Firefox is responsible for such a low percentage it's sad (the stats I have for the sites I work on it's usually on the 1-2% range). I think it's mainly because of the horrible leadership at Mozilla. I want to use Firefox and promote it but every time I think they've changed Mozilla does something new that boils my blood. You can donate to Mozilla, but not directly to Firefox and they seem to spend a lot of money on political projects. It's a 'get woke, go broke' situation and I have watched the fall of Mozilla in real time over the past years.
I really wish Mozilla changed focus, I would gladly pay for Firefox+ or something if I knew that the money went to Firefox development and not to some racist white male hate project.
So I'll continue using Brave and hope for the best, the future the author is talking about is basically already here.
This is repeated ad nauseum on this site and needs to be called out. The Mozilla management may be rather self serving but Firefox is a fine browser and more than viable alternative to Chrome. The reason they're losing market share is because Chrome is bundled everywhere as default, not just Android, but often as part of desktop Windows too, by OEM. And now Edge, which is Chromium under the skin, is the default on MS Windows. So Firefox is used only by those who specifically seek it out, which means just a small portion of the tech community.
Surely, most of the time Firefox will work just fine or at least good enough and by that standard I am sure that a site that has put some focus for it being easier to read with a screen reader is more important?
Firefox had the IT-sector with them. I think this does a lot for spreading the usage. Even just one IT-guy can probably give Firefox hundreds of users. Now, this is no longer the case and increasingly they have not only just been just as good or worse than chromium but they have gone out and actively angered a lot of their core user base with political things.
It is a fine browser, I haven't said anything else. It is the leadership that is bad. I would definitely be one of their strongest promoters if Brendan Eich were CEO.
But no, they kicked him out for a bs reason and employed a PC-dictator that fires most of the company and gives herself a promotion even though the usage is falling drastically.
Then they post shit like this:
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplat...
https://book.mozillafestival.org/10-years-of-activism-commun...
and fund people like:
https://www.mozillapulse.org/profile/3116
If you consistently support specific political views it's not strange that the people who do not support these views will stop seeking them out and start recommending other browsers, how good Firefox may be doesn't really matter. They have turned Mozilla from a tech company to an activist company and now they will have to reap what they have sowed.
What happened is much simpler: Chrome worked better than Firefox, most of the tech people switched to recommending Chrome, and it was bundled with a lot of software and advertised on the Google homepage. And nobody ever switched back, and they started justifying why in various ways.
What will the tech community do if Google starts promoting a certain political direction, if they haven't already? Will they stop seeking employment at Google, or stop using/developing for Chromium in protest?
Sometimes the larger goals should outweigh the immediate disappointments.
Edit: Also, I don't think it's particularly reasonable to single out an individual being funded by Mozilla without a very good explanation as to why. Is there something that Leil Zahra has done which makes you think they are inappropriate to be associated with Mozilla? Or are you just upset by their identity as a queer person?
If there will be a Blink only future I hope that regulators will force Google to invite others to decide what to do with it.
> Sometimes the larger goals should outweigh the immediate disappointments.
I agree and that's what make me feel bad, like there is no good choice available to me. I don't know what to do. It's just like the phone OS market, I dislike both realistic options (ios, android) but since my state and banks require me to use one of these I have to make a choice even if I rather use a linux based phone.
Don't take it like I'm trying to be snarky, it was just funny to be in two minorities with contradicting significance for the developer.
No I just don't think Mozilla should fund political projects at all. I know that if I donate to Mozilla, my money will go to activists and not to the continued development of Firefox.
The reason why I singled out one individual was because it shows that they support specific political agendas (and was the one I found after a quick search to give a sourced example). There is a pattern in the type of activists they support. I welcome you to find someone who would represent the opposite political side, you probably won't because they wouldn't.
> Or are you just upset by their identity as a queer person?
I don't care, people can have whatever views or identities they want.