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>Why is Firefox losing marketshare very simple answer, because Mozilla doesn't control the infrastructure that runs on 80% of smartphones in the world and ship
by Barrin92 5y ago
>Why is Firefox losing marketshare
very simple answer, because Mozilla doesn't control the infrastructure that runs on 80% of smartphones in the world and ships Firefox as the default browser.
It really has nothing to do with the bespoke features that people on HN pay attention to. Firefox doesn't control any platform and defaults matter. There's a reason Google pays them a gazillion dollars to be the standard search engine, which you can change with one click. It's also why Safari is still going relatively strong.
- echelon 5y agoMicrosoft was forced to allow browser choice in the EU. I don't see why Apple and Google shouldn't be subject to the same, with the added condition that browser rendering engine diversity gets preferential treatment. Give users a 60% chance to see Firefox as the first option, then show them the multitude of Chrome/Safari-based browsers.
- maccam94 5y agoThe problem is that even when that choice is given, every Google search pushes Chrome, Microsoft constantly pushes you to switch to Edge. I'm not sure how much Apple pushes Safari, but last I heard it actually gives superior battery life on Mac OS so there's a real technical reason to not use Firefox.
- Gigachad 5y agoApple literally doesn't allow different browsers on iOS. You can only put a new UI skin over webkit.
- Gigachad 5y agoBecause no one cares anymore about browser diversity now that the main browser is open source, runs on every platform and complies mostly with browser standards. Not to say it isn't important. But it was way worse when IE was creating a dependency on IE and Windows due to poor standards.