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

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

takyon writes:

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:

*SPOILER* (click to show) *SPOILER* (click to hide)

Mozilla Teases Chromium-Based Firefox, Then Pulls Back
Firefox Tops Microsoft Browser Market Share for First Time
Netmarketshare Claims Mozilla Firefox Usage Drops Below Ten Percent
Microsoft Intercepting Firefox, Chrome Installation on Windows 10 Insider Build
Microsoft Reportedly Building a Chromium-Based Web Browser to Replace Edge, and "Windows Lite" OS
Mozilla CEO Warns Microsoft's Switch to Chromium Will Give More Control of the Web to Google
Microsoft Employee Sparks Outrage by Suggesting Firefox Switch Browser Engine to Chromium
Mozilla Was "Outfoxed" by Google
Microsoft Edge Shares Privacy-Busting Telemetry, Research Alleges

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Original Submission

• Re:Old and crochety. Firefox works for me. Re:Old and crochety. Firefox works for me. (Score: 5, Informative) by TheRaven on Tuesday August 04 2020, @10:22AM (1 child)

  by TheRaven (270) on Tuesday August 04 2020, @10:22AM (#1031185) Journal

  I don't know if it's still true, but WebKit-based browsers had a big lead in compartmentalisation. Safari and Chrome were running the renderer in a separate, deprivileged, process for years when Firefox was still running everything in a single process. They're now split into a bunch of processes for different secrets. A compromise in one tab does not leak credentials or information from any other site that you're visiting, unless the attacker has a separate sandbox escape (typically, much harder to find). I think Firefox now does some sandboxing but I pretty much gave up on the project when they were slowly starting to think in this direction and every other browser had shipped it as a standard feature for years.

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  sudo mod me up

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• Re:Old and crochety. Firefox works for me. (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @01:50PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @01:50PM (#1031706)

  firefox was single thread, but long ago switch to have now different threads, that was one of the main reasons to drop the old add-ons, they enforced the "one process" (some could be turn to multi-process, but not all and that and the security problem made the old api go away).
  Now you have several threads for rendering, gui, add-ons, javascript.
  Firefox share those threads between several tabs(where they apply of course, there is only one GUI), so save memory (and this is one of the reason too for firefox using much less ram than chrome), but those threads also have several layers of isolation. Chrome have several threads for EACH tab, that may increase the security, but also waste lot more resources and turn chrome very heavy if you use many tabs. People that only use a few tabs do not notice that problem, but everyone that have many open tabs already noticed that chrome eats all he machine resources.
  Mozilla is increasing the threads isolation and get more process to multi-thread (via mostly rust) to increase performance and security. This is a slow migration process, unlike khtml (WebKit base code forked from kde) the that was build around being multi-thread

  Parent