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Comment by frostwhale | Hacker News Reader

Firefox is about more than market share. A state of the art free non for profit browser makes the market much more competitive and better for the consumer. They are there to keep chrome/ other browsers honest. If chrome / google does something too corporate you don't like, there's an alternative.

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That is all so very true. But it is also utterly irrelevant if market share drops too much. That will unavoidably lead to incompatibilities which will without doubt ensure that only die hard enthusiasts will use it.

Which means it won't be an alternative anymore and it will die.

Very fair point. This is why Firefox 57 is so great IMO, i started using firefox again and now I don't think I'll leave it again soon. I think i'm not alone.

As a dedicated FF user since Phoenix, I fully agree, but if few people actually use the alternative, it probably gets harder to get any kind of revenue deals :|

That seems a dangerous line of thinking, like arguing that startups are about more than growth.

Firefox is looking like Apple circa 1997. They can still recover, but they have to focus on what people want.

I think most users don't care how fast the browser is at the level they're boasting about. They've been fast enough for many years for most use cases. They should do a commercial showing they can run uBlock Origin on Android, how fast sites load compared to without it, and jump on the "annoying ad" train Apple and Google seem to be bragging about fixing latley by "solving" a few problems uO had solved, the right way, for years.

I completely disagree. I care a lot about privacy, but I've been unable to use Firefox for a long time now because of speed. Up until now, Chrome has just been significantly faster, to the point where I couldn't justify Firefox for everyday usage. I think a lot of people feel the same, especially those who know less about privacy. I hope the situation changes. If they were in the same ballpark in terms of speed, then my choice would be clear, but they haven't been.

It would be like using Tor all the time. You know it's better, but the difference in speed is so great, that you have to make a conscious choice. I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that I want the benefits _without_ compromising speed.

I agree. Browser speed does not affect consumer choice directly. Very few people chose Chrome over Firefox because it was slightly faster or slightly more stable. The vast majority of users chose Chrome because it felt better.

Also, Google's pushing it helped. Otherwise consider how Chrome has occupied an IE like market share despite the quality Delta between Chrome and IE/Edge, Firefox or Safari is significantly lesser than the Delta between Firefox and IE was a decade ago, yet Firefox peaked at a much lower marketshare than Chrome's today.

Your Apple analogy might be quite apt. Mac has a market-share of something like 14%, but that's not Apple failing, that's Apple succeeding in targeting the expensive end of the market.

Firefox has a chance at doing the same thing with privacy-aware users and/or power users.

To that end, they need to stop dumbing-down the browser and endlessly playing catch-up with Chrome.

Spot on. Chrome is not the standard by which all others are judged. Like some others here, I've used Firefox since it existed, even when it was Phoenix and Firebird. The only other browser I will use besides FF-based browsers is Uzbl. Firefox allows me to lock down and customise my browser in ways Chrome does not. Let's not even go into the privacy nightmare that is Chrome.

They are not like apple because their goal is not the same as a for profit company. While you could still argue they're failing, i was just saying market share isn't the only indicator for a corporation in their position.

They're doing well now, especially since Electrolysis. But they can't beat Chrome being bundled in literally everywhere. Most average Joes will never switch from the bundled browser. Firefox needs to cut some deals to get bundled in as well. Sadly I doubt they have resources for this...

Mozilla is NOT a non-profit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation

The Mozilla Foundation IS a non-profit, with Mozilla Corporation as a wholly-owned subsidiary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation

Mozilla Corporation is, as you can see on the first sentence of that page, a subsidiary of Mozilla Foundation[0], which is itself a non-profit.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation

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