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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:
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
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2020, @01:36PM
It boils down to hypocrisy. They claim privacy is integral to the design, but any programmer who looks at the way the application is designed can tell you... That is just B.S.
Of course that is all legacy, going all the way back to Netscape. But still, they don't do what they say. I'm pretty sure they integrate institutional backdoors as well. And teaming up with Comcast just proved the point. Firefox needs to cut loose and be the browser they say it is, not the browser it is.
There are other forks and other browsers. Firefox is probably the second most maintained open source browser out there. The other forks of the old netscape code are so exploitable, that they really are a public hazard. But that describes the web in general. The WWW architecture has devolved into a game of "the most busted wins" in terms of how pages are renderend, and the number of formats processed. It is just implausible that this much code can be reasonably maintained in a secure way.
Which is why search engines should start fracking out MIME types on the query page. Really if somebody implemented TTF fonts in HTML 1.1 and added inline video support, and a office suite style database UI builder, you could trash 90% of the code that makes up modern web browsers. Doing everything over HTTP was ALWAYS a bad idea. That is what has facilitated control grabs by a small number of companies. Or at least partly.