[temphnaccount]

I'd say other way around is true. HN crowd won't like this but it's very hard to continuously update a product for the core userbase that Firefox has. (small sample size but I maintain a small privacy focused app and from my experience, most of the reviews I get are how it's missing features which competitors have or how it's unusable because it can't handle stuff without jeopardizing privacy focused nature of the app.)

Judging by the HN and Reddit comments with each Firefox/Signal/Matrix releases, it seems most of the customers of privacy focused products want all the other features of competitors; most of the times without paying any money (or they think donations should cover for everything because they once donated, so all hundreds of thousand users would). And they dislike/have negative sentiments towards any UI changes or breaking functionality for new features. So core userbase for these products becomes hostile towards the product growth by definition. In this environment, either the product stops growing and simply becomes a niche product for those set of users or it dies.

[peakaboo]

People are dumb, specially the tech community. I've been watching for at least 10 years how everyone switched to chrome because it's faster. Now we have one mega corporation in charge of both most of the search and most of the browser usage. That's literally controlling the internet.

And you made it happen by your choices.

[ymolodtsov]

Google's "success" with FLoC shows they don't really have that control, not because of the browser for sure. They affected the standard a lot, of course, but hard to see why it wasn't for everyone's benefit considering the apps like Figma we can have now.

Stuff like AMP was mostly brought throughs search alone.

[iknowSFR]

People are dumb or certain companies are smart?

[thayne]

Privacy isn't even the main reason I use Firefox, if that was all I cared about, I'd use brave or ungoogled chromium with privacy extensions and settings.

I use it because I like it a little bit more than chrome. And because I don't want google to completely control the browser market. But the more firefox becomes like chrome, the less reason I have to continue using it.

And despite what Mozilla thinks and wants, I don't think most Firefox users care that much about privacy. I suspect most Firefox users use it because their tech saavy friend, relative, or IT administrator installed it for them and/or told them to use it. So losing core users also means using many other users in their sphere of influence.

[elcritch]

> So core userbase for these products becomes hostile towards the product growth by definition. In this environment, either the product stops growing and simply becomes a niche product for those set of users or it dies.

Except FF market percentage has been decreasing not growing. The technical foundation has gotten better, but it’s like Mozilla execs are completely out of sync with the market share they could have. They want a “shiny” app that in theory people should want, not the app people actually want.

I just hope some group of geeks decides to fork it and change it up.

[paulryanrogers]

> The technical foundation has gotten better, but it’s like Mozilla execs are completely out of sync with the market share they could have.

Execs may have less to do with the decline than a changing market. Google poured resources and new ideas into a mostly greenfield effort, and leveraged its market position to push its browser. Edge and Safari also benefit from their makers' platforms and marketing.

It's a hostile world for an independent browser. And IMO Firefox is still the least worst option.

[notpushkin]

https://waterfox.net/ is what you're looking for, I believe.

[BlackLotus89]

How can anyone call firefox privacy focused when they use telemetry so fucking heavily? Per default telemetry is active, disable it and you still got telemetry/pings whatever. You have to opt out of everything. It's not even limited to the user side look at this https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1460678#c20

[kaba0]

And again, you throw out the baby with the bathwater and go back to Big Google that does worse on every privacy-related issue by a mile.

Like, no matter what, telemetry is useful to the product, and defaults matter. Like the infamous “the opt-ot organ donor vs opt-in countries have a staggering difference of 90% difference”. Should firefox throw away 90% of its userbase’s useful telemetry, most of who would have no problem with providing it?

[freediver]

Correct. An easy win for Firefox is to become a zero telemetry browser by default. All that telemetry is giving them wrong data anyway as users they should be most interested in disable telemetry and are not represented in usage data.

[1vuio0pswjnm7]

Maybe some people can but I question their commitment to privacy. Mozilla is heavily conflicted, being almost 100% supported by Google in exchange for sending searches to the Chocoloate Factory by default, yet they refuse to openly acknowledge or address the issue. What really gets me is they constantly use privacy as a selling point. Then they try to convince the public that web advertising is a necessity. Its like robbing Peter to pay Paul. You cant borrow your way out of debt.

[hakfoo]

Firefox's user base is made up of customization enthusiasts, privacy advocates, and people who remember when "web standards" meant "doesn't work in IE6."

If they pivot towards "mainstream appeal", it usually comes to the expense of that user community. Their alternative is to be the best Firefox they can possibly be, and wait for users to join their audience organically.

It feels like Vivaldi has done a better job of sticking to a clear user persona model. They are clearly targeting power users and Opera 12 refugees, and it feels like that still informs what they do. Unfortunately, the one thing they can't do is make a browser that doesn't run like cold treacle.

[stjohnswarts]

I don't get it. I surf on the couch while my wife binges netflix shows laptop has no issue with vivaldi and surfing with tons of tabs open. Am I doing something wrong? This laptop was made in 2014 and the only upgrade was an SSD drive and an extra 8 gigs of ram for a total of 12

[eesmith]

> it seems most of the customers of privacy focused products

Do most people use Firefox because it's "privacy focused"? I don't - I think people use it because it does the things they want ... and "privacy" is far down that list.

I know I'm an odd-ball, but I haven't upgrading my FF because I want ftp support in my browser. I upgraded the desktop my kids use, and the tabs went all wonky. The only reason I haven't switched is I trust Google less than I do FF, and I want to stave off a technology monoculture.

Yes, my clear desire for ftp support means I don't want technologically perfect security or privacy.

Concerning "privacy" as the article points out in the section "Invading your privacy at the same time as telling us “we value your privacy”

] Telemetry. Hidden telemetry that isn’t disabled when you click “disable telemetry”. Firstrun pings. Forced signing of add-ons. Auto-updates you can’t switch off, pinging every 10 minutes. “Experiments” which require a separate opt out. Now the latest offence is enforcing app based 2FA to login to a Firefox Add-on account just to make a custom theme, which you wouldn’t need in the first place if not for forced add-on signing.

> either the product stops growing and simply becomes a niche product for those set of users or it dies.

FF has dropped a lot of users, so I assume you mean it's decided to be a niche product in the "privacy" space, and not a generally useful tool?

Its marketing doesn't seem that successful, as my first thoughts are to switch to a tool based on FOSS Chromium.

[ryantgtg]

Like you, I don’t choose Firefox because of some privacy features. I use it because it doesn’t have completely bonkers “history” feature like Chromium does, and because it seems fast and I’m used to it.

Also, I must be blind but I didn’t notice any diff with the tabs in that recent update where everyone freaked out because the tabs were slightly different. The tabs are still fine!

Come to think of it I don’t have any complaints about Firefox, so I’m not sure why I’m bothering to contribute my thoughts here.

[freediver]

> it seems most of the customers of privacy focused products want all the other features of competitors; most of the times without paying any money

This is a business model question, right? Nothing prevents someone from making a great privacy focused browser and actually charging for it vs being directly (Brave?) or indirectly (Chrome, Firefox?) ad-monetized.

Also in this context, referring to "customers of privacy focus products" is technically incorrect, they are actually users. Definition of a customer is "someone who pays for goods or services" thus Mozilla's main customer is Google (accounting for close to 90% of its revenue). Maybe looking through this lens, relation of Firefox product direction and what its "customers" want becomes more clear.

edit: simplified for clarity

[dralley]

> This is a business model question, right? Mozilla has chosen to be indirectly ad-supported vs making a premium (as in paid-for) or a freemium browser as a business model. Nothing prevents someone from making a great privacy focused browser and actually charging for it?

Except the fact that nobody (relative to even their current userbase) would use it, and maintaining a browser is incredibly difficult and expensive.

It would be the death blow to their market share, which would destroy Gecko as a viable browser engine (not enough users to get websites to care about the bugs, or even necessarily get the bugs reported).

The only way that would work out is if they gave up on Gecko and switched to WebKit or Blink.

Their choice of business model isn't really much of a choice, it's the only viable option that gives them any influence whatsoever.

[kaba0]

Google needs firefox just as much as firefox needing google. Don’t see conteo in everything. Firefox is the only thing stopping google from some insane monopoly/anti-comp lawsuits. It is in their best interest for firefox to continue to exist.

[soundnote]

Agreed. Firefox's userbase is moronically hostile to anything that might give the company legs and a non-Google revenue stream. They want a pristine, moral FOSS project that just makes amazing software and subsists on donations.

[slightwinder]

> Judging by the HN and Reddit comments with each Firefox/Signal/Matrix releases

There are always comments and complaints. One need to evaluate the quality of this complains to understand their worth.

> either the product stops growing and simply becomes a niche product for those set of users or it dies.

Successful products prove this wrong. The most successful ones barely change at all, they usually evolve for a decade or two and then adapt to a new generation. Stability is a viable road to success.

Heck, even chrome didn't really change that much since it's first version. Firefox is really absurdly extraordinary in how unstable it is.

[wellthisishn]

But reviews about missing feature, or reviews in general... that might not give you a good idea of why people are using it, if they don't leave a review at all

[floatingatoll]

I have never written a review of anything in twenty years, I think. Consider that reviews are inherently biased towards people who are accustomed to speaking up, either because they like reviewing things (not many people) or because they’re upset and have a problem (many people). It becomes evident in practice that reviews generally aren’t productive to consider.