Article seems pretty flawed. Relevance is a vague metric, and the author relies pretty heavily on data related to government site visitation, which seems subject to bias toward certain types of users.
Market share is likely still incredibly low, but Firefox’s relevance should be spiking right now due to Google’s shenanigans with Chromium. The fact that like 90% of revenue for its for-profit wing is from Google is still troubling.
Any alternative views out there?
From ZDNet. How much did they get paid to post this article?
How much did they get paid by a PR firm who’s subsidized entirely by Alphabet, Inc.?
For an article that tries to push a groupthink narrative to work, the people using the “discouraged” product need to believe the “encouraged” one has feature parity with zero downsides.
I guarantee that no one is accidentally using Firefox because they’re unaware of the alternatives.
I use Edge for corporate intranet, Safari for anything with real-life connected personal accounts, and Firefox for everything else. Have done so for over a decade (with Edge previously being Chrome and before that IE).
This means government sites would mostly see me as a Safari user, with the occasional Edge visit, unless I was just looking something up, in which case it’d be Firefox.
According to YouTube, I’d be 99% a Firefox user.
This is a very good example of the skewing I imagined. If you’re unable or prohibited from using Firefox on work devices (as many environments restrict), all that workday traffic will be coming from “approved” browsers.
Before the new year, I donated 25€ for Firefox, my long-time companion to #degoogle Grapheneos and Linux. Although Google is introducing DRM, I don’t think anything is so important in this life that I have to use Chrome or IE, I will adapt to the situation and instead of worrying about DRM (of course, for the public Internet, this seems like a total violation of users’ rights, for safety 🤣🤣🤣, really?) I will try to be more social, but not in the sense of social networks, but hanging out with friends or listening to music or running or a good book… I definitely don’t want this big corporation near me, which we are more and more they control… (google,ms,apple,amazon…) Firefox probably missed by not insisting on FirefoxOS (phones), but it has a great agenda - privacy and simplicity. I look forward to many years of using FF!!
Is this copy pasta
The problem is, you can’t donate to firefox. Only to the mozilla foundation which spends it on other stuff.
Yes, to mozzila foundation. Thanx
theres a difference between the mozilla foundation - the non profit - and the mozilla corporation - the for profit.
Yes exactly, that’s what I mean. Firefox is from the for-profit and you can’t donate to that. I think they did that because of the google deal but it also means they locked themselves out of a sustainable donation model.
The non-profit is just running some BS side-projects now.
firefox foundation is literally what you donate to when you donate to firefox.
No, it’s the Mozilla foundation: https://donate.mozilla.org/en-US/ . Not the firefox foundation.
They do a lot of stuff but Firefox is not part of that, that’s under the corporation: https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/what-we-do/
liter
the problem with firefox is that chrome’s marketing is just too prevalent among the general population; it’s built into their gmail, their phone, everything that they use.
as a flutter dev it’s especially frustrating since debugging on the web requires chrome (please help boost this issue in the issue queue: https://github.com/flutter/flutter/issues/55324)
on the other hand they also reached their goal of over $3m grassroots donations in 2023, which goes a long way to scaling back on the reliance of google donations.
you also have to remember that web statistics are largely done by third party sources - like google analytics - or through telemetry. in the first case, many firefox users or those with adblockers will disable that. in the second case, this is exactly why i implore people to not disable telemetry in firefox since it’s necessary for bug testing and usability studies but also for determining reach of software.
personally i prefer firefox but still use a mix of google products, including maps, youtube premium/music, and drive (which i pay for). i also have a monthly donation to mozilla and thunderbird. it’s not much but every little bit helps - even $5
which goes a long way to scaling back on the reliance of google donations.
$3 million is about 0.67% of the money they get from Google and that money isn’t even going into Firefox development.
I don’t think the zdnet article adds much but it does link to https://news.itsfoss.com/firefox-continuous-decline/ which gets it about right. If anything has changed since it was written, evidence of it has not yet reached me.
This. People are basically in denial over how poorly Mozilla is handling Firefox. They are genuinely going to drive their product to zero marketshare pretty soon.
While it doesn’t make much of a difference, this is part of why I recommend most people to keep market research telemetry on.
Boy that paints a grim picture.
Yikes! That paints a pretty scary picture 😬
Indeed, that we tend to write such scary-looking rants and post them all over the Internet is one reason it was perhaps a bad idea for Mozilla to alienate their most geeky users in so many little ways over the years.
Firefox itself is still the least scary of the available full-featured web browsers, of course.
Our telemetry shows 80% of users never install any add-ons” i.e. the telemetry that any tech savvy person immediately turns off because they don’t want their browser spying on them and about which we have also complained numerous times.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
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Side note - I really like how you crossed out your spelling error instead of just fixing it - I always proof-read my comments after I post them (because I always forget to do it), and this might actually, in s tiny way, be useful to someone who’s still learning the language, or just didn’t know a particular working is wrong. I’m going to try and start doing this as well, thanks 😊👍
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As I understand it, the message here is that any decently savvy user of Firefox turns off telemetry, so mozilla doesn’t know of them using extensions. hence why they say 80% don’t use them, people who do use them don’t give them their usage data.
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“You’re just a tiny minority, most people like the change”
They did the same shit with their redesign with their idiotic floating tabs. They look ugly and they even take up way more space, while displaying less information, for literally no reason. They argued the need this change for future FF features, which yet, several years later, have yet to appear. Here’s a quote from “Paul”, one of their moderators - almost 3 years ago:
Hi,
We bring a modernized and differentiated look to tabs since Firefox 89 in order to create a signature Firefox look and experience. This major redesign will help us enable more use cases and features in the future.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1338169
I love Firefox and will continue to use it, but its decline is a mixture of Google’s aggressive embrace, extend, and extinguish approach and straight up continued mismanagement of the Mozilla Corporation.
but when you tell the moz fanboys why moz sucks you’ll find yourself in a meta/maga like echochamber. again and again moz made absolute shit decisions, the managing board is eating money like mad and google is STILL your default search engine. pathetic.
youre mad that firefox gets funded by google and all they have to do is change one setting thats easily changeable by the user on install?
if you are that mad… then donate to mozilla.
it is one example. sure one could switch. so why not random search engine on install? because money. the managing board seems to eat money. i am still missing weave server. i still miss plugins from before they made these drastic changes back then… all the freaking time they make the wromg decisions. and their supporters are like a militia…just mentioning what one thinks might be the problem with FF as a horde of ppl like you just reflex talking the same shit that did not get more people to like ff or moz. thunderbird will die the same way. why on earth did they waste resources to have a calender and drive more devs away? always the wrong decisions. always.
no. but very echochamberlike reaction.
which button removes the managing board?
same as any other corporation.
be a publicly traded company and buy shares
or be on the board of directors.
And then the person saying that FF blows because Google is the default browser uses… a Chromium wrapper.
What I don’t get is why hasn’t there been a split yet. Not like Seamonkey, but from major developers of FF.
The day Firefox shutters its doors is the day the internet truly dies. Almost every “alternative” browser is chromium under the hood. Google’s next big plan is basically constructing a walled garden around the internet (at least the HTTP part) via complex DRM. Eventually, if you want to access an actual web page, it’ll have to be via a Chromium browser. Hell, even today a shitload of websites I visit on FF just don’t fucking render correctly and I’ll have to fire up a chromium instance just to access them. That’s only going to get worse with time.
No. This is just a return to the days of the IE-only web. It will be problematic but it won’t be the end of the web.
It wasn’t really IE-only. People sort of could use Netscape, and then Mozilla, and then Firefox. And Opera which wasn’t free.
The day Firefox shutters its doors is the day the internet truly dies.
*the web
The internet has so far been doing a much better job surviving as a proper decentralized system than the web.
Really? What’s left of the Internet beyond the web?
How many people use Usenet today, rather than forums or social media on the web?
How many people use IRC, rather than Slack? (Either on the web or in a Chromium-backed desktop app)
How many people use an email client, rather than webmail?
Back in the day I used IRC but prefer Signal and Matrix now. I, also, use an email client.
I know I’m an outlier, but I prefer text mode IRC, then slack, and then all the other shit (telegram, signal, discord, teams, etc) fall way behind. “Everything is a walled-off app” is a horrible way to communicate. I get why these companies do it, and I also even understand the headache over maintaining useful open APIs, but honestly, they drop that ASAP because it doesn’t make them money.
Some non-HTTP(S) Internet stuff:
Email is transferred to its destination (where, sure it might be accessed through a Web UI) via SMTP. Even where things like Slack are used internally, email usage between organisations is still extensive, due to effectively being a federated lowest-common-denominator system that’s not completely at the mercy of a single vendor.
VoIP, which increasingly underlies telephony/mobile networks, uses things like SIP, RTP and RTCP - even if, again, it might be accessed via a Web UI, it doesn’t have to be, and there are dedicated clients.
SSH is widely used for remote system administration. SFTP, built on top of SSH, is used to transfer sensitive data, e.g. (in the US) medical records covered by HIPAA.
SNMP is used for network device management, sometimes doing so via the Internet.
Don’t confuse certain end-user applications with the Internet more generally.
The original comment, was the claim that the internet is doing a lot better than the web.
In that context, the fact that literally every single one of those services is primarily accessed and managed through the web, makes that claim that the web hasn’t succeeded look a little ridiculous.
Usenet, IRC, mailing lists. and TUI email clients are fading away because they have horrible UX (and UI in most cases). The internet used to be a nerdy space, but now it’s for everybody: from your youngest to your oldest citizens, from the least technically adept to the most technically adept, and everyone in between. You can mourn the death of technologies and solutions written for another era if you wish, but that doesn’t make you better nor right. It just makes you bitter (or salty if that’s what the kids say nowadays).
There never has been a better newsreader than pineapple news. That program alone was reason enough to boot up BeOS, fite me irl.
IRC? Graphical, in particular, hexchat. Also switch the font to proportional you’re not editing text.
IRC has no built-in support for replies, media (audio, video, stickers, reactions, custom emoji, etc.), threads, and encryption. It’s barebones text with a bunch of cryptic slash commands on top of it - everything else is done by the client.
And pineapple news’ UI is from another era. It’s like looking at papyrus when you have Gutenberg’s print.
To each their own, but the amount of people willing to use such outdated tech is dwindling.
IRC has no built-in support for
And? It’s a chat room, not a forum and emojis are a scourge upon the internet. And you’re certainly more likely to get an answer than on stackoverflow…
And pineapple news’ UI is from another era. It’s like looking at papyrus when you have Gutenberg’s print.
It’s BeOS’ default tk, the point is the UX not lack of subpixel font rendering. Windows looked like this back in the days. And no I don’t use it any more, haven’t visited usenet in almost 20 years.
And? It’s a chat room, not a forum and emojis are a scourge upon the internet. And you’re certainly more likely to get an answer than on stackoverflow…
Just like not everything that’s new is good, not everything that’s old is good. There’s a time and place for anything. The time and place for IRC is a museum IMO. You may disagree, but I disagree with you probably just as much that “emojis are a scourge upon the internet”.
I have yet to see a usenet post that was both written by a person and not incredibly batshit insane
Servo is being actively worked on. Maybe it can become a worthy adversary to chrome?
I thought Servo was basically dead since the layoffs at Mozilla in 2020, but your comment caused me to look into it and evidently funding was found to resume development on it at the beginning of last year. That’s good news! (to me!)
curl -k IP_Address
Open in notepad.
Read.
“Oh, an empty HTML tag and 2Mb of JavaScript!”
Do you have examples for the sites that don’t render correctly? I’m genuinely curious since I haven’t encountered that issue in like a decade.
Hell, even today a shitload of websites I visit on FF just don’t fucking render correctly and I’ll have to fire up a chromium instance just to access them.
Can you link to an example? I remember this from years ago, but haven’t encountered it for a long time.
I mean, you can argue that Google actually has a monopoly on web browsers right now. iirc Firefox takes a ton of money from Google, so if the choices are “Google’s proprietary browser” or “a non-Chromium browser backed by Google” (EDIT: unless you’re on Apple hardware and use Safari), then Google comes out on top either way.
Wish we could get another good browser engine that isn’t Chromium, WebKit, or Quantum.
I’m still sad about the day the real Opera with the presto rendering engine died. And while Vivaldi is getting many of the features and functionality, it’s still a chromium rebuild. I guess it just takes too much money to build your own rendering engine anymore.
And it was so fast, awww. And had a built-in BitTorrent client which didn’t suck balls and didn’t feel excessive.
And all that caching.
I guess it just takes too much money to build your own rendering engine anymore.
Even Microsoft couldn’t do it.
Heck even Google couldn’t do it, they used Apple’s WebKit. And even Apple couldn’t do it, they used KDE’s KHTML. Speaking of KHTML: Konqueror is still around, though they’ve already decided to get rid of KHTML completely and move to one of the forks, development pretty much stalled since 2016.
Ehh
There’s a clear difference between accepting money from an entity and letting it control things and make decisions. Pushing for a full and clear separation from any potential conflict of interest (while noble) is how projects die.
I’d love for Firefox to be fully funded through small anonymous public donations in an ideal world. As it is, I don’t see an issue from taking Google’s money to do something that most users would want anyways.
If the default search wasn’t google, I’m certain even more users would bail on Firefox. Anyone who does want an alternative search engine is capable of clicking on it during installation.
Firefox might be able to survive on donations, if Mozilla’s CEO stopped giving herself raises
They don’t even want our money. They just let you donate to Mozilla foundation, which does other projects.
Firefox is developed by Mozilla corporation which is funded by the google deal.
I donate to several FOSS projects including monthly to KDE but I won’t donate to Mozilla until I can actually make sure my money goes to firefox. And ideally not their overpaid CEO either, no.
a full and clear separation from any potential conflict of interest (while noble) is how projects die.
There are worse things than death, like being successful by screwing people over and/or making the biosphere unlivable.
I’m fighting the good fight by using Safari to browse and Kagi to search. I have effectively eliminated Google from my life and I could not be happier about it.
Signed, a former Google fan who got tired of being the product for their ever shittier services.
Apple and Google deserve about the same amount of trust. I don’t know that Safari is any better than Chrome other than keeping a large portion of users in a secondary browser. I guess it all depends on whether uBlock Origin is able to be loaded on it along with other useful extensions. I’m a Firefox fan though.
I wouldn’t nominate either one for sainthood, no argument there. I walked away from Google because they are an ad company that makes devices and software - that has become increasingly more apparent in the last several years, I’m sure it was always true but less obvious in the early days.
Apple has their own set of issues for sure, but I don’t think they’re comparable to the spyware advertising conglomerate that is Google.
The day Firefox shutters its doors is the day the internet truly dies.
Firefox is little more than just a Chrome clone itself, financed by Google no less. It doesn’t do anything to set itself apport. If they cared about an open Internet they should have put some effort into building it (support RSS, Torrent, IPFS, etc.). If Firefox dies tomorrow, nothing much would change as the rest of the Internet already didn’t care. It might however make room for a browser that actually cares about privacy and an open Internet, instead of just using those words for marketing purpose while still having telemetry by default.
Firefox has been irrelevant for about a decade now. Most webdevs don’t even test for firefox anymore. Major websides actively ignore it and most users evidently either don’t know and/or use it.
Yes, firefox is relevant as an alternative to Chromium-based browsers, but that’s about it. Mozilla has done a stellar job at keeping it irrelevant to keep bagging that sweet google money.
Honestly, I hope firefox and mozilla die, to be reborn again by another entity, but Mitchell Baker probably will do their best to keep getting that sweet, sweet, Google money.
With how google has been gong mask-off, I’d argue that FF has never been more relevant
It won’t change anything about Mozilla. They know they are the only viable option at the moment and they will milk it until they die. We should let it die.
ah zdnet, a waste of CO2 if there ever was
I didn’t think that the market share was actually changing much? Like it’s low but it’s still used, especially on Linux workstations with nothing else pre-installed
Only thing I miss in Firefox is PWA, but I still mainly use it.
There’s an extension which allows PWAs.
There sure has been a lot of propaganda being posted to Beehaw lately.
The day Firefox gets native mouse gestures is the day I swap. Until then will continue to be a very happy Vivaldi user.
The plug-in gesturify on Firefox does what Vivaldi does but better on honestly. I Really like Vivaldi as my back up browser but it’s nice but being stuck using chromium on Firefox.
Nope. Doesn’t allow gestures on internal pages. Eg new tabs, menu, settings, etc… It doesn’t work in the entire browser
That’s Firefox’s fault not the plugins. They don’t allow any plugin to run in internal pages.
Yup, I know. So until Firefox has native lvl gestures, I won’t switch :)
I will be honest. I didn’t read that article because it’s too click-baity. Using https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/ I see that Firefox is about 3% of 5b users. Not insignificant.
That 3% is about 150mil users. IMO, less than it should be. Google has great security, but terrible privacy. I switched middle of last year, from brave to FF for reasons I won’t get into here. Suffice it to say, they are numerous.
It truly is troubling that they don’t have independent funding. I, for one would pay $10/y for this service. Maybe I could donate?
Anyway, it’s a superior product in many ways.
I would say a good half of posts on Lemmy are too click-baity for me to actually look at. Every title clearly has picked a side and it’s rare to see something even attempt to be impartial
I can’t disagree with you. I feel like that’s the way of the world anymore regardless of platform.
Agreed, unfortunately you’re right
There are a few good sites that document slant and coverage.
https://www.allsides.com/unbiased-balanced-news
https://ground.news/landingV4/middleground
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/
I hope this helps.
That’s total browser market. On Desktop it’s 7.61%, in Germany 17.93%, making it second place (though Edge isn’t far behind). Europe is 10.56%, North America pretty much average, Asia and South America are dragging it down.
It truly is troubling that they don’t have independent funding. I, for one would pay $10/y for this service. Maybe I could donate?
Firefox is Mozilla’s cash cow, it’s how they’re earning funds for their charitable work. And google btw isn’t the only one paying them, which search engine is the default depends on where you are.
Firefox is Mozilla’s cash cow, it’s how they’re earning funds for their charitable work. And google btw isn’t the only one paying them, which search engine is the default depends on where you are.
Thank you that’s wonderful news! I don’t have the time to keep up on browser news like that so I truly appreciate the information.
