7 ms·

While I also appreciate Mozilla's browser renderer, PDFs really aren't web technology. If it's a question of constrained resources, I'd prefer Mozilla focus the

While I also appreciate Mozilla's browser renderer, PDFs really aren't web technology. If it's a question of constrained resources, I'd prefer Mozilla focus their energy on improving HTML-shenanigans overall, not maintaining a PDF rendering application.

wodenokoto 10y ago
I fail to see how they are so constrained. They have more money than ever, and have just dropped Firefox OS, which - all things equal - should free up a lot of developers.
- bobajeff 10y ago
  For how long? Sure they have a deal with Yahoo (Verizon?) that could fund them for some time. When that deal runs its course what do they have to bargain with? Their market share is currently in the single digits on the desktop and they have virtually no market share on mobile which increasingly is more relevant than the desktop in terms of usage. It's smart for them to decrease costs and maintenance burden right now while they still have the resources.
  - makomk 10y ago
    I'd like to use them on mobile, mainly because ads are so absolutely obnoxious on there, but their user interface isn't that great and seems to be the one place they haven't copied Chrome.
  - wodenokoto 10y ago
    Desktop usage is still around 15% according to statcounter. They are ~7% across devices. Firefox for Android has become really good, and I prefer it to Chrome, but my impression is that mobile users are very unlikely to stray from their default browser, even if it is just the blue globe "internet"
    - floatboth 10y ago
      well, until those users want to block ads...
- the8472 10y ago
  other things they have put thunderbird and parts of the addon system in maintenance mode. Various other less frequently used browser features have been discontinued too. So there has been some fat-cutting going on for a while now.
- bzbarsky 10y ago
  Care to hazard a guess at the number of people at Google working on Chrome or at Microsoft working on Edge? Last I checked both were bigger than the number Mozilla has working on Firefox. And yes, the people who were working on Firefox OS are now working on other things, and we _still_ don't have enough people to cover all the things that need doing...
- petecox 10y ago
  pdf.js and B2G cancellation were probably linked in that one justification for a pure JS renderer was to display PDFs on Firefox OS.
syshum 10y ago
They might as well adopt blink. Make Firefox a Chromium Clone/Fork and call it a day, that seems to be what they want.
- chriswarbo 10y ago
  > that seems to be what they want It doesn't seem that way, considering all of the effort they've put into Servo.
  - Amezarak 10y ago
    They've also put a lot of effort into looking and acting more like Chrome. I killed auto update on Firefox when they added search suggestions more like chrome because it broke my workflow. People had complained about the ui being made more like chrome, features being dropped to be more like chrome, etc., for a while. Then you have the deprecation of the Firefox extension model in favor of, essentially, chrome's. It is harder and harder to see how Firefox stands out on its own as opposed to being a chrome imitator. This is just the latest example. If they think they can sell Firefox based on a free and open web instead of based on power user features, a great extension ecosystem, or whatever, I can only say...good luck. I don't know many projects that have succeeded outside a small core of users based on ideology. Servo may be the distant future of Firefox. But I am becoming increasingly pessimistic that Firefox will even make it to that future, which I feel awful about. I don't understand what mozillas leadership is doing.
    - kuschku 10y ago
      > I don't understand what mozillas leadership is doing. Desperately trying to get back to two-digit marketshare? Trying to compete, as the last major open browser, against all the corporate browsers?
      - alphapapa 10y ago
        Trying, yes. But the method they have chosen is to abandon what made Firefox popular in the first place and imitate Chrome. So why not just use Chrome? IOW, they're killing the goose that laid the golden egg by trying to transform it into a duck. But if I wanted a duck, I'd already have a duck. I guess they're blaming Chrome for their lost market share rather than blaming themselves for mismanaging their product. So instead of fixing their mismanagement, they're just trying to copy Chrome. They used to be leaders (without Mozilla, Chrome probably wouldn't exist as it does today), but now the leader has become the follower. And who needs another follower? Another perspective is that the Web has "grown up" since 1998. Back then the percentage of Web users who were "power users" (remember, empowering users was the mission back then; "Take back the web!") was much higher--but the raw number was still enough to be fruitful. Since then, half the planet is on the Internet, and the percentage of them that are power users is much lower. The raw number is surely much higher still, but that's not enough for Mozilla--they've got to appeal to the masses to get the percentages. All the loyal users who've been with Mozilla for nearly two decades? They can switch to...uh...Pale Moon, I guess. Mozilla just wants the noobs, because that supposedly brings in the most money. I hate to say it, but Mozilla needs to die so it can be reborn--again. Every so often, the tree of browser needs to be cleansed with the blood of layoffs--something like that. Then their successors can focus on making a good browser instead of chasing more millions.

wodenokoto 10y ago

I fail to see how they are so constrained. They have more money than ever, and have just dropped Firefox OS, which - all things equal - should free up a lot of developers.

bobajeff 10y ago
For how long? Sure they have a deal with Yahoo (Verizon?) that could fund them for some time. When that deal runs its course what do they have to bargain with? Their market share is currently in the single digits on the desktop and they have virtually no market share on mobile which increasingly is more relevant than the desktop in terms of usage. It's smart for them to decrease costs and maintenance burden right now while they still have the resources.
- makomk 10y ago
  I'd like to use them on mobile, mainly because ads are so absolutely obnoxious on there, but their user interface isn't that great and seems to be the one place they haven't copied Chrome.
- wodenokoto 10y ago
  Desktop usage is still around 15% according to statcounter. They are ~7% across devices. Firefox for Android has become really good, and I prefer it to Chrome, but my impression is that mobile users are very unlikely to stray from their default browser, even if it is just the blue globe "internet"
  - floatboth 10y ago
    well, until those users want to block ads...
the8472 10y ago
other things they have put thunderbird and parts of the addon system in maintenance mode. Various other less frequently used browser features have been discontinued too. So there has been some fat-cutting going on for a while now.
bzbarsky 10y ago
Care to hazard a guess at the number of people at Google working on Chrome or at Microsoft working on Edge? Last I checked both were bigger than the number Mozilla has working on Firefox. And yes, the people who were working on Firefox OS are now working on other things, and we _still_ don't have enough people to cover all the things that need doing...
petecox 10y ago
pdf.js and B2G cancellation were probably linked in that one justification for a pure JS renderer was to display PDFs on Firefox OS.

syshum 10y ago

They might as well adopt blink. Make Firefox a Chromium Clone/Fork and call it a day, that seems to be what they want.

chriswarbo 10y ago
> that seems to be what they want It doesn't seem that way, considering all of the effort they've put into Servo.
- Amezarak 10y ago
  They've also put a lot of effort into looking and acting more like Chrome. I killed auto update on Firefox when they added search suggestions more like chrome because it broke my workflow. People had complained about the ui being made more like chrome, features being dropped to be more like chrome, etc., for a while. Then you have the deprecation of the Firefox extension model in favor of, essentially, chrome's. It is harder and harder to see how Firefox stands out on its own as opposed to being a chrome imitator. This is just the latest example. If they think they can sell Firefox based on a free and open web instead of based on power user features, a great extension ecosystem, or whatever, I can only say...good luck. I don't know many projects that have succeeded outside a small core of users based on ideology. Servo may be the distant future of Firefox. But I am becoming increasingly pessimistic that Firefox will even make it to that future, which I feel awful about. I don't understand what mozillas leadership is doing.
  - kuschku 10y ago
    > I don't understand what mozillas leadership is doing. Desperately trying to get back to two-digit marketshare? Trying to compete, as the last major open browser, against all the corporate browsers?
    - alphapapa 10y ago
      Trying, yes. But the method they have chosen is to abandon what made Firefox popular in the first place and imitate Chrome. So why not just use Chrome? IOW, they're killing the goose that laid the golden egg by trying to transform it into a duck. But if I wanted a duck, I'd already have a duck. I guess they're blaming Chrome for their lost market share rather than blaming themselves for mismanaging their product. So instead of fixing their mismanagement, they're just trying to copy Chrome. They used to be leaders (without Mozilla, Chrome probably wouldn't exist as it does today), but now the leader has become the follower. And who needs another follower? Another perspective is that the Web has "grown up" since 1998. Back then the percentage of Web users who were "power users" (remember, empowering users was the mission back then; "Take back the web!") was much higher--but the raw number was still enough to be fruitful. Since then, half the planet is on the Internet, and the percentage of them that are power users is much lower. The raw number is surely much higher still, but that's not enough for Mozilla--they've got to appeal to the masses to get the percentages. All the loyal users who've been with Mozilla for nearly two decades? They can switch to...uh...Pale Moon, I guess. Mozilla just wants the noobs, because that supposedly brings in the most money. I hate to say it, but Mozilla needs to die so it can be reborn--again. Every so often, the tree of browser needs to be cleansed with the blood of layoffs--something like that. Then their successors can focus on making a good browser instead of chasing more millions.