A few weeks ago, I replaced Chrome with Firefox and have found it to be both faster and more reliable.
Firefox doesn't need to be No 1 – and that's OK, 'cos it's falling off a cliff
Mozilla runs counter to Valley narrative
By Scott Gilbertson 25 Jul 2017 at 08:52
theregister.co.uk
Open Source Insider Just in case you didn't believe Firefox was on a trajectory that should have it crash and burn into extinction in the next couple of years, former chief technology officer Andreas Gal has usage stats that confirm it. To use Gal's words: "Firefox market share is falling off a cliff." The same could be said of Firefox itself.
What's most interesting about this data and Gal's interpretation of it is that at the same time that Firefox is sliding into irrelevancy it's becoming a better browser. It's faster than it's ever been and uses less memory – less than its replacement, Chrome. Of course, as the ancient Betamax vs VHS format wars demonstrated, having a superior product does not translate to market share.
The big question is why? Why is Firefox, despite being faster than ever and using less memory than Chrome, losing ground?
Gal believes a big part of the problem is Google's monopoly on search and its aggressive marketing of Chrome. Log in to Google Mail, Google Calendar or YouTube, and Google will push Chrome through overlays, bars at the top of the screen and other means. The language of these ads implies that whichever browser you're using, if it isn't Chrome, it's slow and insecure.
As Gal puts it: "It's hard to compete in a mature market if your main competitor has access to billions of dollars worth of free marketing." Indeed, it's impossible.
"Firefox's decline is not an engineering problem," writes Gal. "It's a market disruption (Desktop to Mobile shift) and monopoly problem. There are no engineering solutions to these market problems."
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