[threepipeproblm]

But the people who chose a browser for speed already had Chrome. Now the people who would choose a browser that lets them run their software of choice, on which they have been relying on years, have no browser.

There are hundreds of people tweeting about how Firefox 57 has ruined their browser experience, and they are representative Firefox users -- the kind who have been using it all along, and relying on all the software Mozilla just broke. I don't think Firefox will gain market share by alienating all these people, while attempting to beat Chrome at its own game.

I wonder if there is any set of circumstances that would cause Mozilla to realize that making a new browser and calling it Firefox was a bad idea. If market share still continues to tank -- like were they realize for every person like the parent commenters, there may be many pre-existing users who have no reason to use Firefox anymore -- would they then admit it was a mistake? My guess is there is no such set of circumstances... witness the fact that Mozilla originally cited declining market share as a motivating factor for this big change, but then recently we have stories like this https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/07/25/new_war_for_mozilla...

[frenchy]

I'm personally really happy for firefox 57. I never switched to Chrome, primarily because of privacy concerns, and I suspect that there are a good number of users in a similar situation. The migration to web-extensions was a little annoying (had to find a different password generator).

While they could have split the product into two (like they did with Firefox & Seamonkey) and let the former product languish, I'm not that would have made many users much happier. For what it's worth, you can still use Firefox 56 (or even Seamonkey).

[SubiculumCode]

There was no way forward for a better browser without braking the old extension system. It is bound to irritate some people, but a rational person should find it hard to blame Mozilla for their choice. It is now a modern browser capable of making use of a modern computer's capabilities.