Why Brave rises and Firefox sinks?

marek.samec (43)in #browser • 4 years ago (edited)

Maybe you noticed that many people talk about Brave these days. Many content creators use it or even endorse it. This is particularly strong in the crypto community. As some of you already know Brave browser is a project started by former Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich. The browser came out with a unique ecosystem for advertising and support of the content creators powered by BAT. There are tons of articles about this so I will not go into details.

When there is some hype I usually stay aside for some type as I am not a herd following type of person (...well, mostly :D). I gave it a try, installed it but I saw no benefits to other browsers I was using at that time. These were Vivaldi and Firefox. I mainly used Vivaldi for work and Firefox for personal stuff. For some reason, I felt like giving a Brave another try recently and It was a pleasant surprise! Compared to two years ago there were many new features and I liked how they work together.

Firefox takes a plunge

I must say I am a bit disappointed by Firefox and maybe Mozilla these days. I really loved Firefox and I was using it from the very beginning. At the time it was a fresh breeze in the world of internet browsing. However, in the last few years, Firefox suffered from several issues. The browser started to lag behind Chromium-based browsers in terms of speed and ease of use and security. Mozilla tried to address some of these issues with limited resources it had available. Firefox UI was reworked, some of the codebase updated and the overall performance and security have improved. But this came at a cost and it was the drop of the support for the legacy add-ons. This angered some of the users and made them switch to forks (like SeaMonkey or Pale Moon) or leave, but it also brought some new users, who were attracted by the new, fresher look of the browser.

Nevertheless, Firefox usage continued to decline although thanks to its fingerprinting blocking, it's hard to say what is the real number.

Two browsers, two different ways of doing things

Since Brave was started by a former CEO of Mozilla I closely watched how these two browsers develop. Why Mozilla decided to start many side projects with the hope that some of them will bear fruit. These were Firefox OS, a programming language called Rust, Firefox VPN, Lockwise, and more. The full list can be found here. Brave took a different approach. Brave focused on one thing at that is to create a fast, secure, and privacy-respecting browser. Since today's internet is fueled by ads, it also tried to solve the problem with ad-blocking which, to a certain degree, leads to a loss of revenue for the content creators. Although many people were quite skeptical about this idea (me included), they stubbornly continued and developed this system step by step. This gave birth to BAT (Basic Attention Token) powered system. If this system continues to grow it might help fund the content creators while also securing a stable income stream for the Brave software.

In contrast, Mozilla was starting new projects, canceling some of the old ones, and trying to find direction. Not that Mozilla does not have any vision or mission. But this mission is bold and quite abstract and it seems Mozilla lacks a clear pathway to achieve these plans. Or at least from an outside perspective. Please don't think I want to bash Mozilla here. I know they did a lot for the internet and I appreciate everyone who has helped Mozilla to make that contribution. Without Mozilla, the internet as we know it today would be probably different, perhaps still dominated by Microsoft.

I am aware that Mozilla is not only about Firefox and perhaps never meant to be. But it makes me sad to see the browser usage crashing down. But why is that? Why many people chose something like Brave over Mozilla? Here are some ideas why not only from my head but also what I've seen frequently on Firefox forums or /r/Firefox subreddit:

Updates are too frequent and break things too often.
Gui changes quite often as well and not always for the better.
Settings are confusing and lack a unified concept, look how Vivaldi's or Brave settings. look like. All neat and organized in one place!
Some features disappear or are moved, updates break add-ons, and more.
Bugzilla is not user-friendly which discourages users from reporting bugs.

Although some users blame Google for aggressively pushing Chrome I doubt this is the main reason. I personally don't know a single person who switched to Chrome because they were hypnotized by the "Use Chrome ad in Google search". Most of the people I know loved Firefox and stopped using it because their workflow was seriously disrupted.

However, there is one extra dimension to Firefox. It is actually the only fully independent browser. Yes, Chromium is an open-source project and it can be forked any time. But Google still has big say in its direction. Because the Chromium browsers are dominant Google can basically dictate or ignore web trends at a whim (and they already do so). What would happen if Mozilla as a non-profit would suddenly cease to exist? Would that be the end of Firefox? Maybe or perhaps the Firefox would be reborn under the hands of the community as something better. It's really hard to predict at this point.

Does history repeat itself?

In the late 90's Netscape Navigator was a non-free proprietary web browser. Can you imagine paying for the web browser? I guess not :D Over time Netscape fell to Microsoft Explorer, and its source code was given to the open-source community. From its ashes, Firefox was born (check this article for the full story)

When I tried Brave I was shocked how fast the browser is. I must admit this was one of the major selling points. Unlike Firefox, the performance is very consistent across devices and even platforms. It works well on Linux, Android, and Windows 10. I use all three platforms so this is quite an important point for me. Sync is not as easy as with Chrome but compared to Firefox it is still fine. Can Brave replace Firefox as the "privacy browser"? Perhaps to some degree, but Firefox still has features that no other browser has, like containers or built-it anti-fingerprinting protection.

Should Firefox throw the towel in the ring? Definitely not, I am not burying the Firefox here and I think we will still see it around. I just want to point out that things change and something ends it is not always bad in the long run. I will be watching both browsers closely and wait where will they develop.

Why Brave rises and Firefox sinks?

Firefox takes a plunge

Two browsers, two different ways of doing things

Does history repeat itself?

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