The exact opposite is true.
Google's market share came, first and foremost, from having the best product in each space it dominates: search, browser, email.
The people primarily concerned about "reputation" are a vocal minority. That doesn't mean they're wrong -- but when we're talking about the browser choice of millions of people it's definitely wrong to suppose that reputation is the key factor.
But also based on everyone using google.com for searching and google prompts you to download Chrome when you go there.
I don’t see a way back for Firefox now. To gain market share they’d have to be better than chrome and at best they’re as good - and the more sites build specifically for Chrome, the worse the position Firefox is in.
As small company, I can target Chrome and Safari and cover the vast majority of my potential users. Adding QA and Dev for Firefox just gets harder and harder.
Sites that literally do not load in Firefox? Which ones? I'm genuinely curious here, since I've never hit such a site.
Is Firefox a significantly more complex project than the Linux kernel that this sort of overhead is necessary?
That's a big question for Mozilla. Because they rely on click revenue for having Google as a default search engine
Enterprises put millions of dollars into Linux because it has utility for them.
Almost nobody is doing the same for Mozilla.
Also just because someone isn't a programmer doesn't mean they are useless.
Also, the comparison to the Linux kernel is not a good one because there isn't a single organization that makes the kernel. These roles exist, they just are in spread out among the companies contributing to and selling Linux, and organizations like the Linux Foundation (which also doesn't just do kernel things).
Not saying Mozilla does this, but if your observation about their executive overhead is correct, they would not be unique among non-profits.
So eventually, what will happen is Microsoft moves towards the Apple route. "Windows Lite comes with OUR Blink/V8 and you can write a browser shell (also called a Chrome :) ) around it.
Embrace > extend.
It's not that Firefox is wrong to not include these UI features, it's that I've spent years and years browsing a certain way and now it feels really weird to suddenly have to do it differently.
Maybe Firefox needs to shamelessly clone Chrome's UI. Maybe when launching for the first time it asks if you want to default to Chrome Style or Firefox Style.
What I think Mozilla cannot do is hope people kind of just tolerate how weird it feels for a few weeks.
Hmm...I have a similar complaint about desktop (MacOS).
The lack of a good "home" keyboard shortcut greatly irks me. The "home" keyboard shortcut, option + home, only actually works if the focus is not in something that takes text input. If the focus is in a text input field on the page, or in the "Find in This Page..." input field, or in the address bar, the "home" shortcut is ignored.
Chrome's and Safari's "home" keyboard shortcuts work as expected.
That, and Firefox having the worst spell checking by far of the major browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Edge, Safari) on both Mac and Windows, has had me close to switching to Chrome.
As for the future, Firefox is at a huge disadvantage here. Performance... reputation... stability... those are important metrics, but Google has a big advantage when it comes to mindshare.
When people buy an Android phone, it ships with Chrome. When people go to google.com, they are prompted to install Chrome. When people go to work, their IT department often supports Chrome as the primary browser - especially if their company uses the Google suite.
When the average person thinks of a browser, they think of Chrome.
For better or worse, I think Microsoft is the only organization who can reasonably compete with Google on that playing field.
There was a rumor about Edge, and a couple days later Microsoft posted a statement saying what they were doing, and why. Mozilla posted a statement saying why they were concerned about this. You may not like or agree with them, but it's not hard to see where they stand.
There were rumors about Google's chat systems, and a few days later they posted a 600-word statement addressing it, and still nobody seems to have a clear idea what the heck is going on there.
Developers already hate supporting multiple browsers. I can understand adopting new ECMAScript and CSS features at different paces, but having fundamentally different default DOM styling is just annoying. CSS rules interacting different between browsers is maddening. I would be perfectly fine with an open source core that all browsers used. Python provides a reference implementation for its spec, and still has a healthy (I think) ecosystem of alternate implementations.
Whenever someone complains about having to support different browsers, or a page says "this feature is best viewed / only available in browser X", I don't blame them! Would it be really bad if all browsers adopted the same engine and built their features on top of it? I also believe collectively we can make that engine even better.
(off topic) This made me think of logs.. there are so many different standards/formats out there, making log collection and parsing a nightmare. I think logging is something that's truly been cursed by its diversity, and something, if we worked together to standardize, would make this world a better place.
I think we could all benefit from more things being standardized, such as a social network protocol, a standard for self-driving cars so they are able to communicate and coordinate among each other, a browser engine like Chromium etc. Wishful thinking?
They also should ditch Google on everything (which is not the case right now).
Firefox relies on Google (and others), that's bad on its own.
They should:
- Disable google safebrowsing
Google safebrowsing can detect pishing and malware but it also sends informations to google together with an unique id called wrkey.
- Disable malware scan
The malware scan sends an unique identifier for each downloaded file to Google.
- Disable DNS over HTTPS
DNS over HTTP (DoH), aka. Trusted Recursive Resolver (TRR), uses a server run by Cloudfare to resolve hostnames, even when the system uses another (normal) DNS server.
- Disable about:addons' Get Add-ons panel
The start page with recommended addons uses google analytics.
- Disable check for captive portal.
By default, Firefox checks for the presence of a captive portal on every startup. This involves traffic to Akamai.
- Disable Block Referer Always
Send referer only on the same domain Spoof referer (send the same url) Trim referer to the domain name Allow real referer when clicking a link Always allow real referer Firefox tells a website, from which site you're coming (the so called referer). You can find more detailed settings in this ghacks article or install the RefControl extension for per domain settings.
- Disable WebGL
Disable the WebGL function, to prevent fingerprinting with WebGL. Another issue is, that websites can (ab)use the full power of the graphics card. WebGL is part of some fingerprinting scripts used in the wild. Some interactive websites will not work, which are mostly games.
- Disable WebRTC
Disable the WebRTC function, which gives away your local ips. Some addons like uBlock origin provide settings to prevent WebRTC from exposing local ips without disabling WebRTC.
- Disable the clipboardevents.
Disable that websites can get notifications if you copy, paste, or cut something from a web page, and it lets them know which part of the page had been selected.
- Disable Search Suggestions
Firefox suggests search terms in the search field. This will send everything typed or pasted in the search field to the chosen search engine, even when you did not press enter.
- Disable Search Keyword
When you mistype some url, Firefox starts a search even from urlbar. This feature is useful for quick searching, but may harm your privacy, when it's unintended.
- Explicitly disable Greasemonkey user tracking
Greasemonkey has a (currently opt-in) function to submit user stats. This explicitely disables it, in case that it will get opt-out in the future.
- Enable Do-not-Track
With the do not track feature, you tell websites, that you do not want to be tracked. Most websites ignore this, so you need other privacy options as well.
- Enable Mozilla Trackingprotection
Firefox has a builtin tracking protection, which blocks a list of known tracking sites.
- Disable Browser Pings
Firefox sends "ping" requests, when a website requests to be informed when a user clicks on a link.
- Disable Beacons
The Beacon feature allows websites to send tracking data after you left the website.
- Disable the Battery API
Firefox allows websites to read the charge level of the battery. This may be used for fingerprinting.
- Disable media device queries
Prevent websites from accessing information about webcam and microphone (possible fingerprinting).
- Disable form autofill
Automatically filled form fields are used for fingerprinting. This setting disables automatic form filling until you click on the field.
- Disable webaudio API
Disable webaudio API to prevent browser fingerprinting. See Mozilla Bug #1288359
- Disable video statistics
Prevent websites from measuring video performance (possible fingerprinting). See Mozilla Bug 654550.
- Show Punycode.
This helps to protect against possible character spoofing.
- Install CanvasBlocker extension.
Blocks the JS-API for the <canvas> element to prevent Canvas-Fingerprinting.
- Install Google Redirects Fixer & Tracking Remover extension.
Rewrites URLs from the google result pages to from redirect urls with tracking to direct links.
- Install the HTTPS Everywhere extension.
HTTPS Everywhere is a Firefox extension that enables HTTPS encryption automatically on sites that support it.
- Install the Privacy Badger extension.
The Privacy Badger addon automatically detects trackers and blocks them. You can manually block and unblock urls as well.
- Install the Cookie Autodelete extension.
The extension allows you to automatically delete the cookies of a site when you close the tab.
- Install uMatrix extension.
A content blocker for advanced users, which blocks requests to thirdparty domains. Big privacy gain, but you will need to configure exception rules for many sites.
Source: https://ffprofile.com/#
