Comment by porphyra
3 months ago
Mozilla could have had the no-nonsense, high performance browser backend that everyone uses to build their own browsers (like the recent glut of AI browsers), instead of everyone using Chromium/Blink. In the past, Gecko was really the go-to choice for this. They almost had a second shot with Servo. But they kinda really dropped the ball on the technical capability of the browser while continuing to be distracted by all sorts of random gimmicks like Pocket and then this. Sad!
> Mozilla could have had the no-nonsense, high performance browser backend that everyone uses to build their own browsers
I agree with the sentiment, but you underestimate the level of engineering, coordination, design work, testing it is to do this.
It is admirable that they even have a half-decent browser, but to compete at the top you need soooo much money and motivation.
> It is admirable that they even have a half-decent browser, but to compete at the top you need soooo much money and motivation.
I’m guessing Ladybird will prove you wrong in due time
Ladybird will be a Firefox alternative, nothing more. It can't be, by definition. People are not using Chrome, Edge or Safari because they're great browsers. They use it because it's preinstalled and good enough. They don't care, and they won't care in a future where Ladybird is a thing.
Ask 60% of their (Chrome, Edge, Safari) userbase, and they won't even be able to tell you what their browser is called.
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> I’m guessing Ladybird will prove you wrong in due time
It'll be a usable product, but it will be extremely extremely niche, until the dev burns out or just quit it.
I hope I'm wrong, but a browser is a XXL type project and needs proper funding (means = there should be a reason for it to exist, not altruistic as lets have an alternate because reasons ..)
Modern web browsers are in the range of 30 million LOC, probably 50% of that is just pure implementation of web platform standards and engine work.
Do you just need to advertise stuff among content creators these days with common sense going out of the window? It'll take them a decade to catch up without any engineering funding at the level that Apple/Google/Mozilla have.
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> It is admirable that they even have a half-decent browser, but to compete at the top you need soooo much money and motivation.
Let's not forget the CEO who paid herself a $6.9m salary in 2022, $5.6m in 2023.
Gecko was always hard to embed, which is why WebKit was developed by Apple and then widespread in open source projects.
More accurately, why WebKit was forked from khtml by Apple.
Sure. KHTML wasn’t embeddable outside KDE either until Apple made that happen.
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The amount of money and research put into Chromium is nuts and it's borderline impossible to compete.
Mozilla is a C-suite vanity organization disguised as software company. I love Firefox (I'm using it write this comment) and I really appreciate the developers who continue to work and improve it -- I just wish they were given far more resources to do it.
I doubt the Mozilla C-suite even uses FF on their macbooks/iPhones.
We had Netscape Navigator which began bloating after version 3 eventually becoming Netscape Communicator with various sorts of useless bullshit. When it became so fat it couldn't even start without causing machines to swap, I remember Phoenix came out - a lightweight, fast Mozilla browser. It was a godsend, an immediate hit. I remember all my friends switching to it when it was, like version 0.x, because it was so much faster. A proper no-bullshit WWW experience. Then Phoenix became Firefird, then Firefox. Now Firefox is the new Netscape. Cycle continues.
I'm not sure that was ever realistic.
It's been 20 years since Apple decided they needed a browser of their own, and even then they chose to throw their weight behind KDE's KHTML, not Gecko.
Time to switch to Waterfox, it's basically Firefox with the privacy features that Firefox should have by default:
https://www.waterfox.net/
That doesn’t address the larger complaint your parent commenter is making that Mozilla dropped the ball on Firefox development.
It partially addresses it, because it shows there's a way to save the software Mozilla develops from itself. In other words, I couldn't give a damn if Mozilla keeps misunderstanding it's market if there are open source forks of its software that undoes Mozilla's bad decisions and keeps the parts worth keeping. I'm not sentimental about Mozilla, Mozilla can continue to become irrelevant as long as competition in the browser space continues. New funding models can be developed to support forks of Firefox.