Comment by hdgvhicv
6 days ago
The listed browsers are basically skins on top of the same chromium base.
It’s why Firefox and Safari as so important despite HN’a wish they’d go away.
6 days ago
The listed browsers are basically skins on top of the same chromium base.
It’s why Firefox and Safari as so important despite HN’a wish they’d go away.
HN doesn't want firefox to go away. HN wants firefox to be better, more privacy/security focused, and to stop trying to copy chrome out of the misguided hope that being a poor imitation will somehow make it more popular.
Sadly, mozilla is now an adtech company (https://www.adexchanger.com/privacy/mozilla-acquires-anonym-...) and by default firefox now collects your data to sell to advertisers. We can expect less and less privacy for firefox users as Mozilla is now fully committed to trying to profit from the sale of firefox users personal data to advertisers.
As a 25 year Firefox user this is spot on. I held out for 5 years hoping they would figure something out, but all they did was release weird stuff like VPNs and half baked services with a layer of "privacy" nail polish.
Brave is an example of a company doing some of the same things, but actually succeeding it appears. They have some kind of VPN thing, but also have Tor tabs for some other use cases.
They have some kind of integration with crypto wallets I have used a few times, but I'm sure Firefox has a reason they can't do that or would mess it up.
You can only watch Mozilla make so many mistakes while you suffer a worse Internet experience. The sad part is that we are paying the price now. All of the companies that can benefit from the Chrome lock in are doing so. The web extensions are neutered - and more is coming - and the reasons are exactly what you would expect: more ads and weird user hostile features like "you must keep this window in the foreground" that attempt to extract a "premium" experience from basic usage.
Mozilla failed and now the best we have is Brave. Soon the fingerprinting will be good enough Firefox will be akin to running a Tor browser with a CAPTCHA verification can for every page load.
So Firefox suffers because people like you choose a chrome skin rather than fork.
What would be an acceptable revenue model? Google Chrome has the same privacy profile with the exception that Google retains the data for their own ad platforms.
Selling preferential search access is legally precarious due to FTC's lawsuit against Mozilla.
> What would be an acceptable revenue model?
They could start with the one they've refused for ages even though many have asked for it. Let people directly donate to fund the development of firefox (as opposed to just giving mozilla money to funnel into any number of their other projects). They could even make money selling merch if they didn't tank the brand. Firefox could have a very nice niche to fill as a privacy focused browser for power users who desire customization and security, but sadly they don't seem interested in being that. For whatever reason they'd rather spend a fortune buying adtech from facebook employees and be a chrome clone that pushes ads and sells user data, and that isn't going to inspire support from users.
That said, I'm not convinced that every open source project needs to be profit generating. Many projects are hugely successful without resorting to ads. What makes it possible for VLC or even Arch Linux to thrive without advertising that couldn't work just as well for firefox? The solution is certainly not to turn Firefox into a project that their users no longer want to support or use at all, but that seems to be where they are headed by selling out their userbase.
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The biggest problem is a failure of trust. I won't donate to the Mozilla foundation because I have zero faith in them using that money wisely.
Wait the FTC is suing Mozilla?
I did not know this. Why are you doing this Mozilla !? How does the words privacy-safe measurement and targeting in the same sentence make any sense.
>> Anonym will now become a separate business unit within Mozilla to develop new solutions for privacy-safe measurement, targeting and optimization.
At this point can someone fork Firefox and maintain separately ?
HN wants Firefox but with better stewardship and fewer misdirected funds.
Mozilla - wrongly - believes that the majority of FF users believe in Mozilla's hobby projects rather than that they care about their browser.
That's why - as far as I know - to this day it is impossible to directly fund Firefox. They'd rather take money from google than to be focusing on the one thing that matters.
HN, and firefox users, can never decide where the money should go or what the goals should be. The problem with producing the better product is the amount of in-fighting increases exponentially. Google produces a "fuck you got mine" type browser and everyone knows it, so nobody really cares when they make god awful privacy decisions or intentionally produce worst standards to try to fuck their customers up the ass in new and exciting ways.
When Firefox introduces a new feature, half the people complain it's stupid and worthless while the other half complain it's not enough. And, when it inevitably gets axed, it magically turns out actually it was beloved the whole time and oh no my Grandma used Pocket as life support and now she can't breath.
When Firefox implements new web standards half the people complain that they're bending to Google's whim and that these standards are stupid. We don't want them, just focus on performance and what people really care about! ... While the other half complains that it took so long, and in the meantime they switched to a real browser, like Chrome.
Of course, Safari is even further behind Firefox in standards and frankly it's not even close, but does anyone care? Of course not. Apple is another "fuck you got mine" type company. People love that.
And it doesn't just end at Firefox. Oh, no. Firefox OS? Depending on who you ask it's either the biggest missed opportunity ever or one of Mozilla's worst money burning schemes. It's Schrödinger's software - in a parallel universe where it took it off everyone would've always wanted it, and in the current universe nobody ever wanted it.
The biggest mistake Mozilla made was extending any kind of goodwill to their customer base. Clearly, that doesn't work and people do not like it. Let's all stop fucking around and be real for a second - nobody, and I do mean nobody, is switching to Google Chrome because Mozilla made some mistake. They're not, because the reality is that Firefox is truly irreplaceable and ahead of Chrome in so many aspects. They're switching to Chrome because they just don't care about being fucked up the ass, or worse, they secretly want to be.
> HN, and firefox users, can never decide where the money should go or what the goals should be.
Without ever having dealt with this problem, it sounds like an embarrassingly solved problem, in the sense of: He who gives the money, decides where it goes.
The other half is to provide features that are actually detrimental if you don't want them as plug-ins / extensions / whatever. Pocket is an example for this. Firefox OS is not because it's not force-bundled with Firefox to begin with.
> They're switching to Chrome because they just don't care about being fucked up the ass, or worse, they secretly want to be.
The point where you stop trying to understand your users is the point where you start losing them.
I don't think that Mozilla believes that their pet projects are what the use community wants. I think they just don't care. Google's check will clear next year anyways.
That's probably true.
We have no idea what is in that contract with Google. They get to be the default search engine, but what else? Does it prevent Firefox from accepting some sources of funding, like donations?
It would be great to get transparency on this…
Do you mean Firefox specifically? Because you can donate to Mozilla: https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/donate/ it's that you can't specify where you want the funds to go.
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I am pretty sure that the issue is that they either admit to being so l stuck as a vassal beholden to Google, or they pretend to be enterprising and forward looking with many promising projects
I just want Firefox's search box to be on the top of the window so I don't have to bend my neck when I'm surfing in bed... I don't use it just for that.
If you're talking about url/search bar at the bottom on mobile, that's customisable - actually they ask you which you prefer when you install it, but you can change it at any time in settings. (personally I prefer all that stuff at the bottom since it's more conveniently where all my other phone nav is, and visibility fits in well with how I scroll)
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Particularly weird impulse for technically inclined people…
Although I must admit to the guilty pleasure of gleefully using Chromium-only features in internal apps where users are guaranteed to run Edge.
Are you old enough to have suffered through the ie6 corporate mess?