Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mozilla downsizes as it refocuses on Firefox and AI

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–187 of 187 posts

Re: Mozilla downsizes as it refocuses on Firefox and AI

#181

Post by iteratethis »

The mozilla.social downsizing is telling.

Mozilla will always be Mozilla. They get about $0.5B each year for free, just by keeping Google the default search engine. Next, they piss it all away on the most fruitless projects and activist blogs, not to forget overpaid leadership.

With mozilla.social they were all-in to ride the new wave of alternative social media. And then discovered that Mastodon is just a bunch of hard-left misfits constantly canceling each other.

Mastodon is a miserable place and rapidly shrinking. Today it dropped below 1M MAU. Which is half of MAU just a few months ago.

Re: Mozilla downsizes as it refocuses on Firefox and AI

#182

Post by yencabulator »

goodSteveramos wrote: post #73
__loam wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe time to fork Firefox.

Those already exist. The problem is the Mozilla organization has all the money and they piss it away because they are controlled by corporate types who care more about not pissing off their past and future bosses at Google more than pushing open and privacy protecting web standards.

Also, paying tech salaries would mean the suits get to pocket less of the money themselves.

Re: Mozilla downsizes as it refocuses on Firefox and AI

#183

Post by yencabulator »

satvikpendem wrote: post #7
frays wrote: post #4

Could someone explain how does rising interest rates and the current economic environment result in a _nonprofit_ organization needing to layoff staff?

Every organization has budgets, regardless of whether they're for-profit or non-profit.

And this one wants to budget many, many, millions into executive compensation.

Re: Mozilla downsizes as it refocuses on Firefox and AI

#184

Post by yencabulator »

pdimitar wrote: post #104

AI in browser? Time to move on after all this time then. Is librewolf good? Or any other browser? I recently provisioned a Linux workstation and I'm very reluctant to install Chrome. The super insecure X11 will not help it stop practically scanning my every key stroke. Any good ideas for a browser on Linux XFCE?

LibreWolf has been my daily driver for months now. Seems fine.

(I still have Chrome running too, haven't migrated most accounts over yet.)

Re: Mozilla downsizes as it refocuses on Firefox and AI

#185

Post by morjom »

MrAlex94 wrote: post #90
rvense wrote: post #16

Is there any sort of corporate structure around one of the forks? There's no doubt in my mind that if it were organized somehow the community would be able to fund a few developers to work on Firefox alongside Mozilla. I don't want an aggressive split, but I'd like to be able to support the project. I've donated to Mozilla in the past but it apparently was not going to Firefox directly.

> Is there any sort of corporate structure around one of the forks? Yes, I have one for Waterfox. I have had one since 2012, first as Waterfox Limited and now as BrowserWorks Ltd (registered in the UK). When people ask for comparison between forks, as often happens in the community, I’ve actually found it interesting that none of them actually have anyone to hold accountable in a legal sense, and I’ve started to lean…

It'd be neat and somewhat funny if there was a privacytests.org equivalent but just Firefox forks.

Re: Mozilla downsizes as it refocuses on Firefox and AI

#186

Post by [deleted] »

egberts1 wrote: post #173
eva_cananim wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly disagree. The EU wants to force browser makers to have their browsers trust root certificates issued by EU governments. Mozilla should have already closed their offices in Europe and done everything they can to remove themselves from EU jurisdiction.

Drat, I just looked up Romania and they too joined E.U. ... in 2007. And the dastardly EU regulation enacted last November 2023: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/11/article-45-will-roll-b...

[deleted]

Re: Mozilla downsizes as it refocuses on Firefox and AI

#187

Post by offmycloud »

orev wrote: post #108
offmycloud wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be willing to make a monthly donation, but only if I knew that it was going to the development of Firefox and/or Thunderbird.

Thunderbird is a separate organization and you can donate to that project directly.

The FAQ page [1] says:

"Thunderbird is a project of MZLA Technologies Corporation, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Mozilla Foundation." and

"Gifts to Thunderbird are not tax-deductible as charitable gifts, but are greatly appreciated."

... so I guess Thunderbird is part of a for-profit corporation owned by a non-profit? Why would Mozilla pick this kind of corporate structure?

1. https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/donate/#faq

Post reply on HN