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I actually have wondered about this. Given the changes in the way tracking protection has been done, have there been any actual studies/analyses that show Firef

I actually have wondered about this. Given the changes in the way tracking protection has been done, have there been any actual studies/analyses that show Firefox is losing marketshare? If it's all based on ad companies and server-side detection, I'm unclear that you could actually correctly make the claim. If anyone has links I'd be interested in reading; I'm sure there are fingerprinting techniques, but ones that rely on JS would potentially be prone to being miscounted due to NoScript (365k+ users of it according to FF). For the record, I do not doubt that chrome dwarfs everyone, but I'm curious about the way the numbers are being reported/studied.

Diti 5y ago
I have the same question as you. I will add that it is possible Chrome’s market share might be partly artificial since Firefox might be using Chrome’s User Agent string so that websites “compatible with Chrome only” remain usable.
- jakub_g 5y ago
  I don't have hard data to back it up but I don't think Firefox is spoofing UA for compat, at least not on a massive scale.
WorldMaker 5y ago
I also suspect a lot of the "Firefox is losing marketshare" is driven in part by ad companies, especially the huge one named Google. Given how many websites think Firefox in Enhanced Privacy Protection mode is "an ad blocker", of course ad trackers think Firefox is losing marketshare because it isn't feeding their trackers. Between that and how Mobile Firefox still has to use platform browsers (and a lot of user agent detection picks out the platform browser rather than the "user browser" on mobile), I'd be surprised if Firefox marketshare has dropped as much as the narrative believes. That said, even before Enhanced Privacy Protection and Mobile, Firefox was down in marketshare compared to the behemoth competitors, and so even if it is a trick of "Heisenberg metrics" that Firefox is losing marketshare, it probably could stand to gain marketshare (to push us away from the growing monopsony).
- account42 5y ago
  > Between that and how Mobile Firefox still has to use platform browsers That's only on Apple platforms - FF on Android uses Gecko (but then they go and arbitrarily limit the extensions you are allowed to install anyway).

Diti 5y ago

I have the same question as you. I will add that it is possible Chrome’s market share might be partly artificial since Firefox might be using Chrome’s User Agent string so that websites “compatible with Chrome only” remain usable.

jakub_g 5y ago
I don't have hard data to back it up but I don't think Firefox is spoofing UA for compat, at least not on a massive scale.

WorldMaker 5y ago

I also suspect a lot of the "Firefox is losing marketshare" is driven in part by ad companies, especially the huge one named Google. Given how many websites think Firefox in Enhanced Privacy Protection mode is "an ad blocker", of course ad trackers think Firefox is losing marketshare because it isn't feeding their trackers. Between that and how Mobile Firefox still has to use platform browsers (and a lot of user agent detection picks out the platform browser rather than the "user browser" on mobile), I'd be surprised if Firefox marketshare has dropped as much as the narrative believes. That said, even before Enhanced Privacy Protection and Mobile, Firefox was down in marketshare compared to the behemoth competitors, and so even if it is a trick of "Heisenberg metrics" that Firefox is losing marketshare, it probably could stand to gain marketshare (to push us away from the growing monopsony).

account42 5y ago
> Between that and how Mobile Firefox still has to use platform browsers That's only on Apple platforms - FF on Android uses Gecko (but then they go and arbitrarily limit the extensions you are allowed to install anyway).