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Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

infosec.press

411–420 of 851 posts

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Amazing how they continue not to cater to their core audience. Who is Mozilla's core audience? From what I remember, it's not addon-users, as most users never have used even just a single addon. > They literally have lost 90% of their market share from their peak, To be fair, it's not entirely their own fault. Competition is strong, especially from Google and Apple. Even with perfect decisions, they likely would st…

> From what I remember, it's not addon-users, as most users never have used even just a single addon. If most users who install Firefox do so for superior adblocking and those same users are also very likely to turn off telemetry (which I think some privacy/adblock extensions probably do by default?), then at Mozilla's end one might get the impression that "most users don't use extensions" - even though the vast majo…

Update-checks are not included in telemetry. And I would think most people using addons still do update their addons from time to time, or even have the auto-check active. There is also the download-stats from their server-side, so I would think they do have a good enough picture of their numbers. Might be they could be 10% off, but surely are there not tens or even hundreds of millions of stealth-users around.

> It's probably the kind of user that has telemetry off. You don't know much if anything about them.

Don't think so, most people don't give a f** about this. Tech-people on that level are even in the industry a minority. And on the other side, those stealth-users are worthless for Mozilla, because they can't make money from google with them. So for a project needing to make money with usersnumbers, everyone who is out of this, isn't core audience anyway.

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#412
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wouldn't calculate the expected RoI of killing adblockers if killing adblockers was never considered.

for it to be considered, somebody must have offered to pay that 150M. Or he considered going to somebody (we all know that somebody is Google) and asking them for that money in return for killing ad blockers.

That was my read too, he's making a public offer, and setting the minimum negotiation price.

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Amazing how they continue not to cater to their core audience. Who is Mozilla's core audience? From what I remember, it's not addon-users, as most users never have used even just a single addon. > They literally have lost 90% of their market share from their peak, To be fair, it's not entirely their own fault. Competition is strong, especially from Google and Apple. Even with perfect decisions, they likely would st…

> From what I remember, it's not addon-users, as most users never have used even just a single addon. If most users who install Firefox do so for superior adblocking and those same users are also very likely to turn off telemetry (which I think some privacy/adblock extensions probably do by default?), then at Mozilla's end one might get the impression that "most users don't use extensions" - even though the vast majo…

> It's probably the kind of user that has telemetry off.

If less than 4% of users use uBO, which the kind of users you're referencing claim is the primary reason they use Firefox, I doubt many users disable telemetry either.

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#414
I realize that a FOSS browser is an absolutely enormous monstrosity of a project. An undertaking akin to a whole FOSS OS. But it's also comparably important, especially when no FOSS alternatives exist in the browser space. We (I mean that very loosely, not having contributed anything myself) have managed to produce _several_ FOSS OS-es. Why are we seemingly completely fucked if Mozilla does in fact kill itself/Firefox? I don't doubt that we are, I just don't understand.

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#415

I would stop using Firefox if Enzor-DeMeo would block or cripple ad blockers. While it is not my main browser (Vivaldi is), I have 5 installs of Firefox Portable for different things, like one for YouTube, one for testing pages against Firefox and so on.

Mozilla/ Firefox is irrelevant and ultimately doomed to ever smaller numbers. That's because their users are driven by opinions and principles, and those are the worst, most disloyal kind of users. They're always threatening to leave, and will take the slightest offense to do so. Chrome wins because its user base doesn't care. The browser is just a tool, not a religion. It's installed, they use it, they're barely awa…

i respect that you ate those downvotes standing up for what you believe

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#417
post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of being CEO/running a business is considering all options, but it doesn't mean it will ever move beyond the ROI/risk phase. Ever read one of the risk assessments in a companies public filings? It's the same thing.

Finally, a situation besides “are we the baddies” where a Mitchell and Webb sketch is highly relevant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_4J4uor3JE

Have you tried "Introduce AI summaries and kill the adblockers" ?

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#419

It's kinda frustrating that Mozilla's CEO thinks that axing ad-blockers would be financially beneficial for them. Quite the opposite is true (I believe) since a ton of users would leave Firefox for alternatives.

It might be financial beneficial once as an up-front payment, but long term, as others have mentioned, really not good for the project to remove the only feature that gives firefox a defensible way to fill it's niche in the market.

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amateur numbers... I've tested over 10000 (not right now)... It used to get really slow after 9000, but things seem to have improved.

Were all tabs loaded though? If one tab takes 10 Mb of RAM (very low estimate; many take 50-100 Mb, especially Youtube), then 10K tabs require 100Gb.

I’ve started seeing tabs that weigh in at multiple gbs. Cloud provider consoles are particularly egregious examples here.
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