Mozilla is trying to innovate and bring new features to Firefox, but the browser continues to lose users. Despite these concerning market trends, the company is actively...
Completely my opinion: I think the problem is Mozilla is beholden to the requirement that it MUST grow and make more and more money. It is a business after all.
If Mozilla just focused on maintaining a good product that browses the internet well and just stays there. It doesent have to do cutting edge, it doesn’t have to be ultra quirky. It doesent have to focus on increasing market share. It just needs to focus on being a good product.
People are going to come and go. Opinions change and people do get tired of being taken advantage of. The Honda Civic didnt get so popular because it was the most performant car, the most spacious car, the most efficient car, etc It got popular because while it wasent the MOST of those qualities it was quite good with those qualities.
Firefox’s best bet at this point is maintaining good qualities and being as accessible and compatible as possible.
It’s a rigged game though. Mozilla’s struggling to even implement feature parity with the income they have, and being “good” isn’t going to place redirects to install Chrome over half of people’s phones and web browsing.
…Personally, I think Mozilla should dump Firefox.
And put everything they have into Ladybird, or maybe Apple’s WebKit.
Mozilla are playing a rigged game, and the only way to survive is get out of Google’s grasp. Practically, that means joining some other entity who already has dev money and a good project.
Developers can just be hired directly, and the Firefox codebase is open source.
Only brand requires partnering with mozilla, and what does the other partner gain from the Mozilla brand? They don’t even have much brand recognition anymore anyway.
I ninja edited, but basically I just don’t see Firefox surviving without “ecosystem leverage” like WebKit, which is permanently embedded in the Apple ecosystem.
Or even Ladybird, which I imagine will be a permanent fixture on Linux systems.
So… however they organize it, Mozilla should take their browser dev experience there. But maybe they could keep Firefox the brand alive, and automatically shift users to whatever the new rendering engine will be.
Alternatively I guess Firefox could stay Mozilla and just adopt WebKit or Ladybird’s engine. “Merge” development efforts across different teams, so to speak, but keep the browser frontend separate.
Its a bit early to make the call that Ladybird will be successful. They have made a lot of noise sure, but they are a small team, tackling a huge project, and they have just had 2 language changes in the last few months.
The deck is well and truely stacked against them. Maybe they pull it off, maybe not, but its very early to make the call IMO.
Servo is looking surprisingly good, but still has major rendering issues. At least it looks like a browser now.
Completely my opinion: I think the problem is Mozilla is beholden to the requirement that it MUST grow and make more and more money. It is a business after all.
If Mozilla just focused on maintaining a good product that browses the internet well and just stays there. It doesent have to do cutting edge, it doesn’t have to be ultra quirky. It doesent have to focus on increasing market share. It just needs to focus on being a good product.
People are going to come and go. Opinions change and people do get tired of being taken advantage of. The Honda Civic didnt get so popular because it was the most performant car, the most spacious car, the most efficient car, etc It got popular because while it wasent the MOST of those qualities it was quite good with those qualities.
Firefox’s best bet at this point is maintaining good qualities and being as accessible and compatible as possible.
It’s a rigged game though. Mozilla’s struggling to even implement feature parity with the income they have, and being “good” isn’t going to place redirects to install Chrome over half of people’s phones and web browsing.
…Personally, I think Mozilla should dump Firefox.
And put everything they have into Ladybird, or maybe Apple’s WebKit.
Mozilla are playing a rigged game, and the only way to survive is get out of Google’s grasp. Practically, that means joining some other entity who already has dev money and a good project.
Because they waste the income they have on crap like adding AI, and CEO bonuses/raises.
Mozilla might as well just close up shop. If they were to abandon Firefox, what exactly are they bring to the table for anyone else?
The brand, development power, and bits from the Firefox codebase they could re-use.
More importantly, Firefox’s devs get to work on something that already has leverage in an ecosystem, eg WebKit for Apple or Ladybird for Linux.
Developers can just be hired directly, and the Firefox codebase is open source.
Only brand requires partnering with mozilla, and what does the other partner gain from the Mozilla brand? They don’t even have much brand recognition anymore anyway.
I ninja edited, but basically I just don’t see Firefox surviving without “ecosystem leverage” like WebKit, which is permanently embedded in the Apple ecosystem.
Or even Ladybird, which I imagine will be a permanent fixture on Linux systems.
So… however they organize it, Mozilla should take their browser dev experience there. But maybe they could keep Firefox the brand alive, and automatically shift users to whatever the new rendering engine will be.
Alternatively I guess Firefox could stay Mozilla and just adopt WebKit or Ladybird’s engine. “Merge” development efforts across different teams, so to speak, but keep the browser frontend separate.
Its a bit early to make the call that Ladybird will be successful. They have made a lot of noise sure, but they are a small team, tackling a huge project, and they have just had 2 language changes in the last few months.
The deck is well and truely stacked against them. Maybe they pull it off, maybe not, but its very early to make the call IMO.
Servo is looking surprisingly good, but still has major rendering issues. At least it looks like a browser now.