Firefox Loses Users and Websites
i-programmer.info
i-programmer.info
I don't know about this. Almost every thread about Firefox has someone recommending Brave. Firefox is solving a problem users don't know they will miss until it's gone: browser consolidation. The problems that needs solving now are privacy related and Mozilla's absolutely poor management of Firefox on this front causes others to look for other solutions.
Firefox should be the most privacy centric browser available. However it doesn't seem like management gets the memo. For example, not too far in the past, they made news for putting ads in the search bar and providing a config option (in about:config) to even allow personalization. This kind of thing just destroys the brand and trust with users. If someone asked me to rank browsers based on privacy, I don't think I could give you a rank order, other than the fact that Chrome (and I'm assuming IE) would be near the bottom.
They could also be the most power-user browser available.
Unfortunately, it seems like they've gotten absolutely high off of telemetry, and seem like they're just itching to cut features and break things.
They need to stop thinking like they're some lowest-common-denominator browser. That's Chrome, and nothing is going to change that in the short or medium term.
This is what kept me using Firefox long past the point where it became unpleasant to use. Last year, I finally gave up and switched to Brave. I don't love Brave, but there isn't a lot of viable options anymore.
I tried sticking with Firefox, I really did. I'd been using Firefox from way back in day 1. But, in the end, it just stopped being a good browser for me and all of the changes Mozilla made just kept making it worse.
Browsers consolidated down to basically one and then that one just sat and didn't advance anymore. And why should it? It's not like users could go elsewhere. For years the world was subjected to the absolute crap that ie6 ossified on and wouldn't fix.
We need viable competition to keep a fire lit under the leader to stay ahead.
Another issue I ran into recently is that `Symbol.for(str)` will cause the entirety of `str` to be allocated forever in Chromium, but not in Firefox. (It's inevitable that `Symbol.for()` will have some memory impact, as a global allocation, but it's possible to mitigate it somewhat.)
IMO it's too bad that the effort to create a Node-alike driven by Spidermonkey instead of V8 never got anywhere.
When Chrome eventually came out I added it to my arsenal because it was new and there was an expectation that it would be as revolutionary as Firefox had been. And it was pretty good, much faster than ff was by that time. Never did give up ff entirely but Chrome ended up open more and more. Contrast to ie6 that I never opened again as soon as ff was available. I did check out ie7 when it came out but there was no reason to stay with it. Very much a catch up move.
Exactly why Google is effectively funding Mozilla. They need to keep firefox alive to avoid Monopoly status.
I think a good solution though is to let a better organization like Brave grow, and if we need to create a new competing web engine let them fork it when the time comes
They engaged in what I can only describe as deliberate and systematic sabotage of the brand and any competitive advantages they might have had.
That being said, I'm not sure the outcome could have been averted. Like you said, since Google was the hand that fed them and Google has their own browser, Mozilla could have only slowed down the inevitable, not prevented it.
* uBlock Origin (Chrome based browsers don't seem to block ads as good as Firefox, especially on mobile)
* Treestyle Tab
But Firefox is falling way behind when it comes to rendering my bank websites properly, supporting little standards I use like WebSerial/WebUSB...
I've given up on Apple about-facing and driving hard on PWA support with a privacy focus (e.g. allowing push notifications in PWAs only, requiring the apple "dev tax" be paid to get push keys that are tied to such a site so it's used properly etc and doing that to other "problematic" PWA APIs as well).
And I don't see Firefox picking that up either; their management seems content to funnel money into their own pockets with bonuses and shutter projects like Servo or MDN to do so..
I am beginning to see why Brave adopted Blink instead of Gecko.
If I were to make a bank transfer, and the process hanged in the final step because of an incompatible browser, I'd be furious, even if I had been warned about the risk using FF. In the worse case, I could be wondering if I need to repeat the operation with Chrome, or if the failure occurred after the transfer and repeating would duplicate...
If they don't test their website with FF, there's a higher risk of bugs. A FF user might not even realize that they're hindered by bugs: the site could be much slower, or some blocks would not refresh, or some transactions fail silently. If it doesn't clearly look broken, and just behaves badly, the user will probably blame the website instead of switching to a Chromium-based browser.
I don't want to live in a world where google is in complete control of the web.
The market will weed out those that are not competitive
If you want caring, you need to get it outside of the industry.
I'd work on idealistic causes starting tomorrow if I didn't live in a world that mandates me to spend most of my energy on commercial work just so I can eat and have where to sleep.
And we won't find any solution within the main view of letting the market solve it. The market doesn't solve this kind of problem.
My understanding is it's been a long time since a browser was a cool little thing a single person could hack up in a reasonable amount of time. Now web standards are such that it's like some massive line-of-business app with a million requirements that all have to be implemented (and be fast, and be memory efficient) or something will break/someone will complain.
That is why. A browser engine today is TOO complex.
Don't get me wrong I would love for this happen, just don't count on it.
And please, when SerenityBrowser have 80% market share in 10 years, don't hesitate to parade that comment all over HN or whatever cool website we'll be on.
They are a small team of I think 20 people, but it goes to show how complex and exhausting writing a modern browser truly is.
In terms of talented individuals, I actually emailed Fabrice Bellard on the topic because he wrote QuickJS along with everything else he’s known for. Even he admits writing a browser is a very complicated task because a lot of information is not correctly specified. He did however write QuickEmacs 20 years ago which supported html and css rendering.
It’s sad, even when W3C and other committees try their best to keep the web strictly standard, it truly isn’t. And like I said, it hasn’t been enough of an issue to raise any concern outside of bubbles like here.
I think the masses need to learn about the importance of keeping fundamental software free and standard as a whole before they can learn why browsers and OS’s should be. But it’s tough because the average user doesn’t know what a library is. A lot of people think that even in app development, the programmer does it all from scratch.
That war has been lost decisively ten years ago.
That's not the problem. The problem is that Firefox is funded by their direct competitor, who incidentally also is a monopoly with a bottomless marking budget.
There are many subtleties, but the actionable takeaway is we need to, as users, demand management that places privacy and security above profit.