Can Firefox survive in a Google world?

Discussion in 'other software & services' started by ronjor, Dec 12, 2018.

  1. ronjor

    ronjor Global Moderator

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    By Ed Bott for The Ed Bott Report | December 12, 2018
     
  2. xxJackxx

    xxJackxx Registered Member

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    I'll keep using Firefox as long as they are making it. Chrome sucks.
     
  3. Antarctica

    Antarctica Registered Member

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    Same for me. In fact I try to avoid everything with the Google name...
     
  4. Daveski17

    Daveski17 Registered Member

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    Firefox's demise has been predicted for years, often on this forum. I predict people will be speculating on Firefox's demise for years to come.
     
  5. Minimalist

    Minimalist Registered Member

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    Me too. I hope that they don't stop developing it in near future.
     
  6. kronckew

    kronckew Registered Member

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    The 'developers' are doing their best to make firefox look and act like chrome. I'm doing my best to keep it looking and acting like firefox. If I wanted a browser that looked and acted like chrome, i'd use chrome.
     
  7. robboman93

    robboman93 Registered Member

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    Firefox for the first time in years dipped below the 10% market-share on gs.statcounter. It's market-share has been in decline for years now, and there is no end is sight. If this trends does not reverse soon we could see Firefox go under the 5% and it will become less and less relevant. Developers will be less inclined to test there sites for Firefox which could represent problems too. So it all depends what your definition of 'demise' is of course. Financially Mozilla is doing good so it will continue to excise, which is great :)

    I'm a huge Firefox fan btw, been my main browser for around 10 years and I will continue using it.
     
  8. Daveski17

    Daveski17 Registered Member

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    I'm not sure of the actual statistics, but Firefox has been gradually losing its user base for years. It all depends on how many users it's lost over the past ten years and how relevant that is I suppose.

    It's just that we keep being told that if Firefox loses x% of its user base in some specified or unspecified time frame it will disappear. I was told this quite earnestly (on this forum) five years ago that if current trends continue Fx will be history within a year.

    Yet, five years later it's still here. I am convinced we'll be having similar conversations about Firefox in five years time.

    It's worth pointing out that Firefox is still the default browser on Ubuntu.
     
  9. pegas

    pegas Registered Member

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    I'm afraid that the same fate as Opera Presto awaits FF sooner or later. It was the excellent core but so specific that it couldn't withstand massive rise of Blink/Chromium and Trident.
     
  10. DOSawaits

    DOSawaits Registered Member

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    I've tried making the jump from Firefox to Chrome a couple of times, but yuck! I was back with Firefox within the same week.
    Chrome is pure marketing, there's no "quality" to be found there.
     
  11. Daveski17

    Daveski17 Registered Member

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    I've got nothing against Chrome, and I do like Vivaldi, but Firefox isn't disappearing soon. It doesn't matter how influenced by Chrome it is now, it's still Firefox. On Ubuntu and Mac it's the only browser that is recognised by 'Sage Pay' (used on many UK retail sites).

    It's going to be around for a while yet. Other browsers that disappeared or adopted the Blink engine (Opera ASA) were never as popular or adaptable. I can't see Canonical switching to a different default browser for Ubuntu yet.
     
  12. bellgamin

    bellgamin Registered Member

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    Google is a giggling gigantic grasping gargoyle. I avoid anything they are involved in, as much as possible. By the way, my favorite search engine is DuckDuckGo -- waaay better that Google IMO!
     
  13. Daveski17

    Daveski17 Registered Member

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    I mean ...

    Screenshot from 2018-12-14 21:41:15.png

    What's not to like?
     
  14. __Nikopol

    __Nikopol Registered Member

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    Could it be because Android already has Chrome and everyone uses it because it is already there, and then they find out about sync and want to have everything everywhere so they use Chrome on PC too? Also the word "Chrome" seems to get to be synonymous with "Browser" soon, much like "(to) Google" is already synonymous with "searching something online". (It's in the dictionaries! AH!)
    Also YouTube runs slower in Firefox. It's weird: It can run VP9 coded videos better than Chrome, which in turn runs h264 videos better. In both cases the other option does not reach 60 FPS on my crappy lappy. But even VP9 on Firefox is worse than h264 on Chrome. (edit: this also counts for twitch, so it's not yts fault)
    It's sad, I love Firefox. I switched half a year ago
     
    Last edited: Dec 15, 2018
  15. Rasheed187

    Rasheed187 Registered Member

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    Exactly my point. Of course I understand they are trying to copy a successful browser like Chrome, but don't alienate power users, give them the option to customize stuff and also implement certain features directly into the browser, instead of having to install extensions for basic functionality.

    They really did a bad job with FF Quantum, yes the engine is pretty good, but they made it unusable for me, no options to put tabs on bottom, no tab based bookmark manager, like we're living in the 90's. I didn't even know that Mozilla made this much money, why did they wait so long to come up with Servo? :thumbd:
     
  16. djg05

    djg05 Registered Member

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    Chrome always breaks my machine and anyway don't like it. I use a FF fork Cyberfox and Startpage as my search engine. Even use FF on my Android devices
     
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