue that the majority of telemetry is produced by the most compliant subset of the users. Critical or privacy-savvy users will probably reject telemetry when asked. These users will accept all the bad UX ideas.
  - userbinator 5y ago
    In other words, the data is just acting as confirmation bias.
- antisthenes 5y ago
  > Maybe they should just run with being the browser for power users, with all kinds of interesting niche features and customization. The ship has long sailed after they killed their addon ecosystem by killing XUL addons. The quality and feature-sets of addons took as much a nosedive as their user-share. Since then, they were keen on continuing this trajectory, and introduced multiple UX/UI regressions that alienated all (most?) of their power users, sometimes even disallowing fixes through about:config. That .gov analytics site that was posted here yesterday showed Firefox setting at 2.4%, which is just about right for all the string of horrible decisions they've made. The horse is dead, Jim. And, unlike an old movie or a videogame, almost no one is going to have nostalgia feelings for a web browser.
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    > The horse is dead, Jim. And, unlike an old movie or a videogame, almost no one is going to have nostalgia feelings for a web browser. I have more nostalgia for old Firefox [EDIT:] and for the old W95/NT4/98/2K GUI [/EDIT] than for any game or movie.
- daemin 5y ago
  This is why power users and developers like us should be running with telemetry enabled, so that our actions, the features we use, and the way we use them get accounted for and stop being removed or nerfed into uselessness. Yes I know there is talk about privacy and security issues with telemetry, and I don't necessarily like it myself, but if we don't vote with our data then the developers of these systems won't recognise what we use and we will lose it. Probably not the most popular view around here but if companies use these metrics to decide what is important then maybe we should contribute some data.
dandellion 5y ago
Compact density, bookmark descriptions, rss support... They've removed so many "niche" features that I decided to try Chrome and found the only thing I miss are multi-account containers. I used a container for personal stuff and another one for work, and I've switched to using Chrome for work and Firefox for personal stuff so I don't even use that anymore, but I hope they don't remove it.
alickz 5y ago
Mozilla removed add-on support from Firefox Android for non-approved add-ons. So now 90% of the add-ons I used to use are gone. There is a workaround using custom AOM collections but it's annoying to have a feature removed.

tablespoon 5y ago

> Reminds me how Mozilla removes various things from Firefox...because their telemetry tells them nobody uses them Got I hate telemetry. I usually (and I imagine many people) turn it off because I don't like my stuff phoning back to the mothership, but then some brainless moron mindlessly uses their "data" for decision-making, and rips out good features. This is especially dumb for Mozilla. Who do they think still uses Firefox? The people who want some dumbed down minimalist lookalike? Their overall browser market-share isn't too much more than Samsung Internet, and probably the only reason anyone still uses it anymore is that it's not as dumbed down as Chrome. Maybe they should just run with being the browser for power users, with all kinds of interesting niche features and customization. Honestly, UX telemetery probably should be banned for everything except error reporting. Nothing good seems to come of it. If you want to know what people do with your stuff, just try to empathize and maybe have some focus groups.

lodovic 5y ago
You could argue that the majority of telemetry is produced by the most compliant subset of the users. Critical or privacy-savvy users will probably reject telemetry when asked. These users will accept all the bad UX ideas.
- userbinator 5y ago
  In other words, the data is just acting as confirmation bias.
antisthenes 5y ago
> Maybe they should just run with being the browser for power users, with all kinds of interesting niche features and customization. The ship has long sailed after they killed their addon ecosystem by killing XUL addons. The quality and feature-sets of addons took as much a nosedive as their user-share. Since then, they were keen on continuing this trajectory, and introduced multiple UX/UI regressions that alienated all (most?) of their power users, sometimes even disallowing fixes through about:config. That .gov analytics site that was posted here yesterday showed Firefox setting at 2.4%, which is just about right for all the string of horrible decisions they've made. The horse is dead, Jim. And, unlike an old movie or a videogame, almost no one is going to have nostalgia feelings for a web browser.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  > The horse is dead, Jim. And, unlike an old movie or a videogame, almost no one is going to have nostalgia feelings for a web browser. I have more nostalgia for old Firefox [EDIT:] and for the old W95/NT4/98/2K GUI [/EDIT] than for any game or movie.
daemin 5y ago
This is why power users and developers like us should be running with telemetry enabled, so that our actions, the features we use, and the way we use them get accounted for and stop being removed or nerfed into uselessness. Yes I know there is talk about privacy and security issues with telemetry, and I don't necessarily like it myself, but if we don't vote with our data then the developers of these systems won't recognise what we use and we will lose it. Probably not the most popular view around here but if companies use these metrics to decide what is important then maybe we should contribute some data.

dandellion 5y ago

Compact density, bookmark descriptions, rss support... They've removed so many "niche" features that I decided to try Chrome and found the only thing I miss are multi-account containers. I used a container for personal stuff and another one for work, and I've switched to using Chrome for work and Firefox for personal stuff so I don't even use that anymore, but I hope they don't remove it.

alickz 5y ago

Mozilla removed add-on support from Firefox Android for non-approved add-ons. So now 90% of the add-ons I used to use are gone. There is a workaround using custom AOM collections but it's annoying to have a feature removed.