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

Mozilla’s Uncertain Future

civilityandtruth.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 405 posts

Re: Mozilla’s Uncertain Future

#291

Post by stjohnswarts »

rndgermandude wrote: post #201
Brakenshire wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

25% seems like much too high a number for the group you’re talking about. I’d be interested to see some data on level of technical engagement and knowledge, but in my experience a large percentage of users don’t even have a clear idea of what a browser is. The reason Firefox has lost market share in my opinion is because: i) Chrome is pushed by Google.com, which has a near monopoly on search ii) Chrome was bundled an…

>It’s only relatively recently with Electrolysis and Firefox Quantum that Firefox has regained a technical parity or superiority. And those changes depended on specifying a proper UI and Extension API which is the reason why the browser is no longer so customisable. No, they did not. Electrolysis was around before WebExtensions. Sure, Electrolysis wasn't backwards compatible and a lot of existing extensions had to re…

The quantum versions of firefox are a lot more stable than the previous generation. Probably because they cut down on how many things extensions could get their grimey little fingers into. Also getting rid of more XUL helped. The new firefox is scads better than the old one. Sure I miss some extensions but that just is what it is.

Re: Mozilla’s Uncertain Future

#293

Post by sdenton4 »

littlestymaar wrote: post #232
ksec wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The reason Firefox has lost market share in my opinion is because: My opinion is that none of those actually matters. The "one" single reason Chrome won market share was the same playbook how Google Search Engine Started. Speed. I watched hundreds of users, given the choice, or doing so themselves installing / using Chrome by their own selection. It was faster. The user experience was far better. You could advertise…

> I watched hundreds of users, given the choice, or doing so themselves installing / using Chrome by their own selection. I don't know who you are, but having watched “hundreds of people” installing a web browser sounds a bit dubious… Personally, I have discussed with a few dozens of websites users and most of them would answer the question “what web browser do you use” with “Google” no matter if they were using Chro…

"having watched “hundreds of people” installing a web browser sounds a bit dubious…"

There's definitely jobs where this is possible... IT support at a medium sized company, various user research, etc.

Re: Mozilla’s Uncertain Future

#294

Post by stjohnswarts »

tarkin2 wrote: post #180
kinleyd wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why, for the life of me, I just can't see the logic of firing the Servo team.

Hasn’t the quantum project been successful? It seemed like project accomplished to me. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24164058 It’s not like they binned servo and decided not to use it improve ff. It did improve ff. They seem to have decided that’s done and finished now. And there’s no longer any need to work on it - whether that’s a wise move or not is obviously up for debate.

Because maybe innovation should continue? some of the teams I can see closing for financial reasons but the servo team? that's like slashing your own wrists to see what happens.

Re: Mozilla’s Uncertain Future

#295

Post by fzzzy »

momokoko wrote: post #280
mandreyel wrote: post #79

A possible alternative source of income for Mozilla I think would be, and one I haven’t seen mentioned before, providing consulting services in their areas of expertise. For example, demand for Rust engineers seems to be steadily increasing[1] and I can’t think of a better company with a larger concentration of Rust expertise than Mozilla. Perhaps the same could work for other areas (ex frontend), but I’m biased towa…

There are so many ways for Mozilla to leverage their core competencies. Unfortunately failed management with no means to remove them means none of that will happen. Executive leadership at Mozilla is a disgrace that has now caused a tangible negative result on the future of the internet. The fact that Mitchell Baker still leads this organization is insane. An absolutely inept failure somehow still leads Mozilla. It’s…

You do realize that Mitchell has only been ceo of mozilla corp since January, right? And that almost all of the C suite has turned over in the last few years?

Re: Mozilla’s Uncertain Future

#296

Post by pbronez »

> I doubt that Mozilla management or employees are interested in the Mozilla Corporation becoming a DoD contractor, and it’s unclear to me how much government or foundation funding Mozilla could attract as an R&D lab focused purely on civilian applications in the Internet and web space.

I think there might actually be some interesting opportunities here. Consider:

- Digital Propaganda and Misinformation are increasingly seen as key national defense issues

- COVID-19 has accelerated digital transformation and exacerbated the digital divide

- FAANG is under increased anti-trust scrutiny

- USG has strong mandates for web accessibility that current web tech makes very difficult to fulfill

- Privacy implications of AI/ML is getting more attention

Mozilla is well positioned to contribute to positive solutions in all of these areas.

Re: Mozilla’s Uncertain Future

#297

Post by tomc1985 »

dralley wrote: post #290
tomc1985 wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's soo more than that. They'd destroyed all the old UI in favor of Chrome-style HTML+JS instead of platform-native XUL They added all sorts of weird commercial initiatives to someonething that was supposed to be privacy-oriented and nonprofit They torched an entire ecosystem of extensions so they could be more Chromelike They put out landing pages and press releases full of weasely PR speak instead of the "mainstre…

> It's soo more than that. They'd destroyed all the old UI in favor of Chrome-style HTML+JS instead of platform-native XUL It's a browser, the entire purpose of a browser is rendering HTML+JS quickly and efficiently. XUL primitives are not, on average, faster or more "platform-native". >They added all sorts of weird commercial initiatives to someonething that was supposed to be ... nonprofit You understand the proble…

> XUL / XPCOM had significant, tangible problems.

Significant problems that could have been fixed

> XUL primitives are not, on average, faster or more "platform-native".

At least on Windows they mapped to their native components. Sure spacing and a few other things were a little off (maybe because it mapped to GTK? I don't remember) but the look and feel then was vastly superior than the Electron-looking garbage that extensions have to do now.

> You understand the problem here, do you not? People complain that they're almost completely reliant on Google for revenue, and they also complain about "weird commercial initiatives" to mitigate their reliance.

You're not understanding me. Most folks have no problem with Pocket and whatever else. What they have a problem with is bundling it with the browser in a way that can't be removed, and then putting out a press release full of PR speak about how important and essential these extras are. These commercial iniatives were made mandatory, even when their beta versions were downloadable extensions

I'm all for Mozilla reaching out to whoever they want to partner with. But keep that shit out of the master repo. The downloadable base should be pure platform and nothing else, with extras as preinstalled, removable extensions. Essentially, the Winamp model

> https://mozilla.github.io/firefox-browser-architecture/text/....

What I see there are mostly people issues that come with not wanting to pay for the talent you need to get the job done. It looks like they had the money to do this but it feels like they spent it on admin and marketing folks instead

The XBL document mentions more systemic problem but I maintain that they could have been fixed iteratively

Re: Mozilla’s Uncertain Future

#298

Post by alcoholic_byte »

sp332 wrote: post #276
alcoholic_byte wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those who seek shall find. https://donate.mozilla.org/en-US/ Got the link from the Thunderbird-site where https://give.thunderbird.net/en-US/ redirects to https://give.thunderbird.net/en-US So yeah the link is out there but you really have to look for it. Which is actually s.th. quite nice. Imagine they would go about nagging people. You might say one of 2 things: a) So in their face, others are probably donating wha…

That's .org and the donation does not fund Firefox development or any other activity of the Mozilla Corporation.

When you go to https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/ and you click on "Donate" you are directed to https://donate.mozilla.org/en-US/ .

The sidebar on the donation-page clearly states:

"We are proudly non-profit, non-corporate and non-compromised. Thousands of people like ...."

So I think donations are in good hands there.

Re: Mozilla’s Uncertain Future

#299

Post by fzzzy »

soniman wrote: post #188
jeswin wrote: post #48

Mozilla must put the advocacy bits aside and focus on the core product. Perhaps the problem with a non-technical CEO is that the advocacy and new shiny stuff is given as much importance as the invisible (and insanely complex) work that makes a browser fast and safe. A total failure of strategy here - if the leadership couldn't find other revenue sources and partnerships in 5 years they have to fire themselves. Instea…

You have to wonder what the firing of Eich was really about. Hard to believe Eich would've done the same thing.

Eich wasn't fired.

Re: Mozilla’s Uncertain Future

#300

Post by alcoholic_byte »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #288
alcoholic_byte wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well.... move fast and break things it not necessarily a nice motto especially if you burn down the very house people live in. And let's not forget, it was deliberate move. I for one am glad I never used Brave. There are only a very few rules that shan't be broken. Breaking trust is one of them, because it is easy to loose and hard to regain, so far FF/Mozilla 1, Brave/Chrome 0, I do not know about Vivaldi.... MS and…

> so far FF/Mozilla 1, Brave/Chrome 0 Mozilla has had more missteps than Brave because it's been around longer. I can't name all the ones which betrayed trust, but the Mr. Robot scandal comes to mind: https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/16/16784628/mozilla-mr-robo... and: https://www.ghacks.net/2017/02/12/firefox-focus-privacy-scan... and: https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/anxfz8/firefox_is_... and many others.…

Thanks for the links. Comes to show how cognitive bias works.
Post reply on HN