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by yoavmmn 2202 days ago
I have two guesses:

1. Extensions - almost anyone have some kind of extension installed, and Chrome absolutely wins in that category. that prevents people from switching over to Firefox. Personally I know people that switched to Firefox only after I showed them the extensions they us or an alternative exists on Firefox.

2. Advertisement - Google have a lot more advertising resources than Mozilla. For example, every new Android phone with Google Play Services ships with Google products already installed including Chrome (sometimes as the only browser). It's not unfounded to think that most people will use the same browser they're using in their smartphone.

4 comments

> Extensions - almost anyone have some kind of extension installed, and Chrome absolutely wins in that category

I have a bunch of extensions installed on Firefox and don’t use Chrome. What are the Chrome-only extensions I’m missing that means Chrome “absolutely wins”?

Plenty of corporate types target Chrome because of its market share (for the same reason, iOS apps are out for years before Android ones are)

One specific circumstance which impacts me is the Capital One virtual credit card extension (https://www.capitalone.com/applications/eno/virtualnumbers ) which if one clicks on "Get It Now", from a copy of Firefox, one ends up on the webstore: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/eno%C2%AE-from-cap...

Even consulting the page source (view-source:https://www.capitalone.com/applications/eno/virtualnumbers/) shows some mentions of Firefox but certainly no mozilla.org URL or .xpi that would imply they're serious about that claim.

This is where Google will shoot itself in the foot trying to kill ad blockers and 3rd party extensions like paywall removers. Firefox is more than good enough, and if you take away uBlock and others that have a loyal following users are going to bail.

The fact that I can run extensions on Firefox for Android is a huge enough win that it's my default system browser.

Keeping in mind that different users have different priorities, I still don't understand why Firefox doesn't make market this as their number one distinguishing feature.
Remember that Mozilla gets their revenue from Google, an ad company. They'd undercut their main revenue source.

Another issue is he press. The press is usually very Firefox-positive and always covers it. They might turn on Firefox if it started blocking ads.

Chrome on Android does not support extensions at all.
Google amplifies these security conferences where Chrome comes out as a more secure browser than the rest, this leads a lot of corporate IT to enforce Chrome as the default browser on work PC. Some people completely switched their home browser to Chrome just because they like to use one browser at home and work!