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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[–] freebee@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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

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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.

[–] webdoodle@lemmy.ml 3 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?

[–] 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

[–] dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 year ago
  1. It's actually faster than Chromium in recent build benchmarks. Firefox runs JS faster.
[–] 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.

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