
Ask HN: Why is Firefox on Mobile's marketshare insignificant? - sharmi
Actually it makes a lot more sense to have Firefox on Mobile than the desktop as it is the only browser (as far as I know) that allows you to block ads via extensions like Ublock Origin.<p>I am painfully aware, thanks to my immediate family, that the common man is not aware of the implications of losing privacy and it&#x27;s value.<p>But surely the impact of ads on browsing experience is much more pronounced and annoying on mobile owing to the smaller screen, slower bandwidth and limited processing power (?). 
Firefox offers a vastly superior browsing experience in that regard compared to leading browsers like Chrome which even prohibit extensions.  I often endup having 200 pr more open tabs on Firefox mobile and it has never been a problem (Open tabs double as ToBeRead list) . May be it has crashed twice in the past 2 years. I have never lost a tab during the crash, a power failure or a restart. Always quite fast.<p>That is a very clear improvement, and in my opinion 10x better, on status quo.<p>So why is not Firefox much more popular on mobile?
======
teknopaul
Declining popularity on desktop as people moved to moblie.

FireFox has taken a "strong stance" on security at the expense of usability.
I'm sure you could track the number of sites they refuse to support agiant its
decline and find corrolation. Not letting you bypass ssl on localhost or the
lan or read from CDs or the local file system or low security legacy systems
on the lan make it far less useful as a generic gui than it should be. I use
it and keep chromium handy for when it fails me. I dont blame people for
switching permanently when it fails them and something else "just works". Plus
of course Apple forbid a browser choice and Goolge push their spyware hard on
Android. Mozilla of late assume the only use of a browser is browsing the
Internet. They are very wrong. Dev tools used to be great on ff so many sites
worked better on ff than other browsers. They shot themselves in the foot when
they messed up firebug and split the community. That was the point I noticed
devs stop using it as a first choice. Then they broke all existing plugins
with no replacement when they moved off xul. That cant have helped. If you
check bug reports youll find a lot of "wont fix" indicative of the overall
change to not supporting users needs. Its open source in name only. even
chrome has far more forks. Trying to do anything with firefox code other than
firefox on the internet is a non-starter. Dont get me started on use of their
js engine vs v8

------
taprun
I would assume for the same reason that Mozilla sued Microsoft in the 90s.

If your browser not installed be default, people will have to a) Know about
your app b) Believe that it is better c) Understand how to install your app d)
Be willing to install it.

Because Android and iOS have their browsers installed be default, they have a
distinct advantage.

------
antoineMoPa
Since we are talking about Firefox again:

One point that bothers me with desktop use stats is that so many bots and
crawlers are based on Chrome. This must have a negative impact on the measured
percentage of Desktop firefox users. (You can remove some bots from your stats
when the user agent is very clear like "googlebot/Yandex/Facebook", but you
can't get them all)

------
Raed667
As someone who moved to Firefox on android just a couple of years ago. I stuck
with Chrome for the longest time because i didn't know that Firefox had
extensions, or that i could play Youtube in the background. For the longest
time I never saw why I should bother.

~~~
reciprocity
You didn't know Firefox supported extensions? Chrome still doesn't support
extensions on mobile.

------
egberts1
I cannot tweak Firefox on iOS therefore I cannot safely use it.

