Without a doubt Firefox has been During the last years the default option for many usersHowever, the browser is now losing ground in terms of the number of users. In fact, according to some sources, Firefox would have lost almost 50 million users in 3 years.
And it is that according to the statistics of Mozilla, Firefox is now experiencing a huge decline and now the around 46 million in the user base have left the browser, while the number of active (monthly) users was around 244 million at the end of 2018. This number appears to have dropped significantly to 198 million by the end of the second quarter of this year.
The decline of Firefox is worrying, but could find an explanation, since 2021 is the year that privacy-centric tools saw a huge increase in their user base, Firefox users might find this one reason for the decline of Mozilla's browser.
Also, for some analysts, as Google Chrome is the default web browser on Android and Microsoft Edge is the default web browser for Windows, Google (the largest search engine) and Microsoft recommend that users use their browsers (this is potentially anti competitive behavior) and some web services are unique to Chrome-based browsers.
According to an analysis by Cal Paterson in September 2020, using Firefox on that date dropped 85%, causing Mozilla to shrink by a quarter worldwide. In fact, on August 11, through its CEO Mitchell Baker, Mozilla announced its intention to lay off approximately 250 employees.
“Mozilla exists so that the Internet can help the world collectively meet the range of challenges that a time like this presents. Firefox is one of them. But we know that we must also go beyond the browser to offer people new products and technologies that spark their enthusiasm while representing their interests. In recent times, it has become clear that Mozilla is not structured correctly to create these new things and build the best Internet that we all deserve.
“Today we announce a significant restructuring of Mozilla Corporation. This will strengthen our ability to create and invest in products and services that will provide people with alternatives to conventional Big Tech. Unfortunately, the changes also include a significant reduction in our workforce of around 250 people. They are individuals of exceptional professional caliber and staff who have made an exceptional contribution to who we are today. To each of them, I express my sincere thanks and deepest regret for reaching this point. It is a humiliating recognition of the realities we face and what it takes to overcome them ”.
In October of the same year, Mozilla got rid of all the engineers working on the Servo renderer. In his farewell letter to Mozilla, an engineer tells a bit about his journey and notes that the entire team responsible for Servo development has been fired.
In addition to that in 2018, when Microsoft announced its switch to Chromium for Microsoft Edge development, Mozilla expressed dissatisfaction with this decision. PFor Chris Beard, managing director of Mozilla Corporation at the time, by adopting Chromium, Microsoft officially gives up an independent platform for the Internet and gives Google more control of life online. He believes that browser engines, such as Google's Chromium and Mozilla's Gecko Quantum, are software components that largely determine what each of us can do online.
And now, those results seem to show that Chris Beard was right, who had expressed fear that they will see negative consequences in browsers that do not use Chromium and that Microsoft's decision will make it difficult for Firefox to prosper. For him, this will make Google more powerful, which is proving risky on many fronts. But above all, it will depend on how Microsoft's decision affects the behavior of web developers and the companies that create websites and services.