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It’s time to give Firefox another chance

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Re: It’s time to give Firefox another chance

#681

Post by JohnBooty »

bigbugbag wrote: post #626
dralley wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While Mozilla has had quite a few projects that didn't really pan out, I'm not sure you're giving them enough credit. They developed (well... became the first and most significant major backer of) an entirely new programming language, purely for the purposes of building a better browser. And then devoted tons of resources for years into developing Servo, a massive and complex project that is only being realized now.…

I don't know what you're trying to defend here, high ranked people from mozilla admitted themselves they made bad decision and wasted money and time and developers on the wrong things instead of focusing on their core product[1]. They've also been criticized for years for their business model being too dependent on a single income source contrary to their values. They did nothing about it until it became clear that t…

Their core product, Firefox, has always been on shaky ground. They need to diversify. Firefox will always be at the mercy of multiple other parties.

First, OS manufacturers who have unlimited power to steer users toward their own browsers. This was true in the Windows days, and it's an order of magnitude more true in the mobile world where one of the leading platforms, iOS, won't even allow "real" versions of competitors' browsers onto their devices.

Second, they're at the mercy of purveyors of web content. How screwed would Firefox be if a couple of major sites like Facebook and Youtube started treating FF like a second-class citizen? FF already kind of feels like a second-class citizen sometimes; as far as I know Google Hangouts still doesn't work on FF: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/google-hangouts-tempora...

So, in the long run, Mozilla is going to have to do something about their tenuous position.

Realistically, they can't blow the doors off of incumbent browsers (Edge, Safari, Chrome) like they did back in the IE6 days. That was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Microsoft, having achieved dominance, had literally disbanded their browser team despite the fact that IE6 was atrocious. But that will never happen again. MS, Apple, and Google each have gobs of engineering talent allocated to their browser efforts and the only way Mozilla can excel its way to the front of the pack is if the other three major browser vendors simultaneously slack off at once and give FF an IE6-like opening.

Also, the importance of the browser is decreasing. Watch kids on phones. It's all apps. They don't do jack shit in a web browser. A web browser is something they use, at most, to look up homework answers.

The world is a better place for Mozilla's presence and I hope that, while keeping FF strong, they manage to figure out an Apple-like second act at some point.

Re: It’s time to give Firefox another chance

#682

Post by tedunangst »

CydeWeys wrote: post #669
late2part wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Duo is an MFA. Whatever GOOG did that's called Duo failed because I don't know what it is.

What's MFA?

multi factor authentication. https://duo.com/ which is not related to the google app.

Re: It’s time to give Firefox another chance

#684

Post by bad_user »

bigbugbag wrote: post #654
bad_user wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally love Pocket, it's my bookmarking service and I'm a paying customer. And staying true to their mission, Mozilla bought Pocket and is now releasing it as open source [1]. You're speaking of "betraying the foundation of the Open Web", but Mozilla is the only one out of the big players that isn't guilty of betrayal, the only big player that tried opposing patent encumbered video codecs or DRM, that have been…

As a long time user of wallabag why would I welcome the addition of a proprietary alternative that's difficult to disable into firefox ? Stripping user of choice is the opposite of free software and empowering users. It's arguably not so smart to spend millions of dollars to buy the company behind pocket to release it opensource when an opensource alternative already exists. Turns out mozilla did not buy pocket as mu…

Disabling Pocket in Firefox has been basically a right-click and then clicking the remove button option, even in Firefox 57. Of course, this isn't really about disabling Pocket, but about removing it, being some kind of ideological struggle.

To set the records straight, Free Software has nothing to do with choice, as can be seen by how GCC and other projects were developed.

I did try wallabag. I appreciate the effort of its developers, I wish the project succeeds, but the mobile apps are pieces of shit compared with Pocket. So arguably, that open source alternative you're speaking of does not exist.

I really don't understand how Mozilla is not putting the users first, because by their actions, it seems to me like they are.

The really interesting phenomenon however is that I'm not seeing the same vitriol whenever Google's Chrome is being discussed on HN. It's like there's this really vocal minority that really wants Firefox to die, this comment included. No worries, if the current trends holds, Firefox will end up being dead and then you'll be able to have a choice between Chrome, Edge or Safari.

Or you'll be able to fork Firefox, invest in whatever projects you want to invest, build whatever features you want to build and in general put your money where your mouth is.

Can't wait to see that happening. Good luck.

Re: It’s time to give Firefox another chance

#685

Post by minusf »

rowyourboat wrote: post #432
ricw wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not representative of either the time frame or the resources available to Mozilla. Mozilla has had Hundreds of millions of annual income through their search associations [1]. It’s surprising how they’ve wasted that amount of money to finally in 2017 build a browser that can compete again. This is 9 years after google chrome was released! They have absolutely no excuse for falling this far behind. They squand…

> They squandered a lot of money, while neglecting their core business (their web browser). They are not a business, they are a non-profit organization. And their aim is not to simply build a better browser, but to preserve the open web, and put control in the hands of the users. Granted, phoneOS was a failure, but given their mission, they had to try.

non-profits and research organisations can also have a "core business", it's just a different word normally for the main thing they were created for.

Re: It’s time to give Firefox another chance

#687

Post by xenadu02 »

dom0 wrote: post #621
matthewmacleod wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not theft to use open source software in accordance with its license.

Legally they might have done the minimal amount necessary to not violate the license, but morally they've been a huge dick. "We have to open source our modifications to the code base, so here you get exactly one tarball of uncommented stuff."

That hasn’t been true for many years so what exactly is the complaint?

Re: It’s time to give Firefox another chance

#688

Post by gkya »

bigbugbag wrote: post #660
jopsen wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious what is the concern with pocket?

Here are some examples: Proprietary, got integrated into firefox for no apparent reason (hard to disable), had a security breach and privacy issue, got bought by mozilla for an undisclosed sum (millions), promises to open source have only been promises so far, acquisition turned to have been more a bout buying the 10 millions user base to get into mobile and 1 billion entries to feed to the upcoming recommendation en…

This is basically an anti-vaxx-ish comment. Open sourcing propritary software is not easy, and IDK how you come to that last conclusion if yours that you're pushing all over the place. When pocket first appeared in FF, I was mad, but when Mozilla bought it I thought I could finally use the thing.

Re: It’s time to give Firefox another chance

#689

Post by Aissen »

Manishearth wrote: post #679
Aissen wrote: post #627

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagreed. I might have 3GB of RAM on this phone, but the browser(s) often get moved out of RAM. It's slower to start than Chrome/Brave. Cold-boot performance matters. I keep Firefox Beta around, and just checked, it's still almost twice as slow as Brave in a adhoc cold start test.

I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with, I was specifically responding to the "adds another three clicks" thing

I see. I thought you meant that as a default browser, there would be less chance for it to be swapped out, and therefore it would be sluggish.

Re: It’s time to give Firefox another chance

#690

Post by syshum »

ubernostrum wrote: post #676
syshum wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>>Now what? Well, what happens now is popular media stays popular, and continues to be delivered via big binary-blob plugins with horrible security properties. EME is big binary blob plugins called CDM's, EME is just a different API to access the binary plugins that will have (and have already had) all kinds of security issues >What's the human cost of hacks? What's the human cost of the security issues those plugin…

EME is big binary blob plugins called CDM's The plugin world had big binary blobs that need the ability to absolutely control at least most or all of the browser and possibly other parts of the computer too. The EME world has far smaller binary blobs communicating over a narrow defined API which does not give them control of the browser. So. You don't actually know what you're talking about, and resort to misrepresen…

CDM require total control of the OS and Hardware, far worse than just control over the Browser.

So it is you that do not know what you are talking about

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