[paulryanrogers]

> Its UX "history" made it plummet from the top browser at one point to a forgotten has-been.

My guess is the rise and marketing of Chrome and its offspring had more to do with Firefox's decline than anything Mozilla has done.

[grumbel]

Firefox would still have declined, that's kind of unavoidable with Google owning Android, but Mozilla wasn't helping here. Turning Firfox into a lame Chrome-clone by removing everything that made it unique in the first place just ensured that there was no more need to bother with Firefox. Loading the browser up with all kind of telemetry, cloud nonsense and ads also removed any desire to ever bother with it again.

I still think there is plenty of room for a privacy respecting browser in the market, but Mozilla hasn't even been trying to fill that niche in years and still claiming to do so just makes them look like untrustworthy liar.

[yoavm]

We hackers like to complain about stuff that bother us, but the truth is they don't bother anyone else but us. Firefox didn't lose marketshare to Chrome because it had telemetry. Users don't care about it, and if they did, they'd know Chrome is doing it much worse. Same for "cloud nonsense and ads" - you really think they disliked it so much, so they went to Chrome were they are forcefully logged-in, have every action linked to their Google account and have inferior adblockers? C'mon.

It's kinda like saying "I'm moving to North Korea because freedom of speech in the US sucks!"

[grumbel]

People that don't care are already well served by Chrome, they are never going to switch, so there is little point in catering to them. People that do care however aren't well served by Firefox, that's an issue.

Every thread about Firefox is filled with complains, be it removal of essential feature, shifting around the UI for no reason or addition of stuff nobody asks for. Not every user might care about every of those issues, but do you think that amount of negative feedback is good for attracting new users or keeping existing ones? I don't.

Also the level Firefox has sunken too is mislabeling the Screenshot cloud upload button "Save". That's plain old malware dark pattern strategy to steal your data. They took almost a year to fix that and it's downright puzzling how that ever made it anywhere near a release in the first place.

Chrome might be crap, but I am not going anywhere near Firefox anytime soon either. They have shown time and time again that they really aren't on my side, yet love to claim so. The sooner we get rid of Firefox, the sooner there is a chance a real alternative might arise.

[yoavm]

So what are you using now? Is Chrome on your side?

IMHO, the _moment_ we get rid of Firefox, the _moment_ we lost the free web. Building a web browser is just too damn hard, and never again would free software stand a chance. All will be Chrome-based, and Google will decide what "standards" to adhere to while it sits in a committee with itself.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

> Building a web browser is just too damn hard, and never again would free software stand a chance.

That's what people said when I started to write an open-source DAW 22 years ago. "DAWs are just too damn hard, there'll never be an open source DAW".

Except that now there are several open source DAWs, and several proprietary ones, all created since that time.

I am very, very skeptical of claims like this. There is a reason why creating a new browser that lots of people will use is a challenge, but it's not because it's "too hard".

[yoavm]

Thanks for Ardour! I've used it many times. I'm not a DAW expert, but unfortunately I don't think that's really similar though... DAWs are complicated, and hats off for building one, but they're nothing like browsers in how much they're tracking a moving target, and how little tolerance users have for something that is incomplete. I have a musician friend that still uses Cubase 6 and it works just fine. Ever tried using a browser from 2011? Do you even dare to?

Browsers need to follow ever changing standards, do all that in a super performant way (remember the days people said they're leaving Firefox because Chrome "feels snappier"? Good luck beating that), keep it secure even though it's running remote code, and until they get it ALL 100% working, no one is really going to make it their daily driver. I already hear people saying that they're not using Firefox because some websites don't render well.

If it isn't "too hard", why do you think that over the last decade essentially no one managed to do it, while we do have several open source DAWs?

[eternityforest]

The current state is only a bit better. It's basically Google developing features that users and developers mostly want, and Mozzila and Apple shooting them down without really offering an alternative for those use cases.

It's almost the same as old school Linux, where commercial software said "Hey I added this one click button for the main use case" and FOSS said "You don't need that, just have a bash one liner instead".

Chromium is openish. Other developers could fork it if they wanted to.

Firefox isn't doing anything about the fact that self hosting is way too much hassle for anyone but a few hobbyists. They're not really doing much in the IoT space.

They don't seem to be addressing the fact that the web is basically just Facebook and Youtube and Amazon in any way, except by adding ever-more tracking prevention tech that's not really relevant when all data goes through the same 5 sites anyway.

They actively get in the way of P2P tech by locking everything down so much it's impossible to implement a lot of things.

The lack of filesystem APIs just promotes even more vendor lockinful web services.

Mozzila does a lot of good things, but I'd rather they just switch to the Chromium engine, restore the removed features, and go back to what they were doing 5-10 years ago in the FlyWeb and WebThings era.

[Nextgrid]

Does Chrome interrupt your flow with some bullshit on every update? My understanding is that Chrome is a privacy nightmare but assuming you submit to it and opt-in to all the dark patterns once, they'll at least leave you alone and just stalk you in the background.

Every Firefox update on the other hand will always find one way or another to interrupt your flow at the worst possible option, whether it's with useless UI updates, post-update notifications about bullshit "features" such as Colorways or a VPN, etc. In contrast, Chrome's minimalistic UI has barely changed in its entire lifetime.

[pessimizer]

> So what are you using now? Is Chrome on your side?

The question for Firefox users is whether Firefox is on their side. If neither vendor is on your side, why not use Chrome? Has the UI on Chrome ever changed significantly?

> IMHO, the _moment_ we get rid of Firefox, the _moment_ we lost the free web.

I'd date this to the moment that the company that owns Chrome became the source of the vast majority of Firefox revenue, and probably all of its profits.

[yoavm]

I disagree. This is repeating all the time, but it was never the question. I'm not giving up on Firefox because it ain't perfect and then going to Chrome because it's a known evil.

Mozilla are doing stupid things sometimes (and I've argued for that many times, in this thread, and in the Mozilla community), but they're just not even remotely as bad as Google. Firefox has containers, uBlock, tracking protection. It's literally the source for Tor Browser.

The question isn't a dichotomy of "who is on my side? none? so it doesn't matter". Firefox is still miles ahead than Chrome in privacy AND in keeping the web open. True, this doesn't make it perfect. But it sure does make it better, for all of us.

[technobabbler]

The thing about Chrome is that it's a known evil. Google monitors me and sells me ads. OK, not exactly benevolent, but I can live with it. I'd prefer they just charge me $100/yr or whatever instead of ads, but at the end of the day it's a tradeoff I can accept.

The thing about Firefox is that it's an UNKNOWN evil. Mozilla always feel like it's on the cusp of bankruptcy and constantly searching for new dark patterns to sneak in. When Wikipedia needs money they beg for it, but don't purposely sabotage the user experience to get funding.

Mozilla does that with every new release. I always feel like they've added some shady new malware/adware with every new patch, and then use some stupid UI tweak to try to hide it. It's only a matter of time before they sneak Norton in there. I trust the Firefox team even less than Facebook at this point. Firefox just isn't trustworthy, whereas Chrome is a known compromise.

[josefx]

> I trust the Firefox team even less than Facebook at this point.

You trust the goons working for Facebook less than the goons working for Facebook? /s

It hit me really hard when during the whole FLoC controversy Mozilla published its own collaboration with Facebook on the future of browser based user tracking. No amount of technological hand waving could have fixed that first gigantic WTF and a description filled with privacy budgets, trusted third party servers, etc. didn't even have a snowballs chance in hell.

[dantondwa]

You confused the business model. Google doesn’t sell YOU ads.

You provide valuable behavioural data to Google, which uses it to create very targeted demographics which are used for targeted advertising and analytics that are sold to advertisers.

Seen in this way, it’s quite darker than that, in my opinion.

[FeepingCreature]

I use Waterfox Classic with Tab Mix Plus.

It's outdated and insecure, and I don't care. There simply isn't any other browser worth using for me.

(Though that may change now that there's a way to sacrifice all the new security features on current Firefox to run TMP again.)

[userbinator]

Indeed, it almost feels like Firefox is being deliberately made gradually offensive to push users away. But I'll never drink the Goog-Aid and give up.

[technobabbler]

Meh, long before I was a dev, I was a user... and it's true I didn't care about telemetry, but a HUGE difference is that Google's services were USEFUL. Syncing passwords, extensions, bookmarks etc. were automatic, easy, unintrusive, etc. Staying logged into my Google account meant I could auto login to Gmail, GDrive, GSheets, Geverything else along with a bunch of social logins on other websites.

Firefox Sync eventually arrived, but it was a PITA to set up because I didn't need a Firefox account for anything else. And then they added a bunch of third party services that I still don't know what they do (Pocket), ads on the main screen, ads on startup, full-page release nags for pointless features, constantly changing UI for no good reason at all...

It was like Chrome took Phoenix's philosophy and Firefox tried to become Netscape Communicator again. Zero of the Firefox features added in the last decade helped me as a user, but instead constantly bugged me. I can't remember a single annoying thing that Chrome added in the same timeframe. It still feels leaner, quicker, and less intrusive.

Funny how the sides have switched...

[antisthenes]

While that's true, constant UI changing certainly didn't help retain what little market share it already had.

It made the browser compete with itself, and pushed people into alternatives. After all, if you're going to learn a new UI, why not try another browser altogether?