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The death of Firefox
Topic Started: 7 Mar 2013, 05:39 AM (1,161 Views)
Black Panther
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The death of Firefox

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It doesn’t look good for Firefox: Almost every month for the last three years, Firefox has lost ground to Internet Explorer, Chrome, and Safari. For most of 2009 the trend was fairly straight as it fended off Chrome and nibbled away at IE, but between 2010 and today Firefox has lost a third of its market share, from a worldwide peak of around 30% down to 20%.

You can look at this two ways. First, the total number of people on the internet is growing, so while Firefox’s share has decreased, the total number of people using Firefox is increasing. The other point of view is that Firefox, whether you like it or not, is declining in popularity.

I love the Fox as much as the next bearded geek, but the numbers just don’t lie: Chrome is breathlessly decimating Firefox’s userbase at a breakneck rate. It took Firefox more than four years to prise 20% of the market from Internet Explorer; Chrome did it in almost half that, and is fast approaching 30% in just over three years. Internet Explorer’s graph is a little harder to interpret, but it looks like it might have finally turned the corner and stopped hemorrhaging market share.

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Compounding Firefox’s losses is the stark reality that it’s unlikely to make any gains. Google has obviously spent a lot of money advertising Chrome, but there’s no way that ads brought it nearly 30% of the web’s two billion surfers. People are migrating to Chrome because of word of mouth: Geeks and power users picked it up first, and they’ve been installing it on the computers of friends and family ever since. Microsoft, too, is using a dollar bill tourniquet, and when Windows 8 tablets roll around with IE10 as the default browser, you can be sure that its market share will climb. Mozilla is adding some exciting new features to Firefox, and Firefox for Android is an interesting enterprise, but I don’t foresee anything that will turn the tide.

But is that really a problem? The entire reason that Firefox was such a success is that it appealed to the geeks and power users who weren’t happy with Internet Explorer 6′s 95% share of the market. Microsoft effectively put the dampers on web innovation for five years. Firefox was conceived with one purpose in mind: To revitalize the web.

In that regard, it has succeeded. The web, with three browsers vying for supremacy, has never been more exciting. Within a few short years of launching, Firefox had shown the world what CSS and a gutsy JavaScript engine were capable of. Firefox triggered the HTML5 revolution. It is because of Firefox that Metro-style Windows 8 apps can be written in JavaScript. And ironically enough, it is because of Firefox that Chrome was created.

If you used Chrome in 2008 and 9, you will remember that almost all of its early adopters were disaffected Firefox users who had grown tired of an ever-increasing memory footprint and sluggish interface. Chrome had almost zero features when it first arrived, but it didn’t matter: When the only two choices were a slow Internet Explorer or a bloated Firefox, Chrome was exactly what the people (and the internet!) needed. Mozilla has spent the last year trying to trim the fat, but it hasn’t caused an upswell of users to return to the motherland. Much in the same way that Firefox cannibalized Internet Explorer, Chrome capitalized on just a single feature — speed — and has been riding the wave ever since.

Despite its ridiculous rate of growth, though, Chrome will eventually reach a zenith. The Big Three all have enough gravitas to ensure that no one browser has the power to monopolizingly choke the web. Even if a browser does get a little too big for its britches, Mozilla will always be there to knock some sense into the community — and, if need be, do the grassroots thing all over again.

What will happen now, assuming Microsoft and Google continue to barrage each other with their full arsenal of cannon, is that Firefox will gradually fade into a position of feared, revered veterancy — kind of like an aging grandfather who sits on a rocking chair in the middle of the World Wide Web with a loaded shotgun. It might even get to the stage where Firefox has to occasionally loose some crazy feature onto the web, just to remind everyone that it’s still alive. Eventually, if Microsoft really is serious about open web technologies and Google does no evil, Firefox might even die.

But, having completed everything you set out to do in life, is death really that awful?

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/116885-the-death-of-firefox
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earthsta
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An article more than 13 months old? We always knew you were behind the times, just like your housing predictions :lol :lol :lol
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Ex BP Golly
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earthsta
7 Mar 2013, 08:24 AM
An article more than 13 months old? We always knew you were behind the times, just like your housing predictions :lol :lol :lol
He does use internet explorer!
WHAT WOULD EDDIE DO? MAAAATE!
Share a cot with Milton?
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Count du Monet
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Quote:
 
I love the Fox as much as the next bearded geek


I'd be sticking with Firefox. Chrome has exploits in it and gives some of my games trouble. I'd trust Google even less than MS.
The next trick of our glorious banks will be to charge us a fee for using net bank!!!
You are no longer customer, you are property!!!

Don't be SAUCY with me Bernaisse
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themoops
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Count du Monet
7 Mar 2013, 01:58 PM


I'd be sticking with Firefox. Chrome has exploits in it and gives some of my games trouble. I'd trust Google even less than MS.
As far as I know Firefox is funded by Google.

http://www.webmonkey.com/2011/12/why-google-continues-to-fund-firefox/

So we're basically fucked. :lol

Maybe Opera could be the go. But I find Chrome just too well engineered to ignore. I got sick and tired of Firefox updates and upgrades every two seconds. Plus I hate orange.
stinkbug omosessuale


Frank Castle is a liar and a criminal. He will often deliberately take people out of context and use straw man arguments.
Frank finally and unintentionally gives it up and admits he got where he is, primarily via dumb luck!
See here
Property will be 50-70% off by 2016.
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miw
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themoops
8 Mar 2013, 09:15 PM
Maybe Opera could be the go. But I find Chrome just too well engineered to ignore. I got sick and tired of Firefox updates and upgrades every two seconds. Plus I hate orange.
I've dabbled in Opera a couple of times. It's got a great email client, but it has never been able to convince me to abandon the Fox.

The Firefox updates seem to have abated somewhat of late, and it doesn't seem to be quite the performance dog it was as well.

But mainly I am just too lazy to go through the process of moving all my stored passwords, bookmarks and extensions across to Chrome. It certainly seems much slicker.
The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off.
--Gloria Steinem
AREPS™
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themoops
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miw
8 Mar 2013, 09:22 PM
I've dabbled in Opera a couple of times. It's got a great email client, but it has never been able to convince me to abandon the Fox.

The Firefox updates seem to have abated somewhat of late, and it doesn't seem to be quite the performance dog it was as well.

But mainly I am just too lazy to go through the process of moving all my stored passwords, bookmarks and extensions across to Chrome. It certainly seems much slicker.
You won't need Xmarks for bookmarks. A bookmark saver thing comes built in, and all updates are done in the background, no need to waste time updating flash and so on.
stinkbug omosessuale


Frank Castle is a liar and a criminal. He will often deliberately take people out of context and use straw man arguments.
Frank finally and unintentionally gives it up and admits he got where he is, primarily via dumb luck!
See here
Property will be 50-70% off by 2016.
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miw
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themoops
8 Mar 2013, 09:32 PM
You won't need Xmarks for bookmarks. A bookmark saver thing comes built in, and all updates are done in the background, no need to waste time updating flash and so on.
You underestimate just how lazy I am. :-)
The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off.
--Gloria Steinem
AREPS™
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Count du Monet
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miw
9 Mar 2013, 01:52 AM
You underestimate just how lazy I am. :-)
Laziness is the mother of invention!
The next trick of our glorious banks will be to charge us a fee for using net bank!!!
You are no longer customer, you are property!!!

Don't be SAUCY with me Bernaisse
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