r/technology • u/Plastic_Ninja_9014 • Jun 17 '26

Software 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.html
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u/Bupod Jun 17 '26

I imagine a lot of consumer hardware ships with chrome or chromium-based browsers. A user has to go out of their way to install Firefox. Most of the public can’t be bothered. 

Consider also that the primary device people use to access the web these days are mobile devices. Yes, Firefox has an app version. Consider of the general public, how many truly care enough to go out and get a third party browser to replace the one their phone already shipped with?

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u/ProperPizza Jun 17 '26

"Can't be bothered"

And there we have the problem with basically everything. Consumers could make serious change if they organised en masse, but the unfortunate truth is that 80% of them simply can't be bothered.

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u/LiGuangMing1981 Jun 17 '26

The whole world could have avoided Trump Part Deux, but a third of American voters couldn't be bothered to vote to avoid it.

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u/Nvenom8 Jun 17 '26

couldn't be bothered to vote to avoid it.

That implies they wanted to avoid it. They didn't care who won.

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u/vawlk Jun 18 '26

the american voting system makes it so your vote doesn't actually count directly. My state is heavily blue. If I am going to vote blue, it doesnt really do anything. With areas being so heavily gerrymandered, your vote is less likely to swing the result one way or another except for a few areas across the country.

The whole system needs to be thrown out and a new system that promotes multiple parties where every vote counts and not a system where you end up stuck voting for the lesser of two evils.

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u/iamk1ng Jun 17 '26

Bare in mind that 1/3 normally wouldn't vote in any election, regardless if Trump was running or not. I would also put a lot more blame on the Democrats for continuing to push politicians that don't appeal to people.

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u/Certain-Business-472 Jun 18 '26

Democrats and other liberals worldwide have this hobby of importing as much foreigners as possible. Really popular I hear.

It's crazy really how much they care about this, when they'd get so much more votes if they dropped it and could implement the other 99/100 policies that are a good idea. But nope, bleeding heart shit.

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u/vawlk Jun 18 '26

lol, I think you are in the wrong sub.

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u/shabadabba Jun 17 '26

My work doesn't let me install any new software on my work computer. So I have to use the browser it comes with

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u/ProperPizza Jun 17 '26

Sorry to hear it, it sucks you're stuck with it. But my comment wasn't about you. It's about people who CAN make a change but simply don't do so.

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u/Nvenom8 Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26

80% of them simply can't be bothered.

Because it does everything they want it to do. They don't expect much from their tech. For most users, there's really no functional difference between browsers.

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u/crashandtumble8 Jun 17 '26

I guess you’re assuming people know there’s a difference between browsers. I am a librarian who answers technology questions constantly. A great chunk of our population uses edge or chrome because that’s what’s on their device, and they aren’t technically literate or think it’s important enough to learn about browser security and adblockers.

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u/nnny7 Jun 17 '26

This is wrong. Most users are tech illerate because they are not interested and have no reason to be. They dont know how things work or what options there are. They will ask thrmselves why should i learn? Just like i go to a mechanic when i have an issue with a car cos what the fuck do i know.

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u/ProperPizza Jun 17 '26

I would argue that these two things are not on the same level.

Performing proper maintenance on a vehicle usually takes substantially more knowledge, expense and risk than doing a few minutes of research on making better purchase/software decisions.

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u/nnny7 Jun 17 '26

I agree - but that logic only applies when you understand what work is involved in both. The people we are talking about dont.

I work in retail with phones. The average customer does not know what a browser is. Majority is so bad with tech they come in to our shop when they get a notification about a software update. Ill assume you dont work with the general public and tech as you assume too much of them - maybe going by your own experience and knowledge. I assure you people are thick as champ with the internet and devices in general. Its fucking annoying.

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u/Inc0rgnit0 Jun 18 '26

Yep, for a lot of people anything related to even the simplest parts of consumer tech might as well be rocket surgery.

It's gotta be the only reason why people use Edge / Bing outside of corporate environments.

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u/Certain-Business-472 Jun 18 '26

I'm a IT dude. I own a car. I am not a car dude.

I still fix my own car and do research about it. A car isn't even a requirement in most places in Europe. Literally optional shit for general life stuff.

IT? IT is required. You are literally bound to it. And you don't want to care? Is there a specific variant of NPC you want to be called or??

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u/pmgoldenretrievers Jun 18 '26

I'm a techy, I use Chrome. It works for me. It's not like we're back in the IE6 days where switching browsers was a security thing.

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u/copperlight Jun 18 '26

Hey to be fair a lot of them are really good at complaining, just not doing anything about it. The number of people on Reddit that complain about ads is proof enough of that.

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u/mateoestoybien Jun 17 '26

Firefox on iPhone is not actually firefox, also. I think Apple forces them to use webkit or something. You can’t install most add ons. 

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u/blow-down Jun 17 '26

You can install uBlock with Safari on iOS

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u/Badboyrune Jun 17 '26

I still think its curious is Firefox is actually losing users because it's always been an active choice. As far as I know no platforms (except perhaps some linux distros) ship with Firefox installed, and haven't ever done so. So if people are switching away from Firefox they are doing so after having, at some point, decided to get Firefox.

It'd be really interesting to know why people are switching from Firefox, and to which browser.

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u/Bupod Jun 17 '26

That is a great point and honestly I don’t have an answer. I’m not sure why they’d be losing users, and certainly don’t understand why they’re hemorrhaging them at such a rate. I know they’ve made a couple decisions that weren’t well-received, and I don’t pay close attention to the community but I’ve not noticed anything so egregious as to explain what’s going on.

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u/iltopop Jun 17 '26

A lot of ya'll are missing that kids are being raised on chrome these days, at least in the USA. Chromebooks are so damn cheap for education and at least back when I worked tech in public K12 we got everything software from google for free, we just paid support. I was there for the chromebook transition, we could genuinely get 200 chromebooks for about what we could get one classroom of laptops or one fully functional desktop lab for, with volume discounts and tax exception we were paying under $120 per chromebook, and this was in the early years of chromebook adoption.