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Firefox Was Always Enough

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Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#21

Post by octopoc »

etempleton wrote: post #2

I will make the same comment I made on another post regarding Firefox and Mozilla: a few tips from from no one: 1. Rewrite the Mozilla mission statement. I read that and have no idea what your organization does. Mission statements seem like corporate naval gazing, but if it is honest and well written it keeps everyone focused on what you are working towards. 2. Refocus on Firefox R&D and core technologies - Firefox n…

I agree with points 1 and 2. I also think it's a reasonable idea for Mozilla to focus on Thunderbird the email client since there aren't a lot of great alternatives.

However, when it comes to a hosted email service, there are plenty of good options already out there (e.g. Fastmail and Protonmail). The same goes for VPNs.

I would much prefer Mozilla spend that money making Firefox better, or putting that money in some sort of mutual fund, the proceeds of which would fund browser development if Google ever stopped paying Mozilla.

The reason is, VPN services are not hard to build. Email services are not hard to build. Browsers are hard to build, and if Firefox development ever stalled it would probably go away forever.

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#22

Post by Scarbutt »

RealityVoid wrote: post #18
Scarbutt wrote: post #9

Firefox lacks in the default UX area, just from the top of my head: Print to PDF is better in Chrome, comes with a preview. Search marks matches in the scroll bar. Opening a recently closed tab opens a new tab in Chrome instead of replacing the existing one. There were probably 5-10 more annoyances in Firefox for me that I don't recall right now. Maybe it was my familiarity with Chrome but overall I still think Chrom…

I just switched a bit on mobile from Firefox to Chrome. I was annoyed by the fact that the address bar is at top in there and I think it's unfair to say at all points that the UX is better on Chrome.

Was referring to the destkop version but yeah, Firefox(with uBlock) has been working great for me on android and prefer it much over chrome there.

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#23

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

ploika wrote: post #16
MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #5

> Now it’s focused on technological pessimism in the form of a security and privacy emphasis. First time I've seen this phrased that way. If all you can think of with regards to tech is security and privacy, you are the EU: "technological pessimism".

The EU's focus is more "consumer protection" than security or privacy as such, in my view.

Yes that might be a better general term. However the perspective is the same: no optimism, no enablement, no vision. Instead control and contain the negative aspects. I'm not saying that in itself is bad, its just not sufficient to build a prosperous civilisation.

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#24

Post by blindm »

I think Firefox is like some banks in that it is too big to fail [0]. Not that Firefox is a financial institution, but something that has embedded and woven itself so deeply into the web in general that I can't imagine the web without it. If it dies in some fantastical way, something else (hopefully better and evolved) will fill its place. We can't have the Chromes of the world slurping up all our data in the near future. Firefox is a privacy tool as well as a browser.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Too_big_to_fail

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#25

Post by JohnBooty »

asdfman123 wrote: post #3

> Mozilla has always made the bulk of its money from selling the preferred placement of a search engine in Firefox It's amazing how valuable eyeballs are -- that you can fund an entire software project just that way.

Ostensibly, they pay Firefox for eyeballs, but....

Google certainly values the eyeballs they get via Firefox, but Firefox could disappear tomorrow and that barely affect Google one bit from a pure "eyeballs" perspective. How much traffic would Google lose? People would just use those same Google services through Chrome, Safari, native apps, whatever.

So, I believe Google funds Firefox mainly as a hedge against monopoly charges.

If Chrome ever dominated the browser market entirely with 95%+ marketshare like Internet Explorer back in the bad old days of IE5/6, they'd be painting a large target on their backs for various governments to step in and make life difficult.

If we think about it, Chrome/Chromium's current ~70% market share is pretty ideal for Google. They get to kinda sorta mostly control the web, without a bunch of pesky governments on their backs.

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#26

Post by terracatta »

I think Safari is going to have the market cornered on technology pessimism (aka privacy features) and browser performance per watt on macOS and iOS.

Google is rapidly locking down enterprise by building in tight integrations with Google Workspace/G-Suite (see: context aware authentication).

In 10 - 15 years the web should be better than it is today. The first step in their recovery is to convey what their vision of the web looks like in 2035 and commit to Firefox being the first browser to make it a reality by 2025.

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#27

Post by open-source-ux »

I've long wondered why Mozilla hasn't worked on a embeddable Gecko engine as an alternative to Electron. The Mozilla alternative could be promoted as a modular, cross-platform component but in a stripped-down, faster and less memory hungry form than Electron (assuming these features can be achieved).

The traction that Electron has gained as a cross-platform option for building apps is huge. It's only set to get bigger (whether for better or worse).

Imagine if Gecko was in this space competing with Electron. Imagine if thousands of developers place their trust in Mozilla because they have built their cross-platform apps using Gecko. They'd want to see Mozilla grow and succeed - they have a stake in seeing Gecko development continue. Is it too late (or too unrealistic) for this to happen?

A very long time ago, Mozilla did have the option to embed Gecko into apps. It was never well-documented and what remains of the documentation is out-of-date and untouched:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Gecko/Embed...

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#28

Post by arnvidr »

Scarbutt wrote: post #9

Firefox lacks in the default UX area, just from the top of my head: Print to PDF is better in Chrome, comes with a preview. Search marks matches in the scroll bar. Opening a recently closed tab opens a new tab in Chrome instead of replacing the existing one. There were probably 5-10 more annoyances in Firefox for me that I don't recall right now. Maybe it was my familiarity with Chrome but overall I still think Chrom…

> Search marks matches in the scroll bar.

That's an interesting feature, I'd like it if that was implemented. I see some add-ons do something to simulate this.

> Opening a recently closed tab opens a new tab in Chrome instead of replacing the existing one.

This opens a new tab for me, no settings I've changed that I could find.

> There were probably 5-10 more annoyances in Firefox for me that I don't recall right now. Maybe it was my familiarity with Chrome but overall I still think Chrome has better UX defaults.

There will probably always be differences, that's why different browsers exist after all, and it'll be different annoyances for different people. Personally I think generally the UX of Chrome (that Firefox has tried to copy) is the worst thing about all current browsers. The new add-on API made me start using custom UX CSS to make it tolerable instead of a "fix add-on", but the only serious alternative (Chrome) always felt worse to me. Has many nifty features though.

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#29

Post by sradman »

eplanit wrote: post #12

" remember when Brendan Eich was briefly the Mozilla CEO." Odd phrasing that glosses over how he was ousted by the early days "woke" mob (before they self-identified as such).

And that Eich went on to create the privacy focused Brave browser based on Chromium.

Yet, these mistakes didn’t really change the downward trajectory. Apple and Google are the dominant mobile platforms and I can’t see how an independent desktop browser can grow against competent conglomerates.

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#30

Post by sieabahlpark »

open-source-ux wrote: post #27

I've long wondered why Mozilla hasn't worked on a embeddable Gecko engine as an alternative to Electron. The Mozilla alternative could be promoted as a modular, cross-platform component but in a stripped-down, faster and less memory hungry form than Electron (assuming these features can be achieved). The traction that Electron has gained as a cross-platform option for building apps is huge. It's only set to get bigge…

The engineers at Mozilla are just waiting to see if doing this also aligns with the social justice mission statement.
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