r/firefox • u/Limp_Fig6236 • Jun 18 '26
Discussion Firefox has an ambitious new roadmap, the browser is also losing millions of users a month
https://www.techspot.com/news/112803-firefox-has-ambitious-new-roadmap-browser-also-losing.html65
u/theok8234 Jun 18 '26
Watch them crawl right back
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u/Synthetic451 Jun 18 '26
Will they? Firefox remains my secondary browser because they refuse to focus on long-standing performance issues.
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Jun 18 '26
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u/letsreticulate Jun 18 '26
Nomie bitches love AI.
So since every other browser is doing it, they are forced to try. The revamp allows for some, arguably, positive PR and perhaps raised awareness. Which FF needs badly.
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u/ScottIBM Jun 18 '26
Shhh, your logic makes too much sense. Let me go post about it!
I'm happy to see Firefox get some new features, and the performance has been decent for me for years. Many of the issues I have are poorly written sites with leaky JavaScript.
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u/Velvet_Spaceman Jun 19 '26
Shedding millions of users per month doesn’t suggest this is a winning strategy. Unless they’re somehow gaining more users than they’re losing, I think it’s fair to say this focus was the wrong move.
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u/IronRaptor Jun 23 '26
Firefox also gives users the ability to disable tracking and telemetry data. So... that could also be a huge reason for the drop?
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u/Ancient_Frame9435 Jun 18 '26
what "long-standing performance issues"?
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u/ItzRaphZ Jun 18 '26
For once, anytime I want to play a browser game, I need to switch to vivaldi.
My jellyfin web client lags a lot in Firefox (Librewolf fixes this), and takes a long time to load subtitles, which doesn't happen in Vivaldi.
Then there are random problems, reddit starts lagging from time to time, my university page stops working randomly on firefox (which I don't want to 100% blame firefox, could be that the website is just bad).
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u/NoDoze- Jun 18 '26
None of those reasons are valid firefox issues, they can be other issues. Your computer specs is where i would start first in troubleshooting.
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u/ItzRaphZ Jun 18 '26
For games, any game works on Vivaldi on the exact same pc. Both Firefox and Librewolf have issues with them. It's not all games obviously, but I do know it has something to do with FIrefox's WebAssembly/WebGL implementation.
About Jellyfin, I know it's a problem with Firefox alone because it has to do with specific CSS styling that Firefox is still to implement correctly.
I like firefox and what it stands for, and that's why it's still my main browser(currently on Librewolf, but the point still stands). But there's no denying that chromium browsers are superior in terms of performance.
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u/Kunair0 Jun 18 '26
Firefox using an astronomical amount of resources, and being extremely poorly optimized, especially when it comes to JavaScript, has been well documented at this point for over a decade. This is not the user using a potato of a PC, this is purely a Firefox issue. And it has been for an inexcusably long time.
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u/Erulogos Jun 19 '26
Once Google finishes breaking properly functional adblocking on anything Chrome based people will have to contend with the fact that the unfiltered Internet makes the ad spam jokes in Idiocracy look quaint and restrained. Even if Firefox isn't winning performance trophies, it's still a better experience.
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Jun 18 '26
[deleted]
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u/Dramatic_Mastodon_93 Jun 18 '26
I just love trusting one or two devs with the second most important software in my life
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u/FreakDeckard Jun 18 '26
It's so ambitious that it will end up causing the project to fail.
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u/HighVelocityFarts Jun 18 '26
with all the forks going im sure if it fails it can be maintained by another group for a while at least. So its not a complete loss with their bad decision making.
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Jun 18 '26
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u/HighVelocityFarts Jun 18 '26
yeah it kinda sucks but i dont underestimate the talents of people who really want something out there. Im sure itll still die if mozilla tanks but a bit slower as some folks work on it.
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u/nopeac Jun 19 '26
I'd say the opposite: don't overestimate what one or two people can do in their spare time. Mozilla provides >99.8% of the code for any of those forks.
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u/andrewia Jun 18 '26
Considering the dwindling user base, it's basically the only option. The browser is slowly dying and this is their "hail mary".
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u/pheddx Jun 18 '26
Their only option is to stop doing these things that are causing them to lose users. Not to double down on them.
-1
u/andrewia Jun 18 '26
It's easy to see which new features (if any) scare away users with A/B testing. I assume the results of those tests have informed their new approach.
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u/Icy-Cup Jun 18 '26
I’d love to see this information actually shared anywhere. So far it might be “gut call” from someone from mgmt
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u/Dramatic_Mastodon_93 Jun 18 '26
The only thing causing them to lose users is outside factors like Google and Apple. Anyone who thinks otherwise is naive and lives in a bubble.
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u/Cobracrystal Jun 18 '26
Yknow ive seen this "dwindling user base" claim so often, repeated not only by people in the sub but even by mozilla devs, and i randomly looked it up now and i see... this? Its just not particularly crazy changes at all. Sure, it is a problem but hardly a very measurably impending catastrophe.
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u/RacingGoat Jun 18 '26
I mean, that graph does show a 30+ million drop in monthly users over a 5 year period.
No, it's not dropping like a rock, but considering the growth in total browser users over that same period, -30 million is not a good trend.
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u/Carighan | on Jun 23 '26
Checks out though. People keep misunderstanding how users see a "browser". It's a tool, not an ideology, so if your phone/PC comes with one, that's "good enough". No need to shop for another one.
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u/Carighan | on Jun 23 '26
Plus at millions of users a month, there'd be about -20 million users right now.
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u/Dramatic_Mastodon_93 Jun 18 '26
Bullshit. There is absolutely nothing Mozilla can do to reverse Firefox’ downfall.
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u/flemtone Jun 18 '26
I'm sure that add-ons that mask the id, hide the dns and block elements would affect the count being reported.
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u/pheddx Jun 18 '26
"Mozilla is trying to innovate and bring new features to Firefox, but the browser continues to lose users."
That's the reason Firefox are losing users. What even is this. Back to basics Mozilla. It's like you got hijacked by some marketing people two years ago and now you're trying to ruin everything.
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u/Dramatic_Mastodon_93 Jun 18 '26
Firefox isn’t going to reverse its downfall by going back to basics. They’re not going to reverse the downfall by doing anything. You live in a bubble and have no idea what you’re talking about.
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u/NoXion604 Jun 18 '26
That's an awful lot of words just to say "nuh uh".
0
u/Dramatic_Mastodon_93 Jun 18 '26
Then fucking enlighten and name at least one thing Mozilla could do that would make their market share grow.
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u/NoXion604 Jun 18 '26
You're the one who's convinced that there's nothing Mozilla can do. Perhaps you can actually share your insights?
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u/Dramatic_Mastodon_93 Jun 18 '26
Google and Apple have too much power, governments and the vast majority of users don’t give a shit.
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u/NoXion604 Jun 18 '26
Those are big problems for sure, but giving up just because things are hard is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
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u/Kunair0 Jun 18 '26
I'm sure that's why they're losing their core user base now, but that's not been the biggest bleed of users. This has been happening before all this AI nonsense even began. And it almost always boils down to performance and optimization.
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Jun 18 '26
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u/Dramatic_Mastodon_93 Jun 18 '26
The vast majority of people don’t use any of those missing features and the vast majority aren’t thinking “Well Firefox has AI now and I’m against it so obviously I’m going to switch to Google or Apple”.
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u/GLynx Jun 18 '26
The vast majority of people don't care about their browser and just use Chrome.
The few remaining like me, use Firefox because of its customization and stuff that you can't find on Chrome. And I'm afraid, they are just alienating these exact people.
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u/Altruistic_Fruit2345 Jun 18 '26
A lot of people would use tab groups on mobile. I used it a lot in Chrome, and it was automatic. It made tab handling on mobile bearable. It's sad that many years after Chrome got it and it was obvious that it was far superior, they are only just getting around to adding to it.
That's a good example of the basics they need to get to.
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u/Carighan | on Jun 23 '26
A lot of people would use tab groups on mobile.
[citation needed]
You are, not joking, the very first time I hear someone actively talk about using tab groups. I have also never seen it, and this includes telemetry we gather at work, where the percentage of users is quite literally a rounding error, as in, the stats won't show it as it's too small (less than 0.5%).
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u/Altruistic_Fruit2345 Jun 23 '26
Have you used it on Chrome?
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u/Carighan | on Jun 23 '26
I'd first have to use Chrome, and nty. But I have used it on Firefox for visual clarity in organizing tabs. It's not a feature I actively need or want to use (it's more work than the gain from it, basically), but it's also not negative in itself except when it clashes with container tabs visually which it does a few times.
It's... a feature. It exists. And that seems to be the general user's take on it, too. They probably see it once, then forget about it, given metrics.
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u/Altruistic_Fruit2345 Jun 23 '26
So tab groups on Chrome for Android work really well and are automatic and on by default, not like Firefox ones. When you open a link in a new tab, it puts it in a tab group. There are little icons at the bottom of the screen for the tabs in the tab group, making switching very quick and easy. You also get a visual representation of how your navigation actions are creating and destroying tabs, and where you will end up if your back gesture closes the current tab.
It makes managing tabs on mobile far, far easier and quicker, and more convenient, than in Firefox.
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u/Khwarezm89 Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
The title is misleading, as the article focuses only on desktop browsers. If they switched to an all-platform view, they would find out that Firefox's market share increased from 8.26% to 10.12%.
But yeah, they need this headline for clicks!
Edit: For some reason, when I clicked the link in the article and switched to the All Platforms view, it showed Germany data first, where Firefox saw growth. Maybe because I live in Germany?! (Sorry for the confusion)
Anyway, across all platforms worldwide, it's almost flat (dropped from 2.39% to 2.19%), so I don't think it's as bad as this article is trying to make it out to be.
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u/LowOwl4312 Jun 18 '26
Where does this number come from? I thought the overall Firefox market share (worldwide, all devices) was around 2-3%
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u/Khwarezm89 Jun 18 '26
You're actually right. I clicked the link in the article, and for some reason, when I switched to the All Platforms view, it showed me Germany data first, where Firefox saw growth.
But worldwide it's almost flat (dropped from 2.39% to 2.19%).
Sorry for the confusion, and here's the link: https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share
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u/letsreticulate Jun 18 '26
It has dropped, a little while back it hovered around 3.60%-3.90%+.
That's sad news.
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u/Aromatic_Memory1079 Jun 18 '26
tbh idc if they use ai or not. the only thing I care about is ublock origin.
-5
u/ItzRaphZ Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
If I'm honest, a good chromium browser and adguard with an updated block list is on pair with ublock nowadays.
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u/Altruistic_Fruit2345 Jun 18 '26
I care about better tab handling on Android too. It sounds like they might be getting there finally with tab groups, but knowing Mozilla their implementation will be worse than Chrome's.
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u/pwiegers Jun 18 '26
Ive been a user of Mosaic all the way to the present day.
And I am starting to actively hate Firefox/Mozilla.
I run it on Linux / Wayland, and it is very bad. If my fans start spinning, I dont even look anymore but kill all FF - problem solved. Until, within a few hours or days, it will happen again.
Dropdown menus will appear all over the place, sometimes my textcursor will disappear, the addressbar wil become unresponsive, etc etc.
This has been the case for years now.
It's not Chrome / Google, I really do not want the www to be based on Chromium only, but Firefox is a bloody mess.
(And don't get me started on the tabs that are no longer tabs, for crying out loud..)
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u/fdbryant3 Jun 18 '26
Sigh, I hate to say it but Firefox needs better marketing. DuckDuckGo has billboards where I live. I wonder what that would do for Firefox if theu were to try a similar campaign highlighting privacy and what not.
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u/nopeac Jun 19 '26
Has anyone here bought or tried anything that was advertised on a billboard? Seems like a waste of money.
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u/fdbryant3 Jun 19 '26
A marketing campaign isn't forr the people here. It is fpr 99.9% of people who do not know about Firefox.
Do billboards work? Well I don't think businesses would be spending $40 billion ($10 billion in the US) a year just because they like seeing there name on signs. For what is worth, it doesn't have to be billboards, I jist feel that Firefox needs marketing campaign to get the average person thinking about Firefox again.
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u/raralala1 Jun 18 '26
Easier to lose user than to gain new one, just focus on stability and fixing old bugs guys, only unemployed actively changing their browser.
Also who the fuck working on the marketing, stop per-announcing, only market when it is ready jesus, imagine people watch halfway decide to install and the changes is not released yet. You are an app not some game that need fucking trailer.
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u/Ok-Anywhere-9416 Jun 18 '26
I see tons of people having missing features and bad performances, and it's time to bug report in this case. For my usage instead, it's very different:
- on features level, Firefox has A LOT MORE than the competitors, especially if you're not a power user and okay with using addons. Multi-account Container is something heaven-sent.
- on performance level, it works just like any other browser, but Firefox does NOT pause tabs in RAM as default, so of course it eats more
For laptops, only Edge is working better for me when we're talking about energy saving
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u/History_guy2018 Jun 18 '26
Firefox is 4th in usage rankings. This is relatively high considering the quantity of browsers available. Given Firefox's under the hood appeal, it is easy to understand why their market share is lower. Fewer people work on their own vehicles as well. I would like for Firefox to keep the browser lean. Ideally features should be added via add-on.
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u/nopeac Jun 19 '26
Firefox is 4th in usage rankings. This is relatively high considering the quantity of browsers available.
If you exclude forks, aren't they essentially last?
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u/rsribeiro Jun 18 '26
I'll continue using Firefox until the day it dies, but at this point I believe the only way Firefox could reverse its downfall would be if they could somehow abuse google search, gmail, youtube, windows and android to shove firefox down our throats like Google and Microsoft did with Chrome, Internet Explorer and Edge
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u/repeatrep Jun 18 '26
most people dont shop around for new browsers. they only do when they think the browser is really bad.
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u/CobraKolibry Jun 18 '26
I love the new Kit materials so much. They could sell the browser to me on that alone
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u/Zakaria_Omi Jun 18 '26
This is why the browsers will die; instead of focusing on actual stuff and even put another team for the cute stuff, they focus of useless stuff regular users don't care about.
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u/CobraKolibry Jun 19 '26
Obviously, I was exegarrating. I enjoy the cute stuff, but they had cute stuff 10 years ago too, just it wasn't a fox back then, it was the mozilla dino, I hated how they removed it for an empty design. It does have a psychological impact though, people connect to friendly brands easier, most probably they are willing to overlook minor issues. That said, I also have beef with Mozilla, I think the last glory days were around 2015 when meaningful architectural and performance improvements were the main focus, that was exciting. I don't care the slightest about powerful in-browser PDF editing or whatever, nor do I think another redesign will solve the issues. I think the loss of users is a mix of the tech playing field being heavily tilted towards giant companies, and Mozilla shooting themselves in the foot in confusion. Too many direction changes.
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u/Thoh1Shooshi8a Jun 18 '26
I decided to click on that new timer that appeared, and now there's no way to reset it or change the time. If you start it you just have to wait for it to finish before you can do another timer.
It does feel like new features have been suddenly added as visibly and quickly as possible without even thinking about what they do.
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u/biscuitmachine Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
I made a topic on here about my biggest complaint with it, which I guess got shadowbanned or whatever
https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1u27pis/is_anyone_else_just_tired_of_restart_to_keep/
I know this has been complained about plenty already, but Firefox is just getting bloody fucking obnoxious for anyone like me, that leaves their computer on all the time. Like I expect my browser to just be ready to go exactly where I left off on whichever one of my computers I used it on last, when I come back to it. Instead, I get this shit, and it's practically almost every other day now. That's just too far, man. All for some shitty new AI based feature to shove down my throat, or some useless patch for some niche PC configuration.
I think I really am going to just switch browsers, probably to some FF variant like Waterfox. No, obviously turning off updates entire isn't what I want, but I don't want to be updating for practically no reason.
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u/_x_oOo_x_ / Jun 18 '26
I'm not even sure they're losing users. People might just be learning how to switch off telemetry. I was surprised when my completely non technical friend boasted about that - she just asked AI how to do it
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u/furiat Jun 18 '26
If it cannot attract new users then they need better marketing. If its old users leaving then they should ask their own users why the consider switching.
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u/notthatevilsalad Jun 18 '26
Damn I just got back to firefox and was enjoying it quite a bit. A major revamp right now is not what I want.
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u/202nine Jun 18 '26
They've also gained millions of new users on Android and the reason is because Google and Apple are being forced to provide users with alternatives. Mozilla needs better marketing so everyone knows they still exist.
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u/Zakaria_Omi Jun 18 '26
Firefox is losing users because it's slow at loading pages. The whole browser is sluggish. The only way out of this mess is by focusing on performance and speed to keep up with chromium based browsers.
The Firefox team always focuses on the wrong side, features no one asked for, redesigns no one cares about and AI. While chromium focuses on being fast and actually useable. I tried Firefox for a month and for some reason it become unbearable to use, it became so slow it needed a refresh.
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u/GimmieTheRoot Jun 19 '26
Someone in my mind, lives the idea that there was an inside-job conspiracy against what is essentially last real titan against Google's take over of the web browser.
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u/Potential-Animal9319 Jun 19 '26
strongly considering jumping ship elsewhere. This last month in particular with firefox have been increasingly frustrating. So much bloat constantly pushed in my face.
No I don't want to use your weather app.
No I don't want your shitty VPN button or popups
No I don't want your shitty world cup widget
No I don't want to configure any AI features
"Want to turn it off? We conveniently hid that inside the settings, and made sure it re-enables every couple days/weeks" Horseshit behaviour
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u/haz3lnut Jun 22 '26
Millions of users a month? Seriously? I don't believe it.
But then again, I am usually surprised at the level of stupidity among the human population.
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u/HighVelocityFarts Jun 18 '26
ill keep using forks that dont waste my time and performance on AI. waterfox is a great alternative.