Maybe I'm too optimistic.
Update: Loved chrome, used it for years, I also love most Chrome engineering and all the innovation they added to the field - it's just good to have alternatives.
Its certainly low, but I also think FF usage is under reported due to built-in tracker blocking. For reference, FF uses the level 1 disconnect.me block list, which blocks StatCounter scrips from loading on 3rd party sites [1].
[1] https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect-tracking-protecti...
Of course it's not perfect source, but CloudFlare for instance have client detection purely by SSL handshake fingerprint and it's show 6-7% for Firefox:
https://malcolm.cloudflare.com/
Long ago Wikimedia also had own statistics that was pretty much relevant, but I guess it's discontinued.
Thus it's useful to consider market shares for all end-user internet-browsing devices, wherein x86 today is dwarfed by mobile and general ARM. The fact is you can pretty much correlate browser market share¹ with OS market share (which I guess retrospectively validates the anti-trust case against MS in the 90s).
- IE dominance throughout the x86 era (until early 2010s),
- then stratospheric rise of Chrome as Android took over 80-90% market share on mobile and probably 3-4x as many devices as Windows. Chrome took over everything else.
- Safari steady around 5%, about half of Apple's market share in both x86 and mobile (as low as half is surprising to me: since all iOS devices use Safari, the discrepancy between Apple's market share and Safari's must come from x86 MacOS, and I would have expected much more people to use default Safari on that OS, especially given its battery optimizations, compounded by Chrome's relative cost in RAM etc).
- Firefox is at an all-time low (still second though). Given the current trend of OS makers to expand into "ecosystems" (multiple devices/OS + cloud services), I don't find it surprising: mainstream users are more and more entrenched in the more-or-less walled "gardens" of each variety.
Clearly, Google is winning that game as of 2020 in terms of numbers, but Apple is winning too within its own (much smaller but more profitable!) userspace / customer base. MS is but failing so far, TBC, but meh it's Chromium underneath.
- Mobile internet use surpassed desktop.
- Tablets never caught on
- Windows 7 is more popular than MacOS
- Safari (mobile, undoubtedly) is the second most popular browser. IE(!) is third.
Sure you can spoof it, but it would be the same for the stat counter.
[1] https://statcounter.com/support/faq/14-how-do-i-install-stat...
Now I say the same about chrome and find FF much lighter and efficient.
Delighted that FF are taking a bit of a stronger stand here in the privacy dept too .
I use it on my phone now as I don't support AMP at all, and it still has some weird issues compared to Chrome. The main annoyances for me are:
- Kinda hanging occasionally when you have 40 or 50 tabs open. Sometimes have to close and reopen it, sometimes it'll start being responsive again. Never had these problems in Chrome.
- Never ending loading bars. While it might be true that some script hasn't loaded, I don't need to know and it's just annoying to have a half complete blue bar at the top of the page. It adds to the perception that there's something wrong, and it feels like somethings wrong with Firefox Mobile not something's wrong with the web page.
- I want to pull down to refresh. I know it's silly but 6 months on I still do it out of muscle memory, and then remember you have to click the menu, then click the refresh. Pull down is just great, far superior to their solution.
- Thumbnails of old tabs that are still open get flushed, never happens in Chrome. What it means is that you can't scan the tabs for an old open tab you want by the look of the thumbnail. for example, I have a jambalya recipe I tried and like but haven't got round to transcribing and every two or three weeks have to hunt through the damn tabs to find it.
- Their tab solution is not as nice as Chrome's. I really don't like the layout, or find it as usable, even months on. When Chrome initially switched theirs I was sceptical, but really learned to love the concertina style.
I am also finding it quite hard to get proper ad blocking working. It's working for some sites, but no matter what I do I'm still getting google ads and now certain login pages hang completely including some google driven ones. Why is it so hard to do? I'm pretty competent with computers after all! (Yes, I've turned off things like acceptable ads and checked the whitelists).
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.fe...
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/Firefox_Wayland_By_De...
Don't be optimistic, but don't be pesimistic either.
Do what you can - donate time or money, or just recommend everyone to not use the piece of carp that is Chrome. Anything based on Chromium counts as well, their codebase is dictated by Google, one way or the other.
My mom had so many issues with ads until I installed Firefox for her, and honestly, the ad blockers make the internet a much better for navigation.
Or if you are building web products, please use Firefox as your dev browser, that's what I'm doing and it automatically insures that whatever I build will work on Firefox.
As I understand it, donating money to Mozilla does not fund Firefox in any way but rather their other social initiatives (see the Mozilla Foundation page for a list). Firefox is under the Mozilla Corporation which is funded by things like search deals with Google.
The Modern US / Silicon Valley mentality is you have to be optimistic at all cost. Being Realistic is counted as pessimism.
I know my browser usage is used for marketing purposes, but as long as it doesn't harm me in anyway I can live with that.
Firefox also not only sync's between all of my devices, including my cell phone. Each device has the ability to send a tab to another device, which I don't recall Chrome having.
Just some data points in case you're ever interested in trying something different.
Might be obvious, but consider that more people than you estimated, while understanding implications and directions, decided differently than you did. It's dangerous to attribute behaviour different from your own to lack of understanding.
It's funny because Firefox has been pushing their login thing pretty hard (the yellow "oh no" exclamation mark icon if you're not logged in, the account icon that keeps placing itself back onto my toolbar, occasional full-page ad/nag screen, ...).
Not only that, but on new installs and after some updates Firefox nags you to sign up whenever it can, for instance when you log into a website - right after you save the password it will show some animated crap in the address bar to nag you to "Sign in to sync..."
I just opened Firefox (on Linux no less) to confirm every single one of these things.
Chrome (my default browser) actually nags me less and in less annoying ways.
Because they just log you in without asking, as noted in the comment you're replying to. It also has more severe implications in Chrome privacy-wise, directly linking your Chrome profile with all kinds of other privacy-sensitive Google services. Since Google is in the business of making money from the data they have on you (and hence collects as much as it can), I'd be much more concerned about this than I am about my Firefox account.
I see no way to opt out of all the nags Firefox gives me.
The very first screen on first open nags you to signup, the top menu item is “Sign in to Firefox”, there’s a notification dot on the user icon with the Sign in nag there, the Pocket button asks you to sign in and after I log into a website I immediately get an animated recommendation nag to also sign in to Firefox.
It’s absolutely 100% plastered around the Firefox UI.
https://blog.mozilla.org/services/2014/05/08/firefox-account...
I don't particularly care whether nagware functionality is benign or not.
You might not consider that use case important, but I wouldn't call it questionable.
It's the kind of "oops haha just a mistake that we did the bad thing again" shenanigans that Mozilla employees complain about Google doing.
On the other hand I find Pocket a much more questionable addition.
I've used and loved Firefox from before it was called Firefox. I really, really, really want to like the modern Firefox, but I just can't. I find it limiting and irritating. So, sadly, I don't. I don't use Chrome either, though.
There are two things that I find limiting. First, the configurability has been seriously reduced. I really dislike Firefox's UI, and it's no longer possible to make the browser look and feel as I prefer. I can get most of the way there -- but to even do that much is a rather serious pain in the butt. Second, the neutering of the extensions hurt badly, and the only way I can retain the functionality that I want is to use something pre-Quantum.
Waterfox has neither of these problems (well, the extension problem is starting to impact Waterfox, which is why I'm no longer updating it. I need to find another browser, but I haven't found a different one that works for me yet. Until I do, Waterfox it is.)
I’ve actually used FF as my main development browser for most of those years because it’s the only browser where extensions aren’t controlled by our IT department, and I kind of need extensions on the fly. So I’ve seen the good and the bad of it. I personally prefer Chrome. I also like privacy, but I’ve tried the Duck and it just doesn’t work for my language, leading me to add the !g on almost all my searches, and if I’m google that much anyway, so I really benefit from using FF? Doesn’t FF also use one of Google’s engines to check site security?
Anyway I’m rambling, so let me get back on track. I’ve been testing the new Edge, and it’s Microsoft’s best browser, and what are the risks? Is it really better to have all the browsers on different engines instead of having multiple big guys work on the same open source engine?