It is not realistic advise to expect Firefox to do what Chrome does.

I'm also at corporate and they are really integrated with Edge. But it doesn't mean I can't do my work in Firefox (Which I currently use)

What do you mean by forced? What happens if you don't log in? What happens if you try to log in in firefox?

Edit: Ah I missed this from your original comment:

> Chrome is mandated at many companies because of its GSuite integration/ Context Aware Access.

You might be right, I'm too lazy to try this in Firefox.

1. The Endpoint Verification extension is used to ensure that the browser/ system is compliant before connecting to certain services such as any SSO.

2. Internal tools were tested with Chrome and to ensure that users were using an up to date tool they were gated on the user agent.

Chrome offers a host of endpoint management integrations that make it a far better choice for Enterprise than Mozilla. Mozilla could very easily build a management portal for Firefox or, even better, build an integration with various SSO providers.

Whereas Chrome really only integrates with GSuite Firefox could support Okta, O365, GSuite, and more, making it the de-facto corporate browser.

This isn't even complicated, this is one of many ideas I have that are easily within their ability, are taken straight from the Chrome playbook, leverages their singular asset, and their major competitive advantage (that they are "open").

Mozilla's CEO has to be fired. The incompetence and mismanagement is obscene.

Companies with application allow-lists simply don't allow non-Chrome browsers for use on their endpoints. That's the easiest way.

Companies without allow-lists may still block Firefox in other ways, though none quite as effective as above. Still, the block is usually on the endpoint, occasionally the proxy.

Using Firefox for anything was literally painful.

I fail to see how your proposal would end differently.

Plenty of people have to use Windows at work, it doesn't mean that MacOS (or Ubuntu) is a failure, or that they lack focus, or that this would change if alternatives just went to implement what you need.

The truth is that Google has built a formidable moat around their browser, and even if Mozilla put it as their one mission to catch up, they wouldn't be able to. Also, the first second that Firefox became a credible threat to Google would be the time that Google would drop all the money that they put into Mozilla.

Funny, I had to use Ubuntu 22.04 at my previous backend job and hated every minute of it thanks to snap, gnome, apt, wayland, hibernate, touchpad, and other issues that made me pull my hair out and loose several work hours in tinkering just to attempt to fix them so I can be productive at work. Maybe I was also horribly unlucky, who knows, but IMHO Ubuntu has went from the go-to to being the worst possible Linux distro. I was daily driving Ubuntu 10.XX in college and it wasn't this bad.

I get Canonical wants Ubuntu as the competitor for Windows, and they can can cry "wagh! Microsoft monopoly! wagh!" as much as they want, but Ubuntu aint it chief. Linux Mint and others could do it better if they had Canonical's pockets.

Similar for Firefox. Basic stuff that's standard in Chrome and Edge, like translation (I live in an EU country who's language I don't fully master) or spell-check, need to be downloaded as extensions/plugins in Firefox, and separate for each language, and the end quality of the Firefox spellcheck still sucks majorly compared to what Chrome has out of the box.

I get it, we should support Ubuntu and Firefox because freedom and all that, but I can't when the quality of the products and consumer experience is abysmal compared to the paid competition.

> I get it, we should support (...) because freedom and all that, but I can't when the quality (...) is abysmal compared to the paid competition.

Why not? Supporting open alternatives does not mean you exclusively need to use them.

Second, You really don't get it, do you? They will not spend money on anything that might actually threaten Google's dominance. They get 30M to play with AI is because they don't get to spend anything on making Firefox a strong alternative for Chrome. If they did, Google will take all their money away and then it's game over for them.

Google does not pay Apple for "access to the user base". Google pays Apple so that Apple does not try to get into the search engine space and compete with Google.

They also pay Mozilla as a way to keep controlled opposition and a (relatively) inexpensive way of avoid threats of lawsuits like the one that MS had in the past. But they don't need to. If Mozilla for any reason decided to stop conforming to this game and went on to actually fight against Google, Google would drop them in a heartbeat. And who would Mozilla go for, Bing? DDG?

> If they did, Google will take all their money away and then it's game over for them.

Because of the position they put themselves in. Also you underestimate how much cash they have.

Chrome gets put on corporate machines because the IT people use Chrome. None of these people seem to regard ad blocking as an internal security feature yet.

In general I agree with you though, my above example likely only exists because there's another huge corporation involved.

For new businesses trying to edge a way in the market, yeah good luck unless you've got something novel.

We can all agree on some things though. I'm talking about core metrics. Performance, stability, safety. Beyond that there are some more "controversial" things like privacy, and then you have purely subjective things like UX.

When I say "build a better browser" I mean that they should take those core capabilities and invest heavily in them. Instead, one of their most promising projects, Servo, was canned "because covid" while their CEO took their largest 8 figure payment ever.

It's a performant, stable, safe, and private browser.

(It lags Chrome in some potted performance tests, but it is more than adequately performant. Firefox is much better than Chrome at memory management. It never crashes. It does not steal your data. It allows you the greatest degree of privacy in any major browser. Side tabs are possible.)

But no one can compete with Google's marketing, or Apple's iOS advantage. Not even Microsoft. Certainly not Mozilla.

Mozilla has failed us in so so many ways. You mention one egregious example.

But we've failed Mozilla too. Anyone who recommends Chrome over Firefox is making a mistake detrimental to the well-being of the internet.

Not that Chrome is a bad browser. It's great. Almost as good as Firefox! Chrome has terrible tab management and chews RAM, but it's performant and secure and lovely.

But Chrome is a bad path forward for the internet, and this is important.

I use a lot of SaaS admin panels, of widely varying quality. In every case I can think of, the same bugs are present in Firefox, Chrome, and Safari.

They can start by stopping to bleed the Firefox team dry (they use the income they get from Firefox to fund everything else, none of which is important).

If they promise to focus on Firefox again, and with that money they can probably hire a bunch of world class programmers. At least I think the combo of a real mission and decent pay should go a long way.

And, if they somehow get rid of their current management and apologize profoundly I and others will probably start donating again. It will also result in more users and more business in every way.

Today it seems they are paid to make the web a Chrome monoculture only with plausible deniability.

We're at the point of marginal returns on nearly all of our "traditional" tech (browsers, cell phones, gaming, etc, etc).

There just isn't room for enough improvement in the browsing experience to be "that much better" for people to switch.

That's just one example.

As a former member of both the Firefox and Chrome teams I think you're also deeply misunderstanding the difference in scope and scale of the teams and the products. The thing you're suggesting Mozilla should Just Do Somehow is not feasible.

a) Pocket is by far the one that gets criticized, not the VPN. Besides, the VPN is primarily criticized because VPN companies tend to be really scummy. The VPN is fine I guess it's just not interesting and I don't see how it's going to drive user engagement.

b) HN criticisms aren't representative of anything too meaningful. People constantly post about their pet bugs that they think matter to everyone but they don't.

The integrations I'm talking about are ones that Chrome already has and that would be a huge boon to Enterprise users. Users who have to use a browser at work are going to end up using it at home to avoid the UX friction of using both, other than a subset of "power users" who won't be convinced anyways. Getting Enterprise users is huge and it's a big part of why Chrome is winning - their integrations with identity management is massive and it's part of their overall strategy as an IDP.

> The thing you're suggesting Mozilla should Just Do Somehow is not feasible.

That's nonsense. There are already third party extensions for some endpoint verification for Firefox. We're talking about a 1st party plugin built by a company that just spend 30 Million dollars on this "safe AI" project. There are startups building entire IDPs with a 10th of that funding.

All the big browser players have more than just a browser. It's a gateway to _their_ services. Firefox users on this site shriek at fucking _Pocket_ and all seem to think that all you need to do is to build a better browser.

If that was true, IE6 would never have been in the dominant position it was. If that was true, Chrome would no longer be in the dominant position it is. The only thing that matters is how much you blast users with ads and force them in your ecosystem. Mozilla has none of that.

Aside from being the new hotness, what exactly about AI makes sense for Mozilla/Firefox to jump into and have anything to offer? The one obvious thing they could do would be to integrate AI capabilities into the browser for the users benefit (i.e. the most valuable thing they could do to contribute to 'trustworthy AI'. Note that this would not require a new foundation/company... just integrating the capability into the product they already have) But of course Mozilla most likely won't do this... they're going to keep taking moonshots they can't afford. I can't say I'll miss them when they're gone.

Former Mozilla fellow here. I wish I could agree with this sentiment, but it's untrue. Mozilla is a corrupt nonprofit which exists solely to advance the interests of elites. The users don't matter. Within Mozilla there is disdain for the concerns of regular people.

The Linux version has definitely become worse over the last year. It keeps stalling for no good reason.

Don't think there is anything with it (now). Chrome just captured all the mindshare by being a lot faster & leaner for a while

Hard to fix a mindshare problem with a technical solution given that they're now about on par (roughly)