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https://amosbbatto.wordpress.com/2017/11/21/mozilla-market-share/
When Firefox was introduced in 2004, it was designed to be a lean and optimized web browser, based on the bloated code from the Mozilla Suite. Between 2004 and 2009, many considered Firefox to be the best web browser, since it was faster, more secure, offered tabbed browsing and was more customizable through extensions than Microsoft's Internet Explorer. When Chrome was introduced in 2008, it took many of Firefox's best ideas and improved on them. Since 2010, Chrome has eaten away at Firefox's market share, relegating Firefox to a tiny niche of free software enthusiasts and tinkerers who like the customization of its XUL extensions.
According to StatCounter, Firefox's market share of web browsers has fallen from 31.8% in December 2009 to just 6.1% today. Firefox can take comfort in the fact that it is now virtually tied with its former arch-nemesis, Internet Explorer and its variants. All of Microsoft's browsers only account for 6.2% of current web browsing according to StatCounter. Microsoft has largely been replaced by Google, whose web browsers now controls 56.5% of the market. Even worse, is the fact that the WebKit engine used by Google now represents over 83% of web browsing, so web sites are increasingly focusing on compatibility with just one web engine. While Google and Apple are more supportive of W3C and open standards than Microsoft was in the late 90s, the web is increasingly being monopolized by one web engine and two companies, whose business models are not always based on the best interests of users or their rights.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by arcz on Sunday November 26 2017, @05:35AM (15 children)
Does anyone really pick a browser based on speed? Your pages should load fast enough, otherwise you just need a new computer and/or adblock.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday November 26 2017, @05:53AM (1 child)
Firefox will stall right into uncomfortable-wait duration on certain sites. Quantum is a wicked speed improvement. Though I don't run it just yet.
Actually I never understood all the words about "Chrome being faster than Firefox," It behaves in a lot more of a squirreley manner and has its own set of hard-crash problems and Chromium despite being open-source is designed deliberately to rape your privacy, and you have no say in the matter unless you find a gutted alternative.
My big question is, years ago, Chrome announced one of its gimmicks being that "each tab runs in a process," and Firefox then followed-suit, but despite the marketing bullshit spewed by Google and Mozilla, problems with one tab on both browsers did in fact crash the entire browser. Well, then, what was the fucking point, geniuses?
(Score: 5, Funny) by requerdanos on Sunday November 26 2017, @05:11PM
Hth. Peace.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by captain normal on Sunday November 26 2017, @05:53AM
I agree. I want a simple GUI in a Browser. Not one loaded with "tiles" and "Apps". Also One that That doesn't ask to update every couple of hours.
So the question, "Can the New Firefox Quantum Regain its Web Browser Market Share?" can only be answered with NO!
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by anubi on Sunday November 26 2017, @07:46AM (4 children)
Yes, time is valuable to me, and I will pick a browser based on speed.
I have a tendency to compare everything to my five year old laptop, running an obsolete version of Firefox, with NoScript and Download Helper.
Sure, many business sites won't load for me. But the ones I use do. As long as Aliexpress works, for me, good enough.
I know many business sites partner with browser vendors so as to tell people like me they will no longer support my online purchase until I conform to the stated business requirement that I upgrade my browser. When they do, I remove their bookmark and icon. I even had to transfer all of my retirement funds from a financial institution because of something this trivial.
But we all know how businesses get.... when they get too big, they don't give much of a damm about the customer anymore. Investors will not stand up to a multimillionaire CEO and demand him return their money for running the business they paid him to administer into the ground. No, they will pay him his bonus anyway, and golden parachute. Its a given that its a CEO right to flip open his golden parachute and live princely off the 100X salary its customary to pay a CEO. So, why should a CEO give much of a damn if his webmaster is giving the customers crap? Everyone seems of the concept that if its more than five years old, throw it out. And apparently that goes for the customers too. Geez, the local mall should put up one of those "birdie" traffic blockers [shutterstock.com] into their parking lot... car greater then five years old? Not a BMW or Mercedes? Then tell your customer to go somewhere else! You know they actually do this on the web. Its what that fancy high-priced CEO will actually PAY for! Other people make a fine living finding which CEOs who will actually PAY to have his customers run away.
Now that I have a brand new Android smartphone, I find browsing the web with it almost useless. The thing keeps flipping the content up, then down, back and forth, while I try like the dickens to make it stop long enough to read, then they start chewing at the top and bottom of the display area until I have a postage-stamp area with the content that attracted my click in the first place. My local paper is so bad at it that if Google News references them, I won't click. The headline for me has to be good enough until I can get to my NoScript Firefox 5 year old laptop. God forbid I click on something linked to Outbrain or Taboola. I feel like being fed like a baby... as they experiment on just how little content they can feed me to keep me clicking on a series of humongous pagefuls of ads.
Anyone know a good browser I can get from Aptoide that has good javascript blocking? I can easily run through my entire monthly data allotment on my phone over lunch if I run the default Chrome browser, slightly longer if I use Opera. The data use on my phone is way more than on my Firefox NoScript laptop, even though I am on the net far longer with the laptop than with the phone. It just went to show me how lengthy the pageloads are getting on modern websites, with this particular website being the lone exception in my experience, for which I am very grateful, for I spend more time here, and on AliExpress, than all the other sites put together.
Geez, trying to browse a site without javascript blockers is like trying to eat a raw catfish, or watching commercial OTA TV live. They price my time so low that advertisers see a low airtime price, they aren't seeing the eyeballs going elsewhere, as almost anything will beat the tedium of watching the same damned commercial over and over and over again - especially the long ones like those diet pills, funeral insurance, and debit card ads - that seem to go on and on and on....
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @04:15PM
Firefox on Android has uBlock Origin for script-blocking. It's a bit more complex than NoScript if all you're after is Javascript blocking, but it works.
Had to get a smartphone recently myself (my old Nokia was 2G, and that network is pretty spotty now) and that was one of the first things I looked for. I don't understand how anyone can stand browsing the web without Javascript blocking.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @07:37AM (2 children)
I use Brave on my phone. Built in adblock (ublock compatible), anti phish, noscript etc. Just like the desktop version.
Set it up to blacklist everything by default, only takes a few clicks. Minimal set of plugins available, mostly password wallets.
Get the apk from: https://github.com/brave/browser-android-tabs [github.com]
(Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday November 28 2017, @09:19AM (1 child)
Thanks for the link to Brave!
Once I knew what to look for, I found it on Aptoide, even though the official Brave links specify Amazon or Google Play Store.
I have it on the phone now. Its working great! My local newspaper was my first test, as it is so fouled up it was about as readable as a paper newspaper found in the toilet. Cleaned it up nice.
I will probably make it my default browser. Quite happy with it.
--
I have not registered for Amazon nor Google, as they require credit card numbers. Its not that I don't have one. Its just I trust neither of the above not to "share".
If there is one thing I really hate to do, its putting my credit card numbers on the internet. Its not my stinginess about paying, rather its my caution about trying my damndest to minimize my "attack surface" for fraud, which could easily amount to thousands of times the amount of the purchase.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday November 28 2017, @09:31AM
Brave via Aptoide [aptoide.com] for Android phones....
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @04:12AM
I'm skeptical that that was a common occurrence except in rare situations where the performance is chasing people away. Such as during the Fx 2.x memory leak debacle.
People go with performance that's good enough and then focus on the other aspects with the UI generally being top of the list. Which is why Fx developers insistence upon stealing design ideas from Chrome makes so little sense. A distant 3rd and 4th are probably security and extensibility.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Wootery on Monday November 27 2017, @10:51AM (3 children)
Never underestimate how bloated web-pages can be.
Megabytes of unnecessary JavaScript aren't unheard of.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday November 28 2017, @09:44AM (2 children)
Confirming... I went around the bush a helluva lotta times a couple of years ago. I thought I was infected with malware. I turned my system inside out trying to root it out and found nothing. Turns out it was exactly what you stated.... absolutely HUMONGOUS web pages and a slow ISP.
It was you guys that turned me onto NoScript, which has made the internet usable again.
Earlier up this thread, I asked advice on how to handle it on my phone, as I knew this time what kind of bug I was dealing with. Again, you guys came through for me by suggesting I install the Brave browser.
Turns out the Brave browser is a specific for this codebloat bug.
Sure is a game of cat and mouse. The businesspeople keep putting manure all around their digital storefront. We customers keep trying to find galoshes resistant to the specific manure the businesspeople put out. No one seems to benefit from this but the vendors of manure.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Tuesday November 28 2017, @09:48PM (1 child)
Not interested, given the ad-substitution thing. There's really no coming back from something that slimy.
Yup. I'm pretty happy on Firefox+UBlock Origin. On mobile, Opera Mini generally works well. (It uses Opera's servers to render+compress webpages, making things far fast on slow connections. Couldn't make this shit up.)
You missed one - the telcos. I remember reading an analysis that showed that AT&T make far more money from boated web ads, than the ad companies themselves. (Annoyingly I couldn't find it with a web search.)
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday November 29 2017, @07:40AM
Until I read your post, I was not aware of the ad-substitution thing. Sure enough, I had to Google around a bit and found this [wsj.com] from the Wall Street Journal.
Wow. I had no idea so much fur was flying over this browser. But yet, I can see how, with the attitude some business webmasters writing terribly annoying advertising code, that people would be trying to work their way around it - just as I have done. Yes, I still saw ads, but the ones I was given weren't the terribly annoying sort that restrict the display area or require interaction.
I especially hated those ads which locked my session up until I interacted with it. That is exactly what a malware programmer would have me do.
Given the state of computer security these days, along with the power given to script programmers to write code that does not behave consistently ( Like, does clicking the X in the upper right hand corner make the ad go away, or did I just give the script permission to install malware, or worse, install then close, leaving me ignorant of the fact I have just been infected.
I realize that some businesses, given a server, will treat their customer just like some people, given a car, treat pedestrians. Computers have given businesses an opportunity to be really rude without having one of their people involved. I have yet to see a person do to another person what a computer server does as a matter of business - literally "hanging up" on the customer on a whim.
So, I guess I have just about the same remorse in running an ad-substituter as a business has in having me agree to "hold harmless" then pelt me with stuff that puts ME at risk if I interact with it.
It's just business.
I see the pesky advertiser types much like I see those guys who have those terribly loud motorcycles. You don't want them around you any longer than you have to. They seem to delight in their power to annoy the hell out of you. Open up a way to let them pass by, and for God's sake, don't mess with one of 'em. They have the power to annoy, and they want everyone else to know it. So, if you have to, use earplugs or find another way of getting where you are going. I can't stop them from being assholes. I will use anything I can find at my disposal to allow me to do what I need to do, and not tell them how to do what they feel they have a need to do. To me its similar to using a VCR to cache programming so I can use the fast-forward function to skip ads. If they want me to see ads, they need to do a lot more work to make the ads palatable.
I won't claim that what Brave is doing is right, but I will claim that for *me*, I have a heckuva hard time turning it down, given how much frustration the people Brave is screening me from was willing to foist on me.
Actually, I get a warm fuzzy feeling over it, like watching that cat that kept pissing in my barbeque, piss on an electric fence.
So, for me, its a worthwhile tradeoff. I am not deliberately trying to avoid all ads, but I am deliberately trying to avoid those ads which insist I interact with them.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @07:20PM
For some pages, older versions of Firefox seemed to load resources and Javascript files sequentially. Heavyweight sites suck, but they're a very common form of suckage. And for those, Firefox 45 might be drawing the first legible form of the page 13 seconds after you clicked the link while Chrome was done in 3 seconds. 13 seconds isn't a terrible time to wait, but 10 seconds longer than Chrome on the same hardware is really annoying. Most of the people I know and work with that are remotely tech-savvy just switched to Chrome.
Now the difference seems to be on the order of 30% at worst, and for some pages Firefox loads more quickly than Chrome.
(Score: 2) by cykros on Monday November 27 2017, @08:56PM
While I've stubbornly staid with Firefox through thick and thin over some particular extension support, I will attest that there were certain types of sites which it had gotten famously bad at handling. There were occasions that due to failing to close and cycle a few more modern style sites resulted in at the very least needing to kill the process, if not actually need to restart the computer (though I'm sure this wasn't Firefox acting alone...between extensions misbehaving and the nVidia blob, it was undoubtedly a group effort). In any case, I was as thrilled as anyone with Quantum, and have been waiting for these improvements ever since they announced the end to Firefox OS and pointing resources back at actually making the browser great.
As for market share, it's worth noting that things get a little weird when you're talking about a non-profit here. The real concern would of course be that allowing Chrome to get too big could lead to a return of content that really requires a particular browser, as we had with the ActiveX days with IE, but Google seems a little less inclined to take things in that direction than MS was. The financial side of things however could see a significant uptick in donations simply because this improvement is big enough to restore faith in (some) people that Mozilla will responsibly make use of the funds, with the user-base growth coming afterward, rather than preceding such an event.
All speculation at this point, but I'd argue that Gecko already was the best option around, lacking efficiency but providing by far the best extensibility. With that efficiency brought back it may be interesting to see how quickly many drop Chromium (and Webkit in general).