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posted by martyb on Tuesday August 04 2020, @01:35AM   Printer-friendly
from the I-use-Lynx,-you-insensitive-clod! dept.

Firefox Browser Use Drops As Mozilla's Worst Microsoft Edge Fears Come True

Back in April, we reported that the Edge browser is quickly gaining market share now that Microsoft has transitioned from the EdgeHTML engine to the more widely used Chromium engine (which also underpins Google's Chrome browser). At the time, Edge slipped into the second-place slot for desktop web browsers, with a 7.59 percent share of the market. This dropped Mozilla's Firefox – which has long been the second-place browser behind Chrome – into third place.

Now, at the start of August, we're getting some fresh numbers in for the desktop browser market, and things aren't looking good for Mozilla. Microsoft increased its share of the browser market from 8.07 percent in June to 8.46 percent in July. Likewise, Firefox fell from 7.58 percent to 7.27 percent according to NetMarketShare.

[...] As for Mozilla, the company wasn't too happy when Microsoft first announced that it was going to use Chromium for Edge way back in December 2018. Mozilla's Chris Beard at the time accused Microsoft of "giving up" by abandoning EdgeHTML in favor of Chromium. "Microsoft's decision gives Google more ability to single-handedly decide what possibilities are available to each one of us," said Beard at the time. "We compete with Google because the health of the internet and online life depend on competition and choice."

[...] Microsoft developer Kenneth Auchenberg fought back the following January, writing, "Thought: It's time for Mozilla to get down from their philosophical ivory tower. The web is dominated by Chromium, if they really *cared* about the web they would be contributing instead of building a parallel universe that's used by less than 5 percent."

Is the browser monoculture inevitable or will Firefox hang in there?

Previously:


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  • (Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday August 04 2020, @05:42AM (3 children)

    by krishnoid (1156) on Tuesday August 04 2020, @05:42AM (#1031144)

    At least under Windows, it comes in a portable version [portableapps.com] that doesn't have to interfere with other installs. If you don't like it (or the version you downloaded), close it and delete the whole directory. No registry settings, no add/remove programs, no files randomly strewn about.

    If you want to try a new version, save off the 'Data' directory (containing all the app settings) from the previous version, drop it over the 'Data' directory in the new version, and start it up. This also allows you to keep a few different versions at a time in different directories on your Windows box.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday August 04 2020, @06:44AM (2 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 04 2020, @06:44AM (#1031153) Journal

    Sane applications do the same on *nixes. Download a .tar.gz file, unpack it, and everything is self contained, within that directory. I was an early adopter of Firefox, when it was still in milestone versions. (0.51 I think was my first version) You could download the nightly build, and test it - if it didn't do what you wanted, you just delete it, and use whichever previous version did work.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Common Joe on Tuesday August 04 2020, @07:25PM (1 child)

      by Common Joe (33) <{common.joe.0101} {at} {gmail.com}> on Tuesday August 04 2020, @07:25PM (#1031363) Journal

      I don't think it's very popular, but I've gotten to like AppImage files when they are available and if I'm looking for portability. That way, you can skip the unzipping altogether. Interestingly, it's a lot smaller than snap installations. A good example to look at is LibreOffice. It's available with Snap, Flatpak, and AppImage.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2020, @01:43PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2020, @01:43PM (#1032249)

        +1 for AppImage. The format is so simple. Include libraries, set RPATH to $ORIGIN, insert a stub that extract to tmp (preferably in memory). Fire up a firejail shell (or other sandboxing) and you have it sandboxed.