14 DAY TRIAL // It’s not a secret Firefox has more or less remained all alone in the fight against the army of Chromium browsers out there, and despite falling on third place in terms of browser market share, every single update brings more and more improvements for the supported platforms.
It’s not a secret that Mozilla hasn’t been very excited with Microsoft giving up on EdgeHTML and embracing Chromium, the engine that also powers Google Chrome.
“Microsoft is officially giving up on an independent shared platform for the internet. By adopting Chromium, Microsoft hands over control of even more of online life to Google,” Mozilla’s Chris Beard said in December 2018, shortly after Microsoft announced its transition to the Chromium engine.
“Will Microsoft’s decision make it harder for Firefox to prosper? It could. Making Google more powerful is risky on many fronts. And a big part of the answer depends on what the web developers and businesses who create services and websites do. If one product like Chromium has enough market share, then it becomes easier for web developers and businesses to decide not to worry if their services and sites work with anything other than Chromium. That’s what happened when Microsoft had a monopoly on browsers in the early 2000s before Firefox was released. And it could happen again.”
The migration to Chromium has indeed improved the adoption of Microsoft Edge, with Mozilla losing the runner-up spot in global market share and thus dropping to the third place.
But despite this change, things have actually improved for Firefox users.
Mozilla is now rolling out big updates for Firefox every four weeks as part of an approach that was embraced earlier this year, so improvements land at a much faster pace.
Sure, there still are things to improve, there’s no doubt about it, and the occasional bugs that the company had to deal with by halting the rollout of new versions are definitely the living confirmation in this regard.
But on the other hand, Firefox continues to be a leading browser, especially in terms of new feature adoption. For example, Firefox will be one of the first browsers to introduce multiple PiP windows, after actually being one of the first to release the standard feature anyway.
And it’s not just that. The major updates that the browser receives every month bring much bigger changes, and the recently-released version 83 is the living proof.
The HTTPS-Only Mode, the keyboard shortcut support for PiP, the overhauled search, are all here to further enhance the experience with Firefox on all platforms where the browser runs.
And somehow, Mozilla still finds the time to focus on the performance of the browser, and again, version 83 is the living proof here, as it comes with notable speed improvements.
“Firefox keeps getting faster as a result of significant updates to SpiderMonkey, our JavaScript engine, you will now experience improved page load performance by up to 15%, page responsiveness by up to 12%, and reduced memory usage by up to 8%. We have replaced part of the JavaScript engine that helps to compile and display websites for you, improving security and maintainability of the engine at the same time,” Mozilla announced on November 17 when it rolled out Firefox 83.
So overall, Microsoft’s migration to Chromium didn’t have a big impact on the future of Firefox, and in some ways, it actually improved the way people see Mozilla’s browser. Firefox has remained the only truly advanced alternative to the army of Chromium browsers, and this can only be good news for everybody, as choice is the most important thing we must have today.