Comment by cecexacjrgec

13 hours ago

> or turn to alternatives like Firefox as a new foundation.

With the way Firefox is heading, that might not be the best idea. Nowadays Mozilla seem more focused on riding the AI-hype wave than actually making an excellent browser people want to actually use.

33 comments

cecexacjrgec

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bryanlarsen  12 hours ago

Is Firefox or Mozilla perfect? Heck no. But we're not comparing Mozilla against pre-IBM Red Hat or Ben & Jerry's or whatever your concept of the ideal corporate citizen is. We're comparing Mozilla against Google. That's a very low bar that Mozilla clears with ease, especially if you're criteria includes shoving AI down your throat.

josephg  12 hours ago

Mozilla definitely wastes a bunch of money building features I don’t want. But underneath it all, Firefox is still an excellent web browser. You just occasionally have to disable “pocket” or “gadgets” or something.

II2II  13 hours ago

It is sad to see Firefox riding various hype trains over the years, but I can't really blame them. Miss the wrong train, and you fall behind and may not be able to catch up. Miss the train to nowhere, and you are only wasting resources.

As for the excellent browser that people want, that raises the question of what people want. There are likely as many answers as people.

  • epihelix  7 hours ago

    I don't understand this - what is wrong with Firefox these days? It does everything I need, and very few things I don't want.

    Very puzzled why there isn't more love for Firefox, even on HN.

  • cecexacjrgec  12 hours ago

    Yeah. It’s a tough balance to achieve but that’s the situation we’re in right now so Mozilla really ought to step up (and I totally wish they would).

    My biggest pain point at the moment (entirely subjective mind you) is not even the AI nonsense, but how disjointed and alien the Firefox UX and general feel is to Apple platforms (what I use, at the moment). I don’t want Firefox to mirror Safari 1:1 but I do want the Firefox UI and UX to feel polished, well thought out and thoroughly in line with system HIG specs—given that I spend a lot of time in a browser, it shouldn’t feel like a stranger in a strange land amidst my other desktop applications.

    Aggressive UI improvements would go a long way to restore some faith in the incandescent fox‘ mission—at least for me.

    • II2II  9 hours ago

      Behaving like a native application also has tradeoffs. If you're only working on one platform, then sure you will want it to behave like a native application. If you're working on multiple platforms, chances are that you're going to value consistency. And while macOS users prefer their UI, the same can be said of Linux and Windows users. Guess which one is going to win out there.

    • takeda  11 hours ago

      Maybe I'm not enough of an Apple fanboy but using work provided mac with firefox for 15 years I never noticed UI being disjointed from the system any more than Chrome.

      1 reply →

stuaxo  13 hours ago

It's not really a "both sides" thing given the scale difference between what Google is up to and that.

  • cecexacjrgec  13 hours ago

    No one is forcing Mozilla’s hand (afaik) and no one is actually thinking “if Firefox had a chatbot that might convince me to move over”. Youre right that it is not a “both sides” thing, its a “Mozilla thing”. Through and through.