Firefox 89 comes out as the browser looks like it’s slipping into obscurity

Garikai Dzoma Avatar

Despite what they tell you, there are just two browsers out there: Mozilla’s Firefox and Chromium. Ok, there are technically three if you include Safari but who is counting? Despite their final names browsers like Google Chrome, Edge and Opera are all based on the Chromium codebase. Firefox, on the other hand, is its own man but it now stands besieged and there is a real concern it might really slip into obscurity.

Bold and beautiful

I still remember the first time I tried the Firefox browser. I was in college and for some reason, the network administrator had helpfully created a downloads page with various pieces of software that he thought would be useful. Firefox was one of those pieces of software.

The name was intriguing and a wondered how different it would be compared to Internet Explorer the then default browser for everyone. I downloaded and installed the package, launched the program and was pleasantly surprised. Never mind the fact that it felt snappier, this was my first tabbed browsing experience and I fell in love. From then on Firefox became my default browser. Every time I would get a new laptop/computer it was the first piece of software I installed.

That was until the first version of Chrome came along and I jumped ship. It seems I was not the only one who went through these phases:

  • Around 2009 when Chrome came out it had about 2% of the browser market share on par with Safari, Internet Explorer 65% and Firefox had 30%.
  • By mid-2011 all three: Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer had about the same amount of market share around 30% although Internet Explorer still had a marginal lead
  • From there it was up for Chrome and a downwards spiral for both Internet Explorer and Firefox. The spiral was less pronounced for Firefox though.
  • In 2018 Firefox’s share slipped to single digits where Edge also dawdled.
  • That hasn’t changed in the past two years and Chrome has consistently hovered above 65%. Chromium-based browsers have as much as 85% of the market cornered.

The fear out there is if this continues Web Open standards upon which the web is based such as HTML5 will in essence become Google standards. Given the company’s oversized importance it’s only a matter of time before this happens unless Firefox claws back.

Firefox 89 to the rescue?

A few days ago Firefox announced its latest attempt to stave off the circling vultures in the form of Firefox 89. The browser comes with a new floating tab design, streamlined menus, enhanced info bars and modals prompts. There is also a refined colour palette, a brand-new first-run welcome page, as well as a more “consistent styling” and lighter icons.

They have even made several promotional videos about it but will that be enough to stem the tide and turn their fortunes? Only time can tell. The problem I think, is not that Firefox 89 like all its predecessor is a bad browser. I am using it to write this and it seems good enough. It’s just that there is so much feature parity among browsers people just no longer care enough.

It’s the same reason why we will probably never see a year of the Linux desktop. People are now less militant about these things as a lot of functionality moves back to the data centre where it began. Unless you are a specialist enterprise most tasks can be accomplished the same way no matter which operating system or browser you are using. For example, the reason why we used Internet Explorer and Windows at my former workplace was because of Sage Line 500.

Now you can have Sage in the cloud and it simplifies a lot of things. Small and medium entities do not have the resources to waste on such things as buying servers, doing backups, installing and configuring client software etc. Now if you want Sage you just fire up a browser, click on a bookmark, login and begin working. You don’t need to worry about maintenance.

Given this parity people would rather just stick with a browser they know. It doesn’t hurt that Google has aggressive marketing campaigns. For example, if you visited their website using Internet Explorer they would be a prominent ad telling you to install Chrome. That ad space was never made available for bidding and so Google leveraged its position as a search engine to push Chrome. That’s something Firefox will never be able to do.

It would also appear that Firefox gets the bulk of its money from Google through search partner deals. Given all that it seems Firefox, being open source will never probably die completely but if the trend continues it will become a fringe browser like Safari and Konqueror.

11 comments

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  1. Juno

    I love Firefox. I have on my phone and my computer. It is so much better privacy wise etc. Sadly, the masses are easily led by Google and Facebook to use their “suggested” apps and browsers. Until people realise that they are a commodity not a customer they will carry on using the data harvesting apps and causing the rest of us to reluctantly use them.

    1. cpt_n3mo

      Why do u hate Google? Lol

      1. pvsm

        privacy

  2. Big Boss

    My best browser is Opera. Economic hardships of this country taught me to be frugal when it comes to data consumption and opera just does that. Also its built in add blocking is really good. My 2nd choice is Samsung Internet….Firefox I tried it long back it was too heavy for my then device galaxy S4 mini and was just not good enough

  3. Child

    Chromium based browsers chew a large chunk of RAM. Your PC will definitely start heating up…unlike Firefox, light and just perfect.

  4. Tatenda

    Firefox all the way

    I have 3 browsers but Mozila owyz come first

    Its brilliant to see fellow firefox users here.

  5. mark

    “Given this parity people would rather just stick with a browser they know.” I think this a very important point. Firefox keeps making changes to the interface so that it becomes the browser you don’t know so why not switch. I’m currently a FF85 user first and then Brave and Chrome. I’ve seen some of the 89 interface. My thoughts are I use a lot of tabs and I want a clean, clear demarcation of the tabs, so what do they do they remove the lines. I want to be able at a glance not just see text but spot each tab. I’ve got a lot of bookmarks and I don’t like to scroll so I have them organized. With all the spacing, even organized, I’ll have to scroll. These are small but they are two things I use a lot, tabs and my list of bookmarks. Yeah, I can fix the line spacing but to do it you have to use userchrome.css. Don’t like the tabs on top, well don’t look to FF, yeah you already know, userchrome.css. Don’t like… yep don’t look to the creators, look to userchrome.css. Over the years the biggest complaint I have seen and had for the most part hasn’t been the interface it has been about loosing control, about how wanting to make a change becomes a hassle. You shouldn’t have to go elsewhere, to userchrome.css or some place else, why not about:config.

  6. Thomas Norrell

    I DO NOT LIKE MOZILLA FIREFOX 89. The continual opening of new tabs ends up taking all my memory and eventually freezes everything. I have to then reboot. I hate it. I used to like it, but this version 89 is stupid and not user-friendly. Also, does one need a degree in design stratedgy to understand how it works and what it does? I simply want back to the browser we had before 89 thanks.

  7. Symson

    Google pays a small inner circle of developers (Mozilla) to maintain a browser (Firefox) so they can dubiously claim the don’t have a monopoly. These large sums of money don’t make it to the volunteer coders, just the inner circle dictating direction to the miguided workers. This is why Mozilla has stated they will implement censorship tech into their technology (Google demands this). The only saving grace in this nightmare is that the Chromium project (and Firefox) are OSS, so a scant few derivatives exist. As people wake up to the scam, we’ll see more (big forks are coming).

  8. Jay

    I hate it. Everything is white, everywhere. And the typeface looks lighter–too light, not enough contrast. Is there a way to return to the last edition?

  9. betsy ross

    This update is a hot mess for me, the color scheme is awful, you either have light which is ridiculous and so pale with no contrast or dark-where everything is black. I used firefox colors and the offerings are lame and not user friendly. I had to download Tabliss to deal with that. It deleted all my passwords and then a day later they reappeared. It messes up the websites I use by not allowing much of anything unless I disable the blocking. There is safety and then there is stupidity with over the top blocking of everything, this one is the latter. My bookmarks were screwed up, my pinned tabs disappeared and the search bars are take up too much space, I’m just an every day laptop user, not a computer geek and to have to correct every single change, dowloading add ons and extensions to make it user friendly which is time consuming and confusing for a layman with all geek talk on the mozilla help site. I hate it, will never download another update.

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