> As we read this, let us reflect that this reasonable and mature position resulted in a ~2% market share
I would disagree.
Many other changes together lead to this outcome.
Many by Mozilla, some not by Mozilla, some you could say Google actively abusing their power to sabotage them.
AFIK the amount of people stopped using Firefox because of XUL isn't to big, you could say a vocal minority.
The problem is compatibility with websites in aspects unrelated to XUL, mostly due to it being way to hard to be bug and feature compatible with chrome and even back then most web applications being written for chrome only.
Two major pain points which make people stop using Firefox would be 1) media support, which partially is the fault of stupid patent issues and partially because programs relaying too much on non standardized aspects 2) CORS, mainly due to Chrome last minute deciding not not implement the standard as standardized and forcing an exception into the standard to still be compliant.
The 2nd point is I think the most common reason I run into cases of web sides not working at all. While I very well do understand that Mozilla devs don't want to make their browser less secure, I don't think they have any other choice and should have done so years ago.
The 1st point is complicated as it involves patents to codecs and the pain of video codec drivers as well as companies like Slack or Teams refusing to even _try_ to work with Firefox when it comes to video calls even through it should work in most cases. This is a major problem and against all best web practices (also a lot of smaller companies which have way less resources have Firefox support for such use cases....).
But IMHO the web needs a cut, it's unacceptable that it's way easier to write a production ready new OS from scratch then a browser which is an essential tool.
> AFIK the amount of people stopped using Firefox because of XUL isn't to big, you could say a vocal minority.
The amount of Firefox's entire userbase isn't "to big" either, that is part of the problem. They can't put out a good web browser to give the silent majority something they want, they can't make in interesting web browser to give the vocal minority something they want.
Why are they building this web browser? Who is supposed to use it? The only argument I've heard is from people who want to support an open rendering engine, which has to be a smaller group than people who want support for weird extensions. And the Chrome-based engines are open already making the whole thing a bit moot.
The Mozilla corporation turns out not to have an interesting plan for Firefox. So cutting extension developers out from trying new things was a massive blunder that has basically doomed them to their current path - they don't know how to make an interetsing web browser and they've locked anyone else out from using their toys. Konqueror of all browsers spawned this massive ecosystem of successful spin-offs [0]. Mozilla failed to do anything useful.
Thank goodness the KDE devs were on their game, I suppose. Turns out in hindsight they were building the OSS flagship and foundation of the modern internet.
> AFIK the amount of people stopped using Firefox because of XUL isn't to big, you could say a vocal minority.
The vocal minority is making the mood for the silent majority. Of course are there multiple reasons for the drop of Firefox, but public awareness is probably the strongest for this. If the laymen hear how much Firefox sucks now, instead of the praise of how secure and awesome it is, they will have no reason anymore to cope with the flaws.
I would disagree.
Many other changes together lead to this outcome.
Many by Mozilla, some not by Mozilla, some you could say Google actively abusing their power to sabotage them.
AFIK the amount of people stopped using Firefox because of XUL isn't to big, you could say a vocal minority.
The problem is compatibility with websites in aspects unrelated to XUL, mostly due to it being way to hard to be bug and feature compatible with chrome and even back then most web applications being written for chrome only.
Two major pain points which make people stop using Firefox would be 1) media support, which partially is the fault of stupid patent issues and partially because programs relaying too much on non standardized aspects 2) CORS, mainly due to Chrome last minute deciding not not implement the standard as standardized and forcing an exception into the standard to still be compliant.
The 2nd point is I think the most common reason I run into cases of web sides not working at all. While I very well do understand that Mozilla devs don't want to make their browser less secure, I don't think they have any other choice and should have done so years ago.
The 1st point is complicated as it involves patents to codecs and the pain of video codec drivers as well as companies like Slack or Teams refusing to even _try_ to work with Firefox when it comes to video calls even through it should work in most cases. This is a major problem and against all best web practices (also a lot of smaller companies which have way less resources have Firefox support for such use cases....).
But IMHO the web needs a cut, it's unacceptable that it's way easier to write a production ready new OS from scratch then a browser which is an essential tool.