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Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

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Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#811

Post by staticassertion »

toss1 wrote: post #433
staticassertion wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

No, they are accurately observing that the "I don't want to do it" and "feels off mission" statements are FAR weaker than they can be and should be. Such weak statements are either a real mistake or show movement away from those principles which should be bedrock for Mozilla and towards some justification to abandon those principles. It's not like the industry has no precedents on this. "Don't Be Evil" was the motto…

> It's not like the industry has no precedents on this. "Don't Be Evil" was the motto of a company that is now one of the apex predators in the surveillance capitalism ecosystem.

How is this precedent? "Don't Be Evil" strikes me as extremely explicit. This seems like a counter-example to me.

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#812

Post by danaris »

littlestymaar wrote: post #809
danaris wrote: post #803

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> drags the web behind by many years But this can only be by comparison to something. And Apple is very good at keeping Safari up to date on the actual standards. You know—the thing that IE was absolutely not doing , that made it a scourge of the web. So if it's not Chrome, what is your basis for comparison??

> But this can only be by comparison to something. The something being the other browsers. Chrome and Firefox. Safari was even behind the latest IE before the switch to Chromium by the way. > the thing that IE was absolutely not doing, that made it a scourge of the web. You're misremembering, IE also kept improving its support for modern standards. The two main problems were that it was always behind (like Safari) an…

I'm sorry, but you're wrong. I am not remotely misremembering, and I'll thank you not to tell me what's happening in my own head.

IE 6 stood stagnant for years, while the W3C moved on without them, and there was no new version.

> The something being the other browsers. Chrome and Firefox.

And can you name a single thing Firefox does right, that Chrome didn't do first, or that came from an actual accepted web standard (not a proposal, not a de-facto standard because Chrome does it), that Safari doesn't do?

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#813

Post by Cpoll »

renewiltord wrote: post #692
Cpoll wrote: post #681

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> all I want is bug fixes and security updates.

Yes yes, I don't want updates. I just want updates. haha.

I'm just pointing out that your proposal doesn't match their requirements.

> I don't want updates. I just want updates

It only sounds dumb if you write it like that. If you say "I don't want feature bloat, I just want security patches" it sounds reasonable.

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#814

Post by mmonaghan »

There's very little money in running a browser for users who want ad blocking, performance, and features but don't want to let the browser company make money the same way most of the internet does - advertising. Most people don't care about seeing ads.

If killing ad blocker support is what keeps Firefox alive, I understand the move and would probably make the same call.

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#815

Post by ekjhgkejhgk »

SilasX wrote: post #444
ekjhgkejhgk wrote: post #34

CEO > 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. LOL the day that Firefox stops me from running what I want is the day I'll get rid of it.

They...already do that? They stopped allowing unsigned addons, even if you allow them in about:config (a power-user feature). Even Chrome allows you to toggle the option to do that -- in a more user-friendly way! -- and actually honors it, so I don't think it's the massive security hole everyone claims. Edit: My Hitler parody of when Firefox introduced this (almost 10 years ago now!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=…

Funny.

Though, on this line:

"The whole point of Firefox is that I can customize it all I want".

You realize that with more customization comes more fingerprinting? :-)

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#816

Post by observationist »

notepad0x90 wrote: post #805
observationist wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> Also, a small minor detail here: We're not paying for firefox! why are so many people feeling entitled? Mozilla has to do something other than beg Google to survive. Because some of us have supported, donated to, advocated for, and participated in the firefox and mozilla communities over the years, and feel betrayed by the abandonment of principles, kowtowing to adtech surveillance "features", and overall enshitt…

I think all of firefox's alternatives depend on firefox as an upstream. firefox itself has low adaption right now. I'm all for any approach that isn't google/chrome being the only browser standards driver. This type of knee-jerking doesn't help with that goal.. I don't care so much about mozilla's past or how terrible an "ai browser" will be, as much as having viable alternatives and not having a monopoly for browser…

This isn't kneejerk, it's bone deep weariness of year over year of failure and corporate schlock and weasel words and trying to rebrand firefox and sucking on the google teat while pretending they have a purpose. They're doing anything and everything but seriously putting in the time and effort to distinguish themselves and be a viable competitor. All of the good stuff happens downstream; firefox development is a continual disappointment and enshittification, and they don't even profit from it. They enshittify on behalf of google and the adtech blob.

The downstream projects constantly have to tear out features the mozilla team try to jam in, for no good reason, almost like there's an arms race and the adtech blob is just trying to slip one past all the people who want simple privacy preserving software.

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#817

Post by littlestymaar »

danaris wrote: post #812
littlestymaar wrote: post #809

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But this can only be by comparison to something. The something being the other browsers. Chrome and Firefox. Safari was even behind the latest IE before the switch to Chromium by the way. > the thing that IE was absolutely not doing, that made it a scourge of the web. You're misremembering, IE also kept improving its support for modern standards. The two main problems were that it was always behind (like Safari) an…

I'm sorry, but you're wrong. I am not remotely misremembering, and I'll thank you not to tell me what's happening in my own head. IE 6 stood stagnant for years , while the W3C moved on without them, and there was no new version. > The something being the other browsers. Chrome and Firefox. And can you name a single thing Firefox does right, that Chrome didn't do first, or that came from an actual accepted web standar…

> and there was no new version.

Yes there was… IE 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11.

The reason why IE 6 kept haunting us all was because later versions were never available on Windows XP.

> actual accepted web standard

The only thing for which there is an actual standard that matters is JavaScript itself (or rather ECMAScript) and on that front Apple has pretty much always been a laggard.

Saying “Apple is compliant with all of W3C standards” is a bit ridiculous when this organization was obsolete long before Microsoft ditched IE. And Apple itself acknowledge that, themselves being one of the founding parties of the organization that effectively superseded W3C (WHATWG).

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#818

Post by lern_too_spel »

int_19h wrote: post #776
lern_too_spel wrote: post #716

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definition of bigot from Oxford Languages: a person who is obstinately or unreasonably attached to a belief, opinion, or faction, especially one who is prejudiced against or antagonistic toward a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group. Explain how the word isn't being used according to its definition. > Nick Fuentes openly said he's a racist. Do you doubt him? In March 2025, he said,…

I think GP's point isn't that Fuentes isn't racist, it's that the term "racist" lost a lot of its bite precisely because it was thrown around so recklessly and applied to people who obviously weren't "bad guys". So now you can actually go and openly say things like "I'm racist" and mean it, and there's still plenty of people who don't see a problem with that.

> So now you can actually go and openly say things like "I'm racist" and mean it, and there's still plenty of people who don't see a problem with that.

My point is that the people (Fuentes supporters) that he said see no problem with that are racists themselves, or why would they be Fuentes supporters? That's his whole schtick. They don't see a problem with him saying racist things, so why would they see a problem with him directly admitting he is a racist? https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/conservative-writer-says...

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#819

Post by bagacrap »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #213
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…

"feels off mission" exposes how little conviction there is behind this position. That is a flimsy tissue paper statement about a concept that should be a bedrock principle. It's irrationally charitable to give it any credit at all. Especially in context where anyone who's awake should understand they need to be delivering an unquestionably clear message about unquestionably clear goals and core values, because this a…

It's definitely testing the waters.

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#820

Post by dvngnt_ »

csin wrote: post #285
OvervCW wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can install uBlock Origin on Firefox mobile; it's the only reason I use it.

Oh wow TIL. Thanks, that is amazing. I just looked it up. 2023 was when it started. I'm surprised Android even allows something like this.

you can even use extensions like vimium. it made using the galaxy xr much more usable than chrome
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