Totally agree. Firefox used to be a breath of fresh air because it worked so well. Now they seem to be just a copy of Chrome. Heck, sometimes I can't even tell whether I have Chrome or Firefox open because they look so similar. I would much prefer if they went to back to building better browsers.

What do you propose Mozilla do now to build a better browser?

I’m not the person you were replying to, but the single feature that keeps me out of Firefox is their lack of AppleScript support. I (and many other automators) use AppleScript daily, multiple times a day, to control aspects of Chrome and Safari. The fact that I can’t do the same with Firefox puts it completely out of consideration.

Aren’t they then still playing catch-up with Chrome et al instead of doing something new and innovative.

Firefox’s add-ons were influential in spawning today’s App Stores. They introduced tabbed browsing. A JavaScript console and DOM manipulation tools. Internet Explorer had nothing like it, which is why Firefox so quickly caught on.

Innovative features don’t matter if the basic ones I need aren’t present. If Firefox introduced the innovation of tabs[1] but couldn’t render pages, tabs would have been useless.

I wasn’t proposing that implementing AppleScript will shoot up Firefox’s market share, just that until they do, I (and others that care deeply about automation) won’t even look in its general direction as a serious contender to being the main browser.

[1]: They didn’t; NetCaptor did: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netcaptor

Pretty sure opera had both tabs and a somewhat recognised brand before Firefox had either.

Android performance, scrolling etc. still isn't up to par. Firefox has ublock origin, cookie auto-delete, containers etc. I don't know if any other open android browser offers these. And that's huge. If they get it up to par, and make some deals with OEMs to bundle firefox, that should help adoption.

> make some deals with OEMs to bundle [Firefox for Android]

1. Using what budget exactly?

2. Most of those OEMs are already bundling Chrome in order to get the Play Store.

>1. Using what budget exactly?

I mean they wanted to build an entire phone OS, and get OEMs to ship that. Shipping a browser should be more manageable, don't you think ?

>2. Most of those OEMs are already bundling Chrome in order to get the Play Store.

Exactly. Most OEMs bundle chrome + other third party browsers depending on their deals and motivations. The play store contract doesn't prevent them from bundling additional browsers.

I don't think too much about browsers but things I could think of are speed, adblock, automation, dev tools. Or they could offer something like Electron but better or a Node competitor based on their tech. They could improve their mobile offerings.

It seems they are mainly following Chrome these days.