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Firefox on the brink?

brycewray.com

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Re: Firefox on the brink?

#621

Post by riversflow »

beanjuiceII wrote: post #613
Chabsff wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Per the article, this is irrelevant. The case being made is that the figure seen by the government falling under 2%, which it is getting close to, will trigger a chain-reaction of consequences that will dramatically hurt Firefox, and it's not clear if Mozilla, the organization, could weather that. It doesn't particularly matter whether or not the figure is accurate in that context. Maybe that can be fixed easily by h…

I work in govt tech, we already internally do not care about FF support at all and only really look to chrome based browsers (chrome edge mostly) and safari. Many people don't even know what it is anymore, seems like time killed this browser too. Mozilla spending too much time/money and other crap over the years

What does a government site need that you can't do on firefox? Honestly this is disenfranchising, you should consider the ethics of what you are proscribing for the populace. I should have a right to choose a browser that respects my privacy from a PC.

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#622

Post by Y_Y »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #485
TheCoelacanth wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Server-side tracking of user agent strings should still be possible.

Except we should be pushing for the elimination of user agent strings, too. They just end up being used as a lazy way for lazy developers to not test for capabilities. The most recent example I've run into is Snapchat's web client: It reject's Firefox purely by user agent string, but then works perfectly in Firefox if you just have your browser lie.

I strongly agree. I don't think a website is going to do anything with my user agent string that benefits me. I'd much prefer a web where websites can't do things outside of the standard. We ne er needed webmidi, but a company that makes a browser/is hybrid definitely wanted it.

Speaking of Google, won't this interfere with their "look we're not a monopoly" payments to Mozilla Corp?

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#623

Post by jampekka »

matwood wrote: post #401
mariusor wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm deeply disturbed of this normalization of software as a subscription service. I want the return of good old days when people could pay once for their software and use it in perpetuity.

> I want the return of good old days when people could pay once for their software and use it in perpetuity. This simply does not exist for any software that is internet connected.

All my software is that. My monthly subscription is 0$.

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#624

Post by taylodl »

glenstein wrote: post #394
taylodl wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last I looked Safari isn't Chrome. Also, anybody can use the Gecko web rendering engine, yet project after project after project has picked the WebKit or Blink rendering engines. And no, I haven't "shot myself in the foot" - when I replaced Firefox I found two great browsers: Brave and Vivaldi. The better question is why you continue to support a compromised organization?

Just to make sure I'm following along, we were talking about how youtube includes a delay of several seconds if it detects a certain ad blocking browser extension. Firefox has that browser extension, and therefore Mozilla is a "compromised organization."

You violated YouTube's T's & C's and you're complaining about Google putting you in timeout for doing so. You steal from YouTube's content creators yet present Mozilla as the good guys. Have I summed that up accurately?

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#625

Post by jeroenhd »

godelski wrote: post #424
jeroenhd wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

So what do you care about more? Mozilla CEO making too much or Chrome getting to dictate the web? Unfortunately there will always be things to complain about and no system is perfect. But we have to make choices like this and these are the results. You cannot complain about Google's control/dominance over the web and refuse to turn away from their products to use reasonable alternatives (when they exist). Firefox is…

I want Firefox to continue existing and I want it to become a major player again. If not Firefox, maybe a newcomer, just anyone other than Apple and Google.

I use Firefox on every device and I recommend others to do the same. That doesn't mean I agree with Mozilla, though, and their misplacement of funds make me worry about the future of Mozilla and Firefox as a browser. After firing the Rust team working on Servo, you'd expect austerity measures across the board, as Servo was clearly too expensive to continue investing in, yet Mozilla saw fit to continue rising Baker's wages, despite having just laid off 25% of its workforce.

I wonder about how much longer Mozilla will be able to exist. It's oriented around activism first, Firefox second, yet most of its income comes from its browser, and only because Google is scared of being branded a monopoly. If any other platform rises to popularity (and there are a few rising browser engines in the works, mostly as hobbies, but still) and Google switches to funding that project rather than Mozilla, I don't see how Firefox can survive.

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#626

Post by nottorp »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #527
whakim wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always see comments like this on HN, and I struggle to understand why. Firefox is plenty fast. Its interface is extremely similar to most of its competitors. It works well. What special sauce do you expect Mozilla to implement that'll suddenly change their fortunes? It's a browser, after all. And why do you think that such features aren't being implemented due to lack of resources or muddled priorities - surely Moz…

> I always see comments like this on HN, and I struggle to understand why. I think its OSX and Windows people talking past each other. On a Mac, Firefox is pale in comparison to Safari.

> On a Mac, Firefox is pale in comparison to Safari.

How does that help when you can't run uBlock Origin on Safari?

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#627

Post by hnav »

graypegg wrote: post #615
hnav wrote: post #598

Mozilla should develop a rudimentary Blink or Webkit mode for FF that allows it to fallback to a better supported engine (with obvious limitations wrt extensions, privacy policy) for select websites. I think once the user has opened Chrome/Safari because something rendered all fucked up in FF, they're likely to keep using it. The telemetry from fallbacks could be used to prioritize compatibility issues and drive down…

I’m not sure if the specifics but I think embedding an alternative rendering engine within a browser already built around a different one would be a significant chunk of work. I could imagine a sort of quirks mode though, just a few hand selected chrome bugs/features implemented in gecko to make it behave just a little more like chrome. What a horrible future but it’s a possibility.

I just don't see a viable alternative once your market share has fallen low enough for devs not to care about testing on your browser.

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#628

Post by nottorp »

kelnos wrote: post #509
deepspace wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That axe may just be Chrome's war on ad blockers.

I'd like to believe this, but what percentage of Chrome users actually use an ad blocker? My general feeling is that we on HN think ad blocking is a lot more common than it actually is.

No the question is how can you trust an ad blocker will be allowed to do its job in Chrome? Even without Manifest v33333 or whatever.

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#629

Post by tiahura »

concordDance wrote: post #400
sebstefan wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I suspect they think that the board was selected for DEIness rather than understanding of the browser market.

No. Instead of being a board with a critical interest in Firefox, and who will continually challenge management to do what's best for FF, you've got a rubber stamp board who, let's be real, couldn't care less about FF.

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#630

Post by zlg_codes »

aembleton wrote: post #503
jen20 wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Privacy must be a tier 1 feature of a web browser. The fact the market leader goes out of their way to shit all over privacy concerns says more about their marketing pull than the quality of their browser.

That privacy prevents organisations such as USWDS from seeing that it is in use as analytics are blocked.

Nobody has a right to research you or your behavior. We shouldn't be leaving holes in our software because the methods chosen rely on leaky and chatty protocols to gleam info.

The user agent string shouldn't exist to begin with. It was a boneheaded decision to allow that sort of easy discrimination baked right into the protocol.

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