Why Firefox has been in decline for 12 years • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Firefox has been in decline for 12 years

#401

Post by kergonath » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 2:41 PM UTC

mbg721 wrote: post #252

kergonath wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is weird. Why would one class of people need to justify having the same rights as another class of people? You’ve got it wrong: there needs to be a reason for them not to have that right.

Societies for millennia have had intuition about what men and women are, and have always defined marriage to reflect that. If we're suddenly enlightened because we've unshackled reproduction from sex and anyone can have a married relationship with anyone else, that is new, that's not some ancient natural right.

Several rights are now considered universal and weren’t not that long ago. We are not discussing gay marriage in 1682.

Besides, marriage is now entirely decoupled from making babies. Some people might wish it weren’t the case, but it is.

Re: Why Firefox has been in decline for 12 years

#402

Post by kergonath » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 2:42 PM UTC

mbg721 wrote: post #260

krapp wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sex has been unshackled from reproduction for far, far longer than marriage has even been a concept, and in many ancient cultures same sex relationships were perfectly normal[0]. The axis of "heterosexuality" and "homosexuality" itself is no older than the 20th century, and even the concept of monogamy is relatively new as far as Abrahamic religious tradition goes. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_same-se…

Non-conventional sex isn't new, but making sure marriage is defined in such a way to include it is new, or at least wasn't universal.

Having sex is irrelevant. Marriage is about social status and taxation as much as religion.

Re: Why Firefox has been in decline for 12 years

#403

Post by freediver » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 3:12 PM UTC

lavabiopsy wrote: post #349

freediver wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. An easy win for Firefox is to become a zero telemetry browser by default. All that telemetry is giving them wrong data anyway as users they should be most interested in disable telemetry and are not represented in usage data.

I'm very confused by this comment. If you think of telemetry like a vote, disabling it is essentially forfeiting your vote, so it doesn't really make sense to me to complain that you are then not represented. If you've ever been to a big catered event, this is like a person who refuses to speak up when asked if they want the vegetarian option and then gets mad when only meat is served. You can't expect the organizers…

Telemetry is not a vote (for which you are asked to cast). Telemetry is extracting information from you and transmitting it together with private information like IP address without asking you ( as it is opt out by default). Telemetry also costs you in resources (bandwidth, cpu..) which is problematic when resources are scarce. This is a good enough reason for many to want a zero telemetry browser and do whatever they can to disable it in browsers like Firefox.

And now because Mozilla lacks data from its most coveted “tech” users, it does make decisions based on data that it has, which is usually totally opposite (like in your example) which in turns pisses off these users even more and they jump ship, taking all their friends and family with them (because they are the “tech” person in their circle). That is how you lose users.

You can of course make a zero telemetry browser, relying 100% on your own research and what the users volunteer to tell you directly. And those most passionate about it with tell you the most, a wonderful positive feedback loop. But this would require a change of product development mindset to a completely user centric one.

Re: Why Firefox has been in decline for 12 years

#404

Post by lavabiopsy » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 5:20 PM UTC

freediver wrote: post #403

lavabiopsy wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very confused by this comment. If you think of telemetry like a vote, disabling it is essentially forfeiting your vote, so it doesn't really make sense to me to complain that you are then not represented. If you've ever been to a big catered event, this is like a person who refuses to speak up when asked if they want the vegetarian option and then gets mad when only meat is served. You can't expect the organizers…

Telemetry is not a vote (for which you are asked to cast). Telemetry is extracting information from you and transmitting it together with private information like IP address without asking you ( as it is opt out by default). Telemetry also costs you in resources (bandwidth, cpu..) which is problematic when resources are scarce. This is a good enough reason for many to want a zero telemetry browser and do whatever the…

>Telemetry is not a vote

From the developer point of view, this is incorrect, the developers are using it to decide which features to prioritize. If you are aware that it's happening and you leave it on, then I don't see what the problem is. Resource and bandwidth usage should be very minimal, if it's not then I would urge you to actually measure it and report bugs. It should be possible to compress it so that it doesn't eat up your bandwidth. Remember that it also takes bandwidth and CPU to post on Hacker News, so you will have to compare it to that to have any kind of meaningful data.

My point is, it if lacks the data from those users, it would make sense to start sending them that data. It doesn't make sense to me to complain about them having incorrect data on you when you intentionally don't send them the right data and then threaten to jump ship because of what seems to be your own actions. I personally also disable telemetry but I know full well that I'm opting out of an important system for them so I don't expect to get attention in return for doing that. If you wanted to help, I think they would very much welcome attempts to fix the telemetry and make it more bandwidth-respecting and privacy-respecting, rather than finding ways to just throw it out.

>You can of course make a zero telemetry browser, relying 100% on your own research and what the users volunteer to tell you directly. And those most passionate about it with tell you the most, a wonderful positive feedback loop.

In my experience, this is an unreliable way to make products, the type of user who is passionate and volunteers this information is not the average user. You will end up with a very niche product that way, and the cost would be very high since you would be expecting the same quality of features but for a smaller number of users. If you're interested to do this I would suggest you to fork Firefox and attempt to get funding, and try that out just to see how much work it actually is compared to how little those users are actually willing to pay. Take a look at Waterfox if you want to see an example of how this would be done.

Re: Why Firefox has been in decline for 12 years

#405

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 5:46 PM UTC

lavabiopsy wrote: post #404

freediver wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telemetry is not a vote (for which you are asked to cast). Telemetry is extracting information from you and transmitting it together with private information like IP address without asking you ( as it is opt out by default). Telemetry also costs you in resources (bandwidth, cpu..) which is problematic when resources are scarce. This is a good enough reason for many to want a zero telemetry browser and do whatever the…

>Telemetry is not a vote From the developer point of view, this is incorrect, the developers are using it to decide which features to prioritize. If you are aware that it's happening and you leave it on, then I don't see what the problem is. Resource and bandwidth usage should be very minimal, if it's not then I would urge you to actually measure it and report bugs. It should be possible to compress it so that it doe…

[deleted]

Re: Why Firefox has been in decline for 12 years

#406

Post by soundnote » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 6:52 PM UTC

temphnaccount wrote: post #151

pteraspidomorph wrote: post #6

I agree with this opinion piece. Firefox is a product strangely hostile to its core userbase. It's almost like they've been deliberately trying to sabotage themselves for years. I don't use it because I approve of all their stupid pigheaded UI choices, I use it because it has been the least bad option despite those choices. That might not go on for much longer, though.

I'd say other way around is true. HN crowd won't like this but it's very hard to continuously update a product for the core userbase that Firefox has. (small sample size but I maintain a small privacy focused app and from my experience, most of the reviews I get are how it's missing features which competitors have or how it's unusable because it can't handle stuff without jeopardizing privacy focused nature of the ap…

Agreed. Firefox's userbase is moronically hostile to anything that might give the company legs and a non-Google revenue stream. They want a pristine, moral FOSS project that just makes amazing software and subsists on donations.

Re: Why Firefox has been in decline for 12 years

#407

Post by soundnote » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 7:07 PM UTC

GekkePrutser wrote: post #366

AwaAwa wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems hyperbolic to state, when I'm sure you're using javascript umpteen times daily. Very arguable that Eich's single handedly more responsible for javascript than Brave, engineering wise. I'm not a crypto fan, or of adtech, but BAT is atleast a functional solution to directly supporting sites.

Fair enough. The whole gay marriage thing just really annoyed me. I have some close friends who are struggling with such prejudice every day. And that's in a country where marriage isn't a problem for them. It's one thing for an employee to have private views but another for a CEO to actively try and influence the law. Especially for something that's in my opinion totally a private matter between people. I don't want…

For me it's exactly that Firefox is actively activist in more than a web standards and privacy type sense that made me drop them. I don't need a browser maker to be interested in telling me what I should see.

Re: Why Firefox has been in decline for 12 years

#408

Post by freediver » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 7:15 PM UTC

lavabiopsy wrote: post #404

freediver wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telemetry is not a vote (for which you are asked to cast). Telemetry is extracting information from you and transmitting it together with private information like IP address without asking you ( as it is opt out by default). Telemetry also costs you in resources (bandwidth, cpu..) which is problematic when resources are scarce. This is a good enough reason for many to want a zero telemetry browser and do whatever the…

>Telemetry is not a vote From the developer point of view, this is incorrect, the developers are using it to decide which features to prioritize. If you are aware that it's happening and you leave it on, then I don't see what the problem is. Resource and bandwidth usage should be very minimal, if it's not then I would urge you to actually measure it and report bugs. It should be possible to compress it so that it doe…

> If you are aware that it's happening and you leave it on, then I don't see what the problem is.

Most people are not aware of telemetry. Most of those that are, disable it. So you end up getting what you call 'votes' from the people who are not aware they are 'voting'. That is not voting (for which a person need to be consciously doing it) but rather extraction of information.

Imagine in an election, the votes of those who didn't explicitly vote get automatically extracted and cast based on a biased algorithm produced by the government. If you do not like the idea of that, you should not like the idea of opt-out telemetry. What you want is opt-in telemetry (aka. voting).

> Resource and bandwidth usage should be very minimal

I fully agree, that is the other reason zero telemetry is a way to go and should be default. You can not beat that.

> In my experience, this is an unreliable way to make products

Not sure what your experience is but I already built one company like that and I am doing another one right now (incidentally a web browser) based on this same principle which is called user-centric product development. Btw. Mozilla practiced that too ~15 years ago (the "golden age" of Firefox, reference here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28493855).

Re: Why Firefox has been in decline for 12 years

#409

Post by soundnote » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 7:16 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #34

bjt2n3904 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, isn't this a bit like saying, "I left Windows for Ubuntu because of the invasive privacy concerns I had... But man Unity is terrible, I'm going back to Windows!" If privacy is the ultimate concern, I can suffer usability. I think the real issue is we've stopped advocating for privacy loudly and publicly. All the users know is convenience.

But the privacy isn't the ultimate concern for everyone, so perhaps it isn't one for GP. It isn't for me. I stick to Firefox because of combination of being best at privacy and least shitty overall, but I'm by no means happy. I'm very much unhappy about the mobile version - their recent (~year ago?) UI revamp turned a perfectly good browser into a bloated piece of garbage, that gets slower and more annoying to use ov…

Brave and Vivaldi have ad blockers built in on Android and desktop both.

Re: Why Firefox has been in decline for 12 years

#410

Post by soundnote » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 7:37 PM UTC

mikl wrote: post #318

All these complaints are true, and there’s many similar ones. Firefox (née Mozilla) is a terribly mismanaged company. Instead of focusing on their core business, making a great browser, they keep launching weird also-ran side projects that inevitably fail, to name a few: Firefox VPN, Firefox Notes, Firefox Lockwise, Firefox Monitor, Firefox Send, Firefox Hello, Firefox OS, Mozilla Persona, etc. It’s one thing to frit…

I think stuff like notes, Pocket in general, VPN and password management make sense as side activities for a browser maker. Firefox OS is rather ambitious, though. Not that they were the only ones who tried, see eg. Ubuntu's failed phone OS.