
Is Firefox Doomed? - johnpaultitlow
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/is_firefox_doomed.php#.TtqVTl2ZdU4.hackernews
======
bad_user
I'm a developer that switched back to Firefox, after I gave up on it during
the 3.5 days. Firefox almost died in its transition to version 4, however now
it is back on track.

I prefer it over Chrome because Firefox is a platform, not a product that
treats me like a dumb user.

I use it on my Android too. It's a little sluggish and still uses too much
memory, however it has a killer feature - it syncs everything with my desktop.
It syncs my bookmarks and my saved login data for various websites I use.
Saves me from a lot of manual typing and it is so addictive I can't give it
up. Plus I'm seeing progress and they've promised a native interface that will
be more efficient.

The desktop version is pretty stable these days too - I'm on the Beta channel
(version 9) and I don't have problems. Even the versioning problems for the
plugins I use have been sorted out.

I still recommend it to people, I would recommend it even to my hypothetical
grandma.

If people from Mozilla are reading this - thanks for all your hard work.

~~~
michaelcampbell
> not a product that treats me like a dumb user

I use both Chrome and FF, and I never felt like a browser was "treating me"
like anything. They're both tools.

Maybe because I _AM_ a dumb user? ... Oh god.

~~~
fferen
Plus, Chrome basically comes with Firebug by default.

I feel that Chrome is similar to Apple products in that it feels restrictive
when you first use it (especially with regards to its extension system), but
that eventually you realize that you didn't really need those features in the
first place. For me those were tree style tabs, as well as the "Awesome bar".
The only truly killer feature that Chrome lacks is a reliable Adblock plus.

Of course, YMMV, etc.

~~~
jlarocco
Chrome has its own version of Adblock plus:
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cfhdojbkjhnklbpkda...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cfhdojbkjhnklbpkdaibdccddilifddb)

Is it missing something that's in the Firefox version?

~~~
fferen
Yes, it does poorly on many Flash videos, especially twitch.tv and other
streaming sites.

------
azakai
> So far, Bott's inquries to Mozilla about whether or not the Google deal has
> been renewed haven't yielded a straight answer. It's entirely possible that
> Google won't renew the deal, which would put about $100 million of Firefox's
> revenue at stake. [..] Google doesn't need Firefox anywhere near as much as
> Firefox needs Google.

This is completely mistaken.

What Google mainly cares about is search market share. Even 0.1% there is
crucial, and worth a lot of money. Google would be willing to throw almost any
amount of money at anything that would increase its share in search or keep it
at its current height. The same is true of Microsoft with Bing.

Consider what happens if Google drops the deal with Firefox. Google will no
longer be the default search engine in Firefox, and a lot of goodwill towards
Google from Firefox users will be lost. Those two factors can easily account
for far more than %0.1 of search. Worse, it is very likely that Microsoft
would step in and pay the same amount to Firefox, so Google would be helping
its main competitor in search.

$100M in that context is a laughably tiny amount.

~~~
ch0wn
> $100M in that context is a laughably tiny amount.

Considering that Google spent $2.11B on traffic acquisition last quarter[0] it
seems even less.

[0]
[http://investor.google.com/earnings/2011/Q2_google_earnings....](http://investor.google.com/earnings/2011/Q2_google_earnings.html)

------
nfm
No, it's clearly not doomed.

Google wants people to use their services, and to use browsers that are up to
scratch to do so. They also want to influence web standards so that they can
build better products. This is why they built Chrome.

Firefox helps them to achieve these goals by being another alternative to IE,
and having similar views about evolving web standards.

------
Bo102010
Firefox isn't doomed. Not only is it still a good web browser that many
(myself included) continue to use daily, inertia will keep it installed on
millions of PCs.

As far as I know, Mozilla and Google maintain good relations. Even if the deal
that provides money from Google to Mozilla isn't renewed, I doubt they will
entirely disentangle themselves from each other.

~~~
rjd
Firefox is doomed because its lost its developer foot hold, anecdotally most
devs I know refer to it as a joke and use Chrome instead. Its a browser that
relies on recommendation to exist, and it no longer is getting recommendation.

On a technical note each version isn't really getting any better, historical
problems have never been addressed, version fragmentation is occurring, on
several matters its in direct conflict on the w3c standards with other major
players.

The UI is polarising (its the major complaint I actually here next to 'laggy
behavior'), the options to change it rely on 3rd party modules which are often
bugging and not supported between versions. It's never nailed OSX, it just
doesn't 'feel' the same as the rest of the operating system and is slightly
jarring at times.

Personally if you take a base install of Opera 11 it is exactly how I want FF
to be set up, everything works smoothly, fast, and 'clicky'. I'd recommend any
FF user to try the new version of Opera for a few days, then go back to FF and
see just how different it feels even though they are aesthetically quite
similar.

~~~
FrankBooth
Most of your post is emotion and opinion, so I thought I'd address the part
that is factually incorrect:

> On a technical note each version isn't really getting any better

That's simply not true. To take a single example, the type inference engine
added to the JS engine in FF9 significantly improved performance. With the new
high frequency release strategy, it's not guaranteed that there will be huge
new features or improvements in any given release, but the features and
improvements are coming as fast as ever.

> historical problems have never been addressed

You can find ancient pet bugs for any project that either take a long time to
get fixed or are never fixed. Do you have something specific in mind?

> version fragmentation is occurring

That's more-or-less false. There's some adjustment going on due to the switch
to the high frequency release schedule, but the fact is the vast majority of
Firefox users are on a small number of versions, almost all that have been
offered an upgrade are on the latest stable release.

> on several matters its in direct conflict on the w3c standards with other
> major players.

Can you point to anything specific to back up your claim? If you pick and
choose specs, this is true for all browsers. Nobody implements everything
completely and correctly. The specs are being developed as fast as ever, and
it's common for one browser to be ahead in certain areas. It's also common for
competing implementations to differ as the standard develops. This is not
confined to Firefox.

~~~
mattmanser
You're not addressing his key point, I'm recommending Chrome to anyone I speak
to, many other developers I know are too. Firefox is slow, sluggish to use and
confusing compared to Chrome.

The edge it had over IE was that it was a better user experience. It's not
compared to Chrome anymore. Even IE is better than FF apart from the weird
crash like blank screen glitch when opening a new tab that IE has.

~~~
gkoberger
I don't have a problem with you recommending Chrome (and I work at Mozilla).
However, it's not fair to say Firefox is sluggish. With a new profile, it's
just as fast as Chrome. Try it.

Chrome has an advantage because it's relatively new. It doesn't have to deal
with over a decade of add-ons and browser history and cookies.

Much like how a computer gets slow and needs to be reformatted, people who are
browser power users need to clean out Firefox every few years.

Try vacuuming your Firefox database [1], syncing everything [2] and/or create
a new profile [3] with only the extensions you actually use.

Oh, and be careful of Firebug. That's why most developers laugh at Firefox for
being so slow; they use Firebug, which slows Firefox down to a grinding halt.
We're working on our own dev tools, which are slowly coming together. They're
not a Firebug replacement yet, but they're getting there. [4]

1 [http://mozillalinks.org/2009/08/vacuum-firefox-databases-
for...](http://mozillalinks.org/2009/08/vacuum-firefox-databases-for-better-
performance-now-with-no-restart/) 2 <http://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/mobile/sync/> 3 <http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Managing-profiles> 4
[http://hacks.mozilla.org/2011/11/developer-tools-in-
firefox-...](http://hacks.mozilla.org/2011/11/developer-tools-in-firefox-
aurora-10/)

~~~
Turing_Machine
"Chrome has an advantage because it's relatively new. It doesn't have to deal
with over a decade of add-ons"

You'd have a point here if Firefox hadn't started blithely breaking everyone's
add-ons by bumping the version number about 5 times per week. Okay, that's
hyperbole -- I know it wasn't that often, but the point is that a "rapid
release schedule" comes with real costs.

If you have 500MM users, and the mean user time to adapt to a trivial new
release is 5 minutes (a gross underestimate if add-ons have broken), you've
just wasted 16 million hours of user time. Just because that cost doesn't
appear as a line item in the Mozilla Foundation's budget doesn't mean it isn't
real.

I used Firefox for years because of the rich add-on community. When it started
being more trouble than it was worth to update the add-ons (or find/write new
ones, if the old one hadn't been updated), I switched to Chrome. It's unlikely
that I'll be back.

~~~
notatoad
If the cost of frequent updates is breaking add ons that aren't actively
maintained, I'm not so sure that's a bad thing. The majority of the slowness
criticisms that ff receives seem to be caused by add ons.

~~~
Turing_Machine
It's not unreasonable to expect an add-on to work for more than six weeks,
especially when there hasn't actually been any real, significant change in the
base software. I'd bet the (unpaid) add-on authors are getting pretty tired of
this as well -- they're the ones who have to deal with the emails from unhappy
users.

~~~
limi
It's currently fixed in the Nightly and Aurora channels, and will make it to
mainstream Firefox very soon: [http://theunfocused.net/2011/11/19/solving-
firefoxs-add-on-c...](http://theunfocused.net/2011/11/19/solving-firefoxs-add-
on-compatibility-problem/)

------
super_mario
I hope not. Currently nothing beats Firefox with Pentadactyl, Adblock Plus,
Firebug, Tabmix plus combination. For real VIM geeks this is an insanely fast
way to navigate the web and do online research.

~~~
w1ntermute
Same here. I'm using all of those extensions, plus a number that help increase
web privacy/security, such as BetterPrivacy, Ghostery, HTTPS-Everywhere,
LastPass, and OptimizeGoogle.

There's no way to replicate that level of customization in Chrome. In fact,
it's much worse because of all the tracking functionality Google's included.

~~~
eropple
> In fact, it's much worse because of all the tracking functionality Google's
> included.

[citation needed], because as far as I'm aware of there's no such "tracking
functionality" anywhere in Chrome.

"In fact," claims like this without proof are pretty shitty.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Everything you type into the address bar is sent to Google's servers as a
search query.

~~~
micheljansen
Only if you turn that on (and by default it is not). See
[http://www.google.com/support/chrome/bin/answer.py?answer=18...](http://www.google.com/support/chrome/bin/answer.py?answer=180655&hl=en)

------
_bbs
Google benefits from being the default search engine in Firefox. They wouldn't
pay $100 million per year to Mozilla if there wasn't some reasonable return on
that investment. I imagine that the search traffic generated by Firefox will
remain valuable to Google until FF's market share drops into the single
digits.

The article implies that Google is charitably allowing Firefox to exist
("Google doesn't need Firefox anywhere near as much as Firefox needs
Google."). I'd like to the think the Google-Mozilla relationship is mutually
beneficial.

Firefox may become a viable alternative to Android's built-in browser once the
native UI version is complete.

~~~
sliverstorm
_Google doesn't need Firefox anywhere near as much as Firefox needs Google_

Even if true, that doesn't mean Google doesn't need Firefox.

------
asadotzler
Opera made $50M last year in search revenue from Google, Bing, Yandex, Amazon,
and a few others. They did that with about 53M users -- 2-3% usage share
according to StatCounter and Net Applications <http://grab.by/blcC>

(screenshot from this Opera report PDF
[http://media.opera.com/media/finance/2011/3Q11_presentation....](http://media.opera.com/media/finance/2011/3Q11_presentation.pdf)
)

------
troymc
Google isn't giving money to Mozilla just because they're nice and they like
Firefox. Google often makes money when someone uses Firefox's search box to do
a Google search: the search results page may have ads and if the searcher
clicks on one of those ads, Google makes money, which they share with the
referrer. The referrer in this case is Firefox but Google has a similar
arrangement with tons of other referrers (through their "AdSense for Search"
program).

I suspect Google's deal with Mozilla hasn't been renewed simply because
renewal time hasn't arrived yet.

------
ticks
Chrome is too closely linked to Google, so Firefox will always be a good
alternative for people who care about privacy.

------
jarcoal
I would be surprised if Google didn't renew their contract. There are still a
TON of Firefox users out there, and I'm sure they would love to market to
them.

It's the same reason they still make iOS apps. They don't care about what
software you use, just that you're searching with Google.

------
ck2
If Microsoft can be sued (and lose) for making IE the only/default/integrated
browser on millions of copies of Windows - why does not the same apply to
Chrome/Safari on Android/Iphone?

~~~
olivercameron
Because neither Apple or Google have a monopoly on the browser market anywhere
near what Microsoft had. Also, Microsoft was sued for actively thwarting
competition[1] in order to maintain it's position.

1\. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft>

~~~
Karellen
While your first point is valid, the fact that Apple completely refuse to
allow any 3rd party browsers on iPhone/iPad/etc... puts them in a worse
position competition-thwarting-wise than MS with IE.

~~~
krevis
Not true. You can get Opera for iOS: [http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/opera-
mini-web-browser/id3637...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/opera-mini-web-
browser/id363729560?mt=8)

------
gujk
Firefox wins on only two feature, but important ones: privacy and advertising
addons. It is the only reason I tolerate the rest of Firefox's slowness and
memory hogging. 95+% of the market doesn't care about privacy and half don't
care about ads though.

------
mappu
Mozilla is a non-profit foundation. It isn't out to be the best at everything
in every market, it's out to encourage competition and provide a solid FOSS
solution to a difficult problem. As far as they're concerned, they've already
won.

~~~
thedaveoflife
That's a bit of an oversimplification. Non-profits are interested in
"providing a solution to a difficult problem", but they are also interested in
self preservation.

------
smudgy
It's not doomed but it's not doing to well. The last versions have not been
different enough to warrant new version numbers and Firefox 8, while being
decidedly quicker for some tasks, has been incredibly slow for my mundane
tasks.

I'm a hardcore Firefox guy, I've been using it and Mozilla since M6 but I
changed to Chrome yesterday and, while it's not flexible and customizable as
Firefox, it's Good Enough.

I hope it gets better - perhaps focusing on the browser instead of higher
version numbers and striving to look like IE or Chrome. Until then, I'm a
Chrome guy.

~~~
gkoberger
Don't worry about the version number -- a higher number doesn't mean there's a
ton of new features; it merely means 6 weeks has passed. Pretty soon, upgrade
dialogs will be completely suppressed and it won't matter what version you're
on (much like Chrome). I like the rapid release; it means as a developer I can
play with new features much sooner.

Firefox is as fast or faster than any other browser (assuming you don't load
it up with add-ons). [1] So it's not like everyone at Mozilla stopped
programming and started focusing all their energy on merely incrementing the
version number from 7 to 8.

I don't know why you're so worried -- version is just a number.

[1] [http://lifehacker.com/5844150/browser-speed-tests-
firefox-7-...](http://lifehacker.com/5844150/browser-speed-tests-
firefox-7-chrome-14-internet-explorer-9-and-more)

~~~
grimlck
Version number does matter because they can't seem to create a stable add-on
API, and therefore version increment == add-on breakage.

~~~
icebraining
Actually there is a stable API that works much like Chrome's, it's called
Jetpack [1], the problem is that most addons don't use it, in part because
also like Chrome's, it's much more limited - the default JS API basically
gives the addon access to the whole Firefox internals.

[1]: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jetpack_(Firefox_project)>

------
djbender
"Is Firefox Doomed!? FIND OUT MORE AT 10!"

------
kijin
Becoming the #3 browser doesn't make Firefox anywhere near "doomed". It's just
back where it was a few years ago, as far as market share is concerned. The
desktop and laptop userbase isn't going to disappear anytime soon, either.

I don't know much about the search engine partnership issue, but it seems that
the author suggested his answer to that. No search service can afford to
ignore a browser with over 20% market share.

~~~
jyrkesh
I think the issue here is that Mozilla can't afford to still exist without
that 100 million from Google a year. But yeah, I don't see why someone else
wouldn't come in and swoop on that.

~~~
marshray
Last I checked, the statement I read looked like Mozilla had a pile of cash in
the bank. Enough to go on for many years if they're not dumb with it.

Would be interesting to see if they've put out an updated statement since
then.

~~~
jyrkesh
The Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit, right? So they should have public
documents out there somewhere, right?

------
jyrkesh
It actually does seem pretty likely that someone else--Yahoo, Microsoft, who
knows--and use Firefox to their advantage in some way. But yeah, I don't see
Google renewing the deal.

------
cft
it's doomed since Google withdrew its support [1] to Mozilla foundation, and
decided to focus on its own browser instead. Firefox was Google's skunk works
project in its competition against IE until 2008.

1\. [http://techcrunch.com/2008/11/19/google-makes-
up-88-percent-...](http://techcrunch.com/2008/11/19/google-makes-
up-88-percent-of-mozillas-revenues-threatens-its-non-profit-status/)

~~~
_bbs
That article explains that Google renewed its contract with Mozilla in 2008
for three years. The current discussion relates to the future of that
contract. There is no evidence that Google has permanently withdrawn support
for Firefox.

------
baq
last year ff started to make changes that are becoming visible only now. they
lost a lot of users, but are getting better all the time. i've been using
chrome exclusively for the past year and now i've got both chrome and ff open.

i guess the biggest feature ff now lacks compared to chrome is the silent
autoupdater. it can be optional, just stop asking me for admin rights every
time it wants to update.

------
thedaveoflife
_It's entirely possible that Google won't renew the deal, which would put
about $100 million of Firefox's revenue at stake._

It would make no sense for Google to renew this agreement... if Mozilla
suddenly changed Firefox's default SE that would not go over well with the
users. It seems much more likely that they would form a new deal with less
revenue going to Mozilla.

Of course that doesn't mean Firefox is done. That is highly dependent on
Mozilla's innovation in the next few years.

~~~
joshu
I am sure someone else would pick up the slack.

------
dendory
Less than a week after Chrome passes Firefox and we get the "is firefox
doomed?!" articles. Good old Internet blog pundits...

------
togasystems
What does Mozilla do with their cash?

~~~
nfm
They publish their audited financial statements online:

<http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/documents/>

[http://static.mozilla.com/moco/en-
US/pdf/Mozilla%20Foundatio...](http://static.mozilla.com/moco/en-
US/pdf/Mozilla%20Foundation%20and%20Subsidiaries%202010%20Audited%20Financial%20Statement.pdf)

As of December 31, 2010, they have assets of $168MM, of which $35MM is in cash
and $105MM in investments. In the 12 months they spent $62MM on software
development, $10MM on branding and marketing, and $12MM on 'General and
administrative'.

There's more granular detail if you're interested.

------
AaronMT
No. It is not doomed. Google would not let ~350 million potential users go to
waste.

~~~
insertnickname
Most users would probably just set Google as the default search engine
themselves if it wasn't default.

~~~
lmorchard
Most users never touch defaults. I'd bet you $100 million a year that
AltaVista would stay default in the majority of Firefox installs, if it were
released that way.

~~~
icebraining
A decent number of them would:

1\. Type "Google" on the search bar 2\. Click on the first result 3\. Use
Google

I've seen that over and over again.

------
billpatrianakos
Google isn't exactly about the browser, they're all about search. Not renewing
wouldn't make sense. Microsoft would benefit greatly by partnering with
Mozilla and Google shouldn't let that happen from a business standpoint.

I think that despite Chroke's dominance Firefox isn't going anywhere. The
article kind of made it sound like Mozilla was on the ropes which it's pretty
far from. There will always be a market for those who want a browser from a
company that is on their side and that's Mozilla. Chrome is aweso,e but there
are going to be people concerned about the data collection that goes on.
Chrome is out there to enrich Google. IE is infamous for being behind the
times and just a crappy browser all around for standards, weird toolbars that
install the,selves, etc. Then there's Mozilla. What ulterior motives do they
have? From all I've ever learned they're just out there trying to build a kick
ass browser and move the web forward. No search engine to support, no billion
dollar software company to promote, just a humble browser maker in it for the
users.

Chrome may overtake them in market share but I don't see Mozilla straying too
far behind Google for the foreseeable future. IE share will keep tanking and
Safari, while a great browser, will still be kind of a trailing behind cult
classic.

------
xxiao
I guessed so. google was the major financial source for it, and it's going
away. IE for Bing, Chrome for Google, Firefox for?

~~~
bmuon
Firefox for Bing <http://www.firefoxwithbing.com/>

------
portentint
Google's developing Chrome as part of their 'headless' browser, which now
powers their crawler. If I had to guess, they'll keep Firefox around as a
partner to cover all their bets. Between that and Chrome, they have a nice
chunk of market share to compete against Internet Elephant.

