FireFox is turning belly up

[jlittle]

I'm very attached to Firefox. The last time I tried in Chrome I couldn't stop "background: #ffffff" which I loathe passionately as it hurts my eyes. Firefox doesn't like you messing with the UI but it can be done (I have tabs in the right place, and GUI elements minimized).

They're also working on stopping browser fingerprinting, and I can't see Google doing that.

[GreyGeek]

Doing some quick & dirty math:

IF FireFox's decline is exponential then they might be able to stretch their remaining market share out to 4 years, circa summer of 2024. I doubt it. They'll probably close shop when it drops to 1%.

A linear decline averaging 3.3% per year gives them only one more year.

Who will fork FireFox or will PaleMoon or WaterFox replace it?

[TWPonKubuntu]

...

Who will fork FireFox or will PaleMoon or WaterFox replace it?

Tough call. If Mozilla goes belly up,, there may be too much ill will and bad PR to lead people to Palemoon or Waterfox. Google might throw money at it, just to keep/acquire the user base. Depends on what the economy looks like in 1-2 years...

[Goeroeboeroe]

Waterfox is based on Firefox (Gecko etc.). So if Firefox stops, I don't see how Waterfox can stay alive.

Palemoon is a bit different story, because they have their own rendering engine etc. But the last few years css/html are so fast changing, it's very difficult to keep up. One of the reasons Microsoft changed to Chromium was the effort it took to keep up with css/html. Opera had their own rendering engine etc., they couldn't keep op and changed to Chromium. As far as I know Palemoon has a very small core team. So I don't see how they would be able to keep up with new things. Meaning that more and more sites etc. don'n work well in Palemoon.
People who think open source is important, or who really want to use the old extension system, or ..., maybe will still use it, but uncle Sam and aunt Betty will - I'm afraid - only see: I can't see the newest movie with nephew's cat.

One of the teams affected by the lay-off is working on developer tools. Developer tools are already not Firefox strongest point, compared to Chromium (and with it Chrome, Edge, Opera, etc). If they make it harder to see why something is not working in Firefox, less developers will test in Firefox. It's already happening some sites only work in Chromium c.s., just like that used to be with Internet Explorer 6. Not on a big scale, but once that really starts, it will be very difficult to stop.
I've seen it with tutorials, explainers, technical articles, etc. the last years. A few years ago almost every tutorial was written for Firefox and Chrome (and often also Internet Explorer and Safari). Today almost every tutorial uses Chrome, and you have to translate it yourself to Firefox.

Mozilla wants to earn more money with other products. But then it's not Mozilla anymore. And why should I take a VPN with Mozilla, if there are dozens of companies offering VPN?

So I'm really pessimistic. Maybe if somebody put a lot of money in Palemoon, or started a whole new fork.

[dequire]

Actually, maybe in the big picture having Mozilla go belly-up wouldn't be the end of the world. Certainly another organization would rise up from the ashes and hopefully just concentrate on making it the best browser in the world. It's the faith you have to have in open source at the end of the day. Where such an organization rise up at this time, I would certainly donate to help get it moving.

Taking an objective look and stepping back to examine the Mozilla foundation over the last several years, missteps abound everywhere. The short version of it appears to be too many projects going on at once and therefore losing sight of its core product(s).

[Goeroeboeroe]

I hope so. After all LibreOffice also exists, and that's a very big project too.
I don't donate to Mozilla, because you can only donate to Mozilla and not to Firefox. And I don't want to donate to all side projects they made and quit again. But I also would certainly donate to an open source that respects privacy and had good developer tools and/or extensions.

[dequire]

In the meantime I would like to support them by using some of their newer products. I use private Internet Access (PIA) for VPN, but was going to let that expire to move over to the new Firefox VPN. At least, that was the plan. However I see now that they do not support Linux of all things. I mean, seriously? Your biggest supporters you're leaving in the dust and leaving revenue on the table? This is what I mean...

[chimak111]

I too will continue using Firefox as long as possible. However, taking into account the content of what's currently on the pages of https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/ and https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/, I won't feel sad if it vanishes.

[GreyGeek]

Soomeone in this thread mentioned WaterFox and posted a link. I downloaded and installed it. Easy peezee, just drag the waterfox folder from the gz into /home/acctname. I am using it as I type. It took all my FireFox settings, links, passwords, etc. So far, I am very pleased with it. IF it continues performing the way it has been so far today I will probably make it my main browser. One barrier will be if I can't find an email extension that allows me to send the link of a webpage via email.

Installed an email icon and it works beautifully with Thunderbird!

WaterFox is a go for me!

EDIT: After spending a day browsing the web, emailing links, playing videos on various sites, etc., WaterFox has been 100% GOLDEN! Not a single hang, lag or malfunction of any kind.
It is now my default browser.
Thanks to whomever recommended it!

[verndog]

Waterfox web browser sold to System1

Here's some info on the subject. Before it was a one man show (Alexandros Kontos), now maybe more developers:
https://www.ghacks.net/2020/02/14/wa...ld-to-system1/

Alexandros Kontos blog on the subject:
https://www.waterfox.net/blog/waterf...oined-system1/

[GreyGeek]

Interesting links, Verndog!
I was worried about the longevity of WaterFox because it was a one man show ... until I read the posts you linked to.

WF was purchased by System 1, the company that bought Startpage, my fallback (from DDG) search engine.

That gives me reason to believe WF will be around a long time and on the front edge of browser development. I've already replaced FF with WF and find that WF is working seamlessly with all the plugins and extensions I normally use. AND, it is very fast. I'm happy with the results.

[MoonRise]

Be aware about PaleMoon. Though I like it they made a special point early on that they will not support HTML5 completely. They do not believe in the DRM controls on video streaming for one. That being said, not sure if they have changed that stance or not. It has been a long while since I last used it.

[woodsmoke]

Just my two cents

My browser of choice is Pale Moon, a FF fork that is actively maintained.

FYI

I did not know about "Pale Moon" thanks!
woodsmoke

[chimak111]

I'm trying out Brave browser. Quite enjoyable.

[woodsmoke]

Hi
I tried pale moon, it installd with a lot of caveats about various firefox extensions not working but it did have a, seemingly, dedicated youtub downloader which i installed and it did not work.
woodsmoke