Mozilla shares data on how Firefox users are using its browser and the Internet

[Shawn Knight]

Forward-looking: Mozilla's report covers Firefox usage on the web but according to Rebecca Weiss, head of Mozilla's public data science effort, they're hoping to add mobile usage to the mix at some point.

Mozilla a few years back launched the Firefox Hardware Report as a public resource to share what hardware is being actively used in the wild. Now, the software maker is bolstering the data with new information on how desktop Firefox users are using its browser and the Internet.

Mozilla had high hopes that its Quantum browser would help it better compete with Google’s Chrome but according to the first wave of data, that hasn’t really happened. As of March 31, 2017, there were nearly 313 million Firefox clients running on desktop computers worldwide (monthly active users). A year later, the figure had fallen to just north of 293 million.

A few months later, in the middle of the summer slump (August 25, 2017), Mozilla had 277 million Firefox desktop users. This year around the same time, it’s at 256 million users.

Mozilla’s report also shows the prevalence of data tracker blockers. Starting with Firefox 57, Mozilla gave users the option to enable Always On Tracking Protection for all browsing sessions. Since that time, 1.2% of Firefox users have turned it on (the figure does not include Tracking Protection use in Private Browsing).

Additionally, 9.3% of users have the Adblock Plus add-on and 3.2% are using uBlock Origin.

For those curious, a whopping 88.7 percent of Firefox users are running Intel CPUs. Intel is also winning in the GPU department where 66.1 percent of systems rely on integrated Intel graphics. Only 14.6 percent of Firefox desktop users are running AMD graphics. Nvidia’s share sits at 14.1 percent.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/76175-mozilla-shares-data-how-firefox-users-using-browser.html

 

[TheDevopsGuy]

Nothing new really we are constantly being watched in this day and age.

 

[BSim500]

"Mozilla had high hopes that its Quantum browser would help it better compete with Google’s Chrome but according to the first wave of data, that hasn’t really happened. As of March 31, 2017, there were nearly 313 million Firefox clients running on desktop computers worldwide (monthly active users). A year later, the figure had fallen to just north of 293 million."

The irony being - if Chrome users believe Firefox tracks them just as much as Chrome does, they've little incentive to switch...

It's also amusing that as of May 2018, W7 users still outnumber W10 users by +15%. I guess we're seeing there the more honest figures of Mozilla only counting "active users" vs Microsoft double-counting "total activations", ie, guy who upgrades an old 2012 laptop from W7 OEM to W10 OEM back in 2015, it then dies, so he throws it away then buys another W10 OEM laptop = Mozilla correctly counts 1x user, whilst MS double-counts 2x activations as "2 users"...

 

[trparky]

As long as the data that Firefox is collecting is simple data about the system that it's running on including some extension data (like names of them) then I don't see a problem. This is simple environmental data. Now if they collected actual user data like names, email addresses, etc. then we're going to have a problem but until that becomes an issue I'm going to continue using Firefox as if nothing at all is wrong.

We have data collected on us every day of our lives in just about every segment of our lives, it doesn't bother me anymore. As long as it's truly anonymous data, I have no issues with it. When it starts to contain real personal data, then I'll have an issue.

Bad enough I've been told that I'm going to die early from either an ulcer or a heart attack, I don't need to add any more things to make me worried and die earlier. I already have more gray hair than I have any business having at my age.

 

[regiq]

As long as the data that Firefox is collecting is simple data about the system that it's running on including some extension data (like names of them) then I don't see a problem. This is simple environmental data. Now if they collected actual user data like names, email addresses, etc. then we're going to have a problem but until that becomes an issue I'm going to continue using Firefox as if nothing at all is wrong.

We have data collected on us every day of our lives in just about every segment of our lives, it doesn't bother me anymore. As long as it's truly anonymous data, I have no issues with it. When it starts to contain real personal data, then I'll have an issue.

Bad enough I've been told that I'm going to die early from either an ulcer or a heart attack, I don't need to add any more things to make me worried and die earlier. I already have more gray hair than I have any business having at my age.

I wouldn't want to additionally worry you but metadata can reveal a lot of sensitive info about an individual, especially when correlated from different sources.
Fortunately firefox allows switching off the usage data sharing.

 

[drjekelmrhyde]

"Mozilla had high hopes that its Quantum browser would help it better compete with Google’s Chrome but according to the first wave of data, that hasn’t really happened. As of March 31, 2017, there were nearly 313 million Firefox clients running on desktop computers worldwide (monthly active users). A year later, the figure had fallen to just north of 293 million."

The irony being - if Chrome users believe Firefox tracks them just as much as Chrome does, they've little incentive to switch...

It's also amusing that as of May 2018, W7 users still outnumber W10 users by +15%. I guess we're seeing there the more honest figures of Mozilla only counting "active users" vs Microsoft double-counting "total activations", ie, guy who upgrades an old 2012 laptop from W7 OEM to W10 OEM back in 2015, it then dies, so he throws it away then buys another W10 OEM laptop = Mozilla correctly counts 1x user, whilst MS double-counts 2x activations as "2 users"...

On Steam Windows 10 is up by 18.

 

[Cubi Dorf]

Firefox is good, but I use Brave lately. It also tracking protection, but with better fingerprints protection. I go back to firefox if they protect fingerprints. Many people don’t understand danger on internet.