Leaving Mozilla • Hacker News Board

Re: Leaving Mozilla

#251

Post by tokioyoyo » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 5:13 PM UTC

dspillett wrote: post #118

tokioyoyo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI is not, and was not the reason why the average user moved away from Firefox. AI is however a potential avenue for raising money.

> AI is however a potential avenue for raising money. How? By selling the position of preferred model? They can do that without implementing it in a way that means people who don't want it at all have to jump through hoops to opt-out. Being able to turn AI summaries and such off by default was the final reason I started paying for Kagi. I know they use ML in the background no matter what, but as long as I get links t…

You are not the target audience, that’s pretty much it. You can be very against AI, try to turn it off on Kagi, avoid Google AI summaries, discard ChatGPT/Claude, but billions of people still use them. At this point it has been argued so much that it’s kinda pointless.

People seem to enjoy to be told stuff and don’t really care about sources if the said content is somewhat correct.

Re: Leaving Mozilla

#252

Post by altairprime » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 5:16 PM UTC

chii wrote: post #26

matsemann wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again: Would it have made a measurable difference? Or is it just moaning from a small core? Not saying the core is not important, but I don't think Fx can survive on only us.

> don't think Fx can survive on only us. not at the current employee and costs. But do they need to do that? Do they need to produce new products (and pay the cost to do so)? Why can't they be lean and mean? Focus purely on browser experience without any BS, without any upsell? And there are volunteers out there that willingly contribute code/fixes for free.

> Why can't they be lean and mean?

Because they canceled the* project and laid off the lean and mean team that threatened their bloated C++ tower of rubble.

* https://servo.org/

Re: Leaving Mozilla

#253

Post by yjftsjthsd-h » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 5:27 PM UTC

deanc wrote: post #187

MatejKafka wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you expect Mozilla to make enough money from just Firefox to survive if Google ever decides to stop paying them for being the default search engine?

Charge me. I’ll pay. I’m not going to donate to the org right now as I don’t use Firefox as it uses (noticeably) too much battery on my MacBook compared to safari and chrome.

Notably, also, it's not currently possible to donate to Firefox; you can only give Mozilla money to use on unrelated projects. As a Firefox user, the inability to pay for the thing I actually want is grating.

Re: Leaving Mozilla

#254

Post by Krssst » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 5:29 PM UTC

meibo wrote: post #222

Latty wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, I absolutely agree it sucks they didn't deliver the opt-out/in interface day one, it was obvious people would want it, and yes, it's not the first time they've blundered. At the same time, they did listen to the feedback and deliver. It now has a genuinely good interface for it where you don't have to opt out of everything, but can opt-in where you want it. It's not just a big off button, it's a general out-out…

People had to raise hell to get that, while being made fun of by their CMs on social media. Even the opt-out is full of silicon valley dark patterns. Whoever is calling shots about the product at Mozilla doesn't have your best interests at heart.

What are those dark patterns? It's an off button, it works, and it does not get back on. It's the polar opposite of the "maybe later, I'll ask again every week and reset the setting in your back" unfortunate norm that plagues a lot of major proprietary software/service.

Re: Leaving Mozilla

#255

Post by altairprime » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 5:31 PM UTC

LocutusOfBorges wrote: post #207

dzonga wrote: post #191

Firefox leadership had a recovery the time when Brendan Eich was CEO, then he was kicked out. since then it has been downhill since.

Eich was CEO for 11 days. You’re wildly misremembering how much of an impact he had in that post.

It was an eleven day war and the casualty was their future. Eich was the last time that Mozilla hired a CEO from the ranks of its own engineers. Eich would not have prevented the economic external challenges faced, but Eich and other such engineer-leaders would have prevented the unforced errors Mozilla is known for today. Every CEO after that was business, not engineer. This placed the company onto the same runway of mediocrity and collapse that we see Boeing crashing planes into with some regularity.

What Boeing did to all the guys who remember how to build a plane (2 years ago, 532 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39856413

Re: Leaving Mozilla

#256

Post by altairprime » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 5:40 PM UTC

abcd_f wrote: post #21

kentbrew wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be JR Conlin, national treasure. Worked with him on YDN in 2007 and Netflix in 2009; veterans of the Netflix API team will never forget his hack day entry, which was "Mac and Me" playing on a toaster oven.

What is he notable for in the context of Mozilla?

Staying out of the public eye for his entire tenure. I remain envious.

Re: Leaving Mozilla

#257

Post by yndoendo » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 5:45 PM UTC

crote wrote: post #176

skywhopper wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good for you. The point is that a lot of Firefox users actively didn't want these sorts of features enabled and pushed on them. That was clear and obvious to anyone paying attention to general reactions to unsolicited AI helper tools, going back decades. For Mozilla to turn this on without any respect for those users’ preferences was a huge mistake that they keep making over and over again.

More specifically: they chose Firebox because it doesn't have those kind of features. If the just wanted a (sorta-kinda) open-source browser filled with all the latest hype features they would've simply used Chromium. Using Firefox is a political choice. People use it because it's one of the few remaining traditional browsers which isn't a tentacle of Big Tech. Chasing the competition and adding the stuff your users…

The main reason for using Firefox is because they support Manifest v2 / Ad-Blockers.

This increases security while also harming Google's business model. Win-Win.

Re: Leaving Mozilla

#258

Post by altairprime » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 5:48 PM UTC

krautburglar wrote: post #58

Literal who has left the company that provides Google's antitrust insurance policy. That Mozilla still manages to swing "non-profit" status as they do this is outrageous. I would like to see Mozilla's entire board leave Mozilla... in a PERP WALK.

Mozilla Corporation, owner and operator of the Firefox brand and recipient of Google’s payments, is not a non-profit. U.S. law permits non-profits to have for-profit subsidiaries if one accepts severe limitations, such as the corporation’s profits being largely severed from the non-profit’s use. Severance isn’t just a science fiction show, it’s a compulsory auditable requirement.

Re: Leaving Mozilla

#259

Post by Natfan » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 5:51 PM UTC

yason wrote: post #211

aboardRat4 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IRC's UI is horrible. (Like email.) No wonder people don't want to join it. (Saying that as someome who has his own bouncer.)

> IRC's UI is horrible. (Like email.) No wonder people don't want to join it. I consider it a feature that acts as a filter.

if you consider a high bar for entry to be a good thing, don't be surprised when your community dies

Re: Leaving Mozilla

#260

Post by altairprime » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 6:08 PM UTC

jrmg wrote: post #247

matsemann wrote: post #5

Interesting to read, but ultimately it's very easy to blame "leaders" for everything and I'm not sure it has much merit. It's popular to pile on them and their decisions. But I don't think it's as obvious as people (often here on HN) make it out to be. If Mozilla didn't try out these avenues deemed wrong, if Mozilla spent all money on the browser only, if Mozilla made the best browser ever, would that really make a d…

if Mozilla made the best browser ever, would that really make a difference? I really don’t think it would. One thing “Do what you did before when you were successful!” is missing is that Firefox was sleek, fast, extendable, new, and cool . It was cool partly because of its “sleek, fast, extendable”, but also because of its “new”, and it can’t get “new” back. Perhaps launching a completely new piece of software, like…

There is a pool of opportunities they largely refuse to jump into: those requiring curation. Pocket, the sole exception, ended up as yet another unforced error.