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"Gecko (Firefox). Down to 4% market share, mismanaged by Mozilla which prioritizes pushing its toxic politics over improving the browser." Unlike the author, w

"Gecko (Firefox). Down to 4% market share, mismanaged by Mozilla which prioritizes pushing its toxic politics over improving the browser." Unlike the author, who clearly has no agenda or axe to grind.

Y_Y 4y ago
I love Firefox the browser, but they keep throwing stuff at me that I have no interest in. After the Pocket debacle and the Mr. Robot thing I stopped paying attention, but I bet if I found out what colorways was or that new little pinned tab thing then I'd get upset too. All that to say, I think a personal blog is a better place to grind axes than the start page of a hugely important software tool.
- awelxtr 4y ago
  I'm ootl, Pocket debacle?
  - johnny22 4y ago
    really out of the loop then, because it was like 5 years ago or so :) Firefox add a button to integrate a third party service (pocket) in the default install and i think it added it to your current pinned icon areas (where extension button go). It was also not implemented as a proper extension, so you couldn't actually remove support for it, but only the icon. Later on Mozilla did buy pocket, so it was no longer third party. Anyways, a lot of people got super mad with the way they went about it.
    - awelxtr 4y ago
      thank you!
- sfink 4y ago
  Is the presence of Pocket pushing toxic politics, or is it the Mr. Robot extension? I understand that people have complaints and want to hang onto others' past mistakes, but I fail to see how either of those (Pocket&Robot) can be classified as either toxic politics or axe grinding. They're both monetization tactics that many people disliked. Which somehow resulted in people finding Mozilla untouchable, because apparently nobody else has problematic monetization attempts?
wussboy 4y ago
Right? Because that’s totally why Firefox’s market share has gone down and is not at all related to a billion dollar corporation ruthlessly and relentlessly pushing its competitor…
- londons_explore 4y ago
  Mozilla had a lot of goodwill, particularly in the tech world. With the right strategy, they could have translated that into thousands of influential websites encouraging users to use Firefox. Things like releasing features for firefox users first, because devs like firefox and it had better devtools, would have kept the firefox userbase afloat. Instead the mozilla devtools have been allowed to fall behind, web apps are no longer developed firefox-first, and mozilla lost it's opportunity.
- lolinder 4y ago
  Mozilla is hopelessly mismanaged. The entire Android app was overhauled a while back, dropping functionally and decreasing stability, and has since been pretty much ignored even though it is still missing features and is still painfully clunky and prone to crash. The developer tools on the desktop app were ahead of Chrome but have stagnated, and they're slow to adopt new standards, but they somehow find time to add things no one asked for like Colorways and a VPN. I want Firefox to get its traction back, but it's hard to cheer for Mozilla or blame Google when I see them twiddling their thumbs like this.
  - b112 4y ago
    I want Firefox to get its traction back, but it's hard to cheer for Mozilla or blame Google when I see them twiddling their thumbs like this. I don't think this will happen. I think they will just fade away. They are completely dysfunctional now. Some say it is due to the whole woke movement, and it may be, but really, I see it as due to politics. By that I mean, politics is nothing but divisive, and if you introduce it into a company, as a corporate culture, you're going to regret it. IMO, work is where you leave religion, and politics(the other religion) at home. And Mozilla is paying the price for letting it in.
londons_explore 4y ago
> pushing its toxic politics While I wouldn't describe Mozilla leadership as that... I don't think you'll find many people who think Mozilla leadership have made good strategic decisions in the last 5 years.
password4321 4y ago
It might be worth removing the word "toxic"; is it not clear that "Mozilla prioritizes pushing its [...] politics over improving the browser"? https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/
DonHopkins 4y ago
[flagged]
- agloeregrets 4y ago
  Lol that whole page was clearly built to make some people happy but goes WAY too far down the rabbit hole to make sure the homophobes feel included.
- throw-7462637 4y ago
  How sad and tired that you have to keep dragging up this old story. I’m not going to go in the merits but may I suggest it’s time for forgiveness and reconciliation?
mndgs 4y ago
Really surprised that FF is only 4% market share now: what did I miss? Never followed the browser wars, just used what I liked then (chrome -> opera -> FF for the past year or so..). Turns out I'm on the sinking ship...
- vkou 4y ago
  > what did I miss? You missed the pre-installed browser and applications bundled with your computer becoming good enough that ~nobody is going to www.firefox.com to download a browser on a fresh install. This isn't 2004, you no longer need to spend three hours downloading software to make a fresh install of Windows usable. That, and a weak mobile app.
- dblohm7 4y ago
  > Really surprised that FF is only 4% market share now: what did I miss? The explosion of mobile.
- orangeoxidation 4y ago
  > what did I miss Mobile is eating the web. Mobile (Android - it's all Safari on iOs) Firefox is a bad experience.
  - tristan957 4y ago
    Mobile Firefox is awesome to me. I use it everyday.
    - _emacsomancer_ 4y ago
      There are advantages on Android to using a Chromium-based browser unfortunately, cf. https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/firefox-chromium.html#android-sandbox https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/firefox-chromium.ht...
  - cabbagesauce 4y ago
    >Mobile is eating the web. Mobile (Android - it's all Safari on iOs) Firefox is a bad experience. Allow me to second this!I have a not-so-small bookrmark collection (~600). When I discovered FF tags, I was ecstatic: assigning multiple tags to a single bookmark makes navigating the pile really good. But, as soon as I discovered that neither iOS nor Android version of Firefox supports tags, I felt betrayed. Add to it the inability to export full FF profile (such peculiarities as about:config overrides, extension lists etc) and you end up with a very disgruntled user. So I ended up with trusting desktop Safari. Turns out it has _similar_ feature called bookmark description. I still resent Chromium-based products, because UX is wrong to me. But FF is certainly mismanaged if not sabotaged and the upper level management will bury it. Or the time will make FF almost irrelevant.
RealCodingOtaku 4y ago
Also, "Goanna (Pale Moon), a fork of an old version of Gecko. At 0% market share and always at risk of not catching up with the newest web standards that Google invents". Google don't make web standards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_standards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_standards
- agloeregrets 4y ago
  Ahahah... We have someone who thinks that the W3C/OWF has any real power. That's hilarious. This is what actually happens: 1. Google (Who is a member of both W3C and OWF) announces a plan/ships a feature. 2. With 80% of the browser market, people use it or get excited by it. 3. The W3C/OWF ratifies the feature as a standard. This is literally how 90% of web standards happen today.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    No one in targeting US users are going to use a feature not supported by Safari/iOS
  - pwdisswordfish9 4y ago
    What is "OWF" here? Open Web Foundation? If so, that's such a weird choice to mention. It has approximately nothing to do with browser standards. It's not even as if it's a ceremonial figurehead or something. It just has absolutely no place in this discussion...
  - RealCodingOtaku 4y ago
    Being a member does not give anyone the authority to define a standard. One can propose and vote. Take the recent example for instance, Web Standards Body W3C rejects Google’s ad targeting proposal[0] Browser market share calculation is always dodgy[1]. [0] https://tittlepress.com/tech/2238586/ https://tittlepress.com/tech/2238586/ [1] https://www.sitepoint.com/how-browser-market-share-is-calculated/ https://www.sitepoint.com/how-browser-market-share-is-calcul...
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Y_Y 4y ago

I love Firefox the browser, but they keep throwing stuff at me that I have no interest in. After the Pocket debacle and the Mr. Robot thing I stopped paying attention, but I bet if I found out what colorways was or that new little pinned tab thing then I'd get upset too. All that to say, I think a personal blog is a better place to grind axes than the start page of a hugely important software tool.

awelxtr 4y ago
I'm ootl, Pocket debacle?
- johnny22 4y ago
  really out of the loop then, because it was like 5 years ago or so :) Firefox add a button to integrate a third party service (pocket) in the default install and i think it added it to your current pinned icon areas (where extension button go). It was also not implemented as a proper extension, so you couldn't actually remove support for it, but only the icon. Later on Mozilla did buy pocket, so it was no longer third party. Anyways, a lot of people got super mad with the way they went about it.
  - awelxtr 4y ago
    thank you!
sfink 4y ago
Is the presence of Pocket pushing toxic politics, or is it the Mr. Robot extension? I understand that people have complaints and want to hang onto others' past mistakes, but I fail to see how either of those (Pocket&Robot) can be classified as either toxic politics or axe grinding. They're both monetization tactics that many people disliked. Which somehow resulted in people finding Mozilla untouchable, because apparently nobody else has problematic monetization attempts?

wussboy 4y ago

Right? Because that’s totally why Firefox’s market share has gone down and is not at all related to a billion dollar corporation ruthlessly and relentlessly pushing its competitor…

londons_explore 4y ago
Mozilla had a lot of goodwill, particularly in the tech world. With the right strategy, they could have translated that into thousands of influential websites encouraging users to use Firefox. Things like releasing features for firefox users first, because devs like firefox and it had better devtools, would have kept the firefox userbase afloat. Instead the mozilla devtools have been allowed to fall behind, web apps are no longer developed firefox-first, and mozilla lost it's opportunity.
lolinder 4y ago
Mozilla is hopelessly mismanaged. The entire Android app was overhauled a while back, dropping functionally and decreasing stability, and has since been pretty much ignored even though it is still missing features and is still painfully clunky and prone to crash. The developer tools on the desktop app were ahead of Chrome but have stagnated, and they're slow to adopt new standards, but they somehow find time to add things no one asked for like Colorways and a VPN. I want Firefox to get its traction back, but it's hard to cheer for Mozilla or blame Google when I see them twiddling their thumbs like this.
- b112 4y ago
  I want Firefox to get its traction back, but it's hard to cheer for Mozilla or blame Google when I see them twiddling their thumbs like this. I don't think this will happen. I think they will just fade away. They are completely dysfunctional now. Some say it is due to the whole woke movement, and it may be, but really, I see it as due to politics. By that I mean, politics is nothing but divisive, and if you introduce it into a company, as a corporate culture, you're going to regret it. IMO, work is where you leave religion, and politics(the other religion) at home. And Mozilla is paying the price for letting it in.

londons_explore 4y ago

> pushing its toxic politics While I wouldn't describe Mozilla leadership as that... I don't think you'll find many people who think Mozilla leadership have made good strategic decisions in the last 5 years.

password4321 4y ago

It might be worth removing the word "toxic"; is it not clear that "Mozilla prioritizes pushing its [...] politics over improving the browser"? https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/

DonHopkins 4y ago

[flagged]

agloeregrets 4y ago
Lol that whole page was clearly built to make some people happy but goes WAY too far down the rabbit hole to make sure the homophobes feel included.
throw-7462637 4y ago
How sad and tired that you have to keep dragging up this old story. I’m not going to go in the merits but may I suggest it’s time for forgiveness and reconciliation?

mndgs 4y ago

Really surprised that FF is only 4% market share now: what did I miss? Never followed the browser wars, just used what I liked then (chrome -> opera -> FF for the past year or so..). Turns out I'm on the sinking ship...

vkou 4y ago
> what did I miss? You missed the pre-installed browser and applications bundled with your computer becoming good enough that ~nobody is going to www.firefox.com to download a browser on a fresh install. This isn't 2004, you no longer need to spend three hours downloading software to make a fresh install of Windows usable. That, and a weak mobile app.
dblohm7 4y ago
> Really surprised that FF is only 4% market share now: what did I miss? The explosion of mobile.
orangeoxidation 4y ago
> what did I miss Mobile is eating the web. Mobile (Android - it's all Safari on iOs) Firefox is a bad experience.
- tristan957 4y ago
  Mobile Firefox is awesome to me. I use it everyday.
  - _emacsomancer_ 4y ago
    There are advantages on Android to using a Chromium-based browser unfortunately, cf. https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/firefox-chromium.html#android-sandbox https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/firefox-chromium.ht...
- cabbagesauce 4y ago
  >Mobile is eating the web. Mobile (Android - it's all Safari on iOs) Firefox is a bad experience. Allow me to second this!I have a not-so-small bookrmark collection (~600). When I discovered FF tags, I was ecstatic: assigning multiple tags to a single bookmark makes navigating the pile really good. But, as soon as I discovered that neither iOS nor Android version of Firefox supports tags, I felt betrayed. Add to it the inability to export full FF profile (such peculiarities as about:config overrides, extension lists etc) and you end up with a very disgruntled user. So I ended up with trusting desktop Safari. Turns out it has _similar_ feature called bookmark description. I still resent Chromium-based products, because UX is wrong to me. But FF is certainly mismanaged if not sabotaged and the upper level management will bury it. Or the time will make FF almost irrelevant.

RealCodingOtaku 4y ago

Also, "Goanna (Pale Moon), a fork of an old version of Gecko. At 0% market share and always at risk of not catching up with the newest web standards that Google invents". Google don't make web standards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_standards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_standards

agloeregrets 4y ago
Ahahah... We have someone who thinks that the W3C/OWF has any real power. That's hilarious. This is what actually happens: 1. Google (Who is a member of both W3C and OWF) announces a plan/ships a feature. 2. With 80% of the browser market, people use it or get excited by it. 3. The W3C/OWF ratifies the feature as a standard. This is literally how 90% of web standards happen today.
- scarface74 4y ago
  No one in targeting US users are going to use a feature not supported by Safari/iOS
- pwdisswordfish9 4y ago
  What is "OWF" here? Open Web Foundation? If so, that's such a weird choice to mention. It has approximately nothing to do with browser standards. It's not even as if it's a ceremonial figurehead or something. It just has absolutely no place in this discussion...
- RealCodingOtaku 4y ago
  Being a member does not give anyone the authority to define a standard. One can propose and vote. Take the recent example for instance, Web Standards Body W3C rejects Google’s ad targeting proposal[0] Browser market share calculation is always dodgy[1]. [0] https://tittlepress.com/tech/2238586/ https://tittlepress.com/tech/2238586/ [1] https://www.sitepoint.com/how-browser-market-share-is-calculated/ https://www.sitepoint.com/how-browser-market-share-is-calcul...

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