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Firefox Was Always Enough

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Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#521

Post by dralley »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #370
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…

> Mozilla doesn't have a real sustainable business model right now. This is the meat of my problem with Firefox as it stands. I've not stopped using Firefox since the mid 2000's but come on, you need something more than just checks from Google. Charge me for a commercial version of FireFox that includes a VPN subscription and funds its development. Just do it ten years ago. Honestly, if they're not going to embrace R…

>Honestly, if they're not going to embrace Rust and Servo becomes completely usable I may just jump ship eventually. My hope for Servo is that it becomes 100% Rust as much as sustainably possible (I understand for codecs and some things recreating them in Rust might be overkill when there's standardized libraries just use them), even the JS engine.

Have you ever compiled and run servo? I have. It's really cool but nowhere remotely close to being ready for a full production browser.

Mozilla are embracing Rust, they are just no longer interested in the idea of developing entire components of Firefox in a silo, maintaining both at once during the entire process, and then spending multiple years trying to integrate it back into the browser.

Back when the Servo team was let go, what they basically said is that moving forwards things will be done more piecemeal and in-place, rather than hundreds of thousands of LoC at a time.

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#522

Post by stjohnswarts »

Bayart wrote: post #457
tjoff wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

KaiOS is a joke though... More akin to your desk calculator than a phone that we have become accustomed to. They sell because they are cheap, not on any other merit.

Being cheap is the greatest merit of any consumer tech.

you'll never convince apple of that.

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#523

Post by stjohnswarts »

cwyers wrote: post #439
giancarlostoro wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mozilla doesn't have a real sustainable business model right now. This is the meat of my problem with Firefox as it stands. I've not stopped using Firefox since the mid 2000's but come on, you need something more than just checks from Google. Charge me for a commercial version of FireFox that includes a VPN subscription and funds its development. Just do it ten years ago. Honestly, if they're not going to embrace R…

But then the VPN product is the revenue driver, not the browser. You still aren't making money off the browser. The whole point of the article is decrying the lack of focus on browser in order to focus on other revenue streams. I don't think one other other revenue stream is the solution.

The money would go towards the browser, just like the person suggested. How is that a bad thing? Maybe some nice mods like VPN, excellent RSS feeds, power user addons, etc for a couple bucks a month (or $5? )

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#524

Post by dralley »

gilrain wrote: post #423
lordnaikon wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ditching Rust ... have i missed something?

They laid off their Rust and Servo developers.

They did lay off their Servo developers, and a few of their Rust developers.

They did not lay of all of their Rust developers, or even most of them. WebRender and Stylo are now integral parts of Firefox, and are actively maintained by teams of people, and a lot of new code continues being written in Rust.

The Servo DOM and HTML engine is massively complex - far moreso than Stylo or WebRender - and nowhere near ready for production use. Mozilla decided that rewriting the remaining parts (read: vast majority) of Firefox slowly, in-place, would be a better path forwards than maintaining two massively complex browser engines in parallel and trying to swap it out completely.

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#525

Post by dralley »

lordnaikon wrote: post #396
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…

> Ditching Rust ... have i missed something?

No, you haven't, because it's not happening.

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#526

Post by rewgs »

krmboya wrote: post #313
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…

I can't understand how Mozilla failed to execute on Firefox OS. From where I am at it was a massive opportunity for Mozilla and Web developers all round the world. They didn't have to take on Android and iOS directly, but may have gotten there eventually thru 'worse is better'. Imagine a web developer learning just a few APIs and being being able to customize their web app for smart TVs

I didn't pay much attention to the project at the time, but:

Might it have something to do with the word "OS" in the title? It's never worked except for Apple, but because Apple is selling a whole product, not an OS, it doesn't seem to hit in the same way.

Marketing something as "____ OS" appears to more or less guarantee a marketing failure.

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#527

Post by dsohn0 »

Bayart wrote: post #457
tjoff wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

KaiOS is a joke though... More akin to your desk calculator than a phone that we have become accustomed to. They sell because they are cheap, not on any other merit.

Being cheap is the greatest merit of any consumer tech.

Why would you say something that obviously is completely wrong

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#528

Post by dralley »

toastal wrote: post #488
echelon wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla business model : 1. Ask that the DOJ strips Chrome from Google. You can't make the browser, search, and ad platform. Monopoly power. Google needs to exit Chrome right now. 2. Ask the DOJ to force vendors like Apple to allow other browser engines. They can't lock down all "code execution" on generic computers they sell. 3. Integrate Ad Blocking in Firefox. 4. Collect money from advertisers willing to make non-…

What isn’t bad ass about Brave’s Basic Attention Token initiative? At least it theory users and content creators get better compensated for their work/attention?

https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/wp-content/uploads/2019...

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#529

Post by atombender »

pabs3 wrote: post #519
atombender wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with Firefox containers is that it requires micromanaging your web browsing. I'm sure it's nice for people who obsess about privacy, but it's not something that the general user population is going to adopt. I think the right approach, ultimately, would be compartmentalize all web sites, but that's not feasible right now.

Why couldn't you compartmentalize all web sites? Seems like something that could be easily done.

There are a bunch of challenges with regard to what you allow a container to access. Here's one issue: https://github.com/mozilla/multi-account-containers/issues/4....

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#530

Post by dralley »

johannes1234321 wrote: post #218
takluyver wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Mozilla foundation owns the corporation, so it's not 'run by shareholders' in the normal sense. Any profit it makes stays in Mozilla. I think they set it up like this because some things are legally easier to do as a for-profit corporation than as a non-profit.

That is true, however routing funds (donations) from foundation to corp is hard, thus only very little $, ¥, €, ... of the money donated go to browser development, while the brand is tightly tied to it. Browser development is funded out of corp budget, which mostly is Google's money for being default search engine. Thus I can't even donate to browser development ...

The donated money is complete peanuts compared to the search engine revenue, anyways.
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