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Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

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Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#401

Post by creata »

nikanj wrote: post #118
dom96 wrote: post #6

Genuinely can someone with knowledge of the business explain why they aren't simply doubling down on making Firefox better? Is there an existential problem facing them that they are trying to solve by adding AI into the browser?

Society doesn't get improved by doing incremental work on a browser, and Mozilla's mission is to improve society

Yes it does. Having a browser that truly has the user's back, without always trying to compromise the user's interests in favor of advertisers - that would be a benefit to society.

I wish Firefox would be that browser.

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#402

Post by arnaudsm »

vanviegen wrote: post #366
arnaudsm wrote: post #328

There's an elephant in the room: why is maintaining a web browser costing $400M/y? The web standards are growing faster than non-profit engines can implement them. Google & Apple are bloating the web specs in what looks like regulatory capture. If Blink/Webkit dominate for long enough, they will lock everything down with DRMs & WEI. Maybe it's time to work on lighter protocols like Gopher & Gemini that don't need 20G…

> There's an elephant in the room: why is maintaining a web browser costing $400M/y? Is that actually the case though? I find it hard to believe that Mozilla has anywhere close to 1500 senior developers working on just Firefox. My guess is that the bulk of that money is spent on unrelated adventures and overhead.

Google Chrome is likely around $400M, while Mozilla's core browser team is around $200M but are technologically far behind. Hard to find precise numbers, it's just an order of magnitude estimate

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#403

Post by grayhatter »

lxgr wrote: post #41

>> He says he could begin to block ad blockers in Firefox and estimates that’d bring in another $150 million, but he doesn’t want to do that. It feels off-mission. > It may be just me, but I read this as “I don't want to but I'll kill AdBlockers in Firefox for buckerinos ”. Yes, that does seem like a pretty uncharitable interpretation of that quote. I read it as "we won't do it, even though it would bring in $150M US…

CEOs are well known for turning down money, and always resisting the urge to squeeze every last drop of good will from an acquired property, right?

I think it's an apt warning, I'd have to read the literal interview transcripts to really draw a conclusion one way or the other. But the simple fact that this is on his mind, and felt like mentioning killing ad block was something Mozilla could do, and is considering doing, was a safe thing to say to a journalist... There's not a chance in hell I'd say anything remotely like that to a journalist.

When someone tells you who they are, believe them.

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#404

Post by ffuxlpff »

JoeJonathan wrote: post #226
nialv7 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interpretation is not the problem. Whether he will do it, is actually secondary to the fact that he thinks cutting adblock can bringing in money. No, it will just kill the browser. The fact he thinks otherwise tells me how out of touch he is.

Like many others, the ability to run uBO is the main reason I use Firefox. Otherwise I'd use Chrome or Safari.

I use both uBO and NoScript and wondered if I really needed uBO if I blocked YouTube as I've planned.

However, it leads to Mozilla's earlier weird design choice where you have to install addon if you only want to disable JavaScript on sites - or allow it from only the selected domains.

Years later I haven't found a sensible explanation why they ditched that choice.

I've understood that you can still do it in Chrom(e/ium) and combined with a good updated blocklist in /etc/hosts or like it would provide most of the functionality of an adblock.

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#405

Post by globalnode »

jwnin wrote: post #319
jillesvangurp wrote: post #197

I think blocking ad blockers (the whole FFing point of using Firefox is freedom to do use those) would be the shortest path for him out of the door as a CEO. It's so tone deaf that it is likely to probe the community into drastic action if he were to attempt to push that through. Including probably much of the developer community. I'm talking the kind of action that boils down to forking and taking a large part of th…

who are the shareholders?

yeah pretty sure its a private corp under the ownership of the parent foundation. no shareholders so not sure why they new guy said what he said.. theres no one to impress

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#406

Post by yummypaint »

purplehat_ wrote: post #189
sharken wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the current state of the Chrome family of browsers and the anti adblocker stance from Google, i'd think that alone would guarantee Firefox a steady user base. Not sure how users cope with Chrome-based browsers and intrusive ads.

I've tried a few times to convince people in my life who would self describe as "bad with computers" to download an adblocker, but they usually find the friction too high. Adding extensions is unfamiliar for most, and even if it seems very basic for us, the non-tech people I know don't really want to deal with the risk of unknown unknowns from that, let alone switching to a healthier browser. (Perhaps reasonable sinc…

If it's the computer of an older family member or something, just put Firefox and ubo on their system for them and be done with it. They will use whatever software is preloaded, and being shown how to use it is a much lower barrier to entry than the cognitive load of finding, vetting, installing, and configuring new software.

I used to try to patiently explain why people should do xyz. Now I explain to people why I'm going to change xyz on their device, and if they don't slam the breaks I just do what needs to be done right then. If someone doesn't know what an adblocker is they are getting one so they can see for themselves and reflect on what companies have been putting them through for years to make some incremental amount of money.

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#407

Post by phantasmish »

probably_wrong wrote: post #317
csin wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please enlighten me. How does one make a browser "better" these days? - They were ahead of the game with extensions. Then everyone copied them. - They were ahead of the game with tabs. Then everyone copied them. - They were ahead of the game with containers. Then everyone copied them. - They are still the best browser to use for an ad free internet experience. - The only flaw I can think of, is they are not leaders i…

How would I make Firefox better? First, I would stop breaking up the stuff that works. Firefox was ahead of the game with extensions, then deprecated the long tail for a rewrite that took three years [1] (during which Firefox mobile had a grand total of 9 extensions) and even then it's hard for me today to know which extensions work on mobile. They were similarly ahead of the game with containers, and yet they still…

> [3] I always associated tabs with Opera, though.

Yeah as someone who picked up Firefox when it was Phoenix, it was “free Opera with a less-odd-feeling UI”. That was basically the initial (great!) sales pitch.

What got me installing it on any computer belonging to a person I would have to help support was the auto-pop-blocking and that it performed a ton better than IE/Netscape/Mozilla. Opera also performed better and I think it also blocked pop ups out of the box, but it wasn’t free (well, kinda, but the free edition… had ads).

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#408

Post by staticassertion »

lxgr wrote: post #41

>> He says he could begin to block ad blockers in Firefox and estimates that’d bring in another $150 million, but he doesn’t want to do that. It feels off-mission. > It may be just me, but I read this as “I don't want to but I'll kill AdBlockers in Firefox for buckerinos ”. Yes, that does seem like a pretty uncharitable interpretation of that quote. I read it as "we won't do it, even though it would bring in $150M US…

People are absolutely somersaulting through hoops to try to make "I don't want to do that" into "I'm going to do it" in the comments lol

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#409

Post by rjdj377dhabsn »

wafflemaker wrote: post #216
gr4vityWall wrote: post #119

> Mozilla believes in the value of an open and free (and thus ad-supported) web. > and thus ad-supported What a sad view of the web. Advertisement is a net-negative for society.

Nothing wrong with an unobtrusive, not tracking, banner on a side of a page. Related to what the page is about.

That's an even more evil ad than the obnoxious and irrelevant variety because something related to my interests has a higher chance of successfully manipulating me.

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#410

Post by tim333 »

throwaway613745 wrote: post #300
JoeJonathan wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like many others, the ability to run uBO is the main reason I use Firefox. Otherwise I'd use Chrome or Safari.

I have used Firefox as my default browser through thick and thin for damn near two decades. If Mozilla killed andblocking extensions I’d switch to Helium Browser in a heartbeat since they’re maintaining manifest v2 support for uBO and even ship it OOTB. The web is unusable without a proper Adblock.

Though uBlock Origin Lite in Chrome actually works quite well.
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