[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Why is Firefox losing marketshare and how wo...
___________________________________________________________________
Ask HN: Why is Firefox losing marketshare and how would you save
it?
What would you do if you were in charge of Mozilla? How would you
save Firefox?
Author : feross
Score : 313 points
Date : 2022-02-14 18:01 UTC (4 hours ago)
| sergiomattei wrote:
| Chrome is just good enough for the average user.
|
| Taking measures to appeal to a more enthusiast audience won't do
| much for the numbers.
|
| Only the masses will, and the masses moved long ago to Chrome
| because it was a 10x product. The alternative was awful. Not only
| this, but it was backed by Google, the world's entrypoint to the
| internet.
|
| Now, Chrome continues being "good enough" if not great.
|
| For me, I have no reason to move, even being a reasonably
| privacy-conscious person.
| asoneth wrote:
| It seems like a lot of people would have liked to see Mozilla
| double-down on Firefox to the exclusion of all else.
|
| Personally I would have leaned towards the opposite approach to
| meet their stated mission of ensuring an open internet.
| Historically, Firefox has been the means by which Mozilla earned
| a seat at the table, but I would have liked to see them diversify
| their portfolio a bit rather than relying entirely on a single
| browser. If I had been in charge, I would:
|
| Focus on developing Rust, Servo/Gecko, SpiderMonkey. Keep
| projects like Firefox and Thunderbird as reference
| implementations but encourage Microsoft, Brave, Opera, and open-
| source forks to build their own products based on Mozilla
| technologies. Assemble a broad coalition of companies that base
| their web browsers, email clients, feature phones, smart TVs,
| consoles, etc on Mozilla technologies. Explore using licensing
| and corporate memberships to offset decreases in advertising
| revenue. The end-goal being to ensure that Mozilla-based browsers
| capture enough of the market that they have a seat at the table
| with Apple and Google and then use that leverage to push for web
| standards that are beneficial to end-users.
|
| Of course, that ship has sailed now that Safari and Firefox are
| the only browsers with a non-negligible market-share that are not
| built on top of chromium. Given Firefox's trajectory, Apple is
| realistically the only player left who can prevent Google from
| dictating the direction of the web. If Apple decides to throw in
| the towel or let Google drive, webpages essentially become
| Chrome-pages.
| eternityforest wrote:
| Become a browser with privacy features, instead of a "privacy
| browser".
|
| Enable battery status(Important for kiosks), web midi, web USB,
| web bluetooth, all of it. Just put it behind an option. Stop
| trying to keep useful web app functionality out of the web. I
| don't want to support that.
|
| Start innovating and give us features nobody else has.
|
| Integrate with Yggdrasil to trust 200: URLs on the tunnel as
| secure contexts(Or let people set a whole interface to be
| secure).
|
| Bring back FlyWeb, immediately. When flyweb died was a key moment
| that made me lose all interest in FF.
|
| Give us a way to package a website into a manually installable
| and redistributable "Box", that can be trusted as a secure
| context, with a manually selectable data folder, so it all just
| works like a traditional app. Like Web Bundles, but manually
| installed and treated as secure, with services that can run in
| the background all the time, etc.
|
| Don't just lag behind or catch up to chrome, support everything
| they do, go past them and make web apps truly a replacement for
| desktop apps.
|
| Stop trying to kill everything that can be used for tracking and
| let the user decide on a site by site or app by app basis.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| > Also, people need to understand that Firefox is not the
| reason for Mozilla existence, Firefox is one of the tools that
| Mozilla has (and depends on) to fullfil its mission.
|
| I can't see stopping work on that as a significant resource
| saving. Most power users want less tracking anyway.
| captn3m0 wrote:
| - Fight against Apple in court on the iOS browser monopoly.
|
| - get Web extensions (real ones, like uBlock) into Firefox for
| iOS.
|
| - start a campaign around Web browsing speed (using numbers with
| Privacy Protection and/or uBlock0 enabled). That's the last
| competitive advantage FF has, and it needs to use it to gain
| marketshare.
|
| - Keep investing in Open Web initiatives (such as ActivityPub).
| Mozilla, like it or not, is one of the last bastions of the open
| web, and they need to keep investing in it (with research such as
| Persona).
| pineconebutt wrote:
| farzher wrote:
| firefox doesn't work. every time i try to use it there's some
| issue. usually it's bad gaming performance.
| thrower123 wrote:
| I'd probably do what the current Mozilla leadership is doing:
| stack those checks before the grazy-train comes to an end.
|
| Firefox passed the point of no return long ago.
| hnaccy wrote:
| Get the EU to adopt firefox or a firefox fork as official project
| to counter balance Chrome/Blink.
| rastapasta42 wrote:
| For starters, Firfox 97 update made me lost all my open tab and
| tab groups. I want Mozilla to stop losing my tabs with every
| update.
| nunez wrote:
| I don't know if Firefox _can_ be saved.
|
| The only reason why Firefox even rose to prominence was because
| it was an arbitrage opportunity back when IE6 was "the Internet"
| and Mozilla already had a superior browser (remnants of
| Navigator) that they needed to remind users existed. Firefox has
| been on the down swing since Google released Chrome.
|
| When the top web browsers being used today are completely funded
| and highly-prioritized by the biggest tech companies in the world
| and are defaults in their respective platforms (Edge on Windows,
| Chrome on Android, Safari on macOS and iOS), and when all of them
| are really, really good, there really isn't room for competition.
|
| Additionally, I think browsers as a "thing that people use
| heavily" are on their way out. Most people are anchoring to
| platforms that, at best, take advantage of webviews. For many
| people, "The Internet" is Google, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat,
| TikTok, and $STREAMING_SERVICES, all of which are mobile apps.
| This, along with significant hardware and bandwidth advancements
| and the crypto thing, is why I think the "metaverse" is going to
| really take hold. But that's another HN post.
|
| Anecdotally, the _only_ thing keeping me on Firefox is Multi-
| Account Containers. That's _literally_ it. I have been wanting to
| use Safari since forever since it's so heavily optimized for
| macOS and, now, the M1 CPU architecture, but the isolation
| guarantees that MAC provides are amazing. That's not enough to
| build a huge browser userbase with, though, as most people don't
| give two shits about tracking cookies, fingerprinting, or
| whatever. (I only give one shit myself, as I've started using
| Safari on mobile now. Firefox on iOS is just too buggy, and many
| web sites don't even recognize it as a valid browser, which is
| insane to me.)
|
| That said, Mozilla VPN is a really good product that is not free.
| Maybe it's in Mozilla's interest to pivot onto web-adjacent
| ventures that are profitable?
| gizmore wrote:
| Make breaking news once again for user privacy! Firefox once had
| problems with performance (and usability a bit) compared to
| chrome. They fixed that, i think.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| Firefox makes poor decisions. I've been trying to use firefox for
| years and just gave up this past weekend. As far as I know,
| there's no way to customize your firefox home view on android so
| that you have a permanent, customizable set of links, and nothing
| else. You can have "recent bookmarks" which disappear eventually,
| presumably once they're no longer "recent".
|
| Can you imagine being the one to approve such a bone-headed
| design? I gave up and downloaded opera instead and it's been
| perfect. I have my desired links up when I open a new tab,
| nothing else, and life is good.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| I have my browser default homepage set to ~/home.html. I
| maintain all my common links in that local html file.
|
| There was a period of time where FF didn't allow a "file://"
| URL as the default for a new page or tab, but it works now. I'm
| not sure if Chrome allows it.
| BlackLotus89 wrote:
| * Go into the settings, customize, home
|
| * Disable everything.
|
| * Visit an important page
|
| * Menu -> add to top sites
|
| Voila
| ameminator wrote:
| I mean, this will work, but it seems a far cry from a truly
| custom home page.
| BlackLotus89 wrote:
| That wasn't the request? Also what do you want on your
| "custom home page"? If this is the feedback firefox
| developer get I think I'm beginning to understand why
| firefox gets better so slowly and why shit like " color
| way" exists
| hirundo wrote:
| I left Firefox for political sentiments that most of you do not
| share, judging from past conversations here. There are enough
| people like me that those events likely continue to put downward
| pressure on their market share. But not all that much in the big
| scheme of things. The larger effect of those politics was a
| change in leadership. Firefox used to be led by a passionate,
| opinionated technologist with a clear and consistent vision. His
| replacement, while more politically palatable, seems to have a
| weaker grasp of the market and the technology. The direction of
| the browser's market share reflects that. CEOs are non-fungible.
|
| The primary "author" of Firefox changed, and that had a similar
| effect to the change in author of the final season of Game of
| Thrones.
| mrkramer wrote:
| Tough question. I think at this point Google is unstoppable;
| users care about UX not technology and Google has billions in
| cash to invest in UX(their UX still sucks from time time).
| uniqueuid wrote:
| Maybe it has to do with its competitors being a 1.7 trillion
| dollar company and a 2.5 trillion dollar company!
|
| Winning against those requires not only better technology AND
| marketing AND consumer favor, but also leverage in the legal
| processes that enable/disable network effects. So anti-trust is
| unfortunately one of Mozilla's biggest hopes.
| dralley wrote:
| I'm not sure which two of Google, Apple or Microsoft you're
| referring to, but you're missing a third trillion+ dollar
| company.
| ErikCorry wrote:
| You think they don't have enough cash to save FF, when they get
| $400m a year from Google?
| dylan604 wrote:
| Googs just gave them $400m which means they have soooo much
| more than $400m. FF has to pay all of its budget with that,
| so hiring lawyers to take on Googs with that same bucket of
| money will never work. Googs will continue to give Moz $400m,
| but then turn right around and spend $401m on their lawyers
| to fight off whatever Moz can afford.
| ErikCorry wrote:
| OK I was imagining them competing with a better browser,
| not with lawyers.
| mbreese wrote:
| _> Winning against those requires _
|
| I think the point here isn't winning, it's surviving. They need
| to maintain enough market share to keep going, but they don't
| need to be the dominant browser. The goal of avoiding a
| monoculture can be achieved with a smaller marketshare.
| kazinator wrote:
| Maybe it also has to do with depending heavily on their money,
| too.
| tylerlarson wrote:
| The reason I used Firefox daily many years ago was because of the
| Firebug debugger. The more complicated pages became the more
| important it was to have an excellent debugger/browser
| combination. Chrome launched with a solid solution and has kept
| pushing but it isn't nearly as good as debuggers in other
| platforms. All the browsers are all pretty bad at debugging the
| lower level stuff like graphics. What is the GPU doing? Why was
| rendering this last frame slow? What is happening inside of this
| WASM blob? Is transferring information in and out of this worker
| the problem or was it the worker itself?
|
| If Firefox had an amazing debugger I would use it every day. I
| focus on graphics so this is where my mind is at but there are
| plenty of things that would benefit everyone like a better memory
| profiler or maybe being better about explaining to users how to
| fix issues. Chrome's Lighthouse might focus on how google works
| but it will also provide solid tips for how to make most websites
| better. Sure it might be wrong if you really know your stuff but
| it is also a great place to learn if you don't think you know it
| all.
| shmapf wrote:
| I wish they'd advertise it better. I use Firefox mobile and it's
| so much better than Chrome I'd hate to go back. If the mainstream
| were aware how much better advert-less browsing is, by using
| adblockers on Firefox mobile, that would probably solve the
| problem.
|
| I'm also a fan of having the address bar at the bottom for easier
| reach, though I admit it's a niche thing that sounds like a
| gimmick.
| softwarebeware wrote:
| Firefox is losing marketshare because Chrome is the default
| browser on Android devices and Android devices are the number one
| device in the world. Most people don't even know how to change
| their default browser.
|
| I don't think Firefox needs saving. Those who use it are active
| and committed to it.
| vi2837 wrote:
| Yeap, the same story like Windows and Explorer.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| > I don't think Firefox needs saving. Those who use it are
| active and committed to it.
|
| Don't be so sure. I stuck to Android though thick and thin
| since 2.1 or 2.2, but my next phone will be an iPhone, because
| _I bloody had enough of their nonsense_.
|
| Firefox is harder to replace, if only because it's the only
| counter to Google's browser monopoly (so I consider it a moral
| imperative to keep using it), but if they keep reducing
| openness and end user control, I will eventually snap and
| abandon them. And if I'm nearing this point, then many have
| already passed it because I have a remarkable tolerance for
| shitty FOSS software. A family member already requested I throw
| out Firefox and install Chrome, and I complied because
| honestly, I can't fault them.
| fuzzy2 wrote:
| > Those who use it are active and committed to it.
|
| Are they though? Are they so very committed they'll take all
| the crap Mozilla throws at them? Because Mozilla sure is trying
| their very best to get rid of Firefox users.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| I know I won't. I usually have deep reserves of patience, and
| give out huge loans of trust for software that deserves it...
| but Mozilla has been defaulting on the repayments for a
| number of years now. If a "he's dead, Jim" moment comes to
| pass, I will not hesitate for a second to switch to Vivaldi
| or something else.
| sleepingadmin wrote:
| >Why is Firefox losing marketshare.
|
| Lets check this first.
|
| https://backlinko.com/browser-market-share
|
| So in 2011 they had 25% share and chrome had less. Today, Firefox
| is down to 3%.
|
| We could first look at 'is chrome simply a better product' but I
| suspect firefox is good enough to make this a debate. Lets not go
| into that debate.
|
| So it must be more than a technological situation. Is it an
| institutional issue?
|
| https://www.advocate.com/business/technology/2014/04/04/was-...
|
| As if his political positions on LGBT are even needed... his
| association with javascript is enough to justify firing him out
| of a cannon. Though curious, this activism struck with force?
|
| Some random anonymous redditor on r/linux:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/3g8ehh/github_puts_o...
|
| Blue hair nose pierced permanently offended at everything? The
| ceo is threatening to fire reddit users as if they were an
| employee? How outrageous and such terrible leadership.
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2015/8/24/9202067/mozilla-ceo-chris...
|
| >Either way, they are not welcome to continue to participate in
| the Mozilla project, so if you cross that line, I'm asking you
| now: Please leave, because you're not welcome."
|
| So the CEO literally told the firefox community that if they too
| disagree with Blue hair nose pierced permanently offended at
| everything people to just leave.
|
| What's going to happen? People are going to leave. Maybe they
| dont even care about the blue hair people, but rather the
| abhorrent behaviour from their terrible leadership choices back
| to back.
|
| What's going to happen to Firefox after people leave? It's going
| to go down hill.
|
| Did Mozilla fix this problem? Is this still a problem today?
| Here's a new different leader with exactly the same problem.
|
| https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplat...
|
| Mitchell Baker wants 'More than deplatforming' of trump. The
| clear answer is no. Mozilla is still today a political activism
| group. It's very clear why their marketshare has dropped so
| significantly.
|
| >What would you do if you were in charge of Mozilla? How would
| you save Firefox?
|
| If not abundantly clear, Mozilla's downfall has been its
| political activism. A decade of toxic political activism will
| crush any possibility of recovering firefox.
|
| To 'fix' this is to fire all the political activists who remain
| in mozilla... but doing that is no better than what made mozilla
| fail to beginwith. So there is no fixing this. There is no saving
| firefox. It's fine for firefox to be left to die.
| vangelis wrote:
| Blue hair and pronouns and their consequences have been a
| disaster for the tech industry.
| sleepingadmin wrote:
| >Blue hair and pronouns and their consequences have been a
| disaster for the tech industry.
|
| Just look at how it played out in Canada. We don't have free
| speech.
|
| Hate speech or obscenity says what you can't say. So you
| can't say the N-word but you can just invent new words which
| mean exactly the same thing. Same with BSG or Farscape, Frak
| off or Frell off. Really hate speech laws aren't effective at
| all and they really are just used against political opponents
| in Canada.
|
| What happened under Trudeau and gave rise to Jordan Peterson
| is compelled speech. Obviously very charged subject but
| peterson's not wrong. His massive popularity proves he's
| right. Canada now has pretty extensive compelled speech,
| trans isn't even a major factor in this compelled speech. It
| didn't even take long for it to get out of control.
|
| https://www.foxnews.com/world/judge-stays-compelled-
| speech-o...
|
| Though even this subject is so much worse because this also
| means removing freedom of religion and freedom of movement as
| well.
|
| So this isn't 'the tech industry' this is society.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >Why is Firefox losing marketshare
|
| very simple answer, because Mozilla doesn't control the
| infrastructure that runs on 80% of smartphones in the world and
| ships Firefox as the default browser.
|
| It really has nothing to do with the bespoke features that people
| on HN pay attention to. Firefox doesn't control any platform and
| defaults matter. There's a reason Google pays them a gazillion
| dollars to be the standard search engine, which you can change
| with one click. It's also why Safari is still going relatively
| strong.
| echelon wrote:
| Microsoft was forced to allow browser choice in the EU. I don't
| see why Apple and Google shouldn't be subject to the same, with
| the added condition that _browser rendering engine diversity_
| gets preferential treatment.
|
| Give users a 60% chance to see Firefox as the first option,
| then show them the multitude of Chrome/Safari-based browsers.
| maccam94 wrote:
| The problem is that even when that choice is given, every
| Google search pushes Chrome, Microsoft constantly pushes you
| to switch to Edge. I'm not sure how much Apple pushes Safari,
| but last I heard it actually gives superior battery life on
| Mac OS so there's a real technical reason to not use Firefox.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Fix the code base cruft; focus on reliability and
| performance/responsiveness. I'm still tracking a tracker bug
| regarding "do this every time" for PDF attachments not working.
| It was opened a decade ago, and is treated as _too tough to fix_.
| Something fundamentally is wrong with the code base.
| gkoberger wrote:
| I used to work at Mozilla, and here's my opinion.
|
| There's no need to save Firefox. When Firefox came out, it was a
| breath of fresh air. Because of Mozilla, every browser is now
| really, really great. Even Microsoft's browser is standards
| compliant and open source! Yeah, I get the arguments that Webkit
| is too pervasive and Chrome is too tied to Google and all of
| that... but in my opinion, Mozilla wanted a world where every
| single consumer had the choice between numerous high-quality
| browsers, and that's the world we currently live in! Firefox is
| losing this current battle, but Mozilla won the war.
|
| The problem now isn't the browser, but rather the websites. Too
| much tracking, too much fights over who owns your online persona,
| and not enough usability (I'm so sick of passwords).
|
| Mozilla always had a unique skill... they were a non-profit that
| was great at taking complicated technical issues that plagued the
| internet, and packaging them in a way that was usable. They took
| hard problems and made it so nobody had to think about them.
|
| I'd love to see Mozilla do the same for identity. I'd love to see
| them be the company that killed password, and made it so identity
| is simple, easy and safe.
|
| First off, Google can't do it. Nor can the other big players.
| Why? Because identity and tracking so to tied to their core
| business model, they have to back off imposing it. Otherwise
| they'll be accused of making it so "you need a Google account to
| use the web". (Or in Apple's case, they've had to go so far the
| opposite way that nobody really uses it.)
|
| There's a lot of money in this! Identity is very closely tied to
| payments (it's crazy how it's 2022 and in the browser I still am
| typing in my credit card number).
|
| To me, identity online is tied to an email address. You can have
| an email address with your real name, a few throwaways, etc.
| Identity doesn't have to mean YOU specifically. I'd love to see
| Mozilla work with GMail/etc... but also spin up their own email
| servers. Since most people now access email from a client (Apple
| Mail, Superhuman, etc), having a headless email server would help
| both privacy and also put them in a great place to help own
| identity.
|
| Lastly, Mozilla always was fighting two wars at the same time.
| They both wanted institutional changes for the Internet (aka
| standard compliant browsers) and also were building a really nice
| implementation of it (aka Firefox). I feel like this is how they
| should approach identity. Getting everyone to follow the same
| standards (i.e. I can still use my GMail account for anything
| listed above), while also building their own stellar
| implementation of it and giving their competition a reason to
| compete (their own mail server, including these identity features
| in Firefox, etc).
| jimbob45 wrote:
| The number one issue with the browser ecosystem right now is
| Safari. iPhone browsers being forced to render with Safari's
| engine is already bad. Blocking browsers from having extensions
| is far worse in my opinion. Most of the reason I use Chrome and
| Firefox on my desktop is their rich array of extensions.
|
| If I were Firefox, I'd sue Apple to hell for abusing their
| dominance in OS and device market share to block me from
| competing fairly in the browser market.
| shagie wrote:
| If I read https://kinsta.com/browser-market-share/ correctly,
| the global market share of browsers is 77% Google Chrome.
|
| Safari only makes up 8.87% of the global share (and Firefox is
| 7.69%).
|
| From a mobile perspective and limited to the US -
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/272664/market-share-held...
|
| Safari makes up only 54.87% of the mobile browser market and
| chrome makes up another 38.95%.
|
| Another set of graphs - https://backlinko.com/browser-market-
| share
|
| Even if every safari user switched (desktop and mobile), it
| _still_ wouldn 't do much more than double the marketshare and
| yet remain a small fraction of what Chrome has.
|
| I find it difficult to say that iPhone safari is the reason
| that Firefox is having trouble when overall, iPhone safari has
| less of an overall market share than Firefox currently has.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| Chrome just works and Firefox doesn't.
|
| I know that's reductive and perhaps not to the standards of this
| website, but that's really it for the majority of people who
| couldn't care less about the diversity of browser engines out
| there.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I use Firefox for all my ordinary desktop browsing and "it just
| works" most of the time.
|
| That said I have worked at places that have given up on Firefox
| compatibility for single page applications. If I've got any
| choice in the matter I do most of my development in Firefox and
| let the testers work out problems that turn up in Chrome.
| However if the app is solidly broken on Firefox I wind up using
| Chrome like the others.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| If a browser fails in some key function even 1% of the time
| that's enough to drive most users from Firefox to Chrome.
|
| To win back market share Firefox has to be much, much better
| than Chrome. That's how Firefox won market share from IE in
| the 2000s and how Chrome won in the 2010s. Firefox feels
| ever-so-slightly slower to me on loading most web pages and
| has more failures in loading page elements that I notice than
| Chrome.
|
| "Just works, most of the time" isn't just works. Just works
| is perfection or as close to it as software can get.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| My experience with Firefox has been mired with seemingly random
| breaking changes, going back to Firefox 2.0. I'm always having to
| search through menus to find common tasks and features in
| software I've used since the mid 2000s. The UI also doesn't
| respect native desktop conventions but seems modeled after a
| mobile app.
|
| I'd put all emphasis on performance and embeddability, and
| practice a lot more restraint towards UX changes nobody asked
| for.
|
| I'd also either tone down all the privacy talk several notches,
| or actually walk the walk and make telemetry and A/B studies opt
| in. Right now they just seem self-righteous and hypocritical.
| speedcoder wrote:
| Perhaps Mozilla could partner with DuckDuckGo and PureOS Librem
| and make a privacy-centric mobile smart phone with: -
| PureFireDuck OS - PureFireDuck search - PureFireDuck voice & text
| - PureFireDuck email - PureFireDuck maps - PureFireDuck app store
| (an app store unfriendly to spyware apps)?
| ameminator wrote:
| I left Firefox about 8 months ago and I haven't looked back. On
| desktop, I was tired of these constant "company partnerships" and
| so I decided to give Vivaldi a shot. I haven't looked back (for a
| variety of reasons, including how customizeable the whole browser
| was).
|
| On mobile, I switched to Brave and I grew to really like groups
| of tabs.
| [deleted]
| horsawlarway wrote:
| This is my personal opinion only, so take it with a grain of
| salt.
|
| ----
|
| Mozilla _can 't_ save Firefox. It's not that Firefox can't be
| saved, but rather that Mozilla as an organization is not capable
| of doing so.
|
| My take is this - Despite a history of being relatively privacy
| friendly, the vast majority of funding for the organization comes
| directly from Google (To the tune of ~90% of their total funding,
| straight from Google so that Google can maintain its position as
| the default search in Firefox).
|
| That leads to insurmountable conflicts of interest - They claim
| they are for people and for privacy, but they are funded almost
| entirely by Google, and have to secure search deals for their
| continued existence (the latest just this year:
| https://www.pcmag.com/news/mozilla-signs-lucrative-3-year-go...).
|
| In this light - I believe it actually _BENEFITS_ mozilla to keep
| Firefox relevant, but not good enough to replace Chrome. If the
| browser genuinely becomes good enough that customers start
| switching from Chrome to Firefox en mass, Mozilla needs a
| replacement funding plan because Google can essentially turn the
| lights off at any point by simply refusing to pay them for search
| at next contract renewal.
|
| While they've dipped their toes into paid products... most of
| them are not particularly relevant or compelling on their own
| merits (that's not to say they're bad, just not all that
| innovative or likely to drive enough revenue to replace the
| 500million a year google is paying them)
|
| So not only do I not believe that Mozilla is capable of "saving"
| Firefox in this way, I don't believe they have the right
| incentives to even seriously try.
| heyitsanewacco wrote:
| The unsaid part is that Google keeps Firefox alive so that they
| are not hit by anti-trust over in-browser search. That's why FF
| will always trail Chrome, its the designated loser. If it
| weren't for anti-trust, Google would have bought out Mozilla
| years ago.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| You can't buy out an open source project. If Google bought it
| out and started messing with it, there would be an immediate
| outcry and Firefox would end up with the community fork
| winning out, just like it happened with MySQL and OpenOffice.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| >Mozilla needs a replacement funding plan because Google can
| essentially turn the lights off at any point by simply refusing
| to pay them for search at next contract renewal.
|
| And then Bing/Yandex/Baidu buys the rights, and all that
| changes is the amount they get. It'd drop if Google publicly
| vowed they won't bid on it anymore, but there's also the
| possibility that someone like Yahoo pays more than Google like
| what happened in 2015.
|
| It's not like Google is arbitrarily deciding how much money to
| give Mozilla, they are buying something at the lowest price
| they can.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| I think Google is fairly arbitrarily deciding how much money
| to give to Mozilla (and it's roughly their current OpEx) -
| They aren't just buying search, they're also buying
| "competition" in the browser space.
|
| Further, the kind of transition where Firefox might gain
| users from Chrome isn't instantaneous, and it turns out users
| have a preference here (most users don't want to have google
| removed from Firefox - they still prefer it. Mozilla is
| quietly testing a program to use Bing as the default, just to
| see how loud the feedback is:
| https://www.pcgamer.com/firefox-is-conducting-a-study-to-
| see...)
|
| So there's a tension here that's beyond just enterprise
| deals.
|
| Last - that deal didn't actually work out very well for
| Yahoo, and that was when Firefox had nearly 15% of the
| browser market (vs ~8% today).
| bokchoi wrote:
| As far as paid products go, it seems like a no brainer to offer
| paid plans for privacy focused email or other g-suite-like
| collaboration services. It seems like Mozilla needs additional
| revenue streams.
| axg11 wrote:
| I don't follow this line of reasoning. Google pays Mozilla for
| the search traffic. If Firefox overtook Chrome in market share,
| Mozilla's position would become even _more_ favourable and they
| could command a larger sum from Google. If Google threatened to
| end the agreement, Mozilla could simply walk to Bing/DuckDuckGo
| or whoever else.
| dralley wrote:
| DuckDuckGo's _total revenue_ is less than 20% of Mozilla 's.
| michaelt wrote:
| Right now, Google pays more than Bing or DuckDuckGo.
|
| Perhaps Google just has mountains of spare cash, which DDG
| doesn't. Perhaps Google gets extra value as FF both provides
| search traffic, and keeps competition regulators off their
| back. Perhaps Bing thinks if FF changed the default search
| engine away from Google, 95% users would change it right
| back.
|
| But if Bing is only willing to pay 70% of what Google pays -
| could Mozilla survive losing that much income? Or would it
| trigger a death spiral, with less money meaning less
| development meaning lower market share?
| sebow wrote:
| For the past years FF updates seem to focus on the fact that:
| One-two new color themes are available: "Try these out, tune your
| browser! Look at the 1000th time we're shilling Pocket because
| people like bookmarks!" instead of appealing to the more
| important aspects of a browser like firefox which is chosen by
| "more tech literate people": precisely because it's not chrome;
| for usability, privacy, features not being removed in the name of
| "reshaping the web", customization, etc.
|
| Also, let's hit a nerve here: Mozilla& Co, ideologically
| speaking, and by "following the money", are mostly the same hand
| dealt as Google.I speak for myself but i'm sure many other people
| also use FF only because there are legitimately no other options
| besides Chrome, except maybe some obscure ones like
| qutebrowser/browsh/lynx/etc which aren't really something you
| jump to for daily driving due to the pain of
| installation/usage.That or maybe one still has to
| close/migrate/transition the google/mozilla account for the
| bookmarks sync features, which is the only useful feature and
| reason why one should use these 2(/3 including edge I guess)
| browsers.
|
| To answer your question(s), I would do nothing, because I won't
| save Firefox.If they save themselves that's fine, but with a
| fresh memory of the netscape days and the battle of the browsers
| for the "advertisement bucks", this is not the first rodeo of the
| company/project/browser, and the usability of the browser is,
| again, the only reason i'm using it.As a side note, they're way
| too political for my taste.
| happynacho wrote:
| They went woke.
| JimA wrote:
| I've switched from Firefox to Edge in the past year and it's been
| a marked improvement. I like the cross platform compatibility and
| syncing works great among Mac/Windows/iOS. Edge started really
| poorly but has developed into a first class browser, and
| combining the privacy enhancements of Firefox with the
| performance of Chrome.
|
| At this point, not sure why I would switch back to Firefox TBH,
| unless MS really screws something up. My advice would be to
| create a seamless cross platform browsing experience that has
| feature parity across all devices. Keep the privacy first
| strategy, and look at incorporating key add-ons (could they
| purchase a Bitward/1Password/LastPass?).
| ordx wrote:
| Current CEO has no vision and more interested in turning Mozilla
| into some version of internet ACLU. First and foremost she has to
| go.
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| I would ask Google for more money. They will pay, because they
| don't want to be the only game in town.
| jppope wrote:
| This is an interesting question.
|
| As I understood it, Google doesn't really want Firefox out of the
| market since it keeps them out of anti-trust issues... which is
| why they pay Mozilla to be the default search engine. Without
| that money, Mozilla would fail. Mozilla obviously doesn't want to
| fail, so they keep taking the money from Google. I don't see
| anything about that flywheel which puts Mozilla/Firefox in the
| drivers seat of their fate. They exist as part of a cost-benefit
| analysis on the part of Google.
|
| So to phrase this question in a different way, how does a fat-
| smoker lose weight and quit smoking? They just do. If
| Mozilla/Firefox wants to legitimately be competitive they're
| going to have to change the nature of their relationship with
| Google.
|
| Now, if you were to ask me personally what I would do? ...I would
| probably try to strategically create an imbalance between the big
| tech firms by getting cozy with a specific firm, forcing other
| firms to compete in places where they don't want to. Facebook
| doesn't have a browser or a mobile offering... which is slowly
| hurting them (e.g. cookie apocalypse) they might make a decent
| ally. Amazon is similar, but they don't have an easy symbiosis,
| unless there was a way to create something between AWS or prime
| video. Samsung, Adobe, or maybe Salesfore are all bad fits, but
| if Mozilla created a product strategy to align and maybe have
| native support for adobe or Salesforce they might be able to make
| something happen.
|
| In my opinion, I don't see anything like that happening in
| reality. Mozilla will probably slowly fade away, each CEO getting
| the comp that they can squeeze out while the business is still
| making money. Sometime 10-20 years from now we'll think of them
| like a sun microsystems or silicon graphics.
|
| (*This was a quick throw together... I maybe incredibly off about
| the details of the Mozilla/Google relationship currently)
| soapdog wrote:
| The amount of people in HN who think they can do a better job at
| being the CEO of every company; or being the president of any
| country; or being better than whoever is trying to something,
| astounds me.
|
| Dudes, if saving Firefox was so easy that could be described in a
| single comment like that, it would have been saved already.
|
| There are more people at Mozilla than the CEO, she is not
| responsible for all decisions. She is a quite nice person to be
| honest, has always been very kind to me while I was volunteering
| and later while I was working there. She is more into the Mozilla
| mission than many here.
|
| Also, people need to understand that Firefox is not the reason
| for Mozilla existence, Firefox is one of the tools that Mozilla
| has (and depends on) to fullfil its mission. People need to wake
| up and realise that Firefox is the last remaining independent
| browser, and that fighting against Microsoft, Google, and Apple
| is damn hard.
|
| There is a huge intersection between people who are often saying
| they know how to fix Mozilla and those using non-Firefox
| browsers. If people here who cares about Mozilla would volunteer,
| and also use the browser, Mozilla would be in a much better
| shape.
|
| People who keep saying things like "cut their salaries", "cancel
| all projects", have absolutely no idea how all this works, or
| even how Mozilla works. I understand you're all frustrated, but
| you're going at it from the wrong direction. You need to remember
| that it was side projects that made Firefox. At that time the
| workhorse of Mozilla was the Mozilla Suite. It was also non-
| Firefox projects that brought up Rust and many other cool
| technologies.
|
| Want to fix Mozilla? Take an active part in it.
| skinkestek wrote:
| > Also, people need to understand that Firefox is not the
| reason for Mozilla existence, Firefox is one of the tools that
| Mozilla has (and depends on) to fullfil its mission.
|
| This is why I downvoted you. (edit: will undo, this
| misunderstanding needs to be discussed.)
|
| This is the big misunderstanding.
|
| If Mozilla can do something in addition to Firefox, fine.
|
| But Firefox is simultaneously Mozillas biggest contribution to
| the open web and their main income source.
|
| Sacrificing Firefox for a higher goal is almost literally to
| butcher the goose who laid the golden eggs.
|
| > Want to fix Mozilla? Take an active part in it.
|
| Try that and get flagged for advocacy(!). Seriously: see the
| tab strip api to see it in action.
| [deleted]
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| > Also, people need to understand that Firefox is not the
| reason for Mozilla existence, Firefox is one of the tools that
| Mozilla has (and depends on) to fullfil its mission.
|
| No. This is arguing that the tail is wagging the dog. The only
| reason why people care about Mozilla at all is not their social
| projects, not the fact that they released a VPN, or the fact
| that they maintain Thunderbird (OK, fine, for some it is). The
| reason they care is because Mozilla is developing Firefox.
|
| Subtract Firefox from Mozilla, and you get zero or less. And
| yes, we realise that Firefox is the last remaining independent
| browser - which is why it's alarming that they are focusing on
| anything else when the market share is so low. Their ship is
| sinking and they are debating whether the orchestra should play
| Bach or Mozart on the way down.
| dleslie wrote:
| > If people here who cares about Mozilla would volunteer, and
| also use the browser, Mozilla would be in a much better shape.
|
| > Want to fix Mozilla? Take an active part in it.
|
| Why would I volunteer for an organization that pays its CEO
| something like 70x the average American salary?
|
| It doesn't operate itself like a nonprofit. I don't want to put
| my free time into a project that exists to pay for someone's
| private villas.
| cartesius13 wrote:
| >There is a huge intersection between people who are often
| saying they know how to fix Mozilla and those using non-Firefox
| browsers. If people here who cares about Mozilla would
| volunteer, and also use the browser, Mozilla would be in a much
| better shape
|
| I have to agree with this. You see everyone on HN talking about
| the importance of Firefox in the fight against Google's
| monopoly but yet when you read comments about anything web
| related many (maybe most) commenters say they use Chrome
| (Someone should do a HN Poll).
|
| There is no excuse to use anything other than Firefox if you
| claim to care about things the open web, software freedom etc.
| ThalesX wrote:
| > There is no excuse to use anything other than Firefox if
| you claim to care about things the open web, software freedom
| etc.
|
| What changes if I use it more with metrics disabled?
| oiej2o3ij wrote:
| If Firefox doesn't want to fire their uncapable CEO, then it
| should die. Simple as that.
| jacknews wrote:
| Do we understand why it's losing users? The first thing I'd do as
| CEO would be to find out.
| e_commerce wrote:
| baq wrote:
| at this point network effects of Chromium are so great that only
| antitrust procedures can do anything about Google's domination,
| just as they did with Microsoft a decade or two ago. (Remember
| that?)
|
| The same argument can be made against Google now, since the
| browser has effectively become an OS.
| olliej wrote:
| Firefox has a bunch of issues these days, but you cannot overlook
| Google's use of dominance in search, online docs, mail, and video
| to push people onto Chrome.
|
| When you're hit with "you should use chrome" on all your most
| common sites, and the sites you use favor Chrome, it's hard for
| any browser to compete.
|
| I know people like to bash Mobile Safari, some of which is
| reasonable, it's really important to realize it's pretty much the
| only reason sites aren't chrome only at this point.
| modzu wrote:
| if i were in charge of mozilla, i'd leave to start a new browser
| called brave
| cartesius13 wrote:
| I think Firefox is done. Not even the people who are the most
| enthusiastic about open web, software freedom etc. can be
| bothered to use Firefox. I still use it but I have a strong
| impression that a lot of people on HN and other tech spaces full
| of people who tend to care about this sort of thing are using
| Chrome.
|
| I'm not sure how they can morally justify contributing to the
| death of the open web by helping Google's monopoly, but it seems
| inevitable at this point. Trully sad
| [deleted]
| hindsightbias wrote:
| If they fix their memory leak bugs on OSX or at least proactively
| id what in OSX is broken, I'll consider it.
|
| But after 4 months of crashing my mac every couple of hours, I'm
| done.
| dnissley wrote:
| My opinion? Mozilla should take a big portion of it's funding and
| direct it towards the fight for browser choice -- and the biggest
| offender here is of course, Apple. There's already some tailwinds
| in their favor here (the Epic court case, general grumbling about
| the 30% take, etc), take the opportunity and ask openly that
| Apple support browser choice, and hammer them on it repeatedly.
| robryan wrote:
| I wonder how many users they would actually gain from this.
| People that both care about browser engine diversity on iOS but
| don't already use the webview version of Firefox.
| plzdontcancel wrote:
| For me at least, I switched away when they started shoving their
| political views in my face. I get enough of that from all other
| aspects of life, I don't think my browser should be telling me
| how to think.
| jl6 wrote:
| Firefox is losing market share because there is so little to
| differentiate it from its competitors.
|
| In its heyday, Firefox grew popular as the browser that saved us
| from the manifestly inferior Internet Explorer.
|
| Nowadays, Chrome, Edge & Safari are nowhere near as bad by
| comparison, meaning users have far less reason to switch from
| defaults. And I'm counting Chrome as a default just because it is
| pushed so hard.
|
| What to do then? Find a point of differentiation that gets people
| excited.
|
| Here's an idea: a radical return to the idea of the browser being
| a user agent. That is, fully on the user's side.
|
| Ads blocked by default. AI to warn of potential native
| advertising. Auto-flagging of dark patterns. Auto-flagging of any
| form of deceptive practice. A database of sites known to engage
| in shady tactics. Reader mode that works everywhere.
|
| Firefox: your personal internet bodyguard.
|
| Sadly I don't think it can happen until the organization is
| weaned off Ad money, and it can't do that until it tackles the
| complexity of the web which demands so many developers. Which
| probably means making a stand against further scope expansion of
| HTML/CSS/JS.
| eternityforest wrote:
| FF is already taking a stand against JS scope expansion. That's
| exactly why I don't use them.
|
| While AI tools would be great(I'd like to see a "content may be
| generated by deep learning" flag, I have very little interest
| in supporting a campaign against web bluetooth, battery status,
| keyboard layout detection, etc.
|
| The user-respecting way is just to put them behind permissions.
| chockablocker wrote:
| Everybody is moving to mobile and almost nobody uses Firefox on
| mobile. However, Firefox mobile does support extensions. Is that
| something that could emphasized? However, Firefox speed on mobile
| is much slower than Chrome. That should probably be improved
| upon.
|
| For desktop there's not much of a distinguishing factor left.
| Chrome is good enough. I like Firefox for the privacy, but is
| that enough of a distinguishing factor for regular (less privacy
| conscious) folks?
| tayo42 wrote:
| I use firefox on android. Its frustrating at times. It doesn't
| integrate well with android stuff like opening up in apps I
| think. It takes me to the app store or doesnt even open in
| apps. Google stuff like looking at reviews doesn't work in
| firefox.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| I just assumed this was because Android ignores your default
| browser setting for special cases. Is this an FF problem or
| an Android problem?
| alex23478 wrote:
| There's an addon for making the Google pages work as they do
| in Chrome:
|
| https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/addon/google-
| search...
| captn3m0 wrote:
| Firefox Android does support extensions, Firefox mobile
| arguable includes iOS - which does not.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| I'm a FF fanboy but I have moved to Vivaldi for mobile. Two
| issues persist for me on FF mobile, even the nightly version:
|
| * Scroll lag/tearing on many websites which doesn't occur with
| Chromium engine
|
| * Reloading of tabs when I return to them, vs. leaving them as-
| is until I request a reload. This is abominable behavior.
|
| So I installed Vivaldi and then blocked the domain on my pi-
| hole to prevent the daily checkins the browser attempts.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| FF implements what they call 'smart sizing' on Android. The
| basic principle is the larger the amount of disk space
| available (on Android they use disk caching) the larger the
| cache size. You can inspect this dynamically on your device
| in 'about:cache'.
|
| I am violently critical of FF's current direction but to be
| fair to FF the reloading of tabs is a compromise to deal with
| how little disk space there usually is on Android (because
| the OS itself hogs large chunks of it in most Android
| devices).
| [deleted]
| benjamir wrote:
| Ff on mobile with uBlock origin is IMO awesome.
|
| I switched angrily to Chrome on mobile ca. 4y ago, but came
| back ca. 2y to give it a 2nd chance and I'm not missing Chrome.
| pier25 wrote:
| The main reason I left FF after trying it out for a couple of
| months last year is that after 21 years it still doesn't support
| multilingual spell checking properly.
|
| For anyone writing in multiple languages daily this is a deal
| breaker.
|
| https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=69687
| rpnx wrote:
| My thoughts on this are that every time I see a news piece about
| Firefox it's about "social justice", some code of conduct
| controversy, or something else utterly unimportant to web browser
| selection.
|
| Being "Open Source" does nothing for me when Firefox engages in
| the same crap as other closed source browsers, like Pocket.
| Mozilla also allowed social issues to take precedence over
| retaining good engineers. Whether you like it or not, even
| assholes have a basic right to exist and the more recent culture
| of shun and cancel has had negative consequences for society as a
| whole. Maybe they were assholes, but I don't give a shit how nice
| the developers who made my web browser are.
|
| I suppose the problem with Mozilla is the CEO/people who make
| decisions about Firefox, replace them and maybe Firefox could be
| revived. But I have extraordinary doubts that Firefox is
| salvageable at this point. Mozilla's priorities have strayed so
| far from mine that I cannot see them becoming something I care
| about any time soon. I suspect it is similar for others.
|
| There is not _one_ issue with Firefox, the people in charge are
| not competent. It 's mistake after mistake after mistake. These
| mistakes are a direct result of prioritizing diversity over
| talent.
| BEEdwards wrote:
| "Maybe they were assholes, but I don't give a shit how nice the
| developers who made my web browser are."
|
| There coworkers do though, assholes have a right to exist and
| others have a right to not want to work with them.
| teawrecks wrote:
| I agree that it is your prerogative as a consumer to decide how
| much you care about the integrity of the companies who make the
| products you use. Maybe it's just my inner Hank Hill talking,
| but I don't think a responsible consumer would ever say, "I
| don't give a shit how nice the developers who made my web
| browser are." The way I see it, if you're willing to be an
| asshole for profit to someone else, then you're willing to be
| an asshole for profit to me too. So I appreciate and support
| companies who make deliberate choices to treat humans better,
| especially ones made at the cost of profits.
| pavlov wrote:
| _> "even assholes have a basic right to exist"_
|
| The problem is when some assholes are actively engaged in
| denying basic rights from others. If you say "well those
| assholes have a right to exist", you're effectively saying "the
| assholes have more of a right to exist than the people they're
| trying to erase."
| meremortals wrote:
| I agree with this sentiment -- Firefox should be a web browser
| first and foremost and not a social justice blog
| knob wrote:
| Here is my upvote. Although your post is "rough", the truth is
| quite often as such. Thanks for putting it out there.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| A good time to remind everyone that when you donate to
| "Mozilla", you're donating to the Mozilla Foundation, which is
| the social justice part, not the Mozilla Corporation, which is
| the browser part.
| ashwagary wrote:
| >even assholes have a basic right to exist
|
| >I don't give a shit how nice the developers who made my web
| browser are.
|
| I dont either, but do their coworkers care? If so, they should
| be disciplined or fired depending on behavior.
| eigenrick wrote:
| I think this post assumes that Firefox is an inferior browser,
| and that the cause is mismanagement.
|
| But _is_ Firefox an inferior browser? I think it used to be,
| but over the last couple years, it has made massive
| improvements in features and performance. I use it in both
| desktop and mobile, and I prefer it over Chrome.
|
| As a software engineer, I rely heavily on my browser for work.
| For me, the multi-account containers in Firefox are the must-
| have feature. No other browser can offer the ease of separating
| multiple test accounts, and multiple gmail/gsuite accounts for
| multiple enterprises separate.
|
| Also, I like how Lockwise on mobile is divorced from the
| browser, making it easy to use it to manage passwords across
| websites and apps.
|
| Maybe the problem with Mozilla, then, is marketing. Maybe not
| enough people know that Firefox is much, much better than it
| used to be. Or maybe the general sentiment is echoed in your
| post. People don't feel that Mozilla is focused on writing good
| software, so they don't expect Firefox to be good.
|
| Personally, I think the biggest cause for the loss of market
| share is simple: Safari is the default on iOS and Chrome is the
| default on Android, and population of mobile devices is
| exploding, and there are no mainstream mobile devices that are
| carrying Firefox with it.
| andoli wrote:
| > Also, I like how Lockwise on mobile is divorced from the
| browser, making it easy to use it to manage passwords across
| websites and apps.
|
| I liked that too. That was before they decided to shut it
| down...
| panarky wrote:
| _> I don 't give a shit how nice the developers who made my web
| browser are_
|
| It sounds like you _do_ give a shit that they care about
| "social justice" and you don't want to use their browser
| because of that?
|
| Or are there specific features / functionality / performance /
| security issues that prevent you from using Firefox and are
| somehow caused by the worldview of the developers?
| bostonsre wrote:
| Just interpreting what the OP said and not really sure where
| I stand on the topic, but I think he means that "social
| justice" controversies have purged asshole devs that were
| competent developers producing good features and that firefox
| as a product is not as good due to that. Taking senior
| engineers off the roster will usually impact the product
| whether or not they were assholes.
| chillingeffect wrote:
| I would like it if Firefox had a built-in website editor.
| deltron3030 wrote:
| I'd create a Chrome OS alternative (like CloudReady which was
| bought by Google) for old Intel Macs and other laptops that won't
| get official Win 11 support, and maybe partner with some
| productiviy SaaS to have a working GDocs and Office 365
| alternative.
|
| Open/Libre Office and their UX are too complicated for normal
| users like most Linux apps that are modeled after professional
| desktop applications.
|
| Considering the amount of hardware that's out there and never
| will work on newer operating systems having a easy to install and
| use OS for web productivity tasks will very likely be a big
| driver for overall market share.
| lovehashbrowns wrote:
| I want to be done with Firefox so badly. I just don't want to go
| to Google.
|
| There's this really obnoxious issue where search in the address
| bar has taken a complete dive recently.
|
| For example, if I want to go to reddit.com/r/videos and it's a
| page I go to often, I can't just type "videos" because the
| suggestions that come up are links to threads I've visited
| recently. None of the suggestions are to reddit.com/r/videos
| which I visit far more often than a thread I've visited just
| once.
|
| And it triple annoys me that this used to work just fine but then
| they recently changed it when they put in those stupid paid
| suggestions / ads.
| thisisonthetest wrote:
| I left long ago for Vivaldi. Glad I was gone for the ads in the
| search bar by default. That kind of behavior, to me, shows a
| change in priorities away from the user.
|
| In Vivaldi you can set nicknames for bookmarks. So you could
| type
|
| "Ctrl+L" to select the address bar
|
| then
|
| "rv" or "vid" or whatever you want, to take you to the
| bookmarked r/videos page, which you can also leave out of the
| bookmarks bar if you don't want the clutter
|
| I do this all the time now, since most websites I visit are my
| frequently visited (probably true for everyone). Optimize
| life's most used code paths my friend and come on over to
| Vivaldi. This is not a paid ad lol.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| I started using Brave - it's still based on Chromium, but at
| least it's not _really_ Google.
| elforce002 wrote:
| Brave + DDG (Browser + Essentials) + ublock origin. I don't
| remember when was the last time I saw an ad.
| BlackLotus89 wrote:
| Not what you are looking for but if you got a bookmark you can
| edit it and set a keyword (videos).
|
| Bonus if it's a searchable site and you often search bookmark
| the search url, replace the get parameter with %s and you can
| search using the keyword
| gostsamo wrote:
| you can bookmark it and tag it with "videos". typing it on the
| address bar will bring it as suggestion I think.
| concinds wrote:
| The best way to predict the future is to analyse the constraints
| on what can happen.
|
| There is no mass-switching campaign in favor of Firefox. The only
| foreseeable hope of one happening in the future, is if ManifestV3
| kills adblockers, and people decide to switch to Firefox; but now
| there are so many competitors that oppose ManifestV3 (Brave,
| Opera, Vivaldi) that Firefox isn't ideally positioned to benefit.
|
| Otherwise, there is no reason to expect the factors behind
| Firefox's decline to disappear.
|
| Apple bundles Safari with their platforms. Google advertises
| Chrome on their web properties. Microsoft heavily discourages
| Windows users from switching away from Edge, and occasional
| "bugs" reset Edge as the default browser. Most corporations
| promote Chrome to their employees.
|
| There is no major reason to expect any of this to change. The
| likeliest change is antitrust action, with "browser choice"
| screens[0], but I don't see why that would help Firefox more than
| other browsers.
|
| There's no reason to think that continued incremental
| improvements in Firefox (the current path) can prevent its
| decline.
|
| The ballsiest thing Mozilla could do is switch to a forked Blink
| engine (Mozillium?); they'd save tons of engineering resources
| which they could refocus on user-facing features & UX, they'd
| have better webcompat with cutting-edge things (VR, MIDI, etc),
| they'd still be a part of web standards decisions (since they
| could still choose how their Blink fork deviates from Google's),
| and could encourage other Chromium forks to rebase on Mozillium
| instead of Chromium. But Firefox's most diehard fans would never
| forgive Mozilla, and they might lose as many users as they gain.
|
| It's hard to think of anything Mozilla can do to double Firefox's
| market share. Continued decline is the most likely path.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrowserChoice.eu
| sovok_x wrote:
| Well, if they reproduce pre-Proton UI, Developer Tools and
| userChrome.css this way I'll just use it without complaints,
| despite being former diehard fan of Firefox. Because when they
| killed XUL addons and started messing with UI/UX every so often
| I stopped being one and now already consider it one of the
| Chrome average lookalikes on PC as there is no practical
| difference between using ungoogled Chromium (before manifest
| v3) and latest Firefox in my use-case. With Chromium being
| slightly better because I don't need to jump through hoops to
| install unpacked local addons there.
| Mandatum wrote:
| If someone implements containers and VPN-in-containers in another
| browser, I'd switch. But it's so core to how I do my work, I'm
| unable to move until a better option exists. Profiles in Chrome
| doesn't do the job.
| sys_64738 wrote:
| Probably once Chrome brings in the new Manifest v3 changes then
| FF will start reversing the trend.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| I wouldn't try to save Firefox, I'd try to save the benefits of
| an open web (I'm assuming some variant on that is their actual
| mission statement but not checked).
|
| Firefox itself is just one in a series of reinventions. I am at
| peace with using a Firefox branded chromium fork in some future
| date as I think a balanced corporate sharing economy similar to
| Linux is probably the best we can hope for.
|
| On that theme, some kind of more loosely combined ecosystem that
| involves internet archive, Wikipedia, Mozilla, OSM, Atom, open
| standards, free software, royalty free tech and democratic
| governence and pro-consumer advocacy in a global context is
| probably a good idea, to counterbalance large corporate
| interests. It probably already kind of exists in some ad-hoc
| manner, but further moves in that direction would be good.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| > I am at peace with using a Firefox branded chromium fork
|
| I don't think I could bear even looking at such a thing. The
| only remaining good thing about Firefox is Gecko, strong
| support for ad blocking, and a few minor add-ons. If I had to
| use such a fork, it'd be like having a conversation with some
| zombie parasite wearing a skin of a loved one while pretending
| everything is normal.
| bitwize wrote:
| First of all I would structure Mozilla as a software development
| organization rather than a social justice organization. Current
| Mozilla leadership seems to believe they're running a UN NGO,
| rather than stewarding a software project; and the software
| itself has suffered because of this shift in priorities.
|
| Secondly I wouldn't worry about browser market share. Mozilla's
| place is to supply browsers, and Web and internet tools, that are
| open source and free of corporate control. Market share is
| something for for-profit corporations to worry about; under my
| Mozilla so many other things would take priority: security,
| standards compliance, maintainability (the goal would be a "long
| now" browser that can exist and be maintained even if the
| foundation itself goes away), portability across platforms. Even
| with 5% market share, if Mozilla offers a viable alternative to
| corporate browsers for those who need one, that's a strong niche
| userbase to keep going on.
|
| The current Mozilla organization is too unfocused to reliably
| provide a viable alternative to Chrome. That may ultimately be
| what kills Firefox.
| muzikman1 wrote:
| Get a new CEO my friend!
| chomp wrote:
| Firefox is losing market share due to shortsighted/poor decisions
| from leadership, and a harsh anti-competitive landscape from
| Microsoft/Google/Apple.
|
| Firefox is difficult to save because it's been on constant life
| support from Google to misdirect antitrust investigators. Saving
| Firefox would involve not only raising its market share (which
| would probably have to involve a deal from Google/Microsoft/Apple
| or legislation because they currently preconfigure their
| systems/devices to use their proprietary browsers, which are
| mostly "good enough") but also find a way to wean Mozilla Corp
| off of the Google payments, which would mean investments in
| tangentially related services (like VPN, etc.)
| sorry_outta_gas wrote:
| I don't think most users care about that, the Google tie seems
| like a weak point considering most users choose chrome
| chomp wrote:
| Users absolutely don't care where their browser gets paid,
| but financially, Mozilla Corp is dependent on an external
| entity's good graces to pay them.
|
| Mozilla Corp makes 400 million per year from Google money. If
| this money dries up in 2023, then the browser has to find a
| new deal, or close shop (figuratively speaking; I'm sure it'd
| lumber on since it's an open source browser). This is a fair
| amount of business risk, so "saving" the browser probably
| would involve figuring out how to keep the lights on without
| a search engine deal.
| yoavm wrote:
| Yes, it's dangerous to depend in income from Google. No, it
| does not at all explain why Firefox is losing marketshare.
| staticassertion wrote:
| Or they could cut costs now and start saving. 400m a year
| is such a fucking massive amount of money. You can hire
| _thousands_ of engineers with that.
|
| But like 10% of that goes to execs every year or something
| insane like that.
| scotty79 wrote:
| They should copy everything DuckDuckGo android browser does and
| develop in this direction.
|
| Basically default mode should decruftify all the websites you
| visit. Destroy all the known garbage on websites that doesn't
| serve browsing expeirience just tracking and advertising.
|
| Have an easily accessible slider to adjust level of this
| intervention for current website so you can turn all the crap
| back on if site doesn't work or complains, or disable event more
| (javascript, decorative styles).
|
| I'd be also happy if they provided additional tools for modifying
| the way content is presented, for example influencing order of
| repeating element like table rows and other. Filtering. Site
| specific bookmarking. Linking to specific positions in the
| document. Highlighting.
|
| It should bring back the control to the user and give the users
| more control they ever had
| elforce002 wrote:
| Nice. I use DDG on mobile browser and Brave/DDG on Desktop. I
| can't navigate without shebangs anymore.
| CodeGlitch wrote:
| More and more people are concerned about privacy and security,
| see the popularity of VPNs in recent years. So Mozilla should
| concentrate on making Firefox the most privacy enhanced browser
| along with being the most secure. Marketing should double down on
| getting that message across.
|
| Additionally it looks like Web Assembly has a promising future,
| so Firefox should having the best support for that.
| Graffur wrote:
| I haven't thought about this before. I would assess what
| Mozilla's current goals are and where Firefox market share fits
| into that.
| dmead wrote:
| sources on it losing marketshare?
|
| I've used firefox since it was called pheonix and have no plans
| to switch away.
|
| I'm unaware of the actions of the company though, outside of
| starting rust development.
|
| Why do people pick up chrome? do you want to fund ad sales?
| BeefWellington wrote:
| I actually have wondered about this. Given the changes in the way
| tracking protection has been done, have there been any actual
| studies/analyses that show Firefox _is_ losing marketshare? If it
| 's all based on ad companies and server-side detection, I'm
| unclear that you could actually correctly make the claim.
|
| If anyone has links I'd be interested in reading; I'm sure there
| are fingerprinting techniques, but ones that rely on JS would
| potentially be prone to being miscounted due to NoScript (365k+
| users of it according to FF).
|
| For the record, I do not doubt that chrome dwarfs everyone, but
| I'm curious about the way the numbers are being reported/studied.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| I also suspect a lot of the "Firefox is losing marketshare" is
| driven in part by ad companies, especially the huge one named
| Google.
|
| Given how many websites think Firefox in Enhanced Privacy
| Protection mode is "an ad blocker", of course ad trackers think
| Firefox is losing marketshare because it isn't feeding their
| trackers.
|
| Between that and how Mobile Firefox still has to use platform
| browsers (and a lot of user agent detection picks out the
| platform browser rather than the "user browser" on mobile), I'd
| be surprised if Firefox marketshare has dropped as much as the
| narrative believes.
|
| That said, even before Enhanced Privacy Protection and Mobile,
| Firefox was down in marketshare compared to the behemoth
| competitors, and so even if it is a trick of "Heisenberg
| metrics" that Firefox is _losing_ marketshare, it probably
| could stand to gain marketshare (to push us away from the
| growing monopsony).
| Diti wrote:
| I have the same question as you. I will add that it is possible
| Chrome's market share might be partly artificial since Firefox
| might be using Chrome's User Agent string so that websites
| "compatible with Chrome only" remain usable.
| jakub_g wrote:
| I don't have hard data to back it up but I don't think
| Firefox is spoofing UA for compat, at least not on a massive
| scale.
| tjansen wrote:
| I'd try to find ways to make Mozilla a better browser, instead of
| trying to convince people with ideological arguments, which is
| obviously not sufficient for a mainstream browser.
|
| Things that could convince me:
|
| - automated clicking for cookie banners
|
| - built-in password manager with network storage
|
| - better bookmark management, with bookmarks as icons on the
| start page, similar to mobile phone home screens
|
| - built-in video calls with browser sharing (many years ago I saw
| a tech demo from Mozilla that looked a bit like around.co)
|
| - cloud-storage for tabs and cookies/storage, maybe even JS
| state, so I can switch machines and get an identical browser
| window.
| qudat wrote:
| I would stop chasing the browser as an OS and try to break the
| many uses of a browser into multiple sub apps, with
| specifications to match.
|
| This is the reason why Gemini are gaining popularity: the scope
| is limited and focused on doing one thing well.
| syrrim wrote:
| One strategy might be to pursue creating software to run on the
| server or as a proxy. There are probably a number of
| optimizations that could take place on the server that would
| benefit from knowledge of how browsers will interpret a page. Eg,
| you could inline certain styles or other resources to speed up
| loading, rather than requiring the browser to request them
| separately. I think chrome benefits from being the best way to
| view a number of google properties, and it would be interesting
| if firefox could respond by being the best way to view diverse
| other sites on the web. Note that I'm not suggesting they
| purposefully break features on chrome, but rather that certain
| browser features might become nore useful if there was a
| guarantee that servers would take advantage of them.
| Hard_Space wrote:
| Give the innovations a rest for a couple of years, and redevote
| the funds to security development. Hell, do that for four years!
| Many of us long-term users are held hostage by the fact that
| security updates (which we need) come bundled with this tosh.
| snarfy wrote:
| Here's something you can do without being in charge -
| https://donate.mozilla.org/
| ordx wrote:
| You are donating to Mozilla Foundation. This doesn't fund
| Firefox development, since it's under Mozilla Corporation
| umbrella.
| nikanj wrote:
| Every time I restart Firefox, I get about 8 different prompts for
| "See what's new!" "Reset your Firefox profile now!" "See our new
| diversity initiative now!" etc.
|
| It feels like opening a Windows Me installation from 2000. I just
| want to get browsing done.
| temp0826 wrote:
| That's...not the case (and never has been) for me. You only
| restart it when you get an update (in which case that wouldn't
| be very often)? Or you did something whacky in about:config? Or
| maybe a bad extension. Dunno, not normal
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| Maybe you have an old profile. I often see this kind of
| messaging when starting up Firefox on a freshly installed OS.
| dpedu wrote:
| I don't often relaunch my apps but I relaunched firefox just
| now to see what would happen to test this.
|
| Here's what I was greeted with - an ad for pocket:
| https://i.imgur.com/hYYZYE3.png
| temp0826 wrote:
| Huh that's fun...I've had pocket disabled for so long that
| I forgot it was a thing. I've always been pretty vigilant
| about turning off nonsense like pocket, so I suppose I'm
| not as typical of a ff user as I thought...but still think
| what the parent comment described sounds abnormal.
| vb6sp6 wrote:
| Steltek wrote:
| Updates are probably more frequent on the
| Beta/Aurora/Whatever channel?
| nikanj wrote:
| I only start FF when I get a customer report about an issue
| on FF. I guess I start it seldom enough to always trigger
| some sort of watchdog?
|
| Anyway, here's my 2 cents. I only open FireFox when a
| customer reports an issue, and I'm always barraged by a
| deluge of unwanted info, which doesn't encourage me to open
| FF more often.
| jamesgeck0 wrote:
| If you're on the stable channel you'll see a single tab of
| "unwanted info" once every six weeks. Half the time it's
| just a generic "Firefox updated!" page.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| May be OS-specific, or it may not happen when you've set
| Firefox to restore previous tabs when restarting, or there
| may be a way to turn it off.
|
| I don't remember seeing many of these on my actual machine (I
| did get the color scheme nonsense if I remember correctly),
| but I'm constantly seeing these in dev/testing VMs where I
| just installed it for testing and occasionally keep it
| updated.
| BlackLotus89 wrote:
| about:config
|
| Search for mstone (browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone)
| and set it to "ignore" (without the quotes) am not sure why
| this has to be done this way and I don't have it disabled since
| I want to know what's new, but hope it helps.
|
| Oh and browser.disableResetPrompt and set it to true. Create it
| if it doesn't exist
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Honestly, I gave-up on editing about:config.
|
| As soon as I do it, the non-dismissable "let's reset your
| profile" message pops up again. There's no point.
| BlackLotus89 wrote:
| The second setting disables this message....
|
| But it seems like you have already given up.
| russdpale wrote:
| What? I've been using firefox for years and I never see any of
| this, you may want to run some virus scans.
| pasc1878 wrote:
| I get none of that - you musty have some odd config.
| madjam002 wrote:
| I get the same thing and I reset my config to defaults.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| He's exaggerating a bit bit his point still stands. After an
| update there's at least one extra tab about the update, and
| sometimes more like the recent-ish stupid color scheme
| feature.
| iso1631 wrote:
| Exaggerating isn't particularly helpful, makes me thing the
| problems the OP has with the browser are more based on
| perception of "culture" or something rather than the actual
| product
| Nextgrid wrote:
| It's not about perception. The browser's job is to
| display webpages and otherwise get out of the user's way
| - Firefox constantly fails at that, much more than a lot
| of _paid, proprietary_ software even.
| iso1631 wrote:
| Really? I've never had that happen and I've been using
| Firefox for 2 decades. Occasionally I've had a grumble
| about it not being the latest version, but that didn't
| stop me.
|
| Short of the removal of flash I can't think of anything
| you could be referring to, so perhaps rather than
| exaggerating some actual concrete examples would be good.
| philovivero wrote:
| Also been using FF for 2 decades, but can corroborate the
| experience you cannot.
|
| I have seen all those things he complained about.
| Diversity initiatives, new features, etc. For me it
| appears as a new tab on restart that I have to close, and
| it does feel like it's every single time I update, and
| sometimes between updates.
| nikanj wrote:
| Perceptions are pretty much 100% of the reason people
| pick a browser.
| dewey wrote:
| I have a pretty standard config and I got that the other day:
| https://twitter.com/tehwey/status/1483531515631919106
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| I believe the reset thing is due to it being a good way to
| solve user problems that have accumulated over time.
|
| It seemed a bigger thing a few years ago, but if you keep
| seeing it, then they've probably identified you as someone
| likely to benfit from it. I don't think I've seen it for years.
|
| This is just speculation though.
|
| I just get an update "what's new" tab after every update, which
| seems reasonable if you are adding or removing things.
| nicoburns wrote:
| I would:
|
| - Prioritise getting the new extension framework fully
| functional. And continue innovating on the capabilities that are
| exposed. Especially on mobile where the new fenix engine is still
| limited to a small whitelist of extensions
|
| - Sort out the multi-profile story. Container tabs are great, but
| the chrome model is also a great fit for many workflow (e.g.
| different people in a house or home vs. work profiles).
|
| - Try and work on making Gecko easily embeddable again.
| Webkit/Blink gets all the attention because it's easy to embed
| into things. I suspect Gecko needs to compete in this market if
| it hopes to survive. It needs to have more than one company
| invested in it.
|
| This ship has probably sailed now as they've fired most of their
| Rust and Servo teams. But IMO they ought to have created a rust-
| based cross-platform UI framework. They tried to do it web-based
| with Firefox OS but that was too slow. But with a Rust solution I
| think they could have owned both the mobile and desktop
| application spaces, which could potentially have made them a
| bootload of money and been a huge win for linux.
| ssorallen wrote:
| Chrome's Profiles are the #1 reason I use it over Firefox. If
| Firefox had as complete of an implementation as Chrome then I
| would consider switching, but until then Firefox is a non-
| starter for me.
|
| I use all 3 of these profiles all day every day for work:
|
| * one personal profile logged into personal Google
|
| * one work profile managed by the company, logged into company
| Google
|
| * one development profile with all the debugging extensions
| installed, like React and Redux tools (they require access to
| all pages all the time)
| baq wrote:
| about:profiles
| tenacious_tuna wrote:
| I use Firefox's container tabs all the time, which segment
| exactly the same way as profiles (albiet with the same
| extension pool). Personally I prefer having blended tabs in a
| single window, or having additional segregation; I keep
| Amazon punted out to it's own container, as well as social
| media. I know it won't stop all the cross-identificaiton, but
| it should at least help.
| benjamir wrote:
| _headscratch_ I used profiles with Ff for ages... what is the
| difference to Chrome 's?
| cassianoleal wrote:
| In Chrome there's an icon you click to switch. Honestly, if
| someone would create a FF extension that was just that, it
| would probably cover 90% of what's considered superior in
| Chrome.
| Crono wrote:
| Its called "Profile Switcher for Firefox":
| https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/profile-
| switc...
| cassianoleal wrote:
| That looks quite good. It's a little over the top with
| having to install external software though.
| weaksauce wrote:
| have you used container tabs? those are effectively
| "different profiles" for what most people consider them.
| It's still shared extensions and history and bookmarks
| but you can login with different accounts in different
| tabs and it keeps that separate.
| cassianoleal wrote:
| I use container tabs, temporary tabs and the containerise
| extension to help manage things. I use it so there's
| stronger isolation between the websites I visit, and
| cookies are cleaned up when I close the browser.
|
| That's on my main/personal profile.
|
| I have separate profiles for work stuff, one for each
| client or organisation I work with. On those, I only
| access sites that are relevant to the organisation, and I
| have a lot fewer protections. I keep long sessions, I
| leave cookies in place, etc. It's a lot more convenient
| that way.
| jamesgeck0 wrote:
| An important UX difference is that Firefox's default "New
| Tab" keyboard shortcut doesn't respect the container of
| the current tab. I've found that it's really easy to
| accidentally switch back to the main container.
| weaksauce wrote:
| I would think it be trivial to make an extension that
| respects the current tab container when opening a new
| tab. Hell if it's not there I'll make one.
| weaksauce wrote:
| The only thing I can think of is that the UI is not as nice
| as chromes for switching? in chrome you can switch the
| profile from a menu option and there can be more than one
| profile active at a time with separate everything including
| extensions and bookmarks.
|
| in firefox you don't get that easy switch and I am not sure
| the gui for the profiles is enabled by default. you have to
| manually start up firefox with a -P flag from the command
| line to get the profile manager. And you only get one
| profile active at a time.
|
| https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-
| create-...
|
| That said, 90% of the time you can use container tabs and
| it is almost the equivalent of that.
| feanaro wrote:
| > And you only get one profile active at a time.
|
| This isn't true. As I'm writing this, I have three
| Firefox windows open, each in a different profile. What
| makes you think you can only have one profile active at a
| time?
| weaksauce wrote:
| were there any hoops you had to run to get that to work?
| afaict that's not possible ootb without adding a flag to
| the command line. I'll admit that I haven't really tried
| it since many years ago.
|
| for 90% of the users out there that we need to convince
| to use firefox: having a command line switch is about the
| same as not having the feature at all... chrome has a
| menu item that brings up a brand new window in that
| profile.
|
| I want firefox to succeed and it's my daily driver.
| jeltz wrote:
| The usability and discoverability. I use almost exclusively
| Firefox but I have stopped using the profiles since the UX
| isn't good enough.
| roosgit wrote:
| about:profiles looks like a debugging page, not something
| you use for launching a profile. And I'm not referring to
| its aspect, but usability. It's not made to be used
| daily.
|
| I'll have to see if it can be "designed" with
| userChrome.css or something and I'll give it a try.
| BlackLotus89 wrote:
| Why not use the firefox profiles?
|
| I also use multiple profiles. My setup is as fallows.
| firefox -ProfileManager
|
| Create 2 profiles work and private.
|
| Change the theme of work to orange and private to black.
|
| Create two .desktop files and append to the Exec line _-P
| work_ (or private) and the Name to include _(work)_
|
| I have work on desktop 5 and private on desktop 8 and 9.
|
| Works like a charme for me. Additional bonus. Use container
| to add additional seperation.
| Jaepa wrote:
| So I use this as well, but it utterly fails the elderly
| grandmother test.
|
| Its not well known. Its not easily accessibly for non-
| technical users. & its not clear which profile you are
| currently using when you are using it.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| How many elderly grandmothers and other non-technical
| users give two shits about having multiple profiles in
| their browser?
| BoysenberryPi wrote:
| Not grandmother but my non-technical dad cares about
| this.
| nicoburns wrote:
| I would imagine huge number of non-technical users share
| a computer and want their own chrome profiles so that
| they can access their own emails without signing out of
| their family members. I know my middle-aged parents use
| Chrome in this way for example, and it would be a blocker
| for switching them to Firefox.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| They probably don't know, because Firefox doesn't bump your
| nose into the fact, that it has profiles.
| nicoburns wrote:
| In Chrome I can switch from one profile to another as fast
| as opening a new tab (i.e. instantly). Can Firefox do that?
| BlackLotus89 wrote:
| With containers you can. It's literally opening a new
| tab.
|
| If you have two profiles open at the same time like
| described you can easily switch desktops. The clear
| seperation of work and private browsing sessions helps me
| as well.
| notreallyserio wrote:
| What is easy here? In Chrome, on macOS, it's command-` to
| switch windows and command-shift-m to open a new window
| in with a specific profile.
|
| Also, links always open in the profile that is currently
| in the foreground. Is that possible in Firefox? Last I
| heard it isn't, but I haven't checked in a while.
| Isthatablackgsd wrote:
| Yes, there is but I don't know if it works for macOS
| since it works for me in Windows.
|
| Set the profile you prefer to open for links as a default
| profile and make sure to tick the option to automatically
| use the default profile without opening the profile
| manager. Then for the second profile, you need to use the
| shortcuts for that with the argument like this
|
| firefox.exe -P "<profile_name>"
|
| And make sure you leave it as capitalized P, I believe
| that is the argument. Then apply the setting and click
| the shortcut. It should be opening links to the default
| profile that you set in the profile manager.
| vi2837 wrote:
| I use it by the same way. FF is the best!
| cassianoleal wrote:
| Or, just open `about:profiles` and press buttons.
| zamalek wrote:
| > Especially on mobile where the new fenix engine is still
| limited to a small whitelist of extensions
|
| Fenix is bloody fantastic. I would double-down on this and
| really push the fact that (even with the limited extension
| list) it has uBlock Origin.
| cbxyp wrote:
| Because of the pivot from XUL and forgoing of the firefox
| extension model for a copy that is exclusively Chromium's.
| rvz wrote:
| Firefox declining market share cannot be reversed. The users have
| stuck to Chrome for years and they don't care about the broken
| websites that Firefox can't render or support. In the long run it
| will continue to decline and Google will just see its not worth
| it.
|
| Firefox is beyond saving. The question is, what can Mozilla do to
| save itself?
|
| They had a chance with Rust to turn that into something like
| Erlang Solutions did with Erlang. ie. A Rust Consultancy and will
| be able to make a significant amount of money in the long term
| with that. Instead we were given a corporate foundation that is
| already in chaos by Amazon.
|
| Mozilla has given up on its mission statement and has partnered
| and joined the anti-privacy gang: Google and Facebook as they
| watch them push whatever hostile web standard to W3C, and being
| powerless to stop or object them.
|
| What a shame.
| blinding-streak wrote:
| Take a hint from Brave, which is growing fast. Go all in on
| privacy and ad blocking.
| slig wrote:
| That would surely be bad for their 0.5 billion/year deal from
| Google. Not going to happen.
| 28304283409234 wrote:
| They're not getting that money for the ads. They're getting
| it to be a decoy for anti-trust investigators. Which is not
| hampered in the slightest by adding a default adblocker.
| gausswho wrote:
| That presumes Google is paying Mozilla primarily to secure
| the search market. But if they're paying primarily to secure
| staying out of anti-trust court, Firefox culling ads doesn't
| affect whether big G keeps their wallet open.
| chaganated wrote:
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| There are several issues.
|
| Firstly it is much much harder to keep a clean sheet, when you
| focus on privacy, than when you merely focus on introducing
| features and pushing your own agenda like the Chrome project
| does. Just one misstep and you can already lose lots of believers
| of the good cause. And missteps Mozilla had more than enough of
| during the recent years.
|
| Secondly they time and time again incorporate things, that
| privacy minding people do not wish to have in their browser and
| make the defaults so that it is "on" by default. This erodes
| people's trust in Mozilla's vision and where the journey is
| going.
|
| Another reason, which is a huuuuge fail in my opinion is, that I
| still!! cannot donate specifically for Firefox, for Thunderbird,
| for whatever, but only to Mozilla overall. I cannot donate with a
| cause, but only with trust, which has been slowly eroded. They
| will not get those donations they hope for and then in turn make
| stupid decisions, thinking that not so many people want, what
| they are making now, because they do not donate. Duh! I would
| immediately donate to projects like Thunderbird. You can pry
| Thunderbird from my cold dead hands! They should shut up and take
| my money.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| Well, I quit using it/supporting it because of their politics. So
| maybe get out of politics and focus on software?
| gdelfino01 wrote:
| Same here after many years of using it. In my opinion, and to
| try to keep the internet free, we should look into supporting
| LibreWolf (a Firefox fork) just like most people moved from
| OpenOffice to LibreOffice.
| StillBored wrote:
| #1, Listen to the users, even if it makes the developers lives
| harder and the code base uglier. (although the firefox build
| system is just sad, and is a symptom of the entire project,
| "make" should actually build a working browser)
|
| Stop fsking with the UI and using creative non native looking
| stuff just to be cool like chrome, and instead focus on making
| the rendering/JS/developer tools engine best in class. Along
| with, stop breaking shit. Hiding shit in about:config and then
| silently removing the option doesn't make users happy, if they
| spent the time to figure out how to disable search in the address
| bar because they are tired of accidentally telling google/etc
| where they are browsing than actually honor that setting, or
| better yet, give them that option in the config UI rather than
| pretending they are all idiots and don't understand how computers
| work.
|
| There are too many chrome only web sites, so make the developers
| happy with tools that make their jobs easier. About:memory is
| better these days, but its still a far cry from what it could be,
| and AFAIK its still doesn't have something similar for CPU or
| networking outside of the network and cpu tracing functions in
| the developer tools. I want to be able to manage my browser with
| similar functionality to my OS (aka what tab is sending/reading
| all this data, then drill into what/where its sending it along
| with better whitelist/blacklist functionality/etc)
|
| Then for users, you will gain their appreciation if it feels
| faster than chrome, which far to often is still false (despite it
| too getting better). And yes, for tabs, menus and the like using
| the native widgets not only will make people happier when they
| change their system color schemes and firefox isn't doing its own
| thing, but the system components are frequently far far faster to
| render than firefox's. And yes, sometimes the code to have
| multiple UI toolkits is ugly, as is the code to support
| optimizing some JS path, deal with it, thats the job.
|
| I could go on, but others have said some of my other points.
| runarberg wrote:
| May I suggest that our best effort in saving Firefox is to
| enforce existing pro-consumer laws which breaks up large
| companies like Google while promoting laws that protects our
| privacy.
|
| Firefox's biggest threat is a company with a really broad range
| of products that all coalesce into selling scary profitable ads.
| carapace wrote:
| > Why is Firefox losing marketshare?
|
| For myself, I am moving off of Firefox right now (I don't yet
| know to what though, recommendations welcome) for one reason:
| they keep changing the UI in ways that I find irritating and then
| deprecating the methods to change it back. For me it's really
| that simple. There are other issues I have with FF but that's the
| one that got me to the point where I'm ready to abandon FF
| entirely.
|
| > What would you do if you were in charge of Mozilla?
|
| Concentrate on docs, standards, and libraries. Be the "one-stop
| shop" for all the information and software one needs to do things
| with the Internet.
|
| > How would you save Firefox?
|
| First you have to answer the question, _why_ save Firefox?
|
| What's so bad about having fewer browsers? (I know most of the
| arguments, I'm not asking you to repeat them I'm asking you to
| revisit them.)
|
| Rather than saving one particular browser, I would make it easy
| for anyone to create a custom web browser.
|
| If you really want to save FF you have to discover or create
| something about it that beats the competition: speed,
| reliability, ...? Those are "table stakes" these days, so what is
| the differentiator that makes it compelling?
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| > so what is the differentiator that makes it compelling?
|
| Is a focus on privacy and independence not enough?
| mrtweetyhack wrote:
| Ekaros wrote:
| More is more. Focus on the power users again, don't just remove
| features because metrics say they aren't used. Information
| density and ease of use of power features are critical or they
| jump somewhere else and don't market the browser anymore.
| henry_bone wrote:
| People should listen to Dr Robert Epstein [1] and never use a
| google product again. Google are an advertising company and
| master manipulators. They have unprecedented control over people
| very thoughts and opinions. They should be avoided at all costs
| by any thinking person.
|
| Of course, none of this helps Firefox. If anything, it suggests
| that they are pretty much fucked.
|
| [1] https://open.spotify.com/episode/4q0cNkAHQQMBTu4NmeNW7E
| rvieira wrote:
| I've used Firefox only for a few years (up until last month or
| so).
|
| I'm no expert and would actually like to know, from the experts
| here, if the following is my subjective experience or not:
|
| I find that for not very heavy or for heavy, but well-behaved
| sites, I can't really tell the difference between FF and Chrome.
|
| But for very heavy and badly designed sites, Chrome seems to be
| much faster and have much less latency.
| joombaga wrote:
| Can you give examples of some very heavy and badly designed
| sites?
| rvieira wrote:
| I wouldn't call it "badly designed", but certainly heavy.
| I've opened a free account with ClickUp. It _feels_ a lot
| snappier in Chrome.
| ev1 wrote:
| I'd consider loading several dozen third party tracking
| scripts leading to thousands of requests on load badly
| designed.
| manquer wrote:
| Build more SaaS services users can pay for, like Mozilla VPN[1]
| which enhances privacy , better user experience and keep things
| more secure.
|
| Mozilla needs recurring revenue stream strong enough to help them
| get off Google deal and scale up revenue to compete with big guns
| on equal footing.
|
| Firefox has the advantage of not being advertising driven,
| privacy focused and a great brand.
|
| Services like say Identity(expand Firefox account for say form-
| less login to supporting websites), password management
| (LastPass), payment/credit card management , their own
| email/calendar service to complement Thunderbird, notes/clipboard
| like Evernote/notion , screen recording sharing like loom and so
| on and deeply integrate to their browser to provide seamless
| experience .
|
| Focus on services which browsing better/ safer can build strong
| revenue runway that can fund all the ambitions they have for
| other projects
|
| Opt -in for any service and modular. Nothing breaks regular
| experience. Just offer better convenience people will pay, one
| thing Apple get right.
|
| [1] Yes it is white labelled Mullvad VPN, but it is still
| recurring revenue for Mozilla.
| Kalanos wrote:
| The only reason I use firefox is web development (right-click
| inspect). If I was FF I would pivot into dev tools for the JS
| stack.
| gboone wrote:
| Just to add what I see as a positive move, there is progress
| regarding multiple mic selection in webrtc. This is the kind of
| thing that practically matters to me, and there is work being
| done as far as I can tell.
| https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1238038
| Mustache wrote:
| Make if fast.
| agentdrtran wrote:
| The amount of people saying "listen to power users" in this
| thread seem to have read the questions as "what do I want Firefox
| to do"
| nix0n wrote:
| The most important thing to a regular user, is that their
| websites work. But for websites to work, the developer had to
| test in Firefox. So, Firefox's alienation of power users has
| hurt its regular userbase.
| jka wrote:
| Few device manufacturers and platform ecosystems appear
| incentivized to bundle Firefox, perhaps because it doesn't
| provide much in the way of competitive moat-building
| opportunities in return for the partnership (there is the Google
| sponsorship, which is probably helpful in their unique case
| because it provides a defence against allegations of monopolistic
| behaviour).
|
| The cost of bundling for Chrome and Safari is low, because it's
| software -- so they are included with a large number of devices,
| especially where commercial partnerships can be formed (generally
| on favourable terms to Google and Apple, respectively, I'd
| expect).
|
| I don't think that the average user notices much difference in
| terms of behaviour and functionality between any of these
| browsers. I'll admit that there are probably rare exceptions like
| vendor-pushed codecs where one or other browser tends to have an
| advantage (again, typically leveraged by partnerships with
| streaming content providers).
|
| So: I don't know, but it's something to do with getting Firefox
| on more devices by default -- and that's not something that
| happens easily when supply chains are easily influenced by a
| small number of upstream "ecosystem providers".
| pdimitar wrote:
| At least in my eyes and I suppose in the eyes of other techies
| and open Web idealists:
|
| Because Mozilla became just another classic corporation that's
| laser-focused on extracting value for shareholders and executives
| and nothing else. A year or two ago an article about Mozilla made
| the rounds here: executives collecting fat bonuses (and some
| leaving afterwards?). Some mere months later they fired a lot of
| people.
|
| Is that the right signal to send to a community that wants an
| open Web browsing experience? Squeeze any money you can and then
| fire staff. Those pesky people that have the _audacity_ to want
| money for their work, how dare they!
|
| As the (currently) top commenter @selfhoster11 says, cut out
| everything that's not Firefox or is not related to its mission.
|
| I could probably agree to use some of their other offerings like
| Pocket or VPN, assuming they're done well. Mozilla needs the
| diversified income, like _badly_. They are at the mercy of Google
| and always have been. *THIS IS NOT OKAY* and should have been
| addressed like 10 years ago. If the expenses are so huge, well,
| again, fire everyone who 's not working on Firefox or closely
| related to it.
|
| Finally, Mozilla needs no "executives". Get a CEO, CTO and CFO
| who are passionate about the mission, get rid of _everyone else_
| at the top. It 's a semi-charity organization, the hell does it
| need a board of directors for?
| butlerm wrote:
| A board of directors is more important for a non-profit
| organization than for a for-profit one. They are part time,
| serve in a non-executive role, and are in charge of the overall
| direction of the enterprise, and for a non-profit organization
| are usually supposed to represent the general, public interest
| since non-profits have no shareholders to represent. The
| Mozilla Foundation is a 501(c)(3) and so that goes double for
| them.
| pdimitar wrote:
| Well, they don't seem to do what they are supposed to do
| then. I don't think such an organization should give away
| golden parachutes (fat executive bonuses, including on the
| way out), yet they did so a few times.
|
| And yeah I know the Foundation and the Corporation are
| separate. Potato tomato. Point is, they should not act like a
| corporation. But they do, and they'll kill Firefox, that
| seems a very likely possibility at this point.
| zaptheimpaler wrote:
| While Firefox has many small imperfections compared to Chrome,
| the big point IMO is that Firefox is not preinstalled on any
| large consumer OS/device besides Linux.
|
| It has many little details that aren't as good as Chrome but I
| don't know how much that affects adoption. Even if it does, that
| last bit of polish is very expensive to fix and they would need
| users or another mechanism to fund it.
|
| I would focus heavily on getting Linux to be more mainstream.
| There is already growing momentum behind Linux and a lot of room
| for organizations (like Mozilla) that can typically execute on
| long multi year strategies better than the anarchy of FOSS.
| There's a lot of work to be done on all levels - partnerships,
| marketing, technical, finance etc. so people in all roles could
| contribute.
|
| Maybe that would even play out outside Mozilla, like people
| leaving and joining other companies that push OSS ahead until it
| gains enough users for Mozilla to be relevant again.
| davidandgoliath wrote:
| Fix the default scroll settings on Linux.
| newacc9 wrote:
| I left because of woke messaging from their CEO.
|
| https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplat...
| yoavm wrote:
| What's wrong with this message? Are you against ads revealing
| who's paying for them and who's targeted? Against transparency
| of algorithms? What exactly is the issue?
|
| I don't see any reason to leave after reading this.
| logicalmonster wrote:
| To me, I think it's impossible to evaluate those statements
| in a vacuum and not consider the obvious second-order effects
| that result from it. Advertising transparency is of course a
| good thing, but what happens in a culture where perfect
| transparency exists and one side is repeatedly targeted by
| activists in Tech, Media, and Finance for deplatforming?
| Suddenly every advertiser that goes against a narrative can
| be targeted for elimination. What sounds like a bright and
| positive message is suddenly a tool for personally going
| after your political enemies and probably creates even more
| divisiveness and conflict.
|
| There's a lot wrong with what she said, but especially her
| opinion that tools should amplify "factual voices" by
| default. There is no central source of accurate human
| knowledge to even attempt to do this with and we know that
| what's considered true and accurate can change. This alone is
| a disgusting and disqualifying opinion and anybody who
| espouses this viewpoint should be considered a propagandist
| and tyrant in waiting and certainly unable to head an
| organization dedicated to an open Internet.
| lexx wrote:
| Firefox is great. Just use it and tell your friends to use it.
| Problem solved
| thecrumb wrote:
| I'm really at the point if I see another stupid popup from
| Mozilla about something I can 0% about when my Firefox updates
| I'm going to switch to something. I use Firefox because I'm
| _trying_ to support the little guy but honestly when the little
| guy doesn 't care about supporting me back then it's time to move
| on.
| tomxor wrote:
| > Why is Firefox losing marketshare
|
| Can we validate that it is in fact losing market share first?
|
| It's possible there are other factors such as the increased
| privacy capabilities and integrated tracker blocking and tendency
| for Firefox users to value and use these features and plugins, or
| even useragent string spoofing... I do the later so I look like a
| chrome/windows user because some sites will block features from
| Firefox for no reason (and also it's nice to be less trivially
| uniquely identifiable).
|
| Where are the stats you are using and how are they collected?
| duped wrote:
| I think they could transition to being a developer tools company
| with a focus on building enterprise web applications with the
| goal of making the "default" web development process correspond
| to their mission statement.
|
| I think that Chrome and IE proved that the most important users
| are developers and business admins. If Mozilla wants to make the
| web a place for real human users in line with their ideals, then
| they need to focus on making their vision the default for
| developers and businesses.
| bugmen0t wrote:
| Write a popular web app. Make it work on Firefox only ;-) worked
| for Chrome at least...
| kirbyfan64sos wrote:
| Because Chrome works well enough to be, at worst, "okay" for the
| average user.
|
| People only really change tech when the one they currently have
| is visibly & obviously worse, which is part of what spurred the
| initial migrations to Chrome (I remember switching from FF and in
| awe at how much faster Chrome was).
|
| That's not to say Chrome hasn't been acquiring it's own list of
| missteps (manifest V3, restricted Chrome Sync, even attempting
| Flow), but none of them so far are the type that a non-tech-savvy
| user would care about, or even know about unless explicitly told.
|
| Then you add on the massive budget Chrome has, compared to
| Mozilla's struggles to find a revenue source, and it's not hard
| to see why it's having a hard time.
|
| With that in mind, the obvious solution is for FF to find
| something distinct it can excel at that the average person finds
| attractive and that allows for monetization in some way. Problem
| is, no one really knows what that would be, and the current
| attempts at being privacy-focused just...aren't widely applicable
| enough. (Whether or not people _should_ care about privacy is a
| different debate, and how to _get_ them to care about privacy is
| its own rabbit hole.)
| gnicholas wrote:
| If Google goes through with the manifest V3 change, there are
| going to be a lot of people looking for a new browser. They've
| become accustomed to browsing with blockers (tracking and
| analytics) and won't want to use a browser that doesn't easily
| support blockers.
|
| Firefox can scoop up a lot of these users if they don't force out
| blockers and other addons using manifest V2. I could see articles
| in Fast Company, Gizmodo, etc. with headlines like "Is Firefox
| the Hot New Browser (Again)?". It could lead to a huge wave --
| and hopefully to Google walking back their promises of a forced
| transition.
| egberts1 wrote:
| First step: ditch the CxO-suite payroll; Mozilla has turned into
| a giant C-suite sucking sound on its finance and has gone blind
| to its original tenet.
|
| 2. Revert to Redhat pre-IPO corporate model (and stay there)
|
| 3. Restart and fill up PAID development team
|
| 4. Massive support team in response to user-support/feature-
| request
|
| 5. ???
|
| 6. Profit!
| simion314 wrote:
| Last chance to save it is to try the Rewrite it in Rust and see
| if will braing users by magic.
| a-dub wrote:
| DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS
|
| firefox lost out from me because some sites didn't work
| correctly, so i'd say that the first right move would be to
| really see what can be done to win over more developers as the
| browser they use for primary development. both firefox and chrome
| have good developer tools, but how much further could firefox be
| taken? how much community outreach might land firefox on more web
| developer desktops? are there corporate barriers to getting
| firefox on more professional web developer desks? how might they
| be removed?
|
| also, have viable competitors for both chromebooks and android.
| pjerem wrote:
| My opinion is that Google deliberately "killed" Mozilla by giving
| them almost infinite cash.
|
| Mozilla can't go anywhere because as a business, they have no
| incentive nor any culture needed to survive. They are spoiled by
| Google whatever they do.
|
| They are like someone so rich that they don't have any more goals
| in life. They are still there but they goes nowhere.
|
| Ofc I'm talking about the company, not the employees that did put
| hard work into the great product that Firefox still is.
|
| It's too bad because the web have a great need of a Mozilla-like
| company/foundation.
|
| Mozilla could have been the anti-Google and they could make tons
| of money by just providing some cloud services (mail, calendar,
| storage,...) but they just can't see it because anything will be
| harder to monetize than their deal with Google.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| They should focus on saving Firefox.
|
| - Cut out all (or at the very least, most) initiatives that don't
| serve the goal of promoting Firefox's market share or
| sustainability going forward
|
| - Donate the major money drains that aren't Firefox to the Apache
| Foundation or another worthy custodian
|
| - Fire all inessential staff that don't want to work on Firefox.
|
| - Get a CEO/upper management that are in it for the passion, not
| the money, and cut their salaries (bonuses tied directly to
| increase in Firefox market share).
|
| - Make sure that all donations from now on are redirected to
| things that support Firefox development and nothing else, period.
|
| - Make whatever partnerships are needed to have a steady stream
| of income, be that donation or selling out to Google or Bing.
|
| Firefox is in trouble. Firefox is also Mozilla's _raison d
| 'etre_, and they should embrace that. We as a community, cannot
| afford to let Firefox languish until the only browsers in the
| world are Chromium derivatives. The diversity of truly
| independent browser engines is far too important to give up
| without a fight.
| jefftk wrote:
| _> until the only browsers in the world are Chromium
| derivatives_
|
| Do you mean WebKit derivatives? Or are you predicting that
| Apple would switch to Chromium? (No way)
| wmil wrote:
| Imagine going back to 1997 and trying to convince tech people
| that one day KHTML on ARM would be the most popular web
| browsing platform.
| jagger27 wrote:
| It would have been easier to convince someone in '99 that
| Trident on Itanium would be dominant.
| Jayakumark wrote:
| Current CEO is a cancer to Mozilla, her main goal seems like to
| make more money personally before Mozilla goes bankrupt. As
| long is as she is there - there is no hope
|
| https://itdm.com/mozilla-firefox-usage-down-85-but-why-are-e...
| twblalock wrote:
| A better CEO would not be cheaper, particularly considering
| that whoever takes the job would be tasked with saving a
| dying product.
|
| High salary and a golden parachute would be required to
| attract anyone good enough to succeed.
| freeopinion wrote:
| I think Mozilla and Firefox are cherished by a lot of
| people who would like to see them thrive.
|
| But I think if given a choice, most of those people would
| prioritize the survival of a viable competitive web
| browser. The name of the product and the sponsor of the
| product are less important.
|
| So a related question might be, "What would it take for a
| Firefox fork to succeed?"
|
| If you think the CEO of Mozilla is a cancer, a fork solves
| that issue. Obviously, there are a lot more concerns than
| just the CEO. So, what else would a viable fork need?
|
| In the end, Mozilla could implement any measures that would
| work for the fork, and probably do so easier. So answer the
| question for the fork, and you've answered the question for
| Mozilla.
| StillBored wrote:
| Well a large part of the problem with a fork is that you
| don't see a lot of random drive by contributions. As a
| possible contributor myself a couple times, firefox is a
| development nightmare because it doesn't have a good
| autoconfig system that lets one download the code and
| start being productive quickly.
|
| Then like chrome, i'm betting most people can't actually
| built it in reasonable time on their laptops since it
| burns a good 64 core machine with 128G of ram for a hour
| or two. Screw up said configuration, and your in for
| another rebuild loop. It can take days just to get a
| working development environment.
| freeopinion wrote:
| And these are what is holding Firefox back?
| pstuart wrote:
| Really? This isn't GM -- it's a web browser. An important
| one, but even a paltry $1M should be enough to draw in the
| right talent.
| twblalock wrote:
| $1m is senior engineering manager compensation in the
| valley at several companies just a short drive away from
| Mozilla's offices. It's far below CEO compensation.
|
| Anyone who is capable of succeeding as the CEO of Mozilla
| would be giving up millions of dollars they could easily
| make elsewhere in the valley if they took only $1m as
| their comp.
| appleiigs wrote:
| No, it's not binary as you make it out be.
|
| There is a wide spectrum of CEOs skills and compensation.
| A SVP, VP, or even director level person at Apple (and
| the like) could be CEO of Mozilla (and would be happy to
| take a CEO title and steer their own ship).
|
| I'd bet there are couple internal people at Mozilla that
| could be promoted to CEO and be happy with CEO pay and be
| successful too.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| So? Not the entire world is US-based. Tech salaries in
| USD are way out of whack compared to elsewhere.
|
| I also bet that for the type of challenges facing Firefox
| and with my proposed reforms, a motivated senior engineer
| who knows what they are doing would be just as good or
| better compared to a standard CEO.
| freeopinion wrote:
| Sounds perfect. Any up and coming CEO wannabe could take
| the Mozilla job to prove they've got the chops. Then,
| after turning things around, they could ride off into the
| sunset at any of those other corps. Everybody wins.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| "Capable of succeeding" meaning what? If you switch to a
| normal manager and suddenly save the company 2 million a
| year, and they stop making the current trend of
| decisions, that sounds like a win-win. CEOs aren't
| magical rarities.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| which companies are paying 1m to managers?
| nus07 wrote:
| Someone visionary and humble like Sundar or Satya might
| work. Preferably an engineer or engineer-minded rather than
| a lawyer or MBA.
| twblalock wrote:
| How much money do you think a Sundar or Satya-type person
| would be willing to accept? Certainly not as little as
| the current Mozilla CEO is being paid!
| Croftengea wrote:
| One doesn't have to look too far. Bring Jamie back! :)
| autoexec wrote:
| > High salary and a golden parachute would be required to
| attract anyone good enough to succeed.
|
| I'm not sure if the best way to get someone to save a dying
| product is a golden parachute which rewards them for
| running it straight into the ground. You have to make sure
| they're not risking everything to keep Firefox going, but
| ideally they'd have some skin in the game so they don't
| have an incentive to just loot whatever they can until it
| dies before sailing away from the burning wreak with even
| more money.
| twblalock wrote:
| It's not a reward for failure, it's an insurance policy.
|
| Here's a CEO job offer: take on a nearly impossible task,
| for a salary that is far below the market rate. If you
| fail (and you probably will!) it might damage your career
| and make it harder for you to find another job. If you
| succeed, you will get prestige, but you still won't get a
| lot of money.
|
| What kind of executive would accept an offer like that?
|
| A golden parachute is the insurance policy: it says to
| the candidate, we know this is a nearly impossible task,
| and it might damage your career if you fail, so we will
| guarantee you some money if you fail in order to
| compensate you for taking on that risk.
| stormbrew wrote:
| I would really love to hear even one example of a CEO's
| career being damaged by failure in any material way.
|
| Meanwhile, people for whom income is literally making the
| difference between getting food on the table and not get
| 2 weeks at best, often nothing at all.
|
| I mean, I'm actually sympathetic to the idea that no one
| should take a job unless it has absolutely zero risk of
| ruining them financially if they fail at it, but it's
| pretty clear that this is a benefit only extended to very
| few people who don't really need it.
| jacquesm wrote:
| You don't want that kind of executive anyway. You want
| someone that identifies with the market and is seen as a
| safe hand to run FF into the long term future. That alone
| will do a good part of stopping the drain.
| xfitm3 wrote:
| As someone who knew someone who worked there she is
| absolutely nuts and her thinking is beyond radical. She will
| destroy Mozilla if she doesn't step down. Assuming it's not
| too late already.
| hackerfromthefu wrote:
| No, she is on the take from Google to keep Firefox as a
| shield against monopoly claims, while reducing the actual
| competitive threat.
| _-david-_ wrote:
| While it wouldn't surprise me with how awful Mozilla has
| been, do you have any proof or is it just a hypothesis?
| sebmellen wrote:
| The arrogance is hard to believe.
|
| > _In 2018 she received a total of $2,458,350 in compensation
| from Mozilla, which represents a 400% payrise since 2008. On
| the same period, Firefox marketshare was down 85%. When asked
| about her salary she stated "I learned that my pay was about
| an 80% discount to market. Meaning that competitive roles
| elsewhere were paying about 5 times as much. That's too big a
| discount to ask people and their families to commit to."_ [0]
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Baker
| jacquesm wrote:
| Assuming she would be in line for a competitive role, which
| I highly doubt with the current track record.
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| How do you get such a shitty form of life at the head of
| such a noble organisation? :0
| fxtentacle wrote:
| "a fish rots from the head"
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| Ah good to see you granpa
| fxtentacle wrote:
| It might be that they need to pay that amount to attract
| top CEO talent. But then again, I'm not sure if Mozilla
| should be large enough to need a top CEO. I mean
| effectively reducing it to just the Firefox team would be
| fine with me. And then it's maybe 80 people to manage in
| total. So that's one regular office building and you're
| done. It doesn't sound like the CEO will be critical for
| anything in this company.
| Wiseacre wrote:
| Unfortunately that is up to the people writing the
| checks. Their goals and the goals of Firefox enthusiasts
| are not particularly aligned.
| artdigital wrote:
| You forgot the part that comes after:
|
| > By 2020, her salary had risen to over $3 million. In the
| same year the Mozilla Corporation laid off approximately
| 250 employees due to shrinking revenues. Baker blamed this
| on the Coronavirus pandemic.
|
| Yikes, makes me also consider just switching off it again
| BossingAround wrote:
| I don't think this has anything to do with arrogance, this
| is simply the market value speaking. Ginni Rometty did
| something similar with IBM; while being a terrible CEO
| ("IBM was the worst-performing large-cap tech stock during
| Rometty's tenure, dropping 24%" [1]), she got a whopping
| $20M per year [2] during her first 7 years of being a CEO,
| and she got $20M golden parachute [3] upon leaving the
| shell of an IBM.
|
| This is not arrogance. This is simply the pay of a CEO,
| regardless of their performance.
|
| [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/31/ibm-was-worst-
| performing-lar...
|
| [2]
| https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-01-31/ginni-
| rome...
|
| [3] https://www.silicon.co.uk/workspace/ibm-ginni-
| rometty-20m-33...
| mitchdoogle wrote:
| If that's what the market rate is, then let them go work
| somewhere else.
|
| There are hundreds of thousands of individuals capable of
| doing these jobs making nowhere near as much - plenty of
| them would do it better.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| Where is the board in all of this?!
| tfehring wrote:
| IBM is more than two orders of magnitude bigger than
| Mozilla in terms of both spending and headcount. On a log
| scale, Mozilla's scale is about halfway between IBM and
| your local McDonald's franchise.
|
| CEOs of smaller companies typically don't command that
| level of compensation, and when they do, it's generally
| because the company performed well and their pay was
| heavily perforamnce-based.
| II2II wrote:
| Mozilla is not IBM. They may compete against the likes of
| Google, Microsoft, and Apple, yet they are not those
| companies either. The scope of their business interests
| are minuscule in comparison. Heck, their share of the
| markets that they do compete with those companies in
| pales in comparison. So yes, there is an element of
| arrogance in her claim.
| chucksta wrote:
| An industry standard of arrogance is still arrogance.
| snird wrote:
| And she raised her pay while firing essential engineers:
| https://www.extremetech.com/computing/313658-mozilla-
| fires-2...
|
| I'm a firefox user for over 10 years. I think I'm now
| convinced there is no future, I'll have to start to adapt
| to another browser now. I'll give Vivaldi a try.
| StillBored wrote:
| That was the layoff where they got rid of all the rust
| people?
|
| Its going to sound harsh, but they are loosing market
| share to browsers that didn't have to invent a new
| language to write a browser in.
|
| So, getting rid of those people was probably a positive
| impact for firefox since they were mostly just yak
| shaving instead of actually improving the end product.
| The users don't care if you wrote it in C++ or fortran as
| long as it performs well, doesn't eat all their ram, or
| create giant backdoors.
|
| Letting "the lets rewrite our core product in
| $COOL_TECH_OF_MONTH" people run a product is a sure sign
| of something that will fail if its not already. Lets
| invent our own computer language to do it is even worse.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| The main problem is that they're not making money with
| their core product so they need to experiment and
| innovate to find ways to make money.
|
| I agree they probably didn't need to invent rust: that
| was an happy accident, the kind of things that happen
| when you have really smart people around. If they had a
| money making accident we would be talking about something
| else, but I guess they would need a different type of
| culture for that to happen.
|
| This is not how you run a company and it shows. It's
| impressive Mozilla is still around if you ask me - but I
| suspect it has to do with Google, M$ needing someone
| easily controllable to keep the anti monopoly government
| people away from browsers.
| the_gipsy wrote:
| > The users don't care if you wrote it in C++ or fortran
| as long as it performs well, doesn't eat all their ram,
| or create giant backdoors.
|
| In the short term, yes. In the long term however, this
| strategy _could_ have been crucial. And the long term is
| precisely where open source software usually has the
| upper hand.
| Klonoar wrote:
| This feels like a gross mischaracterization of the intent
| and work that went into Servo. You say this as if nothing
| else was being done on Firefox concurrently even though
| this is demonstrably false - and in fact, portions of
| Servo were integrated into Firefox (see: Quantum).
|
| Firefox keeps losing on technical merit because it is
| fundamentally impossible to keep up with Webkit and
| Blink, which are all backed by massive corporations and
| are throwing money at the engineering and project
| resources to actually move things forward.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| > or create giant backdoors.
|
| Using memory safe languages is a big step towards this
| goal.
| spion wrote:
| Mozilla didn't really invent Rust, and its looking quite
| likely that Rust is going to be just as significant of a
| contribution to the world as Firefox was (long term).
| CoolGuySteve wrote:
| Fuck, I'll do it for a mere million dollars. The market has
| spoken.
|
| I can't do much worse than losing 85% market share.
| [deleted]
| Jensson wrote:
| Do nonprofits really care about the market? Not sure how
| that works, what would it take to replace her if she
| doesn't want to be replaced?
| jonassalen wrote:
| The professionals that work in those nonprofits do. If
| you want a capable manager or SEO, you need to pay a
| correct market price.
| mitchdoogle wrote:
| Market rates don't matter all that much if the person
| setting them has a significant influence on what they
| are. It's like a child determining their allowance based
| on which one of their friends was able to grab the most
| money from their mom's purse.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| If I cared badly enough about the mission and it wasn't a
| for-profit enterprise, I'd take the pay cut. The non-
| monetary part of my compensation (the feel-good factor
| and the actual good done in the world that I can't get in
| a for-profit enterprise) would more than make up for it,
| at least for a couple of years.
| makx wrote:
| You'd think that there are even qualified people who
| would do it for (almost) free, just for the chance of
| building a resume...
| jonassalen wrote:
| As a professional that gets offers like this ("it will be
| good for your portfolio") I hate this comment.
|
| If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.
| sirwhinesalot wrote:
| Apparently you get monkeys if you pay millions too...
| mitchdoogle wrote:
| Well it's the market rate, right?
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| That's because you're looking at this with your
| "professional" hat on. If your look at this with your
| "philanthropist" hat on, the optics are suddenly very
| different.
| WJW wrote:
| There's a weird type of logic going on where almost
| everyone who would be willing to do it for almost free is
| probably not qualified for the job. Would you really
| stake the future of your foundation on someone who still
| needs to build their resume?
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| Japanese CEO salaries are famously very low. The Toyota
| CEO makes about USD 3.5m. There are other C levels that
| make 3 times what the Toyota CEO earns in direct
| compensation.
|
| Japanese CEO salaries in general seem to be below USD1m
| on average.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| I don't believe that for a second. Unless you just mean
| it in the sense of "90% of people that apply to a job
| aren't good at it". You can get many many qualified
| people for $250k.
|
| Paying more doesn't get rid of the risk, so yes do the
| version that has risk but without the bonfire of cash.
| mitchdoogle wrote:
| $2.5 million per year is in the top 0.1% of income in the
| United States. No matter how you shake it, whether you
| want people with management experience, tech experience,
| browser experience, or some combination thereof, you will
| find a significantly large number who would be able to do
| the job, do it well, and make more than their current
| salary.
| kelnos wrote:
| Her logic assumes that another company would actually pay
| her that much. Given how disastrous her tenure has been to
| Firefox's user base, I'm skeptical that another company
| would even _want_ her as CEO, let alone pay her this much.
| mrinfinite wrote:
| omg, i am considering deleting firefox now. terrible.
| Permit wrote:
| > - Get a CEO/upper management that are in it for the passion
|
| Why stop there? Why not get developers who are "in it for the
| passion"?
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| A CEO can single-handedly sink the ship (witness Nokia's
| death). Developers don't have the power to do that.
| Hnaomyiph wrote:
| The CEO and upper management do loads to steer the ship. If
| all they care about is enriching themselves, they will likely
| struggle to find developers who are in it for the passion.
|
| Look at Google. It is a late-stage, post-IPO business that's
| now, frankly, ran by the CFO with a CEO who cares only about
| the board and an ever-increasing stock number.
|
| The people who have passion left for the most part. Replaced
| by those who only seek to enrich themselves and climb the
| perf ladder.
|
| Would those who have passion stuck around if Google was ran
| by people who still had passion? I'd imagine a much greater
| number of them would still be there.
| Permit wrote:
| I guess my post was meant to capture the idea: "Do you find
| it suspicious that you are recommending CEO/Management be
| in it for the passion (and low pay!) but seemingly not
| expecting software engineers to make the same sacrifices?"
|
| > Would those who have passion stuck around if Google was
| ran by people who still had passion? I'd imagine a much
| greater number of them would still be there.
|
| Why not just lower compensation for software engineers?
| Then all the dispassionate perf-chasing engineers will
| leave for greener pastures and you'll only be left with
| people who are passionate about the products Google builds,
| no?
| dpark wrote:
| Thanks, Bain and Company.
| pohl wrote:
| They should also consider more "Oxidation" of Firefox
| components, if only because it lowers the bar for mere mortals
| to make open source contributions.
| paxys wrote:
| You are answering the question "how can Mozilla make more
| money", but that wasn't what was asked. Mozilla as a whole is
| profitable already, and revenues have been growing close to
| 100% year over year. As a company they are in great health.
|
| Except that's not what users care about when picking a browser.
| Google has too much money, tech, marketing and too big an
| existing user and device base to make any kind of direct
| competition feasible. Giving Mozilla a few hundred million
| dollars extra isn't going to make a difference.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| The subtitle of the question was "What would you do if you
| were in charge of Mozilla? How would you save Firefox?"
|
| My answer is an attempt at addressing these two questions. My
| goal wasn't to make Mozilla more profitable, but to ensure
| that it's focused on what _should_ be its core mission,
| rather than the mire of sideshows that they engage in at the
| moment.
|
| Also, I don't care how _Mozilla the amorphous blob of a
| corporation_ is doing. I care about how _Mozilla the vehicle
| for the survival, promotion and development of Firefox_ is
| doing, and that one seems to be on the brink of death if
| nothing is done to change the current course.
| paxys wrote:
| As a regular end user why do I care about what Mozilla's
| mission is? Apple makes shiny devices, Google gives me
| great free services, and in return I use their (perfectly
| great) browsers. What is one single reason to use Firefox?
|
| As long as these large companies continue to put effort
| into their browsers (which Microsoft didn't do with IE),
| users are simply never going to switch, the same way no one
| is using desktop Linux or LibreOffice or DuckDuckGo.
| joseph8th wrote:
| Uhhh... I use all of those things. And Firefox. It's less
| demanding on resources, and the containers are game-
| changing.
|
| Why choose Chrome? I can't think of a single reason to
| prefer it over FF, but have just provided 2 reasons to
| prefer the opposite
| kevwil wrote:
| | What is one single reason to use Firefox?
|
| Because f*ck monopolies?
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" What is one single reason to use Firefox?"_
|
| Better ad blocking.
| paxys wrote:
| Is it better than Chrome + uBlock Origin/Privacy
| Badger/Ghostery?
| II2II wrote:
| On mobile, definitely. I realize that many people like to
| complain about the mobile version of Firefox, but it
| offers extensions when their competition does not.
| beiller wrote:
| Can you install it on android chrome? I may be behind the
| times, last I checked you can't.
| jasondclinton wrote:
| Yes, because Firefox allows uBlock on Android. Browsing
| the mobile web with ad-block is such a huge quality
| improvement.
| cglong wrote:
| You could also use Brave or (Kiwi + uBlock Origin) on
| Android, both of which are Chromium derivatives.
| emn13 wrote:
| According to the uBlock author:
| https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-
| works-b...
|
| I'm not sure how critical this is in practice; but the
| way this evolved may be a symptom of the fact that
| Blink's authors' motivations align less well with those
| of an ad-block user than Firefox's authors' motivations
| do.
|
| The worry of course is that once there truly are no
| competing rendering engines, that google will no longer
| feel the pressure to put user's interests before those of
| sites of even itself. And because blink and webkit don't
| really compete (still nice to have two, but on virtually
| no devices are both engines serious alternatives), that
| day is pretty close; it's likely already having an
| impact.
| dontblink wrote:
| But why is that a worry? This happened before when IE6
| dominated. Firefox was liberation. It can be that again
| and has set precedent.
| glenstein wrote:
| It can, hypothetically. Whether that realistically would
| happen is another question (and I wish this distinction
| was more clearly grasped in conversations about these
| things!).
|
| As a strategy, it would be reckless in the extreme.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| There's no guarantee that lightning will strike twice in
| this case.
|
| When Firefox overtook IE6, Microsoft had been colossally
| mismanaging IE for years, which meant that IE had become
| a rusted husk of what it was in its glory days. This made
| for incredibly strong incentive for web developers to
| support an alternative, because having to develop for an
| utterly broken browser for an indefinite period of time
| was intensely unappealing. On the end user side of the
| equation, Firefox's incredible speed, UX improvements,
| and robust support for extensions did a lot to win people
| over.
|
| Fast forward to today. Google is infinitely more savvy
| with web developer relations than late-IE-era MS could've
| ever been -- they keep devs "fed" well enough with a
| steady stream of new shiny features that it's unlikely
| that they'd ever revolt. For users, the difference in
| speed and UX between Firefox is negligible or even works
| in Chrome's favor (which is tilting further in Chrome's
| direction with every site that's developed and tested
| only against Chrome).
|
| Additionally, the barrier to entry for new web engines is
| so high now that anybody trying to build a browser that
| is to Chrome what Firefox was to IE is almost certainly
| doomed to fail unless backed by a company with deep
| pockets and no expectation of return on investment for
| many years.
| dontblink wrote:
| This is an interesting argument. But this is effectively
| stating that Google has to be a good steward. If that is
| the case, then there really isn't much of a problem
| afaict (i.e. majority is happy).
|
| If Google is treating devs and users well, there is no
| reason to switch. It's when they falter on one,
| migrations can and will occur (given past history as
| experience).
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| They don't have to be a good steward. They can simply be
| a good-enough steward until they kill off all remaining
| competition (of which - hey, only Firefox is left!), then
| they can coast on minimum effort for as long as it takes
| for the web to die off and for the app-ification process
| of everything to complete. Then they can move on to
| greater, bolder things.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Exactly. Once there's nothing but Chrome, there can never
| be another significant challenger because the barrier to
| entry is too high.
|
| Additionally, even in the situation that Google is a
| "good steward", their total dominance means that there is
| no room for meaningfully different visions of the web to
| compete, which is very bad.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| What makes you think so?
|
| The DRM industry's answer to the previous waves of DRM
| and DRM-breaking was Denuvo.
|
| The copyright cartel's answer to copying via digital
| bypassing and the analogue hole was to make it all but
| mandatory to cryptographically secure every single
| element in the chain between their own servers and the
| pixels on our displays, and refuse to serve HD content if
| your hardware and software won't implement that. Not to
| mention, DMCA.
|
| Just because Firefox was the liberation from IE6, doesn't
| mean it will be proportionally as easy to liberate
| ourselves from Chromium if it does become the only
| browser engine.
| dontblink wrote:
| But there is no forcible capture of an audience. Users
| can download and use a browser pretty easily.
|
| Even in the Denuvo case, there is still pirate activity
| on games that employ it (albeit no 0 days).
| emn13 wrote:
| Browsers are complex. Just because Netscape managed to
| commit corporate harakiri in just the right way to leave
| a spoiler for Microsoft behind doesn't mean that'll
| happen again. The web is quite different now from then,
| and much more centralized. If google were to dominate; or
| to simply share the pie in a non-competitive truce with
| apple, well, users would have very little leverage over
| google/apple whenever new developments were to slowly
| evolve the web into a whatever benefits the corporate
| bottom line over users interests; for instance by
| tracking users or playing gatekeeper. Note that that can
| happen even now, but more insidiously: by _preventing_
| evolution that might protect users from exploitation.
|
| Browser complexity is an issue in a more direct, plainly
| technical way too. Even from a purely technical
| perspective it's just nice to see alternatives, and the
| world is a big place; the extra investment spread over
| the now huge online economy is surely worth simply the
| extra reliability that such reproducibility brings to
| design of the web fundamentals and discovering new,
| useful platform features.
|
| If you only have one implementation, it's very easy to
| accidentally have oversights in the spec that in effect
| render the true spec "whatever the browser does"; and
| while I applaud the pragmatism in that approach, I don't
| applaud the design-by-coincidence that then results in
| some pretty bad api's being permanent gotcha's in new
| webdev. Some of the API's that resulted from MS + apples
| more... "innovative" moments are pretty terrible, and
| here to stay.
|
| Basically: having a bit of competition is just a good
| idea for all kinds of reasons, especially when the
| downsides are... well what exactly? Why would you want a
| blink monoculture?
| bennysomething wrote:
| Ha! Was gonna say exactly this! It's the only reason I
| use it! Used to like the add-ons then they broke them all
| in an update two years ago
| smolder wrote:
| I actually do use duck duck go. There doesn't seem to be
| any advantage to using G search anymore, the web has
| reached a critical mass of trash that just overwhelms
| unspecific searches.
| autoexec wrote:
| Yeah, DDG can even give better results at time than
| google does. Google search has gone from being
| exceptional to becoming ad filled trash. Every other
| major search engine (directly or indirectly) gets their
| results in part from Google, but since most spammers are
| focused on Google the father from google you get the
| better results can be.
| sgc wrote:
| I recently switched to try out ddg (again). Local search
| is terrible. Other searches have at least been ok.
| Nothing so far seems worlds better, but there does seem
| to be a bit less spam in the results.
| senko wrote:
| > What is one single reason to use Firefox?
|
| I have many reasons for using Firefox.
|
| However the one reason that instantly pops into my mind
| is containers. I can easily have multiple "accounts"
| without mucking around with multiple browser profiles.
| This alone is worth it switching from Chrome to Firefox
| for me.
| throwawaynay wrote:
| Once Google have a total monopoly there is nothing
| stopping them from making adblocking impossible and add
| even more user tracking/data gathering.
|
| It's a stance.
|
| And tbh I don't see much difference with Firefox when
| using Chrome (besides all the data that I can see leaving
| my computer to go to google servers even when I'm not on
| any website)
| autoexec wrote:
| > What is one single reason to use Firefox?
|
| Security, privacy, and customization are why I use it. It
| takes a lot of work to do it, but you can lock down
| firefox very effectively and you have more freedom to
| decide what your browser is and isn't allowed to do with
| firefox than anyone else.
|
| In the end, what we're missing in browsers is a browser
| that works for you instead of exploiting you to make
| money. Out of the box, firefox doesn't hit that mark
| today, but at least it can be beaten into submission. No
| other browser gives users that kind of control.
| anothernewdude wrote:
| > the same way no one is using desktop Linux or
| LibreOffice or DuckDuckGo.
|
| Have you seen how bad Google results are these days?
| kristov wrote:
| I use Firefox because I believe its important for there
| to be more than one browser implementation (rendering
| engine) in the world. If you believe the same, go and
| download and use Firefox, even if it inconveniences you
| to do so. Now, about Skia...
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| >What is one single reason to use Firefox?
|
| I want to use a browser that does not sabotage my ability
| to make it work how I want in order to protect the main
| business of its parent corporation.
|
| Not a snazzy headline I know.
| bradyo wrote:
| With enough investment, Firefox could also innovate and
| introduce features that aren't in Chrome or Safari to
| actually win users back
| paxys wrote:
| The problem with building a web browser is that if you
| introduce too many new features then you are breaking
| with web standards. The most you can do is add some user
| conveniences like sync, themes and extensions, but those
| don't go far enough to make enough users consider
| switching. A browser can, by definition, never have a
| "killer app".
| panta wrote:
| It's not user-facing features that move users from one
| browser to another, it's the number of websites they use
| that don't break with one or the other.
| autoexec wrote:
| Because I consider websites with obnoxious ads and a
| bunch of tracking "broken" Firefox gives people a lot of
| reason to switch, but unless they try it for themselves
| they have no idea what they're missing or how the pages
| they visit would look and be improved without all that
| junk.
| panta wrote:
| I agree, and imho firefox should even bet more on user
| privacy (for example adopting strong measures against
| fingerprinting, and migrating away from google as a
| default search engine).
| brnt wrote:
| > Google gives me great free services
|
| 2005 called, they want their Google-enthusiasm back.
| nwah1 wrote:
| They could pivot to compete with the Big Tech conglomerates
| in general.
|
| Provide their own suite of integrated tools, search engines,
| communication platforms, and so on. But with a privacy-
| focused and ad-free approach.
|
| DuckDuckGo already proved there is an appetite for something
| like this.
|
| They could go further, and remain relevant and viable in the
| way that DDG is, even if they never again are the most
| popular browser.
| CamouflagedKiwi wrote:
| The last thing Mozilla needs is to spend more time
| pretending they're a big tech company and can compete with
| those guys. They should focus on Firefox (as GP said), not
| build a communication platform that will then fail versus
| Signal/WhatsApp/Hangouts/Teams/etc.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| Yup. Someone else will likely do a better job building
| those. Mozilla's (and only Mozilla's) core competency is
| browser building, and they should stick to it. Anyone can
| build a communicator, but building a full browser engine
| is becoming a forgotten skill.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| The decline of Firefox started with Chrome's JavaScript
| engine, who was years ahead of Firefox's performance. The
| focus on JavaScript-heavy websites was already growing,
| and Firefox was slow to catch up.
|
| Now they're about the same performance-wise, but the mind
| share lost was brutal. there was a period that the only
| advantages Firefox had over Chrome were memory use and
| extensions, and they had to get rid of the NPAPI
| extensions for security reasons.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| Pivoting would kill Firefox, and this is exactly what we
| should be trying to save if we care about some version of
| the open web. Indeed, I'm advocating for pivoting _away_
| from all of these other things, and towards Firefox as the
| one and only concern for the organisation.
| dralley wrote:
| DuckDuckGo is to a large degree a wrapper around Bing. Why
| do you think Mozilla has a chance here when even Microsoft
| failed?
|
| And I'm not even talking about on a technical basis, Bing
| is pretty OK. The marketing required to displace Google
| would be inconceivably large.
| afavour wrote:
| > DuckDuckGo already proved there is an appetite for
| something like this.
|
| _An_ appetite, yes. But not a major one. A privacy-
| focused, ad-free approach would be hugely appealing to the
| HN crowd. But I'm less convinced about the public at large.
| mgkimsal wrote:
| market to multiple verticals.
|
| schools, local/regional/state governments, non-profits -
| types of orgs that have some long-term interest in
| privacy.
| dralley wrote:
| >schools
|
| The same schools that went all in with Chromebooks?
| mgkimsal wrote:
| No. Different ones. I'd probably also look at non K-12
| schools.
| tedivm wrote:
| They get most of their money from advertising deals with
| those major companies (such as by putting google in as the
| default search engine). Competing against them would likely
| result in those companies removing the advertising dollars
| and tanking the business.
| filoleg wrote:
| > Competing against them would likely result in those
| companies removing the advertising dollars and tanking
| the business.
|
| Google paying Apple massive amounts of money to keep
| Google Search the default search engine on their devices
| doesn't seem to be affected by the fact that Pixel phones
| (or Android as a whole) and iPhones are competing. Though
| I gotta admit that it could be because Google doesn't
| have the overwhelming winner position in that market, as
| opposed to the web browser market.
|
| However, I still find Google pulling the funding
| unlikely, given (afaik) the reason for Google
| "financially supporting" Mozilla is exactly because
| Google is afraid of being legally called out as a
| monopoly in the web browser market. The only point at
| which I can see Google pulling that funding is if Mozilla
| ends up on the same level as Chrome in terms of posing a
| danger to Google's dominance. At which point, Mozilla has
| already won and doesn't need Google that much to sustain
| itself, so I wouldn't pose it as a strong concern.
| nwah1 wrote:
| But they only get that because they have a market share
| for now. After they don't, which will be the case soon
| enough, then they are toast.
|
| But if they can garner 5% market share via this new
| approach then they save themselves from destruction long
| term.
| camjohnson26 wrote:
| I know many people who used to use Firefox and moved on to
| Brave. Brave has a mission that is easier to get behind and
| till it's unclear what Firefox is trying to be.
| greatgib wrote:
| I think that the point of the GP is not necessarily about
| money, but to have the structure focus on Firefox. ie that it
| should be the source and the objective of the funding to have
| all the attention that it needs.
| TAForObvReasons wrote:
| The real (and often downvoted) answer is that Mozilla
| compromised on their core values. A "death by a thousand
| cuts", as it were.
|
| For me, it started back when "sponsored tiles" were first
| announced in 2014. On the surface it was obviously
| advertisements, but many defenders tried to argue that it was
| a "good thing"
|
| Then there was the proprietary Pocket extension baked into
| the browser with no easy removal. Again, many defenders tried
| to argue it was a "good thing"
|
| Then the "studies" channel was used to push a Mr Robot ad.
| It's unclear how it was aligned with the values, but
| defenders tried to argue it was a "good thing".
|
| They partnered with Cliqz to collect data and make
| recommendations. Again, defenders tried to argue it was a
| "good thing"
|
| They partnered with Booking.com to push advertisements, going
| so far as to argue that they didn't receive any monetary
| compensation and that it was just a "social experiment".
| Again, defenders tried to argue it was a "good thing"
|
| This is just a sampling of the events in the last 8 years
| (sponsored tiles was 2014). Every single time, they may have
| received some sort of benefit, but a number of users who
| bought into firefox for the security and privacy aspects ...
| felt betrayed and left. Because if it isn't about the
| privacy, what is the USP of firefox? "Not google" is only a
| small part of the user base.
| asoneth wrote:
| I don't recall very many people defending Mozilla on the Mr
| Robot or the Booking.com missteps. Even current and ex-
| Mozillans lambasted them for those.
|
| I recall a few people defending the sponsored titles (or
| half-hearted defenses about how it's bad but not _that_ bad
| since you can turn them off) but those defenses seemed to
| be largely drowned out by the overwhelmingly negative
| response.
|
| The only of those that I recall having anything close to
| "many defenders" was the Pocket integration.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| I fully agree. If the consistent messaging is meant to be
| "use this browser, it's private and respects you", but it's
| then compromised by advertising and data abuse, it seems
| hypocritical and damages adoption of the browser.
| dralley wrote:
| > The real (and often downvoted) answer is that Mozilla
| compromised on their core values. A "death by a thousand
| cuts", as it were.
|
| I expect it's downvoted because it's laughable. 99% of
| browser users don't give a shit about those things. If a
| poll were to be taken of the HN users who switched to
| Chrome, I doubt even a quarter would cite that as the
| reason.
|
| It was indeed a death by a thousand cuts, but the thousand
| cuts were
|
| * popup advertisements for Chrome on the frontpage of the
| most visited website on the planet
|
| * Google paying off Adobe, AVG, Avast and others to make
| their installers include Chrome using disgusting dark
| patterns
|
| * Android, the collapse of desktop browsing in comparsion
| to mobile browsing, and people that will just default to
| using the same browser on their laptop/desktop as on their
| phone
|
| * Netflix DRM that didn't work on Firefox for a few months
|
| * Youtube, Google Meet and Google Docs refusing to work
| properly on Firefox
|
| * The word "Google" becoming as synonymous with simply
| using the internet as the internet explorer icon was in the
| 2000s
|
| * Chrome was and to some extent still is legitimately
| snappier than Firefox
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| Why not both? Firefox was really heavily damaged by both
| internal and external factors/attacks.
| glenstein wrote:
| Agreed, these are the macro-level events that really
| drove user adoption. The narrative (especially the Mr.
| Robot thing!) are totally out of proportion to their
| actual impact on user adoption and aren't the all-or-
| nothing tests of credibility or integrity that people are
| suggesting they are.
| jozvolskyef wrote:
| > * Youtube, Google Meet and Google Docs refusing to work
| properly on Firefox
|
| One vote for Google Meet being the reason. I didn't want
| me dropping out of meetings and rejoining in a different
| browser to become a regular thing.
| Ironlink wrote:
| I use Google Meet with Firefox on my M1 Mac every day.
| The only thing that doesn't work for me is camera
| backgrounds. Would be nice to be able to share audio when
| presenting, but I almost never present.
| jacquesm wrote:
| 99% of browser users is not relevant, the question is how
| big a percentage of FireFox' users (the ones that remain,
| that is). Because if you lose those that is a much harder
| thing to recover from than to not win back the other 99%
| that you don't have anyway. And I suspect that the FF
| users of old care very much, though, of course I'm only
| speaking for myself here.
| dralley wrote:
| >99% of browser users is not relevant
|
| You should do that math again.
|
| >And I suspect that the FF users of old care very much
|
| But do they? Firefox's rise was largely due to IE6 being
| pure trash, and the average user of a web browser in 2008
| being a lot more knowledgeable than the average user
| today.
|
| Marketshare, by definition, is the share of the market.
| The market has expanded dramatically, but desktop
| browsing itself has plummeted, and a lot of users are
| just going to default to whatever they're using on their
| primary device (their phone), which is Google. "Google"
| is synonomous with using the internet in the same way
| that the internet explorer logo used to be in the mid
| 2000s.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > You should do that math again.
|
| No, I don't.
|
| Even if it is one percent (which I highly doubt) and that
| one percent is committed enough then that's enough of a
| core to guarantee the success of the project. It doesn't
| need a team of 1000 to build a browser, much less to keep
| an existing one patched and rolling along.
| PeterisP wrote:
| Quite on the contrary, even a team of 1000 won't be
| sufficient to maintain compatibility if your marketshare
| is so low that website and webapp builders ignore your
| concerns.
|
| A non-Chromium browser needs to maintain a critical mass
| of users to be sufficiently large to ensure that the
| world wants to stay compatible with it, and having 1% of
| marketshare is not sufficient for that, no matter how
| committed these users are - if firefox drops to 1%, then
| it becomes irrelevant and the project has failed at its
| goals as the "web standards" become equivalent to
| whatever chromium does.
|
| Browsers get influence to keep the web as we want it to
| be mostly based on the quantity of browser users which
| websites want to attract and keep; without that all the
| best code in the world is useless and doesn't even give
| you a seat at the table, much less a strong say for how
| the de-facto standard web practices will change.
| autoexec wrote:
| > Quite on the contrary, even a team of 1000 won't be
| sufficient to maintain compatibility if your marketshare
| is so low that website and webapp builders ignore your
| concerns.
|
| As a browser maker your "concerns" should really be
| web/internet standards. If websites and webapp builders
| aren't complying with standards and are building their
| stuff to only work in non-standard compliant browsers
| that's a separate problem that no web browser can solve.
| jacquesm wrote:
| That's not how web standards work - or how they ought to
| work, for that matter.
| mulmen wrote:
| > Get a CEO/upper management that are in it for the passion,
| not the money, and cut their salaries (bonuses tied directly to
| increase in Firefox market share).
|
| If Mozilla is just Firefox then why to they need a CEO at all?
| Why does a web browser need an executive team? It doesn't make
| any sense to me. Linux doesn't have a CEO. Python doesn't have
| a CEO. Postgres doesn't have a CEO.
|
| But all those projects have commercial support in some way
| because other companies rely on them and provide resources.
| It's unclear to me how Firefox achieves the same. Maybe that's
| a question a CEO _can_ answer.
|
| _If_ you think you need a CEO then it makes perfect sense to
| me to pay them a competitive salary. For the same reason you
| should pay your devs a competitive salary. You can 't just say
| "they should work for less". That's unfair and unrealistic.
| Either you need one and should pay for a good one, or you don't
| need one at all.
|
| > Donate the major money drains that aren't Firefox to the
| Apache Foundation or another worthy custodian.
|
| Or how about they donate Firefox to Apache?
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| > If Mozilla is just Firefox then why to they need a CEO at
| all? Why does a web browser need an executive team? It
| doesn't make any sense to me. Linux doesn't have a CEO.
| Python doesn't have a CEO. Postgres doesn't have a CEO.
|
| It doesn't matter what the top position is called: CEO, the
| Grand Warlock of Yendor, or Benevolent Dictator For Life. CEO
| [?] whoever is in charge and entrusted with enough authority
| that they can elevate or kill whatever they are managing, and
| that was probably the intended meaning.
|
| > Or how about they donate Firefox to Apache?
|
| Apache has a reputation as the graveyard of open source
| software. If Firefox gets donated to them, it's curtains.
| Maybe if they went elsewhere it could work.
|
| Or, they could create a Totally-Not-Mozilla Foundation and
| bring trustworthy old-timers with the right vision on board.
| Then they could either do a hostile takeover aka LibreOffice,
| or coax the original Mozilla Foundation into handing over the
| brand peacefully.
| alan-hn wrote:
| >Or, they could create a Totally-Not-Mozilla Foundation and
| bring trustworthy old-timers with the right vision on
| board. Then they could either do a hostile takeover aka
| LibreOffice, or coax the original Mozilla Foundation into
| handing over the brand peacefully.
|
| And perhaps restart servo development?
| mccorrinall wrote:
| I wish they would gift Thunderbird a few new features, such as
| Mozilla Account Support. :(
| missedthecue wrote:
| Cutting organizational expenses might be good for unrelated
| reasons, but I don't see how that increases the market share of
| Firefox, and I can think of a few ways it could _decrease_
| their market share.
| godshatter wrote:
| My goal, if I were CEO, would be to reduce organizational
| expenses (and increase other forms of revenue) to the point
| where the 100s of millions of dollars from Google ($562
| million in 2017) was not required for covering the cost of
| firefox development and spend all those millions on
| advertising firefox until Google stopped giving it. I can't
| see where having such a large part of your finances coming
| from your biggest direct competitor could ever be a good
| thing, but at least spending it on increasing firefox's
| market share directly through advertising would have a
| certain irony associated with it. At least of the Alanis
| Morisette variety.
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| I guess the idea would be to only cut organizational expenses
| that aren't serving the purpose of increasing firefox market
| share.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| If the goal is to plow all available resources into Firefox,
| then cutting down on expenses that don't directly or
| indirectly support the existence of Firefox seems key.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| What he said was: get rid of the people who are not
| interested in making the Firefox browser better. Get rid of
| the distractions. Focus on the browser.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > [...] (bonuses tied directly to increase in Firefox market
| share).
|
| This might be a perverse incentive depending on if your goal is
| to make Firefox a _good_ browser or just a popular one.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| True, but at this point it doesn't feel to me that the
| community has that much to lose. If we're truly sub-5% like
| Statcounter says, then as long as we minimally muzzle this
| particular paperclip maximiser (say, the browser engine must
| remain Gecko or an in-house project and cannot be Blink, user
| privacy must be no worse than currently, selling data or
| "partnering with" third parties is disallowed) and let it run
| for a couple of years, at least we'll get a viable browser
| out of it.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > If we're truly sub-5% like Statcounter says
|
| You know, that's the real question we should make before
| going on this entire exercise. Are the usage statistics any
| reliable?
|
| Firefox is the one browser that blocks the things those
| sites use to measure market share. Why would we expect
| their results to be real?
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| I think they are closer to the truth than not.
|
| Despite my constant advocacy for Firefox for over a
| decade, a family member whom I respect greatly told me
| directly and in no uncertain terms that they do not wish
| to use Firefox and wish to switch to Chrome instead
| because of numerous issues they have observed. And the
| worst part is that as much as I wanted it to, Firefox
| wasn't up to it. I cannot help but think that this is a
| microcosm of what's happening more broadly.
| javitury wrote:
| What do you think of Mozilla Developer Network (MDN) or Rust?
| Do you think they were a mistake?
| eternityforest wrote:
| Rust is the most interesting thing to come from Mozilla in
| years.
|
| It was from an earlier era where they innovated instead of
| just campaigned against powerful web features and tried to be
| a FOSS version of Apple.
| brundolf wrote:
| Another interesting idea: what if they courted alternate
| browser projects and/or environments like electron to use the
| Firefox engine the way those currently tend to use Chromium?
|
| I don't know if Firefox is currently harder to integrate than
| Chromium, or if they would just need to gain some sort of edge
| (no pun intended). But they could for example:
|
| - Provide first-class documentation for integrating
|
| - Provide some kind of stripped-down version that's optimized
| for Electron-type scenarios; perhaps they could make it more
| resource-light for this usecase than Chromium is
|
| Gaining marketshare this way could garner better support from
| websites and/or libraries, and might also prompt corporate
| support from invested companies
| zsims wrote:
| Some of the reasons for why it's not used as a base were
| discussed in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29900496
| brundolf wrote:
| Welp, there you go
| jms703 wrote:
| This.
|
| However, I think they need to answer the question, why should
| Firefox exist? If there is no compelling reason, well, there
| you go. If there is, double down on that make that reason
| shine. They have wasted so much money on the wrong things, IMO.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| If Firefox dies, the open web dies. It's that simple. For the
| open web to remain open, there needs to be at least one more
| truly independent source of authority regarding how a
| rendering engine should work. Everyone else has thrown in the
| towel and abdicated that authority to Google by embedding
| Blink.
|
| Google is either actively malicious to the open web, or
| doesn't care about it other than as something they can strip-
| mine as a revenue source. They sufficiently diversified into
| mobile and Android that the death of the open web would be
| but a blip to them.
|
| IMO, Firefox should consciously be that alternate source of
| authority. How they accomplish that organisationally is
| irrelevant, what is relevant that their browser as a whole is
| competitive and focused enough that it stops haemorrhaging
| market share, and can start to slowly rebuild it as people
| look for a way out of Google's ecosystem.
| vimy wrote:
| Why does everyone always forget about Safari in these
| discussions? Safari has a respectable marketshare on mobile
| / tablets. Not as good on desktop but it's not a lost
| cause.
| dralley wrote:
| "Apple" and "open" don't belong in the same sentence.
| Miner49er wrote:
| Probably because you can only use Safari on Apple
| products.
| yucky wrote:
| I've never seen Safari on an Android or Windows device. I
| would imagine this is on the list of things that is
| technically possible, but not a real world use case.
|
| So that's why.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| It's not a relevant browser. The last time I have seen
| Safari installed on a Windows machine was likely 2013-14,
| if not earlier. It doesn't have an Android version (which
| makes it less relevant on smartphones). It doesn't
| support Linux, which lots of the power user/tech
| trailblazer crowd is using. It's not open source, unlike
| Firefox or Chromium. It lags in features (which to be
| fair, isn't bad when they impact privacy).
|
| I don't think there's a good case to be made for Safari
| outside of Apple devices.
| wila wrote:
| That's because there hasn't been a Safari for Windows in
| over a decade :)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safari_(web_browser)
| xemdetia wrote:
| I think the other thing that makes it less relevant is
| that Safari is using WebKit and at this point its just a
| WebKit derivative. Part of the value that Firefox
| provides for better or worse is alternate components that
| force things to actually try and meet standards.
| Shared404 wrote:
| >they need to answer the question, why should Firefox exist?
| If there is no compelling reason, well, there you go. If
| there is, double down on that make that reason shine.
|
| Unfortunately, that reason (browser engine diversity)is
| compelling to people who understand the situation, but not
| general consumers - and it's impossible to make general
| consumers care, unless maybe Firefox went for an edgy "rebel
| against the man" vibe.
| carapace wrote:
| I feel like I understand the situation but I'm doubtful
| that browser engine diversity is compelling. It seems like
| duplicate effort. As long as Chromium accepts pull
| requests, what's the problem with browser monoculture?
|
| (In case it's not clear, I'm asking in earnest. I'm not
| trolling.)
|
| - - - -
|
| edit: Okay, pull requests alone are not enough, but the
| objections y'all are raising seem like they could all be
| answered by forking, no? If Google upsets their users then
| a different browser has a chance to gain users:
|
| - Ad-blocking
|
| - Better extension API
|
| - Maintaining backwards compatibility
|
| - No Manifest V3
|
| - Better vision of the web than Google
|
| In other words, effort expended on duplicate functionality
| for it's own sake is wasted. Why not let Google do the
| heavy lifting and then _improve_ on their work, rather than
| trying to compete head-to-head on the whole enchilada (of a
| complete browser engine)?
| orangecat wrote:
| _As long as Chromium accepts pull requests, what 's the
| problem with browser monoculture?_
|
| For example, Chromium won't be accepting pull requests to
| un-break the extension API
| (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/12/chrome-users-
| beware-ma...).
| [deleted]
| Shared404 wrote:
| I know it's in bad taste to complain about downvotes on
| HN, but why is this downvoted?
|
| It's a legitimate question, in a realm that many people
| _including in HN 's general demographic_ don't consider.
|
| If someone wants to learn something, why not help them
| instead of downvoting into oblivion because they don't
| know or disagree with something you know/believe?
|
| Edit to respond to edit:
|
| The biggest reason I think is that there's no way a fork
| would survive - the only way that it could would be if
| Microsoft/Apple/Facebook/$SOMEBODY_WITH_MONEY threw their
| weight behind it, which is unlikely, because any change
| which harms users will either help or be neutral to any
| of these companies.
| carapace wrote:
| > The biggest reason I think is that there's no way a
| fork would survive
|
| If the fork offers something compelling to entice users
| then it would presumably survive, otherwise not, but
| would they save FF then?
|
| The whole problem under discussion here is that FF is
| losing marketshare. The things that differentiate FF in
| the minds of the mass consumers aren't directly related
| to the browser engine. Chrome/Chromium is arguably better
| on the fundamentals (speed, security, reliability) so why
| not take their core and implement user-attracting
| features on top of it?
|
| I think the idea of having competing _FOSS_ browser
| engines is largely a holdover from the bad old days of
| Internet Explorer. The main reason that browser engine
| diversity might be useful is that it makes for a certain
| robustness in the face of errors and crashes. If everyone
| is using the same browser then everyone is vulnerable to
| the same zero-days, for example.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| I think it's the opposite. A lot of the HN demographic
| has in fact mulled this over time and time again, and has
| no patience for those who don't account for the
| possibility that one day, the monopolist will stop being
| a nice guy when there is every incentive to do that.
|
| I would rather educate than downvote, but downvoting has
| gotten to be more emotional than based on the site
| guidelines, so not everyone sticks to that.
| carapace wrote:
| (FWIW, I don't give a crap about up/downvotes, I want to
| engage in a deep discussion.)
|
| Back in the day when it was FF vs. Microsoft Internet
| Explorer the need for a competing FOSS browser seemed
| very compelling, but I don't think FF won marketshare on
| that, rather it won on merits: FF was _better_ than IE.
|
| Today the situation seems different. To me it seems to
| make sense to let the engine become a standardized
| component (developed FOSS-style) incorporating work by
| Google for speed, security, and reliability, and let the
| diversity and competition happen on a higher, more user-
| facing level, in terms of policy and politics and UI/UX
| and so on.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| The problem with browser monoculture is that it will
| erode the authority of the spec over time. Having
| multiple independent implementations of the same spec
| means that developers won't be able to merely code to one
| browser and treat it's quirks as gospel.
|
| A good example of what happens if you only have one
| implementation is Flash Player. People programmed to the
| implementation and not the (non-existant) spec. So any
| reimplementation of Flash Player is largely an exercise
| in chasing after implementation bugs in the Player that
| badly-developed movies rely upon. Even Adobe's official
| internal documentation on SWF and AVM2 is woefully
| incomplete, because the actual "spec" _is_ the
| proprietary source code of the player and whatever tribal
| knowledge had been accrued from decades of maintaining
| it.
|
| The sole implementation in this case (Chromium) being
| Free Software does alleviate this a little, but the spec
| is still more of a suggestion than a reality.
| cmeacham98 wrote:
| Because Google is still in control. Saying that Chromium
| "accepts pull requests" is misleading. That's true, but
| the overall direction and large architectural decisions
| are made by Google.
|
| For example, see Manifest V3 (and the deprecation/removal
| of old versions). Almost everybody that hears about it
| disagrees - users, extension developers, etc. However,
| despite it's popularity being as low as could be, Google
| is still putting it in.
|
| Today, if I see an article about FLOC (or whatever
| they're calling it now) and don't like it I can go and
| download Firefox. In a Chromium-only world I'm SOL.
| baq wrote:
| > As long as Chromium accepts pull requests, what's the
| problem with browser monoculture?
|
| you've ansewered yourself: as long as chromium accepts
| pull requests. the day firefox dies, chromium stops
| accepting pull requests.
| CleverLikeAnOx wrote:
| A browser monoculture allows one entity to dictate how
| the web works. Even if you can open a pull request
| against Chromium, that doesn't mean it will get accepted
| without the approval of Google.
|
| Right now, backwards compatibility is protected by
| competing browsers. If one breaks backwards compatibility
| too often, it risks becoming known for having sites not
| work on it.
|
| In a monoculture, Google could take aggressive moves to
| prevent ad-blocking. In a monoculture, Google could push
| more ad focused features like FloC. Google could
| integrate more ways to allow browser fingerprint (not
| saying they would, but there would be no recourse).
|
| With competition Google knows that people could balk at
| any point so they must balance their interests with their
| users' interests. In a monoculture, they wouldn't have
| to.
| zsims wrote:
| We're already there. 4% Firefox market share may as well
| be zero. What is the current recourse for Chrome pushing
| a monoculture? I don't think it matters today what
| Firefox does or objects to.
| eternityforest wrote:
| So fork it if they do anything bad.
|
| In what scenario is maintaining a fork not way easier
| than a whole separate engine?
|
| So far I think I like how they handle Chromium more than
| I like what Mozilla is trying to do.
| captn3m0 wrote:
| They should do a Apple styl "Think Different" campaign.
| loudtieblahblah wrote:
| If all that is left is chromium, then you can kiss what is left
| of web standards good bye. Google will set the standard, taking
| input from any other tech player big enough to have a seat at
| the table.
|
| Its bad enough ISO certification boards and official positions
| of the W3C can be bought or corrupted. Let there be only one
| engine, controlled by Google? And even the pretense of a open
| and fair playing field goes away.
|
| Open source and open protocols were not resistant enough to for
| profit corporations.
|
| Now our standards are dwindling, open source projects and
| standards boards re completely co-opted, and the conversation
| on mailing lists and forums sounds like the never ending
| squabbling and finger wagging from your Fortune 500 HR
| department.
|
| Foss and open standards have been captured by capital. And it
| shows in the culture.
|
| Hell, it shows in the conversations around places like this.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| Exactly. This is why Mozilla, as the only credible custodian
| of the only credible Chromium/Blink/WebKit competitor, needs
| to wake up and die trying to stop that future, if needed. If
| they lose that war, there is no reason for them to exist over
| Brave or Vivaldi, for example.
| dmitriid wrote:
| > If all that is left is chromium, then you can kiss what is
| left of web standards good bye.
|
| Well, we've already done that. Google a) dominates the
| standards bodies and b) releases "standard" features that are
| only standard because Chrome says so
| antupis wrote:
| Yeah we would get "IE6" from google not like first 2-4 years
| but soonish.
| ameminator wrote:
| I think that's a bit too far - for example, Thunderbird is a
| great web client. I do think they should have found a way to
| hold onto the Servo team and make that engine more useable and
| better than the base chromium engine. If they had been able to
| keep the Rust foundation on board, it would have also made
| sense.
|
| However, I do agree that their leadership has made terrible
| decisions and they've absolutely focused on the wrong products.
| Brakenshire wrote:
| The obvious thing to do was continue to invest in Servo. If
| they could have produced a parallel layout engine, which
| could provide app like animations without fiddling on desktop
| and Android, and then make that easy to embed, they could
| have made real inroads into blink/webkit.
| ameminator wrote:
| You're absolutely right. The fact that so many other
| browsers are based on chromium, is a blatant condemnation
| of how the Servo engine has not met an important demand. If
| Servo was properly useable outside of Firefox, we would
| have seen more open-source browsers use it.
| hackerfromthefu wrote:
| Yeah but Mozilla has been subverted, since the current CEO
| got on they are a lightning rod for Google against browser
| monopoly legal attention, while trying everything possible
| to neuter them from being a real threat.
|
| Thus she cut the thing most likely to provide a real threat
| to chrome.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| Thunderbird was on my mind when I was writing this. I think
| it ultimately comes down to whether they can afford any
| missteps or side concerns at all - and if the answer is "no",
| then Thunderbird must be cut loose no matter its value. It
| can always be mothballed until the times get better, or it
| can even be given "on loan" for some fixed duration to
| another trusted FOSS foundation and re-adopted when the time
| is up.
|
| As good as Thunderbird is, I wouldn't want it to be anywhere
| near the top of Mozilla's priorities list right now.
| andrewf wrote:
| I think Thunderbird gets to piggyback on some Mozilla
| infrastructure - hosting, CI/CD, receiving donations into a
| dedicated Thunderbird pool - but has been mostly cut out as
| you describe for some time.
| https://blog.thunderbird.net/2012/07/the-community-is-
| standi...
| smorgusofborg wrote:
| Thunderbird has always been their opportunity to
| demonstrate their stack is a general ecosystem, but it's
| headaches show that their stack isn't a good ecosystem for
| anything that isn't Firefox.
|
| They shouldn't be trying to build thunderbird for its own
| sake, they should be demonstrating their equivalent for
| electron and feel pressured to make it no worse for users
| than the current Thunderbird, but attractive/stable enough
| for outside developers to choose over electron/etc.
| maverick74 wrote:
| phrz wrote:
| In corporate leadership, homophobia is not a "personal view,"
| it is a matter of governance and directly impacts talent
| acquisition. Further, Brave browser is a Chromium browser
| that does little to stop the browser engine monopoly at risk
| here--it does nothing meaningful for browser diversity. Not
| one comprehensible point is made here besides, I suppose,
| treating Eich's firing as a political issue.
| maverick74 wrote:
| [deleted]
| topspin wrote:
| "- Get a CEO/upper management that are in it for the passion,
| not the money"
|
| That has to be the first on the list, because that is the
| prerequisite for everything else.
|
| Unfortunately there is no mechanism to achieve this within
| Mozilla. The people that need to go won't; they've got their
| trophy titles and they've feathered their nest as they want it.
| Thus Mozilla and Firefox with it are doomed.
|
| Solving that would take a fork, just like it did with Netscape.
| It would also require an endowment of capital to fund a core of
| developers for years just to catch up with blink/webkit/etc. At
| this point the best plan might be to adopt the latter.
|
| Thing is the market is producing this without Mozilla. Brave
| and others are delivering real alternatives to Chrome, Safari
| and Edge.
|
| So at this point what is the value proposition of saving
| Firefox? That's a rhetorical question; I get it. I just don't
| know if it's enough to attract the developers and funding to do
| it. It's conceivable; one could imagine a leader with the
| passion to inspire people and attract the funding and
| developers.
|
| Maybe that person exists. If so they won't be doing it under
| Mozilla.
| onion2k wrote:
| This set of policies would spell the end of Mozilla, and the
| end of Firefox unless the community (or another org) picked it
| up. Mozilla is mostly funded by search engine companies, the
| largest being Google, and any direct attempt to compete with
| Chrome would probably end a significant chunk of that funding.
|
| Like it or not, unless Mozilla does what Google sees as
| acceptable, Firefox can't continue. The only way to turn
| Firefox around and continue development would be to find an
| alternative benefactor.
| wolpoli wrote:
| I would instead argue that Firefox's Gecko engine is beyond
| saving and that any money invested in it now would be better
| donated to other community projects because there isn't enough
| resource to catch up. Sticking with Gecko will eventually lead
| to the dismise of Firefox the organization.
|
| Microsoft, with their resource and their ability to bundle
| Microsoft Edge in with Windows, couldn't get any appreciable
| amount of marketshare. Firefox, with less resource than
| Microsoft, won't fare any better.
|
| Rebuilding Firefox with Chronium would salvage whatever the
| mindshare/marketshare left. Then Firefox could still wield some
| influence with their marketshare and the threat of forking
| Chronium.
| eternityforest wrote:
| I'm 100% onboard with Chromium being the universal de facto
| standard for the web as long as it's open.
|
| Really, all I want from a browser is Chromium, full features
| without disabled APIs, with a few extras like Sync, P2P
| stuff, and codecs, fully open.
|
| Right now, I think anyone with name recognition and marketing
| ability could probably develop a winning browser for 50k or
| so. Just... take chromium, add sync, and an ad blocker for
| high bandwidth video ads. Done. You have made the world's
| best browser, the rest is business stuff.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> We as a community, cannot afford to let Firefox languish
| until the only browsers in the world are Chromium derivatives.
| The diversity of truly independent browser engines is far too
| important to give up without a fight.
|
| There are a lot of people oh HN who agree with that but then
| use a different browser for whatever reason. I feel like these
| people are being very hypocritical and should use what they
| want to succeed. Firefox is very usable and increasing its
| market share starts with you. Or to use another cliche - be the
| change you wish to see.
|
| That's not to say Mozilla doesn't need to get their shit
| together, but if market share drops too low they will not be
| able to get money to do the things they need to do.
| garciasn wrote:
| They offer nothing I cannot get elsewhere and thus I have no
| reason to switch.
|
| When it first came out, Firefox was faster, lighter and
| offered way better function than the alternatives at the
| time. Since then, competition has been fierce in the browser
| market and they've done little to distinguish themselves in
| any major way from their competitive set.
|
| Until they do something so vastly incomparable in the market,
| they gonna continue to falter.
| captn3m0 wrote:
| On Desktop, I can agree. But uBlock Origin on Android is
| only possible on Firefox afaik (and one of the major ways
| Google uses Android for Ad revenue leverage)
| Delk wrote:
| > They offer nothing I cannot get elsewhere and thus I have
| no reason to switch.
|
| I'm not going to tell anybody else what their reasons are
| or should be, but for me voting against the browser
| monoculture _was_ a reason to switch.
|
| Most people won't care enough, of course, but to me it's
| not that different than voting for a candidate in an
| election who might not be the absolute best fit for my
| personal interests but who seems better for an overall
| political culture, or some other similar compromise.
| godelski wrote:
| For an average person, I think this argument is fine. But
| we're on HN where we can discuss something with a bit more
| nuance. There's two major things that I see that FF offers
| that Chrome doesn't, including chromium alternatives. 1)
| More privacy. Chrome tracks you substantially more than
| alternative browsers. In addition to that, is simply the
| chrome ecosystem, see next point. 2) Chrome's dominance
| defines the web. A decentralized service doesn't become
| centralized once one player takes 100% of the users. It
| happens long before because a big player can throw their
| weight around and force others to do what they want. Chrome
| already acts this way. We talk about this extensively
| several times a year here, so I'll let others state this
| argument better. But the short is that Google can define
| protocols, more tracking analytics, etc.
|
| It really comes down to two things.
|
| - Do you want to encourage more privacy across the web?
|
| - Do you want the web to be more decentralized?
|
| If you want more privacy and less centralization, you
| should use FF. I don't think it is just about the services
| that they offer. I think we can go deeper and talk about
| the future of the web in general and how our choices affect
| that.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| Firefox promises all these things, but I think that by
| and large the problem is that it just doesn't deliver on
| them for the average person. And average person is how we
| get the market share and safety in numbers.
| godelski wrote:
| FF definitely offers more privacy for the average person
| when compared to Chrome. I'm not sure what you're talking
| about. That normal people don't care? Well that's why I
| said the conversation about "products" was fine for the
| average person but not here on HN where we're experts and
| there's more nuance.
| hackerfromthefu wrote:
| Legislation is the answer for privacy. The tech ship has
| long sailed to the point that invasive stalking is 'too
| cheap to meter'.
| godelski wrote:
| You're right, but neither can we wait for legislation to
| be passed. So attack this problem from multiple fronts.
| And even after legislation is passed that doesn't solve
| the second problem of centralization.
| bentcorner wrote:
| Take a look at tree-style tabs. I started using them in FF
| and have looked several times at chromium-based add-ins and
| absolutely nothing comes close.
|
| Edge vertical tabs is your best choice if you must use a
| chromium browser, however it is a weak imitation of TST.
| yeeeloit wrote:
| What are you talking about exactly? Is this an extension
| for FF?
| Brakenshire wrote:
| Multi Account Containers is also good.
| Volundr wrote:
| Multi Account Containers is the key reason I use Firefox.
| I have to juggle multiple accounts for the same services
| for work. Containers makes this trivial. The closest
| chrome has is profiles which require a separate window
| and are just generally far more painful to use.
| hn-52 wrote:
| Temporary Containers as well. An entire throwaway
| container by default. I can just accept all the cookies
| and closing the tab deletes them all. No management.
| Nothing else comes close.
| heurist wrote:
| A while back I spent a few weeks figuring out how to
| configure Firefox to work exactly how I want a browser to
| work, then months happily using it. Then a big update was
| released and everything broke. I never bothered to get it
| working again. And despite claims of performance improvements
| that came with the release, it still chugged slower than
| Chrome. I would love to use a browser that I can actually
| configure how I want without things breaking every week, even
| if it's slower in general. But if I can't configure reliably
| and it's slower -- what's the point?
| chasil wrote:
| From this perspective, the RPM from one of RedHat's
| derivatives would be the ideal answer - a long term support
| release.
|
| As far as I know, such lengthy support terms do not exist
| for any Windows releases.
|
| Firefox on RedHat 8 will stay as it is until 2029.
| sockaddr wrote:
| Recently switched to Linux and only installed Firefox. When
| you force yourself to use it, it's doable. I think only once
| in the last 6 months did a website not work (my dumb HOA
| website). Other than that, it's more than sufficient.
|
| It crashes sometimes but if that's the price for not having
| coercive software controlling my life, so be it.
| feanaro wrote:
| Hmm, interesting, because I don't force myself to use
| Firefox. I use it because it's just plain better than
| Chrome, in that I can configure it just the way I want.
| sockaddr wrote:
| I'm curious what OS you're running. For me, on macOS
| Firefox performs the best out of all browsers I've tried,
| but on Linux it feels a bit sluggish.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| I can't remember Firefox crashing in recent years and that
| includes times I approached 2000 open tabs. Though after
| using the same profile for over 5 years now it has trouble
| remembering the color scheme for whatever reason.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| "Soft" crashes where websites simply don't load or
| function properly in FF, but do in Chrome, are far more
| common.
| antod wrote:
| I never had Firefox crashes until Ubuntu 21.10 which I
| think made Firefox a snap, now I get crashes when it
| tries to load fonts. And I get that colour scheme thing
| now too.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| Not claiming, that your experience isn't true, but: Firefox
| hasn't crashed for me in years! And I am a real tab
| hoarder. 400 tabs and more are not so uncommon for me. Then
| again I don't allow arbitrary websites to run all sorts of
| shit scripts. It might or might not be your hardware, or it
| might be the websites you visit.
| sockaddr wrote:
| Yeah, I think there are measures I could take to help the
| situation but it's a little low on my priority queue at
| the moment. The crashes are rare and not really a big
| issue for me.
| jeltz wrote:
| Another tab hoarder and for me the only times Firefox has
| crashed is when I have upgraded Firefox but not yet
| restarted it.
| mhitza wrote:
| Not the OP, but I consider it a soft crash every time I
| update Firefox in my OS, and it won't allow me to spawn
| new tabs until I restart Firefox. Annoying behavior
| they've included a couple years back.
| sfink wrote:
| If I understand what you're reporting correctly, then
| that's something your OS "included a couple of years
| back".
|
| If you install Firefox from Mozilla's site, it won't have
| these update problems. What's happening is that your
| package manager is swapping Firefox's bits out from under
| it while it's running. Firefox's built-in update system
| doesn't do that.
|
| Which is not to say that I think you shouldn't be using a
| packaged version of Firefox. Personally I'm running
| Nightly so I don't have the option anyway. Generally
| speaking, I vastly prefer sticking to my package
| manager's stuff.
|
| I just wish the package managers would fix their Firefox
| updates. (I don't know what the right fix would be, and I
| imagine it could be hard.)
| Datagenerator wrote:
| Don't forget to disable all prefetching, landing pages
| visiting previous sites, studies and pings on each start
| and shutdown to improve privacy.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| Damning by faint praise shows how bad it is right now for
| FF. Back in the golden age of Firefox (arguably, before the
| versions started incrementing like Chrome), it was a pure
| pleasure to use, even if certain things like ActiveX
| refused to work. Now, if we "force ourselves" to use it,
| it's "maybe OK".
| [deleted]
| com2kid wrote:
| > Firefox is very usable and increasing its market share
| starts with you. Or to use another cliche - be the change you
| wish to see.
|
| I use Firefox despite long standing bugs. Somehow a browser
| that aggressively throttles background tabs is still able to
| leak memory to background tabs. For the longest time Firefox
| messed with my wireless headset, they finally added proper
| support for web audio APIs and things are better now.
|
| CPU usage is still all over the place. Some inactive tab will
| cause FF to spin CPU usage up to 100%.
|
| Firefox still leaks resources, I can shut down all tabs and
| still have the media playback process using up tons of CPU
| and RAM.
|
| WebGL performance is worse than Chrome.
|
| TBF it has been getting steadily better over the last year, I
| have noticed a marked improvement. I'd say a year or so ago
| it was noticeably bad on a regular basis, now it is an
| occasional annoyance. But it should never have gotten that
| bad.
|
| More to the point of the question, Google spent a LONG time
| pushing Chrome, hard. They paid lots of # to bundle it with
| app updates years ago. Visiting Google properties causes
| banner ads "Download Chrome!" to appear. A few years back
| YouTube videos would occasionally just stop working in
| Firefox.
|
| And now days with Node development, well, Node developer
| tools are built into Chrome. React developer tools run in
| Chrome.
| paulcole wrote:
| > Firefox is very usable
|
| Are you intentionally underselling it or is this what I can
| expect of Firefox? Because it's not a super awe-inspiring
| endorsement.
| BossingAround wrote:
| I don't understand what you need. Go and try Firefox. As a
| person that uses Firefox as a daily driver, both at work
| and at home usage, I can't recall when I had to switch to
| Chrome. In 2010, maybe. I don't know what other "awe-
| inspiring endorsement" you need.
|
| Firefox did not save my marriage nor did it make me a
| million dollars, no.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| I use Firefox. Not exclusively, but most of the time, on
| principle.
|
| I would call it usable, but not "very usable". For normal
| people, Chrome(ium) UX is better. For power users, Vivaldi is
| a far better choice despite the Chromium browser engine. And
| for both of these groups, Firefox UX worsens and improves
| seemingly at random.
|
| Quite frankly, I'm conflicted whether I should recommend
| Firefox at all. If I say "look, here's Firefox! It's more
| private than Chrome, and almost as fast and error-free!", and
| then Mozilla goes on to ruin that perception 6 months later
| (as they are wont to do), then it's _my_ reputation and
| credibility at stake. Not only is that an unnecessary ego
| hit, but also makes me look like a liar (or at best, like an
| ivory tower dweller divorced from reality).
| feanaro wrote:
| > I would call it usable, but not "very usable". For normal
| people, Chrome(ium) UX is better.
|
| I can't imagine why you would say this. Could you point out
| some concrete examples of better UX?
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| The hamburger menu, for one. It's extremely unintuitive.
| Not the fact that it uses a hamburger icon, but that even
| simple things like accessing the full list of my
| bookmarks involve multiple clicks. If you know the
| keyboard shortcuts then it's not a problem, but I want
| common UI items to be accessible from the UI.
|
| Besides that, the UI is just sluggish a lot of the time.
| It feels that Chrome(ium) has a far better latency
| response.
| [deleted]
| generalizations wrote:
| > Get a CEO/upper management that are in it for the passion,
| not the money, and cut their salaries (bonuses tied directly to
| increase in Firefox market share).
|
| They fired the CEO that knew what he was doing. Personally, I
| think Mozilla is getting what they asked for.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I would happily support this.
| newbie789 wrote:
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| can we just eat the execs?
|
| on a more serious note, what if mozilla fires ALL execs? will
| it just crumble under its own weight or will that "industry
| linked remuneration" be replaced with more money for actual
| developers who get things done and are not in for the quick
| buck like address bar ads?
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| I'm hoping for the latter. Or if not, the that if the Firefox
| collapsed, it would re-emerge in some fashion as a grassroots
| community project with non-Mozilla governance.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| You know... you don't have to wait for the company to
| collapse.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| Perhaps we have to.
|
| Look at what happened to youtube-dl - even before the
| DMCA takedown, nobody was doing anything about the
| leadership being AWOL despite the huge PR backlog. Then,
| when it was taken down, various forks popped up,
| including yt-dlp which became a natural potential
| successor. They injected lots of potential, because the
| main authority was absent and they seized initiative.
|
| Even after youtube-dl came back, they eventually went
| under a new management. The entire space of YouTube/video
| downloaders is better off for the DMCA incident, even if
| taken by itself it was a harmful event.
|
| Mozilla falling might just reenergise Firefox, though I'd
| obviously much rather they undergo a priority shift
| instead, so we can keep continuity.
| samwillis wrote:
| Agree with this.
|
| I feel they should start trying to out "out innovate" the other
| browser developers. Stop playing politics, which Google will
| always win, and just start making new "cool shit" that
| developers want to use! Hire the best innovative thinkers in
| the industry and set them free to invent browser apis for
| developers to use.
|
| Also, they should be attacking things like electron, and
| "hybrid" mobile app development. Build a toolkit based on Gecko
| for cross platform development that addresses the problems with
| electron.
| aeturnum wrote:
| I agree with your topline goal, but I am surprised by the way
| you think about it. Most of what you recommend has no obvious
| connection to firefox-the-program.
|
| Like...
|
| > _- Donate the major money drains that aren 't Firefox to the
| Apache Foundation or another worthy custodian_
|
| > _- Fire all inessential staff that don 't want to work on
| Firefox._
|
| > _- Get a CEO /upper management that are in it for the
| passion, not the money, and cut their salaries (bonuses tied
| directly to increase in Firefox market share)._
|
| > _- Make sure that all donations from now on are redirected to
| things that support Firefox development and nothing else,
| period._
|
| All of these are good suggestions _if the problem is that
| Firefox is running out of money or has too few resources._ But
| that 's not my impression at all!
|
| Google's strategy with Chrome demonstrates how valuable it is
| to develop other compelling services that use cutting-edge
| standards supported by your browser. Google does it in a way
| where they freeze out other compatible browsers, but Mozilla
| does not have to. I would say that the number one thing that
| Mozilla can do to support the web is to make web standards
| meaningful again - and the best way to do that is to develop
| things aside from web browsers to demonstrate the value of
| those standards.
|
| > _We as a community, cannot afford to let Firefox languish
| until the only browsers in the world are Chromium derivatives._
|
| I don't think Mozilla having non-Firefox projects harms
| Firefox. I think there is every reason to believe that a
| healthy Mozilla has Firefox at the center, with many other
| ongoing projects.
| zo1 wrote:
| They must definitely fire some of their developers too
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/browsers/comments/i8nuyb/firefox_de...
| twblalock wrote:
| Browsers aren't a product anymore. Browsers are a feature and a
| commodity. Every platform is expected to have one out of the box.
|
| Most people use the default browsers on their mobile devices and
| I'd bet many of the people who don't use the default browser on
| their PCs have downloaded Chrome because it can sync bookmarks
| with Chrome on their phones.
|
| Using the non-default browser takes effort and most people don't
| care enough to try. For Firefox to overcome that basic barrier,
| it needs to be a lot more attractive than the default browser.
| For most users, it's just not.
|
| Other companies that only make browsers don't have high market
| share for the same reason Firefox doesn't.
| takeda wrote:
| I'm trying to save it by continuing to use it, and everyone
| should do so as well. Once it is gone Google will have pretty
| much absolute control over the web (not that they don't already,
| but it will be official then).
| easton wrote:
| I mean, the reason everybody moved to Chrome last time was
| because it was faster than Firefox/IE and it included Flash so
| you didn't have that stupid update popup every time you logged
| in. Flash isn't a thing anymore, but if they could make it faster
| than Chrome (not just as fast) while keeping up with web
| standards, it would work.
|
| I don't know where you get money for such a venture, but IBM (Red
| Hat) and Amazon both a vested interest to not have a browser
| monoculture and don't already run a browser project.
| matt_heimer wrote:
| Amazon has Silk (Chromium based) -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Silk
| kiutroap wrote:
| > but if they could make it faster than Chrome (not just as
| fast) while keeping up with web standards, it would work
|
| This is easier to be said than done, as browsers are mostly
| limited by I/O nowadays. There's a little you can do about it
| other than introducing something like AMP. I'm afraid Google is
| going to win this one.
| gostsamo wrote:
| Firefox has three main issues: * Aggressive
| competition who are ready to use dark patterns on all platforms
| to push their own products. All of Google, Microsoft and Apple
| are doing it one way or another. * No financing.
| Pocket and Mozilla VPN are rather miserable revenue streams and
| therefore FF relies on the likes of Google for the bulk of their
| budget which means that they are limited in what they can do
| against Google. * Really old code base that needs to
| be adapted for the modern web which takes money and resources
| from other initiatives. * The Mozilla Foundation which
| seems to consider the browser a golden hen that will provide them
| nice profits to waste.
|
| Saving it is nearly impossible. The things to happen are:
| * major legislation that must level up the browser market or an
| economic shift that will break Google, Microsoft and Apple
| dominance on the major user platforms. * a miracle new
| money tree should grow up in San Francisco such that it will be
| an independent revenue source for the project. * much
| more people and organizations should invest in improving the
| browser either with money or effort (magic tree or failure of all
| other browser engines). * Firefox should be liberated
| from the foundation and be a community project like Debian so
| that people have better feeling of ownership of the project.
|
| PS: The off-by-one error is intentional.
| brimble wrote:
| I think it's too late for anything to save them now, but
| integrating a social overlay on the entire Web, built directly
| into the browser, is one play that I think might have kept them
| relevant if they'd started at least a decade ago and really
| nailed the execution.
|
| It'd have to be something that gives you a reason to use FF over
| Chrome or Safari or IE/Edge. A social approach has "virality" to
| it. "Oh we're all posting on this Tweet in FF-Social, that's why
| you're not seeing the replies. Go get FF and join in. Here's the
| invite link for our group."
|
| Some add-ons and (earlier) wrapper sites tried similar things,
| but I think FF is one of the few companies that might have wanted
| to try this, had (at one time) the critical mass & goodwill to
| pull it off, and had the right vehicle for it.
| assemblylang wrote:
| One thing missed when talking about Firefox's market share is
| desktop versus mobile market share.
|
| If you look at Wikimedia's metrics, Firefox still has ~10% market
| share of the desktop browser market[0], not too bad considering
| Firefox is not the default browser on any platform outside of
| linux systems for the most part, and that Mozilla is much smaller
| entity than competing browser vendors. Still down from the
| ~30%[0] desktop share they had, but now they have 2 large
| competing entities offering default browsers so the decline is
| somewhat expected.
|
| Also, contrast this with Firefox's ~0.7% share on mobile[0] where
| Mozilla has never been able to get a good foothold.
|
| As long as Firefox isn't available as a default on mobile and as
| the share of mobile device web browsing increases, Firefox will
| keep losing total market share as a percentage.
|
| Strategy wise, refocusing efforts on retaining that 10% desktop
| share might be a good idea. From there, work on building up more
| of the desktop share and then try marketing the mobile browser to
| the desktop browser community to build up mobile browser share.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_market_share#Summary_t...
| nicoburns wrote:
| I feel like Firefox on Android should be more popular than it
| is. Chrome is default, but it doesn't offer an Ad Blocker.
| Firefox with uBlock origin is a _far_ superior experience.
| Although there are other 3rd party chromium-based browsers that
| are just as good.
|
| I suspect that it's poor market share is due the very poor
| performance of the older fennec implementation.
| captn3m0 wrote:
| I'd argue that FF could possibly convince some manufacturers
| to preload Firefox with uBlock installed as a faster browser
| (if UCBrowser could, surely FF can).
| JohnTHaller wrote:
| I'd wager that Firefox's deal with Google prohibits them
| from doing this on any platform.
| godshatter wrote:
| When you make a deal with the devil I guess you have to
| expect these sorts of things.
| noselasd wrote:
| I can't use Firefox on mobile, its tab management is too
| annoying, that's the sole reason I abandoned it before
| christmas.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| I've tried using it on Android and it simply doesn't work on
| my hardware. Takes minutes to load a page.
| akdor1154 wrote:
| Since the re-architecture? Its pretty great now.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Tried it just now. From pressing the url bar to the
| keyboard showing up is a 2 second delay. Overall pages
| seem really unresponsive.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Out of interest, what hardware do you have? I had a
| Samsung S7, and the difference between Chrome and FF was
| minimal (Chrome was slightly faster, but only just).
| That's quite an old device, but I wonder if somehow it
| being a high-end device when it was new still counts for
| something...?
| jakub_g wrote:
| I tried to use FF on Android, and while it's capable and
| works rather well, perf-wise Chromium is just years ahead (I
| use Brave).
|
| You can see it well on JS-heavy sites like Twitter, the
| difference is very easy to perceive with loading time,
| scrolling perf, and also with memory management (Firefox
| evicts pages from memory cache aggressively compared to
| Chromium; you sometimes switch a tab or switch an app, go
| back, and bang, it's gone and needs a reload); and I have a
| decent good phone (not top shelf, but a "high-mid" Pixel 3a,
| probably 60-70th percentile within Androids?).
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| I use Firefox mobile for the past 3 or so phones. To be
| blunt, it sucks. The only reason I haven't switched to a
| Chromium derivative is because I don't want to migrate my
| bookmarks, because they don't have as good ad blocking
| support, and out of sheer stubbornness.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| It has gotten far better in the past years, although it
| still has some pretty crippling bugs and tiny yet
| incredibly annoying UX issues (e.g. can't easily wipe the
| cookies for the site you're currently on, try opening a URL
| from your clipboard in incognito).
|
| But Firefox has gotten sufficiently close that the overall
| experience of Firefox with an ad blocker beats Chrome with
| ads.
| jakub_g wrote:
| This. When I joined my prev company in mid 2018, I checked some
| graphs, and mobile users market share was around 45%. When I
| checked the same graph in mid 2021, mobile market share was
| >60%.
|
| Many people don't have a desktop anymore those days, or barely
| use it.
| waingake wrote:
| What if we forked it with a Kickstarter campaign to fund core
| engineering salaries, followed by a low monthly subscription.
| Personally I'd happily pay if I knew the money was going where it
| should.
| vi2837 wrote:
| Probably, Mozilla could try this financing model, to save FF.
| [deleted]
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| You probably can't save Firefox. Between Edge and Chrome, you're
| fighting against billions of dollars worth of free advertising,
| nevermind the advertising Google and Microsoft actually spend
| money on.
| 0xbadc0de5 wrote:
| Follow Brave's lead. I was a Firefox-only user for 10+ years
| until Brave Browser delivered what Firefox had been promising.
| staticassertion wrote:
| Chrome went heavy on marketing. And their marketing was
| compelling. At a time when the web was really slow, Chrome
| advertised speed - remember those Chrome ads where they'd load
| web pages while something flew by the screen?
|
| At a time when the web was dangerous, Chrome advertised security.
| Remember when Flash wasn't sandboxed? When Java executed
| automatically? When nothing had auto-updates?
|
| Firefox caught up, but at best it's "as good". What's it _really_
| doing for me?
|
| The answer is presumably privacy. And that's cool. But most
| people have a hard time understanding what "privacy" means.
| Further, you can say Chrome is weak on privacy, but it's hardly
| as bad as people make it out to be.
|
| So basically Mozilla is, at best, equivalent to Chrome, but
| Chrome was way better for a long time. So it's got to convince
| people to come back, but its only selling point is really vague.
|
| And then you have some other stuff like companies can manage
| Chrome via GSuite. So now your work computer is X% more likely to
| run Chrome. So now you have to choose to have a different
| experience at home and at work.
|
| What would I do?
|
| 1. I'd refocus on the mission. Privacy is critical, security is
| critical. That would mean a number of things - how is it that
| Brave is the first browser to integrate TOR? Isn't that insane?
| TOR has been using Firefox by default forever, and no one thought
| "maybe we should just support this thing, and start heavily
| contributing to it" ?
|
| 2. I'd invest heavily in next-gen performance and security.
| Chrome has In-The-Wild zero days being exploited - that's an
| opportunity. The web is heavier than ever - that's an
| opportunity.
|
| I'd focus heavily on that. I'd push benchmarks and I'd market
| those features heavily.
|
| 3. I would fire every executive who took a multi-million dollar
| bonus while firing tons of employees.
|
| That's just day 1 stuff.
|
| Going further I'd consider what it would look like to see Mozilla
| in the Enterprise. Integrations and management features built
| into the LTS releases are an obvious start.
| revskill wrote:
| To me, the developer tools is getting out of date for modern
| development tooling on frontend.
| humanwhosits wrote:
| Allow donations that explicitly go towards Firefox dev (rather
| than umbrella Mozilla).
| mrandish wrote:
| Restore "User Customizable" as a top-level priority. I came to FF
| initially over 15 years ago because add-ons could change almost
| anything including fundamental appearance and workflow. When
| changing to the new, far more limited add-on infrastructure ~5
| yrs ago, Mozilla promised that new APIs would be added to re-
| enable hugely popular add-ons like Tab Mix Plus yet this and
| other add-ons users relied on still remain impossible to
| implement.
|
| This "Have It Your Way" capability would be a profound
| differentiator and user value proposition to stand out from the
| sameness of Chrome and Safari. I still use FF but to make it
| usable I have to install my own UserChrome.css and User.js which
| isn't easy for non-tech people. On top of that I regularly have
| to go "fix" new UI behaviors that Mozilla's designers keep
| shoveling into the UX in a constant game of Whack-a-Mole.
| JohnTHaller wrote:
| Firefox is already more customizable than Safari or Chrome. If
| Safari and Chrome were growing in userbase due to being more
| customizable than Firefox, it might make sense.
| ameminator wrote:
| In my experience, Firefox is _not_ more customizable than
| Vivaldi. Examples include: custom tab layouts, sizing
| options, default behaviors and more.
|
| It would be _really_ nice if they went all-in on those custom
| features, but I suspect it might need to come from the Servo
| base engine, first.
| mrandish wrote:
| FF is _slightly_ more customizable for non-tech users. It
| used to be almost _infinitely_ more customizable.
|
| The difference has gone from dramatic to negligible and even
| that much is now hidden behind flags that don't even appear
| in the UI.
| rish1_2 wrote:
| make it the fastest browser in terms of loading and launching.
| rest will follow
| resfirestar wrote:
| It's interesting, often prompted by Mozilla doing something
| particularly silly I try out the competition and every time I go
| back to Firefox utterly unimpressed by the supposedly better
| Chromium based browsers out there. Honestly I don't see what
| people like so much about them.
|
| Most recently when they came out with Colorways I decided to give
| Vivaldi a shot for the first time in a few years, since it has
| that easy custom color theming without a pointless time horizon.
| First problem I ran into was that the built-in ad blocker breaks
| YouTube. Not a great first impression, but hey you can just
| disable it and install uBO. But I quickly came to miss the
| flexibility of Firefox's interface. On the surface Vivaldi is
| very customizable, but you quickly run into a wall when wanting
| to go outside what they've built. For example, you can put the
| tab bar anywhere, but you can't have it in multiple places or
| pretty it up beyond changing the colors. Firefox on the other
| hand has enough tab management addons for any taste, plus it
| supports custom CSS within the addons themselves and at the
| browser level.
|
| The alternative browser I've been most impressed with is actually
| Edge, but I can't tolerate it constantly shoving features I don't
| want in my face or the mandatory telemetry.
|
| So to answer the question, I would save Firefox by breaking the
| mobile browser duopoly. Desktop Firefox is already obviously
| better than Chrome and Edge, even in the basic experience with no
| addons, but people just use Chrome for some reason. I think it
| comes down to habit, an over-reliance on Google Apps that work
| better with Chrome's tight integration, and familiarity due to
| Chrome being the only serious browser on Android. And on iOS the
| situation seems to be even worse: non-Safari browsers are forced
| to use Safari's engine anyway, and all of them offer a noticeably
| worse UX than Safari so why bother. Of Firefox's problems, losing
| on mobile is the easiest to fix, not that it's super easy.
| Mozilla "just" needs to focus creative resources on building a
| compelling alternative browser on Android and a functional one on
| iOS. That would go a long way toward bringing users back.
|
| Another thing that might help is for Mozilla to make a clear
| (down to earth, jargon-free) statement of its values and goals as
| a nonprofit. I think a lot of the criticism Firefox gets in tech
| circles isn't exactly sincere, because many people have switched
| away from Firefox due to actual or perceived political
| differences but don't want to come out and say that, so they
| contrive or exaggerate some UX or privacy issue. If Mozilla's
| leadership would speak openly about these issues it might make
| those detractors a little more comfortable saying something like
| "I don't use Firefox because the causes they support go against
| my political convictions", rather than the current situation
| where they might be reluctant to say that and start a likely
| pointless argument over whether Mozilla supports a certain cause
| or not.
| zodzedzi wrote:
| Fork it, create a new non-profit to oversee its development, a la
| Linux kernel.
| pygar wrote:
| They should do what Microsoft did with Edge and periodically fork
| Chromium.
|
| Chromium is a better browser and it's open source (BSD, GPL etc).
| They should take advantage of the license. The argument for
| browser diversity doesn't make sense to me when chromium is open
| source and hard forks are always possible.
| SamReidHughes wrote:
| Is Mozilla still on Evelyn? That's within artillery range of the
| Google campus. They just have to wait for Google to return to
| office.
|
| I can't think of any other solution.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| Why? Firefox is just an advertising platform for other Mozilla
| products:
|
| * Mozilla VPN ($5/month)
|
| * Pocket Premium ($5/month)
|
| And a way to monetize users:
|
| * Google search ($500 million / year)
|
| * Paid ads in the search bar
|
| And a way to radicalize you to fight for privacy, so that you'll
| donate:
|
| * Donations (400,000 donations / year)
|
| Let it die, I say.
| [deleted]
| ghiculescu wrote:
| I'd make it work with the password manager in chrome, and tell
| everyone the dev tools are better. That's what would make me
| seriously try it again.
| vntok wrote:
| Yes, but that is not a great way to convince people. Surely
| they would move back to Chrome as soon as they realize you were
| lying?
| ozten wrote:
| #1 reason: Google has been spending millions of dollars on ads.
| 2010 many subway, buses, and TVs had ads about how fast Chrome
| was. Advertising works! Early adopters switched, followed by
| mainstream users.
|
| Additional Key Strategies:
|
| Google focused on developer experience with its tools.
|
| Google shipped a good enough extension system.
|
| Google invested in matching or beating a few key features but
| kept Chrome a leaner project overall. Worse is better and 80/20
| rule.
|
| Ecosystem evolution:
|
| Google successfully got every major browser vendor to move to
| their rendering engine, except for Firefox. Gecko has always been
| harder to embed.
|
| Slowly over time, some web devs stopped testing their work on
| Firefox since they were using Chrome and most browsers "just
| worked" like Chrome. Every week I hit a site that I have to use
| in Chrome because of a bug I'm seeing in Firefox.
|
| Mozilla went all-in on trying to disrupt itself with a mobile
| phone operating system, which didn't work out.
|
| Mozilla dabbles in many strategies (Privacy, Games, Advertising,
| WebXR), but none have been successful in growing active daily
| users.
|
| Some people say Mozilla should focus on executing Firefox, but I
| think Mozilla is smart for trying to re-invent itself because the
| browser is a commodity, and if Google wants to own that on-ramp
| to the internet, it will.
|
| Netscape and Firefox 1.0 were massive products. Mozilla needs a
| 3rd act to return to a significant marketshare.
| dralley wrote:
| > #1 reason: Google has been spending millions of dollars on
| ads. 2010 many subway, buses, and TVs had ads about how fast
| Chrome was. Advertising works! Early adopters switched,
| followed by mainstream users.
|
| Not to mention paying the likes of Adobe, Avast, AVG, and
| Oracle to have their installers auto-install Chrome using dark
| patterns.
| asdff wrote:
| I don't care that its losing marketshare as long as its still
| used and supported, just like how I don't really care that most
| computer users aren't using the command line anymore. The age of
| the average user being choosy about their web browser is over,
| and the hand wringing about market share is not important. Users
| either use the browser that ships with their OS (safari, the
| limited people on edge), or they download chrome because youtube
| and gsuite have been giving them banner ads to download chrome
| for a decade and that's where their autofill passwords are saved.
|
| Instead, mozilla should really lean in on catering to the techie
| who is going to come to the conclusion to use firefox no matter
| what mozilla really does anyhow, just from the fact that its not
| google and you can do more with privacy oriented extensions. It's
| always frusterating when mozilla does things they really don't
| have to do, like break certain CSS configs with the move to
| proton for no reason other than change is good I guess (like, why
| pull another python 2/3-esque debacle when you don't really have
| to and could just support legacy syntax?), or taking out niceties
| like the built in RSS reader, which I found handy to confirm a
| feed looked OK before throwing it into my actual RSS reader.
| There are other issues too. Maybe I'm not doing it right in
| firefox, but I have to go into chrome to find the correct CSS
| selectors to use in a given webpage for javascripting.
| [deleted]
| jakub_g wrote:
| Why losing marketshare? Because it's a statistical error on
| mobile, and world is going mobile more and more each year. 60-80%
| of visits are now mobile, depending on country and website type.
|
| Without mobile, any investment in desktop no matter how good
| would still mean losing marketshare in general.
|
| But winning mobile is not possible IMO. Android Chromium is just
| too good, slicker, faster, better managing memory etc, and Apple
| bans other engines and Apple users go all-Apple most of the time.
| dotcoma wrote:
| Dump their terrible bookmarks and copy how Chrome handles
| bookmarks.
| janitor61 wrote:
| Firefox, like most modern software, is suffering from Winchester
| house syndrome. Hiring full-time UX designers and making them
| perpetually justify their salary will eventually turn any
| software into an unusable, unlearnable amorphous blob that
| blindly follows trends and alienates even the most determined
| users, much like hiring dozens of full-time plumbers for your
| house would transform it into a sci-fi movie set given enough
| time and money.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| They do way too much that's not _Build the best browser in the
| world_.
|
| Persona, Pocket, a whole bunch of non-technical stuff....
|
| It adds up. I wish they would slim their team down dramatically
| and become a lean mean killing machine to build the best browser
| in the world. But unless they get sponsored by some billionaire I
| don't see that happening.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| 1) Quit the internal politics 2) Quit the "for the people, not
| for profit": money is how people in a society find consensus on
| what needs to happen 3) Build something useful and charge for it
|
| More specifically, if I were Mozilla I would build a semantic web
| browser capable of understanding what's important on a page (it
| boils down to text, images, videos, comments and forms), extract
| it, render it in a NATIVE, CONSISTENT and LIGHTWEIGHT (as in CPU
| / Mem - no electron, no HTML, JS, CSS), user defined way. Nobody
| wants today's 10GB webpages and 300 popups. Test it on the most
| popular websites, sell on a subscription basis for people tired
| of interacting with crappy websites and modern frontend apps.
| And, of course, offer an option to see the real page in a normal
| browser for when things don't work or you actually care about
| seeing someone's design or about running someone's code.
| kirse wrote:
| Never understood this convo about Firefox dying or all the
| complaints. I love Firefox, been using it since 2005 or so.
| Firebug was awesome back in the day and FF Developer Edition w/
| all its developer tools is still great. Only annoying thing
| they've done recently is rename/re-sort a bunch of menu options
| that undid years of muscle memory.
|
| Someone explain to me why I would switch to Chrome? If anything
| I'd switch to Edge before Chrome.
| janfoeh wrote:
| Be the "User Agent" in the truest sense of the word that is
| sorely missing in the browser landscape nowadays. For that, two
| things are necessary:
|
| 1) become absolutely trustworthy again 2) become the power user's
| choice again
|
| To me, 1) means absolute control over updates and network
| connections. Become the antithesis to the patronizing "Ask me
| again later" school of thought which has become so sickeningly
| widespread over the last few years, and instead accept that "no
| means no", whether you disagree or not.
|
| And I don't have to mention "partnerships" with entities like
| Cliqz or sneaky downloads of marketing extensions.
|
| 2) - Firefox tried to appeal to average users and failed, losing
| a lot of what made it appealing to the power users and
| evangelists in the process. Reversing that will be painful,
| because it means allowing people to shoot themselves in the foot,
| and accepting that some people will do that occasionally.
|
| Making a useful power user browser means accepting that a lot of
| its value will be created by other people, and supporting that
| with a deep and comprehensive extension system, instead of
| clinging to Googles table scraps. Having a useful extension
| system also means the ability to install from any source I want,
| no Ifs and Buts.
|
| All of these are risky. Useful tools often are. Give Firefox back
| its USP and a reason to exist, because "it's not Blink" on its
| own simply isn't good enough... even if maybe it should.
| jjcm wrote:
| Here's my perspective on this - Chrome has established itself as
| the baseline. The baseline is no longer the W3C standard, it's
| Chrome due to all of the experimental future W3C spec items being
| in Chrome. Chrome leads the spec, and with its 70% market share
| developers allow it to.
|
| Firefox will _always_ be playing catchup because of this,
| regardless of their market share. This leaves three main reasons
| for using Firefox:
|
| 1.) decoupling from Google / ad privacy
|
| 2.) promoting browser ecosystem health
|
| 3.) familiarity / history of use
|
| Unfortunately, these three items lead to a very narrow TAM,
| especially when talking purely about new users. The gap will
| continue to grow as sites that work in Chrome but don't work in
| Firefox, despite the site using things not in the W3C spec, will
| be seen as Firefox issues by non-technical users. These users
| will eventually default to Chrome.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| We need a better way to communicate this: Chrome doesn't "lead
| the spec", it "rushes out ahead of the spec". The developers
| using non-standard features need to be held better accountable
| for using non-standard features, and Google needs to be held
| better accountable for releasing non-standard features ahead of
| standardization processes.
|
| W3C is seen as no longer relevant to HTML specs having
| delegated "HTML5" to WHATWG, and WHATWG seems to exist entirely
| to rubber-stamp Google's will (up until Firefox or Safari or
| increasingly less common Microsoft complains, and then they try
| to compromise, sometimes). WHATWG seems to have no teeth to
| hold Google accountable to standards processes and the Emperor
| Has No Clothes. (ETA: And yes, that's a hot take that's very
| unfavorable. I understand many individuals still care inside
| the W3C and WHATWG, but the end result of collective action is
| a dangerous rubber-stamping of a Chromium monopsony.)
| eternityforest wrote:
| Apple and Mozilla can't be compromised with. They want
| certain powerful features to just not exist. They don't trust
| users to choose for themselves. They are trying to ensure
| privacy at all costs by making tools that could be used to
| spy unavailable, no matter what the purpose.
|
| If devs want to make something, Chrome wants to make it
| happen, and I want to use it, then I don't want Mozilla
| trying to block up the whole works.
|
| Especially not to "protect my privacy" from a site I
| completely trust, that might even be an intranet site I built
| myself.
|
| What's next, are you going to disable downloading executable
| files, probably the most dangerous browser feature of all?
|
| There's no nice alternative, or sometimes no alternative at
| all besides making a native app for a bazillion different
| platforms.
|
| Maybe WHATWG actually isn't just rubber stamping things
| because they're a google puppet, but at least partly
| because... it's what devs want.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| Mistreatment of users is quickly eroding 3. for me, and I
| deeply care about 2. A family member already explicitly asked
| for assistance in migrating away from Firefox.
| alangibson wrote:
| This had been answered well by others, so I'll pose an even
| better question: "why do we need Firefox?"
|
| To answer my own question: without at least one competing
| browser, all web standards are effectively controlled by Google.
| It'll be AMP from here on out.
| kevwil wrote:
| As Chromium's monopoly approaches and passes critical mass, the
| likelihood of a nasty zero-day increases. I wouldn't go so far as
| to hope for a terrible hack, but humanity putting all its eggs in
| one basket like this is just begging for consequences.
|
| I defiantly use nothing but Firefox unless a website won't work
| with FF.
| errantmind wrote:
| I'd save it by forking Firefox and trying to replace Mozilla as
| primary custodian. Mozilla cannot be saved and will not 'turn a
| new leaf'.
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