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Mozilla’s Uncertain Future

civilityandtruth.com

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Re: Mozilla’s Uncertain Future

#141

Post by slim »

causality0 wrote: post #2

Personally and strictly my own ignorant and informal opinion, Firefox and by extension Mozilla Corp. was doomed the moment it decided to compete with Chrome by being more like Chrome. Firefox built its userbase by being different than the dominant browser, then decided the only way to not die was to be exactly like the dominant browser except with less icky behind-the-scenes privacy behavior. That was a fundamental m…

firefox lost it's market share because chrome was a better, faster, more complete browser. Mozilla didn't need to develop any strategy other than building and even better browser. So they tactically designed a safer language, then used it to build a better browser. It was working as planned, but they just abandoned it. Now they don't have a better browser and I wonder if they'll ever have one.

Re: Mozilla’s Uncertain Future

#142

Post by eitland »

tester756 wrote: post #57
KingOfCoders wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Firefox would just be slow as hell" Why is that? The problem is they get into to web standards game which is driven by Google to create pressure everyone else to spend millions on the newest standards. I don't need the newest standards, 2000 web works perfectly fine for me (except HTTPs). Firefox is slow with many tabs open on Win10, Ryzen X3900 with 32gb of RAM (writing this from FF) They broke exetensions several…

>Firefox is slow with many tabs open on Win10, Ryzen X3900 with 32gb of RAM (writing this from FF) How many is many? I'm using up to 10-20 and it never felt slow on worse setup.

10-20 are so few you can get away with it in Chrome or even old IE.

Many is somewhere north of 200. Many of us are routinely on 400 and more.

As for why, I at least consider the computer an extension of my mind. What it remember, I don't have to.

Edit: Chrome can handle way more than that, it just becomes very tedious when you cannot see the tabs. Also I don't know if omnibar can search for open tabs like awesomebar?

Re: Mozilla’s Uncertain Future

#143

Post by outadoc »

josefx wrote: post #61
outadoc wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the constant deprecation of power features and customizability They made ONE switch to a superior and standard extension model, and HN loses its minds. Do you really think you're in the majority here? Making it a more secure, faster and just better browser is just the only way forward. Without that Firefox would just be slow as hell, wouldn't play YouTube or Netflix videos, and not have any extensions left because…

> They made ONE switch How many plugins work with the new Firefox on Android? > standard extension model One were Google already declared that APIs used for ad blockers are considered deprecated and might be dropped at any time? With one major browser vendor being actively hostile towards a large amount of plugins that "standard" doesn't do much. It certainly doesn't guarantee portability unless Mozilla completely ju…

Before they had to be made specifically for Firefox for Android. Once they finish implementing WebExtensions it'll be able to install any WebExtension. I'd say that's a lot better than before.

I'll add that the few extensions already available were well-picked and honestly already fulfill all my needs.

Re: Mozilla’s Uncertain Future

#144

Post by secondcoming »

dependenttypes wrote: post #116
outadoc wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the constant deprecation of power features and customizability They made ONE switch to a superior and standard extension model, and HN loses its minds. Do you really think you're in the majority here? Making it a more secure, faster and just better browser is just the only way forward. Without that Firefox would just be slow as hell, wouldn't play YouTube or Netflix videos, and not have any extensions left because…

> to a superior Even now it lacks a lot of necessary APIs that the old one had - such as the ability to disable ctrl+q on linux. I would argue that only around now the new model became usable. > Making it a more secure In expense of usability. > wouldn't play YouTube It played youtube before and it would still play it without the switch. Regardless, the old extension model was not the only power user feature which th…

why would a web page expect to be allowed to control a user's keyboard?

Re: Mozilla’s Uncertain Future

#145

Post by m-p-3 »

microtonal wrote: post #76
Brakenshire wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

25% seems like much too high a number for the group you’re talking about. I’d be interested to see some data on level of technical engagement and knowledge, but in my experience a large percentage of users don’t even have a clear idea of what a browser is. The reason Firefox has lost market share in my opinion is because: i) Chrome is pushed by Google.com, which has a near monopoly on search ii) Chrome was bundled an…

I think this hits the nail on its head, but I would add v. Intentionally breaking other browsers subtly on Google properties. i, ii, and v are directly from Microsoft’s 90ies/00s playbook and the regulators are sleeping.

It's disgusting that the search UI for Google in Chrome is different in Firefox. You can even see that it works fine if you switch Firefox user-agent to Chrome, so there's not even a compatibility reason behind it (and why should there be, we have web standards for a reason).

Re: Mozilla’s Uncertain Future

#146

Post by xg15 »

> In ten years it’s possible that the Mozilla Corporation may be just a memory, with the Mozilla Foundation surviving as a modestly-funded advocacy organization.

Maybe I'm pessimistic here, but what exactly could a "modestly-funded advocacy organization" with nothing left but their brand archive against Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc?

Without Firefox, I don't see what kind of leverage they would have to continue their mission. Firefox also was what gave their brand relevance to the public.

The only thing I could see is them becoming a political lobbying organisation or "think tank", trying to advance their mission by pushing for more internet regulation. But even then, they will be pitted against vastly more powerful lobbies.

Re: Mozilla’s Uncertain Future

#147

Post by Multicomp »

forgotpwd16 wrote: post #90
outadoc wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the constant deprecation of power features and customizability They made ONE switch to a superior and standard extension model, and HN loses its minds. Do you really think you're in the majority here? Making it a more secure, faster and just better browser is just the only way forward. Without that Firefox would just be slow as hell, wouldn't play YouTube or Netflix videos, and not have any extensions left because…

The WebExtension API even years later is afaik still less capable than XUL. They also deprecated plugins (NPAPI), a recent version has disabled userChrome.css and userContent.css by default and the pref is noted as legacy and the same is now considered for user.js if not removed. Also you cannot set a locally-hosted newtab page any longer.

They also killed off Live Bookmarks. I used that for years in FF and then later Waterfox until the PrivacyOne buyout, now I have to open a separate program to read my rss (rssowlnix)

Re: Mozilla’s Uncertain Future

#148

Post by walterbell »

cxr wrote: post #49

Five years ago it was clear that possibly the best thing that could happened to the future of Firefox, Mozilla, and the Web would have been for Mozilla Corporation to have gone belly up. But we're past the point where that might do any good with respect to salvaging Firefox or Mozilla's name. Mozilla Corporation's role today is to siphon away any attention or enthusiasm that might otherwise be directed towards the id…

> unfortunately, the best bet at this point is probably in leveraging WebKit against Chrome and Blink, given what an untameable mess the modern Web has become

Is there a maintained OSS browser based on Webkit? Do you think it's viable for a new Webkit-based OSS browser to become sustainable by user donations, assuming initial sponsorship by other non-profits or EU?

Re: Mozilla’s Uncertain Future

#149

Post by kdavis »

walterbell wrote: post #123
kdavis wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was responsible for securing the funding for such tasks from the EU for Mozilla. This can work, e.g. [ https://browser.mt/ ]. However, the latest layoffs have basically gutted this plan.

Is there any chance of the EU funding a Firefox fork that is optimized for integration with other EU initiatives, e.g. data sovereignty and individual data ownership, https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/08/11/1006555/eu-data-... ? If a fork is too big a bridge to cross, how about extending the roadmap of an existing-but-neglected Web Standard, contributing reference implementation code to Firefox? Mozilla wasn't bu…

As to a fork, doubtful. It’s too large a project.

Generally the EU wants to fund open projects not companies.

So funding the implementation of a Web Standard in a Firefox, say, is “out”, but implementation of a browser extension is “in” as it’s (more-or-less) browser independent.

Re: Mozilla’s Uncertain Future

#150

Post by xxs »

joepie91_ wrote: post #60
KingOfCoders wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Firefox would just be slow as hell" Why is that? The problem is they get into to web standards game which is driven by Google to create pressure everyone else to spend millions on the newest standards. I don't need the newest standards, 2000 web works perfectly fine for me (except HTTPs). Firefox is slow with many tabs open on Win10, Ryzen X3900 with 32gb of RAM (writing this from FF) They broke exetensions several…

> Why is that? Because Firefox's "powerful extension model" basically constituted direct access to its internals, which prevented the Firefox developers from making the architectural improvements that were so sorely needed to make it performant. > Firefox is slow with many tabs open on Win10, Ryzen X3900 with 32gb of RAM (writing this from FF) Admittedly I'm on Linux, but I currently have approximately 7800 tabs open…

I wonder how you define 'open', if they are just URLs and perhaps content on disk (+persisted javascript state) - they are not open/live. What's the benefit compared to fetching the contents off the web and rendering them anew?

Personally, I use different windows with several tabs open related to each other, when I done with the matter I close the window.

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