Mozilla's Firefox browser turns 20. Does it still matter? Mozilla's Firefox browser clocked its second decade over the weekend, an event celebrated by Mozilla Corporation CEO Laura Chambers. "Firefox turns 20 today!" said Chambers in a social media post. "It’s so inspiring to think of all we’ve achieved together to keep the internet open and people-first. Firefox has always been more …
"There was a time where the browser space was absolutely the front line of an open, safe, equitable internet," our source said. "Mostly that was about, frankly, preventing Microsoft from taking over the internet."
That worry faded over time, and four years after the 1.0 release of Firefox, Google Chrome debuted.
So now the worry's about Chrome taking over the internet.
> the worry's about Chrome taking over the internet
I'm afraid it's too late: A decade ago most people believed "Google=Internet", later they settled for "Google+Twitter+Facebook=Internet" (not sure if that was much better).
My point is, controlling content (through search) and the means to deliver ads, Google currently owns the Internet. There are some minor contenders, just there to avoid too obvious a monopoly.
So now the worry's about Chrome taking over the internet.
And it will serve its makers best interests, eg by crippling the APIs that allow ad-blockers to work.
I just hope that we do not get many web sites that only work properly with a chromium engine -- which might happen if chromium achieves dominance & lazy web developers only test chrome/edge/... Fortunately we will prolly be saved from that as Apple's Safari uses webkit.
That indeed does pose a "supply-chain" risk: hack Chrome and the world is your oyster.
But the article, or more accurately, the opinions of the unnamed tech bro, aren't really worth much consideration as they're very much in th Silicon Valley bubble as evinced by the nostalgia for Twitter. Twitter was always an echo chamber and, later, a collection of echo chambers and now its really just where Elon Musk goes to stroke his own ego.
> [Chrome 1 was] "superior in so many ways and, initially anyway, appealing so deeply to web developers"
BS! At first Chrome was inferior, but it used stealth tactics to take over peoples' computers* and replace their default browser, so it eventually became the majority browser. And of course developers flock behind majorities.
* for those too young to have seen it: At that time you had to regularly download security patches for major software like Acrobat and Flash. Every time you installed such a patch, unless you clicked on a barely visible link while whistling "The Star-Spangled Banner" in reverse, it also silently installed Chrome, copied your bookmarks to it, and made it your new default browser. Again and again, with every patch. Given Chrome wasn't really branded, most people didn't notice, and those who did assumed the change was normal. This way Chrome rose from 0% to 60% market share in a year. Nothing to do with quality.
No, it was malevolent persistence. Every google search you performed opened an iframe that stole focus and could only be closed by mouse click. Tab order and reverse-Tab order skipped the cancel button. Some bastard at Google should have been stapled to the wall for that decision.
The idea that Mozilla, or anyone other than law makers, could move the needle on privacy with ads is a complete dream. The very reason why traditional formats (newspapers/network TV) are all dying is simply because there is a competitive advantage when privacy is violated. It's not a level playing field without regulations to make it level.
Marketing departments think there is a competitive advantage to snooping adverts.
But is that true?
There's very little reliable research either way.
There's a small amount of evidence that it's a disadvantage as people don't like things that 'feel creepy'.
Marketing is notoriously difficult to measure. It's really easy for a very large advertising company to cherrypick and otherwise manipulate reports and selectively fund research to imply a better response than reality, and their customers won't be able to tell.
I just bought a replacement fridge. _On the seller's site_ immediately afterwards, a washing machine was offered to me - sensible, logical, and not creepy. And significantly, from the same place I just bought the fridge, not from some random pixel following me around to try and work out what I'm interested in.
To get to the fridge, I went to the seller's site and typed 'Kuhlschrank' into the search box; I wasn't led there by advertising but by need: the old fridge had developed a distressing tendency to build ice in one spot while maintaining an internal temperature of fourteen or fifteen degrees (C).
I *know* what I need and I *know* when I need it. Pushing adverts at me merely wastes my time and yours.
(Amusingly, at the same time as I was offered the washing machine, I was also offered a potato masher.)
How did you find the seller's site?
At some point you were led there by advertising. Possibly many years ago.
Advertising is necessary, otherwise I'd never know about a new show in the local theatre, or where to go to find something that I now want or need.
I suspect the problems occur when marketers start thinking they're more important than the product or service.
"Firefox has always been more than just a browser – it’s a movement powered by those who believe in choice, privacy, and transparency. "
I really, really, would like to be able to agree with that. But that's like suggesting nobody using Chrome cares about it, which is blatantly untrue.
If there was a movement where people valued choice, privacy, and transparency you can be sure more than 3% of Internet users would part of it.
I can, will, and do.
When the choice is between "a" and "b" and one of them is obviously a fucking disaster, it's a false choice so it doesn't count.
When the choice is between "a", "b", "c", and "getting shit rubbed in your eyes" I can totally blame people for picking a face full of shit if all the other choices do variants on the same theme, but come shit free.
But that's like suggesting nobody using Chrome cares about it, which is blatantly untrue.
If even Chrome's incognito mode phones home and you carry on using it, you obviously don't care about privacy.
If there was a movement where people valued choice, privacy, and transparency you can be sure more than 3% of Internet users would part of it.
Some people running FF change the user-agent so it looks like they're running a different browser, these stats don't list the true market share.
Firefox is the logical choice on Linux, and for those who do not like to be 24/7 under the commercial surveillance of US based Big Tech.
It is too bad to see El Reg sliding down the slope into the lamestream MS swamp, the whole article is negative about Firestorm.
El Reg is nowadays laced with infotisement from MS FUD'ers, the world is full of it and we do not need more.
Brave is my primary browser on iOS for exactly that reason - only way to get reliable ublock + bypass paywalls functionality in that world.
Bypass paywalls is also now hit or miss on linux and OSX, so I'm migrating FF as well to using ublock + my best guesses at the additional filter lists Brave uses for bypass paywalls functionality.
Any idea as to why it slowed down?
I've seen (more than enough) posts saying it happens to convince me that gradual slow-downs are real. And I've seen (many) others who don't run into the problem (I'm one of them.)
Is it because I shut my computers down every now and then? Or don't have enough tabs open to see the issue? Or use an ad blocker (I find that alone makes Firefox faster than alternatives)?
I assume it's something fairly difficult to fix, or Mozilla would have figured out a solution some time back.
They are. Especially after you've clicked the Update button, but not yet restarted Firefox. Eventually, even with only two windows and 4 tabs, it will slowly stop functioning. At that point, all you can do is open the Task Manager and kill all of the firefox processes. And before anyone asks, its not just the latest version, its been the last 8-10 versions.
This is utter tosh. I've got an early version of the Tab Groups plug-in (a version which looks like Firefox's built-in tab groups before it was removed) and consequently about 100 tabs organised into different groups for different work projects any time and there is no slowdown.
Just because you haven't encountered an issue doesn't mean it does not exist.
It is entirely possible that there is a function somewhere that can be really slow under some circumstances and a small percentage of users get hit by it often enough to notice. Lock serialisation or O(n²) are the classics, of course.
We've seen this many times before.
Just because you haven't encountered an issue doesn't mean it does not exist.
I have 3 Firefox windows with over 50 tabs open – that's my way of grouping tabs – with uptimes measured in weeks and no slowdown. Those issues exist if you do strange things :
you've clicked the Update button, but not yet restarted Firefox
well, duh, then don't do that !
I'm typing this on an instance of Firefox I've had running on Linux for 59 days (with 8 windows and nearly 100 tabs) and it is working just as well as it did when I last rebooted - also 59 days ago. I've never had to refresh (whatever that is) or clean install it.
Sounds like you've got a Windows problem, not a Firefox problem.
An interesting thought. I'm also on Linux, and it does seem the problems are mostly reported by Windows users.
Occasionally, when I start up a machine that's been off for months, Firefox greets me with "welcome back! Would you like to refresh Firefox with a clean look?", or words to that effect. I've always declined. Again, though, it's all Linux or FreeBSD machines and no slowdown issues.
Still, I wouldn't rule out the possibility that it's a Firefox problem existing only in the Windows build.
"Sounds like you've got a Windows problem, not a Firefox problem."
I would think so too, I have used it for the entire time it has existed even before with those differently named versions that forked from the Netscape I used before that and never see any of these problems I see complained about all the time. It just continues to work day after day, year after year, decade after decade. Linux and MacOS being the OSs used during that entire time, been windows free for going on twenty-five years next May. Though now I think there was a time it was Konqueror in KDE I used on Linux way back then, so a small gap in continuous usage there..
I have always used Firefox since the previous name. I installed it on Android phone when I got one. I love the fact it has ublock origin and that it works despite Chrome blocking it. I used it on Windows XP, 7 and then on Linux. I really hope that it lasts for many more years.
I also use Firefox developer as a backup browser when doing Web development work.
With the FF death spiral of trying to imitate Chrome, so instead of lots of useful functionality / config via menus, they went for a dumbed down browser so people had to do a lot of stuff via about:config - & it's "here be dragons" warning to put off the average user.
IMO, FF should have celebrated the differences - it should have promoted that it made it easy and user friendly for a user to configure their browser in a lot of ways, instead now its far harder unless you dive into about:config (or install an addon to do it, & if you need an addon then user wonders why FF instead of Chrome?)
"With the FF death spiral of trying to imitate Chrome, so instead of lots of useful functionality / config via menus, they went for a dumbed down browser so people had to do a lot of stuff via about:config"
..and then they removed that from the Android version, which is why I don't have it on my phone anymore.
Now I use DuckDuckGo browser.
You can access about:config on the beta and nightly versions of Firefox Android.
If you want to switch from the stable version then use sync or this backup/restore script.
> Does it still matter?
Yes. Very few open-source browsers can ever hope to catch up to the feature-set of firefox. NetSurf? elinks? Dillo? Not even close.
The absurd over-consumption of features that web developers partake in ensures that new contenders will never appear until the entire web ecosystem is replaced.
Does it still matter ?
isn't measuring usage of Firefox by market-share a strange question when thinking again about it ? Because even if only 5% (half of the remaining 10%) of Internet users use Firefox, out of 6 billion Humans using Internet, that's still 300 000 000 users ! Of course it matters !
The recent slip of ElReg into mainstream opinion is worrying.
Stuck with Mozilla browser, then Firefox, for pretty much those 20 years (used to keep the portable version on a USB pen drive so I could use it on school PC's rather than put up with the trash that was IE6).
Still use it today at work and at home, Chrome has never felt "quite right" in comparison, and I'm sure web pages appear less readable somehow when I've tried it.
You betcha.
Chrome is banned in my company as is any browser based on chrome.
As we are not an MS shop, we install FF on everything (Linux and MacOS)
If someone does not want FF then WaterFox is ready and waiting.
Those browsers along with a standard set of addins such as NoScript are part of all our systems.
When someone upgrades, we simply backup the folder containing all the data, move it to the new system and away they go.
The same goes with email where everyone uses Thunderbird.
Posting AC coz we don't want the MS sales people calling us.
Lucky you. At our company, a locked-down Edge (no possibility to install extensions) will soon be the only browser we'll be allowed to use. Corporate firewall blocks some ads but not nearly enough. Not sure my unofficial Firefox install will survive once they start looking for unapproved software.
My employer recently pulled Chrome from the corporate desktop. We are now forced to use Edge. Can't imagine why.
Probably because your IT department is not seeing the value difference to supporting multiple browsers and are tired of vetting the weekly update of Chrome.
Much easier to just let MS shove any updates of Edge into the normal Windows Update stream.
Can't say I agree, but I can understand it...
A good point about the distinction between the tool and the traffic. But, as the current controversy over social media content shows, the tool dictates how the content behaves. A tool without a safety guard will always get abused in the wrong hands.
We insist on the right to free speech, but are forced to censor what is too destructive. We need too to insist on the right to free media, but to censor functionality which is too destructive. A rare example of the EU being ahead of the pack.
Starting with Australis in 2013, I seem to recall at least 5 or 6 revamps, pissing off a ton of people each time.
They remove features then go "don't worry, someone will write an extension if you need it" - well then, why remove the feature and make someone have to write an extension?
And every time I've updated, I've had something break, or some extension I depended on stop working, or some important feature disappear, to the point I no longer upgrade, and I'm still on 95.0.2
I seem to recall at least 2, maybe 3, API changes that completely broke all the extensions.
So I don't have any sympathy for Mozilla. They're their own worst enemy.
And don't get me started on Mobile Firefox. It's so bad, I installed Edge for Android and found it to be a better browser.
Of course, I started with NCSA Mosaic on Mac and then dabbled with Emacs browser. I eventually bought my own computer, of course, and eschewed Internet Explorer in preference of Netscape Navigator.
Of course I’ve been using Firefox for 20 years. Tried Chrome, but was appalled at the memory hogging (and then just never tried it again).
Since I had switched to Ubuntu I mostly use Firefox, and occasionally fire up Thorium for problematic web sites (that are, frankly, distasteful).
I don’t see any practical use for A.I. at all: it’s a neat gimmick but it’s unpredictable and unreliable and just fundamentally useless.
And Then: most of my internet surfing is via Safari on my iPhone!
NCSA Mosaic -> Netscape -> Firefox: The natural progression I'm sure a vast majority here has gone through.
Of course I've tried other browsers (like Opera) out of curiosity, but I never saw a reason to change. Maybe because unlike many, I was never convinced by the propaganda that Netscape/Firefox are fundamentally bad and evil and that using them deposits soot in my CPU and destroys my Karma (or whatever other nonsense), and that only the shining Chrome guarantees the pure browsing bliss I deserve.
The issue for Mozilla is that most of its users flat-out refuse advertisements, whether they respect their privacy or not. I therefore doubt they'll be able to monetize it in a significant way.
Also, the current web is basically a monopoly since the two top browsers both share the same code-base, which is effectively controlled by Google. That Firefox is fighting over scraps is mostly their own doing. Instead of improving Firefox they wasted huge swaths of money and effort into fruitless sideshows. Users therefore took the view that Firefox was standing still whilst the others were "innovating" and therefore lost market share.
I still believe Mozilla can turn things around, but they'll have to ruthlessly focus on improving Firefox and nothing else. They can start by making a "real" Incognito Mode based on Tor. And they need to absolutely rewrite their code base in Rust. Just not having to endlessly patch their browser with security updates would save tons of development capacity.
The vast majority of the flat refusal is because too many adverts became abusive.
When they were text, it was fine. I even clicked on them.
When they were images, it was ok as I usually had enough bandwidth.
When they added scripting, they became dangerous.
When they started autoplaying videos with sound over the top of the content, even my gramma reached for an adblocker.
And once turned on, it won't get turned off.
They can start by making a "real" Incognito Mode based on Tor.
Please no! When I want Tor levels of anonymity I have Tor (based on Firefox) and I accept the overheads and restrictions that come with that - but it would be a PITA for most things.
The current form of Incognito/Private browsing is a good choice for a lot of things (like banking, shopping for SWMBO's Christmas Present) where I do not want to leave a load of history lying around and appreciate an additional level of sandboxing to help keep such transactions away from my other browsing activities. Problems like having to repeatedly request new Tor circuits until I get an in-country exit node so that I don't trigger bank security are not what I want, and would be the sort of thing that would cause average users to leave in droves.
Tor does Tor; Firefox needs to focus on its core purpose and provide a solid internet experience for users.
I would be all for judicious improvements, but security is usually a trade-off with convenience (at some point the inconvenience of a security feature outweighs the benefit obtained). And, absolute security is very difficult to achieve (I noticed a recent report about how German police circumvented Tor anonimity).
Given the history of marketing agencies and their enthusiasm (along with various others) for surreptiously tracking users across the internet there is good reason to be suspicious of a move to allow more adverts and such-like through - though the desire for revenue to fund future work is understandable.
Raising awareness of short-comings in current offerings (really suppliers should be open about such things) and campaigning for improvements (or against regression) is commendable.
I've used Firefox as my default for lots of years. With Firefox, you can block most ads. Chrome is run by the people who produce the ads so you're not likely to get very far with it in that regard.
What I'm waiting patiently for is a browser than can outwit those sites who say "We've noticed you're using an ad blocker. Give us money."
FF has been my browser of choice since before I can remember and mainly for the ad blocking features. I've used it and blockers for so long now that viewing the internet without them is akin to wearing the glasses on "They Live", it's basically an unusable cesspit of bad adverts.
There is a way to defeat those who won't allow content if you are ad blocking, close the tab.
I've used Firefox as my main browser since 2007. In that time it's mostly only become worse. It peaked at 3.x and only went downhill from there. I have a love/hate relationship with it. I love that it still isn't (yet) chrome and gives me a less-google influenced option. I hate that it's been in a death spiral for years.
The foundation has made blunder after blunder, forgetting why people want to continue to use Firefox and instead spent the best part of the last 13 odd years focusing on copying Chrome, which if I wanted to use, I would use instead.
They started by copying the chrome interface, which I never liked. Hamburger buttons suck. It can be (Mostly) reverted, but it's still a pain.
They then added features nobody cares about like Pocket, Firefox Accounts, Suggesions... all more reasons to track you, but at least unlike chrome they are removable.
Then they copied the addon API so now Firefox addons are just as crippled as chrome ones. Support it by all means for compatibility, but don't make it the only option when we used to have better!
In recent years especially website compatibility is starting to become an issue. I don't know how much of this is down to Mozilla and how much is down to lazy "web developers" who have never even heard of firefox let alone test with it. Microsoft sure don't care, Teams openly refuses to work in Firefox. Almost made me late for a job interview!
Chrome is exactly like what IE used to be in the mid 2000s, only worse. It's got its tentacles in everything, forcing you to use it by being embedded into other things (Thanks Electron!) and it's actively spying on you rather than just enabling others to do it through being incompetent.
I'm keeping an eye on Ladybird. It's the sort of project we really need in the browser space. Fresh blood. Mozilla still make the best browser but they've been braindead as a company for a very long time and it's inevitable it will go the way of Netscape. They didn't learn.
Now go for the next 20 years!
Does it still matter? Yes, it does!
Marketshare is only about the choices you have, not specifically about quality and such:
My car brand has a market share in the EU that is <1%, does that make it a bad car? I believe not so - it is technically the best car I ever owned (and the most sophisticated). (FYI: I drive a Subaru)
Apple's PC market share is less then 10% - are those bad PC's ? No, they are not.
Pick whatever works for you. The freedom is here. Enjoy your choice!
Firefox is now irrelevant due to its management and those that decide its development direction. Shame, nobody could fork it back to the old Firefox we all loved, don't add any bloat except for the good stuff we needed, fast rendering engine, Origin uBlock, Ghostery etc etc. Time for it to be removed from Mozilla and let it be released to the true open source community.
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