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Firefox 94

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Re: Firefox 94

#151

Post by hilbert42 »

hilbert42 wrote: post #83
nikbackm wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've had the MozillaMaintenance service for several years on Windows already, what has changed now?

I don't know about this version but at least one could uninstall the maintenance service. It was the first thing I'd nuke before allowing my PC to reconnect to the internet, the second was to nuke every talk-home-Mozilla link that about:config would allow to either be changed or deleted. This worked, as updates wouldn't even work when clicking 'updates' in the menu. Mozilla has a damned hide to automate updates, not…

P.S.: it would be nice if down-voters had the guts to say why they disagreed.

But then, perhaps that's a bit too close for comfort if you work for Mozilla.

Re: Firefox 94

#152

Post by FriedrichN »

ntp85 wrote: post #138
FriedrichN wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all, some funding is. >Last year, more than 400,000 individuals gave to Mozilla to protect and improve the health of the Internet. The Mozilla Foundation also receives support in the form of grants from other like-minded major foundations, including the Knight, MacArthur, Bill & Melinda Gates, and Ford foundations.

But the foundation is not responsible for Firefox development, isn't it? It's the corporation which can't be supported through donations iirc.

I don't know the exact figures of how it operates. According to Wikipedia Firefox is "developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation".

Re: Firefox 94

#153

Post by peakaboo »

jitl wrote: post #94
sergiomattei wrote: post #82

My God, this thread turned into a cesspool of whining, bitching and utter negativity to what seems like a great update. How about we praise the positives as well? They listed a slew of performance improvements and a battery usage improvement on macOS. Firefox team: keep it up.

I agree. It's an outstanding achievement that Firefox remains competitive with Chrome - and even exceeds it - given the disparity of resources between Mozilla and Google. The Firefox community also tends to be more responsive on their bugtracker than the Chrome/Chromium team. (seriously, great work y'all) (also, they've even caught up to Chrome in version numbers! joke)

I think Firefox is a much better browser than Chrome. I mean once you tried container tabs with a different session and cookie store for each tab... It's just amazing.

Also no Google in my browser is a huge plus.

Re: Firefox 94

#154

Post by PennRobotics »

legrande wrote: post #118
Ajedi32 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO this is the correct behavior. Programs should never bother the user with prompts or interruptions of any sort unless absolutely necessary. "Do you want to install this security-critical update to your computer's largest attack surface?" does not rise to that level. The answer is obviously yes, so just do it and don't bother the user. There's probably an advanced setting buried somewhere if you _really_ want to tu…

> There's probably an advanced setting buried somewhere if you _really_ want to turn that behavior off, but why would you? You can create a policy for it { "policies": { "DisableAppUpdate": true } } Create a JSON file called `policies.json` and paste the above code into it. Then place that JSON file in a folder called `distribution`. Then make sure to place the `distribution` folder in the application folder of the b…

One reason---rare but existent---for disabling these update agents and background services is if someone is using their mobile hotspot to connect their computer and wants to limit all unnecessary data transfer.

There's an economically powerful EU country that has a lot of train travel and not so many trains having great internet access. This was my commute life for a few years.

Re: Firefox 94

#156

Post by jitl »

huhtenberg wrote: post #117
jitl wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be competitive with Chrome and Safari, Firefox needs the following table stakes: - Excellent performance and reliability. Quantum delivered a lot of performance wins, and work continues at a rapid rate on reliability. Unfortunately, to be competitive on performance and reliability given Mozilla's funding required dropping XUL :( - A simplified, modern UI. It's fair to argue about specifics here like "tabs as butto…

It is dead trivial to out-compete Chrome by focusing on power users and their needs for privacy-respecting software that doesn't ship with pointless UI changes every second release.

Initial comment: I guess that tactic played out well enough for Debian versus Windows.

Edit: Sorry, that was snarky of me. Firefox is regularly releasing new privacy-focused, power-user features like tab containers. Can't they spent a little time addressing non-power users too?

Re: Firefox 94

#157

Post by assbuttbuttass »

LogonType10 wrote: post #71
aaomidi wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use qubes for work. I don't like it.

What don't you like about it? I'd like to experience the drawbacks firsthand, but I don't have the hardware yet and Qubes can't be demoed in a VM.

I ran qubes for a while. I found it to be slow and inconvenient. The idea is nice, but practically it's like running fedora except everything takes twice as long to start up.

Re: Firefox 94

#158

Post by Taywee »

hilbert42 wrote: post #83
nikbackm wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've had the MozillaMaintenance service for several years on Windows already, what has changed now?

I don't know about this version but at least one could uninstall the maintenance service. It was the first thing I'd nuke before allowing my PC to reconnect to the internet, the second was to nuke every talk-home-Mozilla link that about:config would allow to either be changed or deleted. This worked, as updates wouldn't even work when clicking 'updates' in the menu. Mozilla has a damned hide to automate updates, not…

> I don't know about this version but at least one could uninstall the maintenance service.

You'd obviously be able to uninstall this, too. If your OS allows third-party programs to install services that can not be disabled or uninstalled, the problem is deeper than just the programs you are installing; you need a different OS.

> Mozilla has a damned hide to automate updates, not to mention gathering data about users' habits without telling them what's been gathered, and also not allowing users to turn off that collection if they wished.

Telemetry is optional. You can disable it. I can understand disliking Mozilla or Firefox's direction, but I absolutely don't understand this paranoid, cynical doomposting and straight-up misinformation about one of the only browsers where you can actually outright disable telemetry, and where you can still separate the address bar from the search bar to avoid leaking information.

> we know the depth of this surveillance just by looking at Mozilla's comments on v94's webpage. There's no way Mozilla would know that data unless Firefox's surveillance of its users had been all-pervasive.

What do you expect to happen when you check the "Allow Firefox to send technical and interaction data to Mozilla" other than them sending data about how people use the browser to Mozilla? It even has a link right next to it in the settings where you can see what data is used. You can know the "depth of this surveillance" by just clicking "learn more" and reading the very first section you are linked to, titled "Interaction data".

More importantly, what do you actually propose? What browser are you using that is much more private and secure than Firefox, and allows you the same flexibility in controlling the level of privacy you actually want?

Re: Firefox 94

#159

Post by iyn »

sergiomattei wrote: post #82

My God, this thread turned into a cesspool of whining, bitching and utter negativity to what seems like a great update. How about we praise the positives as well? They listed a slew of performance improvements and a battery usage improvement on macOS. Firefox team: keep it up.

Thank you for voicing this perspective! I've switched to Firefox ~3-4 years ago and I've seen considerable progress (on multiple platforms). I'm really grateful that we - internet users - have a great alternative to corporate-backed browsers (Chrome, Edge, Safari). Thanks Firefox team!

Re: Firefox 94

#160

Post by pmurt7 »

freeqaz wrote: post #130
nullspace wrote: post #46

I am typing this from Firefox, which I switched back to right after Quantum. I don't want to give an impression that I'm a shill, but I'm getting more and more intrigued by Brave every day. I think they made the right call by focusing on crypto, their search indexing technique is very unique (and it works!), as is their BAT attention token. They are _trying_ to doing something different, Firefox is not. What I instea…

I donate every month instead of dealing with the ads. $20 per month is a lot more money than they'd get by me looking at ads, and I can afford to pay that towards something that makes a big difference for the long-term health of the web!

Just remember that Mozilla gets over 90% of its revenue from Google.

https://calpaterson.com/mozilla.html

In 2018 Mitchell Baker (Mozilla CEO) received a total of $2,458,350 in compensation from Mozilla, which represents a 400% payrise since 2008. On the same period, Firefox marketshare was down 85%. When asked about her salary she stated "I learned that my pay was about an 80% discount to market. Meaning that competitive roles elsewhere were paying about 5 times as much. That's too big a discount to ask people and their families to commit to."

By 2020 her salary had risen to over $3 million, while in the same year the Mozilla Corporation had to lay off approximately 250 employees due to shrinking revenues. Baker blamed this on the Coronavirus pandemic.

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