Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is Firefox Firefucked?

kevquirk.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 100 posts

Re: Is Firefox Firefucked?

#91

Post by someNameIG »

Levitz wrote: post #54
LaGrange wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brendan Eich was garbage, though, and on top of that he made Brave which is basically a joke, so not exactly missing him.

In what way is Brave a joke? I ask because it's what I look at whenever I think about finally dropping Firefox

Not who you were asking but my reasons for thinking Brave is a joke.

First they're a cypto/addtech company, which is a type of company I wouldn't trust to run my browser. And this has resulted in them doing things in the past like:

Blocking ads and replacing them with their own ad networks ads: https://archive.is/W0k4j

Their rewards crypto was opt-in for creators. Making it look like creators were openly asking for donations in Braves crypto currency without their consent. They had to change this due to complaints: https://brave.com/blog/rewards-update/

Inserting their own affiliate links: https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/8/21283769/brave-browser-aff...

Installing a non-free VPN without user consent: https://www.xda-developers.com/brave-browser-installs-vpn-wi...

They criticise the effectiveness of ad block testing websites, and urge people to use and trust privacytests.org instead. They fail to mention the conflict of interest in that privacytests is run by a Brave employee. https://brave.com/blog/adblocker-testing-websites-harm-users...

Re: Is Firefox Firefucked?

#92

Post by someNameIG »

superkuh wrote: post #12

The post lists a number of ad-tech moves Mozilla has made in recent years, the ever increasing upper management salaries, and the insistence on trying to make Firefox preprocess everything you see on the web instead of showing you the web itself (AI). I personally agree with these complaints. I think most people who intentionaly install Firefox agree with them. Despite all it's attempts otherwise, Firefox was and sti…

> Firefox was and still is mostly used by "power users" and we're pretty much the only ones left that intentionally install the browser.

This really isn't the case. Firefox has almost 200 million users, yet sub 10% of them have uBlock Origin installed:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/ublock-origin...

Less than half have any extensions installed (with extensions include language packs):

https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/usage-behavior

The users who talk about Firefox online are not the average user.

Re: Is Firefox Firefucked?

#93

Post by [deleted] »

softwaredoug wrote: post #28

I just don’t understand the purpose of the Mozilla foundation any more. They’re a non profit? But seem to do the bidding of big tech? I have no sense of what they stand for That plus seeming to chase every hype wave (Crypto, now AI) I just don’t get why I should care about them.

[deleted]

Re: Is Firefox Firefucked?

#95

Post by phantasmish »

rationalist wrote: post #14
mmastrac wrote: post #2

Firefox's main problem is Firefox users. Seriously, there's nothing but griping about it but it's pretty much the only browser holding back the rendering engine monopoly (intentionally excluding WebKit).

If anything, it's the powerusers that disable Firefox's telemetry so that they don't know how the power users use Firefox. (Guiltily raises hand. Although lately I've noticed a ping option, so I left that enabled.)

I never stopped calling “telemetry” spyware. It’s weird to me that others accepted the shift in terminology.

Re: Is Firefox Firefucked?

#96

Post by Apocryphon »

goda90 wrote: post #50
Zaskoda wrote: post #21

What is the next best alternative to throw support behind? I did a very shallow search and the forks of Firefox I found don't appear to be actively maintained.

I can't speak to the quality of any of these, but these all appear to be forks of Firefox that are still receiving updates as of the last few weeks: https://www.waterfox.com/ https://librewolf.net/ https://floorp.app/

Zen

https://zen-browser.app

Re: Is Firefox Firefucked?

#98

Post by superkuh »

someNameIG wrote: post #92
superkuh wrote: post #12

The post lists a number of ad-tech moves Mozilla has made in recent years, the ever increasing upper management salaries, and the insistence on trying to make Firefox preprocess everything you see on the web instead of showing you the web itself (AI). I personally agree with these complaints. I think most people who intentionaly install Firefox agree with them. Despite all it's attempts otherwise, Firefox was and sti…

> Firefox was and still is mostly used by "power users" and we're pretty much the only ones left that intentionally install the browser. This really isn't the case. Firefox has almost 200 million users, yet sub 10% of them have uBlock Origin installed: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/ublock-origin... Less than half have any extensions installed (with extensions include language packs): https://data.fir…

That's a clever way to get a lower bound for power users. I'm surprised. But also, I did qualify my statement and said people who install firefox. I wonder how many of those 200 million users did, or how many of them had it installed by some power user who set up their computer. I know there are at least a couple dozen people right now who are Firefox users because I installed it and put it front and center on the computers I built or setup or fixed for them.

Re: Is Firefox Firefucked?

#99

Post by lucyjojo »

dfabulich wrote: post #79

Mozilla's problem is unsolvable. Firefox gets 90% of its funding from Google, putting Google effectively in control of Mozilla. Ideally, Firefox would be financially supported by its users, like Wikipedia. But that requires ads nagging users to donate, preferably on a subscription plan. Most of Firefox's users block ads, and they refuse to pay Mozilla a dime under any circumstances. Their users are freeloaders, provi…

you're telling me they provide no value but if they leave the project dies?

Re: Is Firefox Firefucked?

#100

Post by pixxel »

sixtyj wrote: post #90
fxj wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get money from donors. Wikipedia shows how that can be done. Or get money from the EU. Mozilla is a strawman for google that they can claim there exists another browser that is not chrome because of antitrust laws. And now that Microsoft forcefeeds win11 user with Edge it will not take long and google doesnt need firefox anymore. For sure I would give a donation to firefox if they would build a decent browser which l…

And a lot of companies and developers would like to pay as well imho. Wikipedia or The Guardian newspaper are really good in getting money from donors.

[dead]
Post reply on HN