edited the heading of the question. I think most of us here are reasoning why more people are not using firefox (because it was the initial question), but none of that explains why it's actively losing marketshare.
I don't agree ideologically with Firefox management and am somewhat of a semi-conservative (and my previous posts might testify to that), I think Firefox browser is absolutely amazing! It's beautiful and it just feels good. It has awesome features like containers. It's better for privacy than any mainstream browser out there (even counting Brave here) and it has great integration between PC and Phone. It's open-source (unlike Chrome) and it supports a good chunk of extensions you would need.
This was about PC, but I believe even for Mobiles it looks great and it allows features like extensions (and I hear desktop extensions are coming to firefox android?), it's just a great ecosystem and it's available everywhere unlike most FOSS softwares.
So why is Firefox's market share dying?
I mean, I have a few ideas why it might be, maybe correct me I guess?
- Most people don't know how to use extensions well and how to use Firefox well. (Most of my friends in their 30's still live without ad blockers, so I don't think many are educated here)
- It's just not as fast as Chrome or Brave. I can't deny this, but despite of this, I find it's worthy.
- It's not the default.
- Many features which are Google specific aren't supported.
- Many websites are just not supporting firefox anymore (looking at you snapchat), but you would be right in saying this is the effect of Firefox losing it's market share not the cause (at least for now) and you would be right.
But what else?
I might take time (a lot of it) to get back at you, thanks for understanding.
occasionally I’ll find websites that don’t work 100% because they were coded primarily for chromium based browsers. FU Google
Ever since the first release, I've tried Firefox a few times. Each time I was left with a feeling of needing dozens of extensions to get it up to par with the browser I was using at the time (mainly Opera and now Vivaldi). The extensions I found were never customisable enough, and would often break and/or be abandoned after a while.
Don't get me wrong: Chrome, IE, Edge, and Safari are worse - each time I used them I got the urge to throw my computer out the window after just a few minutes. But Firefox is just not customisable enough to my liking, and extension are IMO not the answer.
I'm curious, what is missing from Firefox compared to Vivaldi according to you?
Note that since I don't use Firefox some of these may actually be available, but I don't know about them.
These are the ones that matter to me, there are more that I don't personally use.
Mouse gestures, really? Lol
Ok "ad block" is straight trolling. Firefox is the browser that is actually conducive to blocking ads
Most of this list is puzzling
"dozens"?
How could that possibly be? It's a web browser. You know that right? It sounds like you're trying to turn it into some other type of application.
I use like 5 extensions for privacy reasons and 5 for preference reasons. This all makes my browsing experience VASTLY BETTER, not just tolerable or something. These are all adding features, some of which chrome specifically is idealistically against (the Internet without ads or as much tracking). If you took all these extensions away, Firefox would still be functionally just as good as chrome if not better.
So yeah it always blows my mind when people claim how lacking in features Firefox is. What are you even talking about?
Note that I explicitly said Chrome is worse. And "dozens" was likely an exaggeration. But yes, compared to Vivaldi, Firefox has very little customisation.
userChrome.css, userChrome.js
There is your customization. There are several skins and such this way.
Vivaldi is a very weird browser. Personally I think most people don't want the customizations it offers.