The same way it happened 10 years ago. If your non-techie family and friends for some reason have desktops or notebooks and not just phones and tablets, then ask them to use Firefox (or install it for them yourself). If they don't want to use Firefox but they have a MacBook, check if they're using Chrome, and if so, ask them to use Safari instead. If they're interested in getting a computer and want a recommendation, suggest they get a Mac instead of a Windows machine, and get them to use Safari or Firefox instead of Chrome. If they're trying to decide between an Android device and something from Apple, tell them that either is acceptable, but if they go for Android, ask them to install and use mobile Firefox instead of Chrome.

If a techie friend is thinking about starting a project and there's a chance that they'll choose Electron, ask them to consider building on top of WebKit instead. In general, spread the word far and wide that WebKit exists and avoid feeding into the popular misconception that the only choices are Firefox or Chrome. If you yourself are interested in alternative, non-mainstream browsers, look first for a WebKit-based one, and maybe consider contributing yourself. However, if you're already using Firefox and consider it acceptable, try to keep using it instead of switching to WebKit. If you're looking to switch, try holding on as long as possible, but make sure your criticism is clear. (And it should be well-informed, too; as Frank Hecker mentioned, albeit more politely, there are too many people talking out of their ass when it comes to Mozilla. That goes for detractors and advocates. The level of uninformedness every time Mozilla comes up—including the tweets quoted in the article—is pretty unreal.)

Looking at the StatCounter Aug 2020 stats [1], ignoring browsers less than 2% usage share (because I'm lazy), it looks like:

Chromium based = 74.53%. Safari = 16.82%. Firefox = 4.09% (but effectively 0 on mobile).

And that's with Apple forcing WebKit on Apple mobile devices.

Throwing Firefox's 4% into WebKit could be like strategic voting to strengthen the opposition, stop splitting the vote, and reduce Mozilla's cost of maintaining FF (keeping their recent layoffs in mind).

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#Su...

That's a fair point. I very much value FF's extensibility.

Of course not. If all browsers effectively turn into slightly different UIs for WebKit, that is zero diversity.

My suggestion is in terms of "strategic voting" [1].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_voting

As an example, there's currently no straight-forward way for the average Joe to set up ad-blocking on a mobile device (excl. DoH/DoT using PiHole, NextDNS, etc.). Many non-technical users are, however, familiar with the usage of ad-blocking extensions in their desktop browsers. They might not know the nitty gritty of how ad-blocking works, but most people seem to have one installed. Installing and using such an extension is just as seamless on Firefox for Android as it is on a regular computer.

If AdBlock is a built-in feature in Edge on Android, I assume you still need to opt-in through the settings (e.g., Settings -> Enable AdBlock), no? In which case the setup is Firefox is similarly easy: Addons -> uBlock Origin. Perhaps a bit less intuitive for an average user, but still very straight-forward to set up.

It takes a bit of work, but I am not under any deadlines, because I only work on personal projects.

HTML is very special in its flexible parsing without compilation errors, and I want to do as much as I can to preserve it.

JavaScript is different, because it evolved when browser competition was already in effect, so there was motivation to display errors when the page was written in the wrong flavor, as was practiced by Netscape from the beginning, and joined by IE in this practice.

HTML and HTTP is also special in that they are both human-readable and human-writeable, the former even by non-specialists.

There are not many computer languages out there that have a loose grammar like HTML and HTTP. We have a real gem on our hands, and it would be smart to hold on to it.

For example the differentiation between Firefox sign in and website sign in, the mobile extensions, ad blocking, background playing in YouTube etc... Things that Mozilla can do but Google can't.

People say this all the time, but I'm not sure I 100% believe it.

I suspect Chrome's current dominance was mostly fueled by Android and G-Suite. For many people, it became the default browser at work (thanks to enterprise adoption of G-Suite) and on their smartphone. People like familiarity and the incumbent (IE) had a terrible reputation, so Chrome logically became the new normal. I think for the average user performance and features were just bonuses.

It's not like Firefox performance or feature parity has historically been bad compared to Chrome. If performance and features were what people craved, Firefox would be doing fine.

Mobile Chrome usage is a matter “it’s there”. It’s the system webview, so you’re going to see it at some point, no matter what.

Businesses were slow to transition thanks to dependence on IE features and, in my experience, most "casual" users could not be bothered to install a new browser.

When I'm talking about Chrome's dominance, I'm talking about their dominance across the whole market.

It took a long time for me to convince my parents to switch to Chrome. Now I'm running into the same difficulty trying to convince them to switch away from it. I really think that kind of dominance had less to do with performance and features, and more to so with familiarity.