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Orbit by Mozilla

orbitbymozilla.com

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Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#121

Post by kid64 »

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #88
reissbaker wrote: post #32

Why does Mozilla always spin their wheels releasing random side projects? Cloud-hosting an outdated tiny LLM that you can't swap out or run locally, to do basic summarization? This just doesn't feel like an area of strategic focus that makes sense for Mozilla. GPUs are expensive, talent to do inference well is expensive, and the actual product they're shipping seems pretty marginally useful at best. If they shipped v…

For me, the product differentiation of Firefox is a bunch of small convenience features which Chrome in its monolithism refuses to provide, such as: Allowing Backspace to go back a page. The built-in screenshot tool. Being able to turn off smooth scrolling. Support for a menubar, so that I can navigate the features I want quickly. Being able to choose page encodings (I use a non-Latin charset language). A usable/usef…

> Allowing Backspace to go back a page.

I mostly agree, but whoever came up with this shortcut should get choked.

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#122

Post by jpeloquin »

reissbaker wrote: post #66
NotYourLawyer wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely there’s an extension that does vertical tabs…

There is, but hiding the tabs on top — IMO the entire point of vertical tabs, since almost all screens have more horizontal than vertical space — isn't supported without maintaining your own custom CSS. It's a pain.

If anyone is curious, the following seems to work:

0. Install the Tree Style Tab extension (or whatever vertical tabs extension you prefer).

1. Enable userChrome.css: set toolkit.legacyUserProfileCustomizations.stylesheets=true in about:config.

2. Set browser.tabs.inTitlebar=0 in about:config so the title bar buttons (and, on some OS's, the title bar itself) remain visible.

3. Create =chrome/userChrome.css= in your Firefox profile folder and write the following to it:

  @namespace url("http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul");

  /* hides the native tabs */
  #TabsToolbar {
      visibility: collapse;
  }

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#123

Post by usernomdeguerre »

I'm encouraged that they're actively exploring this and not shying away from experiments. It seems clear to me that there are areas of Mozilla[0],[1] pushing closer and closer to great local AI integrations doing the kinds of things that I, a browser user, find useful. I went to some of the articles on the hn frontpage and had questions (and followups!) that begat reasonable starting points for further learning.

Hopefully they continue to iterate on this with better integration (for instance, moving to a toolbar icon instead of persistent badge on every page) and then make it ~truly privacy respecting by moving locally.

[0] https://github.com/Mozilla-Ocho/llamafile [1] https://github.com/mozilla/translations

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#124

Post by anyfactor »

BadHumans wrote: post #18

[flagged]

In a separate comment, I mentioned how Mozilla should have been more like Proton with their cloud storage, VPN, password manager, and cloud office suite.

In fact, they should have done that a decade a ago.

Mozilla has been around since the late '90s and should have evolved beyond just being a browser company. They launched a VPN service when VPNs were already everywhere, and they did the same with a bookmark manager when others were already offering similar solutions. Mozilla is always catching up, never leading, and that's a common issue with many big open-source and free software companies. They often pretend to be a business that isn't heavily propped up by big tech donations.

If I were leading a browser company, my focus would have been aggressively directed towards small business software. I’d create an internet and privacy-focused affordable minimal business software suite that lives within the browser — a combination of Proton and Zoho. And I’d strongly avoid building things that should be browser extensions.

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#125

Post by minitech »

janfoeh wrote: post #63
slowmovintarget wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That and Firefox can run a full-grown version of uBlock Origin that actually works... at least for now.

uBlock Matrix, not Origin, if you actually want fine-grained control.

*uMatrix is unmaintained, and uBlock Origin can do fine-grained control – it just requires the “advanced user” setting for some reason, even if you expand the panels all the way. https://github.com/gorhill/ublock/wiki/quick-guide:-popup-us... (see “I am an advanced user!” expanding section at the bottom)

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#126

Post by sergiotapia »

such a random product. uses an old tiny model, they are paying the gcp bill, and it's to summarize content?

why not use their technical expertise to built an in-browser "https://big-agi.com/" of sorts where users can paste in their API key and use bleeding edge models in combination with the browser's data which they could expose and manipulate as the creators of Firefox!

this product seems really random and quite frankly weird.

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#127

Post by teruakohatu »

dralley wrote: post #105
teruakohatu wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> from Google to survive. If Google stops the payments, Mozilla probably goes out of business. > I think it’s pretty clear why they keep on doing this type of side project. It’s not clear to me. I agree they would have some problems if Google declined to pay them because the next best offer would be lower. But the best way to keep these payments, or to increase them, is by making a better browser and giving people a…

Most non-tech "normies", which is to say 95% of the population, barely know what a browser is. They couldn't describe the function of one, or discriminate what makes one better than another. They certainly won't give a crap about Servo, or extremely marginal improvements in page load time (at best).

Given that web browsers are the heaviest application most users are running, and they are running them on low end 10yr old laptops with 8gb of RAM, I think an ultra modern lightweight web browser would be noticeably better.

Web browser crawl on these low end laptops.

This is how Firefox became popular in the first place, by being better.

The “we need an alternative to the “WebKit/blink/chromium” monopoly is what the majority of people will never care about.

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#128

Post by nickthegreek »

NotYourLawyer wrote: post #62
reissbaker wrote: post #32

Why does Mozilla always spin their wheels releasing random side projects? Cloud-hosting an outdated tiny LLM that you can't swap out or run locally, to do basic summarization? This just doesn't feel like an area of strategic focus that makes sense for Mozilla. GPUs are expensive, talent to do inference well is expensive, and the actual product they're shipping seems pretty marginally useful at best. If they shipped v…

Surely there’s an extension that does vertical tabs…

I use sideberry. Once you get it set up (not super user friendly) it’s amazing.

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#129

Post by griomnib »

_heimdall wrote: post #106
teruakohatu wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> from Google to survive. If Google stops the payments, Mozilla probably goes out of business. > I think it’s pretty clear why they keep on doing this type of side project. It’s not clear to me. I agree they would have some problems if Google declined to pay them because the next best offer would be lower. But the best way to keep these payments, or to increase them, is by making a better browser and giving people a…

The least cynical view, in my opinion, is that Google is an ad company, which ultimately means they are a data company. They don't need Mozilla to build a better browser, they need Mozilla to increase the amount of user data Google can collect and ad spots Google can sell. The more cynical view is that Google doesn't care at all about Mozilla because the investment is nothing more than a hedge against regulatory pres…

A hedge that didn’t pay off despite the Mozilla CEO doing their part at trial and then promptly retiring on a huge pile of GOOG bucks.

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#130

Post by nickthegreek »

ipaddr wrote: post #120
jsheard wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much, about 85% of Mozilla's revenue comes from Google in exchange for making them the default search engine. The ongoing antitrust case against Googles search business is threatening to make that deal illegal though, so ironically the attempt to break up one Google monopoly might incidentally kill Firefox and make another Google monopoly stronger than ever.

Assuming donations would still be legal they have the funding structure to get around that through their foundation.

They are gonna need to shed a lot of weight (like this project) in order to make donations feasible.
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