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Ask HN: Why does Firefox have such a low market share anyways?

• pwg 3y ago
  One of the reasons: Massive advertising by Google to convince people to "try chrome". It is only relatively recently that visiting a google property was not met with: "Google X is best used in Chrome -- install Chrome now." (with "install chrome" being a link to the installer. No such massive advertising campaign ever existed to try to convince folks to "install Firefox".
  • Shorel 3y ago
    So, the only way to grow Firefox now is to have a website Google can't hijack to advertise Chrome, and also a website everyone wants to use. "ChatGPT runs better in Firefox. Click here to install it."
    • aednichols 3y ago
      DuckDuckGo has billboards. Mozilla has money. I think share growth is expressly a non-goal from Mozilla leadership, judging by some of the other comments.
      • Shorel 3y ago
        > I think share growth is expressly a non-goal from Mozilla leadership, judging by some of the other comments. I would agree, I have no idea what the actual goals from Mozilla leadership are. They don't make sense.
  • nathan_phoenix 3y ago
    That and the fact that most people saw Google search as the first web page when they opened a browser (or if not then most just navigated to it) sure was a killer combo.
  • SoftTalker 3y ago
    Chrome was started by Google as a push to improve the web, which was mired in the stagnation of Internet Explorer dominance. This was good and it worked, but now they are the new monopoly, controlling not just the majority browser but also the majority search engine, majority email platform, and majority online productivity tools. They naturally work to ensure that all that stuff works well with Chrome. Pretty much the only space they don't dominate is social media, but most people access that through apps, not a browser. Even if Firefox is a better browser (and I'm not saying it is, though I personally prefer it) there just isn't much space for Firefox to start driving a wedge in. It's an alternative for those who want it, but it's hard to point to any technical reason to prefer it.
    • WorldMaker 3y ago
      > This was good Was it though? It seems like a lot of "ends justify the means" from hindsight. Were all the dark patterns that Google used to insure Chrome dominance enough to justify the ends of "stop IE stagnation"? In the exact same time period Firefox did really well on word-of-mouth. It didn't need dark patterns, and ultimately lost to Chrome's dark patterns and it is harder to argue that that wasn't at least somewhat evil by that point because I think it is a lot harder to argue that the ends of "defeat Firefox" justify those means. I think it is getting harder and harder to justify that Chrome did all those evil things, whether or not you think that Chrome itself is evil.
  • aednichols 3y ago
    There was a massive grassroots Firefox campaign in the aughts. It was very successful at growing share and I was proud to participate. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36760016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36760016
  • Klonoar 3y ago
    >No such massive advertising campaign ever existed to try to convince folks to "install Firefox". I know HN tries to resist comments of this nature, but man do I feel old now. Firefox's entire success pretty much owes itself to a campaign like that dating back to the early to mid 2000s. Hell, there was a massive NYTimes ad in 2004! https://blog.mozilla.org/press/2004/12/mozilla-foundation-places-two-page-advocacy-ad-in-the-new-york-times/ https://blog.mozilla.org/press/2004/12/mozilla-foundation-pl... Edit: "there as" -> "there was"
    • pwg 3y ago
      True, there were Firefox advertising campaigns in the past. How many days did that NYTimes ad run? How does that compare in size to Google being able to spend somewhere around ten to twelve years constantly advertising "switch to Chrome" on every google property (search, youtube, mail, etc.)? The massive size of googles advertising to "switch to Chrome" dwarfs all of the Firefox campaigns combined.
      • Klonoar 3y ago
        You are shifting the goalposts by trying to say it's about scale and reach, but scale and reach in 2004 wasn't the same as what Google has now. Firefox more or less blanketed the web in advertising to get the switch done. Your point of "Google has a ridiculous playing field advantage" is noted and absolutely true, but you don't need to reach for the factually incorrect "Firefox has not had campaigns for switching" to make it.
        • pwg 3y ago
          > You are shifting the goalposts by trying to say it's about scale and reach, Not at all, unless the meaning of "massive" has changed since I last looked the word up in a dictionary. I said "no such massive campaign existed". Yes, campaigns did exist, but not with the "massive" size google was able to bring to their campaign.
          • Klonoar 3y ago
• ZeroGravitas 3y ago
  The market has likely grown by a large amount in that time, and a big chunk of that growth will be on platforms that either ban, or strongly tilt the user's choice of browser. That and the competitors being rich corporations that are happy to pay to convert low-information users probably accounts for most of it. I've not looked recently but looking at actual user numbers has long told a different story, which no great decline except in relative terms when compared with rivals.
• seren 3y ago
  I am still using Firefox as my main browser, but some sites are broken with Firefox and working fine with Chrome. So unless you are particularly motivated to stay on a given platform, practically it does not really makes sense as a user to stay committed.
  • juujian 3y ago
    Interesting, I have not come across any broken websites in a while. Or well, there was a booking website recently where I switched to Chrome to have my booking go through. But it would need to be a lot of those instances before I would even consider switching to Chrome. You have any (anecdotal) stats on how many websites are broken? What kind of sites are those?
    • barbazoo 3y ago
      Same, it's mostly Google sites that work better with Chrome, like the GCP console.
      • rozap 3y ago
        Google meet works fine on firefox. The GCP console is an affront to the web on any browser, though.
        • barbazoo 3y ago
          Google Meet doesn't support visual effects in Firefox, e.g. background blurring
          • JohnFen 3y ago
            All the better, in my opinion.
            • barbazoo 3y ago
              Some of us need it unfortunately
• numbers_guy 3y ago
  Actually, why does Chrome/ium has such a high market share even amongst tech savvy people? I don't see the appeal.
  • newoldhead 3y ago
    for most, i would assume it's largely just that during the time of the naïve web, there was a period where google kind of was the company, so people started using it for everything (think shortly before and then during the early google+ era). 10 years later almost every normie who didn't start using apple products uses gmail and chrome simply because they legacied into it from when they were younger and less aware of the negative aspects of the practice.
    • cinntaile 3y ago
      A decade or so back Firefox was just so fucking slow and Chrome wasn't. So I switched. It's fixed now so I switched back.
    • seti0Cha 3y ago
      I think you're overplaying the social aspect. For quite a while, Chrome had a serious speed advantage over Firefox and the developer tools were (are?) considered much better. I'm not sure if either is still the case. They both seem fine for my purposes, but I use Chrome because it subjectively feels a bit quicker and I've gotten disillusioned with the practice of choosing software based on political considerations.
      • blahyawnblah 3y ago
        Firefox's dev tools are much better than Chrome's
        • 0x073 3y ago
          Firefox devtools where long time not comparable to chrome, now they are almost the same. There are now some features I prefer on Firefox and some I prefer on chrome.
• aristofun 3y ago
  Because it's not as good as it used to be. Due poor management I suppose. Chrome is far for ideal too, but at least it works for user and developer without much pain.
  • barbazoo 3y ago
    Could you be more specific?
    • CamperBob2 3y ago
      It used to be engineered especially for power users, respecting their interests and needs. Not so much these days. Reverting my about:config settings every time I update, for instance, just conditions me to dodge updates.
      • caditinpiscinam 3y ago
        One example of this is removing the ability to open local files on mobile. Or forcing browser restarts on the desktop in the middle of browsing.
    • aristofun 3y ago
      It specifically sucks now in almost every aspect it used to rule 10 years ago. Starting from performance, dev tools and finishing with annoying and shitty ui “enhancements”.
• 2Gkashmiri 3y ago
  Network effect I'd say. If tomorrow opera, brave, edge switched to Firefox, people won't notice but Firefox share would rise dramatically. Extensions is another issue. Today, any tom dick and harry who want to create a browser extension only build for chrome "why not". Firefox comes from complaining users who don't want to switch otherwise they don't bother. Its the same chicken or egg thing. Low market share of Firefox means less users means less customers of extensions means devs will spend less time to build for Firefox and so on. Firefox extensions often feel like someone actually spent some time and thought into building it, there isn't much crap but chrome store is the dirt bag free for all
  • input_sh 3y ago
    You don't need to build for Firefox these days, extension APIs are to a large extent identical. But then, unlike with Chrome forks, you still have to support a separate version and deal with another "app store", so I can see why people don't do that.
    • 2Gkashmiri 3y ago
      Automation exists so that is hardly a problem. You are right, they are somewhat similar but the "why bother" attitude, same as with every startup doing support and documentation on discord.
  • arp242 3y ago
    > If tomorrow opera, brave, edge switched to Firefox, people won't notice but Firefox share would rise dramatically. Once of the problems Firefox has that it's actually quite hard to do this. You can't "just" take WebKit or Blink and make your own UI for it. But you can build a Blink-based browser in literally a minute or two with basic C++ or Python skills. I don't know what technical issues are preventing this, but IMHO this has been a major hurdle, and a huge strategic mistake.
  • soundnote 3y ago
    Brave literally started on Gecko and ended up switching because Gecko was a PITA to work with.
• acheron 3y ago
  Google wanted more control over the Internet, so they created a browser that they controlled and pushed it on people by leveraging their monopoly in a separate area. You know, the kind of thing we used to think was bad in the 1990s.
  • utopcell 3y ago
    Leveraged their monopoly ? How does that work exactly for Windows, MacOS and iOS in your mind ?
    • robertlagrant 3y ago
      And for any non-Google Android phone!
    • Beached 3y ago
      they implement features.only supported by chromium. see google meets blur background.
      • utopcell 3y ago
        You think Chrome has ~62% market share because ..Meets has blurred backgrounds ? If anything, it is impressive how Chrome has managed to be the majority browser, given that by default we get Edge on Windows, Safari on MacOS/iOS and Firefox on Ubuntu.
      • tzs 3y ago
        That's what they are supposed to do. The web standards bodies don't like to consider standardizing new features until there is an implementation in the field so they can see how well it works in practice. So when one browser maker wants a new feature they make a spec and implement it. If it seems to be useful other browser makers will implement it, maybe with changes they think improve it. Then the standards bodies will look at all those and make a standard. For that particular feature it was actually first suggested by people from Intel and Apple. Google thinks it is a good idea and is the first to write a spec for it and implement it. It seems highly likely that Mozilla and Apple will follow and it will be standardized.
• thesuitonym 3y ago
  Good points have already been raised, but don't neglect the rise of smartphones. When you get a Google phone that already has Google's browser installed, and it works relatively well, why would you change? Add Chromebooks into the mix, and those meet a lot of people's needs, why change? Then, if you get a laptop, you'll want to have all of your passwords and bookmarks synced, so instead of using Edge, you grab Chrome. never even thinking of Firefox. Finally, in the early 00's, Firefox users had a reputation for letting you know about it. Forums of the day were full of signatures with a Get Firefox link in them. You don't really see that level of fervor anymore, because the difference between Firefox and Chrome today is nowhere near the difference between Firefox and IE back then.
  • floren 3y ago
    > When you get a Google phone that already has Google's browser installed, and it works relatively well, why would you change? I know you're speaking in the context of the general public, but I've found that uBlock on Firefox Mobile does so much to make the web usable again that I'd never go without it.
    • frostiness 3y ago
      On the other hand, as someone on an old android device, the performance difference between the two is massive and it isn't getting better. Some sites (usually the ones that are actually important such as restaurant menu) are perfect on Chrome and nearly unusable on Firefox, even with an adblocker. Performance already matters a lot on desktop browsers, but when battery life is thrown into the mix, it matters even more.
      • fooker 3y ago
        It's a bit perplexing to me that Firefox proponents keep denying performance issues for years. You can just compare it yourself or look at the some of the zillion benchmarks.
        • genocidicbunny 3y ago
• barbariangrunge 3y ago
  Firefox should act like a startup in the growth phase. Pretend it has X users and is ready to grow, instead of acting like it has X users that it's trying to hold on to. If Firefox were a growth startup, we'd see all sorts of strategies coming into play: recommendations, ways to invite friends to try it, gamification, doubling down on what differentiates it, focusing on a niche then expanding that niche, trying to stand out and be more memorable, etc. For example, Brave is doing some of those things The nice part is that, because it's owned by Mozilla, users don't have to worry about a bait and switch at the end of the growth phase
  • doodlesdev 3y ago
    > The nice part is that, because it's owned by Mozilla, users don't have to worry about a bait and switch at the end of the growth phase lol. Do you mean this seriously? Could you expand further because I just don't see where you're coming from.
    • NoboruWataya 3y ago
      Mozilla doesn't have VC backers that expect double-digit returns. At the top of the Mozilla structure is a non-profit foundation. Mozilla still has an incentive to make money, of course, but it does not require outsized returns and it is by its nature less inclined to place profit above mission or user experience.
      • cxr 3y ago
        You seem to have fallen into a time machine where it's not 2023 but instead... I dunno... 2010? (I'd have said 2013, but even that would still have been too generous; there's no defensible reason for crediting 2013-era Mozcorp as deserving of the warm fuzzies involved here, either. By then, it had managed to do what Netscape failed at—consolidating power within the distributed and independent mozilla.org project and assuming control for itself.)
        • NoboruWataya 3y ago
• wintorez 3y ago
  I was an avid Firefox user, until it started adding services that I never asked for, namely Pocket. Things that should have been an add-on were now a core feature of the product.
  • Tagbert 3y ago
    So… just Pocket? i admit it was an odd addition but I do like browsing those stories on occasion and find it useful to same new stories to pocket so that I can read them later, particularly for publishers that only let you visit their site X number of times a month.
  • wussboy 3y ago
    This attitude has always confused me. “Firefox did something I didn’t like so I switched to a browser which does hundreds of things to undermine the free and open internet”.
    • aednichols 3y ago
      Plenty of Firefox users do not actually care about free & open and they're the ones who we lost in the greatest numbers. Recognizing and addressing their needs is important.
    • hulitu 3y ago
      > so I switched to a browser which does hundreds of things to undermine the free and open internet like 1. forcing DNS over HTTPS 2. Copying Chrome UI and destroying usability (why do i have to edit a file to get back scrollbar) 3. Droping support for FTP (because everybody i.e Chrome is doing it) 4. Droping suport for localhost (because everybody i.e Chrome is doing it) and so on.
  • unethical_ban 3y ago
    Like chrome has account sync? Like chrome has telemetry? Like chrome has a game built in? Like chrome has a read later feature? You're mad because Firefox was silly enough to call it Pocket instead of Firefox Reading List.
  • 3y ago
• missedthecue 3y ago
  Chrome is better. That's why. It's faster. JS loads quicker. Websites break, for instance Tidal streaming. There are three million tech support threads on the internet of people who can't use Tidal on Firefox. Firefox on desktop can't even translate pages yet, I have to use a janky third party plugin. As a fairly normie internet user, unless you have a hate-boner for Google or some arcane developer niche use case, I don't see a reason to use Firefox anymore.
  • Tagbert 3y ago
    What is Tidal? Never heard of it. It is a video streaming service?
    • missedthecue 3y ago
      High-fidelity lossless music streaming service with several million subscribers https://tidal.com/ https://tidal.com/
  • deleted 3y ago
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• deleted 3y ago
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• fooker 3y ago
  Use Firefox for a day if you are a Chrome user, you’ll quickly realize the experience is far subpar. JS stuff is slower, random websites break, the UI feels a bit sluggish. I understand there are ideological reasons to support Firefox, and that some of these issues are easily attributed to other parties. But for users, there aren’t too many reasons to switch over from Chrome or even Safari, like it was the situation during the IE6 days.
  • ezekg 3y ago
    I've been using Firefox for the past 2 years and I've had no such problems.
    • fooker 3y ago
      Yes, if you have been using Firefox you'll not notice problems. A large number of people used IE5 and IE6 without apparent problems.
      • unethical_ban 3y ago
        I reject your premise. I switched from Firefox to Vivaldi about 18 months ago because (mobile) Firefox scrolling would stutter on site like the New York Times, and it would force reload inactive tabs when I went back to them. On desktop I wanted the "reading list" and mail client of Vivaldi. Firefox (or NYT) seems to have fixed the stuttering scroll on mobile. Multi account containers on Firefox are an incredible isolation mechanism that needs a little bit of UX refinement. I'm probably switching back to FF for beta testing before cutting my defaults back to it.
      • ezekg 3y ago
        What a weird reply. I think I'd especially notice any glaring problems, seeing as I use it every day for web dev. The only issues I've had is that devtools will sometimes completely crash, giving me a white window, requiring me to close the tab to restart devtools. But that's been rare and I can't remember the last time it happened. I completely de-Google'd my life 2 years ago, and I only have Chrome installed so that I can test things cross-browser when needed (e.g. webgl). Comparing Firefox to IE5/6 is unfounded.
• linguae 3y ago
  The rise of Chrome in the early 2010s really cut into Firefox's marketshare. This is anecdotal, but I remember Chrome running very fast on my Macs in the early 2010s. It was much faster than Firefox of that era and was quite competitive with Safari. Firefox's performance did improve drastically later in the decade, but from a marketshare standpoint Chrome had already gained significant ground. In the past five years or so I switched back to Safari on Macs and to Firefox on Windows and Linux. My reasons had to do with three factors: (1) Chrome's memory usage, (2) privacy concerns with using Chrome, and (3) my concerns that Chrome would become the monopoly web browser, similar to the "bad old days" when Internet Explorer 5 and 6 were dominant, which held back the Web until Firefox emerged sometime around 2004. Firefox is a good browser and I hope that it will continue putting up a fight against Chrome to keep the Web from being completely dominated by Google.
• hinata08 3y ago
  Some users don't understand the difference between the web / an ISP / a website / a search engine / a web browser / an OS /... because of massive advertising from Google, that went on all the segments, and also did so much anti competition that it was charged in the EU For some, Google is the brand for the tech, and everything else like Firefox is a knock off, or a pedantic complication. It's a scary world we're living in. And it's the world we IT guys have built, when we taught the elderly and everyone how to be online with hands-on first and no proper explanation. Google has done better with even easier hands-on and absolutely nothing to know before you use your phone or Chromebook.
  • EspressoGPT 3y ago
    This. People don't know the difference between a browser and a search engine, and that's a good thing for Google.
• diffeomorphism 3y ago
  Android, chromeOS and google in general push chrome. Windows pushes edge (i.e. chromium). Apple pushes safari (i.e. webkit). So what do you expect new users to pick?
  • supertrope 3y ago
    Defaults are powerful. Windows > Edge iPhone > Safari Google.com > Chrome (also YouTube, Gmail, G Maps, ChromeOS) If you ask a regular person what browser they use you'll get answers like Facebook, Bing, Internet Edge, The Google, iPad, Foxfire. The browser, operating system, brand, search engine, hardware, email, ISP, and website are all part of a magic glowing machine to them.
• JohnTHaller 3y ago
  It was a combination of factors. First, Google Chrome was originally faster and lighter weight than Firefox. Second, Google used their market advantage to push Chrome via Google search and other properties. Third, Google used multiple third parties to trick end users into installing and setting Chrome as their default via dark patterns when updating or installing Avast, Adobe Flash, Java, etc. (I had to uninstall it from my mom's computer multiple times during this time period.) Fourth, Chrome focused on their developer tools and they got much better than Firefox's. Fifth, Chrome continued to improve and get faster including much better multi-process support and crash resistance while Firefox was held back by their legacy extension framework and XUL-based UI elements. Examples of paid Chrome dark pattern installs: https://imgur.com/gallery/WWZxj https://imgur.com/gallery/WWZxj
• mdeeks 3y ago
  Chrome used to be a lot faster years back so I switched. Firefox sadly has never given me a reason to switch back. Chrome is still fast and generally easy to use. (Maybe others here can give me good reasons to switch?) Chrome also has some obscure features I rely on that Firefox does not have (or just doesn't do well): * Firefox does not support Touch ID on macOS. I can't actually log into a lot of my sites * I can't create a desktop app version of a site (Chrome > Tools > Create Shortcut as window). I use this to put google meet, jira, and some other internal tools as dedicated dock apps. * Chrome lets you run a work and personal profile in different windows. It's just a cmd+` away. It also remembers which profile you had viewed last and opens links in the right one. I didn't like multi-account containers in Firefox because I always had to select the right profile when I click a link.
  • btreecat 3y ago
    I understand your dislike of the default workflow for Firefox profiles. Fortunately you can launch them from the CLI, so I usually creat an alias to my alt profiles then launch the browser from the shell.
    • WorldMaker 3y ago
      Also Firefox Multi-Account Containers do things that Chrome profiles can't do at all.
      • mdaniel 3y ago
        the opposite is true, too, since "Clear History" in Chrome Profiles behaves correctly and (AFAIK) is scoped just to that Profile unlike our container friend: https://github.com/mozilla/multi-account-containers/issues/303 https://github.com/mozilla/multi-account-containers/issues/3... I still use them because combined with https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/open-url-in-container/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/open-url-in-c... ( https://github.com/honsiorovskyi/open-url-in-container https://github.com/honsiorovskyi/open-url-in-container ) is a game changer for my workflow but it does make me sad that issue has been open for so long
• ravenstine 3y ago
  For years, we believed that The Google is the end-all-be-all in terms of "the best" tech to be using. Today, a lot of people still believe this, although to a lesser extent because, for obvious reasons, fewer exhibit blind trust in The Google or get that warm and fuzzy "not evil" feeling. Also, one organization has an astonishingly bigger cash flow than the other, so go figure. With the shift to smartphones, a diminishing number of people care about their web browser, let alone those who even remember what a web browser is. Chrome just works for most people, and the need to use another browser is completely unclear to the average person. In fact, there may be no good reason to switch browsers for the average person; why would you choose a different browser with better ad-blocking capabilities when you like using The Google and enjoy those quirky State Farm commercials? To top it all off, Mozilla has made lousy decisions as to how to delegate its cash flow.
• spacebanana7 3y ago
  The main reason is distribution. The vast majority of internet usage is mobile where Safari, Chrome or Samsung browsers are preinstalled. Users rarely change from the default unless they really need to. Speaking of which, Edge is competitive enough that most Windows users don’t need to change - unlike internet explorer.
• whynotmaybe 3y ago
  Edge comes preinstalled and is managed by one provider that manages the rest of your software. If you add Firefox to a corporate standard computer, that's one thing more to manage. When you really look at it, Firefox has nothing more than edge that really justifies it's existence in a corporate network. The worst about it, now that edge is chromium based, more and more websites or saas are targeting chrome only and don't care about the "nerds" using Firefox. IMHO, unless Linux gains more presence in the desktop world, Firefox usage won't increase much.
• xnx 3y ago
  I previously used Firefox on Android for adblocking and other extensions, but the hoops I had to jump through to get working extensions became increasingly more ridiculous. I switched to Kiwi browser (Chromium based) and and have been very have a much easier time with extensions and it is much faster as well. The only disappointment is no syncing of tabs to a desktop browser.
• tmaly 3y ago
  I use Firefox focus on the iphone and I love it. I like being able to just close it and the history is wiped.
• cuttysnark 3y ago
  Firefox will always have a special place in my heart, because of Firebug, which I credit to helping me whilst I was learning webdev in the late aughts. A colleague of mine at the time quipped that "Firefox is my workhorse; Chrome is my show pony" Times have certainly changed.
• JohnFen 3y ago
  Big picture, I don't know. But I stopped using FF entirely a year or so ago because it reached a point where I could no longer put up with it without irritating me. I find its performance to be awful, it's much less usable, and it's harder to correct the various UI choices that I'm allergic to. These are problems that I didn't have, or that weren't as severe, before the revamp. It's clear to me that FF is set on their development direction, and it's one I dislike, so it was time to give up. This was actually a hard decision on my part. I've been using FF since the very beginning, and was a heavy advocate for it. Leaving it feels like leaving an old friend who has changed into someone I'm not compatible with.
  • freedomben 3y ago
    Interesting, I've never had any performance complaints with Firefox (except for on Ubuntu where you're forced to use the Snap). May I ask what browser are you using now?
    • JohnFen 3y ago
      I'm using Brave at the moment. I'm still seeking a better browser. I'd love to lose the Chrome UI style, if nothing else. > I've never had any performance complaints with Firefox Lots of people don't. But lots of people do. My assumption is that Mozilla targeted their improvements at a particular sort of machine and if yours isn't close enough to that, then your performance is very poor. For me, the turning point came last year (or the year before, I forget), when an update was released that caused FF to take between 3-5 minutes to start up. Nothing I did resolved this. That was the moment when I realized I just had to give up, that FF is unlikely to become a reasonable choice for me in the future. (Although prior to that, FF performance for me had been on a continual downslope ever since Quantum -- which itself didn't improve speed for me, but didn't harm it, either).
    • mdaniel 3y ago
      > (except for on Ubuntu where you're forced to use the Snap). FWIW, "forced" isn't the correct term here. One can still download the .tar.gz and unpack it at will (or, I presume if determined enough, repackage it into a deb using fpm/nfpm). Just watch out for `chown 0:0` otherwise the 1Password extension tries to be cute and accuses you of malware and refuses to work citing a fantastically opaque error message source: a random person on the Internet who loathes snap and whose hate for snap overcame his activation cost for downloading the standalone binary. I just have to remember to use Help > About a lot because their update notification is braindead (and that very point is on-topic for this thread: execution matters)
• IMTDb 3y ago
  At some point; Firefox was marketed as and felt as "the best browser". Now the whole marketing seems to revolve around being the best "ethical/open/private/nice" browser. Real or not; it feels like their number one priority is privacy/ethicality rather than technical excellence. Being "an ethical alternative to" is appealing to some users; but there is a ceiling to this approach. And there is more and more competition in that space (chromium, brave, or even safari). So the share of people putting "ethicality" as their primary deciding factor is split amongst more option.
• aednichols 3y ago
  I was a diehard Firefox user in the aughts, running a bunch of extensions and recommending it to people. I switched to Chrome the first day it became available, because it was just so much faster. You don't need a monopoly or advertising to grow a product that sells itself that well. (Those absolutely did come later.)
  • nateb2022 3y ago
    > I switched to Chrome the first day it became available, because it was just so much faster. This hasn't been the case for a long time.
    • aednichols 3y ago
      I did eventually switch back to Firefox in ~2018 after they jettisoned their legacy cruft and got fast again (I don't know the technical specifics).
• typon 3y ago
  I don't understand how people can use a browser without Container Tabs. This is a killer feature of Firefox and so many people don't even know about it.
  • EspressoGPT 3y ago
    Are you serious? Sorry to be so pointed here, but Container Tabs are a nerdy niche feature that no normal user cares about.
• time4tea 3y ago
  Google using its huge market share to push a browser to help it know what you are up to. Same as Google analytics, same as Google hosted libraries, Google fonts etc etc. All there to make sure they see you on every site. Why anyone would use chrome is beyond me.
• Saphyel 3y ago
  I use Firefox on my desktop PC, FF on my linux laptop and FF on my android phone. Works like a charm but pople like to give their data to Google so...
• xbmcuser 3y ago
  It was not as good as chrome for most of that decade in performance or security. Google was able to use it search market share to advertise its browser but because it was better many people moved off firefox. 2nd reason is chrome used to auto update in the background so I used to install it on all the pcs of all the non tech people I used to be tech support for as that helped me a lot of daily headaches in term of computer troubleshooting
• hamilyon2 3y ago
  For me logging into google properties that automagically logged me in the browser was the red line. The last straw. The unthinkable audacity of taking control of my user agent, done in businessy way with a slight innocent smile. Compared to this, even a hundred pockets and PR lapses and 2007 ignored bugs mean very little. I wish safari and firefox all the best in fight for free web.
  • habinero 3y ago
    Of all the things to criticize them for, "a minor decrease in toil" is a weird one.
    • hamilyon2 3y ago
      Yes, that's how most reacted.
• kjsingh 3y ago
  I really hoped Edge v2 would go with the Gecko engine
• thinking001001 3y ago
  Simple: Chrome captured the market with a good product, at the right time. I remember when Chrome was new, and it was fast, and Google had other game-changing products (like email with enormous storage). I was just an average consumer back then, and I went for Chrome. Then, once you capture enough market share (due to poor competition), people start targeting Chrome as the de facto standard. Throw in Android and you have a browser that the world now depends on. Even Microsoft gave in (with a built in ad-blocker, cause they're bitter about it, too). Should we all be running a C++ based Javascript interpreter? Absolutely not. But try explaining why to the masses...
• genocidicbunny 3y ago
  I think in part it's because the web also just got shittier. One of the common reasons given in this thread is that Chrome is faster, but I've found that aggressive use of NoScript and uBlock will make Firefox much faster than your stock Chrome browser. Excessive JS, excessive CSS, and of course the browser made by a company that pushes both excesses is better at handling them.
• bawolff 3y ago
  Because firefox let itself be defined by its competition (chrome). Everything in firefox in the last 10 years feels like they are just copying chrome with a bit of a delay. You don't win the market by doing the same thing as the market leader (Especially when the market leader is as well funded as google). You need to find a niche and execute on that.
  • Berniek 3y ago
    Sort of... But Firefox is open source, so anyone can contribute. Mozilla accepted money from google to "just make google the default search engine". But they also accept contributions in programming (its open source after all) from google, Microsoft & others employees. The google/Microsoft contributors whether working after hours or as part of their employment have some influence in the direction of Firefox. That may be deliberate or benign (a really good direction by google, in a workers mind, will bias their thinking in other projects and visa versa) That is one disadvantage of open source. A foundation can't avoid that unless you setup like Greenpeace and don't give the riff raff any real say. Firefox users are "captured" by any adds on google search even though they may advertise chrome. People that comment here are interested, most users of browsers ARE NOT. It is so much easier to use the default. Google knows this, Twitter knows this. One of the more brilliant ideas in Firefox was containers, chrome could not implement them because of architectural constraints but rather than build on that beautiful idea, Firefox went in a slightly different direction that Chrome & Edge could follow and still protect their advertising revenue.
    • bawolff 3y ago
      Just because anyone "can" contribute doesn't mean every patch is accepted or that product decisions are delegated to corporations with competing products. Firefox still bears responsibility for its own product decisions, not to mention how firefox is marketed.
      • Berniek 3y ago
        absolutely correct, but Firefox takes notice of ideas. They can be influenced by what is proposed as fixes or contributions. "Everyone knows" that Firefox may break some websites, just ask google. Has anyone ever come across that pretty regularly? Firefox has become a follower rather than a leader and I think the influence of contributors has done that. It is no good for Firefox going in a direction that a good deal of their contributors wont go. The users be damned!
• antman 3y ago
  Because a some years back and for many years it was slower. Chrome came as a default for many devices and many sites css where also optimized for it, and soon other browsers adopted its engine. Firefox had a niche of better browser addons but Mozilla leadership killed it. For mobile it is even more handicapped. Disclaimer: Longtime FF user who feels like a good friend is gone
• nashashmi 3y ago
  The innovation difference between the browsers is not significant enough to merit a switch. Commercially supported browsers have a big advantage. I remember google chrome in 1.0 days. And it was terrible. They became great after a while. In the same time, Firefox extensions started needing rewrite. Now the innovations are happening on both sides. The difference is little to none.
• ChrisArchitect 3y ago
  Alot of it felt like a timing thing --- Firefox was huge, swore by it etc, but then Chrome just kept getting faster. Eventually switching over was a no brainer and at the same time any new users/new installs started to lean towards Chrome also and the momentum happened. Why would any new user/install switch in droves after that? Marketing is a tough sell when users (a huge chunk who barely know what the browser is let alone care about its open source/privacy/whatever) are happy just surfing along inside Facebook and it "works fine".
• entropicgravity 3y ago
  Very recently Chrome has really messed up on my Linux Mint machines, something to do with hardware acceleration. They don't seem to be in any hurry to fix so, I'm now using the Brave browser. Very decent experience so far.
• WorldMaker 3y ago
  An opinion of mine is that Firefox's market share has to be greatly under-reported at this point. Built-in, on-by-default tracking protection disables some of the impact of exactly the sorts of trackers that report this sort of market share data. I think that's why the numbers vary so much depending on where you look. No other browser seems to have reporting problems like that. Plus, one of the major sources of such market share data is and has long been Google themselves and they have such a massive conflict of interest there, but so many people interested in market share data rely on Google numbers because they rely on Google as their advertising landlord defining the markets in which they buy ads. Ignoring mobile, I don't think Firefox's market share has "dropped" on desktops. Anecdotally, everyone I know that used Firefox has stuck with it or deepened there reliance on it and I know enough people that left Spartan Edge for Firefox when Edge went Chromium to wonder if the market share even went up somewhat though depending on your market share data nothing like that is visible either. (And others point out the problem with mobile marketshare and that being the majority browsers for people's time. Firefox on iOS looks like Mobile Safari because it is Mobile Safari and gets counted as such.)
  • reaperman 3y ago
    > Built-in, on-by-default tracking protection disables some of the impact of exactly the sorts of trackers that report this sort of market share data. Am I mistaken in thinking all that's needed is the User-Agent request header? I don't think FF generally fakes this.
    • poorlyknit 3y ago
      You are underestimating the laziness of the Adtech industry. "But we've already got Google Analytics, why would we implement server-side code (<- so complicated!) just to log some stupid header?"
      • WorldMaker 3y ago
        Yeah, Google Analytics pioneered "JS and tracking cookies is all anyone needs for analytics" in ancient times and most other analytics companies followed that leader. It's the rare HN post indeed to see someone actually using classic web server logs in 2023 for analytics instead of JS+cookie trackers.
• solarkraft 3y ago
  Chrome is, for the majority of use cases, better. I say that as a Firefox user annoyed by fairly frequent glitches and slowdowns. Normal people care about that. Google is also heavily pushing Chrome on their properties. That's enough to make a lot of people switch.
• Vrondi 3y ago
  Purely because it doesn't come pre-installed on most devices.
• _8j50 3y ago
  It's not default on anything and gmail users naturally default to it. It doesn't market as much as MS and Google either. People using firefox specifically seek it out. I'd wager, at least 80% of users haven't heard of firefox. I was on a call with people from big G several years ago, explaining issues I had with a product in firefox and out of 3-4 of their people (not engineers or very technical people), not one knew what firefox was, even as I shared my screen. I don't blame them, just pointing out how outside of tech people circles firefox does not really exist even as a term. Back in the day, it made a name for itself as an IE alternative but now it is forgotten thanks to Chrome. I've worked at several big companies, one of the few policies they all had was "chrome is the only approved browser".
• klardotsh 3y ago
  IMO it's in some parts a marketing problem others have already discussed quite well, and in other parts, almost every update (and I slowed them down by moving to the ESR channel, because the breakneck speed of the main releases was getting old) surprises me in some new, almost always user-hostile, way. I don't know who's at the helm of Firefox but good lord do they despise their users (and especially the power users that almost certainly make up the vast majority of their remaining marketshare - I don't know too many "normies" (if you will) who know or care what Firefox has been up to lately - actually, a lot of folks don't even know (or remember) what Firefox is). Rather than doubling down on being the resistance to Google's creepware and internet monoculture, Firefox seems to like to spend its development bandwidth finding new ways to advertise Mozilla's latest acquisition, creating new time-limited themes, redesigning parts of the UI that weren't broken to begin with, or really anything but fronting a real opposition to Google. If qutebrowser didn't devour all my RAM I'd have stayed moved over to it on one of my past 5 attempts to move from FF to QB. Instead, my options are FF (or maybe I'll move to LibreWolf, hm), or... Ungoogled Chromium I guess.
• DropInIn 3y ago
  Back then there were fewer browser in the common scope of awareness. My 60 year old dad installed brave long before we ever discussed the browser, and he's darn near tech illiterate. Same with several other browsers and other family members. I would hazard a guess that it's simply due to greater variety in total, with chrome/chromium never represented due to dev choices.
• dahwolf 3y ago
  Firefox was even over 30% at one point. It's a fine browser, but that 30% was in the desktop era where the only competition was a stagnant IE. Then mobile happened and Firefox failed to secure a seat at the mobile OS table. Nor does it have any big web property to push the browser. So neither on mobile nor on desktop does Mozilla have any leverage. It's not an engineering problem, it's a leverage problem. But even in engineering Mozilla can't out-compete Google. There's no way out of this sink hole. Such is the technical analysis, but I want to compliment it with the normie analysis: nobody gives a shit about browsers. They're free and all do the same thing. Hence people go with the default and stick to it for life.
  • ForestCritter 3y ago
    I used Mozilla firefox for close to 20 years, perfectly happy. I was very happy when they made their android app but sadly it was the plague. Then they changed stuff on the desktop and it stopped working the same. I moved on to stuff that works ( not chrome or google). I would say some of it is definitely an engineering problem.
• wetpaws 3y ago
  [dead]
• worldsavior 3y ago
  Firefox security is very very bad. I don't know about it's speed, but AFAIK chrome is one of the fastest and lightweight on laptops. But mainly it's Firefox security. Though I'm not really sure how many people are actually informed about Firefox security. They are also totally reliant on Google. Google can decide to tell Mozilla to use only Manifest V3 and other because of their funding. People are worried about that. It's also known for the privacy concious people that Chrome browser doesn't send telemetry or anything similar when you disable it through settings. P.S. Not an advertisement for Chrome.
  • OhMeadhbh 3y ago
    though strangely chrome uses the security libraries from firefox. hmm.
    • worldsavior 3y ago
      Doesn't mean anything.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• lewdev 3y ago
  I think it's because Firefox was behind on supporting the browser features that Chrome did, so some pages just didn't work on Firefox. I see that problem happening much less often now, but if I had to recommend a browser to any user, I'd tell them to get Chrome just to avoid any incompatibility issues. I like Firefox mainly because I fear that at some point Chrome will not support ublock origin and its ad blocking features. Also, ublock origin can be installed on the mobile version of Firefox, whereas it can't be installed on the mobile version of Chrome.
• janalsncm 3y ago
  It might be helpful to ask the question in reverse: why was Firefox ever popular? I would submit that the answer is that FF was an alternative to IE. And IE was trash. It was so bad that people would go out of their way to download FF. Now, even if FF is marginally better, iOS Safari and Chrome (and I assume Edge although I haven’t tried it) aren’t that bad. So people don’t go out of their way to find another browser.
• whoomp12342 3y ago
  chrome is a better UI.
• karmakaze 3y ago
  If I had to pick one thing, I'd say distracting projects at Mozilla. I say this as an outside observer without much to base it on other than the products and announcements I read about. Don't get me wrong I love the niche work that gets done on the side. What I don't think is a good idea is trying to do more than one big thing at a time, e.g. Firefox OS phone. As I say this it seems to have made its way as TV firmware, so maybe not a waste.
• mrAssHat 3y ago
  Because it used to be a highly extensible browser for power users without spyware and adware. Then it stopped being extensible at first, then the management went "woke" with all LGBTC++ inclusiveness and other CoC bullshit, fired/made go lots of good core developers and then it all went to shit in accelerated mode.
• muffa 3y ago
  I switched to firefox since it has ublock origin as a plugin on phones. AFAIK chrome does not hence browsing on my phone is useless with all the ads I get using chrome
• definitelyauser 3y ago
  Personally, I ditched Firefox due to poor performance. Especially on infinite-scroll pages, Firefox would just stutter and become unusable. Maybe it's improved, but my impression was that of a browser gradually getting worse. Furthermore, not all websites seems to care much if it breaks in Firefox.
• nojvek 3y ago
  Firefox was a great browser, haven’t tried it in years. Last I tried it was slow memory hog. They also fired a whole bunch of great engineers during Covid. Many websites I tried looked off it didn’t work in Firefox. Had to switch to chrome.
  • vikasr111 3y ago
    I gave it another try after many years and I must say since last year or so they made significant improvement in performance and speed. Another area they shine particularly well is privacy. They made some privacy features baked into the browser itself, which is a good move.
• soundnote 3y ago
  For me, it just lacked features, and the organization itself seems to be more and more focused on political advocacy rather than making a solid tool. I don't remember when Firefox last did a UI change that made me go "FUCK YES, that's awesome". Instead they publish paeans about how they hired a sneaker designer to do temporary color the-- sorry, colorways for their browser. A lot of the other work is shit like how we need more than deplatforming (one of the examples linked by Mozilla was algorithmically preferencing sources Mozilla liked - conveniently Mozilla wouldn't have to dirty their hands by manipulating what we see on the Internet) If a browser's mobile version is way, way behind, their UX team's ideas of good UX not aligned with mine, and they want to decide what I see on the 'net, why bother? There are other fish in the pond, teams focused on actually making good tools for users. They understand they're blacksmiths and make hammers rather than confetti paper.
• nokya 3y ago
  Simple: 1) Simpletons want an iPhone/MacBook and end up with Safari or Chrome. 2) Those who can't afford one got an Android/Windows and either use the native browser or Chrome. 3) Everybody else uses Firefox, at least on their computer. There's your 10%.
• OhMeadhbh 3y ago
  I agree, the browser has gotten better over the years. But I was lured away to Chrome because of its integration with Google services. I stopped using most of them and about a year and a half ago switched back over to Firefox. Sadly, there are some sites that seem to render perfectly in Chrome, but not at all in Firefox. Also, FF was late to add meaningful JS debugging tools. And I had kind of a bad experience working for Mozilla. Still... I have respect for the Firefox team and don't have a problem using the browser. I'm a bit of an outlier, but it's a data point.
• logicalmonster 3y ago
  I think the reason for Firefox lagging behind in market share can be explained with an overarching theme of "bad management", which may have contributed to some of these problems which chipped away at their chance for success. > At a crucial stage years ago when IE was clearly dying and many people were considering different web browsers, Firefox's UI and overall performance felt extraordinarily slow in comparison to alternatives. Additionally, as a developer, the experience of building Chrome extensions was much more pleasant there than in Firefox which really soured me on them. It's not like Mozilla has bad developers, but they might have been trying to work on too many projects at once with the financial resources they had available. Even if Firefox has subsequently caught up, peoples' perceptions might take a while to change. > Whether or not you agree with this, there was a growing perception that Mozilla was moving in a "woke" political direction that seemed to be at conflict with the overall drive towards an open web that many people initially supported them for. Even if the intent of articles like "WE NEED MORE THAN DEPLATFORMING" was genuinely good, their messaging was "pants-on-head regarded" given that many influential tech people supported Mozilla specifically to keep the open web alive. If Mozilla did anything to put that perception of their support at risk, they poisoned their brand for a lot of tech people who tell their friends and family what browser they can be using. Many of these people moved on to browsers such as Brave that seem to be much firmer in at least trying to give a very clear and consistent messaging about what they're all about.
• gardenhedge 3y ago
  On desktop, I use Firefox, Chrome, Edge (and sometimes Safari) interchangeably and sometimes at the same time. On mobile, I use Firefox and Chrome interchangeably. Honestly, I notice no different in performance, look or feel. Sometimes I have to check which one I am actually in.
• muzani 3y ago
  I've switched to Arc. Firefox is okay, but it has become the new Opera, lots of features but appeals to a niche. And like Opera, websites tend to break on it. Chrome is the new IE, sluggish, but everyone uses it because of the brand name. Edge is like Netscape, a former champion failing to regain market share with a superior product. IMO Firefox's flaws is that 1. It doesn't have the same compatibility as the chromium stuff. Especially add ons. It's similar to the Huawei app store. 2. It's too focused on performance but not really UX. Arc is doing great with UX without hurting too much on performance. There's no visible improvements and unlike Arc, it doesn't do a good job of educating users on how to do things better.
• gerimate 3y ago
  I gave Firefox a try this year. I was actually excited to try something new after Google Chrome. Then I noticed the tools I use on the daily acting weird, as I work most of the time via browser. Wanted to export an image from Figma, it was a blank png file. Wanted to share an image on Instagram, the image was flipped upside down. And when I wanted to watch Youtube videos autoplay had to be turned off from browser settings. So after a week I went back to Chrome.