this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2023
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Firefox

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edited the heading of the question. I think most of us here are reasoning why more people are not using firefox (because it was the initial question), but none of that explains why it's actively losing marketshare.

I don't agree ideologically with Firefox management and am somewhat of a semi-conservative (and my previous posts might testify to that), I think Firefox browser is absolutely amazing! It's beautiful and it just feels good. It has awesome features like containers. It's better for privacy than any mainstream browser out there (even counting Brave here) and it has great integration between PC and Phone. It's open-source (unlike Chrome) and it supports a good chunk of extensions you would need.

This was about PC, but I believe even for Mobiles it looks great and it allows features like extensions (and I hear desktop extensions are coming to firefox android?), it's just a great ecosystem and it's available everywhere unlike most FOSS softwares.

So why is Firefox's market share dying?

I mean, I have a few ideas why it might be, maybe correct me I guess?

  1. Most people don't know how to use extensions well and how to use Firefox well. (Most of my friends in their 30's still live without ad blockers, so I don't think many are educated here)
  2. It's just not as fast as Chrome or Brave. I can't deny this, but despite of this, I find it's worthy.
  3. It's not the default.
  4. Many features which are Google specific aren't supported.
  5. Many websites are just not supporting firefox anymore (looking at you snapchat), but you would be right in saying this is the effect of Firefox losing it's market share not the cause (at least for now) and you would be right.

But what else?

I might take time (a lot of it) to get back at you, thanks for understanding.

occasionally I’ll find websites that don’t work 100% because they were coded primarily for chromium based browsers. FU Google

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[–] BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I use Firefox. The only thing I don't like about it is that Duck duck go isn't a terribly accurate search engine compared to Google.

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Photoshop Web (Beta) only supports Chromium-based browsers, Descript only supports Chromium-based browsers (well, Firefox still seems to work but you're on your own), and many new webapps are only supporting Chromium-based browsers. Now, these are beta products, so that might change, but it seems unlikely. So I've been switching to Chromium-based browsers to use some of these apps, but I'd really rather not. It's the way everything is going, unfortunately.

A lot of developers target the web because it means they can have one codebase that is supported on multiple operating systems. Imagine how much harder it would be to develop a macOS, ChromeOS and GNU/Linux version in concert with the Windows version. In reality, some browser engines support more web features than others, and Google has by far the most resources to keep up with those standards. So Firefox is an afterthought. Google Chrome is on every operating system worth supporting anyway, so why bother supporting another browser? It's a lot less work and testing.

MDN is the best place to read about those standards, though.

I like Firefox:

  • userChrome.css lets me make Firefox look like a GNOME program
  • I much prefer the developer tools. Everything is a lot easier. I always use Firefox when doing web development.
  • I can easily customize the browser. For me, this means having a separate dedicated URL bar and search engine bar.
    • The search engine bar lets me swap between search engines very quickly and keep my previous search terms for new tabs. Switching search engines is really annoying in Chromium-based browsers because you need to use shortcuts, and there's no autocomplete for shortcuts. It also doesn't tell you whether you typed the shortcut correctly, so you're guessing every time! It's really under-developed. The Android Chromium-based browsers are even worse. You can't change search engines at all when searching; you need to change your default engine. Firefox lets you search any search engine easily on iOS, and slightly less easily on Android.
  • I can...turn off history? Apparently this is an amazingly complex feature that Chromium-based browsers just can't handle. The best you can do is clear it when exiting, but you can't just turn history off.

Okay, it's mostly the search engine thing, to be honest.

But Firefox still doesn't use the new GNOME thumbnail view when you're uploading files, for example...

[–] webdoodle@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago

Because the U.S. government used the 2001 Microsoft Internet Explorer Antitrust hearings to blackmail Microsoft into government servitude: implanting NSA backdoors, not patching vulnerabilities, disabling system administration tools, constantly hiding or moving useful features. Remember from the Snowden leaks that the NSA's favorite prey is the System and/or Network Administrator who holds all the keys? But what about the guy that makes the keys, wouldn't he be the biggest prey?

[–] freebee@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I still miss the print a webpage to pdf on mobile firefox.

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[–] dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)
  1. It's actually faster than Chromium in recent build benchmarks. Firefox runs JS faster.
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[–] thegreenguy@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 year ago

Number 2 for me. And it's noticeable. I'd love to use it, but I just can't ignore the performance difference.

[–] FinallyDebunked@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I'm not so obsessed with foss, just use what is most convenient and Firefox turned up not to be it

[–] shapis@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago (7 children)

What issues did you have if you don't mind me asking.

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[–] Mio@feddit.nu 3 points 1 year ago

Firefox boot slower on Android. Webkit-based browsers boot much faster. I think they make use of some preloading of the browser itself.

[–] YoMismo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 year ago

Sadly, on pc many ppl that are not tech savvy assimilate internet to google chrome, I had some cases where they asked me "I want to install internet" when they means I want to install chrome to browse internet. I remember when chrome became more known by 2009/2010 Firefox had some issues, it crashes frequently and it was a bit slower, so people who found chrome faster adopted it fastly and it was more and more recommended. In my case I'm using FF since 2006 and I never stopped.

[–] jfx@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 1 year ago

I think a lot comes down to preinstalled SW on phones (Chrome/Safari) and the enterprise world. My rather large employer just switched from FF preinstalled to Edge for all work devices since it alreadz comes with Windows.

Maybe Firefox is missing a really compelling enterprise offering for Desktops? Everybody less savvy is on mobile anyways, which is dominated by the Duopoly Apple/Google.

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 year ago

Because Mozilla sucks as a company. They should be coming up with new ways to promote Firefox. Instead they are just getting paid by google and selling vpns

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