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Mozilla Thunderbolt

thunderbolt.io

251–260 of 366 posts

Re: Mozilla Thunderbolt

#251
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's wrong with Firefox? It seems like every thread talking about Firefox always has someone asking that question, so if you search back you should find plenty of reasons. Unfortunately, it’s been my observation that valid and polite criticisms always get downvoted. I don’t understand why. It’s not like downvotes are going to make the problems disappear. Most of us would like Firefox to succeed, and it’s none of…

I use Firefox on both Linux and Android for 99% of my web browsing needs. At least for me it's the best browser out there, and doesn't seem neglegted at all.

Good for you. I’m genuinely glad, you should use whatever you like, I don’t care for flame-wars. For me, it lacks several must-haves (I’m not going to waste my time repeating them, history has shown that’s a stupid waste of time and the downvotes on the original comment only prove my point). That’s why we have so many apps, everyone has different needs.

Re: Mozilla Thunderbolt

#252

Addressing the usual few complaints folks always bring up: * This is from the separate independent team that works on Thunderbird, not Firefox, so there isn't any resource contention happening there * Thunderbird is revenue positive, and this potentially gives that team another revenue stream to be even more self-sustaining through charging companies * Businesses definitely want to control the AI they're using (espec…

  > Imagine that there is such a thing as a person in charge of choosing technologies for organizations, and that you're such a person. That's who this is for.
The "Announcing Thunderbolt" page actually makes this clear, the submitted URL does not. Maybe the submission should be changed to this URL instead:

https://www.thunderbolt.io/announcing-thunderbolt

Re: Mozilla Thunderbolt

#253

Addressing the usual few complaints folks always bring up: * This is from the separate independent team that works on Thunderbird, not Firefox, so there isn't any resource contention happening there * Thunderbird is revenue positive, and this potentially gives that team another revenue stream to be even more self-sustaining through charging companies * Businesses definitely want to control the AI they're using (espec…

What does “revenue positive” even mean?

It doesn’t mean profitable, it doesn’t mean cash flow positive.

Are you just trying to say their revenue is greater than zero?

Re: Mozilla Thunderbolt

#254

What's with the odd name? Apple already has a 15 year-old product called Thunderbolt. Mozilla already has a similarly-named but totally-different product called Thunderbird.

Agreed. The name collision nowadays is horrible.

Then again, it's frustrating trying to name a product in today's era; too many names are taken.

Re: Mozilla Thunderbolt

#255
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just for clarity, you do mean Thunderbird (the email client), not Thunderbolt (this new AI client)?

Thunderbird (the email client) was spun off from Mozilla Corporation into a new for-profit company called MZLA Technologies. Both corps are still subsidiaries of the Mozilla Foundation. Thunderbolt is a new product from the MZLA Technologies team.

  > spun off from Mozilla Corporation into a new for-profit company called MZLA Technologies. Both corps are still subsidiaries of the Mozilla Foundation
I am a happy Thunderbird user. But when I see such reorganizing and deliberately confusing naming, I assume that there is somewhere intent to deceive.

Re: Mozilla Thunderbolt

#256
post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the other competing browsers? There's chrome(and the derivatives), safari, firefox? safari exists only because of ios lockin. Aren't most other browsers an increasingly smaller share? Genuine question.

It's a problem. I use Firefox as my daily driver -- it used to be I ran into incompatible sites once a month or less except for YouTube which intermittently punishes users for browsing with Firefox. Now I have a serious problem every week like an online vendor or bank or something that doesn't work with Firefox. Firefox is a little slow for an internal application we have that loads 40,000 rows of data into a grid bu…

(I work on Firefox Web Compatibility)

If you have specific sites that aren't working, please let us know and we can investigate and try to fix them.

The usual reporting channels are using https://webcompat.com or the "Report Broken Site" tool in the Firefox menu. Of course I"m also happy to take bug reports here if you (or anyone else) have them.

Re: Mozilla Thunderbolt

#257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thunderbird currently runs entirely on donations, even though they have paid products in the pipeline. I think a piece of software running on donations is not running off "charity". It's just a business model to not charge every user. Similar to how Twitch streamers operate, or my local theater group. You can read how they spent money in 2024 [1]. [1] https://blog.thunderbird.net/2025/10/state-of-the-bird-2024-...

Wait what, they took donations to pay a team to build a mail client and had them build an AI thing instead? Or have I got that wrong.

I don’t know why you’re downvoting, it’s a fair question based on the above comments.

Re: Mozilla Thunderbolt

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox on iOS isn't really a Firefox because Apple doesn't allow alternative browsers. It's a Safari skin.

Orion on iOS is also a Safari skin and supports extensions

And Brave on iOS has blocking built in to the browser itself instead of like Firefox on Android where you have to trust a 3rd party dev.

Re: Mozilla Thunderbolt

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this related to Firefox?

It's not. Mozilla has been more than Firefox for a long time.

To be clear, it's not from the Mozilla Corporation (which develops Firefox), it's from MZLA Technologies (which develops Thunderbird). Both bodies are under the Mozilla Foundation.

Re: Mozilla Thunderbolt

#260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> already painful and readily apparent, stagnation of your browser What's wrong with Firefox? There are several things Firefox does that it's annoying to live without in other browsers (video pop-outs, competent ad blocking, etc). Is there some core feature that's missing? I'm subjected to Edge at work and I couldn't tell you a single thing it does that I'd want FF to do. > and our standards bodies as entities distin…

Web usb and serial are not just missing, last I checked Mozilla is opting to not implement based on their moral stance. It just puts them behind for some stuff.

Okay, I'll give you that. Granted, I've used webUSB exactly twice, once with a Flipper zero and once with a mechanical keyboard. If that's the worst of it, the parent comment calling it "painful and immediately apparent" seems a bit dramatic to me.
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