Article seems pretty flawed. Relevance is a vague metric, and the author relies pretty heavily on data related to government site visitation, which seems subject to bias toward certain types of users.

Market share is likely still incredibly low, but Firefox’s relevance should be spiking right now due to Google’s shenanigans with Chromium. The fact that like 90% of revenue for its for-profit wing is from Google is still troubling.

Any alternative views out there?

  • Sinfaen@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    I didn’t think that the market share was actually changing much? Like it’s low but it’s still used, especially on Linux workstations with nothing else pre-installed

  • abbadon420@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Are you just here to spark a browser war? Claims like “firefox is dead” are guaranteed to get a shit ton of comments stating the exact opposite, backed up with annecdotal evidence.

    I feel obliged to do the same though. So let me tell you that I’ve recently switched back to firefox after years of chrome and I haven’t regretted it one single moment.

    • ConstableJelly@beehaw.orgOP
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      1 year ago

      Me? Not at all. I actually posted this out of concern because, as I’ve said elsewhere, I’m a Firefox user, and my layman’s impression was that its reputation has been improving over the past couple years. I assumed its user base was doing the same as people grew increasingly concerned with Google’s intentions.

      Apparently ZDnet has some reputational issues itself I was unaware of.

  • markkdark@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Before the new year, I donated 25€ for Firefox, my long-time companion to #degoogle Grapheneos and Linux. Although Google is introducing DRM, I don’t think anything is so important in this life that I have to use Chrome or IE, I will adapt to the situation and instead of worrying about DRM (of course, for the public Internet, this seems like a total violation of users’ rights, for safety 🤣🤣🤣, really?) I will try to be more social, but not in the sense of social networks, but hanging out with friends or listening to music or running or a good book… I definitely don’t want this big corporation near me, which we are more and more they control… (google,ms,apple,amazon…) Firefox probably missed by not insisting on FirefoxOS (phones), but it has a great agenda - privacy and simplicity. I look forward to many years of using FF!!

  • Firipu@startrek.website
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    1 year ago

    The day Firefox gets native mouse gestures is the day I swap. Until then will continue to be a very happy Vivaldi user.

    • Sheltr@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      The plug-in gesturify on Firefox does what Vivaldi does but better on honestly. I Really like Vivaldi as my back up browser but it’s nice but being stuck using chromium on Firefox.

  • cosmic_slate@dmv.social
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    1 year ago

    I use Firefox as my daily driver, and have for years, but there’s no way Firefox is anything but doomed with Mozilla at the helm.

    The mismanagement of money and ludicrous compensation for those at the top and chasing endless side ventures that all fail doesn’t bode well for them.

    I get it, there’s anger at the article, but anyone who actually thinks Firefox has a chance at returning anywhere close to their old glory is holding onto groundless optimism.

  • Midnitte@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    Article seems pretty flawed. Relevance is a vague metric, and the author relies pretty heavily on data related to government site visitation, which seems subject to bias toward certain types of users.

    You mean like government (and business) employees that are forced to use some flavor of Internet Explorer Chromium?

    • sqgl@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      Employees? I thought OP was talking about visitors and in that case a government site is as neutral as it gets.

      • Midnitte@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        And a lot of those visitors are people that are forced to use chromium - such as employees that use those governmental services as a part of work. As neutral as it gets, it doesn’t mean it is actually neutral.

        For example, some government websites only work with chromium

  • Em Adespoton@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    I use Edge for corporate intranet, Safari for anything with real-life connected personal accounts, and Firefox for everything else. Have done so for over a decade (with Edge previously being Chrome and before that IE).

    This means government sites would mostly see me as a Safari user, with the occasional Edge visit, unless I was just looking something up, in which case it’d be Firefox.

    According to YouTube, I’d be 99% a Firefox user.

  • Fizz@lemmy.nz
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    1 year ago

    Is Firefox considered bad? It works well for me and when I use Chrome or edge It feels full of junk features

    • It’s behind in many ways. Firefox is perfectly functional, but lacks the finish and capacity to implement modern standards as fast as the competition can.

      I’d say “the competition has the advantage of being backed by billion dollar companies”, but Mozilla is funded mostly by Google paying for being the default search engine as well. Which only makes it weider that Mozilla is actively moving away from investing Firefox; they’re trying to be an “ethical AI” company now.

    • treadful@lemmy.zip
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      1 year ago

      Firefox has been nice to work with on my end. And fast. Even the dev tools are way better than they were a decade ago. Almost all the important extensions work on it.

      I don’t really understand how its market share is so low now.

    • ConstableJelly@beehaw.orgOP
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      1 year ago

      I don’t think so. The article claims Firefox lost some of its lead developers to Google when it started developing Chrome and then took a long time to regain its footing around 2017. That sounds about right to my recollection. I had admittedly switched to Chrome myself for a while (I’m not terribly tech-savvy, maybe a little more than average) but switched back to Firefox last year. I am still pretty deeply embedded in the Google ecosystem though in other ways.

    • Engywuck@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Quoting someone from Reddit: Mozilla lost my respect years ago. They’re just buzzwords and a scam, at this point.

    • onlinepersona@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      Firefox needs a hard fork. It’s obvious that Mozilla is just using it as their golden egg, because they know Google needs to have a “competitor” in order not to end up being sued or broken up because they have a browser monopoly.

  • Mwalimu@baraza.africa
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    1 year ago

    Cold plain metrics can easily hide social complexity.

    Assume 10 investigative journalists use modded privacy-friendly Firefox for year long investigation. Then their report is read by 10 million average news reader on stock browsers like Chrome. Network logics tell us that Firefox browser has asymmetrical value in the ecosystem than plain usage metrics can ever reveal.

    The obsession with numbers (the more the better) is a major blinding effect in societies driven by hierarchical cultures.

    • Chris Remington@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      The obsession with numbers (the more the better) is a major blinding effect in societies driven by hierarchical cultures.

      So true!

  • legocorp@reddthat.com
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    1 year ago

    I’ve recently moved away from Chrome to Firefox and the transition was so seamless that I’m surprised. The main reason for the change is that Firefox for android now allows addons, serious addons not just the mobile ones. Before I was using a chrome / kiwi browser combo. So happy that now I can sync my desktop and phone :)

      • bitwolf@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        uBlock, Clean URLs, and “I still don’t care about cookies”

        Are the must haves for me.

          • bitwolf@lemmy.one
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            1 year ago

            I didn’t know about that actually. I’ll try it out and remove cookies extension. Thanks!

            Edit: Working well so far!

            • quirzle@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              Yeah, I’ve got a bunch of the annoyances filters active and don’t know if I could browse most websites without them at this point.

      • Not OP but the standard two ones: uBlock origin and NoScript. Added bonus is an addon to continue video view with screen off.

        People constantly crying over the ads in their youtube app. Well i just watch in Firefox and if i want to watch an audiobook video to fall asleep to, i don’t even have to drain my battery.