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Fakespot Is Acquired by Mozilla

fakespot.com

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Re: Fakespot Is Acquired by Mozilla

#181
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm happy for them to branch out, but it is discouraging that once every 3-4 months I run into a bug or feature I need, google it, and am taken to a bug report in their tracker from 5-10 years ago that hasn't been touched.

Case in point: network ping spikes after using Geolocation that will persist until FF is closed: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1711854

I never understood what geolocation was supposed to be within the context of of a desktop browser. If a website asks for this information, and I approve, what information is transmitted that couldn't be determined serverside via geoip?

Re: Fakespot Is Acquired by Mozilla

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The word "first" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here and has jackshit to do with it supporting it. Why? Because the overwhelming majority of Android users aren't using a keyboard and are using a touchscreen. You could even extrapolate the woeful state of Android tablet UX, because there's far more Android tablet users than there will be keyboard users because hey, most Android devices only ship with a touchscreen an…

While I understand your point, I disagree that just because majority is using touch, you shouldn’t care about minority using keyboard.

Why? It's not an accessibility feature, and desktop OS versions of Firefox still exist. Choosing a hobbled Android device and expecting desktop-class experience is a user issue.

Will it drive worthwhile value? No.

Are there more pressing matters? Yes.

With that said, it's open source. Why don't you implement it yourself? Meanwhile the rest of us have long since moved on from Firefox.

Re: Fakespot Is Acquired by Mozilla

#183
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its amazing how consistently poor safari adoption has been.

Safari only runs on Apple hardware and the world at large is poor. Like really, really poor. Safari has 34.6% share in the US: https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/all/united-s...

Would be interesting to calculate a global "number of e-commerce dollars spent per browser."

Re: Fakespot Is Acquired by Mozilla

#184
post #15

This feels like a good long term vision for Mozilla. The browser wars are basically over , and Mozilla as an organization would benefit from a longer term vision to improve veracity on the internet. With the ability to generate content at the cost of basically 0, figuring out what's real and not real is going to be an increasingly hard challenge. Browser stats (as of Feb): 79.7% - Chrome 8.6% - Edge 4.8% - Firefox/Mo…

Browser stats for just desktop computers, worldwide:

  Google Chrome 66%
  Safari 12%
  Edge 11%
  Firefox 6%
Source https://www.macrumors.com/2023/05/02/safari-overtakes-edge-p... discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35786080

https://radar.cloudflare.com/adoption-and-usage shows distribution of requests to Cloudflare by user agent:

  Chrome 29.1%
  Chrome Mobile 27.1%
  Mobile Safari 11.4%
  Chrome Mobile Webview 6.5%
  Firefox 5.7%
  Edge 4.4%
  Facebook 3.5%
  Safari 3.3%
No idea where commenter is getting their stats from.

Re: Fakespot Is Acquired by Mozilla

#185

Normally I'd say... "They'd better write it in the bylaws that Mozilla isn't allowed to buy any more companies" but a system for identifying fake content on the web might (unlike all the other Mozilla acquisitions such as the thoroughly pizzled Pocket) improve the web browsing experience.

The problem with Pocket was that it was a separate brand name with a weird UX. If it had been branded as a new "reading list" feature native to Mozilla I don't think it would have caused a stir. I use Vivaldi now for two reasons: One, it is better than Firefox Mobile, and two, I like the ergonomics of its bookmarks and reading list sync. Having the ability for the browser to be a suite isn't crazy.

Chrome has a reading list feature, and a separate new tab page spam feature. Firefox combined them both in Pocket.

Re: Fakespot Is Acquired by Mozilla

#186
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Case in point: network ping spikes after using Geolocation that will persist until FF is closed: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1711854

I never understood what geolocation was supposed to be within the context of of a desktop browser. If a website asks for this information, and I approve, what information is transmitted that couldn't be determined serverside via geoip?

BSSIDs of nearby WiFi networks that are compared to lists sent by mobile devices with real GPS

Re: Fakespot Is Acquired by Mozilla

#187
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my perspective Mozilla is doing a better job with their browser than Google and Apple are, that's why I use it (despite the market share, I prefer their implementation of most things compared to alternatives). Everything else is gravy. I'm not sure that the money Mozilla spends on other things would be better spent on the browser... would it realistically close any existing gaps between their competition? Arguab…

Genuinely asking: Why do you think Firefox is outperforming Chrome / Safari in your opinion?

Not GP, but Firefox runs on every OS I use, Safari does not. Chrome maybe does, but I doubt it.

Re: Fakespot Is Acquired by Mozilla

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This feels like a good long term vision for Mozilla. >The browser wars are basically over and why is that? Oh because Mozilla hasn't put any energy into getting better or pulling back market share from the moment it started to bleed out to Chrome. Let's not just sit back and go "Oh well, they lost nothing they could do" shrug . They built their tech in such an obtuse and opinionated way it's impossible to integrate…

To me - as a long term FF user and Mozilla critic - it looks like: Spend money on everything except browser development (>$5 billions!). Market share down the drain. Use the market share as an argument for a lost cause and spend money on everything except Browser development. Ladybird - a browser spearheaded by one person - will expose Mozilla of what it is.

>Ladybird

What’s the deal with serenityOS? Can it be run on bare metal yet, last I checked they only have a way to run it in a vm.

Re: Fakespot Is Acquired by Mozilla

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, this is a broad topic and I am more of a backend engineer than frontend these days. However, I did do a lot of frontend back in the old IE6/IE7/IE8 days when you essentially had to code a whole separate front end for Microsoft's standards-flaunting mess. So this is definitely an issue I care about. but behind the curtains it took additional effort from the developers of websites you visit to make it so This i…

>your chrome-specific shit okay, but does mozilla have a good reason for not supporting that stuff other than "we have limited resources to implement these things"? a lot of that chrome-specific shit is really really nice . like CSS nesting - that would be amazing. firefox has a bug for tracking the implementation, and supported the standardization of it. but there's no sign of any progress towards an implementation.…

I feel like each feature has it's own story (and it's own party to blame, when some browsers support it but not others)

If FF is lagging behind Safari on a particular CSS feature that certainly points to FF being behind the curve.

Sometimes it's FF or Safari simply being slower than Google. Sometimes it's a matter of the Chrome team creating an implementation of feature XYZ and getting it minted into the standard so of course they have the only implementation for a while.

Sometimes the FF and Safari teams have specific objections to a feature, often because unlike Google they actually consider user privacy a core part of their mission. Although, of course, with CSS features... that's not gonna be a privacy thing.

Re: Fakespot Is Acquired by Mozilla

#190
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suspect Mozilla is large enough that they can do more than one thing at once Maybe that's the problem. Why Mozilla should be large enough to do those things? I'd rather have one good browser than 20 mediocre side projects.

I have the exact opposite opinion. They should get out of the rendering engine business and start using Blink like just about everybody else. Take Blink and make a better browser from it using those 20 side projects. Pour resources into them and move them from mediocre to great. Take what Google gives away and spend resources on what Google ignores. Battling Google and Apple on rendering technology makes no sense to…

Having an independent rendering engine has a lot of value, in both diversity and control aspects. Having another chrome layer around he same engine is kinda meh. I mean not that a good chrome can't improve things - it very well may - but the importance of having it is less.

> Battling Google and Apple on rendering technology makes no sense to me.

And that's exactly why we need a strong independent org to do this. Because it is hard and it doesn't make sense for most people. Anyone can get an idea of a chrome improvement, get a VC to sign up and start yet another "same browser as 50 others but with this little twist" thing. This is not a huge breakthrough that has any fundamental importance. Having the whole web rendering infrastructure not owned by a single entity sounds kinda important though. Yes, it's hard to pull off - that's exactly why it is valuable, as opposed to make another quick buck by doing a quick tweak over somebody else's work. Quick buck things are valuable too - but they are not fundamental. It's like developing a new theme for Windows as opposed to developing Linux. I think having Linux is much more important than having one more Windows theme.

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