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Is Firefox Firefucked?

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Re: Is Firefox Firefucked?

#81

Post by eitau_1 »

h43z wrote: post #45

Firefox is really in a sad state. The politics, ideology is getting worse and the tech is still bad. Kind of crazy that they waste everyones battery and cpu https://b.43z.one/2025-02-12/ Am I the one who is crazy and nitpicking here?

there are some observations of mine:

- when the browser is not in the visible workspace, chromium's cpu usage actually goes to 0 whilst firefox's usually oscilates around 5%

- every new window costs 30mb of ram for chromium and 100mb for firefox

- this one is weird, but when lightly using firefox while overall ram usage spilled well into swap, often after some time terminal emulator process will get swapped-out as if firefox eventually touched memory used by every tab sitting in the background

Re: Is Firefox Firefucked?

#82

Post by fxj »

thw_9a83c wrote: post #65
softwaredoug wrote: post #28

I just don’t understand the purpose of the Mozilla foundation any more. They’re a non profit? But seem to do the bidding of big tech? I have no sense of what they stand for That plus seeming to chase every hype wave (Crypto, now AI) I just don’t get why I should care about them.

> I have no sense of what they stand for There a nice Mozilla Manifesto explaining the Mozilla mission and their values [1]. Apparently, it's difficult to find a stable, independent, and effective revenue model for an open-source browser that is completely free as a product, should not contain shady ads or product promotions, does not sell user data, and always puts the user first. This is especially difficult becaus…

Get money from donors. Wikipedia shows how that can be done. Or get money from the EU.

Mozilla is a strawman for google that they can claim there exists another browser that is not chrome because of antitrust laws. And now that Microsoft forcefeeds win11 user with Edge it will not take long and google doesnt need firefox anymore.

For sure I would give a donation to firefox if they would build a decent browser which listens to the user but not as they do now.

just my 2 ct

Re: Is Firefox Firefucked?

#83

Post by Xymist »

graypegg wrote: post #66
mmastrac wrote: post #2

Firefox's main problem is Firefox users. Seriously, there's nothing but griping about it but it's pretty much the only browser holding back the rendering engine monopoly (intentionally excluding WebKit).

I can't really defend Mozilla's priorities or business model myself, but I do agree that Firefox users create this massive pessimistic cloud overtop of firefox. From what little I know, the Firefox MPL license isn't restrictive at all, other than forcing you to not re-license existing MPL code. Another corporate sponsor could take on the torch, pay a bunch of ex or current mozilla devs/contributers, and make EarthTur…

Straightforwardly, nobody with the resources to build and maintain a browser could ever be trusted to do so, as they get those resources from somewhere, and it's going to be somewhere unacceptable (ads, trackers, Google, taxes, selling the browser or addons/features as a product, hostile nation states).

These things are far too complex and expensive to be produced as they should and as most FOSS is: for free, by a group of individuals who could fit around a breakfast table and don't answer to anyone but each other.

Re: Is Firefox Firefucked?

#84

Post by PaulKeeble »

dfabulich wrote: post #79

Mozilla's problem is unsolvable. Firefox gets 90% of its funding from Google, putting Google effectively in control of Mozilla. Ideally, Firefox would be financially supported by its users, like Wikipedia. But that requires ads nagging users to donate, preferably on a subscription plan. Most of Firefox's users block ads, and they refuse to pay Mozilla a dime under any circumstances. Their users are freeloaders, provi…

There is at least a group that are willing to pay for Firefox if its ultimately a browser built for the user base against a hostile web. But that has never been on offer, donations have always only ever been for Mozilla as a whole and the past decade has been no end of user hostile projects one after the other combined with other projects people want nothing to do with.

I don't know if its possible because its not been tried, but it doesn't work from a low trust position and Mozilla is very much not trusted.

Re: Is Firefox Firefucked?

#85

Post by OptionX »

I've personally used and still use FF for year and have now no intentions of switching.

I don't care about the Ai stuff as long is mostly opt-in or easily disabled at least.

Having said that I've been looking forward the Ladybug project as a another browser not part of the chromium swarm. I'm sure I'll give it a try when it's more mature.

Re: Is Firefox Firefucked?

#87

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

BeetleB wrote: post #40
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is this fad on HN right now? All these people are coming out to criticize Firefox (Mozilla really, not Firefox itself) for their bumbling about the past few years, and now there's a backlash to it, like "these entitled users, oh my goodness" as though holding software companies to a standard is somehow a bad thing?

> as though holding software companies to a standard is somehow a bad thing? I think some feel they are being held to extremely high standards. As someone who's avoided the drama, and is a power user, Firefox has been great to me, and continues to be so.

> I think some feel they are being held to extremely high standards.

Of course; Mozilla proudly proclaims that they live by higher standards, so their users hold them to higher standards.

Re: Is Firefox Firefucked?

#88

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

abigail95 wrote: post #29

It's open source, use a fork if you don't like the company. If you think the product is good keep using it - why on earth would you give up one of your most important pieces of software on your machine because you don't like the company that runs the main repo?

> If you think the product is good keep using it - why on earth would you give up one of your most important pieces of software on your machine because you don't like the company that runs the main repo?

Because the nature of the dislike is that they keep making their software do things against my desires/interests.

Re: Is Firefox Firefucked?

#90

Post by sixtyj »

fxj wrote: post #82
thw_9a83c wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have no sense of what they stand for There a nice Mozilla Manifesto explaining the Mozilla mission and their values [1]. Apparently, it's difficult to find a stable, independent, and effective revenue model for an open-source browser that is completely free as a product, should not contain shady ads or product promotions, does not sell user data, and always puts the user first. This is especially difficult becaus…

Get money from donors. Wikipedia shows how that can be done. Or get money from the EU. Mozilla is a strawman for google that they can claim there exists another browser that is not chrome because of antitrust laws. And now that Microsoft forcefeeds win11 user with Edge it will not take long and google doesnt need firefox anymore. For sure I would give a donation to firefox if they would build a decent browser which l…

And a lot of companies and developers would like to pay as well imho. Wikipedia or The Guardian newspaper are really good in getting money from donors.
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