It would be much less likely if we could get the market share back to 2010 levels.
Is that a realistic goal? I don't know, maybe not, but it seems like there's little will even in tech to try.
There was a time when tech was the biggest driver of alternate browser adoption, and even managed to make serious inroads into the mainstream. It's a huge shame that this attitude seems long gone.
(As someone writing this in FF, being a Mosaic/Netscape/FF user for ~30 years)
No that ship has sailed.
It would mean focusing on developing the best browser and spending money on marketing so people download and install the best browser. Cut every other expense. Take FF from the politics of Mozilla and make it a real open source project.
If I look at Opera marketing, they seem to aim for young people with themes and video integration.
I do think FF has no vision and no clear strategy to get back market share, even it this is the only way to save the web. Perhaps market share isn't even their goal, I have no clue what they want.
> There was a time when tech was the biggest driver of alternate browser adoption, and even managed to make serious inroads into the mainstream. It's a huge shame that this attitude seems long gone.
I think that was just a side effect of browsers like Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox and Opera offering numerous tangible benefits over IE and the other browsers of that era.
They offered things like better functionality, better security, better extensibility, better performance, better ad blocking, and so on.
There were many compelling reasons to switch to them, and many compelling reasons to suggest them to others.
I could easily show less-technical users how those browsers could make their lives better in many ways.
For a while now, though, that just hasn't been the case. Using Firefox today, for example, doesn't really leave most people any better off, but it does come with its own set of new problems. I can't bring myself to recommend it.
It will be annoying if bank sites and other companies that are hard to avoid drop Firefox support (I mean I can switch banks I guess but it is a long term customer relationship, I don’t really want to).
Most websites aren’t bank websites. If a website doesn’t support Firefox, leave. If a website doesn’t support good old HTML, it is probably made by some kind of dummy who is trying to replace lack of content with glitz, this sort of person shouldn’t be listened to.
I never have any real issues with Firefox, and when I do I simply don't use that site. I have my girlfriend and mother using Firefox as main browser on desktop and mobile, with uBlock Origin and they've never complained.
I did have issues during an interview in Microsoft Teams refusing to play my video. "Your browser is not supported", yeah fuck you it's not supported. I explain why, ask if we can switch to Hangouts and send a link.
Works fine, if more people had the balls to do the same we wouldn't be in this situation today. It's our duty to educate people instead of conforming to the path of least resistance.
I use firefox for everything. The only site I know that doesn’t work is an internal app at my work that was written in FileMaker pro. I just use Edge/Safari for that one.
I very occasionally run into these, and keep Chrome as a backup browser. I suspect it's as often to do with adblocking though - I have no content blockers on Chrome.
Firefox performs way better and is a more pleasant experience. (This is a fair comparison because my ad-laden Chrome experience is internet as Google intends!)
Is your firefox rendering google maps the same sharp (vectorized) as in chromium? In my firefox it seems not so sharp and rasterized (tiles?), but might be related to some privacy plugins/settings I'm using.
If a website doesn’t work in Firefox (due to a bug in Firefox or the website or because the website blocks Firefox), please file a bug report on https://webcompat.com/
Mozilla developers will then try to reach out to the website’s owners, add a fix or workaround in Firefox, or (as a last resort) spoof Chrome’s User-Agent string to bypass the website’s Firefox block.
Firefox is my daily driver on all my computers and smartphones. There are some hiccups, often with obscure websites and airlines. Most of them better be avoided anyways. However, Slack and Microsoft Teams don't function properly in Firefox.
