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Firefox 42 Arrives With Tracking Protection, Tab Audio Indicators
An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla today launched Firefox 42 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Notable additions to the browser include tracking protection, tab audio indicators, and background link opening on Android. The new private browsing mode goes further than just not saving your browsing history (read: porn sites) — the added tracking protection means Firefox also blocks website elements (ads, analytics trackers, and social share buttons) that could track you while you're surfing the web, and it works on all four platforms. The feature is almost like a built-in ad blocker, though it's really closer to browser add-ons like Ghostery and Privacy Badger because ads that don't track you are allowed through.
Seriously, this is becoming a major problem. It's not even funny. If I go to cnn.com, it doesn't mean I want to WATCH cnn. If I wanted that, I'd turn on the fucking TV.
I find these stats to be more in line with what I'm seeing with many of my websites. The 12% you mention is high for Firefox. It's most likely closer to only 8%.
But you are correct, Firefox's market share does continue to decline month after month, with no end in sight.
My question is, when the fuck will Mozilla realize that everything they've done since Firefox 4 has been universally disliked?
I mean, how much further does Firefox's market share have to decline? Does it need to hit 5%? Or 1%? Or are they just going to drive head-on into 0%?
Mozilla totally missed the boat on mobile. Firefox for Android is universally disliked, and has at most 0.1% (yes, that's a fraction of 1%!) of the browser market. Chrome for Android has over 15%, and iOS Safari has over 5%.
Mozilla has repeatedly ignored what users have wanted for Firefox on the desktop. Despite a huge outcry from the community, all we've gotten is one unwanted change after another. Mozilla trashed Firefox's UI. They trashed Firefox's usability. They put ads into Firefox. They forced in totally unwanted and unnecessary social media integration. They still haven't done much to improve Firefox's remarkably slow performance or its excessively high resource usage.
Desktop Firefox is the only product that Mozilla offers that even has a small number of users. Since they abandoned Thunderbird, we've seen that gradually become avoided by users. None of Mozilla's other efforts have seen much success. Persona is a failure. Servo is perpetually going nowhere. Rust took forever to get to 1.0, and now that C++14 is out and is better there is no need for Rust. Let's Encrypt has been taking forever. Firefox OS has gotten some of the most scathing software reviews ever seen, and is seeing no uptake.
With its continually dropping share of the market, at some point soon Firefox is going to become completely irrelevant. It's close enough, as it is. Once that finally happens, Mozilla's influence will evaporate. The small number of remaining Firefox users are the only thing keeping Mozilla even remotely relevant. When Firefox's market share percentage is measured on one finger, nobody will care what Mozilla and its handful of users will think about the direction that the web is taking.
The saddest thing about all of this is that it's something that Mozilla has done to itself! It wasn't Microsoft, or Google, or Apple, or Opera, or anyone else who destroyed Firefox. It was Mozilla, and Mozilla alone! Even Firefox's users can't be blamed, because they did what they could and protested each and every awful change that Mozilla has forced. It's all so goddamn unnecessary!
what's wrong with firefox sync? I find it pretty useful.
What a load of bunk!
Does Google getting the word out about Chrome help inform people about Chrome's existence? Of course.
But advertising alone doesn't make people continue to use a given product, and that's exactly what market share measures.
Just alerting somebody to the existence of Chrome doesn't cause them to install it, it doesn't cause them to use it at first, and it doesn't cause them to start using it consistently.
What does cause people to keep using Chrome, however, is the fact that it gives a better experience than Firefox. Chrome is noticeably faster. Chrome is lightweight. Chrome's UI doesn't change drastically every other month. Chrome doesn't break extensions with each major release. Chrome doesn't include Pocket, Hello, ads, and other totally unwanted shit like that by default. Chrome doesn't remove useful existing functionality with little notice. Google doesn't ignore the loudly expressed wishes of Chrome's users like Mozilla ignores the wishes of Firefox's users.
As for mobile devices, it sure doesn't help that Firefox for Android is awful compared to the mobile versions of Chrome. Even if Firefox for Android came bundled with every mobile device out there, people would still go out of their way to install Chrome, just because Chrome is so much better.
Mozilla/Firefox supporters such as yourself need to stop blaming Google, and instead look in the mirror.
Mozilla, and only Mozilla, is responsible for Firefox's drastic decline in market share, and its total non-existence in the mobile market. It wasn't Google that has made one unwanted and despised change after another to Firefox; it was Mozilla who did that! It wasn't Google who bungled Firefox for Android, and didn't even bother creating a viable iOS version; it was Mozilla who did that!
The longer that Mozilla and its supporters refuse to look in the mirror and see who is truly responsible for Firefox's sad state of affairs, the worse things will continue to get for it. Continually blaming Google for Mozilla's problems will never actually result in Mozilla's problems getting solved!
Considering some number had FF over 50%, ~10% if fucking pathetic. They let their ux "experts" start calling the shots and started moving dev pet plugins into teh core browser even though no one wanted to use them. That's why their market share plummeted. Couple that with the impending destruction of their addon api, the only reason to use the fucking POS, and it's a wonder anyone bothers.
Use Chromium with uMatrix. Done.