Firefox Succeeded In Its Goal -- But What's Next?

trawg writes: It's been more than 10 years since Mozilla released version 1.0 of Firefox, one of their first steps in their mission to 'preserve choice and innovation on the Internet'. Firefox was instrumental in shattering the web monoculture, but the last few years of development have left users uninspired. "Their goal was never to create the most popular browser in the world, or the one with the best UX, or the one with the most features, or the one with the best developer mode. ... It would be foolish to say a monoculture will never arise again (Google are making some scary moves with Chrome-only web applications). But at this point in time while Chrome is the ascendant browser (largely at the expense of Firefox), Mozilla’s ability to impact the web in general is greatly reduced." Perhaps it is time to move on to the next challenge — ensuring there is a strong Thunderbird to help preserve a free and open email ecosystem.

Comments

Here is what I *HOPE* is next

[markdavis]

>"Firefox Succeeded In Its Goal -- But What's Next?"

Here is what I *HOPE* is next:

1) Stop trying to be and look like Chrome. Just stop.

2) Stop trying to force users to not have tabs on bottom, having a menu bar, having separate buttons, etc. Let users control their user interface how they want.

3) Remove all that developer stuff that 99.99% of users don't use or care about and put it in an addon.

4) Remove all that chat and conferencing stuff that 99% of users don't care about and put that also in an addon.

5) Focus on speed, security, stability, bug-fixing, and documentation. You don't have to be a feature-of-the-month club.

6) Continue to support as many platforms and systems as possible, including old ones.

Oh- and thank you for all the hard work that went into Firefox- the browser of my choice (and that for my users, family, and friends) for the last decade.

Re:Here is what I *HOPE* is next

[markdavis]

>Also, don't crash constantly.

Hmm, Linux Firefox almost never crashes here, and I run it for many weeks at a time with many dozens of tabs and windows open at a time.

To break the monopoly of Chrome

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Chrome does not have a no script equivalent. Just yesterday I was so pissed off by a slashdot story with an autoplaying video. It uses html5 tags, and it is played natively by chrome. It is not a plug in. It is not stopped by typical flash block. etc. Back to Firefox for slashdot now. Pretty soon all advertiser will realize the value of unblockable videos in Chrome. It is just a matter of time the Chrome user experience will be degraded so much, people will flock back to Firefox.

Firefox is our weapon to tame misbehaving behemoths. Be it Microsoft. Be it Google. Be it Apple.