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Tell Mozilla: it's time to ditch Google

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Re: Tell Mozilla: it's time to ditch Google

#151

Post by BearOso »

nativeit wrote: post #108
theandrewbailey wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Mozilla already solicits donations, but I wonder if people who donate to them know tha…

[flagged]

The question is more "Do these events and keynote speakers in Zambia have anything to do with browser development?" This isn't supposed to be a generic non-profit charity, it's a non-profit for supporting web browser development. If only 5% of the funds are going toward the browser or related technology, the organization is corrupt.

Re: Tell Mozilla: it's time to ditch Google

#152

Post by delusional »

theandrewbailey wrote: post #85
jillesvangurp wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 produ…

> 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. Mozilla already solicits donations, but I wonder if people who donate to them know tha…

> like feminist AI conferences in Africa.

According to their 2023 form 990 (the 2024 one isn't published yet) those sort of donations are usually on the order of 15k. You don't get much browser for that money.

Re: Tell Mozilla: it's time to ditch Google

#153

Post by n_ary »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #56
DoingIsLearning wrote: post #27

Not 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…

In this landscape I'm curious if any amount of money can overcome the oligopoly advantages of owning the OS (with no anti-trust enforcement) or owning the most popular web properties. Even if every cent for the past ten years went to browser dev alone, would that have made a difference? Do regular users even know the difference between one browser and another? Or is it only the icon they recognize, if even that?

> Do regular users even know the difference […]

Honestly, from observing my close family and friends as well as passing by strangers, everyone uses whatever default comes(i.e. Chrome on Android) or again Chrome(on iOS because they saw some banner ad somewhere to install it to access their password stored previously in android life).

The core portal to internet currently appears to be the blue-F(aka Facebook) icon which has an interesting search. People search in Facebook for specific topic and then will reluctantly move over to browser and again search on Google(always default). So, in summary no, everyone uses Chrome and does not know the difference.

Some of my colleagues seem to use Brave and Linux die-hards use Firefox(comes default with ubuntu last I tried ubuntu).

Re: Tell Mozilla: it's time to ditch Google

#155

Post by tredre3 »

dismalaf wrote: post #134
marginalia_nu wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vivaldi is just a chromium wrapper as far as I understand.

It's Chromium with the Google bits ripped out, Vivaldi has their own sign in/sync functionality, built in ad blocker, and custom UI. It's based on Chromium but has quite a bit different going on, as much as Brave or Edge.

But unlike Brave and Edge, Vivaldi isn't open-source.

Re: Tell Mozilla: it's time to ditch Google

#156

Post by alberth »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #27

Not 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…

I know your intention is probably well placed but we do though need to factor in revenues:

  Year    Revenue
  ----    -------
  2007       $75M
  2023      $653M
I bring this up because G&A of big companies (in general) always outpaces R&D once they hit scale ... and in an ideal situation - your revenues should outpace R&D expense because you're getting economies of scale (which further dilutes the R&D to Other Business Function comparison).

And Mozilla has hit scale / become "big company" - with those kinds of revenues.

The reason why G&A outpaces R&D, is because now you have all kinds of work to do that you don't have to do when your small/underdog, like:

- regulatory compliance

- legal

- privacy

- advocacy

- public relations

- etc...

When you're the underdog, you don't have to deal with these activities and as a result, your expense base is more heavily skewed toward R&D.

Re: Tell Mozilla: it's time to ditch Google

#157

Post by ToucanLoucan »

theandrewbailey wrote: post #119
nativeit wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Let me repeat myself: > All I ever wanted from Mozilla was a browser Firefox is the best alternative to a Chromium/Google dominated web. As long as Firefox isn't kicking ass and being used by, say, 20% of web users, I argue that Mozilla shouldn't be doing anything else. This is especially prudent when a large part of Mozilla's (and therefore, Firefox's) funding is in jeopardy. So, yes, I have a problem with Mozilla d…

[flagged]

Re: Tell Mozilla: it's time to ditch Google

#158

Post by ptx »

hnuser123456 wrote: post #133
EdPoincare wrote: post #37

Firefox is done with. https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/commit/d459addab846d8144b...

Sounds like EU defined "sale of data" to mean a lot of other things besides selling data, like transferring information. And now Firefox cannot so definitively say they don't "sell your data", because they allow you to transfer webpages over the network.

Where are you getting this? All Mozilla says is that "the LEGAL definition of 'sale of data' is extremely broad in some places". They don't that it's the EU and definitely not that the EU has defined "sale of data" to include any use of a computer network, which would be absurd.

Re: Tell Mozilla: it's time to ditch Google

#159

Post by dismalaf »

tredre3 wrote: post #155
dismalaf wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's Chromium with the Google bits ripped out, Vivaldi has their own sign in/sync functionality, built in ad blocker, and custom UI. It's based on Chromium but has quite a bit different going on, as much as Brave or Edge.

But unlike Brave and Edge, Vivaldi isn't open-source.

https://vivaldi.com/blog/technology/why-isnt-vivaldi-browser...

They basically just want to keep the copyright to their UI. You can see the source but they don't want anyone to rip off their UI.

And let's be real, every browser (even Firefox) has closed source server side code.

Also, the comment I initially responded to was about why isn't there a European browser not controlled by "big tech"... Vivaldi is an independent company in Europe making a browser.

Re: Tell Mozilla: it's time to ditch Google

#160

Post by mvdtnz »

pseudalopex wrote: post #84
iteratethis wrote: post #82

This polls suggests that there's some decision holding back Mozilla from ditching Google, and that with enough pressure, they'll finally do it. They're long aware that they should. They made the strategic announcement some 7-8 years back if I remember correctly. Since then they tried to diversify and failed miserably. Sure enough incompetence is involved but we should also consider how very hard it is. Making hundred…

> Since then they tried to diversify and failed miserably. I wish my miserable failures brought in $65 million annually.

Start selling $100 notes for $50. I am confident you can get your company to $65M revenue.
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