| guide | There is no doubt that the browser is one of the most important applications in any operating system, be it on a desktop, laptop or mobile device. |
Without a powerful, fast and stable browser, the usefulness of an OS is reduced so much that I'm fairly sure that if an OS doesn't have a browser, almost nobody will use it for regular, normal use . Having at least a working browser is the key to upgrading your operating system from an entertainment toy to a fun novelty you can use for more than 10 minutes.
But the problem is that developing a full-featured browser is actually very difficult, because the browser itself has become a feature-rich platform. Taking on the gigantic task of building a browser from scratch isn't something that many people are interested in - except for the crazy ones - and it's all exacerbated by market consolidation and monopoly, with the remaining three Browser engine competition is basically useless. The dominance of Chrome and its various derivatives, followed by Safari on iOS, is simply because you can't use any other browser (engine) on iOS. Then there's Firefox, which exists as a distant third -- and still slipping.
That's where Linux desktop distributions come in. Linux desktops have long relied almost exclusively on Firefox (and the Mozilla suite before it) as their browser, with some users opting to download Chrome after installation. Although GNOME and KDE both nominally have their own two browsers, GNOME Web and Falkon, they have a limited number of users and few releases. For example, none of the major Linux distributions include GNOME Web as their default browser, and it lacks many of the features users have come to expect from a browser. In contrast, Falkon is only updated occasionally, often releasing a new version every few years. To make matters worse, Falkon uses the Chromium engine via QtWebEngine, while GNOME Web uses WebKit (they are updated independently of the browser, so browser version is not always a reliable indicator!), so both depend on The goodwill of two of the most ruthless corporations in the world - Google and Apple.
Even Firefox itself, although it's clearly the browser of choice for Linux distributions and Linux users, doesn't consider Linux a first-tier platform. Firefox was first a Windows browser, then macOS, and finally Linux. The Linux world's love for Firefox has not been met with the same response from Mozilla, and this has shown in many places that issues that were fixed and resolved on the Windows side were neglected on the Linux side for years or more.
The best and most obvious example of this is hardware video acceleration. This feature has been a default part of Windows versions from the beginning, but it will not be enabled by default on Linux until Firefox 115, which will be released in early July 2023. Even so, this feature is only enabled by default for Intel graphics card users, and it doesn't matter to AMD and Nvidia users. This lack of video acceleration (and it still does for AMD and Nvidia users) is a major factor in why Linux laptops lag far behind their Windows counterparts in terms of battery life.
And then, the road to get there has been long, hard, and bumpy. Getting hardware video acceleration to work on Firefox on Linux has been complicated and unstable for a long time, and each browser version may change the flags you need to set. Sometimes no matter what you do, it might stop working for several builds in a row. Forum messages, blog posts, and website articles are filled with outdated instructions and Hail Mary-like advice for users trying to get it running. Your past successes change with each release, and keeping track of them all is a nightmare.
Not just hardware accelerated video decoding. Gesture support arrived much later on the Linux version than on the Windows version -- like using a swipe to go forward and back, or pinch on a picture to zoom. Likewise, touchscreen support is a bit late in the Linux version of Firefox. Often such features may be enabled via about:config directives years before they are enabled by default, but this is far from ideal.
It's no surprise, or the result of malicious intent, that desktop Linux lags behind Windows and macOS in popularity. The point of the previous paragraphs wasn't to complain about the state of Firefox for Linux, or to suggest that Mozilla move valuable resources from the Windows and macOS versions to the Linux version. While I obviously wouldn't complain about these if they did, it doesn't make a lot of sense. The real reason I'm emphasizing these issues is that if Firefox for Linux is already considered a third-tier platform today with Mozilla's existing finances and resources, what would happen if Mozilla's finances and resources were drastically reduced?
Firefox isn't doing so well. Its market share has fallen precipitously over the years, and now accounts for a meager 3% on desktops and laptops, and a paltry 0.5% on mobile. Chrome and to a lesser extent Safari have completely overwhelmed this once mighty browser to the point where it's basically a side product for Linux/BSD users and more geeks on other platforms. I say this not to belittle those who use Firefox -- I'm one of them -- but to emphasize how bad Firefox's current market position is. This shrinking market share is already hurting Firefox's development and future prospects, especially if the slide continues.
However, declining market share is far from the biggest problem. The sword of Damocles resting on top of Firefox is a very strange and unbalanced revenue stream for Mozilla. As most of you probably know, Mozilla makes most of its revenue from its search partnership with Google. About 80 percent of Mozilla's revenue comes from Google, which pays the browser maker to make Google Search the default search engine.
How long will this deal last? Will Firefox keep renewing its contract no matter how bad it gets? Will the collaboration be scaled back, or will it end entirely? At what point will Google decide that spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year in what is essentially a competitor's philanthropy is no longer worth it, or even needed? Google's similar search deal with Apple is already facing legal scrutiny; will that scrutiny affect its deal with Mozilla?
Just ask yourself this question: If Mozilla were to run out of money due to Firefox's market share slipping further, a deal with Google falling apart, a combination of the two, or even other factors not mentioned here, which version of Firefox would go first? Feel the cut? What will Mozilla do to alleviate the predicament? As Mozilla grows desperate, will we see dirty deals with other companies? Unreliable concept of cryptocurrency? Advertisement allowed in exchange for revenue? More recommended sites and extensions, need to pay? Or will the Linux distribution be cut altogether and let the community take over?
This is what happened to Thunderbird. It took almost a decade for Thunderbird to fully recover. This can also happen with Firefox on Linux.
That's the problem with Firefox for desktop Linux. The most important desktop Linux application is already in a very difficult situation, and it seems inevitable that things will only gradually get worse. However, I don't see anyone talking about this, or considering the eventual possible demise of Firefox, what that means for the Linux desktop, and how it can be avoided or mitigated.
In an ideal world, the major stakeholders of the Linux desktop -- KDE, GNOME, the various major distributions -- would get together and seriously consider a plan of action. The best possible solution, in my opinion, is to fork a major browser engine (or pick one and invest heavily), and modify that engine and customize it specifically for the Linux desktop. Stop living in the leftovers of Windows and macOS browser makers and focus entirely on making a browser engine fully optimized for Linux with its graphics stack and desktop. Get key stakeholders to work together on a Linux-preferred—or even Linux-only—browser engine, leaving the graphical front end to various toolkits and desktop environments.
Clearly, this is not easy and requires a major investment in time, resources and people. However, by focusing only on Linux, you won't really compete with Blink and WebKit, since they don't focus on desktop Linux at all (Chrome still doesn't have hardware video acceleration on Linux). Let other engines fight for various proprietary platforms - Linux needs a browser engine independent of Google (and Apple) and takes Linux as a platform seriously.
I'm really concerned about the state of browsers on Linux, and in particular the future of Firefox on Linux. I think the various major players in the desktop Linux community, from GNOME to KDE, from Ubuntu to Fedora, obviously have absolutely no contingency plan for Firefox going wrong or dying, even though we all know the current state of the browser market, Mozilla's financial situation and future prospects for both. This behavior is really irresponsible.
Firefox for the Linux desktop has a big problem, but no one seems willing to admit it.