Ironically Firefox is currently at its best and most competitive since its inception. But people lost trust in Mozilla, not Firefox and there is no easy way to earn it back.
I am looking forward to Ladybird, I guess for old folks like us it is the second time we are trying to dethrone the incumbent. But this time around it will be so much harder because Google isn't sitting still like Microsoft did with IE.
Fast Rendering and minimal resources usage post e10s, Quantum and Servo components like WebRender. While a lot of these landed a long time ago they then took years to further optimise and iron out edge cases. Chrome used to be the fastest while Firefox used to be slower but memory efficient, both are no longer true as both Chrome and Firefox has improved in those respective areas. Compatibilities are perhaps at all time low? Even during Firefox winning IE era it wasn't anywhere as good as today in terms of compatibility.
Even though the title suggests this piece is about Firefox, most of it is bashing at Google. The author’s main reason for leaving Firefox seems to be that… others have left Firefox?! That, and the quintessential mention of “AI is now in Firefox” that all these articles seem to repeat.
You should ponder on this a few minutes more. You've got all the pieces of the puzzle, you can put them together.
Have you considered that maybe, possibly, people don't want AI in their browser? Or that people consider having AI shoved at them an untrustworthy action? That maybe of Mozilla wants to spend all the time and money to shove AI, they're probably a) doing it for gross and untrustworthy reasons like spying on us or b) by spending all this money on AI, Mozilla is (still) not focusing resources on anything productive or valuable that any user wants.
" but such is the direction being taken by Mozilla that I am not anxious to sit idly by and constantly keep an eye out for new hidden privacy and AI features to turn off with obscure checkboxes. "
But here I can attest at least, that nowdays firefox after a fresh install shows a banner saying they collect data by default. And when you click that, you get directly to the options to turn it off. It is just, that I also don't trust that with those toggles now everything is switched off, or if there is a hidden other toggle or there will be one shipped with the next update.
This was a rant at best for the sake of ranting, if not for some more insidious ends. What's the point made here? Abandon Firefox because it's market share is 2%?
"I can finally say I'm Firefox-free."? Like if Firefox is the plague or something.
"Just What Went Wrong?": You went wrong, dear TFA author. Choosing hype over substance? Too desparate to meet your hackaday post quota? Who knows.
Let me anecdotally recap the state of Firefox as of 2025:
- Handles 100s of open tabs with no sweat.
- Allows ad blockers.
- Firefox tab sync. Send a tab from my phone to my desktop. See my laptop's open tabs from my desktop.
- PiP videos. Keep a video playing without obstructing you from other tasks.
- Tab containers cleanly separating work and private sessions.
- Free.
Yes, there are things to be desired from the Mozilla Foundation management end. Yes, at some point (optional) integrations were shoehorned into the browser. Yes, newer browsers may offer a friendlier out-of-the-box experience for the average user (e.g. Brave has ad blocking built-in). But all-in-all, Firefox is a fantastic browser and a real workhorse. For free.
And to be fair, the dip in Firefox popularity around 2010-2015 was deserved. The experience kind of sucked at the time, compared to the rising Chrome. Also the decision to drop XUL was in retrospect the technically correct choice. It was the main reason that Firefox managed to catch up in terms of speed and security with Chrome. Unfortunately, the change was not reflected back to the browser's market share.
Can't say I care to hear what the author has to say with a gimmicky cliff hanger like that. Garbage like that is the reason I don't engage with mainstream media. Just a waste of time.
Yes, I agree with that. I mean, ohh, how dramatic. So what will it be?
A forked FF?
A forked (proprietary) chrome, like vivaldi?
The best idealistic option, Ladybird and not be able to use most of the internet (yet)?
Well, I likely also won't find out. But I doubt it will be mindblowing, as the real choices (if you care for open source, but also to get stuff done) are limited.
I say this as someone who used Firefox for 20 years and wants to see Firefox succeed. Mozilla is currently staffed by a bunch of activists[0] (the woke lefty kind[1]) who would rather do anything else than build a web browser. The end result is that Firefox has felt like someone's side project to build a Chrome also-ran for a long time. All I ever wanted from Mozilla was a browser, and I can't be the only one.
I'll try any alternative uBO functions properly in. And it needs to be uBO. I do NOT want my blocking made by the same people that make the browser, it's a major conflict of interest, and should be keep separate no matter how convenient it is to merge them.
A little Firefox Extension that provides a one-click toggle to spoof as Chrome in Firefox - or, in other words, to put on the Chrome Mask.
There are a lot of generic "User Agent spoof" extensions. However, this extension does a few things differently:
- Instead of overriding the User Agent string on all sites, this extension allows you to only look like Chrome on specific sites.
- Unlike some extensions with outdated version numbers and UA strings, this extension automatically updates the Chrome version it pretends to be. It does that by querying a simple API every 24 hours.
- You don't have to pick the correct Operating System manually; this extension does it for you.
- This extension also shims a few additional JavaScript attributes, like navigator.vendor or the global chrome object, to pass common browser checks.
I am looking forward to Ladybird, I guess for old folks like us it is the second time we are trying to dethrone the incumbent. But this time around it will be so much harder because Google isn't sitting still like Microsoft did with IE.
how so?
Have you considered that maybe, possibly, people don't want AI in their browser? Or that people consider having AI shoved at them an untrustworthy action? That maybe of Mozilla wants to spend all the time and money to shove AI, they're probably a) doing it for gross and untrustworthy reasons like spying on us or b) by spending all this money on AI, Mozilla is (still) not focusing resources on anything productive or valuable that any user wants.
" but such is the direction being taken by Mozilla that I am not anxious to sit idly by and constantly keep an eye out for new hidden privacy and AI features to turn off with obscure checkboxes. "
But here I can attest at least, that nowdays firefox after a fresh install shows a banner saying they collect data by default. And when you click that, you get directly to the options to turn it off. It is just, that I also don't trust that with those toggles now everything is switched off, or if there is a hidden other toggle or there will be one shipped with the next update.
"I can finally say I'm Firefox-free."? Like if Firefox is the plague or something.
"Just What Went Wrong?": You went wrong, dear TFA author. Choosing hype over substance? Too desparate to meet your hackaday post quota? Who knows.
Let me anecdotally recap the state of Firefox as of 2025:
- Handles 100s of open tabs with no sweat.
- Allows ad blockers.
- Firefox tab sync. Send a tab from my phone to my desktop. See my laptop's open tabs from my desktop.
- PiP videos. Keep a video playing without obstructing you from other tasks.
- Tab containers cleanly separating work and private sessions.
- Free.
Yes, there are things to be desired from the Mozilla Foundation management end. Yes, at some point (optional) integrations were shoehorned into the browser. Yes, newer browsers may offer a friendlier out-of-the-box experience for the average user (e.g. Brave has ad blocking built-in). But all-in-all, Firefox is a fantastic browser and a real workhorse. For free.
And to be fair, the dip in Firefox popularity around 2010-2015 was deserved. The experience kind of sucked at the time, compared to the rising Chrome. Also the decision to drop XUL was in retrospect the technically correct choice. It was the main reason that Firefox managed to catch up in terms of speed and security with Chrome. Unfortunately, the change was not reflected back to the browser's market share.
/EOR
A forked FF?
A forked (proprietary) chrome, like vivaldi?
The best idealistic option, Ladybird and not be able to use most of the internet (yet)?
Well, I likely also won't find out. But I doubt it will be mindblowing, as the real choices (if you care for open source, but also to get stuff done) are limited.
[0] https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-brand-next-era-o...
[1] https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/blog/mozfest-house-zamb...
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/chrome-mask/
From their about:
A little Firefox Extension that provides a one-click toggle to spoof as Chrome in Firefox - or, in other words, to put on the Chrome Mask.
There are a lot of generic "User Agent spoof" extensions. However, this extension does a few things differently:
- Instead of overriding the User Agent string on all sites, this extension allows you to only look like Chrome on specific sites.
- Unlike some extensions with outdated version numbers and UA strings, this extension automatically updates the Chrome version it pretends to be. It does that by querying a simple API every 24 hours.
- You don't have to pick the correct Operating System manually; this extension does it for you.
- This extension also shims a few additional JavaScript attributes, like navigator.vendor or the global chrome object, to pass common browser checks.
Still pretty important.