31–40 of 76 posts
Mozilla appoints new CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46288491
Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46299934
No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla's Next Chapter
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46295268
Make Me CEO of Mozilla
I’m not sure he knows the type of person that actually uses Firefox. > Enzor-DeMeo says it is important that AI features in Firefox are “something people can easily turn off”. It seems like it should be opt-in instead of opt-out. At the very least, ask up front, and have a single switch to make it like it’s not there at all.
>> I’m not sure he knows the type of person that actually uses Firefox I'm sure he does, but he is trying to get different users. The problem Firefox has is that it has accumulated "problem" users who are only there because they've left everywhere else. In other words, people didn't choose Firefox cause its better, they chose it because it "wasn't x". They were offended by some action of their last browser, and left.…
I was even a Pocket user when they acquired it, immediately stopped using it at that point because it was clear as day how stupid that integration was.
It's death by a thousand cuts, all to get some "other users" while alienating all the existing ones.
I'm even for all the AI features, but please let me add my own self-hosted LLM. Currently you can only set one via about:config, and as soon as you use any other LLM, the settings are lost. If I wanted everything locked down I could just use Chrome instead.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only fact that there is a "CEO" of Firefox is in itself asinine.
Mozilla is a large organization that produces many products.
I've been on Firefox for decades and I'm 100% ready to jump ship. Tried Zen today and it didn't feel right—felt too much like it wanted to be Arc but ended up a bit frankenstein-y in the process. Open to suggestions that aren't Arc or Brave, if anyone has them!
I don't use the integrated calendar or mail client, just the browser and you don't notice these features are even there since they don't spam you.
It is chromium based however.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mozilla is a large organization that produces many products.
...which is arguably the problem. Firefox. Thunderbird. That should be it. According to their own site, beyond that they have the browser app for mobile devices. A VPN service, an email-forwarding service, and MDN. Hardly 'many products'.
It feels a little like when Microsoft invested in Apple back in the 90s. Microsoft needed Apple so they didn’t look like too much of a monopoly. Google has been funding Mozilla’s whole existence for at least 20 years. At first it may have purely been do dominate search, but at some point I think the incentives shifted to Google needing Firefox so they can claim they aren’t a monopoly in the browser space and competition exists.
Well folks, there's very few places to go now.
I’m not sure he knows the type of person that actually uses Firefox. > Enzor-DeMeo says it is important that AI features in Firefox are “something people can easily turn off”. It seems like it should be opt-in instead of opt-out. At the very least, ask up front, and have a single switch to make it like it’s not there at all.
>> I’m not sure he knows the type of person that actually uses Firefox I'm sure he does, but he is trying to get different users. The problem Firefox has is that it has accumulated "problem" users who are only there because they've left everywhere else. In other words, people didn't choose Firefox cause its better, they chose it because it "wasn't x". They were offended by some action of their last browser, and left.…
Now this makes me genuinely curious: is there a browser which respects privacy, that is usable?
Probably lynx. If a website doesn't work on lynx it probably doesn't respect you either.
Unfortunately, life is not a song.
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I can't speak for everyone, but as a certified Firefox Preferrer my concern is this: One day I will update my browser (after putting it off for a few days since the "restart Firefox to apply updates" button appears) and my user chrome will be moved around to make room for some new star/diamond-shaped button or additional side-panel, then I'll have to dig around in the settings or about:config to disable it and maybe…
At this point, is there any full-featured browser that is neither Blink-based nor burdened by a metric tonne of junk? With the way Firefox is going, Safari might well be the sole survivor, which is not a state of affairs I'm particularly happy with.
I guess they will get a lot of interest after this new round of Mozilla bullshit.