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
I've used Firefox for years and I love it on Android, but on my work laptop (MacBook) I really enjoy using Arc. The vertical tabs let me organise things better, the spaces let me isolate tabs properly in a visually pleasing way, and I don't really care for extensions on desktop as I don't really browse much outside of work. I also prefer chromium dev tools, though it isn't that bad to switch to Firefox's dev tools.
If Firefox adopts few features from Arc, both in form and function, I wouldn't mind coming back. I know sidebar exists which lets you have vertical tabs via extensions, but damn Arc does it the best so far, natively!
Edit: oh, another reason was lack of background blur effects for Google meet. It's coming soon I think (I filed it on bugzilla), but damn it was needed like 3 years ago.
Let me introduce you to the fabulous world of TreeStyleTabs.
I did check it and it is pretty cool. Though you've to use user css to hide actual tabs and even then it isn't as polished experience as Arc. I guess it is one of the features that needs to be part of browser chrome to be really good.
Same here, I used Firefox for a long time but Arc just captured me with its beauty and polish. Sideberry for Firefox kinda replicates the vertical tab experience, but man it's so much better when the solution is native to the app.