Live data from Hacker News

A look at Firefox forks

lwn.net

121–130 of 390 posts

Re: A look at Firefox forks

#121
post #8

I read in a few places that LibreWolf's anti-fingerprinting features are breaking websites. One person complained that their meeting got scheduled incorrectly because the browser was messing with the user's time zone (for privacy reasons).

Librewolf is pretty aggressive. That would be ok if it was just defaults that you could disable if you wish but I couldn't find out how. Too opinionated.

Re: A look at Firefox forks

#122
post #8

I read in a few places that LibreWolf's anti-fingerprinting features are breaking websites. One person complained that their meeting got scheduled incorrectly because the browser was messing with the user's time zone (for privacy reasons).

I've run into this (it's in Librewolf, but is more obnoxious in Mull/IronFox on Android where I actually use this), where the privacy protections prevent the Jackbox games like Drawful from sending the contents of a drawing to Jackbox's servers. Both browsers don't fail - they just upload a rainbow pattern every time. I use IronFox and LibreWolf as my daily drivers, but I keep Firefox installed alongside them for the…

Can definitely attest to this. Librewolf is my daily and I run it pretty aggressively (uBO options/lists, strict blocking DNS, etc) and sometimes I'm left scratching my head where things break. Recently had an aha-moment that felt triumphant when disabling the limit cross-origin referers, as silly as it sounds. Alas, I guess I prefer it this way.

Re: A look at Firefox forks

#124
post #8

I read in a few places that LibreWolf's anti-fingerprinting features are breaking websites. One person complained that their meeting got scheduled incorrectly because the browser was messing with the user's time zone (for privacy reasons).

It does break many sites. Especially if you disable WebGL. You do get used to it but that's a tall task for most users. It has been complained/asked about to have the ability to enable webgl on whitelisted sites but the devs have a fetish with all or nothing privacy. Unfortunately if I'm using a site that, say, distributes 3D models then I'm likely going to need it enabled, privacy aside. The time zone thing causes c…

You are free to enable WebGl in the settings and install a Plugin that allows for blocking/allowing WebGl.

The default should be privacy if you install a browser that focuses on privacy.

Re: A look at Firefox forks

#125

For years I've thought of creating a "paid" Firefox fork that is _just_ Firefox rebranded, but otherwise the exact codebase. The money brought in would be used to pay an open source developer to work strictly on things intended to be sent upstream to the Mozilla Firefox. If nothing else, it would prove whether or not people are willing to pay for Firefox. The problem with Firefox currently is the organizational struc…

> intended to be sent upstream to the Mozilla Firefox This part is difficult if you actually want those changes to be accepted. I recently had a patch accepted into Firefox. More than three months from submission to merge, including one round of code review which I turned around the same day. It was not a large patch. This is no criticism of the Firefox team, just the reality that my priorities are not their prioriti…

> This is no criticism of the Firefox team, just the reality that my priorities are not their priorities.

I am a former Mozilla Corporation employee, so I am more willing to criticize the current state of MoCo culture as a whole...

> They don't necessarily have the bandwidth or interest in accepting other people's/teams' vision or contribution.

I would say it really depends on the nature of the patches being contributed; if they are not inconsistent with project goals and not excessively burdensome, I'd hope that they in theory would be considered.

However, I will say that MoCo culture was already much different by the late 2010s than it was in the early 2010s. When I joined MoCo in 2012, there were multiple managers I interacted with who openly valued community interaction and encouraged their reports to set quarterly goals relating to mentoring external contributors. IMHO that encouragement had died off by the late 2010s.

Re: A look at Firefox forks

#126
> Waterfox is a browser that began in 2011 as an independent project by Alex Kontos while he was a student. It was acquired and then un-acquired by Internet-advertising company System1. Its site does not, at least at the moment, have enough specifics about the browser's differences and features to compel me to take it for a test drive. Are the others that much more descriptive in their features on their website?

IMO Waterfox being around for 14 years warrants a bit of a closer look as to why it’s still around after so long…

Re: A look at Firefox forks

#127

For years I've thought of creating a "paid" Firefox fork that is _just_ Firefox rebranded, but otherwise the exact codebase. The money brought in would be used to pay an open source developer to work strictly on things intended to be sent upstream to the Mozilla Firefox. If nothing else, it would prove whether or not people are willing to pay for Firefox. The problem with Firefox currently is the organizational struc…

FWIW, when Waterfox was part of S1, I’d make sure all work we did was open and there were the odd times I had our dept push upstream patches if/when needed.

Re: A look at Firefox forks

#128
post #97
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting people to pay for something that has always been free is a tall ask. Most people are barely aware of what a browser is. They just think it’s part of the OS.

People pay for youtube and random youtubers now. They are fine paying for things.

Sure, for those things.

However when it comes to web browsers, there’s been a looong history of failed attempts at selling commercial browsers.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the only people who’ve ever made any serious and sustained income from browsers have been Google; and even that’s been indirectly via upselling their other services.

Re: A look at Firefox forks

#129

For years I've thought of creating a "paid" Firefox fork that is _just_ Firefox rebranded, but otherwise the exact codebase. The money brought in would be used to pay an open source developer to work strictly on things intended to be sent upstream to the Mozilla Firefox. If nothing else, it would prove whether or not people are willing to pay for Firefox. The problem with Firefox currently is the organizational struc…

The problem with most non profits like Mozilla is that a big % of their budget goes to leeches that flood said companies, and then to justify their job as the company crashes down from bloat, they start introducing garbage like what Mozilla tried to do.

Riot games is a perfect example, company filled with nepobabies, game is losing players at an alarming rate so now the ever growing company nepobabies try to justify their job by trying to destroy every free 2 play reward, to the point where players started boycotting (they had to backtrack).

Re: A look at Firefox forks

#130
post #75

> The Floorp project is a much newer entrant. It is developed by a community of Japanese students called Ablaze. Development is hosted on GitHub, and the project solicits donations via GitHub donations. According to its donations page, donors who contribute at the $100 level may submit ads to feature in the new tab page—but the ads, which are displayed as shortcuts with a "sponsored" label, can be turned off in the s…

Sponsored ads and donations are different revenue models. Mozilla has always been collecting donations and nobody had a problem with it.

>Mozilla has always been collecting donations and nobody had a problem with it.

There are a ton of people who complain about Mozilla taking donations. It shows up in most HN threads about the mismanagement of Firefox.

Post reply on HN