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I don't get why Firefox tends to add and remove feature so often. Even if it's because of money, this is hurting the user base. Firefox Hello was probably an a

I don't get why Firefox tends to add and remove feature so often. Even if it's because of money, this is hurting the user base. Firefox Hello was probably an atempt to fuel WebRTC or provide some capabilities to Firefox OS. But it was included in the main distribution - Firefox - spending resources for what ?

binaryanomaly 10y ago
Agree, imho it's a bad strategy to add such things to your core product and risk loosing loyal users. Looks like they have somehow realized that though as the approach with "experiments" is a different one.
scrollaway 10y ago
Not just that. Mozilla is completely losing focus. They used to stand for "keeping the web open" and they've been doing a shit job of it lately. * Messing up the marketing behind critical projects (Persona) and then shutting them down when their usage is too low for their taste. * Axing Thunderbird, one of the last usable non-web-based email clients. I don't like nor use TB, but maintaining a decent email client cant be that hard for Mozilla, and it is important for the web. * Putting a ton of money into Firefox OS, an atrociously bad and slow OS that had the worst mobile UX I've ever experienced. Then putting even more money into the Flame so that they can have a bad OS on dedicatedly-bad hardware. * Constantly messing up feature development on Firefox with Hello, Pocket and more, all pointing to Mozilla clearly not understanding the Firefox userbase. * In the mean time, Firefox is still far slower than chrome. Scrolling especially. Gmail and irccloud are unusable for me on Firefox. My own project hits Firefox's performance issues (compare seeking on this player in Chrome/Firefox: https://hsreplay.net/replay/vZEz7JoNnfgVo34HJUHhEF https://hsreplay.net/replay/vZEz7JoNnfgVo34HJUHhEF - Firefox is a solid 10x slower). So to recap: Axing critical projects in a market they understand, so that they can spend the money on futile projects in a market they don't understand. Introducing controversial new features in Firefox while the browser is still far slower than Chrome, losing what's left of their market share. And this is just the big stuff, I could go on for another 10 paragraphs. Mozilla is heading into a mountain. They need to seriously rethink their structure and priorities if they want to avoid a crash. Edit/PS: Most of these issues are structural. Pocket's functionality is useful in a web browser. A truly-free mobile OS/smartphone is also something we need. And foss communications are extremely important to the web, which is currently locked in to hangouts/messenger. But Mozilla is messing all these up at every corner; underestimating costs, underestimating effort, misunderstanding (being disconnected from) their userbase, not marketing anything properly and giving up too easily.
- anon1385 10y ago
  >* Axing Thunderbird, one of the last usable non-web-based email clients. I don't like nor use TB, but maintaining a decent email client cant be that hard for Mozilla, and it is important for the web. I don't want to be overly cynical, but how is supporting a native email client helping the web? Email isn't "web" unless you access it through a web browser. So it seems totally in keeping with Mozilla's current web-only strategy to ditch their native email client and encourage everybody to use webmail. After all they want people to ditch all native apps (except the web browser) and use the web as their operating system. Supporting a native email client don't fit in with that strategy.
  - falcolas 10y ago
    Email is an integral piece of the open internet, and also a critical bit of infrastructure for the web, providing crucial communication and authentication for millions of websites. Without free and open email, it makes every internet based company's job that much harder (potentially impossible).
- sp332 10y ago
  Mozilla said they were going to add a Pocket-like feature but realized that Pocket was better than anything they had the resources top do themselves. So I don't think that's messing up feature development our eating time on features people don't want.
  - scrollaway 10y ago
    Pocket isn't just about the development costs. Any long-time firefox user with a shred of sense could have predicted (and did predict) the massive fallout that came from Pocket. Yet, Mozilla didn't. Everybody assumed Mozilla took money from Pocket. Yet, Mozilla didn't. The Pocket situation is hilarious. People see a 3rd party service being shoved down the throats of the user, they immediately assume Firefox is "selling out". Mozilla got all the negatives of a bad deal, and none of the money. It takes a certain skill to mess up this bad.
hiou 10y ago
Mozilla's leadership has become a sad thing to watch. This whole wannabe product first lean startup nonsense just gets worse and worse. I was one of the few Firefox OS users but at this point, I'm using Chrome and Android. It's not the end of the world but it's just sad to see an organization that has historically done so many good things be torn down by awful executive leadership. Every member of the Steering Committee should issue a public apology and resign for gross incompetence. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/leadership/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/leadership/
- dkhenry 10y ago
  I guess that's what happens when technically competent leadership is forced out by the community due to their personal religious beliefs.
  - sidek 10y ago
    You mean, personal hatred of 10% of the population.
    - dkhenry 10y ago
      Ohh yeah thats what all that evidence after he stepped down pointed to. His long history of bigotry and many many examples of his specific intolerance towards any specific persons. Instead of judging people on their technical merits I propose we totally start to judge them on how well their ideology lines up with ours. That's the best way to promote diversity and ensure technical capability. Clearly it has worked well for Mozilla
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
nullcipher 10y ago
They also make it very hard to run the sync server on your own :(

binaryanomaly 10y ago

Agree, imho it's a bad strategy to add such things to your core product and risk loosing loyal users. Looks like they have somehow realized that though as the approach with "experiments" is a different one.

scrollaway 10y ago

Not just that. Mozilla is completely losing focus. They used to stand for "keeping the web open" and they've been doing a shit job of it lately. * Messing up the marketing behind critical projects (Persona) and then shutting them down when their usage is too low for their taste. * Axing Thunderbird, one of the last usable non-web-based email clients. I don't like nor use TB, but maintaining a decent email client cant be that hard for Mozilla, and it is important for the web. * Putting a ton of money into Firefox OS, an atrociously bad and slow OS that had the worst mobile UX I've ever experienced. Then putting even more money into the Flame so that they can have a bad OS on dedicatedly-bad hardware. * Constantly messing up feature development on Firefox with Hello, Pocket and more, all pointing to Mozilla clearly not understanding the Firefox userbase. * In the mean time, Firefox is still far slower than chrome. Scrolling especially. Gmail and irccloud are unusable for me on Firefox. My own project hits Firefox's performance issues (compare seeking on this player in Chrome/Firefox: https://hsreplay.net/replay/vZEz7JoNnfgVo34HJUHhEF https://hsreplay.net/replay/vZEz7JoNnfgVo34HJUHhEF - Firefox is a solid 10x slower). So to recap: Axing critical projects in a market they understand, so that they can spend the money on futile projects in a market they don't understand. Introducing controversial new features in Firefox while the browser is still far slower than Chrome, losing what's left of their market share. And this is just the big stuff, I could go on for another 10 paragraphs. Mozilla is heading into a mountain. They need to seriously rethink their structure and priorities if they want to avoid a crash. Edit/PS: Most of these issues are structural. Pocket's functionality is useful in a web browser. A truly-free mobile OS/smartphone is also something we need. And foss communications are extremely important to the web, which is currently locked in to hangouts/messenger. But Mozilla is messing all these up at every corner; underestimating costs, underestimating effort, misunderstanding (being disconnected from) their userbase, not marketing anything properly and giving up too easily.

anon1385 10y ago
>* Axing Thunderbird, one of the last usable non-web-based email clients. I don't like nor use TB, but maintaining a decent email client cant be that hard for Mozilla, and it is important for the web. I don't want to be overly cynical, but how is supporting a native email client helping the web? Email isn't "web" unless you access it through a web browser. So it seems totally in keeping with Mozilla's current web-only strategy to ditch their native email client and encourage everybody to use webmail. After all they want people to ditch all native apps (except the web browser) and use the web as their operating system. Supporting a native email client don't fit in with that strategy.
- falcolas 10y ago
  Email is an integral piece of the open internet, and also a critical bit of infrastructure for the web, providing crucial communication and authentication for millions of websites. Without free and open email, it makes every internet based company's job that much harder (potentially impossible).
sp332 10y ago
Mozilla said they were going to add a Pocket-like feature but realized that Pocket was better than anything they had the resources top do themselves. So I don't think that's messing up feature development our eating time on features people don't want.
- scrollaway 10y ago
  Pocket isn't just about the development costs. Any long-time firefox user with a shred of sense could have predicted (and did predict) the massive fallout that came from Pocket. Yet, Mozilla didn't. Everybody assumed Mozilla took money from Pocket. Yet, Mozilla didn't. The Pocket situation is hilarious. People see a 3rd party service being shoved down the throats of the user, they immediately assume Firefox is "selling out". Mozilla got all the negatives of a bad deal, and none of the money. It takes a certain skill to mess up this bad.

hiou 10y ago

Mozilla's leadership has become a sad thing to watch. This whole wannabe product first lean startup nonsense just gets worse and worse. I was one of the few Firefox OS users but at this point, I'm using Chrome and Android. It's not the end of the world but it's just sad to see an organization that has historically done so many good things be torn down by awful executive leadership. Every member of the Steering Committee should issue a public apology and resign for gross incompetence. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/leadership/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/leadership/

dkhenry 10y ago
I guess that's what happens when technically competent leadership is forced out by the community due to their personal religious beliefs.
- sidek 10y ago
  You mean, personal hatred of 10% of the population.
  - dkhenry 10y ago
    Ohh yeah thats what all that evidence after he stepped down pointed to. His long history of bigotry and many many examples of his specific intolerance towards any specific persons. Instead of judging people on their technical merits I propose we totally start to judge them on how well their ideology lines up with ours. That's the best way to promote diversity and ensure technical capability. Clearly it has worked well for Mozilla
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]

nullcipher 10y ago

They also make it very hard to run the sync server on your own :(