Firefox is losing market share because there is so little to differentiate it from its competitors.
In its heyday, Firefox grew popular as the browser that saved us from the manifestly inferior Internet Explorer.
Nowadays, Chrome, Edge & Safari are nowhere near as bad by comparison, meaning users have far less reason to switch from defaults. And I’m counting Chrome as a default just because it is pushed so hard.
What to do then? Find a point of differentiation that gets people excited.
Here’s an idea: a radical return to the idea of the browser being a user agent. That is, fully on the user’s side.
Ads blocked by default. AI to warn of potential native advertising. Auto-flagging of dark patterns. Auto-flagging of any form of deceptive practice. A database of sites known to engage in shady tactics. Reader mode that works everywhere.
Firefox: your personal internet bodyguard.
Sadly I don’t think it can happen until the organization is weaned off Ad money, and it can’t do that until it tackles the complexity of the web which demands so many developers. Which probably means making a stand against further scope expansion of HTML/CSS/JS.
FF is already taking a stand against JS scope expansion. That's exactly why I don't use them.
While AI tools would be great(I'd like to see a "content may be generated by deep learning" flag, I have very little interest in supporting a campaign against web bluetooth, battery status, keyboard layout detection, etc.
The user-respecting way is just to put them behind permissions.
In its heyday, Firefox grew popular as the browser that saved us from the manifestly inferior Internet Explorer.
Nowadays, Chrome, Edge & Safari are nowhere near as bad by comparison, meaning users have far less reason to switch from defaults. And I’m counting Chrome as a default just because it is pushed so hard.
What to do then? Find a point of differentiation that gets people excited.
Here’s an idea: a radical return to the idea of the browser being a user agent. That is, fully on the user’s side.
Ads blocked by default. AI to warn of potential native advertising. Auto-flagging of dark patterns. Auto-flagging of any form of deceptive practice. A database of sites known to engage in shady tactics. Reader mode that works everywhere.
Firefox: your personal internet bodyguard.
Sadly I don’t think it can happen until the organization is weaned off Ad money, and it can’t do that until it tackles the complexity of the web which demands so many developers. Which probably means making a stand against further scope expansion of HTML/CSS/JS.