Firefox used to be on top of the world with almost a third of all internet users using Firefox. These days, they make up a pitiful 2.7% of the market share. What happened? In this video, I want to show how Mozilla’s terrible management and decisions have brought this once beloved browser down.

  • virtualbriefcase@lemm.eeEnglish
    51·
    1 year ago

    I don’t like that this video is so downvoted, but I do see where the downvoters are coming from. I too use Firefox (or more specifically, the Gecko engine at least) because it lacks app the Google pushed stuff (e.g. WEI, Manifest V3) and is better for privacy, but have had a bone to pick with Mozilla too on occasion.

    So many features have been broken or intentionally disabled for periods of time (e.g. saveing pages as PDFs or desktop extensions on mobile being locked behind the Dev options). So many “features” have been implemented that I don’t like (e.g. ads, tracking, pocket), and so many critical features (e.g. PWAs) don’t exist entirely.

    Their money making methods are also not my favorite. Ads, data collection, payouts from Google, and selling repackaged services (e.g. Mulvad VPN resold as Mozilla VPN). I know they gotta make money so I’m torn on if I should dislike that they’re doing that. But even Brave with Brave ads and Bat are opt in, in order to disable all ads, data collection & telemetry, and unwanted extensions in Firefox you need to go into about:config.

    I also have mixed opinions of their activist work. Despite what the video says they do actually use their money and resources in the free software space to perform audits and offer grants to products. They’ve also always been anti open web to a certain extent. Back when they were doing podcast and some Nazi sites got taken offline through domain providers they took a cautiously pro stance to that. I’ve no love for Nazi’s but when you start using the Internet’s centralized powers to nuke non-illegal content from the internet itself it sets a bad precident and is certainly anti open web. Even though that’s an edge case, and the slippery slope fallacy is technically a fallacy, it’s still continuing onwards as they argue bloggers and individual creators should be de-ranked out of the fear they could be providing information counter to “official” information; and that they should be outright censored if they do go against said official information.

    (yes I don’t believe the earth is flat or that lizard people control the world - but look back in history and think about all the times the “official” narrative was wrong. WMDs come to mind. Open debate is important)

    Again, I’m saying this as a person who uses FF and would like them to claw back a huge share of the marketplace. It’d take a lot to get me to switch to Chrome. At the end of the day though, I don’t want the Libre option to have a huge list of drawbacks. But at the end of the day, how many non-technical users will think the same way, and if the market share drops too much more and if Google makes even more changes how much will Firefox even work on the web without it becoming unusable.

    But I come at this, and assume the video does as well, from the point of “I hope this thing I use and like becomes better”.

    • xNIBx@kbin.social
      2·
      1 year ago

      yes I don’t believe the earth is flat or that lizard people control the world - but look back in history and think about all the times the “official” narrative was wrong. WMDs come to mind.

      The official narrative for the WMD in Iraq was that WMD didnt exist, according to the UN nuclear inspectors. It was the US that wanted to create an alternative narrative that WMD are a thing, with satellite photos and yellowcake stories. And this is why the vast majority of europeans were against the invasion of Iraq. I think only in the US, the majority of the public supported the invasion.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_reactions_to_the_prelude_to_the_Iraq_War

      Most governments opposed it. And even in countries where the government supported it, the public didnt. If your closest allies are telling you “this is bad, dont do it”, then maybe it is bad.

      • virtualbriefcase@lemm.eeEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        Exactly, but in America for a while all of the outlets and a vast majority of the politicians were saying the same thing (that there were WMDs) for a while - or at least that was what I’ve pieced together since I was too young to to understand politics at the time. My point was more so that it was wrong, but in the event something like that was the only narrative allowed on American social media platforms and search engines society could be worse off by it.