More seriously, there is a battlefield on the web. Since the demise of Opera, Firefox is the only mainstream browser left standing that actively attempts to not violate your privacy.
This doesn't mean that Firefox developers don't need to work on ways to make Firefox the best browser – incidentally, Firefox in January 2017 is orders of magnitude better than Firefox in January 2016. But it also means that some of the most important of Firefox are invisible, because they're all about what Firefox refuses to do.
Caveat: I'm a contributor to Firefox.
Every month or so, I try Firefox again with all the websites I care about, check how fast it feels, the JS performance, etc and, while it's pretty good, Chrome still is/feels faster. My tests are pretty subjective at times but I never find a huge reason to switch from Chrome (privacy issues aside). Each time I think I've spend too much time doing this dance and I take longer to do it again.
So I don't know about the 2016/2017 comparison you made and it being orders of magnitude better today. Maybe in some other area that is not performance?
To be clear, Firefox is not bad. It's actually pretty good... maybe browsers have matured enough that the low hanging fruits have all being addressed and it's hard to make Earth shaking progress (that would justify a switch).
My only suggestion is that people do not use phrases such as "felt faster" with friends and relatives who might take the (admittedly subjective) test results at face value and choose Chrome over Firefox.
This one of the main reason why google search engine has been and is still so popular in Europe. Not such a good record for someone who pretends to champion users right and privacy.
Interesting that you say firefox gets better, I have been using firefox since it was called firebird and to me firefox gets worse with time by adding features I do not want (persona, sync, pocket, hello, botched speed dial, drm), removing features I use (status bar, ui redesign to look more like chrome, disabling script, panorama) and lacking useful features (a working history, a full text search of history, usable bookmarks over time, integrated adblock, live edit of source, an editable speed dial, side bar, disabling author css, ...).
People love to share data.
vivaldi is the browser from opera founder which strive to recreate this innovation and more.
As the company refused to open source the old opera, there is an open source project to recreate it: otter[2].
When asked about google, they pretty much all knew google was spying and selling ads, which they hate, but all said they felt powerless and didn't what to do.
Totally different from the answers I got from tech aware people who either use google's product and don't care / love google or stay away from google / use them through habit and inertia and feel bad about it.
Also that Google has the balls to put all sets of restrictions on Play Store certifications, but "forgets" to put a clause related to device updates.
I own a few Windows Phone devices and still look forward to a possible Surface phone coming up.
"They just want products that work" sounds like an explanation of why people buy iPhones, because I don't know anyone who's had that experience with Google products (other than Chrome, I suppose).
It's so bad that I've stopped even considering giving a Google product to family. They quickly get fed up with the Android phone or Chromebook and replace it with something else, like an iPhone or a macbook or a windows laptop.
Personally, I've owned about 6 different Android devices, and all of them either stopped getting essential firmware updates, or broke of their own volition. Most recently my Nexus 5X randomly stopped working, and then the warranty replacement spontaneously corrupted its internal flash a week after I got it. In my experience, buying from Google directly is worse than buying from third parties.
Still not gonna buy an iPhone though, because I like being able to actually run free and open software on my phone.
P.S. are you going to argue that Safari is the only good browser and the others all suck, just because tons of people use Safari? The real answer is that Safari's market dominance is in large part due to the iPhone and iPod banning third-party browsers, aside from whether Safari is a good browser at all (at most, it's a decent one).
Uhm... Gmail is an amazing Google product that people are very happy with, and that (at introduction) had no equal. Same goes for Maps.. at introduction there was nothing like it, and it has only gotten better. Hell, Apple Maps still sucks if you're not in the US. YouTube is (arguably) another product that people are very happy using.
And Safari is an amazing browser. The macOS version is by far the most battery friendly of all browsers (where Chrome and Firefox have an 'energy use' of 40-50 when playing H264, Safari is in the low 20s). The tricks used to get there are too many to name, but I take my hat off to Apple for going the extra mile. The iOS version is also very very battery friendly and oh so smooth.. although since all browsers have to use Safari's webkit backend, there isn't really a good way to compare.
Plus this: https://github.com/5digits/dactyl/issues/99#issuecomment-263...
You don't know anyone who has used Gmail, Youtube, or Google search before?
"It's so bad that I've stopped even considering giving a Google product to family. They quickly get fed up with the Android phone or Chromebook and replace it with something else, like an iPhone or a macbook or a windows laptop."
Those aren't Google products. Those are Samsung, Acer, or whoever decides to use Android/Chrome OS. How do you not understand this? You worked for Google. You should know that they don't actually build physical products, except for the Pixel. I think the Pixel is the first phone they built. They don't even control the Android on the Galaxy S. Samsung does. They decide what goes on and in the phone. Google doesn't.
I'm not going to argue Safari is a good browser lol. Firefox and Chrome are the only browser I will ever use, but right now I'm using Chrome because it has the best browsing experience out of all of them.