The new privacy terms of Mozilla Firefox are a big concern [0]
[0] https://medium.com/@mail_18109/mozillas-new-firefox-terms-sp...
Tell Mozilla: it's time to ditch Google
41–50 of 469 posts
Re: Tell Mozilla: it's time to ditch Google
#42Nah, Firefox devs: It's time to ditch Mozilla and fork it.
Maybe a new browser will rise from Firefox's ashes. Perhaps we should call the fork Phoenix?
Re: Tell Mozilla: it's time to ditch Google
#43Re: Tell Mozilla: it's time to ditch Google
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mozilla is much larger than the browser.
Isn't most of the money goes to the browser anyway?
A very large portion of the money goes directly into the pockets of senior managers who, based on Mozilla's dismal and falling market share, add absolutely no value to the business.
More than 1% of revenue (not profit; revenue) goes straight into the pocket of the CEO.
Re: Tell Mozilla: it's time to ditch Google
#45Re: Tell Mozilla: it's time to ditch Google
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mozilla is much larger than the browser.
True, but they only have like maybe three products that most people care about: Firefox, Thunderbird (maybe), and the MDN.
Just to provide one example, if Firefox suddenly no longer has bookmark/history/password syncing because Mozilla has refocused on its core products (Firefox/Thunderbird/MDN), suddenly you'll see Firefox's market share dwindle even more, because ordinary users are accustomed to every browser having a bunch of bells and whistles like profile syncing.
The set of features people expect from a modern browser is really big now. To their credit, the Mozilla web standards people actively fought against a lot of the scope creep like "webpages should be able to flash firmware to USB devices" or "webpages should be able to talk to MIDI keyboards" but they lost, and now those are things a web browser is expected to do.
Keeping up with all the scope creep is expensive.
Re: Tell Mozilla: it's time to ditch Google
#47> Now is the time for Mozilla to take bold steps to reinforce its identity as a privacy-centric nonprofit Mozilla gave up that identity when it became an ad-tech company whose business model was to sell reports about the internet browsing habits of firefox users to advertisers. The problem was never Mozilla's dependence Google. The problem is their dependence on the surveillance of internet users. As far as I know Mo…
What kind of reports can they generate from the data they collect: https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/compone... ?
Re: Tell Mozilla: it's time to ditch Google
#48IMHO the EU should step in. Having a browser that is not controlled by big tech should be part of an effort to reduce the dependency on the US.
How about not involving governments in how Firefox is run. Especially not those keen on backdoors and "Chat control". It could be a stand alone association ruled by its members or a classic free-for-all whatever goes code talks FOSS project.
If they can invest some money with no strings attached – hey, why not.
Re: Tell Mozilla: it's time to ditch Google
#49Not looking to grind an axe but facts matter in this case. Let's look at Mozilla's financial statement for 2007 and 2023 [0][1]: > Expenses 1. Program 'Software Development' 2007: 20.7M | 2023: 260M 2. Management 'General and Administrative' : 2007: 5.1M | 2023: 123M I am purposefully excluding marketing and fundraising costs. Because arguably you can't get away from those expenses. Let's ignore inflation and COL and…
Considering how much money is routinely set on fire by the US tech industry, this is a bargain for the best web browser currently in existence.
What alternative do you suggest? Google and Microsoft are certainly worse. Firefox is vastly superior to the offerings of these multi billion dollar companies. Chrome and edge are exactly the prisons that these companies designed them to be.
What specifically should laypeople do to regain something resembling a usable Internet? Firefox and ublock origin is the only answer I have.
Re: Tell Mozilla: it's time to ditch Google
#50Not looking to grind an axe but facts matter in this case. Let's look at Mozilla's financial statement for 2007 and 2023 [0][1]: > Expenses 1. Program 'Software Development' 2007: 20.7M | 2023: 260M 2. Management 'General and Administrative' : 2007: 5.1M | 2023: 123M I am purposefully excluding marketing and fundraising costs. Because arguably you can't get away from those expenses. Let's ignore inflation and COL and…
The good news is that development could easily be funded by donations. It's only a few million. Enough to keep a few dozen people employed.
The bad news is that donations are unlikely to happen with the current massive misspending on overpaid people with no technical background that don't code that spend 95% of their budget on themselves, support staff that also doesn't code, offices they don't need, commercial products that flop, monetization schemes that fail, etc.
I wouldn't. And I'm a user! Mozilla needs to be restructured. And ideally they diversify their commercial ecosystem as well. Because they are way too dependent on Google.
If you look at Rust, created by Mozilla, they are set up in a more sane way. There's a foundation. It's well funded with sponsorships from the big companies that use and depend on Rust. Those companies employ people that contribute to Rust. Many OSS organizations are set up like that. It works. The diversity of contributors and commercial sponsors ensures neutrality and longevity. No single company has veto power. As long as valuable tech comes out, companies stay involved. Some disappear, new ones come along. Linux development works like that as well.
Ironically, Chromium at this point is better positioned to become like that. The main issue is that Google still employs most of the developers and controls the roadmap. But there are quite a few commercial chromium based products: Edge, Brave, Opera, etc. that each have development teams using and contributing to it. Add Electron (has its own foundation, based on chromium) to the mix and the countless commercial applications using that and you have a healthy ecosystem that could survive Google completely disengaging if they'd be forced to split off their browser activities.
I use Firefox mainly because of the iron grip keeps over Chromium and it's clear intent to cripple ad blocking, grab user data, and exploit its user base. But I worry about the dysfunctional mess that is Mozilla.