Firefox web browser popularity wanes

[Brink]

When you take a look at Net Applications' web desktop browser market share reports over the long run two things stand out. One, there's the rise of Google's Chrome to second place, and two, Mozilla's Firefox's steep decline.

How bad is Firefox's fall? In June 2014, Firefox hit a new five-year low of 15.6 percent market share.

Back in October 2009, Firefox was on the rise and had reached 23.75 percent. Life was good. Since July 2012, the browser started trending downward. Indeed, since May 2013, with Firefox at 20.6%, the once popular browser hasn't risen above 20%.

Read more at: Firefox web browser popularity wanes | ZDNet

 

[King Arthur]

Between Australis, complete disregard for user customizability and demands, bloat, and general crappiness of Mozilla in general I am not the least bit surprised Firefox is quickly dying a well-deserved death. Especially with Australis, if I wanted to use a Chromium-like browser I'd just use Chromium instead.

The only reason I'm still "on" Firefox (scare quotes since I'm running Pale Moon, an unofficial Firefox deriative/fork) is because of NoScript, Tab Mix Plus, and Firefox's efficiency with regards to RAM use per open tab.

Ars Technica also gave a passing mention about this over here as well:
Windows 8.x, Internet Explorer both flatline in June | Ars Technica

 

[lehnerus2000]

Mozilla's Own Fault

They just don't get it.
The more useless fluff they add and the more pointless GUI changes they make, the faster they fall.

I swapped to Pale Moon (FF fork) in August last year, as a protest against useless fluff.
I'm not likely to go back to FF, due to their new horrible, Chrome-style, "touch-friendly" GUI (FF29+).

I use FF in Linux Mint 17, but I have locked the updater so that it can't replace FF28.
FF seems to run better and use less memory in Linux Distros, than it does in Windows.

The only reason I'm still "on" Firefox (scare quotes since I'm running Pale Moon, an unofficial Firefox deriative/fork) is because of NoScript, Tab Mix Plus, and Firefox's efficiency with regards to RAM use per open tab.

Two of my favourite add-ons too.

I also can't live without my Context Search add-on.

 

[kf10]

according to following link chrome is no.1 browser with 59.2% in may 2014

Browser Statistics

 

[HerrKaLeun]

according to following link chrome is no.1 browser with 59.2% in may 2014

Browser Statistics

That is just for that one website, it is a log-file. Try this

 

[z3r010]

That is just for that one website, it is a log-file. Try this

Those figures are wildly off the mark, IE @ 58% I just don't think so.

Our network stats for the last 30 days:-

Chrome 49.50%
Firefox 21.96%
Internet Explorer 18.19%
Safari 4.98%
Android Browser 1.72%
Opera 1.51%
Opera Mini 0.99%
UC Browser 0.42%
Maxthon 0.15%
BlackBerry 0.12%

 

[Boozad]

I've used Firefox for years and will stick with it for years.

 

[strollin]

I don't see myself switching away from FireFox anytime soon. It's still better than the competition, IMO.

 

[Gary]

If you use an extension called classic theme restorer it can do away with Australis. I am currently using Fx31Beta8 and so far it works fine. Fx 30 crashed allot for me.

 

[andrew129260]

It is always amazing to me how so many people run with outdated web browsers. Even people that should know better.

 

[margrave]

Any browser can be shown to have any percentage of market share ... depending on the study methods used. And the percentage variation is HUGE! Ignore them.

 

[TVeblen]

Meh.
More Ford vs Chevy, Toyota vs Honda drivel.

Really haven't noticed any real changes more than a few annoyances. Still loads web pages. Still saves bookmarks.

Actually I think it would be nice if Mozilla went back to being number "who cares" once again. As an open source startup they were interested in innovating. Maybe after dreams of conquering the world have faded they will go back to being the alternative to their commercialized, privacy invading competitors once again.

 

[King Arthur]

Maybe after dreams of conquering the world have faded they will go back to being the alternative to their commercialized, privacy invading competitors once again.

So long as Mozilla continues to be the lapdog of Google, by way of the latter funding the former, that's not going to change.

 

[Layback Bear]

I still use Firefox 28. I tried using 29 and to be polite I will call it nothing but crap.

I will wait until they get back on the proper road again before I update.

 

[RoasterMen]

I still like FireFox. There is something missing with Google Chrome that I can't find, plus my download speed in Google Chrome seems to be slower

 

[Gary]

It is always amazing to me how so many people run with outdated web browsers. Even people that should know better.

Well I am using the latest Beta which was released today, FX31 Beta 8. Mozilla is never going to do away with Australis. I believe that Google is the number one donor to the Mozilla Foundation so Mozilla does what Google tells them to do. As I posted earlier you can get rid of most of Australis with Classic Theme Restorer and a Theme called FTDeepDark Beta 29. With a little .css you can get rid of all of it.

I used to use the Nightly Builds but it got to be a chore.

 

[Britton30]

Any browser can any percentage of market ... depending on the study methods used. And the percentage variation is HUGE! Ignore them.

True it depends on how the browser data is read. At times a browser uses a method to help throw off attacks which by some statistics appears as another use of the same browser, while it's still one session. I have found various charts giving IE anywhere from 2.7% share to almost 50% global share.

 

[lffoar]

Like others here, after using FF for years, I found it deteriorating from version 28 onwards. I swapped for a while but went back for version 30.0 and have found it to be a lot better than 25 - 29. Just don't update to the Betas. To each their own but I hate IE, it gives me hives just thinking about it, uggghhhhh!!

 

[lehnerus2000]

Try A FF Fork

I still use Firefox 28. I tried using 29 and to be polite I will call it nothing but crap.

I will wait until they get back on the proper road again before I update.

You could try one of the FF forks, like Pale Moon.

Pale Moon has a 64 bit version (which is the one I use).
All of my FF Add-ons still work,even the one I edited when Mozilla introduced the orange button.

 

[Britton30]

I use Pale Moon for a few sites IE doesn't work well with. It is very slow in startup but blocks almost all those annoying popups.