I really think Google simply keeps FF around just to help prevent anti-trust litigation. When viewed in that light, it's a bargain.

It also means that you can’t de-google while supporting Firefox since it’s pretty much their only source of income other than donations.

I don't give a damn, I degoogled anyway. As much as is technically possible without building Firefox myself anyway.

Set a different default search engine on Firefox.

This actually will hurt, because: "Firefox's revenue is subject to the overall trend of the search market and our product performance, versus a guaranteed payment." https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/08/firef...

You are missing the point it’s not that you physically can’t do that but you can’t do that while supporting (as indirectly financially) Firefox, it also ensures that Firefox doesn’t go out of their way to push people to de-google.

Mozilla Corp. need to recognize that running Google Docs better than Chrome is a battle they can't win. It will always be a catch-up game.

I believe that a viable strategy for them would be to instead focus on making Firefox better than Chrome on everything else but the Google Stack. If the Firefox experience is better on all other sites, Chrome will be gradually marginalized. It will be just a program that you keep open to do "work", similar to running MS-Office, while Firefox which will be considered the main web browser. This approach would keep the Google cash (from the default search engine deal) flowing.

But they should also work on alternative sources of income. A Firefox Account that syncs passwords (Lockwise), bookmarks (Sync) and provides file sharing capabilities (Firefox Send) is a service worth paying for. But they have to put some work on properly integrating all these features. And most importantly, they need to get rid from the lock-in mentality and support all the services tied to the Firefox Account on competing browsers by developing/porting the corresponding extensions.

>> I believe that a viable strategy for them would be to instead focus on making Firefox better than Chrome on everything else but the Google Stack. If the Firefox experience is better on all other sites, Chrome will be gradually marginalized.

Quite difficult when every developer I see is testing and verifying their product on chrome

Hi!

I use FF as my primary dev browser. The debugger lets it down and the JSON viewer in the network tab is annoying... but everything else is excellent. The CSS layout inspectors are particularly good.

On the JSON viewer being annoying: is the issue that it shows the information twice for all fields? That's what drives me crazy. I wonder how hard it would be for a newcomer to make a fix for this.

They just need a killer set of dev-tools.

What, of course, they've noticed and were working for already.

Good-quality dev tools seems to be one of the things they're abandoning in the recent layoffs: "In order to refocus the Firefox organization on core browser growth through differentiated user experiences, we are reducing investment in some areas such as developer tools, internal tooling, and platform feature development, and transitioning adjacent security/privacy products to our New Products and Operations team"

I always use Firefox personally during development, the dev tools are really great.

Our test suite uses Selenium with Chromium, which allows me to cover both browsers to some extent.

Firefox need to battle chrome and edge. Both come pre-installed in Android and Chromebook and Windows. Counting on Firefox to just be better to win against these two is naive at best.

"Firefox needs to battle Internet Explorer and Opera. Both come pre-installed in Windows and Macintosh and Blackberry. Counting on Firefox to just be better to win against these two is naive at best."

~ someone similar to randoramax circa 2003-2004.

Worth noting that Firefox has won this battle before, and paved the way for Chrome/WebKit/Edge while doing so.

As far as I can tell, Fifefox has never "won". The best they did was a strong second in ~2007-2010 with about 20-30% market share: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers

Chrome and Safari are much stronger competitors than Internet Explorer was then, so its understandable why Firefox is struggling. Being locked out of iOS doesn't help either, though I'm not sure it would make much of a difference even if they weren't.

20/30% market share is a massive win for an ethically-led company in a market dominated by the richest companies in the world (literally).

They don’t need 51% and never will. What Mozilla needs is a solid 15/20% to buy a seat at the tables that matter (standards etc).

Btw, if iOS allowed any other browser, Safari’s numbers would go way down almost immediately. Way.

You downplay the fact that Firefox at the time had Google's backing to go after Microsoft. Opera was never a threat, it was the "token" choice for Microsoft to avoid further upsetting the antitrust agencies.

It's a whole different world today.

I don't think it is. Chrome these days feels like it's being maintained solely as a platform for running Google Docs. And Edge is based on Chromium, a good indication that Microsoft is not very interested in aggressively engaging in browser wars.

So I believe that Firefox has a good chance to gain ground. And Firefox is already doing great and feels much fresher, at least from Chrome. More importantly, we are a far-cry from the crippling incompatibilities of previous browser wars, which essentially required you to replicate the bugs of your opponents.

Also, a "win" for Firefox wouldn't necessarily be toppling Chrome from #1. E.g. a healthy market share percentage + being the top self-installed browser would be a win. Dominating the browser market may even hurt Mozilla Corp., as it could force an aggressive reaction from Google (reduced funding, or even buying them if they can get around anti-monopoly regulations).

I don't think google -wants- them to use the chromium stack. Currently they can point and say they have a competitor, if gecko dies then they can't.

To me, Mozilla seems to be weaponizing its stack / fleet of products to make Firefox less desirable. “It's OK, only 1% used that thing we broke.” Sure, but you did it a hundred times.

Also: "1% of people used that thing that we broke" is often a willful misinterpretation of metrics where the actual situation is more like "100% of people used that thing that we broke, 1% of the time."

The real interpretation is going to be somewhere in between, but the people choosing the direction the want the project to go are going to choose the interpretation that supports the decision that has already been made.

edit: The best way to kill a train network is to tear up all of the least utilized track. The vast majority of that track consists of the last few miles of travel, and although only 1% of people use a particular piece, 80% of trips use one of the pieces. If people are going to have to buy a car to get to the heavily utilized backbone, they're going to ask themselves why they're driving to a train rather than just driving to the destination. This leads to a decay of the backbone.

It's OK though, the 36% of users who are left really love it.