I truly hope Mozilla survives the next decade. They need leadership with opinionated direction, and I don't think this is it. Right now they're looking to be lead without a good funding avenue.
Reflections on One Year as the CEO of Mozilla
61–70 of 106 posts
Re: Reflections on One Year as the CEO of Mozilla
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
The newer Firefox quantum has become my goto browser since it was released. Slower than Chrome but less memory hungry. Unfortunately anytime I hear about Firefox it's often "Firefox removes features" or worse "Firefox disables feature for your good". I literally couldn't log into some old wifi router at an airbnb because Firefox refused to let me visit a non-standard port, with no way to override it. It's not adtech…
Does this no longer work? http://kb.mozillazine.org/Network.security.ports.banned.over...
Maybe they should all those features it under
patronizing.*.Network.security.ports.banned.override?
Looking forward for patronizing.disable.old.addons=false
patronizing.copypaste.shenanigans=false
Re: Reflections on One Year as the CEO of Mozilla
#63Firefox market share down 85%, during the same period the executives get a 400% raise. Then 250 employees are fired. It feels like it's just the top brass getting as much money they can before the ship sinks at this point.
Not only that, they do have their other priorities figured out also: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2021/01/08/we-need-more-than-d... I am actually glad that they came out and put that in black and white. Got me to move to another browser. (I do miss Firefox's multi-container tabs and account containers however but I will survive).
It was clear when they forced Brendan Eich out for having a mainstream political opinion.
Re: Reflections on One Year as the CEO of Mozilla
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is nowhere near enough though, and it used to be even worse. Basic spyware such as Google Analytics could be blocked by uBlock for ages and yet it's only recently that the built-in Firefox solution started blocking it (by replacing it with a neutered shim). Furthermore, considering uBlock Origin and the underlying filter lists are available under a permissive license, what's the point behind developing & maintai…
You have to realize Mozilla does not have the marketshare to do this. Most of the web relies on ads, and since uBlock Origin blocks them, there would be no incentive for those sites to support Firefox. Even if you just blocked trackers (as does ETP Strict Mode), many ads get blocked because those ads bundle tracking code within them. This, again, would cause there to be little to no incentive for most website owners…
Outside of media heavy applications such as video conferencing software, do websites explicitly do specific things to “support” Firefox beyond complying with the specs?
> many ads get blocked because those ads bundle tracking code within them
uBlock filter lists can provide fallback shims that would be loaded in place of ad scripts to deal with this exact problem. The shim implements a neutered version of the original script so that all the surrounding (non-malicious) code can continue to run without errors.
Re: Reflections on One Year as the CEO of Mozilla
#65It's unfortunate that Mozilla's slow collapse under the weight of being hooked on Google ad money is being used as proof for people who are perpetually mad about diversity and accountability. The fault is with management that's afraid to disrupt the cash firehose. Not a mishandled CEO hire 7 years ago or the move from the increasingly untenable XUL.
It seems very common to blame the money from Google (and Yahoo for a bit) for Mozilla's failures 18 years in but how exactly is it causing this collapse? Mozilla is raking in 3x as much off this deal today as it was during peak Firefox usage share and success around 2011 and any collapse is unrelated to where the search box directs you. Mozilla has been trying profit making products to diversify income so it doesn't have to worry about this money in the future but they've all failed to generate that income. In the meantime they still exist.
What could they do by disrupting this cash flow? Or is it just nice to imagine a world where Mozilla found a way to become the next trillion dollar tech company that could spend tens of billions on its browser per year and we need something to blame other than it being hard to do so as the reason it hasn't?
Re: Reflections on One Year as the CEO of Mozilla
#66Don’t understand the negative comments about Firefox. I use it everyday and even though I share some of the criticism, compared to other browsers for me it’s the best compromise so far.
Can’t use chrome or edge as Google and Microsoft showed again and again that they don’t value the end users.
Safari (especially mobile safari) is holding back the web technology adaption.
Firefox (since they incorporated some rust code) is fast and awesome and Mozilla is the least evil of the bunch. The accessibility and privacy features are the best out there …
Also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26755252
If you have other browser recommendations. Happy to hear them. Currently I use Firefox for most of my browsing, sometimes brave, opera in case I need to check social media websites (as a container). Huge fan of qutebrowser and nyxt (keyboardbased).
Thanks to Mozilla folks for keeping up the great work.
Re: Reflections on One Year as the CEO of Mozilla
#67Deary me. There is literally not one mention of any concrete product development or launch that I can see in that post. This reinforces my view that Mozilla doesn't really see itself as an actual product company. It seems to see itself as some sort of quasi NGO focussed on the internet. Which is sort of fine, but I feel they would influence much more of the web with better more popular products rather than policy dis…
I was curious - just going by the same blog, there’s really not much to talk about (continued improvements to block tracking, an Android refresh, PiP support, VPN), but the tone suggests that delivering particular features is beside the point.
Re: Reflections on One Year as the CEO of Mozilla
#68Firefox market share down 85%, during the same period the executives get a 400% raise. Then 250 employees are fired. It feels like it's just the top brass getting as much money they can before the ship sinks at this point.
> It feels like it's just the top brass getting as much money they can before the ship sinks at this point.
From the outside it really is hard to not come to that conclusion.
I'm still a Firefox user and I'll continue to be as long as possible, but like others I feel immense frustration when I look at the dynamic between Firefox and Mozilla.
Re: Reflections on One Year as the CEO of Mozilla
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not only that, they do have their other priorities figured out also: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2021/01/08/we-need-more-than-d... I am actually glad that they came out and put that in black and white. Got me to move to another browser. (I do miss Firefox's multi-container tabs and account containers however but I will survive).
IMO the title of this blog post was way to strong to even misleading. They're not asking for deplatforming, they're asking for more transparency: Reveal who is paying for advertisements, how much they are paying and who is being targeted. Commit to meaningful transparency of platform algorithms so we know how and what content is being amplified, to whom, and the associated impact. Turn on by default the tools to ampl…
I disagree with your assessment. I will illustrate why by using 2 specific points from the linked post:
1. From the post: "Changing these dangerous dynamics requires more than just the temporary silencing or permanent removal of bad actors from social media platforms.
Additional precise and specific actions must also be taken: [...]"
My interpretation of the above is that they support deplatforming ("silencing or permanent removal") AND "additional actions".
2. They mention "white supremacy". I believe that is a false premise. I am not white/of European descent. I will leave it at that since this is going OT.
Re: Reflections on One Year as the CEO of Mozilla
#70It's unfortunate that Mozilla's slow collapse under the weight of being hooked on Google ad money is being used as proof for people who are perpetually mad about diversity and accountability. The fault is with management that's afraid to disrupt the cash firehose. Not a mishandled CEO hire 7 years ago or the move from the increasingly untenable XUL.
It seems very common to blame the money from Google (and Yahoo for a bit) for Mozilla's failures 18 years in but how exactly is it causing this collapse? Mozilla is raking in 3x as much off this deal today as it was during peak Firefox usage share and success around 2011 and any collapse is unrelated to where the search box directs you. Mozilla has been trying profit making products to diversify income so it doesn't…
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