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Firefox is a dying horse on its last throes before Hades claims it for its own. Mythology aside, I find it truly sad to see the state Firefox is in. A browser i

Firefox is a dying horse on its last throes before Hades claims it for its own. Mythology aside, I find it truly sad to see the state Firefox is in. A browser is an incredibly complex piece of software and what Mozilla did with Firefox is nothing short of brilliant. Alas, they have been left too far behind [0] I am afraid they'll no longer be relevant in a few years. Every few months Mozilla tries to overhaul it's UI and succeeds only to try again later. What are they trying to do? What's the real reason behind their slow descent into irrelevance? Last time I tried Firefox on Android, it was a mess. Crashing every few minutes, unpredictable. I hear its a lot better now which is great! But why did they ditch the old one? [0] https://caniuse.com/?compare=firefox+101,chrome+102&compareCats=all https://caniuse.com/?compare=firefox+101,chrome+102&compareC... edit: added link to caniuse.com

itintheory 4y ago
I'm not sure which Firefox you're using, but the description you've laid out here doesn't match my experience at all. I've been using FF on desktop and android for years and have had no issues whatsoever. In what way do you feel firefox has been "left too far behind" ? There was a time when Chrome was faster by an ample margin, but it's no longer enough to be an important distinction. Between the privacy respecting features, and plugin support on mobile - Firefox is the best choice.
- longrod 4y ago
  A full detailed list: https://caniuse.com/?compare=firefox+101,chrome+102&compareCats=all https://caniuse.com/?compare=firefox+101,chrome+102&compareC...
  - prophesi 4y ago
    I don't think this proves Firefox is dying. A better indicator would be Chrome's past decade of 90%+ browser market share. It's also worth noting that a good amount of the features not implemented in Firefox are either Chrome-specific experiments, or features purposefully unimplemented for privacy purposes. If anything, it shows the damage of a browser-tech monopoly which Edge and Brave aren't helping with.
    - longrod 4y ago
      I don't think features such as Web USB, Web Bluetooth are privacy invasive. Chrome's huge market share is the very reason Firefox isn't trying very hard here. They are playing catch up. Take Manifest v3 for example; Chrome introduced it quite a while ago and made it mandatory for new extensions in 2022. Firefox just started catching up. This is bad for Firefox because developers will eventually (and some still do) will simply stop supporting Firefox due it being so slow to catch up. Chrome already has such a huge market that a lot of web devs already don't care (e.g. Microsoft Teams). What does this signify? It's the death of Firefox unless Firefox pulls a miracle here. Chrome is leading, all the devs are following, and they leading by leaps and bounds. Firefox is forced to catch up which causes frustration among users. How long before Firefox gets tired of playing catch up and simply becomes irrelevant? I am not happy about this. This is clearly bad but inevitable. The only other real competitor is WebKit which is restricted to Apple only. A huge market still. But Google's monopoly over the browsing market will only cause harm in the long run. Even though it will make devs jobs a lot easier.
      - dylan604 4y ago
        >I don't think features such as Web USB, Web Bluetooth are privacy invasive. It's telling that the only browser vendor that feels this way has the logo of one of the two most privacy invading companies in existence.
      - prophesi 4y ago
        > I don't think features such as Web USB, Web Bluetooth are privacy invasive. Coincidentally, Brave believes they are privacy-invasive and don't support those features either (last paragraph in the article)[0]. Firefox, as with all other browsers aside from Safari, will remain with less than 5% market share for the foreseeable future. But I'd much rather continue supporting different browser engines than use a skinned Chromium to uphold the status quo. [0] https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/google-plan-for-chrome-capability-has-a-big-security-risk/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/google-plan-for-chrome-c...
      - NoGravitas 4y ago
        > I don't think features such as Web USB, Web Bluetooth are privacy invasive. Mozilla, Apple, and Brave all disagree (as do I).
  - Phelinofist 4y ago
    I find the lack of nonsense API implementations to be a good thing
- longrod 4y ago
  Brave is a way better choice. As for plugin support on mobile, yes that's missing but I use extensions mainly on desktop. Brave comes with an adblocker built in and if that doesn't work, you could use something like Adguard.
lock-the-spock 4y ago
I find Firefox absolutely marvelous in the state it is in now. There certainly is no mystical death.

itintheory 4y ago

I'm not sure which Firefox you're using, but the description you've laid out here doesn't match my experience at all. I've been using FF on desktop and android for years and have had no issues whatsoever. In what way do you feel firefox has been "left too far behind" ? There was a time when Chrome was faster by an ample margin, but it's no longer enough to be an important distinction. Between the privacy respecting features, and plugin support on mobile - Firefox is the best choice.

longrod 4y ago
A full detailed list: https://caniuse.com/?compare=firefox+101,chrome+102&compareCats=all https://caniuse.com/?compare=firefox+101,chrome+102&compareC...
- prophesi 4y ago
  I don't think this proves Firefox is dying. A better indicator would be Chrome's past decade of 90%+ browser market share. It's also worth noting that a good amount of the features not implemented in Firefox are either Chrome-specific experiments, or features purposefully unimplemented for privacy purposes. If anything, it shows the damage of a browser-tech monopoly which Edge and Brave aren't helping with.
  - longrod 4y ago
    I don't think features such as Web USB, Web Bluetooth are privacy invasive. Chrome's huge market share is the very reason Firefox isn't trying very hard here. They are playing catch up. Take Manifest v3 for example; Chrome introduced it quite a while ago and made it mandatory for new extensions in 2022. Firefox just started catching up. This is bad for Firefox because developers will eventually (and some still do) will simply stop supporting Firefox due it being so slow to catch up. Chrome already has such a huge market that a lot of web devs already don't care (e.g. Microsoft Teams). What does this signify? It's the death of Firefox unless Firefox pulls a miracle here. Chrome is leading, all the devs are following, and they leading by leaps and bounds. Firefox is forced to catch up which causes frustration among users. How long before Firefox gets tired of playing catch up and simply becomes irrelevant? I am not happy about this. This is clearly bad but inevitable. The only other real competitor is WebKit which is restricted to Apple only. A huge market still. But Google's monopoly over the browsing market will only cause harm in the long run. Even though it will make devs jobs a lot easier.
    - dylan604 4y ago
      >I don't think features such as Web USB, Web Bluetooth are privacy invasive. It's telling that the only browser vendor that feels this way has the logo of one of the two most privacy invading companies in existence.
    - prophesi 4y ago
      > I don't think features such as Web USB, Web Bluetooth are privacy invasive. Coincidentally, Brave believes they are privacy-invasive and don't support those features either (last paragraph in the article)[0]. Firefox, as with all other browsers aside from Safari, will remain with less than 5% market share for the foreseeable future. But I'd much rather continue supporting different browser engines than use a skinned Chromium to uphold the status quo. [0] https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/google-plan-for-chrome-capability-has-a-big-security-risk/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/google-plan-for-chrome-c...
    - NoGravitas 4y ago
      > I don't think features such as Web USB, Web Bluetooth are privacy invasive. Mozilla, Apple, and Brave all disagree (as do I).
- Phelinofist 4y ago
  I find the lack of nonsense API implementations to be a good thing
longrod 4y ago
Brave is a way better choice. As for plugin support on mobile, yes that's missing but I use extensions mainly on desktop. Brave comes with an adblocker built in and if that doesn't work, you could use something like Adguard.

lock-the-spock 4y ago

I find Firefox absolutely marvelous in the state it is in now. There certainly is no mystical death.