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> Most used browser to nothing. Feel free to criticize Mozilla all you like, but this is a prime example of myopic tech-bubble thinking that is being decried e

by kibwen 2y ago

> Most used browser to nothing. Feel free to criticize Mozilla all you like, but this is a prime example of myopic tech-bubble thinking that is being decried elsewhere in this thread. Firefox market share declined first because Google used their market position to advertise Chrome for free on what was then the most valuable web real estate in the world (the Google home page), then because they paid software installers to use dark patterns to automatically install Chrome and set it as the default browser without the user's consent, and then because they optimized all of Google's popular properties to work best in Chrome and only begrudgingly in other browsers, and then because they shipped it as the default browser on the OS that Google controls. There's not a single thing that Mozilla could have done to stop Chrome, short of making their own phone OS where they could ship Firefox as the default, which they did in fact attempt.

roenxi 2y ago
I do agree that perspective is more accurate; Chrome was always going to be huge with a combination of Google's development effort and advertising. However Mozilla's leadership have done an unimpressive job. They took a large amount of money from Google, decided that their vision of how the internet should work was identical to Google's, then converged Firefox to being an inferior Chrome clone. Brave does a better job of articulating a different vision of the web than Firefox and it is a Chrome fork; the situation is a bit ridiculous [0, 1]. And Brave's crypto scheme, while maybe it'll work and maybe it won't, is a radical re-imagination of how the web could be commercialised. So there is clearly room to imagine an internet other than the one Google wants where everyone has Google Ads. So yes, Google was going to win the fight Mozilla picked, but Mozilla picked a losing strategy. [0] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browsers/compare/chrome/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browsers/compare/chrom... [1] https://brave.com/compare/chrome-vs-brave/ https://brave.com/compare/chrome-vs-brave/
b112 2y ago
Firefox market share declined first because Google used their market position to advertise Chrome Yes, indeed. This may or may not have been wrong of Google, however this is also called "competition". And what did Mozilla do? It flinched. Many users loved Firefox, and disliked that Chrome had barely any ability to customize anything when released. It was literally years before you could change even the most basic things about the interface. When released, almost nothing could be configured about it, and it was a far cry from Firefox's ability to give the user what they wanted. Firefox's response to Chrome's minor speed improvements? Was to literally begin a campaign to become the enemy. Firefox devs worked diligently to make Firefox a second rate clone of Chrome. They removed features, configuration, the ability to modify the interface, and more. Mozilla could have so easily kept all that configurability, its strong point, its unique factor, but instead panicked. And in doing so it rendered itself incapable of competing on any footing. Put another way, yes Google had vast resources. Yet this is precisely why you never compete on the same footing as them. You instead compete on what they do not have. And that was the ability to theme Firefox, to configure it as you wanted, to turn off features you did not want, and more. Chrome had none of this initially. And Google is literally famous for, and incapable of listening to users. They're not built for it. Mozilla was. And they threw all those strengths away, the only way they could compete with Chrome. So yes, there were things they could have done. And yes, endless people told them that in bug reports, in emails to them, and more. If anyone's thinking here is myopic (great personal attack, btw), it was Mozilla's.
account42 2y ago
That's just pure copium. Sure, google's tactics helped speed things along but remember that Firefox was originally able to gain marketshare against a browser that didn't even need to pull those tricks because it was already preinstalled on every PC.

by kibwen 2y ago

roenxi 2y ago

I do agree that perspective is more accurate; Chrome was always going to be huge with a combination of Google's development effort and advertising. However Mozilla's leadership have done an unimpressive job. They took a large amount of money from Google, decided that their vision of how the internet should work was identical to Google's, then converged Firefox to being an inferior Chrome clone. Brave does a better job of articulating a different vision of the web than Firefox and it is a Chrome fork; the situation is a bit ridiculous [0, 1]. And Brave's crypto scheme, while maybe it'll work and maybe it won't, is a radical re-imagination of how the web could be commercialised. So there is clearly room to imagine an internet other than the one Google wants where everyone has Google Ads. So yes, Google was going to win the fight Mozilla picked, but Mozilla picked a losing strategy. [0] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browsers/compare/chrome/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browsers/compare/chrom... [1] https://brave.com/compare/chrome-vs-brave/ https://brave.com/compare/chrome-vs-brave/

b112 2y ago

Firefox market share declined first because Google used their market position to advertise Chrome Yes, indeed. This may or may not have been wrong of Google, however this is also called "competition". And what did Mozilla do? It flinched. Many users loved Firefox, and disliked that Chrome had barely any ability to customize anything when released. It was literally years before you could change even the most basic things about the interface. When released, almost nothing could be configured about it, and it was a far cry from Firefox's ability to give the user what they wanted. Firefox's response to Chrome's minor speed improvements? Was to literally begin a campaign to become the enemy. Firefox devs worked diligently to make Firefox a second rate clone of Chrome. They removed features, configuration, the ability to modify the interface, and more. Mozilla could have so easily kept all that configurability, its strong point, its unique factor, but instead panicked. And in doing so it rendered itself incapable of competing on any footing. Put another way, yes Google had vast resources. Yet this is precisely why you never compete on the same footing as them. You instead compete on what they do not have. And that was the ability to theme Firefox, to configure it as you wanted, to turn off features you did not want, and more. Chrome had none of this initially. And Google is literally famous for, and incapable of listening to users. They're not built for it. Mozilla was. And they threw all those strengths away, the only way they could compete with Chrome. So yes, there were things they could have done. And yes, endless people told them that in bug reports, in emails to them, and more. If anyone's thinking here is myopic (great personal attack, btw), it was Mozilla's.

account42 2y ago

That's just pure copium. Sure, google's tactics helped speed things along but remember that Firefox was originally able to gain marketshare against a browser that didn't even need to pull those tricks because it was already preinstalled on every PC.