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Browser-Wars History: MD5-Hashed Posts Declassified

robert.ocallahan.org

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Re: Browser-Wars History: MD5-Hashed Posts Declassified

#51

Post by toyg »

fabrice_d wrote: post #42
toyg wrote: post #22

At the time this internal skepticism about the future of Gecko was very palpable from outside. Which is why it was infuriating to see Mozilla jumping on every bandwagon they could, eventually ending up with the OS silliness: it really felt like they were trying to run from their own browser and from their own tech, like they were ashamed of not being cool. Thank god they eventually “saw the light” and they’re now bac…

FxOS started in 2011, not 2008. But yeah, that's the usual scapegoat to explain any of Mozilla's issues from the last 5 (or 10?) years. You also totally misunderstand the goal pursued with FxOS, which had nothing to do with "run from their own browser and tech". If anything, the current work to remove XUL and xpcom puts Firefox closer to how FxOS was built, not further away. At the time some employees even build a ne…

Please read my comment, before trying to read my mind. I'm telling you what it looked like from the outside. Nobody ever cared for the internal politics of Mozilla; what we saw was a wobbly org that looked anxious to build anything that wasn't their own browser. I didn't say the OS was responsible, nobody cares if FxOS ended up making choices that the browser should have made or whatnot. The problem was not FxOS; FxOS was a symptom of an institution that had lost its way before the OS was even in the picture.

> they are still playing catch up on the desktop market

It's not the sort of wave you turn in a month. 57 is a big release, give it time. It had a massive surge of good press, which is a good sign. If they can come up with developer tools that can beat Chrome at something, they will see numbers go up.

> totally irrelevant on mobile.

They are making inroads on Android, which is the only market they will ever play into. iOS will only be cracked open by legal coercion. Anything else is wishful thinking.

> But they have enough money to last years

Mozilla is not just a company, it's basically a public institution. Their role is to champion a view of the web as an open utility, not to be the most popular widget maker. They don't need bazillions of money to do that.

Re: Browser-Wars History: MD5-Hashed Posts Declassified

#52

Post by BuuQu9hu »

rainbowmverse wrote: post #29
jwilk wrote: post #14

I expected an article about 1990s browser wars. 2007-2008 is not ancient in my book.

10 years is a long time. This was back when I still heard people seriously asking if the internet would last. It was even plausible! Google was only a few years out from its IPO. Few people thought the internet could help elect a president (and I don't mean the current guy). A lot changed in the last ten years. It may not seem like it because most of those changes were refinements on things we already had at the time…

"10 years is a long time. This was back when I still heard people seriously asking if the internet would last."

In 2007 the web, the mainstream part of internet, had been going on for 17 years. And the internet was even older. If people thought 10 years ago that the internet could disappear, they think the same today and in 10 years as well.

" It was even plausible! Google was only a few years out from its IPO. Few people thought the internet could help elect a president (and I don't mean the current guy)."

Oh. Because without these two anecdotals event the internet couldn't last?

"A lot changed in the last ten years"

Not that much. Facebook, twitter and youtube were already around. The main difference is that we lost everything else. We have less and less choice. But it was already starting in 2007.

Re: Browser-Wars History: MD5-Hashed Posts Declassified

#53

Post by roca »

toyg wrote: post #22

At the time this internal skepticism about the future of Gecko was very palpable from outside. Which is why it was infuriating to see Mozilla jumping on every bandwagon they could, eventually ending up with the OS silliness: it really felt like they were trying to run from their own browser and from their own tech, like they were ashamed of not being cool. Thank god they eventually “saw the light” and they’re now bac…

As Fabrice said, FirefoxOS was really the opposite --- doubling down on Gecko by making it the core piece of a huge bet. And it mean a big investment in Gecko improvements such as multi-process which eventually paid off on desktop.

Re: Browser-Wars History: MD5-Hashed Posts Declassified

#54

Post by BuuQu9hu »

jasode wrote: post #23
nly wrote: post #9

Opera made the bet he proposed and lead themselves down a path to irrelevance.

As one of the few who paid for a web browser (paid $29 for Opera 7 in 2003), it looked to me like Opera really had no choice. There was a post from an Opera insider that I can't find but it was basically this: the web's complexity was evolving faster than the Opera team could maintain their proprietary Presto rendering engine. Switching away from Presto and building on WebKit was a basic matter of survival. Yes, they…

>Opera did try to some interesting features such as "Unite" which -- if you squint a certain way -- was a form of p2p decentralization. Yes, it's interesting to have a built-in web server in the browser but not enough people cared about it.

Unite is a typical example of something that worked fine and disappear all the same. I haven't find any browser that surpass Opera 12 to this day. All the new "exciting stuff" are no use to me. I don't want to adapt to my browser, I want a browser that adapt to me.

Re: Browser-Wars History: MD5-Hashed Posts Declassified

#56

Post by guelo »

jgraham wrote: post #36
jasode wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As one of the few who paid for a web browser (paid $29 for Opera 7 in 2003), it looked to me like Opera really had no choice. There was a post from an Opera insider that I can't find but it was basically this: the web's complexity was evolving faster than the Opera team could maintain their proprietary Presto rendering engine. Switching away from Presto and building on WebKit was a basic matter of survival. Yes, they…

(I worked at Opera during the WebKit/Chromium transition and work at Mozilla now. But in both cases I'm just a normal individal-contributor type employee with no special insight into strategy or decision making). There are always options. Opera could have doubled-down on Presto; putting more people on the core team, and focussing efforts to keep up with, and surpass, WebKit/Gecko. After all, that's basically the opti…

The fact that Opera couldn't keep up with the standards is also a product of the fact that WHATWG is mostly run by the big orgs. They standardize features at the same rate that the big orgs say that they are developing them.

Re: Browser-Wars History: MD5-Hashed Posts Declassified

#57

Post by guelo »

fabrice_d wrote: post #41
devit wrote: post #19

I wonder whether this scenario is now going to play out in the opposite way, with Google ditching Blink for Servo once Mozilla finishes morphing Gecko into Servo with the Firefox Quantum project. Who would win then? Google's money and marketing power, or Mozilla's independence, trustworthiness and being the renderer's creator?

Not sure why this is down voted. I would not be surprised if Google was working on a next-gen browser engine along the same lines as Servo, or even a Servo fork. After all, there is a Rust toolchain for Fuschia...

Google probably couldn't stomach mozilla's open source license which makes it difficult to distribute with proprietary code.

Re: Browser-Wars History: MD5-Hashed Posts Declassified

#58

Post by roca »

toyg wrote: post #51
fabrice_d wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FxOS started in 2011, not 2008. But yeah, that's the usual scapegoat to explain any of Mozilla's issues from the last 5 (or 10?) years. You also totally misunderstand the goal pursued with FxOS, which had nothing to do with "run from their own browser and tech". If anything, the current work to remove XUL and xpcom puts Firefox closer to how FxOS was built, not further away. At the time some employees even build a ne…

Please read my comment, before trying to read my mind. I'm telling you what it looked like from the outside. Nobody ever cared for the internal politics of Mozilla; what we saw was a wobbly org that looked anxious to build anything that wasn't their own browser. I didn't say the OS was responsible, nobody cares if FxOS ended up making choices that the browser should have made or whatnot. The problem was not FxOS; FxO…

> Their role is to champion a view of the web as an open utility, not to be the most popular widget maker. They don't need bazillions of money to do that.

To maintain Firefox as a viable product they do need a lot of money, and significant market share too.

Without Firefox as a viable product Mozilla would be a very different and much less useful organisation.

Re: Browser-Wars History: MD5-Hashed Posts Declassified

#59

Post by fabrice_d »

toyg wrote: post #51
fabrice_d wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FxOS started in 2011, not 2008. But yeah, that's the usual scapegoat to explain any of Mozilla's issues from the last 5 (or 10?) years. You also totally misunderstand the goal pursued with FxOS, which had nothing to do with "run from their own browser and tech". If anything, the current work to remove XUL and xpcom puts Firefox closer to how FxOS was built, not further away. At the time some employees even build a ne…

Please read my comment, before trying to read my mind. I'm telling you what it looked like from the outside. Nobody ever cared for the internal politics of Mozilla; what we saw was a wobbly org that looked anxious to build anything that wasn't their own browser. I didn't say the OS was responsible, nobody cares if FxOS ended up making choices that the browser should have made or whatnot. The problem was not FxOS; FxO…

I agree about their role, but they need a strong, successful product to defend this ideal of the web as a open/public utility. That is what they are struggling with, and giving up on owning a platform was a mistake imho - they have less options than their competitors.

Re: Browser-Wars History: MD5-Hashed Posts Declassified

#60

Post by srett »

jgraham wrote: post #36
jasode wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As one of the few who paid for a web browser (paid $29 for Opera 7 in 2003), it looked to me like Opera really had no choice. There was a post from an Opera insider that I can't find but it was basically this: the web's complexity was evolving faster than the Opera team could maintain their proprietary Presto rendering engine. Switching away from Presto and building on WebKit was a basic matter of survival. Yes, they…

(I worked at Opera during the WebKit/Chromium transition and work at Mozilla now. But in both cases I'm just a normal individal-contributor type employee with no special insight into strategy or decision making). There are always options. Opera could have doubled-down on Presto; putting more people on the core team, and focussing efforts to keep up with, and surpass, WebKit/Gecko. After all, that's basically the opti…

I read a post once from another (claimed?) ex-employee who said that around 2009 or so, Opera wasn't doing so great and they laid off a dev or two and then after they recovered half a year later, they never re-hired to fill the gap. The poster accounted the technical falling behind to that layoff. Do you share this impression?

As for me, I still use Opera 12 almost on a daily basis and the main issue I have is not broken websites but inaccessible websites because of HTTPS and Opera not supporting enough recent ciphers. The second most frustrating thing is that the JS engine shows its age performance-wise; pages that make heavy use of it for all kinds of dynamic shenanigans get rather sluggish. So my uneducated guess from these observations is that it should have been possible to keep up if they'd wanted to. It's probably that management simply thought using an engine that someone else maintains for them makes it possible to cut down on devs even more. But that part might just be my make-believe world...

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