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Firefox’s Fight for the Future of the Web

theguardian.com

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Re: Firefox’s Fight for the Future of the Web

#11

Post by ppfrc »

idoubtit wrote: post #8
hoptank wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you suggest Mozilla do instead? Mozilla don't just fund the development of their own products they also fund research [1] and other projects [2]. [1] https://research.mozilla.org/research-grants/ [2] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/grants/ In a perfect world Mozilla would be funded by donations. I donate to Mozilla but it's a pittance compared to what they get from Google.

All of the non-research grants were in 2006-2013. Has Mozilla stopped this policy of semi-random funding of external projects? Some of these grants surprised me. For example, $270,000 for the translation and accessibility of the USA presidential election of 2012.

Just imagine not being from the US, donating to Mozilla so they improve Firefox, and they instead spend the money on translating the USA presidential election.

Re: Firefox’s Fight for the Future of the Web

#12

Post by simion314 »

The_rationalist wrote: post #6
hoptank wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you suggest Mozilla do instead? Mozilla don't just fund the development of their own products they also fund research [1] and other projects [2]. [1] https://research.mozilla.org/research-grants/ [2] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/grants/ In a perfect world Mozilla would be funded by donations. I donate to Mozilla but it's a pittance compared to what they get from Google.

Integrating chunks of chromium code into gecko should massively reduce their maintenance costs. E.g spidermonkey is sub-par to v8 since so many years. If mozilla invested the money it invest into spidermonkey, into v8, the web would be faster for everyone. Should I repeat? The web would be faster for everyone. Nodejs servers too and also electron apps. We would also get new js features, faster. But mozilla doesn't se…

We don't need JS to get 2% more faster, the limits of those speed improvements were reached, web assembly combined with a compiled language could offer more speed.

I would like to see Firefox move faster in implementing good web APIs, like the lazy loading of images, push for HTML and CSS improvements(like let me customize the numeric text input arrows with css instead of forcing me to use a JS library) .

Maybe the Rust rewrite will make Firefox better achitected so you could have a node version based on Mozilla technologies or you could easily use the web assembly VM in your application without having to load the full Chrome code.

Re: Firefox’s Fight for the Future of the Web

#13

Post by scarface74 »

input_sh wrote: post #4
hoptank wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you suggest Mozilla do instead? Mozilla don't just fund the development of their own products they also fund research [1] and other projects [2]. [1] https://research.mozilla.org/research-grants/ [2] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/grants/ In a perfect world Mozilla would be funded by donations. I donate to Mozilla but it's a pittance compared to what they get from Google.

I wouldn't suggest an alternative funding model as much as guess what will it be maybe a year or two from now. Key quote from the article: > Mozilla has launched Monitor, a data-breach reporting service; Lockwise, a password manager; and Send, a privacy-focused alternative to services such as WeSendit. It’s also beta-testing a VPN (virtual private network) service, which it hopes to market to privacy-conscious users.…

I guess they can also add a messenger, news client, a calendar, and an address book and call it Firefox Communicator....

Re: Firefox’s Fight for the Future of the Web

#14

Post by buboard »

hoptank wrote: post #3
ppfrc wrote: post #2

Firefox’s Fight for the Future of the Web, severely cramped by their complete economic dependency on Google and their inability to allocate their funds intelligently

What do you suggest Mozilla do instead? Mozilla don't just fund the development of their own products they also fund research [1] and other projects [2]. [1] https://research.mozilla.org/research-grants/ [2] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/grants/ In a perfect world Mozilla would be funded by donations. I donate to Mozilla but it's a pittance compared to what they get from Google.

Integrate metamask by default in firefox before facebook pays them to integrate libra.

Re: Firefox’s Fight for the Future of the Web

#15

Post by scarface74 »

simion314 wrote: post #12
The_rationalist wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Integrating chunks of chromium code into gecko should massively reduce their maintenance costs. E.g spidermonkey is sub-par to v8 since so many years. If mozilla invested the money it invest into spidermonkey, into v8, the web would be faster for everyone. Should I repeat? The web would be faster for everyone. Nodejs servers too and also electron apps. We would also get new js features, faster. But mozilla doesn't se…

We don't need JS to get 2% more faster, the limits of those speed improvements were reached, web assembly combined with a compiled language could offer more speed. I would like to see Firefox move faster in implementing good web APIs, like the lazy loading of images, push for HTML and CSS improvements(like let me customize the numeric text input arrows with css instead of forcing me to use a JS library) . Maybe the R…

Wasn’t Netscape the case study of why you shouldn’t do a full rewrite?

Re: Firefox’s Fight for the Future of the Web

#16

Post by saagarjha »

The_rationalist wrote: post #6
hoptank wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you suggest Mozilla do instead? Mozilla don't just fund the development of their own products they also fund research [1] and other projects [2]. [1] https://research.mozilla.org/research-grants/ [2] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/grants/ In a perfect world Mozilla would be funded by donations. I donate to Mozilla but it's a pittance compared to what they get from Google.

Integrating chunks of chromium code into gecko should massively reduce their maintenance costs. E.g spidermonkey is sub-par to v8 since so many years. If mozilla invested the money it invest into spidermonkey, into v8, the web would be faster for everyone. Should I repeat? The web would be faster for everyone. Nodejs servers too and also electron apps. We would also get new js features, faster. But mozilla doesn't se…

I, for one, am happy that there are multiple competing JavaScript engines. And that’s coming from someone who put in work to improve one you haven’t mentioned.

Re: Firefox’s Fight for the Future of the Web

#17

Post by rpastuszak »

phatfish wrote: post #10
ppfrc wrote: post #2

Firefox’s Fight for the Future of the Web, severely cramped by their complete economic dependency on Google and their inability to allocate their funds intelligently

But they get shouted down whenever they try to monetise independently, can't have it both ways. Either more users start donating $5-10 a month (seems worth it to me given the time I spend with their product) or they take the Google money and deal with the conflict of interest best they can. A Shuttelworth style billionaire benefactor would work as well, but I doubt one will come from the tech community as Firefox is…

This. Bear in mind that Mozilla is experimenting with different monetisation models, be it subs, donations, relying on Google for search as well as partnerships with companies such as Scroll (publisher content monetisation platforms).

Also, if you follow the discourse on anything published by Mozilla in the past 2-3 years—there's been a shift when it comes to how they speak about Googe. It's a marketing move, of course, but I think it's also a sign of the direction they are following.

I believe something will change here, for better, in the next couple of years. I'd sign for a Mozilla subscription if it included services such as better VPN, supporting those who cannot afford to pay directly, but pay with they data instead.

The move towards paid vs. non-paid services creates a risk that we'd end up with two types of internet users, with privacy being the currency of those who cannot afford an expensive mobile phone or a browser not trying to sell you things whether you want it or not.

The history of Guardian (in the past 5 years or so) shows that people are happy to pay for a valuable service just to allow the others to have access to it. Maybe I'm just being overly optimistic here, but I shudder every time I think about the alternatives.

Re: Firefox’s Fight for the Future of the Web

#18

Post by radarsat1 »

johnsea wrote: post #7

The article once more reiterates the fact that Apple doesn't allow other browser engines. You cannot even fight, there is no future ;-) on iOS.

How is it technically enforced though, I am curious. I mean, if I wrote an application that downloaded text files and rendered the text to the screen, I am sure that would be possible. If I wanted to add images to draw next to the text I am sure it is feasible. So how can one technically prohibit doing that? Implementation-wise, how is a web browser really that different from e.g. a video game?

Or is it only policy-enforced? Reviewers see something in an app that resembles a "browser" too much and take you down?

Re: Firefox’s Fight for the Future of the Web

#19

Post by sharpneli »

radarsat1 wrote: post #18
johnsea wrote: post #7

The article once more reiterates the fact that Apple doesn't allow other browser engines. You cannot even fight, there is no future ;-) on iOS.

How is it technically enforced though, I am curious. I mean, if I wrote an application that downloaded text files and rendered the text to the screen, I am sure that would be possible. If I wanted to add images to draw next to the text I am sure it is feasible. So how can one technically prohibit doing that? Implementation-wise, how is a web browser really that different from e.g. a video game? Or is it only policy-e…

One cannot have writeable executable memory on iOS (apple can, we cannot).

Thus one cannot make a JIT compiler for js and thus pages are slow.

Game engines such as Unity use il2cpp to go from the C# stuff into C++ that can be statically compiled as running the C# as bytecode would be too slow without a jitter.

Re: Firefox’s Fight for the Future of the Web

#20

Post by capableweb »

radarsat1 wrote: post #18
johnsea wrote: post #7

The article once more reiterates the fact that Apple doesn't allow other browser engines. You cannot even fight, there is no future ;-) on iOS.

How is it technically enforced though, I am curious. I mean, if I wrote an application that downloaded text files and rendered the text to the screen, I am sure that would be possible. If I wanted to add images to draw next to the text I am sure it is feasible. So how can one technically prohibit doing that? Implementation-wise, how is a web browser really that different from e.g. a video game? Or is it only policy-e…

My guess would be that it's policy-enforced and what Apple really has problems with is not browsers as a concept (dynamically loading and rendering data) but rather the execution engine that websites usually use (JavaScript) and seeing that as a too-large-to-review area where they want to avoid having vulnerabilities in applications published on App Store.

Or it's a anti-competitive move disguised as a "avoid vulnerabilities" but in reality they just really want to make sure iOS users keep using the one and only browser (Safari).

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