Following the example of IE, is the decline of Firefox inevitable?

【CSDN Editor's note 】 stay Chrome、Edge、Safari In the browser market of hunting , be based on Gecko Kernel Firefox It's a special existence , It is also one of programmers' favorite browsers . However, some regrets , This was once a popular browser , Make it difficult for other competitors to catch up , But now it is gradually silent .

In this paper , A senior developer 、 The designer FadinGeek Reviewed the  Firefox Development history of , The conclusion that its decline is inevitable . that ,Firefox Which step did you start with? Wrong step , And doomed its declining fate ？

Link to the original text ：https://levelup.gitconnected.com/why-firefox-deserves-its-sad-decline-1c44d9ba59c9

Statement ： This paper is about CSDN translate , Please quote source for reprint .

author | FadinGeek      

translator  |  Meniscus         Coordinating editor | Phoebe

Produce | CSDN（ID：CSDNnews）

The following is the original ：

Firefox It's a legend . Of course , Millions of people still use it today Firefox, But its popularity is not what it used to be . It was once one of the mainstream browsers . But with all due respect , Now Firefox The decline of is also to blame . I'm not optimistic about the development of the product itself .

Firefox The development process of can be described as ups and downs . below , Let's explore together .

The first stage ：Firefox The rise of

Firefox Its predecessor was a man named Netscape（ netscape ） Browser application , Developed by a group of programmers , Later, a family named AOL Company acquisition of . Some people think this is the first web browser in history , Because no one has seen such an application before , The popularity of the browser soared . But after a while , Microsoft released IE,Netscape Their popularity began to decline , Because with IE comparison ,Netscape Be regarded as “ Third party applications ”.Netscape Therefore, the market share of from 92% The peak of fell to about 15%.

For a while ,IE It has always been the most popular web browser . because IE It is a browser preinstalled by Microsoft operating system , Easy to use .

At this moment ,Netscape Made the boldest decision in history ： Open source .

Today, today , Open source is not a bold decision , Because now we have many open source applications . But the situation was very different , There are few open source applications .

therefore ,Netscape The developer of the Jamie Zawinski registered Mozilla, The name was originally Netscape Version code of , It's Mozart （Mozake） And Godzilla （Godzilla） The combination of .

Mozilla The initial goal is to become an application suite , Provide a series of Internet navigation and communication applications . But all their code is open source , It is conceivable that the result is not ideal , And I can't make money .

1998 year 10 month ,Mozilla The team decided to make a comeback , Build a cross platform browser based on the native framework . So , They have built the engine Gecko.

1998 year , They released a preview . Although the picture is simple and general , But the market response is good , People are looking forward to the main version . But unfortunately , The release of the main version has been delayed again and again , because Mozilla Plan to add some additional applications at the last minute .

Final , On 2002 year 6 month , First edition Phoenix Browser Finally released . This version of the browser is called this name （Phoenix, Phoenix ）, Because it has the experience of rebirth .

Just when everything seems to be going smoothly ,AOL Suddenly decided to give up support for the browser . fortunately Mozilla At the critical moment, he established his own foundation , The name Mozilla The foundation . The foundation is funded by Dave Hyatt、Joe Hewitt and Blake Ross Leader , And finally replaced AOL All work of .

therefore ,Phoenix Browsers rise from the ashes . But because the community doesn't like this name very much , Finally, the browser was renamed Firefox.

The second stage ： Rapid development

Mozilla Firefox It's the first one popularized to the public “ label ”（Tab） Concept web browser . Of course , It also raises many other ideas , For example, block pop-up windows （ Today's advertising interception function ）、 Extensive security and privacy （ A system that does not allow tracking unless necessary , It can prevent potentially harmful tracking programs ） wait , And it is also the first to develop its own download manager （ Independent of the operating system used ） Browser .

And then ,Firefox Our team hyped the next version in the community ：Firefox 3.0. They announced the exact date to the community , And released this version on time .

2008 year 6 month 17 Japan , The third edition Firefox Official release , And 24 Hours 800 Million downloads per day set a world record , And broke the Guinness world record that no one could match at that time .

Firefox Many new functions have been added , These functions make it difficult for other competitors to match , Almost all the functions of modern browsers are made by Firefox Drive innovation .

2010 In the year ,Firefox Our market share has reached its peak ：34% All users are using Firefox. in consideration of 2005 In the year ,Firefox The market share of is only 5%, At that time, its main competitor was IE, Therefore, it has to be said that this is a great progress .

The third stage ： Go downhill

Mozilla The main reason for starting to go downhill is , It is no longer considered IE Of “ Third party applications ”, And it is more regarded as having more functions IE.

However , With the emergence of many browsers in the market, they also provide similar functions , Things have changed .

At that time , At that time, Google CEO Eric Schmidt Not interested in the Internet market . however ,Larry Page They decided to go directly from Mozilla Hire some developers to develop a better Firefox, This has forced CEO Changed my mind . therefore , Current mainstream browsers Google Chrome Officially kicked off .

Faced with this situation , Obviously Firefox Changes need to be made , Speed up the pace of progress , And constantly add new functions . But they seem to be trying to keep up with the development of Google browser , Rather than a software that really has its own ideas . This leads to Firefox The mobile version of web browser launched by Google has many similar functions , It's almost imitating Google . This makes Chrome Take the lead , because Chrome The added functions are only beneficial to you . for example , Mobile version of Chrome And Android Good integration , And it's Android The default browser in , because Android and Chrome They are all Google products .

because Chrome Occupy a competitive advantage , But also Android Default browser , therefore Chrome Its market share and penetration rate soared . And on the other hand ,Firefox It seems to be just imitating Chrome The function of , Failed to add its own unique functions and use cases , And failed to implement different marketing strategies .

later ,Firefox The team launched its own operating system （ The operating system has been taken over by old rivals Google and Microsoft ）, They focused their development on FirefoxOS On .

Actually , this Firefox The main reason for losing power is , people We don't need to use Firefox The reason of . Considering that most mobile phones are pre installed Android, Without any unique selling points , No one wants to install it separately Firefox OS. This further leads to Firefox Its own project development slows down , Not to mention the increase in hate and criticism in the community .

Mozilla There's a huge community ,34% People who use and trust Firefox, This is a huge advantage far beyond Google . It's just , They didn't move fast enough , from Chrome Recapture the user .

Let's hear Firefox Of CEO What did I say ：

“Firefox Failed to keep up with the development of the market , Failed to meet the needs of users in time . many Firefox Today's die hard fans have become Chrome user .”—— Chris Beard

The fourth stage ： It is too late

2017 year ,Mozilla New version released 57, It's new in almost every way , Have a more modern Logo、 Very modern UI、 New rendering engine 、 Better user experience 、 Better animation and so on , Also named “Photon”.

Besides ,Mozilla Many new products have also been released , Not only more practical , But also focus on its actual audience （ And Firefox OS Different ）, Such as calendar assistant 、 Containers 、 senior VPN The server 、 Theme store with better appearance and browser theme .

But the problem is that it's all too late . That year Firefox At the beginning , Its advantage is that most people who use computers are technicians , Now even children can shoot a short video .

This means that people prefer long-term use 、 Less bloated applications . If it is already installed by default Chrome, So why install another browser ？ since Android Already used on Chrome, that PC You can also continue to use Chrome. With other browsers （ such as Opera and Vivaldi） The number of users increased , Positioning is becoming more and more specific , The market will change further , for example Opera GX Provide users with free mini VPN, And in the Firefox You need to pay to use .

Last , We see that with Brave Appearance of browser ,Firefox The number of users is further reduced , Because their audiences are similar , but Brave With better marketing and function implementation .

chart ：Firefox The ratio of the salary requested by the chairman to the number of users lost each year

Although I'm not going to discuss personal salary , But once “Mozilla The team ” Now it's a big company , But their efforts are not proportional to the final result . Their goal is not to focus on the audience 、 Realize new ideas and keep up with the trend , Instead, try to keep up with Google , And with Android and Windows Competitive users . This leads to the current Firefox The only dominant place is Linux, Seems to be Linux The community is still trying to give them a chance , But even in Linux Community ,FerenOS And so on Brave and Vivaldi Other browsers .

To be fair , In the past few years Mozilla The team has begun to work hard , But it's too late . They compared Chrome When you have more advantages , Made the wrong choice .

summary

Firefox The next development will be more and more bumpy . Maybe it will release a version 100, Maybe people will try this new version , But they have not made any substantial improvement , At least ordinary users can't see .

Personally , I hope Firefox Can succeed . Give Way Chrome Such giants alone occupy such a large market share , It's not good news for each of us , Not to mention its open source version Chromium It has blossomed everywhere , Many versions have been derived （ such as Brave）.

If there is another market that is not based on Chromium Open source browser for , And there is a certain audience , Can and Chrome A relatively high and low , Then it must be Firefox. I hope ,Firefox Be able to understand your position .

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