This week, Mozilla CEO Mitchell Baker rose as a key figure in Google’s defense against the Justice Department’s monopoly claims. Providing a video deposition for the landmark trial, Baker testified that Mozilla’s popular browser Firefox tried to switch from using Google as a default search engine but reverted back after a “failed” bet on Yahoo made it clear that Google was Firefox users’ preferred search engine.
That fits in a long string of similar claims – namely, that defaulting to anything but Google is impossible, because nothing else is even remotely as good as Google Search, because none of the others are the default, meaning they don’t get the amount of queries needed to improve search quality, and on the spiral goes.
What’s spicy here is that this trial could potentially turn out to be Mozilla’s downfall, since Google’s search deals with, among others, Mozilla, are up for debate. Desktop Linux’ Firefox problem could explode sooner than we might think.
I still do not understand why “Linux” has such unique status in the Desktop Linux has a Firefox Problem article. It is important that there be a truly Open Source browser. I am not sure that Firefox is it. As far as just having a browser goes, Linux actually has quite a few choices now including of course both Chrome and Edge.
More and more, I hold out hope that Ladybird will be the Open Source browser that saves us all. It is a long way from ready but it is evolving at an amazing pace.
Are you asking why does Linux have a special status in an article about Linux?
Anyway, Linux is the craddle of open source. There wouldn’t be much open source apps around without it. Windows and Mac OS have always had lots of freeware options, but Linux mainstreamed the ideology of also sharing the source code.
No, I am asking why an article about the important of Open Source options implies that the primary impact will be to the Linux Desktop.
I am typing this on a Linux desktop ( not in Firefox interestingly enough ) and have been a Linux desktop and Open Source supporter for decades. However, I in no way assume that the centrality of Linux in my own life represents the larger reality out in the world.
The phrase “Linux is the craddle of open source” is fine with me. However, I do not believe it is true that most users of Open Source desktop applications are using them on Linux. Sticking to Firefox, I do not have the actual numbers but I would be shocked if there were not more Firefox users on proprietary operating systems than there are on Linux. The numbers for any of the Chromium based browsers ( and certainly Chrome itself ) would be dramatically larger outside Linux I would think.
Anyway, I am just offering an explanation to answer your question. I do not want to fight about it. Saying “Desktop Linux has a Firefox Problem” is not untrue and I get the point of the article. My point is just that Open Source has a Firefox problem seems like a larger and more important problem. Saying that Open Source has a Browser Problem, because even Firefox seems to be a poor community steward these days, seems like the even larger issue. Since these are all the same problem, if you are going to go to the trouble of writing an article highlighting the issue and the risks, I do not personally understand why you then limit it to a much smaller scope as reducing the size of the problem seems at odds with the goal of drawing attention to the problem. And if the goal was not to draw attention to the issue, then I do not understand the motivation at all. Like I said though, that does not make the smaller point any less valid if that is all people want to focus on.
tanishaj,
I agree, the loss of alternatives including firefox is bad regardless of OS.
I wouldn’t take that bet.
Linux = 2.92%
Firefox = 3.06%
https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide
https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share
I think there’s a very good chance that the users in these two statistics are mostly overlapping. If one’s philosophy leans towards alternative operating systems, it probably leans towards alternative browsers as well. Besides, firefox is the default for most linux distros whereas is needs to be manually installed on the commercial operating systems, which few users do unfortunately.
I agree, the discussion should include FOSS users of all sorts. No reason to be platform snobs, haha.
As far as the article goes, I’m not convinced that google’s point has merit. The decline in Firefox users was already a long term trend even as mozilla was partnered with google. I would want to see more evidence before believing google’s argument that user loss happened because of yahoo being the default search engine. After all, it’s trivial to change the search provider without having to switch browsers at all and I think that firefox users are smart enough to know that they can do this.
Mozilla got a huge windfall of “$338M” from verizon the purchase of yahoo ended the contract. I think mozilla’s switch back to google was obvious given how lucrative the incentives were. I think that mozilla’s switch back to google for purely financial reasons makes perfect sense on it’s own and that google’s narrative that firefox was bleeding users because of the default search engine needs harder evidence.
You are technically right but we are very close to Chrome monopolising the Web. Then there is nothing preventing Google from implementing user-hostile features, closing source code, stopping support for Linux etc. While it is nice to have dozens of niche browsers, the web slso needs popular alternatives, using different engines. Currently that is Safari and to a lesser degree Firefox.
Firefox was instrumental in breaking IE6 ‘s grip on the Web and Linux greatly benefitted from it, so no wonder there are still a lot of Firefox users among Linux users.
Totally agree. The point that I was trying to make is that the risk of Chrome domination is a risk to all desktop users, not just those of us using Linux.
ndrw,
We still have Edge, which ironically builds on Chromium source code. (But of course Google shut down parts of it when Microsoft used it to filter data out of Google user accounts).
And there is Safari, which is no longer open source.
There are probably 100 other active open source rendering engines from small to large. But none of them have enough market share to make a dent.
Anyway, as long as Edge and Safari are there (even though I don’t like Microsoft’s bullying tactics), I believe we are still protected from a web mono culture.
sukru,
When edge first came out I downloaded the source microsoft provided with the intention of building it myself and analyzing their changes. Unfortunately I discovered that microsoft edge source code was incomplete and large swaths of source files were missing, which I was not expecting. Turns out that microsoft only publishes the minimum under chromium’s license and strips the rest out, meaning edge is a proprietary browser. Since chromium isn’t licensed under a copyleft/GPL license, microsoft aren’t obligated provide the full source code.
If firefox ends up defunct, we’d end ceding more control over the web to google. Proprietary browsers won’t be much comfort to FOSS users. I don’t know what it looks like, but I really hope firefox can find a way to sustainability and independence somehow.
Alfman,
You might be right. I could not find any source related to Edge (there is no “Edgium”).
So, looking back we have (open source):
Blink
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blink_(browser_engine)
Which drives Chrome, Chromium, and Edge.
Which is based on…
WebKit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebKit
Which drives Safari, several Apple apps, PlayStation, and interestingly “GNOME Web” Browser (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME_Web)
Which is based on..
KHTML
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KHTML
Which was revolutionary back in the day. (KDE 2?)
Anyway, so everything is already a monoculture now. At least the mainline “trunk” of it is still open source.
Oh, that’s a relief. I thought it was about arrogant management team, which instead of working on browser speed or privacy features, constantly messed with UX, removed features people were using and measured its own performance using social justice values rather than users feedback and adoption rates.
But this is all bollocks, it was all about the default search.
You hit on a number of true catalysts to Mozilla’s decline. You touched on speed being a big issue. It was, and having lived through that era using both Firefox and Chrome, it was a night and day difference. I believe that’s the primary reason that Chrome ate Firefox’s market share so steadily.
There were blog posts back in the day that talked about some of the UX changes (especially removal of old school Mozilla addons) being largely about speed. I don’t have any links handy, but I think the gist of it was that it’s exceedingly difficult to build a performant UI when it all needs to be scriptable in something akin to an interpreted programming language (XUL). That’s a reasonable argument. I also think that the architecture choices made early in the Netscape/Mozilla code base limited it to a single process, something we know today to be a fatal flaw for something desiring to take advantage of modern hardware.
Now, could they have made under-the-covers changes without rewriting the *entire* UI SEVERAL TIMES OVER A FEW YEARS? Abso-effing-lutely. They might still have had to dump classic addons, and that certainly was a shame. But they could have stemmed the bleeding by doing as little as necessary to improve speed.
But hey, they had to do something with the many many millions of $$ that Google was throwing at them each year. And apparently they decided that UI/UX designers were the hole they’d throw that cash into.
jasutton,
More recently chrome improved it’s memory bloat situation. But before that chrome was the more bloated browser.
cloudwards.net/firefox-vs-google-chrome/
Chrome was the one facing widespread criticism throughout most of 2010s and note that chrome’s popularity continued to grow in spite of it.
osnews.com/story/28564/why-im-breaking-up-with-google-chrome/
thenextweb.com/news/why-im-breaking-up-with-google-chrome
gizmodo.com/fuck-it-im-going-back-to-firefox-1685425815
I’ve conducted these tests myself and chrome was the looser then. Chrome can beat firefox today, but the reason you’ve cited for chrome eating firefox market share doesn’t add up in a historical context. IMHO the primary reason for mozilla’s decline simply have to do with way less access to end users and always having to punch up rather than punch down.
That said I also think mozilla made mistakes with unforced blunders. It was really stupid and petty for mozilla to fight their own user base on issues like “we’re taking away your ability to sideload your own extensions because we need to protect you from yourselves”. Fuck you mozilla. I really want mozilla to thrive for the sake of FOSS and having access to alternative browsers. We need them so badly. But seriously mozilla, you really make it easy for us to hate you when you pull anti-owner tactics. FOSS needs a voice to promote owner freedoms but frankly I’m not proud to promote firefox as a leader for our community and that’s a shame.
??? Alfman, looks like we were leaving in parallel universes.
Chrome might have had problems with 100s of tabs open on 2010 hardware, but for a long time its responsiveness due to multithreaded architecture and much better JS implementation was hard to beat. Firefox on desktop has mostly caught up ~5 years ago but by that time it has lost the market. Had it done in 2 years Firefox would have still been one of the mainstream browsers. Firefox on Android is worse, it still hasn’t caught up with Chrome performance-wise and missing features and awkward UI make it look and feel like a browser that has nothing in common with desktop Firefox. It has seen a minimal adoption among mobile users and with desktop Firefox going down there is nothing that can change it.
ndrw
I acknowledge that eventually chrome got debloated (as reported earlier), but in the 2010s as chrome’s marketshare grow, it did so while having the reputation for being a bloated browser, which aligns with my tests at the time. You don’t have to believe me, but do know that this was a common enough occurrence that there were even memes about it…
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/aj5aks/this_is_your_ram_and_this_is_your_ram_on_chrome/
So, you want the UX team to work in performance issues?
I really don’t know why people are decrying Firefox – it’s been great for me. I still use it as my primary driver on macOS and Android each and every day. What doesn’t work with it?
We need an open mainstream browser becausewe need open Web. It’s great you are enjoying Firefox (I am using it too) but unless it has >20% of the market it plays no role in shaping the Web.
20 years ago it was all about platform support. The Web was for Windows and IE6 users only. Without them you couldn’t even access your online bank account. We have Firefox to thank for changing that. It felt like an impossible task but a small team focused 100% on delivering a product people wanted succeeded in just that.
Now it is mostly about user control. The Web grew up so much because it is a pull system (most successful social platform are/were “pull” – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Git etc), where it is the users that make billions of versions of these platforms out of pieces that interest them. But the big players would have of course preferred to make them as “push” as possible, for forcing advertisements, shaping opinions via suggestions or filters or eliminating competition. Competition is the only force keeping them in check.
I think @ndrew hit the nail on the head in most of his comments and people simply refuse to aknowledge the real reasons. Firefox used to be the flexible stuff and allowed you to build and tune your UI/UX however ypu liked. Then we got forced “chromeification” down owr throats and the reasons to keep it runiing just got dimmed bunch.
Speed, we can deal with it unless google acts directly against it.
RAM usage? Meh, i’ll limit myself to 100 opened tabs then.
Standards? Who cares? IE6 is dead allready. I’m joking. Firefox marketshare was what kept google in check for a while so that it doesn;t become another IE6-like monopoly.
Most of my clients have an issue with UI/UX changes. They barely learn a setup and hope it stays that way. Change something and they’ll be confused and frustrated for a good amount of time, Now nuke the UI/UX , restrict them from getting to theyr previous setup and watch your product being the clear reason people are frustrated. Some jumped shit simply out of spite alone.
I was a bottom tabs guy. I managed to put them back on the bottom with some css and keep my old workflow and mouse reflexes. How many “regular” users are able to do that?
metal696heart,
Not sure who/what you are referring to there, but I agree mozilla has been copying some of the things I don’t like about chrome, like restricting users and extensions. That is counter-productive. Mozilla believed they were doing this to target basic users, but in doing so they hurt their relationship with the advanced users, many of whom preferred firefox.
Same here. Most of my clients hate arbitrary changes, but UI designers have to do it to justify their jobs even when an interface was already usable.