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Firefox Was Always Enough

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Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#281

Post by fragmede »

mekoka wrote: post #135

It seems to me that Mozilla isn't just technologically pessimistic, but they also just lack vision for the future of the web and what roles the browser could play in it. Right now, the only reason we're talking about them is that Firefox is sitting atop a sizable share of a practically impenetrable market. Very successful companies are being started around much less of a product, but Mozilla seems to genuinely have n…

Can be done with a browser in the future? There's no shortcoming of vision, the problem is monetizing it. A browser in the future is going to let me copy and paste seamless between mobile and desktop. What, are you going to charge 1 cent per completed copy and paste? Am I going to pay a dollar to get nightly builds of Firefox onto my device? If I have an Apple device that's not even possible!

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#282

Post by bobmichael »

secondcoming wrote: post #278
throw_m239339 wrote: post #271

Mozilla doesn't have a real sustainable business model right now. FireFox OS could have provided such model, in fact, its successor kaios is doing very well and one can imagine that in the future, it will be the primary OS of half the mobile users on the planet. 'Feature phones' aren't dead. They provide a cheap alternative to touch phones, are usually more robust, and allowing them to run web apps instead of MIDP st…

Out of all internet users out there, how many would choose Firefox just because it's written in rust? An insignificant fraction. That said. I've been using Firefox as my main browser for years. I only use chrome when a website needs it or works better in it.

If you read GP carefully, they're not making the argument that users will choose Firefox because it's written in Rust, but rather that the improved security and performance brought about by Rust would be what attracts and retains users.

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#283

Post by wgjordan »

secondcoming wrote: post #278
throw_m239339 wrote: post #271

Mozilla doesn't have a real sustainable business model right now. FireFox OS could have provided such model, in fact, its successor kaios is doing very well and one can imagine that in the future, it will be the primary OS of half the mobile users on the planet. 'Feature phones' aren't dead. They provide a cheap alternative to touch phones, are usually more robust, and allowing them to run web apps instead of MIDP st…

Out of all internet users out there, how many would choose Firefox just because it's written in rust? An insignificant fraction. That said. I've been using Firefox as my main browser for years. I only use chrome when a website needs it or works better in it.

If you stipulate that 'Rust is going to yield a lot of result when it comes to security, memory safety and maintainability' (see parent comment), then a great many Internet users out there would choose Firefox if as a result of being written in Rust it's more secure, memory-safe (less crashing/bugs) and maintainable (more and better features).

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#284

Post by GordonS »

lostmsu wrote: post #118
GordonS wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're spot on here. The only people using desktop mail clients are techies with multiple accounts (such as us HN users), and business users (who all use Outlook).

I am not so sure. Windows default Mail app has multiple account support quite visible.

Huh, I've been using Windows forever, and didn't know that!

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#285

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

fragmede wrote: post #281
mekoka wrote: post #135

It seems to me that Mozilla isn't just technologically pessimistic, but they also just lack vision for the future of the web and what roles the browser could play in it. Right now, the only reason we're talking about them is that Firefox is sitting atop a sizable share of a practically impenetrable market. Very successful companies are being started around much less of a product, but Mozilla seems to genuinely have n…

Can be done with a browser in the future? There's no shortcoming of vision , the problem is monetizing it. A browser in the future is going to let me copy and paste seamless between mobile and desktop. What, are you going to charge 1 cent per completed copy and paste? Am I going to pay a dollar to get nightly builds of Firefox onto my device? If I have an Apple device that's not even possible!

I know this may sound like a blasphemy and anachronism rolled into one, but why can we not return to purchasing a copy of software? All of a sudden, the incentives to deliver 'monetizable' product are gone, because you already got your money. Or that does not jibe with continuous rent seeking?

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#286

Post by tmottabr »

toyg wrote: post #273
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…

Is Raindrop active? I can only find archived / discontinued stuff.

Never seen any indication that it isn't.

I use it for a few years already and never had any problem.

i like it more than pockets.

https://raindrop.io/

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#287

Post by dblohm7 »

DonHopkins wrote: post #219
dblohm7 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I work for Mozilla and was there when this all happened) That is false. Only one of them quit "because of" him. You don't need to take my word for it: Stephen Shankland's piece [1] is the least-inaccurate account of what happened there. And in fact, your statement is not even logical. Think about it: Who hires a CEO? A company's board. Now you're saying that a huge chunk of the board quit because of a hire that they…

You forgot to mention the most important and commonly misstated fact that Brendan Eich was NOT fired, and was NOT asked to resign, and was NOT "kicked out". The false narratives that the board fired him, and also that half the board quit because of him, both directly contradict the official statement published on the Mozilla Blog, and Brendan's own words he published on Twitter: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/…

Indeed. This is very true, but I've become exhausted from repeating it ad infinitum. Six+ years is a long time in tech, and yet we're still talking about this nonsense.

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#288

Post by narag »

throw_m239339 wrote: post #271

Mozilla doesn't have a real sustainable business model right now. FireFox OS could have provided such model, in fact, its successor kaios is doing very well and one can imagine that in the future, it will be the primary OS of half the mobile users on the planet. 'Feature phones' aren't dead. They provide a cheap alternative to touch phones, are usually more robust, and allowing them to run web apps instead of MIDP st…

Application programmers often dream of writing some different layer when we're frustrated because it's not working as is. Sometimes it ends well, like git. Most times it's a huge waste of time. I don't really think of Firefox OS a an operating systems, more like a layer to connect the web with the phone, so not so megalomaniac, actually it would have been a practical idea if hardware wasn't involved.

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#289

Post by hombre_fatal »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #285
fragmede wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can be done with a browser in the future? There's no shortcoming of vision , the problem is monetizing it. A browser in the future is going to let me copy and paste seamless between mobile and desktop. What, are you going to charge 1 cent per completed copy and paste? Am I going to pay a dollar to get nightly builds of Firefox onto my device? If I have an Apple device that's not even possible!

I know this may sound like a blasphemy and anachronism rolled into one, but why can we not return to purchasing a copy of software? All of a sudden, the incentives to deliver 'monetizable' product are gone, because you already got your money. Or that does not jibe with continuous rent seeking?

> why can we not return to purchasing a copy of software?

Because your competitors are free and users expect free and we have a culture stuck in a rut of "everything is free" because ads don't have them taking money out of their wallet.

Not every software is in a niche where they can flip the switch back into a premium model and have a good outcome. If Firefox did it, most of us would stop using it.

Maybe Firefox is at a point where that's a boat worth rocking, but it certainly isn't obvious nor without fatal risk.

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#290

Post by AsyncAwait »

celsoazevedo wrote: post #52
yummypaint wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox is already the best browser and has been for a long time. The problem is that most laypeople don't even know it exists. Combined with dark patterns used by microsoft and google to steer users toward their own browsers, it's an uphill battle. I'll stick firefox and appropriate extensions on a friends computer so they can watch youtube etc completely ad free, which is a major tangible QOL improvement, but then…

I don't know about Windows or Linux, but on Mac it's far from the best browser. It uses more resources (power/battery, memory, etc) than Safari (and sometimes Chrome[ium]), the UI is a mix of old and new code, and system integration is worse than Safari and Chrome. I use it, but both Chromium and Safari are better on this platform.

There's some kind of longstanding bug with non-default scaling on Mac apparently. It's great on Linux, but it's hard to get Mac friends to switch over.
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