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
On losing market share.
I truly appreciate all of the efforts Mozilla has brought, but there are things I cannot tolerate, and @mindbleach@sh.itjust.works is accurate and concise, which I'd like to expound upon.
Firefox's user-base was mostly nerds, and nerds' grass-roots referrals; well and truly, Firefox was a developers first browser. What happens when you have many enthusiastic nerds contributing to a project? Free-ish improvements. You still need someone to review pushes, correct merge conflicts, implement requests, prioritize feedback, and maintain the playground after all.
However, Mozilla made some questionable and unilateral decisions that alienated their user-base. For the sake of brevity, I'll list some of the issues that caused me to switch to LibreWolf. Descending importance:
Deciding developers would no longer be the target audience. (History follows. 2020 a new CEO is appointed: Mitchell Baker. Mozilla announces funding cuts to various departments, such as MDN, developer tools, and security researchers. MDN slowly loses its status as the, 1, go-to web reference and, 2, place to find the latest advancements of the web. Dev tools in Chrome gain features FF can't keep up with. Earlier in May, of this year, 2023: Mozilla begins new developer blogs in an effort to regain the gold mine they discarded, along with various other measures.)
Installing the Mr. Robot extension without warning, let alone consent. (This was 6 years ago. I should let it go.)
Whitelisting only 6 mobile add-ons. (Add-on manager now announced to be "(re-)opened" later this year.)
Making it very difficult to opt-out of said mobile add-on decision, and impossible without opting-in to telemetry.
about:config unavailability in mobile Firefox.
Massive issues in major versions, which should've been caught by beta testing if not alpha.
My biggest gripes boil down to throwing us away, and the decisions made in pursuing generic and more profitable consumers. Mostly in removing the freedom, tinkering ability, control, etc that Firefox previously provided.
Ultimately, they have contributed greatly. I don't expect they quite understand how controlling and authoritarian decisions are driving away their hardest dying supporters, but I can hope they remember their roots. I hope they can learn and change. I'd like to get some faith back in the company I was such a large fan of. I wish them all the wisdom and success they can manage. If they go the way of Netscape, I hope some other idealist nerds pick up the torch.
I wish them well, but Firefox is no longer my browser.