Firefox Was Always Enough • Hacker News Board

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#251

Post by DonHopkins » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 6:16 PM UTC

deadbunny wrote: post #220

DonHopkins wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you forcibly kicked out founder Brendan Eich That is total bullshit. Get your facts straight, and stop pushing your batshit crazy GamerGate conspiracy theories that are based on lies. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25303513 Mozilla didn't fire Brendan Eich. He resigned of his own free will, against the Mozilla board's request that he stay. His own words and the Mozilla FAQ quoted below, I'm not just making th…

In the 2nd link you posted Brendan Eich himself replies to you tell you to search for "constructive separation". So while he "quit" it didn't sound like he had much of an option. I disagree with his views and believe Mozilla did the right thing in severing ties but I don't think it's as cut and dry as you're making it sound. It definitely comes across as a "We expect your resignation by the end of the day or shit wil…

"Constructive Separation" is completely voluntary with both parties. Of course he had an option: the board ASKED HIM TO STAY! Not anything like being fired or asked to leave -- just the opposite.

The irony is that Brendan wanted to "Destructively Separate" his victims who were legally joined together in same sex marriages, so it's especially hurtful that Brendan would throw that term around about his voluntary separation with Mozilla, after he maliciously wanted to DESTRUCTIVELY SEPARATE many other human beings in marriage from their loved ones, against their will.

Brendan and the Mozilla board both explicitly denied that he was fired or asked to leave. And the Mozilla Board actually tried to get Brendan to stay. According to your theory, they are both liars in collusion.

Is that what you really believe or just magically "feel"? Do you have any evidence for your feelings? What more proof of fact do you need than their own widely published words? A long form birth certificate?

Are Brendan and the Mozilla board conspiring to both publish a false narrative in lockstep that he was not fired or asked to leave? Then why is he still cooperating with the conspiracy if he was fired or asked to resign? Do you theorize that Mozilla gave him millions of dollars of Google ad blood money that should have gone to open source software development, just to keep his mouth shut?

That was the GamerGate conspiracy narrative. Do you believe it too, in spite of all the hard proof to the contrary?

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#252

Post by benwerd » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 6:17 PM UTC

If Mozilla wants revenue diversity, it can be found through empowering independent creators on the open web. The open, standards-oriented, values-based browser is the key, not a sideshow.

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#253

Post by discardedrefuse » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 6:19 PM UTC

rubyist5eva wrote: post #178

Recently switched back to Firefox after meandering between Edge and Chrome on multiple platforms (Linux, macOS and Windows) for work and non-work purposes. Firefox Dev Tools are fucking awesome. Firefox sync works great. All the extensions I want are here. It's fast enough in ways that microbenchmarks don't mean anything to me...and it's free as in Liberty (last but not least). I've been looking for a VPN, and even t…

Raindrop looks nice. I've been using xBrowserSync to sync bookmarks on all devices, regardless of browser). Features: Open source. Run your own server. Encrypts on the device. No accounts. No ads.

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#254

Post by BrendanEich » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 6:20 PM UTC

_--__--__ wrote: post #117

rewddit wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just as an FYI, Brave has done some sketchy stuff in the past, including inserting affiliate links / ads into content.

It's weird how consistent this claim is when the ad stuff (which I personally never used when I tried Brave) was always opt-in and always an advertised feature part of Brave's (possibly misguided) mission to change the landscape of internet advertising.

It's not weird. A lot of people (especially on HN) repeat false claims they hear that "sound right" to them, especially where they have some animus against someone involved (me, in Brave's case). Brave was inspired by All Advantage, but we knew going in that Gator and worse examples of personal ad systems would be used to dismiss or disparage. Marketing challenge, not a reason to give up.

“A lie can travel around the world and back again while the truth is lacing up its boots.” —Mark Twain

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#255

Post by hedora » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 6:20 PM UTC

yabatopia wrote: post #34

Miraste wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 3. Invest more in Thunderbird the application and develop Thunderbird the privacy focus email service for independent professionals and small businesses. I know Mozilla's non-Firefox projects aren't popular here, but if Thunderbird really wanted a niche in the business world Mozilla would need to start an email service to go with it. The age of non-integrated email clients for the average user ended a while ago.

Agree. Mozilla should focus more on online services, nicely integrated in the browser. Online email, password management, vpn services, file storage and sharing, ... All privacy focused and with paid offerings, to make them more independent from Google.

They wouldn't even need to provide these services themselves. They could act as independent auditors in exchange for revenue (as they do for search).

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#256

Post by toyg » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 6:21 PM UTC

pantelisk wrote: post #79

If I understand this correctly. Mozilla let the author go, and the author still went out of their way to write a comprehensive and clear minded article full of feedback and honest recommendations. If I see one big problem with Mozilla, is that they chose to let go people like the author. Engineering & product culture only follows.

Ian Bicking left Mozilla something like a year ago, if I'm not mistaken. Already in March he was talking about it in terms of "what I would have wanted to do but didn't get to". This post appeared last month in the context of the big layoff round.

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#257

Post by znpy » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 6:21 PM UTC

> But to be clear: the money always kept coming! On a per-user basis it even increased over the years.

Well if the number of users diminishes...

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#258

Post by Hammershaft » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 6:21 PM UTC

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #167

kd913 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea from the old MacOS sure. However, now that iOS apps are looking to be pushed to desktop, do you really think that is gonna continue in the future? As soon as universal binaries/iOS apps becomes fully fledged on ARM Mac I can imagine Apple just removing support completely. It's almost inevitable the way Apple is progressing to basically move to the iOS style platform control to OS X. Even from Mozilla's economics…

Yes. I do really think that is gonna continue in the future. I've said this before and I'll probably say it in increasingly irascible tones, but "next year macOS is gonna become just like iOS" is becoming the new "next year is the year of Linux on the desktop." Yes, Apple will almost certainly keep making security decisions people (including me) don't like, but there's no compelling business decision for trying to lo…

You raise a great point, I'd like to add that growing antitrust concerns are another danger that lies down that path for Apple.

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#259

Post by ericd » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 6:21 PM UTC

walrus01 wrote: post #147

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…

> 3. Invest more in Thunderbird the application and develop Thunderbird the privacy focus email service for independent professionals and small businesses. While I agree that Thunderbird as a standalone Windows/MacOS/Linux desktop email client is a very important project, and needs to be continued, maintained and refined, the paradigm of email has moved on somewhat since 2003. People need to be able to do more than j…

I really like a). More broadly, I’ve thought for a long time that we should to make it turnkey-easy for people to deploy their own services, to start re-decentralizing a lot of the services that have trended toward centralization - email, blog/personal news hosting, photo sharing. Like built-into-their-router easy, to avoid the need to set up port forwarding. Mozilla seems like a great place for a lot of this to start, given their focus on the open web, privacy, etc. Many of the details involved in hosting this stuff can be a bit messy for laymen, but I think defaults could be chosen and a minimum subset of the features could be polished to the point of user friendliness.

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#260

Post by cpeterso » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 6:23 PM UTC

thesuitonym wrote: post #181

simias wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You won't be able to beat Chrome by technology alone. I actually don't know how Mozilla can beat Chrome. Google has an extremely strong incentive to capture the web client market. Whatever Mozilla can do to make Firefox more popular, Google can outspend them by a factor 10 and do more, or better, or both. I want Firefox to win but unfortunately I just don't see a path for it. My mindset at the moment is "I'm going to…

I wonder why Firefox even has to beat Chrome. Wouldn't it be enough to have 30% marketshare again? Or even 10% would be enough to consider Firefox a serious competitor. Somewhere along the line we got this idea that if you're not #1 you've failed. You don't need to crush every single competitor into oblivion to be successful, you just need to succeed at what you set out to do, and in Firefox's case, isn't that just t…

> I wonder why Firefox even has to beat Chrome.

In that sense, Firefox's competition is not Chrome: it's the other "non-mainstream" browsers like Chromium Edge, Brave, or Opera. What can Mozilla do to attract those users to Firefox? Google doesn't want to crush Firefox to 0% because Google profits from Firefox searches and presumably wants a non-Chromium browser to exist to avoid antitrust scrutiny regulating Chrome.