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New Search Strategy for Firefox

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Re: New Search Strategy for Firefox

#321

Post by pcwalton »

haberman wrote: post #244
drdaeman wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thousands of XMPP servers serving millions of people had S2S properly enabled and working among them. Or one has to be a single entity as large as MSN or AIM to be considered worthy to enjoy openness?

> Thousands of XMPP servers serving millions of people had S2S properly enabled and working among them. I'm surprised to hear a number that high, but regardless of what the number actually is, it certainly sucked for those people. But remember the context: Google was looking to expand Talk into Hangouts, and XMPP would have needed a makeover to support that product evolution. If Google had extended XMPP unilaterally,…

I don't think that removing XMPP was evil/inappropriate, but I don't think MNG is really comparable, since Mozilla (really, Vlad Vukićević) went to a lot of effort to design, implement, and submit APNG for standardization as a simpler replacement. (Sadly, the PNG group didn't bite, and neither did anyone else, but there was a good faith effort.)

Re: New Search Strategy for Firefox

#322

Post by TarpitCarnivore »

twic wrote: post #159
geekam wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember I started moving out of Google's claws when they started pushing Google+ everywhere. Today my primary browser is Firefox, Search engine is DDG (with occassional Google search), Email is FastMail. The dependency on Google had started to annoy me.

The biggest thing i'm looking for now is a replacement for Google's apps suite - mainly Calendar and Docs/Drive. Something that i can use on the web and sync to my (Android) phone. If the Docs replacement just did text documents, that would probably be enough; if it did spreadsheets and text, it would definitely be enough. It would be great if it was free, and fine if it was cheap. Not Apple (no better than Google),…

I use Fastmail's calendar which they made public a few months ago. I'm finding it just as fast as Google's calendar. For docs I started using Quip which is not as full featured but it offers just enough to make things quick and easy.

Re: New Search Strategy for Firefox

#323

Post by sroerick »

drdaeman wrote: post #214
zaachary wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not going to rebut each mischaracterization, but I did work on Persona, so: > the BrowserID/Persona thingy that happily continued the trend that makes your identity owned by a third party Nah. You could happily choose any Identity Provider that implemented the protocol, including a self-hosted one.

Nope, that's a pretty common misconception though. You surely can own a server (I do) but you just can't own a domain. You're merely leasing one from a registrar. You see, I strongly believe identity's an intrinsic property of a person, and if you need a provider for one there's something really wrong with the setup. I'm completely fine with asserting notaries, but not providers.

What about Namecoin?

Re: New Search Strategy for Firefox

#325

Post by conradk »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #288
conradk wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. I used to have Google Mail, Google Contacts, YouTube, Google Search, Google News, etc. I was feeling more and more dependent on one company's goodwill. A few months ago, I renewed my Fastmail [1] account for 3 more years, being very happy with the service. I use DuckDuckGo [2] as my main search engine and love it. I use Opera as my main browser. The only Google services I use regularly now are Android and…

How is Android without using Google services? Is there a significant impact on the experience?

The experience for me is the same because all products I use regularly have good mobile apps and/or mobile webapps.

Re: New Search Strategy for Firefox

#326

Post by stephenr »

netheril96 wrote: post #314
stephenr wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people down vote simply because I mentioned the concept of people down voting an opinion or fact simply because they disagree with it, then my point about the stupidity of the "don't mention being down voted" concept is proven true.

If people down-vote you, your words will have the connotation that they do it because that they are Google fanboys, rather than have a reasonable argument against your opinion. That is why such wording is not conductive to discussion.

The idea of down voting comments you disagree with is ridiculous anyway.

If you have a counter argument, reply.

Down voting a comment (which leads to it effectively disappearing) is the electronic equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and yelling "la la la I'm not listening" because you don't like what someone else said.

If someone posts a comment saying "I like chocolate ice cream" in a discussion about a new version of a piece of software, down vote to your hearts content.

When someone posts a comment that simply disagrees with your opinion, either ignore it or reply with a counter point.

Re: New Search Strategy for Firefox

#327

Post by spikels »

glomph wrote: post #294
spikels wrote: post #277

Yikes I never realized Mozilla was so dependent on Google % of Revenue from Google Search Royalties: 2013 Not released yet (usually 11 months! after end of year) 2012 88% (90% of 304,539/311,005) 2011 84% (85% of 161,904/163,474) 2010 83% (84% of 121,109/123,206) 2009 84% (86% of 101,537/104,305) 2008 98% (91% of 83,600/77,737) 2007 80% (88% of 68,238,803/75,125,640) 2006 78% (85% of 61,561,496/66,840,850) 2005 91% (…

Where else did you imagine their money coming from?

It's a non-profit serving the public interest so I had assumed donations from individuals and foundations would be a bigger source of revenue. It looks like they have collected less than $2.2 million in the 8 years covered by the financials. This is nothing for a organization that spent $150 million last year.

I hope they got a generous deal from Yahoo - who has a ton of Alibaba cash burning a hole in their pocket - but the fundamentals of a shrinking desktop advertising market and share don't look good.

Re: New Search Strategy for Firefox

#328

Post by yellowapple »

haberman wrote: post #247
stephenr wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advance open standards? * Like how they were planning to require whitelisting for CalDAV access? * Like how they completely bastardise the IMAP protocol? * Like how they disabled XMPP federation and then dropped XMPP support completely, for their GTalk replacement?

This is a perfect example of how (some) open-standards advocates have impossible expectations. Your complaints about IMAP and XMPP are completely opposite. When Hangouts stopped supporting XMPP (designed in 1998) due to product evolution, you complain that they dropped XMPP support. But when Gmail continued to support IMAP (designed in 1986) despite the product diverging somewhat from traditional email, you complain…

How old a particular standard is doesn't really have that much bearing on whether or not it's a good standard (if it were, then it shouldn't be long before we all switch away from HTTP and SSH for the sake of "innovation"). Nor is age an excuse for introducing a replacement that's locked down to a specific vendor.

I'm fine with Google dropping their support for open standards - their services, their rules, and if they don't care about users like me who prefer the open standards, then it's not my place to whine about it when I can instead seek a competitor that does adhere to those standards. However, I'm not fine with such dropping of standards being masqueraded under some lame excuse like "the open standards are too old". 1998 and 1986 are young compared to the majority of the standards which form the backbone of the Internet and World Wide Web themselves. If you're going to try and rationalize Google's actions beyond them wanting to make money via control over their stack, then at least try and find some actual technical reason why XMPP and IMAP are insufficient for their purposes.

(I'll concede that IMAP isn't exactly pretty, but it sounds like XMPP at least could have simply been extended if there were features Google needed for Hangouts).

Re: New Search Strategy for Firefox

#329

Post by yellowapple »

ultramancool wrote: post #308
JohnBooty wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Firefox was great, but the performance was sub-par around version 3 Before Chrome, Firefox's performance was sub-par compared to... what? Definitely not to Safari, Chrome, or IE. The main knock on Firefox at that time was that it was too memory-hungry. That was always somewhat of an inaccurate rap. Not totally undeserved, but not totally deserved either. > Chrome definitely gave Mozilla a nice kick in the backside,…

> Heck yes to all of that. The performance improvements have been great, but I have to admit the UI changes are highly concerning to me. Fortunately the FF extension APIs are the best around, so now I just can't use Firefox without "Classic Theme Restorer".

I personally never minded Australis, since I've been used to it via Thunderbird (which rolled it out first). That said, it really doesn't affect me that much since I use Tree View Tabs anyway (and I don't use the menu enough to really care beyond having nice big buttons to click on when my morning coffee hasn't kicked in yet).

Re: New Search Strategy for Firefox

#330

Post by yellowapple »

olssy wrote: post #176
mbrubeck wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note: nnethercote is a Mozilla employee (as am I). These details are straight from the horse's mouth (dino's mouth?).

As long as the horse is in the house, has Mozilla ever given any thought to creating its own search service?

Would there be a point in doing that instead of aligning with, say, DuckDuckGo? They share a primary ideology (an open web that works for everyone), and I imagine much of the Firefox userbase and developerbase (perhaps not a majority, but I'd imagine a significant minority) already uses DDG as their primary search engine.
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