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?
- 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)
- It's just not as fast as Chrome or Brave. I can't deny this, but despite of this, I find it's worthy.
- It's not the default.
- Many features which are Google specific aren't supported.
- 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
I've used Firefox for years and I love it on Android, but on my work laptop (MacBook) I really enjoy using Arc. The vertical tabs let me organise things better, the spaces let me isolate tabs properly in a visually pleasing way, and I don't really care for extensions on desktop as I don't really browse much outside of work. I also prefer chromium dev tools, though it isn't that bad to switch to Firefox's dev tools.
If Firefox adopts few features from Arc, both in form and function, I wouldn't mind coming back. I know sidebar exists which lets you have vertical tabs via extensions, but damn Arc does it the best so far, natively!
Edit: oh, another reason was lack of background blur effects for Google meet. It's coming soon I think (I filed it on bugzilla), but damn it was needed like 3 years ago.
Let me introduce you to the fabulous world of TreeStyleTabs.
I did check it and it is pretty cool. Though you've to use user css to hide actual tabs and even then it isn't as polished experience as Arc. I guess it is one of the features that needs to be part of browser chrome to be really good.
Same here, I used Firefox for a long time but Arc just captured me with its beauty and polish. Sideberry for Firefox kinda replicates the vertical tab experience, but man it's so much better when the solution is native to the app.
I actually vastly prefer Firefox's dev tools to Chromium's. There are keyboard shortcuts to open every tab, it has a color picker, it has a multi-line Javascript console, and in general I find it more intuitive. Chromium developer tools seem to be less complete than Firefox and harder to use.
I just learned Chromium technically has a color picker tool, but you need to scroll through CSS propetries to find a color selector, click the color, then click the color picker. With Firefox, I tap
CTRL+SHIFT+Ito open dev tools, click the color picker which is front-and-center, and it copies the hex code to my clipboard. This is a microcosm of my overall experience with Chromium's developer tools. Everything is slower or further out of reach.I don't know how it ended up this way.
You're right, Firefox does make its menus more accessible. What is good about Chromium is that it has command pallette, so you can just type away what you want and it's done. Maybe that's why the stuff is burried behind menus in Chromium.
Ah, I can see how that might be useful. I first learned about the command pallette when I needed to instruct everyday users on taking a full-page screenshot on Chrome...it's far more complicated than Firefox's method of Right-Click > Take Screenshot. Just another odd thing, lol. Interestingly, Firefox is considering implementing this feature: https://github.com/firefox-devtools/ux/issues/101
I don't think it would make much sense in my workflow right now but I can see how it would benefit others. Quickly turning on accessibility constraints I'm sure would be very useful. One thing Firefox's dev tools is desperately missing is search. I get along fine without it, but it would be nice to have.