this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2023
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Firefox

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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?

  1. 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)
  2. It's just not as fast as Chrome or Brave. I can't deny this, but despite of this, I find it's worthy.
  3. It's not the default.
  4. Many features which are Google specific aren't supported.
  5. 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

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I actually switched away from Firefox to Vivaldi a few months ago mainly for 2 reasons.

  1. Firefox's profiles are dogshit. They are almost a hidden feature and are very cumbersome to use.

  2. The Android browser support for certain types of extensions is dodgy. Using uBlock Origin delays the loading of all webpages by a few seconds for some reason. There is a Github issue about this that has been open for a few years now.

I want the browser I use to be on both Android and desktop. Vivaldi has been OK so far.

I do miss a lot of the good stuff from Firefox, especially their address bar. For some reason I find it much better than anything on Chromium based browsers. Firefox's is much snappier and is correct with it's suggestions the majority of the time.

I also like Firefox's sync between devices to be much better.

When those 2 issues are resolved I will come back, but as it stands now it's a hassle for my needs.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

you can use profiles easily by creating shortcuts with the flag --profile xyz

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[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (6 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (4 children)

The thing with Firefox is that it's not the best at performance, especially on phones where the browser can be laggy. I use Ungoogled Chromium instead which is Chrome without Google and some nice tweaks !

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[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago

Firefox is far from the best for privacy. There are a ton of Firefox forks that add a ton of privacy. If you care about privacy, you use one of those. If you don't care about privacy you use Chrome or Chromium (functionally superior) so it's not too complicated.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

Thank Mozilla for this. They're too busy with other shit and between feature removals and crappy UI changes, they've managed to loose a huge amount of users. I used to be one of them. Now I wouldn't touch FF with a 10 feet pole. I simply refuse to give Mozilla more visibility.

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[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago

Cuz frankly, they dum

They use whatevers already on their phone/computer. Most non-tech savvy people likely use iPhone.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (8 children)

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)

All browsers have extensions, even Safari. This has nothing to do with FF particularly

It’s just not as fast as Chrome or Brave. I can’t deny this, but despite of this, I find it’s worthy.

Firefox is now a memory hog as bad as Chrome, but doesn't offer speed and responsiveness, which is kind of a shitty trade-off

It’s not the default.

Neither is Chrome, yet people actively download and install it.

Many features which are Google specific aren’t supported.

True

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.

True

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[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Because Librewolf is better

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[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I suppose I never considered switching off of Chrome because I didn’t need my browser to do anything better for me. I’ve always been fine with Chrome’s speed, the UI is nice, and in general I don’t experience any issues with it.

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[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Despite the memes, Firefox was the one which decided it wanted to deep throat 30gb of my ram by default for no discernable reason so I stopped using it. Only extentions I had installed were ad block and the reddit enchantment suite. Since then I've been really enjoying the video pop out of opera.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

If you like Opera try Vivaldi, it's made by the same guy who did OG Opera and has a lot of the same features but the ad and tracker blocking is much better.

It's got video pop out (most do, but only V and Opera/GX had good controls for miniaturized video.)

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[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 year ago (9 children)

Firefox lost it's shares to normies because it was bad. Then it lost shares of tinkers because it moved extension, user agent and so on to chromium. Small market shares means developers don't give a damn about testing on firefox. Firefox doesn't show correctly pages and has no good support for pwa, microsoft teams etc. Chromium invents new things wich only edge and chrome have/support. Normies use browser wich just work out of the box for work and pleasure. It's a circle. You can tinker with your niche browser but massed decides what is what. Chrome/Edge are just better for every day use. Simple as that.*

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