edited the heading of the question. I think most of us here are reasoning why more people are not using firefox (because it was the initial question), but none of that explains why it’s actively losing marketshare.

I don’t agree ideologically with Firefox management and am somewhat of a semi-conservative (and my previous posts might testify to that), I think Firefox browser is absolutely amazing! It’s beautiful and it just feels good. It has awesome features like containers. It’s better for privacy than any mainstream browser out there (even counting Brave here) and it has great integration between PC and Phone. It’s open-source (unlike Chrome) and it supports a good chunk of extensions you would need.

This was about PC, but I believe even for Mobiles it looks great and it allows features like extensions (and I hear desktop extensions are coming to firefox android?), it’s just a great ecosystem and it’s available everywhere unlike most FOSS softwares.

So why is Firefox’s market share dying?

I mean, I have a few ideas why it might be, maybe correct me I guess?

  1. Most people don’t know how to use extensions well and how to use Firefox well. (Most of my friends in their 30’s still live without ad blockers, so I don’t think many are educated here)
  2. It’s just not as fast as Chrome or Brave. I can’t deny this, but despite of this, I find it’s worthy.
  3. It’s not the default.
  4. Many features which are Google specific aren’t supported.
  5. Many websites are just not supporting firefox anymore (looking at you snapchat), but you would be right in saying this is the effect of Firefox losing it’s market share not the cause (at least for now) and you would be right.

But what else?

I might take time (a lot of it) to get back at you, thanks for understanding.

occasionally I’ll find websites that don’t work 100% because they were coded primarily for chromium based browsers. FU Google

  • raptir@lemm.eeEnglish
    232·
    10 months ago

    I use Firefox everywhere, but there are a few main issues that stop me from converting people…

    • The lack of tab groups. This seems silly, but most people I know, especially on mobile, keep a lot of tabs open. If they’re researching something, or shopping for something they’ll leave 20 tabs open. Having that in one tab group in Chrome is a better way to organize than just tons of tabs.
    • Sites that don’t work well on Firefox. Again, specifically on mobile I run into sites that work on Chrome but not on Firefox.
    • General stability issues. I need to force close Firefox once or twice a day because it will just fail to load pages.
    • Empricorn@feddit.nl
      6·
      10 months ago

      Once or twice a day!? That’s crazy, I wonder if others have this problem as well. I use Firefox on PC, Linux, Android, and IpadOS and I’ve never even approached stability issues that bad. My assumption is there’s something wrong with your device…

      • raptir@lemm.eeEnglish
        1·
        10 months ago

        This has been going on for years across multiple devices. Basically since the rewrite. Only on Android, never on Linux.

    • freebee@sh.itjust.works
      4·
      10 months ago

      I love using Firefox. Have been loyal user for over 15 years. But quite a few sites just don’t work as intended… including online banking, city government etc. The issue has grown a lot in recent years. It’s a pickle to adjust addons for every site with issues, so j just use chrome or Edge or whatever and keep the firefox settings optimised for ad free cookie warning free trackerless experience in newspaper, YouTube etc. To me it’s inconvenience is just a regular reminder that Internet has gone to shit and more and more sites contain a shitload of unnecessary bullshit no one asked for

      • stevedidWHAT@lemmy.world
        12·
        10 months ago

        These in my experience are always because of your privacy settings, resist fingerprinting is a good one.

        I run Firefox with a hardened config and with a few privacy and security extensions so I run into this all the time. It’s frustrating sure but I usually just pop open edge, do what I need to and then close it out.

        I try not to make a habit of sacrificing security and privacy for convenience unfortunately for Chrome and chromium.

    • Abnorc@lemm.ee
      31·
      10 months ago

      Tab groups would really be nice. I don’t know why they don’t just implement it for Firefox already, even though it’s not a big deal.