I'm not saying whether they should/shouldn't get pushback about these things - just that 95% of this pushback in places like this comes from <1% of their userbase and isn't as relevant to Mozilla as those making the feedback would like to believe. Meanwhile, the main portion of the userbase is leaving for completely different reasons and doesn't even know what this kind of stuff like MV3 is, let alone care about it.

Firefox definitely has a general audience much larger than any measure of power users. More than half of the users don't have a single extension installed, and that counts language pack extensions. Half have <= 4 cores, <= 16 GB of RAM, or a 1080p screen. The most common OS is Windows 11 at 44% - with Windows 10 at 34.5% and Windows 7 still above Linux. Over 1/3 of their ~200 million userbase is in the US, and even if every tech-literate power user or privacy fiend in the US used Firefox (they don't) it still wouldn't amount to that many people.

The average Firefox user is nothing like you or I, nor will they find their community in catering to privacy. The community over IE was that IE wa plain awful to use and Firefox just did everything better. It didn't matter if you cared about privacy, performance, standards, community, customizability, compatibility, or whatever - it just mopped the floor with the popular option. That's not going to be the situation with Chrom*, it's actually active and well funded, nor is focusing on a single minority which demands to exclude things other groups care about (even if you and I would prefer not to have them) going to bring them back to the forefront.

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unsungNovelty 6 days ago | parent [-]

Most people who has Firefox installed is either installing because that's what they have always used or is using because someone recommended it. They have to be explicitly installed. Keep that in mind. Don't you remember firefox installation fest and stuff? That 1% pushes Firefox to non-users at home, in their companies and where not. That 1% is responsible for a lot of the rest of the 99%.

The folks Mozilla is trying to attract don't care for all of these. Their biggest selling point is privacy and being community friendly. If it's getting deteriorated, why should the general folks who don't know what Manifest V3 is install it?

Especially when tech enthusiasts are talking bad about it. What impression does it make to a non-tech guy who woke up one day drinking filter coffee and thought... Huh! From today onwards, I want privacy!!??

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zamadatix 5 days ago | parent [-]

I agree most either have used it for a long time or because someone recommended it. It's nearly tautological. I disagree the recommendations for the average user only/primarily come from <1% of the user base or that's what makes the installs stick when they do. Power users desperately want to feel key to the success, but the reality is people stick with a browser based on what it does for them not how much it does for their power user friend who recommended it 20 years ago. The same is true in reverse: power users can comment here all they want about privacy nits or what Mozilla should do blah blah but it doesn't matter to the average user because they aren't reading tech forums for opinions on browsers. Most Firefox users probably couldn't tell you what Mozilla even is in relation to Firefox.

The 200 million normal users can also recommend trying to use Firefox all the time to their friends again, they just don't have a reason to do so because often, for their cares, Chrome and others are the ones with better target to them. Pre-installs is definitely a problem, as it always has been, but it never stopped Firefox before.

If the non-tech person wakes up one day and decides privacy is a key concern for the browser then they join the few that learn about each in this detail and pick from there and the niche has a new member. When things like 1,000,000,000 people wake up and decided mobile performance and battery life were important for years it resulted in Firefox having next to no presence on mobile more than any other reason.

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unsungNovelty 5 days ago | parent [-]

You do realise their userbase has been consistently dwindling right? For the last decade almost.

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zamadatix 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Naturally - losing a few hundred million users is likely why they are trying to find a different strategy than focusing on privacy or what power users comment on in the following decade and expecting better results for some reason.

Mozilla's funding comes almost entirely from the Google search deal. They can't afford to let the user count continue to dwindle on a principled stance alone. They either need to find workable alternative income of the same scale (which they've tried at least a dozen things that didn't pan out) or try to focus on what the average user wants in a browser rather than what the GNU fan power user comments in tech forums. They don't need a few principled people to stick with it, they need to be popular with the average person again.

	▲	unsungNovelty 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		I am saying power users bring general audience. Thats alwas the case. Whether it is tesla/saas/browser or ur new notebook app... the power users pay/invest time initially. They talk, the promote they bring the initial general audience and from there, it becomes commonly used. Firefox is losing their power users and are not getting general audience. Unless you can show increase in userbase with any of the BS Mozilla has done recently against their community, I'm not sure how I can agree with you. They started this around 2015. One freaking decade with zero results. Apart from increase in Mitchell Baker's salary YoY, I dont see anything else increasing. In fact they sold Rust and MDN to their competition. Most importantly, community unrest has only increased. Not decreased. And the userbase dwindling aligns with the same. So tell me, make me, a "GNU fanboi" understand how I am being unreasonable.

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5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

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