I'm glad we are finally coming to terms with the fact that Firefox has been a second tier browser since Chrome was released.
Everyone has love and good will for Mozilla and Firefox because Firefox showed the world what a browser and the web could be if designed correctly to some open standard.
However, the developer tools, JS performance, and overall browser tech have languished. So while we all are cheering for them to catch up, we do it sadly from a Chrome. Debugging a modern SPA on Firefox is painful.
What should have been an "oh crap, we need to up our game" moment for them was a whoosh just like the iPhone reveal was for Balmer.
Firefox wasn't a second-tier browser immediately after the Chrome release, though. In my anecdotical experience, Firefox seemed faster, was more stable, and used less memory than Chrome at the time. Firebug was also easier to use than Chrome's dev tools.
Everyone has love and good will for Mozilla and Firefox because Firefox showed the world what a browser and the web could be if designed correctly to some open standard.
However, the developer tools, JS performance, and overall browser tech have languished. So while we all are cheering for them to catch up, we do it sadly from a Chrome. Debugging a modern SPA on Firefox is painful.
What should have been an "oh crap, we need to up our game" moment for them was a whoosh just like the iPhone reveal was for Balmer.