[throwaway8291]

I'm using Firefox for years, after Chrome started to ask me for a login (at around version 40). Never looked back. One day I woke up to a chart showing browser market share of FF at around 4%, which surprised me - as I thought many people would understand the implications and directions.

Maybe I'm too optimistic.

Update: Loved chrome, used it for years, I also love most Chrome engineering and all the innovation they added to the field - it's just good to have alternatives.

[move-on-by]

> One day I woke up to a chart showing browser market share of FF at around 4%, which surprised me - as I thought many people would understand the implications and directions.

Its certainly low, but I also think FF usage is under reported due to built-in tracker blocking. For reference, FF uses the level 1 disconnect.me block list, which blocks StatCounter scrips from loading on 3rd party sites [1].

[1] https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect-tracking-protecti...

[SXX]

> Its certainly low, but I also think FF usage is under reported due to built-in tracker blocking.

Of course it's not perfect source, but CloudFlare for instance have client detection purely by SSL handshake fingerprint and it's show 6-7% for Firefox:

https://malcolm.cloudflare.com/

Long ago Wikimedia also had own statistics that was pretty much relevant, but I guess it's discontinued.

[K0SM0S]

These numbers do seem in line with the propensity an average user has to switch default apps. I often compare this to how many people out of 100 bother to change their shoelaces on day 1. I'd wager less than 1, due to the friction of effort, configuration and learning curve, whereas the original usually just looks "nice", more "in place", "fitting" the decorum. Big icon is sitting there already.

Thus it's useful to consider market shares for all end-user internet-browsing devices, wherein x86 today is dwarfed by mobile and general ARM. The fact is you can pretty much correlate browser market share¹ with OS market share (which I guess retrospectively validates the anti-trust case against MS in the 90s).

- IE dominance throughout the x86 era (until early 2010s),

- then stratospheric rise of Chrome as Android took over 80-90% market share on mobile and probably 3-4x as many devices as Windows. Chrome took over everything else.

- Safari steady around 5%, about half of Apple's market share in both x86 and mobile (as low as half is surprising to me: since all iOS devices use Safari, the discrepancy between Apple's market share and Safari's must come from x86 MacOS, and I would have expected much more people to use default Safari on that OS, especially given its battery optimizations, compounded by Chrome's relative cost in RAM etc).

- Firefox is at an all-time low (still second though). Given the current trend of OS makers to expand into "ecosystems" (multiple devices/OS + cloud services), I don't find it surprising: mainstream users are more and more entrenched in the more-or-less walled "gardens" of each variety.

Clearly, Google is winning that game as of 2020 in terms of numbers, but Apple is winning too within its own (much smaller but more profitable!) userspace / customer base. MS is but failing so far, TBC, but meh it's Chromium underneath.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es9DNe0l0Qo

[move-on-by]

Wow, that is a great link, thanks for sharing! Doing a filter based on device, FF doesn't even rank on Phone, and has 12.73% on Desktop. Although the data appears to only be for 24 hours - so not super great, but still an interesting data point.

[dehrmann]

Other takeways from that graph:

- Mobile internet use surpassed desktop.

- Tablets never caught on

- Windows 7 is more popular than MacOS

- Safari (mobile, undoubtedly) is the second most popular browser. IE(!) is third.

[Belphemur]

I'm pretty sure they rely on user agent in the server logs.

Sure you can spoof it, but it would be the same for the stat counter.

[move-on-by]

Do you have any sources to back up this claim? I know for a fact that StatCounter uses JavaScript [1] to collect data, much like Google Analytics. I do not see any reason why they would have a separate collection method for browser statistics. Even if they do have alternative collection methods, if they combine that data source with the javascript collection method - it would still cause FF usage to be under reported.

[1] https://statcounter.com/support/faq/14-how-do-i-install-stat...

[bilekas]

I'm on my waay BACK to Firefox, there was a strange period when I left, Firefox just seemed really heavy on my machine, and it was super intensive for some dev tools.

Now I say the same about chrome and find FF much lighter and efficient.

Delighted that FF are taking a bit of a stronger stand here in the privacy dept too .

[mattmanser]

Firefox went through a long period of being awful performance wise, they really shot themselves in the foot as techies left them in droves because of it. And they'd often insist it'd improved when it was obvious that it was was nowhere near Chrome's level as soon as you opened the browser. I kept trying to get back to it, but every time it drove me away. Still feels laggy on desktop vs Chrome when I tried it 3 months ago. I have all the preload stuff turned off in Chrome and use DDG so it's not because of that.

I use it on my phone now as I don't support AMP at all, and it still has some weird issues compared to Chrome. The main annoyances for me are:

- Kinda hanging occasionally when you have 40 or 50 tabs open. Sometimes have to close and reopen it, sometimes it'll start being responsive again. Never had these problems in Chrome.

- Never ending loading bars. While it might be true that some script hasn't loaded, I don't need to know and it's just annoying to have a half complete blue bar at the top of the page. It adds to the perception that there's something wrong, and it feels like somethings wrong with Firefox Mobile not something's wrong with the web page.

- I want to pull down to refresh. I know it's silly but 6 months on I still do it out of muscle memory, and then remember you have to click the menu, then click the refresh. Pull down is just great, far superior to their solution.

- Thumbnails of old tabs that are still open get flushed, never happens in Chrome. What it means is that you can't scan the tabs for an old open tab you want by the look of the thumbnail. for example, I have a jambalya recipe I tried and like but haven't got round to transcribing and every two or three weeks have to hunt through the damn tabs to find it.

- Their tab solution is not as nice as Chrome's. I really don't like the layout, or find it as usable, even months on. When Chrome initially switched theirs I was sceptical, but really learned to love the concertina style.

I am also finding it quite hard to get proper ad blocking working. It's working for some sites, but no matter what I do I'm still getting google ads and now certain login pages hang completely including some google driven ones. Why is it so hard to do? I'm pretty competent with computers after all! (Yes, I've turned off things like acceptable ads and checked the whitelists).

[PopeRigby]

You should try out their new version of Firefox Mobile that they've been working on. It's much faster.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.fe...

[ailideex]

Using Fedora Linux, last I tried a switch to FF (less than 6 months ago) it was way slower than chrome. I actually like FF functionality more and would prefer to use it but my laptop runs significantly hotter when I run FF on it.

[bilekas]

Just given its Fedora I would be a bit nervous to instantly assume full blame on Firefox, given the nature of the OS, but definitely give a try again!

[ailideex]

I don't really have any issues with Fedora performance wise, is it widely perceived to not be performant? I have had much more issues with everything on Ubuntu than I ever had with Fedora. Maybe ricing with Gentoo could get me a bit further but given both Firefox and Chrome will basically use the same system libraries I don't see how it is fair to blame Fedora for the difference.

[kissickas]

I've been running FF on Fedora for the last 14 months with no problems. I typically have 20-40 tabs open, but then again, I'm also using NoScript so maybe 10-20 of those tabs are not doing so much damage to my performance. (The ones that stick around, like 4 Gmail tabs, Slack, RSS reader, etc. are whitelisted)

[kbrosnan]

Are you running Wayland? Make sure Firefox was running in Wayland mode. Fedora had a separate package for Wayland Firefox for some time, though it might be the default in 31. XWayland can result in a performance hit.

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/Firefox_Wayland_By_De...

[ailideex]

I am not using Wayland and I am running XFCE

[tssva]

This has been my experience across Linux distros and was also the case on my MacBook Pro. Whenever I mention my MacBook issues the down voters swarm despite the fact that there is an open bug regarding poor performance on certain MacBook configurations. And no the performance fix for Macs that came out a few months ago didn't resolve it.

[ailideex]

Is it faster on Windows? This would be quite fascinating if it is the case - my experience with windows is that it is an all round slacker when it comes to performance.

[prox]

I remember reading about an issue on some Linux systems, not sure if they fixed it, but do report these issues if you can.

[ailideex]

Not sure how, it is not exactly a bug, just ... a thing.

[Ygg2]

> Maybe I'm too optimistic.

Don't be optimistic, but don't be pesimistic either.

Do what you can - donate time or money, or just recommend everyone to not use the piece of carp that is Chrome. Anything based on Chromium counts as well, their codebase is dictated by Google, one way or the other.

My mom had so many issues with ads until I installed Firefox for her, and honestly, the ad blockers make the internet a much better for navigation.

[realusername]

> Do what you can - donate time or money, or just recommend everyone to not use the piece of carp that is Chrome.

Or if you are building web products, please use Firefox as your dev browser, that's what I'm doing and it automatically insures that whatever I build will work on Firefox.

[wolco]

I've been doing this for years.

[marcinzm]

> money

As I understand it, donating money to Mozilla does not fund Firefox in any way but rather their other social initiatives (see the Mozilla Foundation page for a list). Firefox is under the Mozilla Corporation which is funded by things like search deals with Google.

[sunnytimes]

i'm the IT guy in my shop so when i got here i switched every machine to firefox + ecosia.org for search and only one guy went back to chrome.. i try and spread the fox around as much i can.

[ksec]

>Don't be optimistic, but don't be pesimistic either.

The Modern US / Silicon Valley mentality is you have to be optimistic at all cost. Being Realistic is counted as pessimism.

[XCSme]

I personally just like Chrome because the awesome syncing between all devices and always having the best Dev Tools ready to open at any second.

I know my browser usage is used for marketing purposes, but as long as it doesn't harm me in anyway I can live with that.

[generalk]

I'm not sure if there's something outside my usage that Chrome does better, but for my needs Firefox's dev tools are great.

Firefox also not only sync's between all of my devices, including my cell phone. Each device has the ability to send a tab to another device, which I don't recall Chrome having.

Just some data points in case you're ever interested in trying something different.

[judge2020]

https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/9430554

[CompBrogrammer]

Seems that this has been in Chrome since sometime last year; first mention on Google is in March, but a lot of the stories regarding it are dated September.

[vengefulduck]

Firefox also has sync and it’s end to end encrypted as well.

[jeltz]

In my opinion Firefox's dev tools are superior for CSS while Chrome has better JS debugging and better profiling.

[latortuga]

Firefox has both of these things without intrusive marketing.

[Nitramp]

> [...] I thought many people would understand the implications and directions.

Might be obvious, but consider that more people than you estimated, while understanding implications and directions, decided differently than you did. It's dangerous to attribute behaviour different from your own to lack of understanding.

[avian]

> I'm using Firefox for years, after Chrome started to ask me for a login

It's funny because Firefox has been pushing their login thing pretty hard (the yellow "oh no" exclamation mark icon if you're not logged in, the account icon that keeps placing itself back onto my toolbar, occasional full-page ad/nag screen, ...).

[blackearl]

I've never seen the exclamation mark and I'm never signed in on my work computer. Meanwhile, Chrome signs you into the browser profile if you sign into any Google site and it's opt-out.

[wayneftw]

They've got it plastered around the UI. It's the very top menu item. It's also in the Pocket address bar button right under where they advertise to you to "Sign up for Pocket. It's freeeeeee!"

Not only that, but on new installs and after some updates Firefox nags you to sign up whenever it can, for instance when you log into a website - right after you save the password it will show some animated crap in the address bar to nag you to "Sign in to sync..."

I just opened Firefox (on Linux no less) to confirm every single one of these things.

Chrome (my default browser) actually nags me less and in less annoying ways.

[dao-]

> Chrome (my default browser) actually nags me less and in less annoying ways.

Because they just log you in without asking, as noted in the comment you're replying to. It also has more severe implications in Chrome privacy-wise, directly linking your Chrome profile with all kinds of other privacy-sensitive Google services. Since Google is in the business of making money from the data they have on you (and hence collects as much as it can), I'd be much more concerned about this than I am about my Firefox account.

[wayneftw]

I opted out of that once in Chrome and I never saw it again.

I see no way to opt out of all the nags Firefox gives me.

[blackearl]

None of this is true on Windows

[wayneftw]

Yes it is. Just confirmed on Windows with a new install.

The very first screen on first open nags you to signup, the top menu item is “Sign in to Firefox”, there’s a notification dot on the user icon with the Sign in nag there, the Pocket button asks you to sign in and after I log into a website I immediately get an animated recommendation nag to also sign in to Firefox.

It’s absolutely 100% plastered around the Firefox UI.

[outadoc]

The exclamation mark is only shown when you're logged in but got logged out because of a problem. You can just remove your account whenever you want.

[giggles_giggles]

You can also self host the upstream service if you want there features that come with logging in but don't want Mozilla to have the data:

https://blog.mozilla.org/services/2014/05/08/firefox-account...

[bloopernova]

I feel like this should be more widely known. I imagine there's a fair few large corporate IT departments that would love to host their own sync service.

[bilkow]

This doesn't match my experience... When you install it, they show a page and the account icon. I believe that only on some major updates I've seen the account page again, which is a nice reminder to sync bookmarks (even though I don't use it). I always customize the toolbar upon installing and it (the icon) never came back or bothered me again.

[satya71]

One of those browsers tracks everything you do if you sign-in, the other does it only to increase retention, not to track your activities. Guess which is which?

[anonymousab]

It would be better not to do [questionable thing] than to do it at all.

I don't particularly care whether nagware functionality is benign or not.

[Vinnl]

A common complaint with Firefox was that you couldn't sync between devices - even though that was perfectly possible! But apparently, people had a hard time finding the functionality.

You might not consider that use case important, but I wouldn't call it questionable.

[anonymousab]

I'm amiable to this reasoning right up until software conveniently forgets that I told it "no, I don't care, stop bugging me about it". And again.

It's the kind of "oops haha just a mistake that we did the bad thing again" shenanigans that Mozilla employees complain about Google doing.

[Vinnl]

That's fair.

[simias]

Firefox sync is super convenient though, I don't really agree with you that it's a dark pattern. It does make using your browser more convenient across devices and I'm sure many people coming from chrome expect this to work out of the box especially since, AFAIK, google auto-logs you into Chrome as soon as it can.

On the other hand I find Pocket a much more questionable addition.

[detritus]

I use FF all day, every day across two machines and I literally cannot think of what it is you are referring to here.

[Krasnol]

Chrome has spread like Malware as a bundled installer with a lot of free software. Also it's on most mobile devices. So it's not that surprising.

[JohnFen]

> I woke up to a chart showing browser market share of FF at around 4%

I've used and loved Firefox from before it was called Firefox. I really, really, really want to like the modern Firefox, but I just can't. I find it limiting and irritating. So, sadly, I don't. I don't use Chrome either, though.

[daveFNbuck]

What do you find limiting about Firefox? How does your browser of choice free you from these limitations?

[JohnFen]

My browser of choice is Waterfox -- so, essentially, pre-Quantum Firefox.

There are two things that I find limiting. First, the configurability has been seriously reduced. I really dislike Firefox's UI, and it's no longer possible to make the browser look and feel as I prefer. I can get most of the way there -- but to even do that much is a rather serious pain in the butt. Second, the neutering of the extensions hurt badly, and the only way I can retain the functionality that I want is to use something pre-Quantum.

Waterfox has neither of these problems (well, the extension problem is starting to impact Waterfox, which is why I'm no longer updating it. I need to find another browser, but I haven't found a different one that works for me yet. Until I do, Waterfox it is.)

[tssva]

Last time I used Firefox it asked me to create an account and login. It wasn't required nor is it for Chrome.

[ASalazarMX]

Firefox suggests an account for syncing and leaked password monitoring, but it's dismissable. Chrome, brand new install, will just take your login to GMail, for example, and automatically use it for syncing without asking.

[tssva]

This is just false. A new Chrome install will not take your Gmail login and use it automatically for syncing. It will prompt you if you would like to use the account for syncing and you can dismiss that prompt just as you can dismiss Firefox's prompt to create and login into an account to sync.

[ASalazarMX]

I don't know if it is so now. When the feature was introduced, Chrome synced with my account automatically when I logged in to one of its services. I found it so bold I've never used any Google service inside chrome again.

[moksly]

I’m not convinced it’s good to have alternatives, or maybe I’m just too uneducated on the subject to understand why. I’m old enough to have lived through the horror of IE, and since I work in Enterprise where some old web applications still require it, I will continue to live it until we’re capable of rolling out the new Edge with IE compatibility.

I’ve actually used FF as my main development browser for most of those years because it’s the only browser where extensions aren’t controlled by our IT department, and I kind of need extensions on the fly. So I’ve seen the good and the bad of it. I personally prefer Chrome. I also like privacy, but I’ve tried the Duck and it just doesn’t work for my language, leading me to add the !g on almost all my searches, and if I’m google that much anyway, so I really benefit from using FF? Doesn’t FF also use one of Google’s engines to check site security?

Anyway I’m rambling, so let me get back on track. I’ve been testing the new Edge, and it’s Microsoft’s best browser, and what are the risks? Is it really better to have all the browsers on different engines instead of having multiple big guys work on the same open source engine?