edited the heading of the question. I think most of us here are reasoning why more people are not using firefox (because it was the initial question), but none of that explains why it’s actively losing marketshare.
I don’t agree ideologically with Firefox management and am somewhat of a semi-conservative (and my previous posts might testify to that), I think Firefox browser is absolutely amazing! It’s beautiful and it just feels good. It has awesome features like containers. It’s better for privacy than any mainstream browser out there (even counting Brave here) and it has great integration between PC and Phone. It’s open-source (unlike Chrome) and it supports a good chunk of extensions you would need.
This was about PC, but I believe even for Mobiles it looks great and it allows features like extensions (and I hear desktop extensions are coming to firefox android?), it’s just a great ecosystem and it’s available everywhere unlike most FOSS softwares.
So why is Firefox’s market share dying?
I mean, I have a few ideas why it might be, maybe correct me I guess?
- Most people don’t know how to use extensions well and how to use Firefox well. (Most of my friends in their 30’s still live without ad blockers, so I don’t think many are educated here)
- It’s just not as fast as Chrome or Brave. I can’t deny this, but despite of this, I find it’s worthy.
- It’s not the default.
- Many features which are Google specific aren’t supported.
- Many websites are just not supporting firefox anymore (looking at you snapchat), but you would be right in saying this is the effect of Firefox losing it’s market share not the cause (at least for now) and you would be right.
But what else?
I might take time (a lot of it) to get back at you, thanks for understanding.
occasionally I’ll find websites that don’t work 100% because they were coded primarily for chromium based browsers. FU Google
I install chrome on a computer and log in, I’m immediately connected to my calendar, email, cloud storage, remote desktop, documents, and my login info is synced floor all the other things I do and will auto login for me on a large number of those sites. In short it saves me a crazy amount of time.
You can do pretty much the same thing with Firefox: you sign in to Firefox to sync your passwords and browser settings, then (assuming you’re talking about Google calendar, Gmail, etc.) You can sign into your Google account with one click. That’s not really any less convenient.
Besides, I’ve hardly ever heard of anyone moving away from Firefox to Chrome, so I doubt the reason is any sort of convenience or design superiority. I’d attribute it to the fact that most people who already use the Internet (pretty much everyone) has already settled on a browser, with chrome-based browsers being the most common. So anyone new to the Internet will just choose the favorite as the default. This is especially true considering they most new Internet users are probably kids, so they’re not aware of concerns about privacy, monocultures, DRM, etc. that would drive someone to pick Firefox.
Basically, it’s not that Chrome is actually better than Firefox. I think it’s that the market is growing, and the most common browsers will grow more quickly than Firefox simply for the sake of familiarity.
Ever since the first release, I’ve tried Firefox a few times. Each time I was left with a feeling of needing dozens of extensions to get it up to par with the browser I was using at the time (mainly Opera and now Vivaldi). The extensions I found were never customisable enough, and would often break and/or be abandoned after a while.
Don’t get me wrong: Chrome, IE, Edge, and Safari are worse - each time I used them I got the urge to throw my computer out the window after just a few minutes. But Firefox is just not customisable enough to my liking, and extension are IMO not the answer.
I’m curious, what is missing from Firefox compared to Vivaldi according to you?
Note that since I don’t use Firefox some of these may actually be available, but I don’t know about them.
- Mouse gestures.
- A status bar that stays on screen.
- The ability to select part of a link’s text.
- Tab stacking.
- Tab tiling.
- Opening a link in either a foreground or background tab. This is available as a toggle in the settings only.
- Ad block.
- Spatial navigation.
- Customisable keyboard shortcuts for pretty much everything.
These are the ones that matter to me, there are more that I don’t personally use.
“dozens”?
How could that possibly be? It’s a web browser. You know that right? It sounds like you’re trying to turn it into some other type of application.
I use like 5 extensions for privacy reasons and 5 for preference reasons. This all makes my browsing experience VASTLY BETTER, not just tolerable or something. These are all adding features, some of which chrome specifically is idealistically against (the Internet without ads or as much tracking). If you took all these extensions away, Firefox would still be functionally just as good as chrome if not better.
So yeah it always blows my mind when people claim how lacking in features Firefox is. What are you even talking about?
Note that I explicitly said Chrome is worse. And “dozens” was likely an exaggeration. But yes, compared to Vivaldi, Firefox has very little customisation.
Firefox on android is terrible. The UI is awful (how hard is to create a usable bookmark system?) and forced opening a new tab are my two pet peeves. Also, it is much, much slower than a chromium based browser in my experience and seems to take a lot more memory. Also, occasionally I’ll find websites that don’t work 100% because they were coded primarily for chromium based browsers. FU Google.
The UI is awful (how hard is to create a usable bookmark system?)
agree to disagree, it’s one of the best. What do you use that’s better?
I don’t use anything else. I don’t like the long list of folders that doesn’t clearly show the tree hierarchy, ie. I can’t easily identify the child/parent relationship. The visual difference between parent and child is too minimal for my eyes. I realize it’s subjective but I really don’t like it.
I personally use Fennec and Bromium whenever using Android (I’m a sick fuck who hot swaps between an iPhone and a Google Pixel phone). Fennec for a lot of stuff is fine, but much like the default Firefox, it’s still slow- although better. Bromium and other Chromium based browsers on Android, especially on older shittier hardware, are really hard to beat. I find myself using Bromium a lot just because it’s simply faster. Firefox/Fennec with native support for actual ublock origin though… nothing beats that browsing experience as far as replicating real desktop browsing. Bromium can’t keep up and Google doesn’t want Chrome to. Brave can offer a similar blocking experience but at what cost? I fucking H A T E crypto and even their features that you can turn off, just seeing references to them and such pisses me off. Honestly wish someone would spitefully fork Brave anonymously and remove any crypto references. Last time a team did it openly Brave got pissy and tried to get the project taken down… Even though it’s open source. So, fuck them.
I have no doubt that the second that FF gains a sizeable market share they will just turn in to literally every other corporation that has ever existed. They’re not special, they’re not your friend. They are selling a product to make money. And while they’re struggling, they are working their asses off to make a good product that beats the alternatives.
So until FF announced their intention to DC, I’m not telling a fucking soul.
Too many bad UX updates. I won’t go back to a browser without vertical tabs.
But you could never have vertical tabs without extensions before. And you still can now.
