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back to article Firefox doesn't need to be No 1 – and that's OK, 'cos it's falling off a cliff

Just in case you didn't believe Firefox was on a trajectory that should have it crash and burn into extinction in the next couple of years, former chief technology officer Andreas Gal has usage stats that confirm it. To use Gal's words: "Firefox market share is falling off a cliff." The same could be said of Firefox itself. …

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  1. Paratrooping Parrot
    Unhappy

    Used Firefox from when it was Firebird

    I have used Firefox from the very beginning, and still use it. I am a bit annoyed by the way it has influences from Chrome, but at least, I know that by using the Alt key, I can get the normal menu up. One thing that really annoys me whenever I use a different browser on someone else's computer, is when using Youtube, there are adverts. That always surprises me!

    Their mobile browser however needs to be severely optimised. It is rather slow though, it is the slowest thing on my Android mobile :( , it does mean that I don't need to bother with Facebook apps. :)

    10 0 Reply
    1. phuzz Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Joke

      Re: Used Firefox from when it was Firebird

      "Used Firefox from when it was Firebird"

      Pft, I've used it since it was Netscape Navigator.

      (and Firefox was Phoenix for a version or two, before an existing company called Phoenix told them to change it. So they changed it to Firebird, but there was already some software with that name too, so eventually they renamed it Firefox)

      10 0 Reply
      1. Updraft102
        Reply Icon

        Re: Used Firefox from when it was Firebird

        There are a number of us out here. I have never had anything but a Netscape or Netscape-derived primary browser on the PC. NN 2 was where I started... 3, 4 (where I learned to hate the phrase "illegal operation in mfc40.dll"), then the 6 preview... then Mozilla Suite, which I stuck with as a main browser until FF reached general release. Mozilla Suite, FF, Waterfox, Pale Moon... that's it from the start of the XP era in 2001 until the present. I never used IE for anything but Windows updates, and the first time I seriously evaluated anything else was when I tried Vivaldi, Brave, Slimjet, and Opera recently in light of the upcoming Firefox suicide. Nope... all of them are too similar to Firefox unmodified (in Australis form), which won't cut it.

        Pale Moon intends to keep on fighting the good fight indefinitely... Waterfox intends to keep it up "as long as possible," which is unfortunately defeatist (sounds like the dev is already conceding that he will lose, but it's his choice to not make a career out of trying to de-stupidize FF). Both of them will support Firefox addons after FF itself stops.

        How long, though, will the addons themselves remain viable without FF proper supporting them? Where will they be hosted if not on Mozilla's servers? Will the addon devs even bother? Several of the devs of my addons have already announced that it's the end of the line for them since FF is cutting XUL addon support off, and the fact that PM and WF will continue to allow them doesn't even register.

        I have very specific requirements for a browser, and right now only Firefox and Firefox derivatives are good enough. How strange is it that there's soon to be no such thing as what I consider a usable browser, even though the browser is probably the most commonly used application possible? I've already accepted that there are no good Android browsers at all (and I've all but abandoned Android itself), but on the PC too?

        3 0 Reply
  2. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    It should be made illegal...

    To bundle installers with Chrome...

    Every time I visit my friends they have 'somehow' managed to install Chrome as their new default browser and are struggling to remove the damn thing and return to their previous one...

    24 2 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Devil

      Re: It should be made illegal...

      Google should be forced to show a browser ballot just like MS was forced to...

      30 1 Reply
      1. Updraft102
        Reply Icon

        Re: It should be made illegal...

        "Google should be forced to show a browser ballot just like MS was forced to..."

        Microsoft owned the OS the browser was bundled with. In terms of the unwanted Chrome installations, we're still talking about the same OS (Windows) but with someone else's browser. How would Chrome even do that?

        Besides, the baseline functionality you mention is already part of Windows. That same UI that came about as a result of the MS antitrust stuff is still in there. Not only that, but in Windows versions 8 and up, an application installer can't grab all of the file and protocol associations if they're already assigned elsewhere. Windows will ask the user (with a hideous, platform-inappropriate Metro or UWP styled dialog) what app(lication) he would like to use to open or service the given (file, protocol).

        Google should stop partnering with firms that use sneaky means to get Chrome installed on a person's PC. It comes bundled with many things that have nothing to do with browsing... I know that Chrome wants it installed on as many devices as possible, but having Chrome associated with dark patterns and the same sort of malware-like techniques that has the computing world angry at Microsoft is probably what they're looking to accomplish. Is Chrome a premium, world-class browser or a piece of malware? Your call, Google.

        3 1 Reply
        1. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: It should be made illegal...

          1) Google should show the ballot on its search engine page, where it endlessly nag users to install Chrome

          2) It should show the ballot on Android.... which has the same market dominance Windows had.

          4 0 Reply
          1. WatAWorld
            Reply Icon

            Re: It should be made illegal...

            "2) It should show the ballot on Android.... which has the same market dominance Windows had."

            Sounds like a good general rule that OS's have a ballot for competitors products. So a ballot on iOS and MacOS too.

            1 1 Reply
    2. Chris G
      Reply Icon

      Re: It should be made illegal...

      CCleaner have just put Chrome back on their updater, I haven't seen it there for a while.

      I wonder, if you accidentally miss it and it self installs, how much it slurps before you can uninstall it?

      I have gotten used to FF and run it with a couple of plugins including Bluehell ad blocker one of the simplest I have come across.

      I uninstalled Chrome from my wife's laptop, it took three goes before it would actually start the process and finally remove itself kicking and screaming all the way.

      11 1 Reply
      1. Orv Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: It should be made illegal...

        I don't think Chrome "slurps" anything if you only install it and don't use it -- with the exception of the installation itself, and what program "referred" you to it.

        Their telemetry seems to be mostly related to crash reports and how often certain web features are used (so they know when they can deprecate obsolete ones.) Natch if you do Google searches they get that info, and if you're logged into your Google account all the stuff they sync for you goes in your profile.

        Everyone assumes Chrome is recording all this info about them but there's little evidence for that. Realistically they don't need to bug the browser to create an advertising profile -- they already get that kind of data every time you visit a site that hosts their ads, whether you're using Chrome or not.

        3 1 Reply
  3. Ogi
    Facepalm

    IMO It is an engineering fault for their failure...

    To writ...

    1. Firefox abandoned stable releases for these rolling releases like Chrome does, which doesn't work in an office environment (and indeed, in an office I worked at, they decided to ditch firefox because of it). Also, it messes up OS repositories (like the Debian ones) because they can't push updates to the repo every time the firefox people decide for an update. However sites now assume the rolling update model, and will sometimes break on versions of firefox that haven't had a few rolling updates.

    2. Firefox changed the UI to be more like Chrome. Which upset those of us who have been using firefox for ages, and who liked the UI (I personally never liked the Chrome UI).

    3. The removal of XUL, the breaking of plugins/extensions/themes, and the general middle finger given to firefox power users not only lost those power users, but also the other people who went to those power users for advice. Once upon a time when building/repairing a machine for someone, I would install firefox by default and explain to them why they should use it over IE. No longer.

    4. It has gotten worse. The new firefox uses more memory than the old one, is slower than Chrome, and is far more buggy. They seem to have split tabs into their own processes, like Chrome, but tabs keep crashing, and it just doesn't work that well.

    It seems firefox tried really hard to be a clone of Chrome, which is stupid. If someone wants to use Chrome, they will use Chrome. Why would they use a Chrome clone that isn't as good?

    However by doing this, they not only ended up being a poor Chrome clone, but they lost those of us who didn't like Chrome. This is exactly what happened with me, I didn't like Chrome, but when firefox became a poor copy and lost what I liked about the browser, I saw no reason to use it anymore, and now Chromium is my main browser (at least until I get around to installing pale moon, which seems to be hitting all the right buttons. Might give seamonkey a go as well).

    33 0 Reply
    1. Steve Graham
      Reply Icon

      Re: IMO It is an engineering fault for their failure...

      It became more and more obvious that the Firefox developers weren't listening to users. For example, I changed to Vivaldi when Firefox stopped playing audio. The developer had unnecessarily changed the interface, and when it was suggested in bug reports that this was a poor decision (but easily reversible), his response was obstinate and unhelpful.

      But I disagree that this kind of approach has been the main reason for loss of users. I think it's the relentless promotion of Chrome by Google.

      14 1 Reply
    2. teknopaul
      Reply Icon

      Re: IMO It is an engineering fault for their failure...

      agree with all points, another engineering mistake was to remove many of the ssl nag screens. Removing the opportunity to bypass the problem.

      Bug reports say 'use chrome'!

      Really annoying when not on the internet and in control of the browser the network and the server. They also made it impossible to bypass broken ssl in plugins.

      This is just another symptom of the policy of ignoring users requirements. A good 50% of what I do with a browser is not over the internet.

      We all know that a valid ssl cert does not make a server secure anyway.

      16 0 Reply
      1. Naselus
        Reply Icon

        Re: IMO It is an engineering fault for their failure...

        "Removing the opportunity to bypass the problem."

        Very much this. If I wanted some company somewhere to decide which websites I'm allowed to visit, then I'd stick to IE or Safari. I liked Firefox because it treated the user as a grown up; when it started insisting that the user couldn't know what they were doing by definition, that's when I jumped ship.

        We actually rolled out Firefox for use at work a few of years ago, and then within a couple of months they began to lock off protocols that we needed for web-based apps, shut down legacy plugins, and block us going to internal intranet sites with no SSL certs.

        Given that, at the time, FF was also going out of it's way to become the slowest and most bloody awkward browser on the web, we ended up packing it in and shunting everyone other to Chrome. Literally all the service providers we needed to use the browser to access also stopped supporting it. It was like Mozilla were going out of their way to try and get FF taken off production environments.

        12 0 Reply
      2. WatAWorld
        Reply Icon

        Re: IMO It is an engineering fault for their failure...

        "agree with all points, another engineering mistake was to remove many of the ssl nag screens. Removing the opportunity to bypass the problem.

        Bug reports say 'use chrome'!"

        The ultimate in stupidity, having your engineering dept doing marketing for a competitor. I remember when I was waiting for FF to improve before switching, there was a lot of that. Sound muting. 64-bit. Some security suggestions. Disabling hotkeys.

        They wanted to do what they wanted to do, and if customers didn't like it customers were advised to switch to a competitor.

        Wise advise. We took it.

        Incidentally, I remember hating the bland Chrome UI. So FF copied it after I left. Idiots. I hate these bland indistinct UIs. MS seems to love them too. And now Google News has adopted one too.

        Lasik doesn't really improve presbyopia.

        2 0 Reply
    3. Dan 55 Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: IMO It is an engineering fault for their failure...

      I would absolutely agree that they've got an engineering problem. They throw out everything that makes Firefox different for one of two reasons:

      1) they just straight out admit they don't know how to maintain stuff any more,

      2) they claim metrics say a feature is hardly ever used and maintaining it would take resources away from something else, but they forget that metrics can be disabled, some options they remove are corner cases but very useful, and the Venn diagram of people doing both probably shows quite a big intersection.

      Also, the world is crying out for a feature-complete and easy-to-use mail client and Thunderbird was so near, despite it being ignored for years by Mozilla.

      18 0 Reply
    4. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: IMO It is an engineering fault for their failure...

      This is spot on. Exactly why I'm no longer a fan of firefox.

      Also, claims that it's faster and/or uses less memory than chrome are quite simply bullshit.

      IMO it seems that mozilla have decided to go for the demographic of users who really like chrome but think it's too fast and doesn't use enough memory. I might not have the same level of experience as mozilla's marketing department, but this seems like a niche market to me, and one which is mutually exclusive with their previous niche, power users.

      "Are you tired of your web browser quickly opening pages rather than spamming your swap space? Do you not have enough time to make coffee between youtube videos because your browser loads them too fast? Try firefox! It's just like chrome, only worse! With our patented memory-hogging technology you'll find your system swapping with only 5 tabs open! after all, what's the point of having an entire partition just for swap if you're not going to use it? And if you're coming from chrome you'll find our new interface so familiar you won't be sure which browser you've launched! And to ensure that this is the case, we've just announced a new feature where we're dropping support for all the things that make firefox different from chrome! And you'll be pleased to hear that we're so committed to this course of action that we don't care if it pisses off 90% of our existing user base! Also, behind the scenes we've just announced exciting support for nothing except pulseaudio. But you won't care about that, it's a nerd thing and it doesn't matter because everyone runs pulseaudio. Firefox: It's just like chrome, only worse!"

      11 1 Reply
    5. Orv Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: IMO It is an engineering fault for their failure...

      I agree with most of your points, but I think rolling updates are pretty much a requirement these days. So many people used to get their desktops p0wn'd by browser bugs because they never updated, and were running browsers that were years out of date. I think an alternative for a corporate environment would be good -- I think Chrome has a policy you can push to clients for that -- but for the majority of users? Automatic rolling updates are the only way they'll ever bother to keep their browser secure.

      1 2 Reply
      1. bombastic bob Silver badge
        Reply Icon
        Mushroom

        Re: IMO It is an engineering fault for their failure...

        "I agree with most of your points, but I think rolling updates are pretty much a requirement these days."

        NO. They are *NOT*.

        We could do VERY well without 'feature creep' 'feature removal' "new, shiny [why aren't you liking it?]' and other consequences of "rolling updates".

        Isn't what I've been using for 5 years GOOD ENOUGH? How about patches and bug fixes for THAT? I'll keep my old UI thanks, and if it needs some HTML5 support, that's fine, but just FIX THE CODE BASE, and don't go off adding BOATLOADS of CRAP nor changing the appearance of the UI nor REMOVING FEATURES.

        That's what Micro-shitaft has done with Win-10-nic after all, and we *ALL* *KNOW* *THAT* *THIS* *IS* *WRONG*!!!

        3 4 Reply
        1. Updraft102
          Reply Icon

          Re: IMO It is an engineering fault for their failure...

          A rolling update schedule isn't necessary to tackle security bugs. In between each major FF release, there are usually several minor releases for security and general bug fixes. Whether the major releases are three months or three years apart doesn't change that a bit.

          As far as Windows... well, 7 and 8.1 are not on a rolling update schedule. They don't get ANY updates except security and bug fixes, but they still get them each patch Tuesday, the same time that Windows 10 does.

          3 0 Reply
          1. Charles 9
            Reply Icon

            Re: IMO It is an engineering fault for their failure...

            And then they get flak for pwnings that occur BETWEEN the Patch Tuesdays, some of which are SO severe (and already in the wild) they're forced to scramble to issue an Out-of-Band patch. Putting you in a vice: break your machine or get pwned. And let's not forget all those people who wouldn't update even if it meant their lives (or livelihoods); they've demonstrated an inability to stay current, when self-preservation doesn't work, you're forced to use other means (and no, you can't use Darwin since that would bring with it collateral damage which could end up boomeranging back to YOU).

            1 0 Reply
            1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge
              Reply Icon

              Re: IMO It is an engineering fault for their failure...

              "Putting you in a vice: break your machine or get pwned."

              Simple solution there. Split feature updates and security updates. Unless you were actually relying on a bug which is patched in the security update you can apply the security update irrespective of it being out of band without breaking functionality. (Assuming the update itself isn't broken.)

              0 0 Reply
              1. Charles 9
                Reply Icon

                Re: IMO It is an engineering fault for their failure...

                Unless they INTENTIONALLY pack the feature AND security update together and force you to take it or leave it, part and parcel.

                0 0 Reply
  4. Baldrickk

    For me, I use a mix of Vivaldi and Firefox. I don't have a definite preference for one over the other, they each have little things I like and hate.

    1 0 Reply
  5. Alan Sharkey

    I use FF and Vivaldi

    I use FireFox and Vivaldi for one simple reason - they have a proper bookmark menu system that is quick to get at. None of the crap "menu bar" which takes up real estate.

    I would also try IE but that seems to fail for a lot of web sites.

    Alan

    1 1 Reply
  6. artem

    > "despite Firefox getting much better during the same time window"

    Let me correct Andreas: "despite Firefox 1) getting much closer to being a Chrome clone 2) without distinctive features while at the same time 3) lagging in standards support and 4) being hell bent on not implementing the features Mozilla's users have been asking for for years (e.g. WebP support) and 5) losing its distinctive UI and 6) removing features which many users can't live without (JavaScript on/off switch for websites) and 7) rendering literally dozens of thousands of add-ons dead and 8) having such an inflated ego that Mozilla simply ignores its core professional users' needs and 9) killing XUL".

    For the past two years you've rendered dead more add-ons than you've done for your entire history. Many people used to use Firefox solely due to its add-ons and now a lot of them have ceased to exist due to Mozilla's relentless efforts.

    Multiprocess conversion should have started at least 14(!) years ago just when efficient multicore CPUs became a commodity (Athlon 64, 2003) and if you had done it back then, you wouldn't have let down thousands of add-ons developers who are now simply fed up and have parted ways with you.

    24 1 Reply
  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Don't always blame others...

    "Gal believes a big part of the problem is Google's monopoly on search and its aggressive marketing of Chrome."

    Just like so many others I also used Firefox many years back and it wasn't Chrome but Firefox itself which made me bail out. I liked Firefox, a lot, together with Thunderbird it was my de-facto solution to turn to web and e-mail. The main problem: update, after update after update. And some updates were plain out intrusive, sometimes you had to re-learn how your browser worked! No problem if you got time for that, but as a geek who likes to know how his stuff works while also getting tired of spending time on something as trivial as a browser...

    I discovered SeaMonkey and started testing that which was also around the time when Firefox actually changed their appearance to a Chrome look-alike. Gone were the easy toolbars, the buttons, the menus. Only 1 tab and that's it. That's when I figured: "If I wanted to use Chrome I'd use Chrome, this is bullshit" and deinstalled everything. If I recall correctly it was around the time Thunderbird introduced tabs for e-mails, a feature I seriously despised, also because I couldn't turn it off. Firefox/Thunderbird had "change because of change" written all over it, and I didn't want that anymore. I grew tired of it.

    Been using Seamonkey for a long time (for both web & e-mail) and the best part: it still looks the same now as when I picked it up 5 or so years ago. In the mean time I also discovered Opera (the one build on Chromium) and its easy to see why Chrome has such a high market share. It's much more than merely aggressive advertising.

    But other than Opera I never looked back at Firefox. I also don't miss it and I've always been hesitant to try it out again, mostly because of all the bullshit updates they pushed forward.

    17 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Don't always blame others...

      @ShelLuser

      FYI, the Mozilla Foundation had taken money from Google, some of the people there are also affiliated to Google.

      Initially I thought it was a conspiracy theory... until that version of Firefox when they revamped the layout with the 'Australis'(?) theme... which looked strangely like Chrome (e.g. rounded tab edges).

      I've always used Chrome as my main browser, but occasionally fire up Firefox for its plugins e.g. DownloadHelper. With Google going full retard in recent versions ('Snippets' feature) and the Mozilla Foundation being infested with non-tech marketing droids, it's about time to move to another browser (no, Edge is not it. Boycotting Microsoft.)

      I like Seamonkey too, but the updates are infrequent. Also, the millennials don't care about IRC, so a bundled IRC client is not to their liking.

      1 1 Reply
      1. Captain DaFt
        Reply Icon

        Re: Don't always blame others...

        I like Seamonkey too, but the updates are infrequent. Also, the millennials don't care about IRC, so a bundled IRC client is not to their liking.

        Infrequent updates? I rather prefer that they only fix what's broken, and don't shove 'latest and greatest' BS down my throat almost weekly.

        Millennials not caring about IRC? Not all millennials fit the stereotype, and the one's that do make this an excellent reason to use IRC. ☺

        2 0 Reply
        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge
          Reply Icon

          Re: Don't always blame others...

          "I rather prefer that they only fix what's broken"

          Nevertheless I wish they'd release a successor to 2.46. I had to roll 2.46 back as it proved somewhat unstable and I get fed up with prompts that it's available to install.

          0 0 Reply
  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I like Firefox

    because I can install my own copy at work and have local control, it's not locked by registry settings. But I need Java because that's what vendors use and FF above 51 not supporting plugins is not good. (52ESR breaks other things, not Mozilla's fault but I need them.)

    3 0 Reply
    1. Dan 55 Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: I like Firefox

      about:config > plugin.load_flash_only = false

      Restart.

      That'll get you the plugins back on the non-ESR version (until they completely disabled them).

      3 0 Reply
  9. Cuddles

    Bollocks

    "at the same time that Firefox is sliding into irrelevancy it's becoming a better browser. It's faster than it's ever been and uses less memory – less than its replacement, Chrome."

    Utter bollocks. On starting up with just a single tab, Firefox uses 240 MB while Chrome uses 177 MB. More importantly, Firefox leaks like a sieve and quickly climbs to 1 GB or more after browsing a few pages and completely grinds to a halt, requiring killing it and restarting. I've never seen Chrome go over around 300 MB with a few tabs open. (I opened new instances of both to check the numbers; by the time I'd finished typing FF had already managed to hit over 300 MB without even being clicked on a single time.) I used to mock the idea of browser wars since all the silly Java benchmarks and the like that they like to boast about being a couple of milliseconds faster have no meaning in real use, but Firefox has finally got to the point where it actually gets in the way of normal browsing. I'm not a fan of Chrome, which is why I stuck with Firefox so long in the first place, but Firefox has reached the point where I'd happily pick IE6 in preference to it.

    Firefox doesn't need to be the most popular browser, but it needs to be a lot less shit if it doesn't want to disappear into irrelevancy.

    13 8 Reply
    1. Paul Shirley
      Reply Icon

      Re: Bollocks

      On a sufficiently powerful machine FF might be getting faster but invariably at the expense of using more resources. The occasional efforts to drop memory demand are usually wiped out within a couple of updates.

      On a lower machine, FF performance has been falling off a cliff for a long time. Especially noticeable on mobile FF. My G4 runs it fairly smoothly if you ignore the idiotic refusal to adapt to small screens, on my older, slower GPad it's gone from slick and fast (after a rocky start) to barely usable with 1 tab now. About an order of magnitude slower than Chrome.

      FF is being killed by it's own bloated resource demands in the only area of browser growth.

      10 1 Reply
    2. Florida1920
      Reply Icon

      Re: Bollocks

      Utter bollocks.

      Agree. I can run Chrome for weeks on a so-so HP laptop and never have a problem. Never could go more than a few days on FF without massive memory consumption requiring a restart.

      5 1 Reply
      1. Charles 9
        Reply Icon

        Re: Bollocks

        Funny. I keep FF up for weeks at a time without an issue (have to keep a window open to keep an obscure, slow-to-reload page active), and I only have 8GB and a Core i5. Oh, and it's only using 500MB, with two windows (one Private) and multiple tabs active. WITH numerous Add-ons active including NoScript and uBlock Origin. Does it matter that it's v54 (32-bit)? And as for the interface, I frankly don't see what all the fuss is about. I LIKE the Hamburger menu, I reload with the keyboard, and if I need the regular menus, a quick flick of Alt opens it right back up. Ever tried to print a webpage from Chrome? It doesn't use the OS-standard print dialogs.

        And no, I'm not a shill or anything. I simply, honestly and truly, prefer Firefox to anything else. Nothing anyone else has said has convinced me otherwise.

        0 0 Reply
        1. anonymous boring coward Silver badge
          Reply Icon

          Re: Bollocks

          " and I only have 8GB and a Core i5. Oh, and it's only using 500MB, with two windows (one Private) and multiple tabs active."

          Lol!

          You must be very (relatively) young!

          Only 500MB (500'000'000 bytes) for TWO windows, with MULTIPLE tabs?

          And that's before the memory leaking brings that to whatever number you may care to mention.

          Now, 500MB would have been the equivalence of the combined RAM of 20 PCs not that long ago. And somehow I managed to have more than TWO windows with many tabs open on a single one of those PCs.

          So, no, not bloated at all. Not at all.

          0 0 Reply
          1. Charles 9
            Reply Icon

            Re: Bollocks

            Nope. Been using Firefox for many years, and I've only refreshed my profile ones, again years back.

            And, I really DON'T see all this memory leaking you're talking about.

            "Now, 500MB would have been the equivalence of the combined RAM of 20 PCs not that long ago. And somehow I managed to have more than TWO windows with many tabs open on a single one of those PCs."

            How many of those tabs had huge content, including multimedia on it? Care to PROVE your claim?

            0 0 Reply
  10. James Anderson

    Betamax myth again...

    Betamax failed because the 60 minute tapes could not hold a standard film release.

    By the time the fixed it all the movie reltal companies had standardised on VHS which had 90 minute tapes as standard.

    21 1 Reply
    1. LaeMing
      Reply Icon

      Re: Betamax myth again...

      This ^.

      Betamax did some things better than VHS and some things worse. It happened that the things it did worse were exactly the things that mattered to the market. No shenanigans required.

      14 0 Reply
      1. Updraft102
        Reply Icon

        Re: Betamax myth again...

        By the time that Betamax caught up with VHS in maximum play time, the quality advantage was gone. This one is a myth that just won't die. VHS was the superior product with superior licensing terms (Sony kept a tight leash on Beta; JVC was a lot easier with VHS), and it won in the marketplace as a result.

        5 0 Reply
        1. MJI Silver badge
          Reply Icon

          Re: Betamax myth again...

          There was always a quality advantage with Beta.

          I have owned a few top end Beta decks and they are definately better than Vhs.

          Head to head more than once.

          Differences are more pronounced with editing and a third generation Beta is better than a second generation Vhs. In this comparison this was a mix of Sony & Sanyo vs Panasonic or JVC kit.

          Test cards, Beta decks tend to manage one more frequency box than Vhs.

          Portable use, how come so many JVC cameras (a very nice one) ended up paired with Sony recorders (the best on the market at the time, the SLF1 was a better performing deck than the Panasonic NV180)?

          Beta definately out performed Vhs, on luminance resolution, colour resolution, deck control (with early 80s direct drive F1 & C9), noise levels were similar, sound comes down to deck and tape more than format, but Beta linear stereo was not good!

          3 0 Reply
          1. Charles 9
            Reply Icon

            Re: Betamax myth again...

            Quality was why Betamax won in the professional market. You could find Beta machines in plenty of TV studios for that reason. Price was less of an issue there while generational preservation was.

            As for stereo, I recall VHS had an easier time getting Hi-Fidelity sound onto the tape (especially in NTSC recordings) which is why they got an edge in sound and another reason VHS won that generation's video war. By the time Beta had a suitable answer, the war had pretty much run its course.

            1 0 Reply
    2. Stevie
      Reply Icon

      Re: Betamax myth again...again...

      My dad had two Betamax recorders, a cheap one and a top of the line one.

      Both could record movies on a "60 minute" tape using the same trick VHS of the day did: Running the tape and helical head assembly at slower speeds. This I have done.

      So I call shenanigans on this bit of Wikipedia-fueled "everyone knows", and not for the first time in these pages.

      The reason Betamax failed in the market was simply the retail cost of the recorders. People would not pay for the added quality of Betamax over VHS. It is worth noting that it took a good long time to fail as well.

      Sony should have taken a leaf out of Phillips' playbook and announced the specs for the Betamax cartridges to the public months ahead of the release of the first recorder. That's why there was only one format for compact cassette in Europe and 8-track never stood a chance against it. When Phillips put out the first joystick cassette recorder there were dozens of manufacturers already offering blank tape for it.

      2 1 Reply
      1. Orv Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: Betamax myth again...again...

        The head actually runs at a constant speed regardless -- it has to, because that speed is directly tied to the video frame rate. Only the linear speed of the tape changes. One consequence of this is at lower speeds the individual scans of the head actually overlap, which is one reason why video quality is so bad at the slower speeds.

        4 0 Reply
    3. Captain DaFt
      Reply Icon

      Re: Betamax myth again...

      Betamax failed because the 60 minute tapes could not hold a standard film release.

      Sony insisting on being paid a licensing fee for Betamax, and VHS not needing one, didn't help much either.

      4 0 Reply
  11. jamesb2147

    Chrome memory usage

    Anyone else use Chrome specifically for its separation of processes, so that if one crashes, it doesn't bring the whole browser down? I still have this experience with modern Firefox. I tend to run 30+ tabs in Chrome smoothly, but a single bad tab in Firefox and it all comes crashing down.

    Of course, both have deprecated NPAPI now in the mainline releases, which fucks my ability to access Java remote management consoles for servers. I don't mind them making it default off and hiding it in advanced settings, but removing it completely? Seriously, guys?

    5 0 Reply
    1. Updraft102
      Reply Icon

      Re: Chrome memory usage

      Waterfox is Firefox with a lot of the "we'll decide that for you" removed. It still allows NPAPI plugins (among other things). Might work for you!

      I haven't had Firefox crash in a really long time, so I can't really say I have ever used anything for that purpose. Sometimes a script will go nuts in a given tab; FF will alert me that it has stopped responding, and give me the option to kill it or keep waiting, and usually I will end up killing that tab off (but the whole thing keeps working).

      The 32-bit FF (Windows) was crashy as all hell, though; the moment I moved to x64 (Waterfox at the time, as FF x64 for Windows was not even in beta yet), that all stopped. The day FF for Windows x64 hit beta, it was more stable than FF release had been for me in ages. It was faster than Waterfox x64 at that time, so I went back to the actual FF until recently... these days I use either PM or WF.

      I haven't used FF for Linux in anything but x64 in so many years that it's not even something I can remember.

      0 0 Reply
    2. CRConrad
      Reply Icon

      Firefox number of tabs

      Up until a few weeks (couple months?) ago, Firefox often crashed once you got close to a hundred tabs or so. Since then, they've changed something -- the multiprocess stuff that was in the news a while back, I think. Now it seems to me FF is able to handle more tabs than Chrome, which also crashed on a few hundred tabs last I "tested" (well, left a lot of tabs hanging around).

      0 0 Reply
  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Firefox's decline is not an engineering problem"

    ~ Is that true? The fact that Firefox has made it tricky for novices to toggle JavaScript / Images etc, while simultaneously adding useless nag screens like 'Refreshing Firefox' etc is odd. Its the justifications in release threads by developers too, that says to me people working there are out of touch with users and what's actually helpful. This was not the case decades ago though, so what changed?

    ~ I'd like to see 'about:config.javascript' etc shortcuts for toggling JavaScript etc. Having to remember to Type 'pt.e' as a shortcut seems really dumb. Same goes for toggling images etc... Plus having to 'set dom.image.srcset.enabled' to FALSE after every install to 100% block image loads, WTF???

    ~ But hey I still use Firefox. What else is there? Lets not even dwell on Win10 browser slurp, never going there... After finding Google secretly slurping bookmarks, history etc from local machines without even being signed into Gmail, I'm never going back to Chrome. That's a pity too, as it had had some nice 'per site' scripting / image / cookie blocking tools, which negated the need to always have separate Ad-Blockers etc.

    10 0 Reply

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