Firefox is dead to me – and I'm not the only one who is fed up

Parent company Mozilla's not my fave either

Opinion I know some people still love Firefox. But, folks, it's a bad relationship, and the problems have been going on for a while now.

Let me count the ways. Back in February, Mozilla changed Firefox's Terms of Use and Privacy Notice for the worse. Mozilla removed a longstanding FAQ promise – "Nope. Never have, never will" – regarding the sale of your personal data to replace it with a less definitive pledge to "protect your personal information." Would it surprise you to know that a few weeks later, Mozilla announced that AI would be its top priority in 2025? I note that this was listed above privacy.

Good luck with that AI move. Honestly, Mozilla, what the heck are you doing playing with AI, anyway? You don't have the resources to even sit down at the table, never mind be an AI winner. Those tens of millions you're betting on AI would be better spent improving Firefox or keeping your useful Firefox sideline programs, Pocket and Fakespot, alive.

Pocket is a helpful program that many people I know use to keep "read-it-later" web content easily at hand. Mozilla claims it is killing that off because the ways "people use the web have evolved, so we're channeling our resources into projects that better match their browsing habits and online needs."

Tell that to the loyal Pocket users. As one Redditor wrote, "I'm grieving. I used this feature nearly every day and loved the Kobo integration that allowed me to read saved articles distraction-free on my Kobo e-ink devices. It's the end of an era." Not everyone would rather watch TikTok videos all day. Some of us still like to read.

As for Fakespot, this was – believe it or not – a useful AI program. You could use this tool from Firefox to figure out if an online review was a real one. With fake reviews showing up more than ever, thanks to AI, I would have thought this would have been a great program to keep around. But, no, Mozilla didn't want to invest in their one successful AI service.

Go figure.

As for Firefox itself, users are reporting a growing number of technical problems that have eroded the browser's reputation for reliability. In particular, even longtime users are reporting that more and more mainstream websites, such as Instagram, Salesforce, LinkedIn, and WhatsApp Web, either fail to load or function poorly in recent Firefox releases. In particular, Firefox seems to be having more trouble than ever rendering JavaScript-heavy sites. Like it or not, many popular sites live and die with JavaScript these days.

Users have observed that Firefox is slower than competitors like Chrome. Some people are reporting that the browser is running up to 30 percent slower. Issues such as high idle memory usage (2–4 GB with a single tab open), frequent freezes when restoring from a minimized state, and unexplained crashes have become common complaints, even on high-end hardware.

As my fellow Linux and open source journalist buddy Jack Wallen recently wrote, "What was once a blazing-fast browser on Linux has become doggedly slow. On top of that, features started to disappear (such as Do Not Track). As well, the development team seems to be ignoring the fact that every browser on the market has moved ahead of Firefox with regards to Tab Management."

Thinking of Linux, traditionally a Firefox stronghold, Mozilla's handling of Snap and Flatpak packaging has been second-rate. The Snap version, in particular, is described as particularly slow and buggy.

Also, second-rate and downright sloppy was how Mozilla fouled up in March with its lame announcement that an essential root certificate that Firefox used to verify add-ons, DRM content, and browser features would expire shortly. Because Mozilla didn't deal with the issue, users had only two days to update their browsers before losing access to essential add-ons and secure content. Without this update, all add-ons would automatically be disabled, and DRM-protected content would stop playing.

Is this great or what?

Mozilla has also been laying off more and more employees. The latest cut came in May when the company let another 5 percent of its staffers go. Only 17 percent of Mozilla employees approve of CEO Laura Chambers, according to Glassdoor.

Also of note is that Mozilla CFO Eric Muhlheim recently admitted Mozilla depends on Google for 90 percent of its revenue. Yeah, all of you who still think Mozilla and Firefox are free and independent of evil old Google, wake up. That hasn't been the case for ages. If the US Department of Justice is successful in breaking up Google and Chrome, Muhlheim admitted, it's game over for Firefox. The web browser would start a "downward spiral" that could put "Firefox out of business."

Would anyone even notice, though? According to the US federal government's Digital Analytics Program (DAP), which provides us with a running count of the last 90 days of US government website visits, Firefox only has 1.9 percent of the web browser market.

I used to be a Firefox true believer. That was a long time ago. Today, I feel like you can stick a fork in Firefox. It's done. ®