I will not go further because it will turn into an all-bashing post, but Mozilla ( as you like to think of it ) is dead and has been dead for a long time.
Deal with it.
Have made zero changes to FF itself, but overall have found local AI a huge help in managing it all.
Seriously, Mozilla cant win. A large voice of people constantly scold Mozilla for anything it does. We’ve heard from Firefox devs on how this bash fest affects them and we expect them to crank out awesome software despite the abuse. Instead of picking the lesser of two evils they say oh, Firefox is N milliseconds slower than Chrome so I’ll use the greater of two evils.
Can we stop beating a dead horse? If you don’t like Firefox or Mozilla fine but don’t act like it’s unusable as a browser. It’s fine, it works, I don’t why everyone is so bothered by minor details when their goals and clearly better than their competition.
Sure it may be slow for YOU (whatever your use case is) or maybe your extensions broke but average users who rely power users to recommend a browser don’t care. If they can open Facebook and Netflix it’s fine. So use Chrome yourself and recommend Firefox to the people this crap doesn’t matter to. And maybe, if they see the numbers tick up, they’ll change course.
I think it’s pretty clear all the complaining hasn’t done anything as this conversation has been going on for years but I don’t expect that to stop anyone from getting easy HN karma.
I use FF is my daily driver for home stuff; work in chrome/edge. When I see things that are wrong, I point them out. We can champion FF for the good things it does and absolutely we can bash CxO club for slowly running it to the ground.
<< Honestly these kinds of posts are tiresome and unhelpful.
Not accurate, this is likely one of the few ways we can exert some minimal level of influence over this. And besides, what did not complaining ever achieve?
self-satisfaction and just being a better person
Does one become a better person simply by staying quiet?
Mitchell really seems to care about these comments. Oh wait, she probably doesn’t read HN does she? Oh, but the Firefox devs probably do. Well I’m sure they’re just as moved and powerful enough to affect the kind of change you want to see in the organization.
All the more reason to insist that Firefox is the important bit then? What does a Firefox dev get from "Ah yes sure we only care about Firefox, but if that's what Mozilla wants to do they have all my support in continuing their path to irrelevancy"
Brendan choosing to build on Chrome instead of Firefox probably says more about Chrome’s dominance than Firefox’s technical merits. If all Firefox was lacking was better leadership improving it would’ve been easier. If it was a technical issue that’s probably money that needs spent but doesn’t move the needle which is why the current CSuite doesn’t address it either. Or maybe it was just to get away from the stigma around Firefox that doesn’t exist in Chromeland.
Cryptocurrency and ads are common complaints about Brave. But your main point was right. Eich said Firefox OS was the highest priority. And services or partnerships were needed for user sovereignty.[1]
> Brendan choosing to build on Chrome instead of Firefox probably says more about Chrome’s dominance than Firefox’s technical merits.
Brave's CTO said filling gaps in the Gecko framework would have cost months.[2]
[1] https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/brendan-eich...
By not being on the default browser on their operating system? By not marketing it on their world used search engine?
The community was the biggest factor Mozilla had in its favor and the community jumped to Chrome and here we are. It’s nice that you still use FF but their market share makes it clear that you and I are exceptions.
None taken. I am too old to care too much. From my perspective, what will be, will be.
That said, you answer your own question with the very next sentence:
<< It’s nice that you still use FF but their market share makes it clear that you and I are exceptions.
I think you would agree that even with hyperbole of two people using FF, its management is not doing a great job ( euphemism ).
I’m having a hard time thinking how else you’d market Firefox to regular users beyond word of mouth advocacy. I remember Firefox running TV ads once, no idea how effective that was.
Firefox used to be significantly better than IE which drove adoption but since Chrome is heavily invested in I don’t think Firefox can compete purely by being the better browser. The strategy from the “the good old days” doesn’t work here.
Also, I was looking for a specific example. Saying that the C-Suite is bad because market share is down is not an answer without context of how it could have been avoided which is not obvious. How could they have retained or grown the market share they had?
I’m not saying management bears no responsibility but not all companies fail because of bad management alone. They have big, well funded competitors and platforms users can’t ignore. In particular, Windows, Google Search, Gmail, IOS, and Android. So much browsing is done online and default browsers rule there.
Now you could say Firefox should have come to mobile sooner. Firefox OS was an interesting idea that might have had legs but who knows if it would have caught on. That work required them to divert attention away from the browser and they have a smaller warchest to devote on an idea that might not payoff.
Let me donate to support Firefox. Firefox, only. Hell, she can even skim off the top for her pay.
They don’t do this because it would trash the gravy train. So Firefox is held hostage to support a litany of nonsense that lets them travel to conferences to speak about AI.
I’m not crazy about it either but I don’t lose sleep over it. It’s a browser and management could be better. I know it’s a touchy subject and people may not like to hear it but until I’m downvoted into oblivion I’m going to say this discussion is not worth rehashing time and time again.
The donation suggestion is years old at this point. There is nothing new in this thread.
That usage isn’t what’s constraining Firefox’s resources. Management is. Use Firefox if you like it. (I do, in part.) But don’t argue that if more people use it Mozilla will give a shit; it’s already a material fraction of their revenues and they’re ignoring it.
At the moment, it is unclear how much extra money, devoted to improving what, would increase Firefox’s market share significantly and am not surprised to see them explore other options. Brave, Vivaldi, etc, don’t seem to have figured it out either.
I choose not to be cynical, nor will I allow myself to be upset about it one way or another and wish others would do the same.
Being negative is more likely to scare off new users/contributors than change Mozilla.
Did you say that Firefox is a 'money sink' for Mozilla? The thing that brings them half a billion dollars a year and corresponds to the vast majority of their revenue ... and is the only thing that gives them relevance .. to you, this is a 'money sink'?
You think Pocket and Mozilla VPN sprung up because creating new products was easier than investing more into the golden goose? If Firefox was the end all be all that would be the obvious, safest business decision. Clearly they don’t think it is and that they can get more money through diversification.
A number of people here believe that Firefox is only supported by Google so they can avoid anti trust. If that were the case they’d pay Mozilla regardless of how good/bad Firefox was wouldn’t they?
One of the reasons firefox is dying is because they are chasing market share and not listening to the users at all.
They look at Edge, Chrome, etc and try to duplicate them hoping to peel off users.
They look everything under the sun but what the actual users of their actual product want... Us users they just ignore us.
I know dropping XUL, plugins, performance have been issues for people. I see the changes they made as necessary to keep the codebase maintainable and improve performance. What else am I missing?
Honestly, this news/post made me lose the final shred of hope I had.
:/
[1] Google no longer unilaterally pulls on web standards. Google and Apple adopt a shared, first-class standard for native app development. Web gets "as native" APIs.
[2] No requirement of app store for distribution. Web installs and web as native. No scare walls or hidden-in-the-settings feature flags. The browser runtimes have full extension support with no removal of hooks necessary for eg. adblocking.
[3] First party apps are not defaults, not preinstalled, and more importantly, cannot re-assert themselves as defaults.
[4] If someone searches for your company or product by name, or a 1 edit distance variation, competitor ads can't show up before your website or app.
Unless people start running for office that won’t just do what corporations want then it’s futile.
And Firefox is their only worthwhile product, so moving away from Firefox means they're dying.
I think there are two realistic paths for the company. One is to make the browser amazing and edgy in ways that Google and Microsoft can't match (out of the fear of cannibalizing revenue or running into regulatory trouble). Mozilla has a shot at it, but it's unlikely to happen if they have a defeatist attitude about it internally, and are focusing on non-browser pivots.
The other path is to basically turn into some completely different company, throwing money at unrelated pursuits such as AI and hoping that you get lucky. But what gives Mozilla any edge with that?
What is serious revenue?
Google and Microsoft are betting AI will be very relevant to web use. And what amazing and edgy features would Google and Microsoft be unable to match?