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Comment by iakov | Hacker News Reader

I never understood this argument. Yeah they have different departments, but wouldn’t it be better (for us, Firefox users) to fire the virtue signaling marketing types and funnel the money into developing their dying browser?

Oh wait, that’s exactly the opposite of what Mozilla is doing - they fired a hundred of engineering people some time ago. I guess the activist talking heads stayed though.

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To play devil's advocate, in 2022, how much is an established browser's success is determined by technical merit vs. the economic clout of the entity behind it? Suppose, FF releases the browser that is 5x better than Chrome. Most people wouldn't notice! Microsoft installs Chromium-based browser by default, and Google, which is what most people use for search, gently pushes everyone to install Chrome. Apple obviously also defaults to non-FF. There really seems to be no pressing need for an average user to go out of their way for a better browser experience.

Other than PR and growth hacks and maybe activism, which is what they seem to be trying now?

I wasn't making an argument. I was simply pointing out different groups have different priorities even within a single organization.

I wish firefox would focus on getting the browser up to snuff for daily usability things like basic profile switching and better defaults for privacy.

but c'est la vie.

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