Google Chrome is highly successful on Mac and Windows so it’s clear that Microsoft and apple aren’t forcing that hard. Mozilla is just not doing so hot.

They're right, recently I've installed some Windows update for my parents and I had to reject like 5 suggested changes - installing Office trial, switching default browser to Edge yet again, and more.

But this goes way beyond the browsers - I've never explicitly installed Keychain on my iphone and yet it shows as an option next to 1password every time I fill in a password field. Google calendar asks me to install an app every time I open a web version on my phone, my work laptop has 1 active notification in system settings for a year because I didn't enable iCloud backup.

I'm not sure what's the solution here. I stick to the apps I use because I know what I'm doing, but so many users will just click "yes" when shown a pop-up. On the other hand, the built-in integrations provide value (e.g. it's better that people use and save random passwords in Keychain than using the same one everywhere). I feel it's always a cat-and-mouse game where the big tech is punished after they've already gained a lot, so they win anyway.

It drives me nuts that a fresh install of Android apps defaults them all to "in-app" browsing instead of my default browser. And you have to go to each app and turn it off in a different place. Wish I could just override all of them and "open every web page in My. Default. Browser."

...and so did Mozilla, when FirefoxOS was a thing. Gecko is still the default engine for KaiOS.

Are we in browser-whining season again? (Typing this from Firefox on macOS.)

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Without commenting on the claims, it's interesting to consider how times have changed. Microsoft originally lost an antitrust lawsuit [1] over little more than tying Internet Explorer into their OS and not readily including alternatives. They not only lost that case, but the initial judgement was that the company was to be broken up.

Microsoft started spending dramatically more money on "lobbying" following that.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....

One of the next frontiers as a barrier to browser switching will be "software"-backed WebAuthn/FIDO2/"passkeys".

If you look at the APIs available on MacOS/iOS at present [0], and how WebAuthn works, you need to "trust" the client-side software to correctly identify the site origin (i.e. protocol, domain, port) and pass it to a physical security key. In the case of a software token, you need to restrict which app(s) can pass this information through to the system carrying out authentication.

The end result right now, as I can see it, is that if you sign up to a website using a "passkey" via Safari (for example), there is no real supported workflow that isn't site-specific, for migrating to a new browser - you are effectively beholden to Apple's keychain for getting you back into that site.

If you want to enrol a new device (say an Android phone using its own software implementation of WebAuthn), you would need to find a way to sign into your old account (which requires your MacOS/iOS passkey to log in), then enrol your Android device (which is a separate physical device). You'll likely get stuck here.

An expert user could add a physical FIDO2 token to their account from the old device (Safari), and use that as the authenticator to log in on the new device, but this is significant friction for a non-technical user.

While moving users away from passwords might make sense, I do think we'll see these "passwordless" authentication mechanisms become the next major point of friction in user browser choice. Even if you can implement WebAuthn in your rival browser, unless you get access to the system key store, you won't be able to let users sign in. That will prevent them switching.

[0] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/supporting-a...

While Google, Microsoft, and Apple clearly factor into the equation here (especially Google — when Chrome first came out the marketing for it was a real force to contend with, and they've aggressively pushed Chrome ever since), the other big thing is that Mozilla ceased to be a leader. They started chasing Chrome and put Firefox on the back burner, and now they're reaping what they've sown.

I am a huge proponent of web engine diversity, but Mozilla is going to have to some serious self-reflection and enact major changes internally to have a fighting chance. As things stand, even if regulation limiting MS/Google/Apple's abilities to self-promote went into place it will make precious little difference because Firefox gives few reasons for non-technical users to switch to it. As big of a splash as Manifest V3 has been, it's ultimately a storm in a teacup that only a portion of technical users know and care about.

While Mozilla uses that same force with Pocket, their VPN, ads on the home screen, “experiments”, Google search, etc.

Firefox has some really good privacy features built-in (some aren't enabled by default and requires minor configuration by users). In contrast, some big tech firms (you know who they are) that have a business model that involves profiting off of users' data are inherently deterred from delivering really good privacy features.

Does Firefox have a future?

I'm writing this from Firefox, having used it ever since the days when Firefox releases used to have launch parties, and tabs was the revolutionary killer feature.

Let me rephrase the question: does Gecko/Spidermonkey have a future?

I think it's clear the Firefox branding will live on, since it is Mozilla's crown jewel.

But in today's landscape, you can target WebKit (Apple) and V8/Blink (Chrome) and you've surely covered 98% of all use cases.

Surely these competing engines have far, far more resources pouring into them than Mozilla can afford.

Since the balance of power has shifted towards the owners of these huge players, how can Mozilla keep its browser engine competitive, given that all these new features (such as wasm) surely require massive investment?

I know these questions have been asked already a million times, but it keeps me wondering. Will Firefox eventually need to become a fork of Chromium like everyone else, just to keep pace? Can Mozilla keep its entire browser stack afloat in these shifting currents? (pardon the gross metaphor)

Is their Google search deal (~$400m a year) that expires next year being renewed? If not, might explain some of the desire to bite the hand that has fed it for so long.

What exactly are these companies supposed to do? Web access really is the meat behind modern OS usage. Say what you want about Microsoft, but that's exactly what they realized when they began shipping Internet Explorer with Windows (and got into hot water over it). Safari can't be deleted from iOS, but aspects of Safari are integral to the OS. As long as someone can use another web browser for actual web browsing, as opposed to something that an app might use as a web view, I really don't see what the big deal is. Not being able to delete apps sucks, but this goes beyond browsers, and is hardly the worst thing any of these companies are up to. Should there be an initiative to create a standard pluggable API for web views that operating systems comply with? Oh boy, let's create yet another worthless committee!

Maybe Mozilla can knock off the grandstanding, the money wasting, the back patting, and just work on making a competitive browser. Also completely remove Pocket and anything else like it.

Google Chrome gained dominance and was not the default on Windows or Mac. Firefox is an Ok product but isn't super compelling for a typical user.

One of the things that piss me off is that sometimes even forks are not accepted.

For example Formula 1 TV doesn't work on my SmartTV or on some of my browsers despite them being forks of Chrome, where it works just fine.

Not only that, it used to work there in the past, what happened is now it actively detects if the browser is a real Google Chrome from Google (not a recompiled version), and refuse to work otherwise, even if technically it could work just fine.

Does Linux force you to use Firefox? Every distro I know has it by default. Yet the first thing I do on a new install is install Chrome...

And of course everyone does the same on Windows. Only Edge has started to slightly change that trend, and that's with some very aggressive tactics by MS.

It's not just apple/google/microsoft, it is a whole lot of companies that state the "recommended"/"supported" browser is chrome. Full stop.

This is just something that has slowly/linearly been moving in that direction. Many, many years ago it started with bank's declaring "unsupported" when I'd connect with seamonkey et al.

The initial lever was security, now it's purely client/server features that only google engineers can deliver in the next quarter.

Chrome™: The way it's meant to be played.

And yet Brave has been "Growing 2x for the Fifth Year in a Row". Mozilla should stop whining and focus on building a browser that regular non technical people also want to use. How can I recommend Firefox to a family member when it absolutely chokes on 4k videos on YouTube and makes the laptop sound like a rocket lifting off (macOS, older intel MBP, Chromium based browsers work without a hitch and barely spin fans)?

https://brave.com/2021-recap

Unfortunately in the current landscape, I think Firefox will unlikely gain the traction again even if we can bring those big techs to a fair playground. Browser development becomes an extremely complex, expensive project that requires at least hundreds of engineering headcounts and Mozilla cannot simply afford it. Worse, Servo was a kind of big bet to change the equation from the ground but Mozilla decided to abandon it. I don't see a plausible scenario to recover the market share in this situation?

This article is centered around a report from Mozilla without actually linking to it... Here is the original report

https://research.mozilla.org/browser-competition/

Well, a part of Mozilla (the foundation) keeps calling out Apple, Google and other big tech companies for their control, censorship and browser monopolies. However, another part (the corporation) keeps accepting regular pay checks from Google to fund themselves, can't really wrap my head around this "Mozilla Foundation vs Corporation" conundrum!

For context, these articles form a good background of the ongoing war between Microsoft and Mozilla on this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28510490

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29579994

They'll always use "security" as an excuse to force you into doing what they want, and this is just another instance of that tactic. Don't be fooled into giving up your freedom. I wish more people would be aware of that.

Firefox is so bad I don't really even care.

This claim is so obviously true, that it's hardly a claim.

We should treat it like a fact, and talk about what we want to do about it. If we do nothing then these megacorps will use their power to unfairly outcompete or plain buy up all competition but the other megacorps.

We can either have a world with maybe 50 gigantic corporations or thousands of smaller, but still large businesses. I personally think the latter would be much better for democracy and distribution of wealth.