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Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

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Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#841

Post by Tadpole9181 »

sltkr wrote: post #572
Tadpole9181 wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Firing your CEO for not being sufficiently aligned with the American Democratic Party This is not what happened. He gave money to a cause with the explicit goal of using that money to prevent his coworkers and users from having equal civil rights based on an inalienable trait they were born with. That's not an "American Democratic Party" alignment issue, and if you genuinely believe it is, your dog whistle may be b…

That's just factually wrong. Proposition 8 deprived nobody of any rights. Gay couples could get exactly the same rights as straight couples through a domestic partnership, or get married out of state, as even Wikipedia admits: > A same-sex marriage lawfully performed in another state or foreign jurisdiction on or after November 5, 2008 was fully recognized in California, but Proposition 8 precluded California from de…

Let's say everything you said is right: Just because a heterosexual, Christian majority say they don't support "blacks" in their bathrooms and claim the black community should be happy with their "equal" bathrooms, does NOT mean that it is morally acceptable to financially support legal requirements for segregated bathrooms.

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#842

Post by GreenWatermelon »

prmph wrote: post #549
beloch wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current pattern in software is, sadly: 1. Innovate 2. Dominate 3. Enshitify to cash in. You can't skip step #2. Right now, Firefox's market share is a rounding error compared to Chrome. Users are starting to switch away from Chrome because it's currently in step 3 (in spades). That trend will not continue if Firefox beats Chrome to the bottom of the pig-pen. Firefox's current focus on AI is concerning enough, but…

Indeed, Mozilla has a particular bad habit of not listening to customers. It shows even in the UI design. Features like tab pinning and tab groups work in ways that are sub-optimal to how users want to use them. A pinned tab should not be tied to a specific URL. If you go their forums you see a lot complaints, and weird thing is all the nonsensical arguments that their reps advance as to how these features should wor…

It took them AGES to finally implement tab groups and vertical tabs, two of the most requested features that pretty much all browsers browsers had at that point. They can barely hear Firefox users over the sound of google's millions filling up their bank.

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#843

Post by saghm »

prmph wrote: post #786
saghm wrote: post #777

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I don't get why I'd want to pin a tab and then change the url (which I do accidentally for a pinned tab every couple of weeks or so). When it's not the site I pinned, it's just...a tab?

Do you actually use the feature much? From my experience I want to pin tabs because I simply want a set of tab available for use that remain visible when I scroll through a lot of tab headers to the right. It's very annoying to be on a pinned tab, navigate to even just another server on the same root domain, and suddenly be pushed to another (un-pinned) tab. Even if navigate to a totally different url, I do no want t…

As far as I can tell, it's literally the only way I use pinned tabs (other than when I accidentally do navigate away on them due to the lack of enforcement). I have several pages I always want open (e.g. my email, a couple of messaging platforms, Spotify, the web portal for texting via my Android phone), and then I have some varying number of other tabs open that I use for anything else I'm currently using my browser for. I guess this is one of those things where everyone's preference is different, because to me, having a static set of pages I always want open is pretty much the ideal use case for a pinned tab. I can't really wrap my head around wanting to use them any other way; if they can navigate away, they're just like any other tab but harder to close, and I don't really have a use case for enforcing the minimum number of tabs to be larger than zero unless it's literally to force a specific page to always be open. I find it far more annoying to have to navigate a tab back to the state it was previously than to reopen a page from a tab I accidentally closed, so having an extra layer of protection on closing a tab isn't nearly as useful as if it also had that extra layer of protection on what the tab itself was showing.

edit: I don't see it as the browser second-guessing me as much as following what I'm already trying to do in the first place. I don't pin a tab if I don't actually want to keep that specific page open, and taking an action to preserve a state that I opted into isn't going around my specified intention, but following it.

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#844

Post by Inityx »

csin wrote: post #220
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?

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…

For me:

- Enable Color Management and HDR display on non-MacOS platforms

- Play HDR video

- Support common and rising media codecs and container formats (HEVC, MKV, JXL)

- Support WebXR properly on desktop

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#845

Post by goldsteinq »

colesantiago wrote: post #837
goldsteinq wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am subscribed to recurrent donations to Thunderbird. I would pay for Firefox if it was focused on privacy and customizabilty, not telemetry and LLMs.

How much do you pay to Thunderbird, just curious.

Equivalent of $5-6 monthly

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#846

Post by prmph »

saghm wrote: post #843
prmph wrote: post #786

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you actually use the feature much? From my experience I want to pin tabs because I simply want a set of tab available for use that remain visible when I scroll through a lot of tab headers to the right. It's very annoying to be on a pinned tab, navigate to even just another server on the same root domain, and suddenly be pushed to another (un-pinned) tab. Even if navigate to a totally different url, I do no want t…

As far as I can tell, it's literally the only way I use pinned tabs (other than when I accidentally do navigate away on them due to the lack of enforcement). I have several pages I always want open (e.g. my email, a couple of messaging platforms, Spotify, the web portal for texting via my Android phone), and then I have some varying number of other tabs open that I use for anything else I'm currently using my browser…

Consider these thoughts:

1. Let's imagine I have pinned a dashboard url in my bank's website. After some time, I go back to it, it sees I've lost my session, redirects me to the login page, and bam, that login page open up in a random, un-pinned tab. How is that a good experience?? You might say I should pin the login url, but no, after login I always want to get to a specific dashboard page.

2. In my view, pinned tabs are not for specific urls; that is what the toolbar is for. Pinned tabs are, for me, simply a way to have the most important tabs you are working easily available. And that makes sense, because the set of tabs that are most important changes a lot from time to time. I frequently have hundreds, probably a thousand, tabs open. If I have to pin every single url I'd like to go back to, I'll quickly run out of room in no time.

So let's say depending on what I'm working in this month, suddenly I find myself using Github a lot, or Notion. Then it is far easier for me to open some of my pinned tab and just navigate to the new urls I want, rather that have to close each of them , then create new pinned tabs, and hope that if I click on something on the page that is minor, I will not be rudely pushed into another tab.

Summary: I think you are using pinned tabs for what the toolbar was designed for.

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#847

Post by saghm »

prmph wrote: post #846
saghm wrote: post #843

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, it's literally the only way I use pinned tabs (other than when I accidentally do navigate away on them due to the lack of enforcement). I have several pages I always want open (e.g. my email, a couple of messaging platforms, Spotify, the web portal for texting via my Android phone), and then I have some varying number of other tabs open that I use for anything else I'm currently using my browser…

Consider these thoughts: 1. Let's imagine I have pinned a dashboard url in my bank's website. After some time, I go back to it, it sees I've lost my session, redirects me to the login page, and bam, that login page open up in a random, un-pinned tab. How is that a good experience?? You might say I should pin the login url, but no, after login I always want to get to a specific dashboard page. 2. In my view, pinned ta…

I'm not sure I understand how the toolbar can solve this problem. Unless I'm misunderstanding, I'd have to reopen the page every time when I click on the icons in the toolbar, in addition to not being able to interact with them in the same way as other tabs (e.g. using the keyboard to jump between them rather than needing to click). It's probable that the developer intent is closer to what you're describing, but I still maintain that what I'm looking for would be more useful for than the toolbar and that I don't personally have any use for what you're describing.

Maybe the difference here is that I don't ever have more than maybe a dozen tabs open total (including the half dozen pinned ones). To me, it seems more that you're using tabs for what browser history was designed for, and that you're using pinned tabs in a way that doesn't make sense unless you are using tabs in that way.

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#848

Post by prmph »

saghm wrote: post #847
prmph wrote: post #846

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider these thoughts: 1. Let's imagine I have pinned a dashboard url in my bank's website. After some time, I go back to it, it sees I've lost my session, redirects me to the login page, and bam, that login page open up in a random, un-pinned tab. How is that a good experience?? You might say I should pin the login url, but no, after login I always want to get to a specific dashboard page. 2. In my view, pinned ta…

I'm not sure I understand how the toolbar can solve this problem. Unless I'm misunderstanding, I'd have to reopen the page every time when I click on the icons in the toolbar, in addition to not being able to interact with them in the same way as other tabs (e.g. using the keyboard to jump between them rather than needing to click). It's probable that the developer intent is closer to what you're describing, but I st…

I guess we just have different use patterns, but at least you do see that problem with the scenario in point 1, don't you?

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#849

Post by philipallstar »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #715
lukan wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In short, they could become a non profit again, with a single mission - build a open source browser with the interests of its users as first priority.

Others are trying that approach, so I guess we'll see if that's enough

It's definitely enough. The problem is that any money attracts people who glom onto it and suggest interesting side avenues of spending for a "good cause" that's nothing to do with the mission of the org.

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#850

Post by jibal »

sltkr wrote: post #619
arjie wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the correct formulation is: "There are political views that the CEO of Mozilla could hold which would be sufficient for me to abandon the use of products that Mozilla makes". And I think that would be non-controversial for most people.

The problem with that formulation is that it denies the importance of the quantative aspect of the difference of opinion. Of course there are views so extreme almost nobody would put up with them. But at the same time, being tolerant of differences of opinion is an important aspect of a free society and a functioning democracy. There is a word for people who cannot tolerate even the smallest difference of opinion: bi…

> There is a word for people who cannot tolerate even the smallest difference of opinion: bigots.

No, that's not what that word means.

> all the same rights could be obtained through a domestic partnership or an out-of-state marriage. It was just a nominal dispute about what the word “marriage” means.

That too is not true.

> The fact that Mozilla didn't allow their CEO to deviate from the majority point of view on this issue (again, a minority viewpoint in California at the time!) revealed Mozilla to be a heavily politicized, extremely bigoted corporation, that puts ideological conformity first.

Not at all true.

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