This Mozilla "situation" comes up here from time to time, unfortunately as a long time Firefox user all I have to say is: Mitchell Baker and their clique will only leave when Mozilla is completely dead and even by that time she'll retire and will make a wonderful post about her "legacy" in opensource and the Web.
I will not go further because it will turn into an all-bashing post, but Mozilla ( as you like to think of it ) is dead and has been dead for a long time.
Firefox might be dead soon but Mozilla will probably live on as a VPN company. Opera is also like that. The original browser is dead, replaced by a Chromium reskin, and they're making money from microlending in Africa instead.
Honestly these kinds of posts are tiresome and unhelpful. Yes, Mozilla is different now, yes the CEO makes too much money but if more people used their browser more they might invest more in it in instead of seeing it as a money sink to satisfy people who can’t be satisfied.
Seriously, Mozilla cant win. A large voice of people constantly scold Mozilla for anything it does. We’ve heard from Firefox devs on how this bash fest affects them and we expect them to crank out awesome software despite the abuse. Instead of picking the lesser of two evils they say oh, Firefox is N milliseconds slower than Chrome so I’ll use the greater of two evils.
Can we stop beating a dead horse? If you don’t like Firefox or Mozilla fine but don’t act like it’s unusable as a browser. It’s fine, it works, I don’t why everyone is so bothered by minor details when their goals and clearly better than their competition.
Sure it may be slow for YOU (whatever your use case is) or maybe your extensions broke but average users who rely power users to recommend a browser don’t care. If they can open Facebook and Netflix it’s fine. So use Chrome yourself and recommend Firefox to the people this crap doesn’t matter to. And maybe, if they see the numbers tick up, they’ll change course.
>ut if more people used their browser more they might invest more in it in instead of seeing it as a money sink
Did you say that Firefox is a 'money sink' for Mozilla? The thing that brings them half a billion dollars a year and corresponds to the vast majority of their revenue ... and is the only thing that gives them relevance .. to you, this is a 'money sink'?
There is more nuance here than your comment assumes. If Firefox makes X dollars by investing Y dollars but Y+N dollars doesn’t return more money, they will spend the minimum amount on Firefox and allocate the remaining funds elsewhere because otherwise they’d be throwing money away, or so the C-Suite assumes.
You think Pocket and Mozilla VPN sprung up because creating new products was easier than investing more into the golden goose? If Firefox was the end all be all that would be the obvious, safest business decision. Clearly they don’t think it is and that they can get more money through diversification.
A number of people here believe that Firefox is only supported by Google so they can avoid anti trust. If that were the case they’d pay Mozilla regardless of how good/bad Firefox was wouldn’t they?
> if more people used their browser more they might invest more in it
Let me donate to support Firefox. Firefox, only. Hell, she can even skim off the top for her pay.
They don’t do this because it would trash the gravy train. So Firefox is held hostage to support a litany of nonsense that lets them travel to conferences to speak about AI.
Okay, so what is complaining achieving here since you already acknowledge they won’t let you donate to Firefox directly?
I’m not crazy about it either but I don’t lose sleep over it. It’s a browser and management could be better. I know it’s a touchy subject and people may not like to hear it but until I’m downvoted into oblivion I’m going to say this discussion is not worth rehashing time and time again.
The donation suggestion is years old at this point. There is nothing new in this thread.
> what is complaining achieving here since you already acknowledge they won’t let you donate to Firefox directly?
That usage isn’t what’s constraining Firefox’s resources. Management is. Use Firefox if you like it. (I do, in part.) But don’t argue that if more people use it Mozilla will give a shit; it’s already a material fraction of their revenues and they’re ignoring it.
I will. If usage increased enough they would. The more users they have the more important their search becomes, gives them greater leverage and an audience to market products at. Unlike Google/Microsoft/Apple, they do not have a strong platform to reach users with and need something to coalesce a consumer-centric Mozilla ecosystem around.
At the moment, it is unclear how much extra money, devoted to improving what, would increase Firefox’s market share significantly and am not surprised to see them explore other options. Brave, Vivaldi, etc, don’t seem to have figured it out either.
I choose not to be cynical, nor will I allow myself to be upset about it one way or another and wish others would do the same.
Being negative is more likely to scare off new users/contributors than change Mozilla.
Some of us scold Mozilla because they have lost track of their original purpose which is to develop a Web browser, instead they have started to become a political advocacy organization. One that is against freedom of speech and in favor of censorship.
<< I don’t why everyone is so bothered by minor details when their goals and clearly better than their competition.
I use FF is my daily driver for home stuff; work in chrome/edge. When I see things that are wrong, I point them out. We can champion FF for the good things it does and absolutely we can bash CxO club for slowly running it to the ground.
<< Honestly these kinds of posts are tiresome and unhelpful.
Not accurate, this is likely one of the few ways we can exert some minimal level of influence over this. And besides, what did not complaining ever achieve?
No offense but how is the CxO club running it into the ground exactly?
By not being on the default browser on their operating system? By not marketing it on their world used search engine?
The community was the biggest factor Mozilla had in its favor and the community jumped to Chrome and here we are. It’s nice that you still use FF but their market share makes it clear that you and I are exceptions.
I think there are forces in play beyond what the Csuite can control. Microsoft and Google have bigger platforms with more reach. If anything, it explains why Mozilla is trying to expand beyond the browser so they have more ways to reach people and try wooing them into using Firefox.
I’m having a hard time thinking how else you’d market Firefox to regular users beyond word of mouth advocacy. I remember Firefox running TV ads once, no idea how effective that was.
Firefox used to be significantly better than IE which drove adoption but since Chrome is heavily invested in I don’t think Firefox can compete purely by being the better browser. The strategy from the “the good old days” doesn’t work here.
Also, I was looking for a specific example. Saying that the C-Suite is bad because market share is down is not an answer without context of how it could have been avoided which is not obvious. How could they have retained or grown the market share they had?
I’m not saying management bears no responsibility but not all companies fail because of bad management alone. They have big, well funded competitors and platforms users can’t ignore. In particular, Windows, Google Search, Gmail, IOS, and Android. So much browsing is done online and default browsers rule there.
Now you could say Firefox should have come to mobile sooner. Firefox OS was an interesting idea that might have had legs but who knows if it would have caught on. That work required them to divert attention away from the browser and they have a smaller warchest to devote on an idea that might not payoff.
You could try being supportive instead. But hey, the current strategy has worked out so well thus far, please continue until the market share reaches 0.
Mitchell really seems to care about these comments. Oh wait, she probably doesn’t read HN does she? Oh, but the Firefox devs probably do. Well I’m sure they’re just as moved and powerful enough to affect the kind of change you want to see in the organization.
I am supportive. Without me Mozilla, Mitchell and devs would think it is all sunshine and puppies. If anything, being supportive at any costs leads to scenarios such as the current one.
>Oh wait, she probably doesn’t read HN does she? Oh, but the Firefox devs probably do.
All the more reason to insist that Firefox is the important bit then? What does a Firefox dev get from "Ah yes sure we only care about Firefox, but if that's what Mozilla wants to do they have all my support in continuing their path to irrelevancy"
I’m unconvinced that Firefox can compete purely by being the better browser now that Chrome exists and I hear no one complaining about Brave doing more than just a browser (crypto, ads, brave wallet, brave vpn, brave talk, brave search) so even Brendan doesn’t believe that a browser without diversification can compete and likely would have done the same stuff the current CSuite did if he were in charge. You might argue he’d have done a better job of it, picked better products but still would happen.
Brendan choosing to build on Chrome instead of Firefox probably says more about Chrome’s dominance than Firefox’s technical merits. If all Firefox was lacking was better leadership improving it would’ve been easier. If it was a technical issue that’s probably money that needs spent but doesn’t move the needle which is why the current CSuite doesn’t address it either. Or maybe it was just to get away from the stigma around Firefox that doesn’t exist in Chromeland.
> I’m unconvinced that Firefox can compete purely by being the better browser now that Chrome exists and I hear no one complaining about Brave doing more than just a browser (crypto, ads, brave wallet, brave vpn, brave talk, brave search) so even Brendan doesn’t believe that a browser without diversification can compete and likely would have done the same stuff the current CSuite did if he were in charge.
Cryptocurrency and ads are common complaints about Brave. But your main point was right. Eich said Firefox OS was the highest priority. And services or partnerships were needed for user sovereignty.[1]
> Brendan choosing to build on Chrome instead of Firefox probably says more about Chrome’s dominance than Firefox’s technical merits.
Brave's CTO said filling gaps in the Gecko framework would have cost months.[2]
Two things can be true at once: Firefox is a great browser that needs greater market share, and the CEO pay is out-of-whack. The solution is to use the browser but a) not give money to the foundation, and b) complain and expect change.
I said the CEO makes too much money so I don’t know what the point of your post is.
I think it’s pretty clear all the complaining hasn’t done anything as this conversation has been going on for years but I don’t expect that to stop anyone from getting easy HN karma.
I must be seriously out of touch because I have no idea what is missing from Firefox that you can find in other browsers. Can you at least list off some stuff so I can understand why people are so upset?
I know dropping XUL, plugins, performance have been issues for people. I see the changes they made as necessary to keep the codebase maintainable and improve performance. What else am I missing?
The best thing we can do for the web at this point is talk to our politicians about the incredible power that Google and Apple wield. They either need to be split up, or their platforms entirely opened up to competition via standardization [1], first class third-party support [2], no more preferential dogfooding [3], and no more ad sales protection rackets [4].
[1] Google no longer unilaterally pulls on web standards. Google and Apple adopt a shared, first-class standard for native app development. Web gets "as native" APIs.
[2] No requirement of app store for distribution. Web installs and web as native. No scare walls or hidden-in-the-settings feature flags. The browser runtimes have full extension support with no removal of hooks necessary for eg. adblocking.
[3] First party apps are not defaults, not preinstalled, and more importantly, cannot re-assert themselves as defaults.
[4] If someone searches for your company or product by name, or a 1 edit distance variation, competitor ads can't show up before your website or app.
Mozilla has been diversifying itself away from Firefox for 15 years. They're still pouring money into SeaMonkey and Thunderbird, on top of a range of more recent projects that have no realistic chance of ever generating serious revenue, such as Mozilla VPN.
I think there are two realistic paths for the company. One is to make the browser amazing and edgy in ways that Google and Microsoft can't match (out of the fear of cannibalizing revenue or running into regulatory trouble). Mozilla has a shot at it, but it's unlikely to happen if they have a defeatist attitude about it internally, and are focusing on non-browser pivots.
The other path is to basically turn into some completely different company, throwing money at unrelated pursuits such as AI and hoping that you get lucky. But what gives Mozilla any edge with that?
SeaMonkey is an independent project allowed to use Mozilla infrastructure. Thunderbird is funded with user donations.
What is serious revenue?
Google and Microsoft are betting AI will be very relevant to web use. And what amazing and edgy features would Google and Microsoft be unable to match?
And with which business model? That's the elephant in the room here. If it's only about unpaid developers, Firefox already has these currently in addition to the Mozilla employees, but if it wants to stay relevant it needs paid developers working on it full-time.
Everything coming out of them recently, including the mailshots I see and even the onboarding copy, seems to indicate they see themselves as a political advocacy org first and a browser developer second.
Developing and operating open technology is political advocacy. Technology and its implementation is simply the expression of the ideology, rights, etc. Leadership choices, as well as their efficacy and compensation is still an important discussion.
> Developing and operating open technology is political advocacy.
That's fine, they should leave it at that and do it the best they can because that is presumably their competency.
But they can't help themselves and insist on engaging various other political endeavors which they just aren't good at but probably sounds good when they brag about it to their friends at dinner parties. Like operating 'online spaces' for African lesbian women in tech or whatever the heck they're calling it, which amounts to them somehow blowing millions of dollars to host a mastadon instance, which isn't needed by anybody because all the marginalized groups they claim to be serving already have online spaces of their own on Facebook, discord, etc.
Importantly, that was also the reason that Brendan Eich used Chromium as a base for Brave, rather than Firefox. Had that even not occurred, we might be in a position where more than one organization had a business interest is Firefox, which would be a complete game changer.
I really doubt that is true. Speaking from the experience of working in a project that tried to build "enterprise Chrome OS, but based on Firefox instead", I can tell you that Firefox is still a lot harder to fork and customize than Chromium is.
thanks, I'm sure there were more factors involved than just the firing, so that would make a lot of sense.
Given your experience, If one were to fork Firefox entirely from Mozilla, very loosely, if one were a non-profit dedicated to just the browser and not trying to build a diversified company around it, what type of funding do you think an org would need to keep up with web technology changes and build a foundational engineering team?
No idea, because honestly part of the reason our project failed was that we he had zero in-house knowledge of browser internals.
Mind you, our idea was to build a "browser-based OS", which meant at the time that our initial design was customize Ubuntu to the point that it could boot straight into a single-user windowless Firefox and to build all the "shell" as extensions. (I wrote a bit about on https://raphael.lullis.net/thinking-heads-are-not-in-the-clo...)
The problem is that Gecko is not that customizable, everything in Firefox is tightly integrated, and they abandoned all initiatives to make Gecko embeddable -- and this was a very big mistake imo.
If Mozilla tried to address this, I think many Chromium-based browsers today would at least try the possibility to be Gecko-based.
> Importantly, that was also the reason that Brendan Eich used Chromium as a base for Brave
This is factually incorrect, the worst kind of incorrect. Brave Browser was initially built on Graphene, which uses Gecko. They then switched to Electron because Graphene was too raw, and from there to Chromium. Also, Brave contributes basically nothing to Chromium, so why would you think they would contribute anything to Gecko?
Not linkable, just my memory from a podcast interview at the time. IIRC the firing wasn't the only reason to go Chromium-based, but it made the decision a lot easier
I'm only aware of his views against gay marriage. Do you have more info on him being openly racist and sexist? Searching for his name + racist or sexist doesn't seem to yield any results.
Off topic, but I think your edit is against the spirit of HN and weakens your comment.
Unsourced and non-specific disparagement might be the reason for the downvotes here. People like to read posts that make them feel they have a better understanding of the world rather than a particular poster's political viewpoints.
I think including either sources or specifics (e.g. a specific statement he's made or what sort of "sexism" or "racism" he indulges in) would result in less downvotes.
I will not go further because it will turn into an all-bashing post, but Mozilla ( as you like to think of it ) is dead and has been dead for a long time.
Deal with it.