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Reflections on One Year as the CEO of Mozilla

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Re: Reflections on One Year as the CEO of Mozilla

#71

Post by apostacy »

lolrepeatlol wrote: post #58
Nextgrid wrote: post #36

Earlier 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…

I would assert that the exact opposite is true. Taking a strong stand in favor of users would increase their market share.

Over a decade ago, one of the best things that Firefox did to compete against IE6 was to include a built in popup blocker that was on by default. Exactly the same criticisms were made.

It was called irresponsible and disruptive, since so much revenue came from popups, and horrible flash-based full screen pop-under ads. But I am glad that Firefox didn't let the pleas of the established market prevent them from siding with users.

Re: Reflections on One Year as the CEO of Mozilla

#72

Post by avhon1 »

sfink wrote: post #38
martinald wrote: post #14

Deary 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…

Sorry, you're complaining that a year's retrospective post by the CEO doesn't include announcement of product development plans or launches? I would think that... unwise. Unless you're trying to create a cult of personality around your CEO. She'd either be undercutting her own marketing department, or tying her personal popularity to products/projects. Neither would be a very good idea.

It doesn't have to be an announcement of something new. It'd be great if the reflections included any improvements to Firefox that happened over the year.

Re: Reflections on One Year as the CEO of Mozilla

#73

Post by [deleted] »

Nextgrid wrote: post #56
INTPenis wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So which browser do you prefer?

I run Safari & Firefox. FF is still the "least bad" choice but I'm still not happy that I have to fix it by installing an add-on where that add-on (or at least the core parts of it such as filter lists) are licensed in a way that would allow the browser to have this fix out of the box.

[deleted]

Re: Reflections on One Year as the CEO of Mozilla

#74

Post by wejick »

Many people always discuss how the CEO is over paid for multimillion dollars.

Do we have benchmark on the CEO benefit from the same scale of company?

I'm just thinking whether it's a norm to pay that much to get good talent to lead the corp. (I'm not saying she is good or not)

Re: Reflections on One Year as the CEO of Mozilla

#75

Post by avhon1 »

Retric wrote: post #40
elcritch wrote: post #35

Earlier 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...

It works, but it's a pain to have do it, and to remember how to do it (especially when you don't yet have internet, because you can't log into the wifi!)

Re: Reflections on One Year as the CEO of Mozilla

#76

Post by rl3 »

kgraves wrote: post #26
rl3 wrote: post #9

> Above all, this year has reinforced for me that sometimes a deeply held mission requires massive wrenching change in order to be realized. Yeah, like firing your researchers. What good was that Servo thing anyways? Don't need no PhDs when you can write endless self-aggrandizing blog posts while increasing your own pay.

Did you really expect Mozilla to care about Servo? I'm sorry, but to them it was a experimental toy that didn't make them any money and they saw it as a cost center.

>Did you really expect Mozilla to care about Servo?

Yes. Servo represented a major technological differentiation from Chromium-based browsers while remaining competitive if not superior. A triumph in any real sense, not just for Mozilla but for everyone who cared about the future of the web.

>I'm sorry, but to them it was a experimental toy that didn't make them any money and they saw it as a cost center.

WebRender was part of that experimental toy, and it shipped to production years ago.

Cutting costs via way of sacking R&D is a type of short-term thinking that's so devoid of foresight it boggles the mind.

Re: Reflections on One Year as the CEO of Mozilla

#77

Post by ordx »

wejick wrote: post #74

Many people always discuss how the CEO is over paid for multimillion dollars. Do we have benchmark on the CEO benefit from the same scale of company? I'm just thinking whether it's a norm to pay that much to get good talent to lead the corp. (I'm not saying she is good or not)

What scale? They lost most of their market share and they have a pretty low headcount. Wikipedia says they have around 750 people, but after the most recent layoff it's probably closer to 500. For comparison, Lime (scooter company) has about the same number of people. I think it's fair to compare Mozilla to a medium-sized non-profit, which would put CEO's salary in the 500k range.

Re: Reflections on One Year as the CEO of Mozilla

#78

Post by lolrepeatlol »

Nextgrid wrote: post #64
lolrepeatlol wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 origina…

> Outside of media heavy applications such as video conferencing software, do websites explicitly do specific things to “support” Firefox beyond complying with the specs?

You'd be surprised. Apple Business Manager does not support Firefox, for example.

> 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.

My point was that ads were being accidentally blocked and that websites wouldn't get their ad revenue.

Re: Reflections on One Year as the CEO of Mozilla

#79

Post by zamadatix »

kgarten wrote: post #66

Don’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 cod…

That's all the browser engines you get that can load most pages today so if one is out for being too far behind what's implemented and another is out for personal reasons that leaves you with Firefox. People not using Firefox anymore (95% on desktop and 99% on mobile) just have different personal reasons that outrank "I trust the organization behind it values me" when selecting their browser.

As far as fun tech things Flow looks like it could be interesting but they aren't interested in being your day to day browser (yet at least) and it's still early in it's life.

For "chromium browsers that aren't a megacorp" Brave and Vivaldi are oft talked about. I don't really see all the appeal of Brave myself but it does have some decent customization options while still being able to be typical Chromium. Vivaldi is the old Opera spirit of "your browser can be a pane window with a web page in it or modern emacs" but the way it is implemented causes it to become a bit slower than other Chromium browsers. Ungoogled chromium is also a popular thing, basically Chromium minus some stuff.

For another fun tech thing "wexond" is a browser built in... Electron :). It used to have some whacky ideas but these days it's turning into more of a "chrome built out of chrome's guts". It has (and still is) been a work in progress and I'm not sure it has a fully reliable security policy for use day to day but it's still interesting to check out for fun if that's your thing https://github.com/wexond/browser-base/releases/tag/v5.2.0 notably it's the only browser I've seen with a built in single line tabs/url/extensions/menu/window-buttons gui option.

Re: Reflections on One Year as the CEO of Mozilla

#80

Post by lolrepeatlol »

apostacy wrote: post #71
lolrepeatlol wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I would assert that the exact opposite is true. Taking a strong stand in favor of users would increase their market share. Over a decade ago, one of the best things that Firefox did to compete against IE6 was to include a built in popup blocker that was on by default. Exactly the same criticisms were made. It was called irresponsible and disruptive, since so much revenue came from popups, and horrible flash-based ful…

Over a decade ago, it was also possible to start a new browser engine from scratch. Now since the web is so complex, it's virtually impossible to make one nowadays.

I don't think you can compare the web of a decade ago to the web of now.

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