46 million people have left Firefox since 2018

[Theinsanegamer]

Get woke go broke...and its definitely slower than it used to be. I switched to Edge Chrome and haven't looked back. I might as well keep all my telemetry/data collection in one box.

Too political, too obsessed with pointless UI redesigns & feature removals and still stuck trying to be a Lowest Common Denominator cut-down Chrome clone (whilst most people who want Chrome, use Chrome). Meanwhile, the power users have all switched to Vivaldi that pretty much has become the new "old school" Firefox for those who want the ability to tweak absolutely everything.

Them firing that director/president guy over his donations to the republican party was the signal for me to switch to chrome. Firefox was already running behind chrome in both features and stability, they bring a guy in to fix issues with firefox, then fire him over politics. That was my first expeerience with virtue signalling and told me mozilla was only going to continue to fall behind.

Wouldnt you know it, they still dont have per tab threading, going on a decade after google introduced it. They did neuter the add on system though, so thats nice.....Oh, they introduced pocket onto your homepage and began integrating social media. Yay?

What a surprise: An unstated major premise.

How many people buy an iPhone and go out and get another browser instead of Safari? Same for Android and Chrome.

What is Firefox's PC/Mac/Linux market share compared to 2018 or 2009 or whichever year? That will tell you the true extent of userbase loss.

The failure of firefoxOS was shocking to me. You have an OS that is pretty much ready for primetime, and limit it to only your cheap *** hardware instead of making it available on popular phones ala AOSP ROMs? No drive to make their own nexus equivelant to promote the OS? Then you kill it instead of making it open source?

So many screwups, so little time.

 

[Lew Zealand]

The failure of firefoxOS was shocking to me. You have an OS that is pretty much ready for primetime, and limit it to only your cheap *** hardware instead of making it available on popular phones ala AOSP ROMs? No drive to make their own nexus equivelant to promote the OS? Then you kill it instead of making it open source?

With 2 well established leaders in phone OSes, and Windows Phone at the same time failing to penetrate the market with all the $ of MS behind it, how could anyone expect an average user to go out of their way to choose yet another OS from someone else who's never made an OS before. That simply defies logic.

There was zero chance than anyone other than the most tech curious would try this third- (fourth?) party OS.

 

[bexwhitt]

Firefox used to be lean and fast and then it became slow, the reason I stopped using it.

the new M1 version for the mac is in no way slow.

 

[Red34jfp]

I'm still using Firefox myself, both desktop/Windows and mobile/Android, but the shrinking user base has been known for a while now. At this point it's hard to be optimistic about its future, it's entered a self-perpetuating cycle of shrinking user base and shrinking investment, it wouldn't surprise me if, sooner or later, they will give up on Gecko and follow Microsoft's adoption of Chromium.

 

[MaestroIT]

I mainly stopped using Firefox due to Extensions, at some point you needed to restart to have extensions installed/disabled (long time ago I guess), then they changed format and they became much less.
I use it rarely when those rare websites don't work with Chrome, I try to avoid Edge and go to Firefox.

Chrome is good for me, I have a powerful PC with lots of ram, so I don't care about it using a lot.

 

[Avro Arrow]

I've used Firefox for 20 years and will continue to do so. Since I first purchased my old Phenom II X4 940, I've always had relatively high-end machines so the performance difference was indistinguishable to me. I always liked Firefox's features and Mozilla's dedication to privacy, something that neither Microsoft nor Google can claim.

Now, Firefox is more or less only used by those who are very tech-savvy because we understand the benefits of the browser while most people really don't care because they don't know any better. Ironically, IIRC, a lot of features that everyone takes for granted originated in Firefox. Tabbed browsing and add-ons were first used in Firefox (at least the first time I ever saw them) and using plugins instead of ActiveX controls was also first in Firefox.

I really wish that there were a way for me to crowbar Edge and Exploder out of Windows but unfortunately... I don't live in Europe.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

With 2 well established leaders in phone OSes, and Windows Phone at the same time failing to penetrate the market with all the $ of MS behind it, how could anyone expect an average user to go out of their way to choose yet another OS from someone else who's never made an OS before. That simply defies logic.

There was zero chance than anyone other than the most tech curious would try this third- (fourth?) party OS.

There were calls for another OS at the time, this was shortly after Google would screw over SD card users the first time.

Who would try it? Well people tired of Google's antics who dont want to go to apple's clamped down system. If you only offer your OS on a basement bargain phone, dont be surprised when nobody tries it.

WP arguably failed not because it wasnt google/apple, but because MS kept screwing it up by making new updates incompatible with older phones, walking back their word on future update compatibility, removing useful features in newer versions, a stubborn refusal to integrate group policy into the device for corporate use (a big market at the time as blackberry was imploding and neither google or apple had any answer) and a fundamental misunderstanding of the app market and how people sue phones.

Firefox OS's issue, by comparison, was that A) nobody ever heard of the thing and B) nobody could run it on any current device or purchase a new device that used it.

 

[Ephebus]

Quantum killed Firefox when it made thousands of extensions incompatible, many of which simply cannot be rewritten for Quantum, like Classic Theme Restore, UnMHT, etc. Mozilla had it coming.

 

[SixTymes]

HA! some people still use firefox? are these people stuck in 2005?

 

[mirgc]

Brave > FireFox > Chrome any day.

 

[Axle Grease]

I tried an early canary build of MS Edge, and thought, hey, this is actually quite good. However, I kept Firefox for its HTC Vive extensions. I gleefully expunged it when Mozilla's CEO, Mitchell Baker, used the brand to air her moonbat crazy politics.

https://blog.mozilla.org/en/author/mitchellmozillacom/

The woman is a full tilt bozo.

In any case, the changeover was easy due to a nice selection of browsers these days. I've settled on Brave. Incidentally, if Microsoft skipped a version number to distance Windows 10 from the loathed Windows 8, why retain the name of a very crappy browser for the vastly superior Chromium based one?

 

[tylerb1489]

In the 16 years I've been using FireFox I've only had it brake once and kill my data, however thanks to an add on that created a profile and backed it all up periodically I was able to reset everything in FireFox and restore that backed up profile. Wish I remembered what it was called, now this is built right in to FireFox and works quite well, better than the Chrome equivalent in my opinion. Chrome has always been a pile of hot garbage in my experiences over the years.
.

I’ve used Firefox since it’s beginning and rarely had to use chrome if a website didn’t work on Firefox. Still the best browser, use it at work, home, and mobile

 

[Wereweeb]

"Bohoooo, this company doesn't like my political cult, let's bash them."

Anyway, I don't trust random browsers without a history like Brave and the likes. Anyone can make a clone of Chromium. Firefox has a decent record.

 

[Tantor]

"Bohoooo, this company doesn't like my political cult, let's bash them."

What goes around, comes around. You're going to see a lot more bashing of Leftist companies.

 

[Axle Grease]

I’ve used Firefox since it’s beginning and rarely had to use chrome if a website didn’t work on Firefox. Still the best browser, use it at work, home, and mobile

Did Mozilla ever fix that annoying bug whereby closing Firefox sometimes left a background instance that had to be killed from Task Manager in order to open Firefox again?

 

[Nobina]

They focused on politics more than on making the browser better. It's usually how it goes.

 

[HaroonRehman]

This Browser has A lot of Features then Google Chrome it has many add ON on Android like bitwarden No script https everywhere etc

 

[comnut]

Firefox used to be lean and fast and then it became slow, the reason I stopped using it.

Unfortunately most clueless companies will only work on FF...- and of course, they get a subcontractor to do it, that means they don't have a clue when there are problems!!! They think 'internet is great' because they almost never use it, its their PA that does all the stuff (sees all the problems..), even printing out emails for the boss!!!!!

being an experienced user (remember DOS browsers?? altavista?? Visicalc on 5inch floppy??? those were the days!!!) I have found chr*me seems to take over the system unless harshly managed at the server... :O

search 'palemoon' and 'basilisk-browser' for much better ones using the older FF source..

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64; rv:68.0) Gecko/20100101 Goanna/4.8 Firefox/68.0 PaleMoon/29.3.0
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64; rv:68.0) Gecko/20100101 Goanna/4.7 Firefox/68.0 Basilisk/20201125

these have their *own* page for *.xpi extensions that many know and love...

 

[comnut]

I’ve used Firefox since it’s beginning and rarely had to use chrome if a website didn’t work on Firefox. Still the best browser, use it at work, home, and mobile

are you using the *latest* FF?? many devs find it difficult or impossible to convert to the new addon format... the last good profile backup (in XPI format!!) is FEBE - and is still being used in palemoon browser..

 

[comnut]

HA! some people still use firefox? are these people stuck in 2005?

so YOU are the person running a LandRover Discovery, and a Lamborghini or Porsche, as they are the best???

most people use a small, **reliable** car that gives high mileage, can carry the kids and lot of shopping!!

and use an old reliable browser, that does not take ages to get moving!!!

 

[MaXtor]

Firefox remains the most customizable browser. I will continue to use it as my primary browser forever.

 

[pelopidas]

I was a user until they decided to be woke social justice warriors. I can’t stand the patronizing. Dissenter and brave are decent browsers. Who needs Firefox?

 

[Biostud]

Switched to the new Edge after using FF.

 

[Archean]

I don't remember having any PC/OS without Firefox; and as I've become more 'privacy' conscious over the years I've started to part ways with Chrome based browsers; in fact, since moving to Linux, I no longer have any Chrome based browser on my systems.... Generally I find Librewolf a brilliant lightweight derivative, with some caveats.

 

[Jack Deth]

A resource hog touted by a company with draconian politics and a pro-censorship stance against anyone who doesn't lean far enough to their political spectrum.

No thanks.