Ask Slashdot: What Should Mozilla Do To Boost Firefox's Market Share? - Slashdot

Ask Slashdot: What Should Mozilla Do To Boost Firefox's Market Share? - Slashdot
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writes:
Mozilla's Firefox once commanded a large chunk of the browser market share, but now it stands under a pitiful 5 percent. Google money removes need to compete from
a management POV
as they'll get paid either way but they're still leaving money on the table.
What should Mozilla do to help Firefox regain its lost market share? Not so long ago Internet Explorer was only used to download Firefox when geeks reloaded Windows machines for others. Today, Edge, however pathetic, still outranks Firefox. Were FF not arguably the best available browser for Linux, share would be even less.
Were you the king for a day what would you do to make Firefox great again? If you dropped or deprecated Firefox what shooed you off? This is not about Firefox being good or bad but about regaining casually discarded market share.
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Submission: Ask Slashdot: What should Mozilla do to regain Firefox market share?
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Ask Slashdot: What Should Mozilla Do To Boost Firefox's Market Share?
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Ask Slashdot: What Should Mozilla Do To Boost Firefox's Market Share?
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obvious....
Score:
, Insightful)
by
not_mchurch
( 7306306 )
writes:
on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @12:42PM (
#63130266
maybe they should listen to their users when they tell them their redesigns suck.
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Re:obvious....
Score:
, Insightful)
by
n.sider
( 10210149 )
writes:
on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @12:52PM (
#63130306
They once employed Brendan Eich, the fucking creator of JavaScript, and they fired him for donating $800 to the Mormons or some such.
They're more concerned with social activism than technical excellence and it shows in their current product.
Parent
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Re:obvious....
Score:
, Insightful)
by
drinkypoo
( 153816 )
writes:
drink@hyperlogos.org
on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @01:03PM (
#63130336
Homepage
Journal
They once employed Brendan Eich, the fucking
creator of JavaScript
I don't get why this is supposed to be a selling point
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Re:obvious....
Score:
, Funny)
by
93 Escort Wagon
( 326346 )
writes:
on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @03:10PM (
#63130908
They fired him when they discovered that he'd invented Javascript...
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Re:obvious....
Score:
, Interesting)
by
DesScorp
( 410532 )
writes:
on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @01:18PM (
#63130404
Journal
They once employed Brendan Eich, the fucking creator of JavaScript, and they fired him for donating $800 to the Mormons or some such.
They're more concerned with social activism than technical excellence and it shows in their current product.
This is going to start a massive flamewar, but what the hell.... what's Karma if you can't burn it?
He wasn't just an employee... he was the co-founder of Mozilla itself, and when the CEO position came open, he was the pick to
run
Mozilla at the top levels of the org. What happened was a rebellion from below, amongst the legions of younger, more politically radical employees. They made it clear that they'd disrupt Mozilla's operations until Eich was gone. Management caved (with three board members resigning,
suddenly
finding him unacceptable after happily working with him for years) , Eich resigned, and the radicals won. And ever since, they've dictated the tone and direction of Mozilla. The inmates are running the asylum, so to speak. I firmly believe the same thing happened at Twitter, and that's why Jack Dorsey left; I think he realized that he lost his company to the mob, and he didn't want the mob turning on
him
. This is the case at lots of companies, where leadership is basically afraid of the Millenials and Zoomers that work for them
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Re: obvious....
Score:
by
jemmyw
( 624065 )
writes:
I agree about Eich. What's more those folk at Mozilla really shot themselves in the foot by ousting him. But I disagree about Dorsey, his path was nothing to do with external politics but about backstabbing his cofounders and rewriting history to make it seem he was the one true founder.
[youtube.com] is an interesting history of Twitter.
Radical?
Score:
by
skam240
( 789197 )
writes:
What exactly do you mean by "radical"? What were they doing that was radical?
Re:obvious....
Score:
, Insightful)
by
serviscope_minor
( 664417 )
writes:
on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @07:24PM (
#63131650
Journal
"rebellion" "disrupt" yeah no loaded wording there.
Eich paid money to get rights stripped from a good number of his employees. Funnily enough this didn't go down well. They employees were going to leave, not "disrupt" the company, but quit if he stayed as is their right. They chose to let management know before doing so, also as is their right.
Somehow you paint this as the employees fault. Eich could not have paid money to strip rights from them, and Mozilla management could have realised appointing him was a shockingly poor idea.
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Re:
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, Informative)
by
Computershack
( 1143409 )
writes:
LOL! How's that working out for him?
It's working just fine. He's sacked hundreds of them and Twitter is functioning just fine, if not better, proving that clearly they weren't needed.
Re:
Score:
by
jesup
( 8690 )
writes:
Since he bought Twitter, Tesla is down ~30%. The other automakers are about even. He's spending all his time on Twitter, while Tesla is on a backburner (with increasing numbers of recalls, WAY up compared to a couple of years ago). And no one I know would now want to work there. He'd be lucky if his $44B investment was now worth even half that if he tried to sell it (maybe far less than that).
Re:
Score:
by
DrXym
( 126579 )
writes:
Definitely true about their model lineup. It's starting to smell a bit especially compared to new, cheaper cars coming out from competitors. Tesla needs a cheaper vehicle, something they should be unveiling to avoid being totally rinsed.
Although knowing Musk's penchant for lying he'll headline it for $25,000 and the cheapest you'll be able to buy it for is $45,000. And knowing his obsession with minimalism it'll come with a tiny flight yolk and even less physical controls making it even less safe to drive
Re: obvious....
Score:
, Informative)
by
StevenMaurer
( 115071 )
writes:
on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @04:31PM (
#63131238
Homepage
Twitter has not gone down.
Twitter is now private, so we don't know it's internal finances, but
it has lost over half of its major advertisers
[npr.org] and is now so poor that it's
stiffing vendors and trying to break its leases on its buildings
[yahoo.com] and is
struggling to pay its employees on time
[arstechnica.com].
The thing that both Republicans and Russians don't understand is that while you can lie about politics all you want online, you can't lie to your finance guys. They see the cold hard truth in your bank account.
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Re:obvious....
Score:
, Informative)
by
MobileTatsu-NJG
( 946591 )
writes:
on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @01:20PM (
#63130412
They once employed Brendan Eich, the fucking creator of JavaScript, and they fired him for donating $800 to the Mormons or some such.
Actually he donated to an anti-gay marriage campaign, which turned out to be successful and it affected some of his employees, so nobody wanted to work for him. Funny how none of these details survive the retellings of that tale.
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Re:obvious....
Score:
, Insightful)
by
n.sider
( 10210149 )
writes:
on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @01:33PM (
#63130466
I'm a very liberal person and I don't agree with anti-LGBT, but I also think one should be able to donate to, or support political parties or candidates of one's choice without it affecting your employment. Political affiliation should be protected in the US but (unfortunately) it isn't. We protect the ballot with strict privacy, and donations (or lack their of) should be a logical extension of this, barring outright fraud which I don't think an $800 donation qualifies as (fraud). This was just a case of the social media mob going after someone they disagreed with.
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Re:
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by
dark.nebulae
( 3950923 )
writes:
When the folks at the top hold an offensive position, that ends up trickling down affecting everyone beneath them.
Re:
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, Informative)
by
MobileTatsu-NJG
( 946591 )
writes:
You're getting into a sticky topic, here. The freedom to donate to a campaign also means there is the freedom to say "I don't want to use your product". And that's what happened. In the case of Eich, the campaign ran hostile ads to the tune of "Oh noes, my child heard in school that some kids have two dads!", as if just hearing that gay marriage exists is harmful to a child. That did affect some of his employees and in more ways than one. Should the government have prevented me from uninstalling FireFox
Re:
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, Insightful)
by
quantaman
( 517394 )
writes:
I'm a very liberal person and I don't agree with anti-LGBT, but I also think one should be able to donate to, or support political parties or candidates of one's choice without it affecting your employment. Political affiliation should be protected in the US but (unfortunately) it isn't. We protect the ballot with strict privacy, and donations (or lack their of) should be a logical extension of this, barring outright fraud which I don't think an $800 donation qualifies as (fraud). This was just a case of the social media mob going after someone they disagreed with.
I see your point, but positions like CEO come with extra responsibilities which what you can say or do. Not only are you much more famous because of your job, but when you say something it reflects on your organization in a way that it wouldn't for other employees.
So if you're the CEO of a non-profit that is generally aligned with LGBTQ causes, that relies not only on donations but also on employees (probably) making below-market wages, then you really shouldn't be donating to an anti-gay marriage campaign.
Re:obvious....
Score:
, Insightful)
by
airport76
( 7682176 )
writes:
on Thursday December 15, 2022 @03:41AM (
#63132342
Yes, the position of CEO comes with extra responsabilities. No, those responsabilities have nothing to do with politics. We all should get over it, and assume that people *do* have political opinions, and they may be opposite of our own (let me say, they may be sutupid morons), but this *must* not preclude us from living and working together. Otherwise society is doomed.
Remember, you are an stupid moron to someone, somewhere. And it doesn't matter.
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Re:
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, Insightful)
by
MobileTatsu-NJG
( 946591 )
writes:
It's a justification to ban your enemies while you do exactly the same thing you accuse them of doing.
If you return a punch to a bully are you then a bully?
Re:
Score:
by
MobileTatsu-NJG
( 946591 )
writes:
...then you are someone who punches people to solve problems.
... But you are someone who performs that action.
Incorrect. Factually you are someone that solved a particular problem by punching a specific individual. This is not the path toward being 'intolerant'.
I notice the GP has behavior/actions as their focus, your question has identity as its focus.
The word 'hypocrite' did come up. Either it's a word that's entirely meaningless because it happens naturally through cause and effect, or it's something to be ashamed of because you preach one thing then do another. This really isn't a discussion you can have if actions and intentions aren't both considered.
Re:obvious....
Score:
, Insightful)
by
firewrought
( 36952 )
writes:
on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @03:08PM (
#63130904
You should be able to work with people with whom you have political disagreements.
Society doesn't function otherwise.
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Re: obvious....
Score:
, Interesting)
by
nsbfikwjuunkifjqhm
( 8274554 )
writes:
Maybe, to an extent. But when matters of basic human rights and bigoted hate speach are what passes for "political opinion" these days, it's hard to continue working for someone who thinks people like you don't or shouldn't exist.
I can deal with a boss who thinks corporations should pay even less tax than they do. I can ignore a CEO who thinks burning coal forever is a viable strategy. Hell I can even tolerate a work environment where a colleague just hates me for no reason at all. It's harder to do my job
close
Score:
, Informative)
by
tiqui
( 1024021 )
writes:
on Thursday December 15, 2022 @03:53AM (
#63132354
In 2008 the voters of California voted FOR
ballot proposition 8
[wikipedia.org] which simply said this:
SECTION 1. Title
This measure shall be known and may be cited as the "California Marriage Protection Act."
SECTION 2. Article I, Section 7.5 is added to the California Constitution, to read:
Sec. 7.5. Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.
At the time, even
Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama
[youtube.com] and
Joe Biden
[youtube.com] were publicly insisting that they believed "marriage" was only between a man and a woman.
Even years after the prop 8 matter, both Obama and Biden were still refusing to publicly endorse gay marriage
, so it's hardly true that Eich's position at the time was somehow outside the mainstream of American thought, as illustrated in
this Anderson Cooper piece
[youtube.com]. Gay marriage advocates went to the courts to try to get the measure removed from the ballot (so much for "democracy"...), and after that effort failed and the measure went on the ballot, they started defining support for the measure as "HATE" and setup a public campaign "Stop the H8" which sought to intimidate people into opposing the measure. I personally had my vehicle surrounded by protesters once at an intersection (nothing specific to me, all vehicles at the intersection were getting surrounded) who demanded you signal support for their effort and anybody who did not got their vehicle pounded (so much for "stop the hate"...). NOTE: I am not stating a personal position here, just citing some context, but I'm sure some moron will mark this "TROLL"...
It was in this context that Eich donated a small amount of money (a tiny amount, compared to today's campaign contributions) in support of this very basic proposition which simply codified what had been reality for 2000 years and which the majority of the voters in California supported. His "tolerant" fellow Mozilla people could not tolerate this and he had to go.
Incidentally, although it passed and became law, briefly, it was eventually struck down by Judge Vaughn Walker, who then married his gay partner. Make of it what you will, I am not taking a position, just stating facts.
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Re:obvious....
Score:
, Insightful)
by
WankerWeasel
( 875277 )
writes:
on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @01:16PM (
#63130390
Stop investing all your resources in changing the design over and over and over. There's no need to change the look every couple months.
Parent
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Re:
Score:
by
king*jojo
( 9276931 )
writes:
This is why I use SeaMonkey. Unchanged GUI since 2005
Re:
Score:
by
mobby_6kl
( 668092 )
writes:
Is this a thing that actually happens or just something people make up as a reason?
I've been using Firefox for a few years now and haven't noticed any significant changes to the UI that would make a difference.
Re:
Score:
by
narcc
( 412956 )
writes:
Believe it or not, there are minor changes. As for all the drama over it, these people must be the delicate snowflakes in history.
Re:
Score:
by
Magius_AR
( 198796 )
writes:
Is this a thing that actually happens or just something people make up as a reason?
There were many. It was kind of death from a thousand cuts. Because any single one wasn't a huge deal. But the fact small GUI changes happened
all the time
and every change made it less and less pleasant to deal with eventually added up.
This was the one that finally forced me out:
[mozilla.org]
I shouldn't need to go seeking about:config changes or CSS stylesheets to
fix
a GUI that some assholes de
Re:
Score:
by
iampiti
( 1059688 )
writes:
On one hand my inner nerd wants to agree with you because I'm happy with an UI that's good enough and rarely changes, but OTOH, many non geeks heavily judge sofware products by their UI. So I actually think having an attractive UI is important for getting regular-John users. And let's not forget they're the majority.
Also, a bit unrelated but I hate how OS applications constantly copy the UI trends of the successful commercial apps. You could think that's a no-brainer but many times, IMO, the big ones make
Re:
Score:
by
WankerWeasel
( 875277 )
writes:
One needs only look at how much people complain about having the ability to customize their phone Home Screen to see how much many folks love to customize the UI.
Re:
Score:
by
HatofPig
( 904660 )
writes:
And if you are going to redesign it, make sure users are able to change it back again! Also, stop disabling important features. In Firefox, you can no longer
change the default page for a new tab.
What the hell? You can have a home page for when you open the browser, but ever subsequent tab can't be changed? That's infuriating, and totally breaks my workflow. I read Slashdot, I don't
give a shit
about my browser being easier to use for Grandma.
Support features like the Unity/Global Menu for desktop Linux o
Re:obvious....
Score:
, Interesting)
by
narcc
( 412956 )
writes:
on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @01:37PM (
#63130494
Journal
Hur! Dur!
They
are
listening to their users. The majority just don't agree with you. Most of us liked Australis, the only major UI change in the last decade. Hell, I switched from Chrome to Firefox when they made that change. I doubt I even would have noticed most of the more recent design changes if it wasn't for all of the bitching and moaning about it on Slashdot.
Still, those minor changes you call "redesigns" really have made the browser easier to use. Common tasks are a lot easier on Firefox than they are in Chrome. Try this: Find your Slashdot password saved in both Firefox and Chrome. Come back when you're done.
... Yeah, I know. Chrome is even worse on mobile.
So what's the story with market share? That's an easy one. Most users aren't going to go out of their way to install a web browser. They will, however, ask whoever they find to "setup their new computer" to make sure that "it has Google". Here's the thing: they don't know what that means. (Their slightly more technically inclined friends handling the setup think that means install Chrome, so that's what they do.) Some of them even think that they can't use Google, Gmail, or Facebook if they signed up using their Gmail account if they use Edge or "FoxFire" (which is what they inexplicably call Firefox).
Oh, but Chrome comes bundled with other popular programs like any other piece of spyware. I suspect that's how most people ended up with it in the first place. It's gross.
The only way to get Firefox's market share to increase is for technical people to recommend it and install it for them. Given that Firefox is extremely important for the health of the web, we absolutely should be pushing for it.
On mobile, Firefox is the only major browser to support addons. Here's something cool: Firefox + uBlock Origin will block ads on Youtube when using the site through the browser. That's an easy sell.
Speaking of addons, it's worth pointing out that Firefox Addons can do
a lot
more than Chrome addons. A lot of the things you see people bitch and moan about on Slashdot anytime someone mentions Firefox can be easily resolved with common addons. Want vertical tabs? There are multiple addons for that. Hell, a lot of the complaints I see are about things that just aren't true, like Mozilla removing the menu bar. They didn't. (Press 'alt'. There's a menu option if you want it to stay visible for some reason.)
If that's not reason enough to switch to Firefox and encourage others to do the same, remember how close Chrome is to becoming the next IE6. If you thought Microsoft was bad
...
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Re:
Score:
by
DarkRookie2
( 5551422 )
writes:
Hur! Dur!
The only way to get Firefox's market share to increase is for technical people to recommend it and install it for them.
Then they can add option to change the design. Or allow addons to do that again. Options would be nice.
Re:
Score:
by
narcc
( 412956 )
writes:
It's a lot better than the ZERO addons offered by every other browser...
So, so, sad...
Re:obvious.... [but follow the money]
Score:
by
shanen
( 462549 )
writes:
Exactly the FP I was expecting, so I'm not sure it deserves the "Insightful" modding. How obvious is too obvious to be insightful?
But of course I'm going to harp on the obvious money problem. And of course I think the solution would be a financial model linked to the users who are using the system. #CSB anyone? If they can't persuade enough donors a feature is worth doing, then they shouldn't do that feature. If the feature can't attract enough donors to pay for its ongoing costs, then that feature needs to
Nothing
Score:
, Insightful)
by
groobly
( 6155920 )
writes:
on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @12:44PM (
#63130268
It's too late. You can't bring back the dead. I wish it were otherwise, but it ain't. They committed suicide.
Share
Re:
Score:
by
AlanObject
( 3603453 )
writes:
It is almost as if you think Web 3 is is not a thing.
Re: Nothing
Score:
by
PPH
( 736903 )
writes:
It's not. SBF is going to prison. And nobody needs bored apes.
Re:
Score:
by
Tony Isaac
( 1301187 )
writes:
I'll say it plainly: Web3 is not a thing. It was nothing more than marketing for blockchain from the beginning. "Web3" doesn't solve any problem that is faced by the typical user of Firefox.
Re:
Score:
by
Tony Isaac
( 1301187 )
writes:
How exactly does blockchain solve the ability of users getting information? TOR has been around for a long time, attempting to provide a solution for precisely this use case. Yet governments and others have found ways to both infiltrate and block TOR. Similarly, governments have found ways to both manipulate and seize crypto assets
[makeuseof.com]. With regard to people in restrictive regimes, ordinary message encryption serves every purpose claimed to be "solved" by blockchain.
Re: Nothing
Score:
by
mlheur
( 212082 )
writes:
Agreed. They lost to chrome for a reason, they are not entitled to go back on top just because a few die hard fans want them there.
Re:Nothing
Score:
, Interesting)
by
AleRunner
( 4556245 )
writes:
on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @01:15PM (
#63130376
Firefox has one thing that's still going for it which is excellent support for extensions and less intention to limit their powers than Chrome does. That might seem stupid to everyone that's in the Gnome "one size fits all and if it doesn't fit squeeze harder" philosophy, but the world is changing and normal web browsing is going beyond the basics. If they stick with that and concentrate on getting to the stage where they don't have to say "disable your extensions to check what's to blame" then they might get somewhere.
One thing which is now absolutely true is that all web browsers run out of memory. Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari. I've seen it on all of them. The OOMKillers detect that FireFox is the application that's running out of memory. The reason is bad web design. Firefox needs to work out how to a) separate this (seems to have got there) b) allow people to view which threads or sections of code are causing problems and block those specific scripts within a page c) make it easy to disable the parts of web pages that are causing problems. Show me a resource tree per page with an ability to block off not just domains (like Umatrix) but individual scripts coming from each domain.
Simply put, firefox needs to give up on being a browser primarily targeting the ignorant user and make it easy for experts to debug which script from which site is causing what problem in which page. If that was easy then people would start identifying problems and fixing them, even if that just meant blocking more scripts with Ublock-origin.
Think if firefox allowed things like
* explicit memory limits per tab (stop allocating or crash above limit - your choice) or per script domain within a tab.
* ability to switch off JavaScript interpreter functions (no, you cannot take away my right click or ctrl-click, no, you cannot stop copy paste)
Then it could have massive revival with experts and the improvement would follow. The current "try to copy Chrome but without the resources" approach isn't going to get people involved in helping them fix the web.
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Re:
Score:
by
jonadab
( 583620 )
writes:
> The reason is bad web design. Firefox needs to work out how to
... allow people to view
> which threads or sections of code are causing problems and block those specific scripts
> within a page c) make it easy to disable the parts of web pages that are causing problems.
Don't make it harder than it needs to be. Just make Javascript only actively run on the page (if any) that has keyboard focus, and only stay loaded in active memory for the foreground tab of each browser window. Everything else ge
Re:
Score:
by
greytree
( 7124971 )
writes:
>Firefox has one thing that's still going for it which is excellent support for extensions
What?!
They BLOCKED all but a select list of 15 Android extensions FFS
Re:
Score:
by
drinkypoo
( 153816 )
writes:
Firefox has one thing that's still going for it which is excellent support for extensions and less intention to limit their powers than Chrome does. That might seem stupid to everyone that's in the Gnome "one size fits all and if it doesn't fit squeeze harder" philosophy,
It seems that way to me because they broke extension functionality I was using and never replaced it. Less intention to limit their powers seems hypocritical to me since they have
already
broken stuff I cared about.
Think if firefox allowed things like
* explicit memory limits per tab (stop allocating or crash above limit - your choice) or per script domain within a tab.
Seems like they ought to each be individual processes to me, but maybe that's a Unix-centric view. I'm OK with that, though.
Re:Nothing
Score:
, Insightful)
by
Pieroxy
( 222434 )
writes:
on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @05:50PM (
#63131444
Homepage
Ignorant users ARE the users that actually count. Disclaimer: FF is my main browser.
I use Auto Tab Discard, and this extension alone saves me from GBs of RAM wasted. This needs to be a core part of the browser.
Fact: People now use tabs as bookmarks. Stop allocating resources to them tabs and treat them as such. Or not, but list the domains you want to have tabs, not the other way around.
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Re:Nothing
Score:
, Interesting)
by
AmiMoJo
( 196126 )
writes:
on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @11:35PM (
#63132138
Homepage
Journal
I am an expert, but I don't want to debug other people's web pages.
Chrome actually has a decent solution. JavaScript has a power budget, beyond which it gets throttled or frozen. In my testing it's nearly as effective as just disabling JavaScript, for improving battery life.
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Re:
Score:
by
AleRunner
( 4556245 )
writes:
I am an expert, but I don't want to debug other people's web pages.
Nor do I. However I do want to be able to block parts of them (e.g. the scripts which send off to logging and tracing services) and have them still work. Some of them seem to get memory leaks (probably things like the tracking data waiting to be sent) when you do this. If that's happening on a page that controls a service I want to use then a) I don't want it crashing the browser and b) I do want to be able to selectively kill off bits of code to try to stop it - with the recognition that this might break t
Re:
Score:
by
Tailhook
( 98486 )
writes:
It isn't too late. It's just infeasible.
Two steps, in order. First, flush out the existing c-suite and upper management: Mozilla is a weird little backwater of second and third tier celebrity executives milking the Google bucks with little to no interest in the concerns of actual users and little to no interest in engineering or principled development. Second, convert to webkit/blink/whateveritscallednow because it's better and there is little to no value in persisting with the one weird engine that is F
Just wait
Score:
, Insightful)
by
Comboman
( 895500 )
writes:
on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @02:28PM (
#63130754
It's not too late. In fact all they need to do is wait until next year when
Chrome kills ad blocking plugins
[tech.co] and their market share will start climbing again.
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Stop trying to copy Chrome
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, Insightful)
by
Anonymous Coward
writes:
and bring back XUL extensions (or equivalent functionality) that would fit in a multi-process architecture.
Also, stop pissing off your advanced users by removing functionality.
Too little, too late
Score:
, Insightful)
by
UnknownSoldier
( 67820 )
writes:
on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @12:47PM (
#63130286
* Don't ignore memory leaks for years
* Don't redesign an UI no one asked for
* Don't break addons
think
I ditched FF around version 5 when they got into a "pissing contest" with Google over version numbers. It should have of stayed focused on QoL for users.
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Re:Too little, too late
Score:
, Informative)
by
rsilvergun
( 571051 )
writes:
on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @01:08PM (
#63130358
* Don't ignore memory leaks for years
They didn't. They fixed the leaks around v11. Plugins were leaking ram. That was one of the reasons why they redesigned the plugin APIs.
* Don't redesign an UI no one asked for
Users were asking for it. The hard core weren't, but by and large users preferred the stripped down UI to having toolbars they never use all over the place.
* Don't break addons.
See above comment above memory leaks. Also security issues. Firefox (and Chrome, and IE) had a major issue with small and mid sized plugins being "sold" to new owners and then filled with spyware. They had to lock down what a plugin could do directly. You can still access all the old functionality, but it's a pain, and some of it requires native code (i.e. C/C++).
There were good reasons for everything FF did. They're losing market share because they can't compete with a juggernaut like Google, let alone Microsoft.
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Re:Too little, too late
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by
jenningsthecat
( 1525947 )
writes:
on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @02:36PM (
#63130782
Don't redesign an UI no one asked for
Users were asking for it. The hard core weren't, but by and large users preferred the stripped down UI to having toolbars they never use all over the place.
I find that hard to believe. But even if it's true, there is still NO excuse for taking away the configurability that used to exist. You know, the configurability that allowed users to have whatever toolbars they wanted wherever they wanted them, or not at all. The configurability that allowed users to have - or not - a permanently visible status bar at the bottom of the window. The configurability that allowed users to tell update notices to fuck off and die permanently. And so many others... Sure, have a dumbed-down default for the masses - but maintain the ability of people who know what they're doing to tweak the UI and get shit done.
There were good reasons for everything FF did. They're losing market share because they can't compete with a juggernaut like Google, let alone Microsoft.
Again, I disagree. I think much of their decision-making was driven by vanity, and I think that attitude shows in their communications, and lack thereof, with the community. Also, I can concede the point that Google
might
be stiff competition for a firing-on-all-cylinders Mozilla. But Microsoft? Gimme a break - even with all Redmond's shenanigans around browser lock-in, Mozilla would only have to get their shit together a tiny bit to trounce Edge.
AFAIC Firefox's shitty market share is their own doing and nobody else's.
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Re:Too little, too late
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, Insightful)
by
Cyberax
( 705495 )
writes:
on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @05:09PM (
#63131356
Users were asking for it.
Oh, please DO fuck off.
The hard core weren't, but by and large users preferred the stripped down UI to having toolbars they never use all over the place.
Every fucking single redesign ("floating tabs" or the previous "bloated mode") resulted in measurable LOSS of users. EVERY. SINGLE. FUCKING. TIME.
Literally. Open the browser stats tracking for any large website (e.g. Wikipedia) and check the dates before the GA of the UI change and after. You'll see drops in FireFox usage correlate perfectly with that.
Next objection: "But it'll bring in new users!" And the answer is: "LOL, no".
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Re: Too little, too late
Score:
, Informative)
by
AutoTrix
( 8918325 )
writes:
on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @01:34PM (
#63130472
ManifestV3 is being supported but not required on Firefox, unlike Chrome and Edge.
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Re: Too little, too late
Score:
by
PPH
( 736903 )
writes:
Google is the 800lb gorilla in the room
Not for much longer. People are getting sick of their ads and tracking CAPTCHAs. And my ISP is starting to block GMail as spam/bot accounts.
Re:
Score:
by
thegarbz
( 1787294 )
writes:
No, you can't, at least under the Manifest V3
Firefox is not requiring anyone adopt manifest v3. That is completely optional for compatibility reasons to allow developers who are already coding v3 files for other browsers to be supported on Firefox. You're more than happy to keep using your manifest v2 extensions.
Fix the bugs?
Score:
, Insightful)
by
lowvisioncomputing
( 10234616 )
writes:
on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @12:48PM (
#63130288
Homepage
Journal
The more ram in your system, the more it hogs for no reason. At 32 gigs, it was barely usable. At 128 gigs, it was horrid, slow as crap. And it seriously interfered with Thunderbird. Deleting it reduced Thunderbird's footprint by half.
Make it as easy to disable javascript as it is in safari - a simple toggle in the UI. Stops most ads and 3rd party tracking, as well as all browser fingerprinting. Speads up the web, saves bandwidth.
Offer a version with a pick-and-choose of features. I don't want html5 video support. Or html5 at all. I want to be able to disable the stupid real-time monitoring of keypresses when on a chat with support. Don't want video ads.
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Re:Fix the bugs?
Score:
, Informative)
by
caseih
( 160668 )
writes:
on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @01:15PM (
#63130382
Using both Thunderbird and Firefox daily on a 32 GB system I've not seen either of the problems you mention. I have no memory pressure, never dipped into swap, and run lots of applications alongside of firefox, even some hungry ones. Usually have a lot of tabs open, although often many of them are dormant and get unloaded. No issues with Thunderbird too.
Obviously modern apps are pigs and browsers are especially aggregious. But despite the hefty size, firefox is quite comfortable for me on my 32 GB ram system. Together Firefox and Thunderbird have resident page sets about 2 GB total, which is a bit crazy but typical these days. Total VM footprint is like 25 GB(!) but none of that is swap or in RAM, so it must be cache files and other memory-mapped files.
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Re:
Score:
by
lowvisioncomputing
( 10234616 )
writes:
Sorry but 1 gb of ram with ZERO tabs open is just plain stupid. And doubling that with 128 gb of ram is even stupider. Somebody fucked up their assumptions.
Especially since I don't use any add-ons.
And there's no excuse that deleting firefox should also halve the memory footprint of thunderbird.
Poor coding all around.
And why are we asking what Mozilla should do? They cut the firefox devs lose years ago. They just throw them $8 million a year and some server space, while they keep trying their ridicul
Re:
Score:
by
lowvisioncomputing
( 10234616 )
writes:
Prime example of how firefox doesn't give a shit about end users any more. Default install shouldn't be a crapfest of junk you have to disable just to get it to work. The other browsers need their browsers to deliver a good user experience, so they at least try to get stuff right on a standard install. They have a financial incentive to. Mozilla doesn't really give a shit any more, not after laying off most of the devs and spinning around trying to find something - anything - else to generate a revenue stre
Re:
Score:
by
_merlin
( 160982 )
writes:
Firefox gets slower and hogs more memory and gets slower the longer you leave it open. I need to restart it daily. I noticed the same thing with Safari when I still had a Mac. It seems building a web browser that doesn't leak resources is too hard.
Re:
Score:
by
Computershack
( 1143409 )
writes:
The more ram in your system, the more it hogs for no reason. At 32 gigs, it was barely usable. At 128 gigs, it was horrid, slow as crap.
Yet here I am using it on a 2015 MBP with 8GB just fine....
Re:
Score:
by
lowvisioncomputing
( 10234616 )
writes:
Because, as I noted, the more ram on your system, the more it takes - and software that is designed to manage a small bit of ram fails miserably with 16 times that bit, where it tries to use the same strategies to manage that much more.
Start-up times expand like crazy, and everything is s-l-o-w. I'm not going to pull out the 4x32 gigs and put in 1x16 gig just because the browser builders don't have daily access to high-ram machines.
The same stuff people have been asking for
Score:
, Insightful)
by
drinkypoo
( 153816 )
writes:
drink@hyperlogos.org
on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @12:50PM (
#63130300
Homepage
Journal
1) Take the extraneous crap out of the browser and put it into extensions which was originally the whole point of Firefox
1a) Bring back the full functionality formerly used by add-ons
2) Fix bugs instead of coming up with new themes all the time
2a) Allow users to set scrollbar width from the GUI like they used to be able to, or at least don't make them too narrow to grab
The whole damned point was light, fast, extensible, and standards compliant. It's still fairly fast. It's still got good standards compliance. But the other two things? Extensibility has actively been reduced, and the install has become bloated.
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UX
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, Insightful)
by
kvezach
( 1199717 )
writes:
on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @12:53PM (
#63130312
Get rid of the unnecessary UX people who keep making work for themselves by changing up the layout all the time.
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remove features and advertising
Score:
, Interesting)
by
opakapaka
( 1965658 )
writes:
I mean, if this is really funded by 1 entity starting with G, no strings attached:
Every new install, there's a new splash screen advertising firefox. Get rid of it. That's literally a phone home.
Remove pocket, no idea why it is there.
No more promotion of other Mozilla products in settings (VPN, Mobile).
No more firefox experiments, improve experience, "install and run studies". Just having these settings in the first place is bad.
Settings on most conservative when launched with respect to privacy (no third p
Re:
Score:
by
serviscope_minor
( 664417 )
writes:
> > Remove pocket, no idea why it is there.
> Most people want it. You're in the minority.
I actually tried pocket purely out of spite after all the bitching on slashdot. Turns out I like it.
Bring back customization
Score:
by
LucasBC
( 1138637 )
writes:
on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @01:04PM (
#63130338
Reverse the trends to restrict customization and extension features. For example, the ability to put tabs below the address bar -- it can still be done with a custom CSS file, but not as easily as it could be done before. Likewise, bring back the ability for extensions to modify the behaviour of the browser. Many good add-ons (e.g. Chris Pederic's Web Developer toolbar) had important features crippled when Mozilla changed to a much more restricted extension API.
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Re:
Score:
by
smooth wombat
( 796938 )
writes:
Bring back the checkbox to never be reminded there is an update. Some of us don't care if there's an update and don't like being harassed every few minutes.
Bring back the loads of configurability that once existed. Stop hiding everything in about:config or removing it entirely.
Block ads by default.
Score:
by
gmiller123456
( 240000 )
writes:
Title says it all.
Re:
Score:
by
DarkRookie2
( 5551422 )
writes:
Why, so yet another web browser will have a shitty built in blocker that is harder to use and customize than installing uBlock?
Then there is the fact that most of them seem to base on ABP instead so ads still get thru since ABP doesn't do AB any longer.
Fix performance
Score:
by
JoeyRox
( 2711699 )
writes:
on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @01:05PM (
#63130346
It's dog slow compared to Chrome, at least on Linux, both the UX speed/responsiveness and the Js benchmarks. Even worse for the SNAP version Ubuntu has hoisted onto its users.
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Score:
by
dskoll
( 99328 )
writes:
Firefox still IMO has a privacy edge over anything from Google, which is why it's what I use. But unfortunately, it seems like less than 5% of users care about this issue.
I don't think there's a way for Firefox to regain market share. It's roughly on par with Chrome, at least on the desktop, but Google has huge power and influence and will keep Firefox alive as a niche product just to avoid claims of monopoly. Very sad.
Not a Firefox issue...
Score:
by
cuda13579
( 1060440 )
writes:
It's the standard Linux issues, and why more people don't use it for their daily driver. A majority of the population defaults to Windows or Apple OS systems...and the browsers that come with those systems are "good enough" for normies. Firefox would require something really revolutionary to set it apart, and motivate users to make a change to their system...not just these incremental incorporations of new standards, that 99.99999% of the population don't know or care about...despite the fact they may, un
Re:
Score:
by
ranton
( 36917 )
writes:
A majority of the population defaults to Windows or Apple OS systems
That isn't a very good argument when Chrome has 66% market share and Edge has 4.5%.
I don't think they can
Score:
by
rsilvergun
( 571051 )
writes:
on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @01:16PM (
#63130388
they had a huge spike in market share because they worked heads and tails better than IE. Google was worried about being dependent on browser companies so they did Chrome. Microsoft mostly fixed IE and then ditched it completely for Chrome.
It's going to be virtually impossible to compete with "default browser that comes with my PC" and "The browser pushed by the largest search company on earth and oh yeah they make the OS for 50% of the phones out there".
There's no silver bullet here. They fixed the memory leaks ages ago, the UI changes were to keep up with what most users want,
/. is not "most users" and the handful of old coots here as customers can't maintain a company that size, and the plugin changes were necessary to prevent them from leaking ram and causing security problems.
Performance & Battery life are probably the only place they can even try to compete. Privacy isn't an option because that'll scare off their search partner that pays for everything. They can do some things, but they can't lock everything down completely, and if they did they'd break so much in the process that they'd become unusable (you can't just block everything. Try it, the options are there, see how many websites stop working, even ones that aren't tracking you, they're just poorly written).
Google & Apple can force website devs to make changes because of market share, Mozilla isn't in that boat.
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Re:
Score:
by
drinkypoo
( 153816 )
writes:
the UI changes were to keep up with what most users want
It's essentially the same UI as before, but less configurable, and themes can't do as much. What users wanted less flexibility?
/. is not "most users" and the handful of old coots here as customers can't maintain a company that size
People choose browsers in part because of what nerds tell them, and in part because of familiarity. Nerds don't promote Firefox at work any more because it has problems. I don't even tell people to run it any more at all unless they complain about ad blocking in Chrome. Firefox can't exist without our promotion.
Re:
Score:
by
mobby_6kl
( 668092 )
writes:
It's essentially the same UI as before, but less configurable, and themes can't do as much. What users wanted less flexibility?
The normies that couldn't give a shit about customizing their browser UI
People choose browsers in part because of what nerds tell them, and in part because of familiarity. Nerds don't promote Firefox at work any more because it has problems. I don't even tell people to run it any more at all unless they complain about ad blocking in Chrome. Firefox can't exist without our promotion.
Are you sure it's not because Google is shoving Chrome it in their face any time they go to Youtube or search in a different browser?
Re:
Score:
by
iampiti
( 1059688 )
writes:
Yup. I agree. They can always improve of course but I don't think they can meaningfully gain back much marketshare. They can't just compete with Microsoft (Windows built-in browser) or Google (Android built-in browser and advertised in all of their websites).
Also, I don't know how much longer they will be able to survive: Since their main source of income is their agreement with Google for theirs to be the default search engine, as they lose marketshare the amount of money they'll be able to get from Googl
Outsider viewpoint here
Score:
, Insightful)
by
IWantMoreSpamPlease
( 571972 )
writes:
on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @01:18PM (
#63130402
Homepage
Journal
I used Firefox when it was that or IE, and I stuck with it until the memory leaks were too big to ignore (this was way back in the
...Win98 days IIRC)
I moved to Chrome and stuck by Chrome because the UI didn't change. Consistency is important when working with a UI.
But now that Chrome has started to take away options, and add UI elements that cannot be disabled (Search Tabs caret, I"m looking at you) I tried FF again.
Sadly, I'm not impressed. "Do this! Check out that! Click here to learn more!" I"m bombarded with bit that demand my attention for no other reason that seemingly to keep me from just using their browser straightaway.
When you incessantly pester the user, you've gone astray rather badly and it's no wonder you are losing userbase.
Oh, and the inability to (easily) toggle on/off JavaScript is unbelievable. That I have to download an add-on to accomplish this is damn near a deal-breaker for keeping me on your browser.
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Content Pushing!
Score:
by
rpnx
( 8338853 )
writes:
I left Firefox because I thought the "Content Pushing" was a bit obnoxious compared to Chrome and now Edge (which is now my preferred web browser). It's also an ugly web browser in comparison to Edge/Chrome, which doesn't help. But broadly speaking, the issue is content pushing. Content pushing is when the web browser tries to suggest what I do or view. For example, pop-ups that appear to announce new versions, features, and guided tours. When the web browser decides "it's time to restart" for me, instead o
Pay me...
Score:
by
jwhyche
( 6192 )
writes:
Send me a check with a nice number on it and I'll be more than happy to use it all the time.
Re:
Score:
by
Dracos
( 107777 )
writes:
Yes, Mozilla will definitely send a random
/.er a check for $0.69.
I was lured away, not driven off
Score:
by
Lando242
( 1322757 )
writes:
I started using Firefox when it was still called Phoenix. I was lured away from IE by Phoenix's better features. A few years later I heard that Opera had become free of charge. I tried it out and was blown away by how feature rich is was. They really were years ahead of the game back then. Opera was as far ahead of Firefox as Firefox was ahead of IE and then some. Firefox had copied features from Opera in a basic way. Tabs, speed dials, etc. Meanwhile, those features had been in Opera for years in some case
build in a javascript blacklist
Score:
by
FudRucker
( 866063 )
writes:
so if i dont like some website's javascript i can add their domain name to the blacklist and no more scripts from that domain can run in my browser
Nothing, the war has been lost
Score:
by
Artem S. Tashkinov
( 764309 )
writes:
All the bad decisions have been made, there's nothing left to be done. People just use their browsers as their Operating Systems without caring or knowing too much what they are actually running as long as it's fast, doesn't crash and doesn't get in their way.
Part of Chrome's appeal is an easy way to modify Chromium to suit your needs. AFAIK Firefox doesn't offer this, so we have dozens of Chromium forks and pretty much nothing based on Firefox. That could have helped Firefox a bit I guess but not too muc
Too late.
Score:
by
muh_freeze_peach
( 9622152 )
writes:
You lost me with version 4 way back in 2011. Arrivederci!
Put back ALL Android extensions, duh!
Score:
by
greytree
( 7124971 )
writes:
on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @01:36PM (
#63130490
Stop being pathetic we-know-best nannies.
Your users and developers HATE you for your attitude.
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Group Policy Support
Score:
by
Thelasko
( 1196535 )
writes:
on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @01:42PM (
#63130518
Journal
Really good group policy support to allow IT departments deploy and manage it (configure proxies, access control, encryption certificates, etc.). If corporate IT likes it, they will force it on end users. End users will start using it at home because that's what they are used to.
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Well do what you are supposed to do
Score:
by
Casandro
( 751346 )
writes:
Just make Firefox a good browser again. Stop all those experiments which make your browser worse. Pull through that project where you re-implement the browser in a fast memory safe language. Go to W3C meetings and say the word "no" more often to stop bad ideas from propagating through the web.
Currently Mozilla goes into a completely different direction than what they are supposed to do. They sit on insanely huge amounts of money, yet spend it on non-browser stuff. Make Firefox a good browser again, it's the
Only option: Ban Google Chrome
Score:
by
bjdevil66
( 583941 )
writes:
on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @01:52PM (
#63130576
If I was king for a day, the only thing to do would be to kill Google Chrome.
Google has had an unfair advantage from the beginning with Chrome. They knew exactly what people wanted because they spy on everyone that they can, and their product shows this.
Without that nearly infinite UX dataset to pull from, the best FF devs and UX people could do was copy Chrome's UI. That pissed off the OCD, resistant-to-change nerds who manage a LOT of computers everywhere, which dropped its one organic marketing advantage FF had. Then they mistakenly tried to beat Chrome on performance, but they had to sacrifice the only real technical differentiation they had from Chrome (XUL + customizability). That REALLY pissed off said nerds (who are still complaining about it here in these threads).
They tried to market FF as better than Chrome on privacy issues, but most people didn't care (which Google already knew). They tried to be woke by firing Brandon Eich, which was completely stupefying to anyone not under a woke spell.
Then iOS never allowed Firefox to use its own codebase, which hobbled the type of adblocking I get in FF on the desktop. It runs on Safari, so unless you're already a FF user with a syncing account, why install "Safari orange tail"?
With all of that said, I still use Firefox almost exclusively and I'm not concerned about Firefox going anywhere. As long as there's a fear of antitrust action by the government, Google won't let Firefox die - at least until they stop caring about Google Chrome, which they probably can't do so easily now because they find real value in Chrome's telemetry/data.
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My Suggested Improvements
Score:
by
organgtool
( 966989 )
writes:
on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @04:47PM (
#63131282
Improve Speed:
Firefox has definitely gotten faster but I hate the fact that when I have to resort to Chrome for something, it feels so much faster.
Make It Easy to Disable Auto-Updates:
Nothing annoys me more than opening a new tab to try to get something done just for Firefox to tell me "Sorry. We just need to do one small thing to keep going." Do that on your own time, I'm trying to get shit done over here. Since I'm on Linux, Firefox should just update with the OS. I know that my distro can change the default config, but make it easy to set it back. So far, every set of steps that have been suggested to disable auto-updates has failed.
Multi-Process Tabs:
I know this has been requested forever, but there's a reason for that. Sure, using Rust may reduce the likelihood of a crash, but crashes still happen and I don't want to lose everything when a tab crashes. Firefox has been pretty good about restoring tabs after a crash, but there are still things that don't get restored properly, so having each tab run in its own process would certainly help.
Expand Functionality of Multi-Account Containers:
I wish there was an option to specify separate add-on configs per-container. I don't want to enable cookies or Javascript for Google domains except for my Google container. I realize this probably wouldn't be easy, but man would it be nice.
Better Anti-Fingerprinting Technology:
I haven't used Brave, but one of the things that tempts me about it is that it's supposed to have some of the best anti-fingerprinting technology out of all browsers. As a matter of fact, if Brave supported multi-account containers I would be extremely likely to switch to it.
Ability to Easily Use Tor and/or a VPN on a Per-Tab Basis:
Both Tor and VPNs have side-effects that may not be desirable for every site, but there are times when it would be nice to be able to enable one or both in specific circumstances. I imagine this may be easier if each tab was running in its own process.
In addition to listing the things I would like, it is extremely important to note that things that I DON'T want Firefox to do:
Don't require Manifest V3 support! I know you already said you won't, I just want to emphasize how important that is. You could do literally nothing else and you'll get users automatically once Chrome, and presumably its descendants, require it.
Under no circumstances should Firefox break the following plugins: Multi-Account Containers, Javascript blockers, and cookie blockers
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Easy! Implement DANE TLSA, Websocket sniffing, ...
Score:
, Interesting)
by
bustinbrains
( 6800166 )
writes:
on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @05:45PM (
#63131430
Want to bring users back to Firefox? Be the first to implement DANE TLSA. Add Websocket traffic sniffing to the Network tab. Fix the broken WebRTC implementation. Add drag-and-drop support for folders to the file upload object. Add copy/paste for single File objects. Fix the borked Javascript line debugger that takes 30 seconds to display anything in. Add the ability to click on a script tag initiated item in the Network tab to jump directly to the line of code in the HTML or Javascript that started the request. I could keep going but this should give you a general idea of what's driving users away.
There are a significant number of ongoing technical problems in Firefox that make it a weak contender to Chromium (but still better than Safari). Those are priority #1. UX changes are somewhere near the bottom of the list since every single time you change the UI/UX you lose a bunch of users. Every time you make the product better on the technical side of things, you gain users. The more customizable the product is via addons/extensions, the better it will be.
Cater to an audience that appreciates fine technical things and you will gain software developers who use and target that browser. You are asking the wrong question. User marketshare always follows developer mindset and preferences. If you don't get software developers using Firefox as their daily driver, then you won't get users. Simple as that. Software developers control this entire planet, not governments or politicians or users. If a software developer doesn't want Pocket, which is still a worthless piece of trash, they'll look dimly on that feature. If a software developer doesn't want "Sponsored" start icons popping randomly into their carefully curated buttons list when pressing Ctrl+T to create a new tab, they'll find a browser that doesn't do that. If you aren't catering to software developers, then you have nothing and they and all the users will leave.
Final thought: I run Firefox as my daily driver and I'm a software developer.
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Kill Certificate authorities - Implement DANE TLSA
Score:
by
johnjones
( 14274 )
writes:
yes Kill the Certificate Authority store - or at least start to
flag when a site does not have a CSP (content security policy)
That was a different era.
Score:
by
jdawgnoonan
( 718294 )
writes:
on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @06:19PM (
#63131504
That was a different era, IE was truly a terrible browser because once Microsoft conquered Netscape they stopped improving IE. Firefox was great and Firefox was innovative, but most of the things that Firefox innovated with became commonplace. Today, the market is full of browsers that are perfectly fine, the only problem is that they are all Chromium (Blink) based and that many of them are actually also sort of spyware (Chrome and Edge). However, Blink is a powerful web rendering engine and it is good that there are so many Chromium based alternatives that lack the Google or Microsoft bits. Chromium is a forked version of WebKit, Apple actually had more to do with killing IE forever than some people like to admit as the engine behind Safari was the original engine that Google used for Chrome before they forked WebKit off to blink which is what Chomium uses. But, it would be nice if the web wasn't now basically a monoculture like it is. But I would rather have a Chromium monoculture than an IE monoculture like we used to have.

This response was written in Firefox, my default browser in Linux.
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Re:
Score:
by
AleRunner
( 4556245 )
writes:
Is (the chromium-based) Edge REALLY pathetic?
They mean the market share is pathetic. It's really meant as a dig at Firefox (since Firefox is even worse), however if nobody sees the browser, who cares if it gives an excellent massage and predicts next weeks stock prices?
Re:
Score:
by
cuda13579
( 1060440 )
writes:
Exactly...look at the issues "nerds" are citing:
Memory leaks - Normies are oblivious
Performance - People would have to actually take the time to compare, to notice...and then, would they notice?
Customization - A majority of the population couldn't care less
Ad Blocking - As easy as it is, I'm shocked at how many people don't do it. I even have friends that say they like ads?!
Privacy - It's sad...but so many people really don't seem to care...even with "important" stuff. The next generation seems perfectly
Re:
Score:
by
mobby_6kl
( 668092 )
writes:
Yeah this is mostly just people extrapolating their turbonerd opinions to the general population.
I have the Chromium Edge and Firefox open right now and they're basically indistinguishable (actual Chrome is pretty much the same). The differences are: Firefox has a "down arrow" button in the title bar that gives you a searchable tab list. Next row, Firefox has a Forward (->) button while Edge hides it unless you can go forward. Firefox has a Downloads buttons while Edge hides it somewhere. The "hamburger
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