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Firefox on the brink?

brycewray.com

261–270 of 840 posts

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#261
> In fact, because the iPhone is so popular in the U.S. — which is obvious from what you see on that aforementioned government analytics page — Safari pulls large numbers that also hurt Firefox.

This makes me dislike smartphones more than I already did. Not only has iOS Safari overtaken Firefox in terms of market share, it has also overshadowed macOS Safari, a much better browser than iOS Safari for a much better operating system than iOS.

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#262
post #99

Could we get numbers from the rest of the world before we make a verdict? There is 10 times the people outside the US, as inside...

The article is specifically about the browser usage distribution among users accessing US Government websites.

We should always try to avoid needless USA-centrism! But I think the USA-centric focus here is appropriate.

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#263
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly the problem though. I know it's somehow possible, but the fact that I have to search for what's the internal boolean name for whatever feature I want to disable is simply a bad dev UX. If there's a Firefox developer edition (I had no idea), they should enable all "I want to continue anyways" buttons by default. I mean, it's a developer edition!

Compared to typing a nonstandard string in a nonstandard place? Going to about:config where all the deep settings are and searching for "ocsp" is downright obvious.

How is searching for oscp obvious when the problem was HSTS?

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#264
post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can imagine that the CEO, or maybe a few other top officers, may say: "This is me who is bringing in all the search deals, which means all the money. Come on and try to oust me." Mozilla is an open-source project. When an open-source project somehow loses its way, it's often forked by a new team of contributors who have a better idea. This happened several times: Open Office / Libre Office, MySQL / MariaDB, X86 / X…

The EU could have a privacy-friendly browser if it funded Mozilla or a Mozilla fork.

Is this the same EU that is forcing browsers to accept government mandated certificate authorities?

Article 45 of eIDAS 2.0 will roll back web security by 12 years - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38181114 - Nov 2023 (77 comments)

Joint statement of scientists and NGOs on the EU’s proposed eIDAS reform - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38126997 - Nov 2023 (63 comments)

Last Chance to fix eIDAS: Secret EU law threatens Internet security - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38109494 - Nov 2023 (299 comments)

EFF about EU: EIDAS 2.0 Sets a Dangerous Precedent for Web Security - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33966364 - Dec 2022 (44 comments)

EU legislation eIDAS article 45.2 may force inclusion of insecure QWAC root CAs - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32093891 - July 2022 (36 comments)

Mozilla and the EFF publish letter about the danger of Article 45.2 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30549119 - March 2022 (13 comments)

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't know, the pro LGBT stance of Mozilla/ Mozilla Foundation was not new in 2014 I believe. So not having leadership with opposing view does not seem strange to me; donation was done privately but it end-up being public enough. There's enough hypocrisy and pink-washing ...

Is the Mozilla Foundation a software organization or a LGBTQ+ advocacy organization? If it's the former then what business do they have caring about Brandon Eich's personal donation to support a ballot initiative? If it's the latter then it's a conflict of interest and Brandon Eich should be asked to leave.

At the moment they appear to want to be both.

Might at times be at the detriment of Firefox but it's not like there is any alternative imo. So I don´t mind, it's not like if they remove their LGBT manifesto they suddenly will become relevant again and people will start to care about privacy.

Might be that LGBT people care more about privacy and that this manifesto will help them stay relevant.

And it's not like 2% is not a lot of people, TOR browser is certainly even less and it does not change the fact that I believe it's an highly important piece of software.

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#266

Mozilla also just posted their State of Mozilla 2022 (this includes financial statements). From what I've read, it seems that expenses are up and revenue from search deals is down. https://stateof.mozilla.org/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38530382 https://www.ghacks.net/2023/12/05/mozilla-earned-close-to-60... Firefox's market share has been on the decline since 2010. https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market…

> Genuine question. What is justifying Mozilla Corporation CEO Mitchell Baker's salary? This question is why I don't expect Mozilla to last at its current course. I like their work, but the endless increases in CEO salary while their most important money maker is fledgling is not justifiable.

The increases look reasonable to me, but not when you consider their declining market share. I guess she only returned to the role of CEO in 2020, but she's been in leadership for a long time, and the org's performance has been poor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Baker#Negative_salary...

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GOV.UK is dramatically more competent than USDS, are they not? I admit I'm not terribly familiar, but I wouldn't want to depend on the agency behind the Department of Education and VA websites for anything. I've seen the VA site, in particular, do serious harm to the people it's meant to serve.

I don't think the USDS makes all or even most of the current federal gov websites.

No, they don't. But they did create the VA site: https://www.usds.gov/projects/va-dot-gov

And they're involved with the Department of Education, although I couldn't find out exactly what they built.

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#268
I can only recommend to give Firefox another go, if you don't use it by default. It really has improved the last years, it also had made much progress in privacy features, and doesn't want to kill ad-blocker like Google wants. Also, Firefox on Android finally started supporting extensions.

Another thing: Because no other browser engines are allowed to be installed on iOS, those numbers should be subtracted from the total.

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#269
post #73
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a pretty reasonable question when the salary is so incredibly out of line with what developers make. Is the CEO singlehandedly responsible for productivity equal to that of sixty or so developers?

Did I need to append a /s for people to get my comment?

Nope, sarcasm was pretty obvious from the "iceberg jumping at the boat" part.

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#270

Mozilla also just posted their State of Mozilla 2022 (this includes financial statements). From what I've read, it seems that expenses are up and revenue from search deals is down. https://stateof.mozilla.org/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38530382 https://www.ghacks.net/2023/12/05/mozilla-earned-close-to-60... Firefox's market share has been on the decline since 2010. https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market…

Am I reading the documents you link right?

Mozilla is wildly profitable.

They made a profit of roughly 150 Million dollars last year.

They have 1.2 Billion dollars in assets.

They have increased revenue from non-search deals significantly (56M -> 75M, up one third).

Despite all the gnashing of teeth in this comment section about woke Mozilla, they spent only 5 Million on grants last year. The vast majority goes towards developing Firefox and building up assets.

I had always just taken the statements that she is absurdly overpaid at face value and never looked into this myself. But Baker has overseen the rise of revenue and net income from almost zero to current numbers. If that doesn't look like a successfully run NGO, what does?

Not a big fan of CEO compensation in general, but I feel the one-sided focus on market share, which I feel is somewhat out of Mozillas control (can't even compete on the dominant mobile computing platform, anti-competitive Google leveraging its search monopoloy and advertising Chrome extremely aggresively, etc... ), while ignoring the actual financial health of the organisation is really biased.

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