Can the open source browser get its mojo back before turning into history’s footnote?
Dont believe the article at all. Everyone I talk to is switching back to Firefox. I never left.
Firefox has an ambitious new roadmap, the browser is also losing millions of users a month
Submitted 3 weeks ago by BrikoX@lemmy.zip to technology@lemmy.zip
https://www.techspot.com/news/112803-firefox-has-ambitious-new-roadmap-browser-also-losing.html
Comments
LeepII@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
BrikoX@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
It’s Mozilla’s own numbers. data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity
morto@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Didn’t know they have those data. Some c/dataisbeautiful material here!
Some things are really interesting. I’d expect more people with extensions, but the majority don’t use. I’d also expect more linux users, but it seems the popularity among linux users is about same level as the general users. It’s also interesting to see a reasonable amount of 32 bit systems
Dultas@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I’d say it’s not clear if those numbers include FF forks that still use Firefox auth and sync or not.
lacethespace@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Article is fluff, just read the source of info: www.firefox.com/en-US/whatsnext/
I like built in ad blocking and further privacy protection. I’d like to see more of it, to firmly establish where firefox stands in the big tech war against personal freedom.
Unpopular opinion - for me Firefox is a joy to use. I appreciate that we still have a strong alternative to web monopoly. Sure things could be better but when was this not true? I’ve used it for many many years and there’s nothing on the horizon that I would consider as alternative.
matlag@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I don’t think it’s that impopular. I’ve never switched to Chrome or any derivative. I never felt a need to migrate, and with Google tightening rules on extensions, I feel even better standing by FF.
I’ve loathed the higher management giving themselves raises while market share was in free fall, but I have no complains about that piece of software. Over time, all the performance and weight issues have been dramatically improved, so what’s greener on the other side??
JoMiran@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
The Firefox forks are just so damned good. Zen, Librewolf, and Waterfox are just great.
douglasg14b@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
This is a broad misunderstanding I keep seeing here on Lemmy.
These forks rely heavily on Firefox core engineering and development, which, if Firefox dies off, they will no longer have access to, thus relegating them to history as well.
These are not hard forks. These are forks that maintain release parity with Firefox itself, absorbing the grand majority of all engineering efforts into Firefox into their own projects, meaning they are strongly tied to Firefox’s success or demise. And “strongly” is an understatement. We’re talking 95 to 99% of Firefox engineering efforts are consumed by these forks.
So somewhere from 1 to 5% of the engineering effort these forks rely on to continue to stay relevant, secure, performant, and up to modern web standards is provided by their contributors.
Keeping Firefox up-to-date with web standards and security is an engineering nightmare. I mean, just look at Safari.
Having forks is awesome, but putting blinders on and sticking your head in the sand, believing that these forks are independent browser developments is absurd.
JoMiran@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
I understand the relationship between Firefox and the forks. What I meant by my comment is that I suspect that a lot of their loss in users might be because of people going to the forks rather than the main product.
UnfortunateShort@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I totally agree and thought about going back to plain Firefox multiple times, but I would like to argue that if you can do it better than Mozilla at basically 0 budget, that is kind of on Mozilla.
Take Librewolf and Ironfox. They have clearly shown that there is an audience for hardened/privacy first Firefox. Mozilla can capture this audience very easily: Offer it yourself.
I really don’t feel like researching all the settings I need to change to arrive at a Librewolf-ish level of privacy. I also think Librewolf could still do better. And I think Mozilla should do it better than them.
tomiant@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
I don’t think that’s what they implied, but you’re right. And it sucks.
onlinepersona@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
Firefox has to die because Mozilla is a shitty org. All they care about it money. The money from Creepy Goose is just too much. The devs should move on to Servo, Ladybird, or a Firefox fork. The users will follow.
chloroken@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Downstream. WaterFox et. al. are downstream of Firefox. “Soft” and “hard” forks are not a thing.
DdCno1@beehaw.org 3 weeks ago
The problem is that they take their sweet time incorporating security updates.
Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Floorp is pretty on-the-ball from what I’ve seen!
Sanctus@anarchist.nexus 3 weeks ago
Leaving where? There is no safe harbor. You are using WebKit, Gecko, or Chromium and thats final.
snoons@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
I’ve started using canada post.
PabloSexcrowbar@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Falkon will be viable aaaaany day now!
Sarcasm aside, I do hope it picks up steam. It’s a nice browser.
KSPAtlas@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
I actually ended up switching from Firefox to Chromium, Chromium overall is just faster and nicer to use (also a bit more secure I think, if it matters)
Ublock origin and mv3 aren’t as much of an issue as I assumed at first, ubo lite works fine
Sanctus@anarchist.nexus 3 weeks ago
bigbangdangler@reddthat.com 3 weeks ago
You’re about to have a rough few months, methinks.
roofuskit@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
They haven’t pulled the rug yet. Good luck.
Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus 3 weeks ago
You know that V2 is just now on its way out? wait until Alphabet decides that they have waited long enough to deliver the death blow to ublock lite, which can’t update blocklists without a lengthy, weeks-long alphabet-controlled update process.
HotsauceHurricane@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Really hoping for the best for this browser. They absolutely need to drop ai as well as reassess their budget distribution. They are vastly overpaying their ceo.
Quill7513@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
For real. Firefox should be positioning itself as the only real alternative to the vast Blink-based “It’s all just pallet swapped Chrome” ecosystem but every opportunity Google gives them to do that instead of actually positioning themselves as an alternative, they shoot themselves in the foot. It’s gotten bad enough that people who advocated for Firefox for years have thrown their hands up in the air, given up, and moved on to other browsers without any so much hope to be positioned as a real alternative like Waterfox and Servo. I don’t think it’s being talked about enough how Mozilla has squandered all of the good will they ever had when at one point it was advocates like us who pushed it to become the only real alternative to Microsoft Internet Explorer. We were able to overthrow a browser with just as much reach into market share as Google Chrome has now, but in order to do that we need an alternative browser that is actually factually an alternative. And Mozilla just isn’t giving us one at this point
grandel@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Are Firefox fork users not considered firefox users? Without Firefox, the forks cease to exist. LibreWolf, etc users should be considered Firefox users.
Crozekiel@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
well, but they aren’t actually using firefox…
pluge@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
I’m bought in. Whatever Firefox is doing is better than Chrome in every way. The VPN feature is useless though. I can’t get any website that I actually care about to work with it turned on. Same with the email and phone number masks (Mozilla features not Firefox specific). Can’t use any Mozilla email/phone mask to work with 90% of the services I use. Amazing ideas in theory, but in practice they’re mostly useless.
hexagonwin@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
tbh it’s working really well enough now, i just wish they focus on technical stuff like optimization instead of messing with the UI and adding useless ai “features”
vivalapivo@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
We don’t need ai for browsing
belated_frog_pants@beehaw.org 2 weeks ago
No one wants the ai shit
Artemis_Mystique@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
I personally think the report of bleeding users is exaggerated, Most people I know(yes its a biased sample group) have left chrome, and its 50-49 split between brave and firefox, with the 1% being on safari(this metrics includes mobile users) and most of these people have turned on some kind of
do not track/do not send analyticscheckmark, plus people who are miffed about firefox switch to something based on firefox, which imo are just more users of firefox.Sina@beehaw.org 3 weeks ago
Every month there are new webpages breaking on FF, if this trend doesn’t stop, then it’s curtains. (people increasingly don’t test their crappy JS code on FF)
dil@piefed.zip 3 weeks ago
I love zenbrowser, just try it and you’ll see why, I’ve left too many comments in the past detailing it, if you like swapping workspaces and having them organized without pausing all of your tabs everytime, and having essential tabs that stick around no matter what for easy access, like im jut rambling idk, it made me enjoy browsing the web again since I don’t lose tabs anymore, everything is organized in folders, pinned tabs, or essential tabs
dil@piefed.zip 3 weeks ago
Easily the best browser for widescreens too, vertical tabs take like a week or so to really get used to, can’t go back now tho
4am@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Not too fond of it on multiple screen setups though. Perhaps that has changed?
dr_robotBones@reddthat.com 3 weeks ago
I wish it was easier to export and import configs and bookmarks. Main reason I stopped using it.
JakenVeina@midwest.social 3 weeks ago
They’re about to get a BIG bump in usership, when Manivest V2 goes dark.
MimicJar@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I’d like to think so, but I doubt it. For the average user Manifest V2 has been gone for about a year. Sure there were commands or preferences hidden away to re-enable it, but nothing user friendly.
Maybe we’ll see a tiny bump, but I expect everyone who was going to switch has already switched.
heartSagan5@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I’m sure since people are buying Chromebooks, where Chrome is the default and Windows, where Edge browser is the default — and they both use WebKit, it doesn’t help since now, people no longer see benefits over Gecko.
I use browsers that ARE NOT the default. I want my Web traffic in a different app than the system’s “Explorer.exe” (shell). For example, I refused to use Konqueror on KDE for the same reason as (Internet) Explorer and such.
I’m an outlier. People, sometimes due to work constraints, literally see the app as “the internet app.” They don’t compare and they often follow their cliques advice (or ads).
WhosMansIsThis@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I read this blog post from jrconlin about leaving Mozilla recently. I really appreciate the tone and insight and I think he hits the nail on the head about their leadership.
libre_warrior@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
fuck hypertext
heartSagan5@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Uh, this site is served via hypertext transport protocol (HTTP) so uh, you’ve got a bad statement.
libre_warrior@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Lumisal@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Well of course Firefox is dying. That’s why it was captured by people who used to work at Meta, Alphabet, and Microslop.
Horsey@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
My biggest issue with Firefox is that they don’t spend enough on UX design. They need to make an actual Safari competitor and use native code with fluid animations.
onlinepersona@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
The more cash Creepy Goose injects into Mozilla, the higher the CEO’s salary will be and the less users there will be. I’d like to thank Mozilla for being a money-sink for about 15 years now. It’s like Creepy Goose has been carrying a tiny ball and chain just so that authorities can say “oh yeah, they have competition”.
Once LadyBird reaches v1, Mozilla will be in deep shit as it won’t be necessary to pay them as a token competitor anymore.
mesamunefire@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
The latest round of widgets they threw into the browser was annoying.
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
“What if, now hear me out, what if we throw out the baby and the bathwater!?”
Eternal192@anarchist.nexus 3 weeks ago
Stop cramming AI into the browser and you might get some people back.
Was on FF for years and then they announced AI so i went to WaterFox and have LibreWolf ready just in case WF starts fucking around.
douglasg14b@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I hope you know that Waterfox and LibreWolf have their fate tied to Firefox, right?
These aren’t hard forks. They consume the engineering efforts of Firefox itself in order to stay relevant. They aren’t developing their own solutions to web standards and CVE patches, except in extreme circumstances.
If Mozilla loses funding for their engineering organization, which is the grand majority of their entire budget, Firefox stops keeping up to date with web standards and security patches and rapidly falls behind. Leaving just Chrome as the only option, or Safari, but I know none of us want to choose Safari.
All the soft forks go with it.
Now, if all the soft forks abandoned their own projects in order to pool their efforts together to maintain a single fork in this scenario, then they might make some success in staving off irrelevancy, which, instead of becoming irrelevant in the course of a couple of years, might take half a decade instead. Which does leave enough time to cobble together enough contributors and a large enough project to keep it afloat.
But I highly doubt that all these various forks will pool their engineering efforts into a single project, at least not immediately and at least not willingly.
XLE@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Mozilla’s funding is provided by Google. It’s not going to dry up while Google needs to maintain the appearance of a non-monopoly.
wyldrstallyns@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
On the off-chance you have some experience with of, what’s your take on Vivaldi, currently?
unwarlikeExtortion@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Also, what’s with the pushing of the football world championship?
I don’t care for it.
I also want a browser that lets me browse the web and do what I want. Not what it decides to shill next.
In someone’s eyes it might seem a small issue, but they add up.
All the resources spent pn testing this one-off feature that’ll be scrapped in a few weeks because it’ll outlive its usefullness is a waste of time and resources.
What I want is a chrome-style history page with good UX and not the history sidebar and modal from 20+ years ago.
yuri@pawb.social 2 weeks ago
the weird fucken tab-anchored history bullshit is SO ANNOYING.
Eternal192@anarchist.nexus 2 weeks ago
Give it a bit more time and you’ll have plenty of choices.
People are sick of the big tech crappy browsers and there are more and more open source alternatives and more and more FireFox forks that strip the crap and give you just the browser Fennec comes to mind and i bet you can ask here for options and opinions and you’ll get a ton of suggestions.