9 ms·

I'm a bit disappointed. Mozilla makes a couple of great things (Firefox, Rust, MDN, ...). But in contrast to their products, I have a quite bad impression of th

I'm a bit disappointed. Mozilla makes a couple of great things (Firefox, Rust, MDN, ...). But in contrast to their products, I have a quite bad impression of their Foundation and/or Corporation. I don't know if it is warranted or not, but I have the impression that they mostly exist to burn through the millions they get from Google for setting them as default search engine. Most of the time I hear about them, it is self-referential. Either some dispute at the management level, or they are doing some outreach / marketing / branding stuff. Now this might just be my prejudice (and please don't downvote me for admitting it :-) !) but when it comes to a "brand identity", prejudices and impressions are important. This new branding doesn't help at all with my perception of Mozilla. If anything, it emphasizes the perception that Mozilla is a bloated entity disconnected from the products I care about. That they put a nerdy "://" in there to appeal technical means to me that they are even aware of this. What I would have done is to go back to the early 2000s unapologetically retro dinosaur. This was from a time when Mozilla was the underdog, when it was the Free alternative, when it was getting better and better, and when Firefox was invented. Alternatively, ditch "Mozilla" and "Foundation", and rebrand as just "Firefox". Everybody loves Firefox.

niftich 10y ago
I think that a fair amount of people share your views. Some time ago I articulated [1] that I find that Mozilla has to appeal to three very different groups of people, and its efforts to appeal to one are met with disdain from the others. To quote a portion of my post, these audiences are, in increasing order of vocalness: [a] the impressionable; the next-wave of web user who has recently gotten online [b] the alternative-seeker; the average web user who is uneasy with Google [c] the idealist; the open web, open-source advocate [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12192509#12194161 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12192509#12194161
- dao- 10y ago
  It's interesting that you mention this here, as it seems to me that the Firefox and Mozilla brands do in fact try to appeal to different groups of people. I believe the Firefox brand caters for [a] while the Mozilla brand seems like a better fit for [c]. [b] seems to be somewhere in the middle...?
- MichaelGG 10y ago
  >the average web user who is uneasy with Google Is this even a demographic? I really dislike Google. But I still use search (DDG just doesn't quite cut it for me). And Chrome for a few sites. And YouTube. And Android and Play Music, which gets my kids ad-free YouTube. FF needs to be appealing by itself, not in contrast to Google, to succeed. Features like adblock on Android - that's powerful stuff. >web user that just got online Is this much of a demographic in developed countries?
  - gcp 10y ago
    This is definitely a demographic. The browsers are both good enough products for many common user cases that something like this can dominate the consideration.
  - bad_user 10y ago
    I like Google's products, the problem with Google is that keeping all of your eggs in a single basket is very unwise, especially given their potential for evil. They can now control and mine your searches, the videos you view, the email you send and receive, your contacts list, your location, literally keeping track of where you've been, the mobile apps you use, your purchased eBooks, your music subscription, your browsing history, your chats, your cloud data, etc. The only thing they failed at is social networking. I see many people placing so much trust in Google, but that's very foolish. Even if they behaved well until now, power inevitably corrupts and even if they kept your data safe, let's say for the sake of this argument, you don't know where that data will be tomorrow. Plus there are people that lost access to everything due to one of their automated processes that bans accounts based on weird heuristics, e.g. people getting banned from their email account because they've bought and sold a Pixel. How fucked up is that? I must also say that even though I can forgive Mozilla for every one of their failures because they were in good faith, I cannot forgive Google for killing Google Reader in order to promote Google+. So I would say that non-Google is definitely a feature. I use Firefox because I trust Mozilla more than Google, Apple or Microsoft, with the browser being the window to all my communications and secret desires. Of course, I still use other Google products, including Chrome and Android, though not full time, my work email is GSuite (personal is FastMail), etc.
- schoen 10y ago
  Mozilla also has its own internal list of target user demographics https://blog.mozilla.org/ux/2013/08/firefox-user-types-in-north-america/ https://blog.mozilla.org/ux/2013/08/firefox-user-types-in-no... It might be interesting to compare that to your list.
bad_user 10y ago
The millions they are getting from Google are probably spent mostly on salaries, since developers are expensive and it takes big teams to build products like Firefox and do marketing for it. Saying that they "burn through millions" is mean spirited, since that's the cost of doing business in this industry. Plus they've earned those millions, so it's theirs to burn. They also can't stand still, so they invest in experiments and R&D, much like how companies are doing. Most of those experiments are failures naturally, so they tried Firefox OS and failed, they tried Persona and failed, but that's what experimenting is, HN readers should understand that and without burning some money on that, you'll never build those projects that make a difference. Reading your message again, I don't understand what's your problem with Mozilla. And why is Mozilla under so much pressure on HN, whereas companies such as Apple and Google are getting a free pass on how they spend their money and on moral issues? Is it because they are a non-profit? That's the only explanation that's reasonable for what is in my eyes a huge double standard. > Alternatively, ditch "Mozilla" and "Foundation", and rebrand as just "Firefox". Everybody loves Firefox. Except that Firefox per se isn't why I love supporting them. I'm supporting Mozilla because of their values and I use Firefox as my main browser because I trust Mozilla to protect my interests more than I trust others, not because Firefox is technically the best, because saying that at this point wouldn't be true.
- aaron-lebo 10y ago
  They also can't stand still, so they invest in experiments and R&D, much like how companies are doing. Most of those experiments are failures naturally, so they tried Firefox OS and failed, they tried Persona and failed, but that's what experimenting is and without burning some money on that, you'll never build those projects that make a difference. There is a reason those failed (lack of focus or any long-term plans are one). Reading your message again, I don't understand what's your problem with Mozilla. And why is Mozilla under so much pressure on HN, whereas companies such as Apple and Google are getting a free pass? Is it because they are a non-profit Have we been reading the same HN? I think people are critical of Mozilla because they are one of the few groups trying to build an open web and their constant back and forth and closing down projects has had some real effects on progress. Also, the firing of Eich for political views will always be controversial.
MichaelGG 10y ago
Well what kind of things do you expect to hear about the corp/foundation itself? If you exclude info about their projects, then it seems almost tautological you're going to hear self referential stuff! I've heard Mozilla's "politics" are very much different to what I prefer, but whatever. It doesn't leak into the end products. As long as they keep producing a browser that prevents Google Browser from taking over, they're a force of good. And Rust is amazing and probably life-changing for me, so that's two massive positive things they do. As far as the logo, that "retro" dinosaur looked a bit outdated. I fully support them "burning" millions on branding if it means more people use Firefox. I use FF for "freedom" but that's a tough sell. Even technically inclined people I know use Chrome and don't wanna change because of freedom. My only request would be for them to throw more weight behind Rust. The community and tech is amazing. But getting buy-in from clients to use Rust might benefit from knowing there's a "company" behind it. Maybe.
- tedmielczarek 10y ago
  > My only request would be for them to throw more weight behind Rust. The community and tech is amazing. But getting buy-in from clients to use Rust might benefit from knowing there's a "company" behind it. Maybe. I'd have to check, but I'm pretty sure we employ most of the core Rust and Servo teams. We also pay for all the infrastructure costs for both projects (web hosting, crates.io, CI). Additionally we've also spent a lot of time engineering the Rust ecosystem to meet the needs of large projects like Firefox and Servo to ensure that it meets real-world needs. One thing people need to keep in mind when saying "Mozilla should put more resources into X" is that we're not a very large company in the space we work in. We have something like 1,200 full-time equivalent employees and we ship software that competes with products from companies like Apple, Google and Microsoft. We constantly have an outflow of employees who get offers for more money from larger companies, or who leave to join startups. We're well-funded, but we're not a public company not will we have an IPO, so it's hard to compete with stock options for the promise of big money. That doesn't matter to everyone, but it's hard to fault people for wanting it. We don't always get everything right, but I think right now we're doing about the best we possibly can to fulfill our mission with the resources available.
andy_ppp 10y ago
I really like this redesign it's clever and interesting; it looks more modern to my eye and makes me realise that Moz://a are all about the web. It presents several ways in which the logo can be shortened and I had to go to the Mozilla site to look up what the old logo was. I'll remember this new one instantly. The way of thinking in your comment is really common... let's look backwards, never modernise or improve things. Never make a considerably better Macbook Pro (in terms of design anyway), BBC website (thousands of users says every redesign is terrible and they want this back: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4832892.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4832892.stm) or logo identity (I still rate the 2012 olympics logo - https://www.fastcodesign.com/1670429/the-surprisingly-smart-strategy-behind-london-s-infamous-olympic-branding https://www.fastcodesign.com/1670429/the-surprisingly-smart-...). Let's keep everything the same or look backwards to see how we should move forward. I know lots of people doing interesting things at Mozilla and I have no idea why they get such a bad rap; the worst thing they have done is shutting down Persona IMO.
- gcp 10y ago
  I know lots of people doing interesting things at Mozilla and I have no idea why they get such a bad rap The other movers in this space are for-profit corporations. Nobody's expecting anything of them. The resulting dread leads to unrealistic and even conflicting expectations for Mozilla.
  - Sylos 10y ago
    Yeah, that's something that I absolutely hate about journalism, or well, rather our culture in general. If for example Google does something bad, then that's no news worth reporting about. It's just business as usual. And people will even defend Google, saying that they are a company, they are supposed to do everything to maximize profits, even if what they do is just barely scraping along the borders of legality. If instead Mozilla does something vaguely questionable, then most journalists will just leap at the opportunity to report about the innocent-thought Mozilla turning evil.
- josteink 10y ago
  Looking at the video I must admit I was pretty meh'ed, but looking at it in use at http://www.mozilla.org http://www.mozilla.org (especially on mobile) I have to admit it works well.
fnord123 10y ago
>but I have the impression that they mostly exist to burn through the millions they get from Google Isn't the money from Yahoo now?
- RileyKyeden 10y ago
  Yahoo was default when I installed Firefox on my phone, so it seems likely.
- callahad 10y ago
  Predominantly, though it is based on your locale. Some folks (including en-US) get Yahoo, others Baidu, Yandex, or Google.
jldugger 10y ago
> Most of the time I hear about them, it is self-referential. Either some dispute at the management level, or they are doing some outreach / marketing / branding stuff. Note that marketing is how they get the install base that Google pays for default searches for.
- revelation 10y ago
  Not through marketing of mozilla, nobody cares about mozilla.
  - icc97 10y ago
    I care about Mozilla.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - callahad 10y ago
    That sounds like a bug worth addressing.
- wott 10y ago
  > Note that marketing is how they get the install base In which spatio-temporal continuum did it happen this way?
  - jldugger 10y ago
    In the timeline where they fund a dozen 'protect the internet' campaigns, where they issue grants to a dozen open source projects, where they print up banners, stickers, websites, etc. If you like, marketing is how they _keep_ their install base.
m0llusk 10y ago
Shallow criticism like this is terribly irresponsible. Not only does the Mozilla Foundation function as a kind of foundation for the Internet in critical ways including their documentation being even more popular than W3C materials, but they have plenty of great offerings including L20n which may be one of the most powerful and usable localization frameworks available. Your comment might make sense as long as you never need to look up any documentation of Internet standards or translate content into other languages.
type0 10y ago
They could just as well had rebranded to ^^0>>://a ;-)
- em3rgent0rdr 10y ago
  You forgot to change the "a" into "@".

niftich 10y ago

I think that a fair amount of people share your views. Some time ago I articulated [1] that I find that Mozilla has to appeal to three very different groups of people, and its efforts to appeal to one are met with disdain from the others. To quote a portion of my post, these audiences are, in increasing order of vocalness: [a] the impressionable; the next-wave of web user who has recently gotten online [b] the alternative-seeker; the average web user who is uneasy with Google [c] the idealist; the open web, open-source advocate [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12192509#12194161 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12192509#12194161

dao- 10y ago
It's interesting that you mention this here, as it seems to me that the Firefox and Mozilla brands do in fact try to appeal to different groups of people. I believe the Firefox brand caters for [a] while the Mozilla brand seems like a better fit for [c]. [b] seems to be somewhere in the middle...?
MichaelGG 10y ago
>the average web user who is uneasy with Google Is this even a demographic? I really dislike Google. But I still use search (DDG just doesn't quite cut it for me). And Chrome for a few sites. And YouTube. And Android and Play Music, which gets my kids ad-free YouTube. FF needs to be appealing by itself, not in contrast to Google, to succeed. Features like adblock on Android - that's powerful stuff. >web user that just got online Is this much of a demographic in developed countries?
- gcp 10y ago
  This is definitely a demographic. The browsers are both good enough products for many common user cases that something like this can dominate the consideration.
- bad_user 10y ago
  I like Google's products, the problem with Google is that keeping all of your eggs in a single basket is very unwise, especially given their potential for evil. They can now control and mine your searches, the videos you view, the email you send and receive, your contacts list, your location, literally keeping track of where you've been, the mobile apps you use, your purchased eBooks, your music subscription, your browsing history, your chats, your cloud data, etc. The only thing they failed at is social networking. I see many people placing so much trust in Google, but that's very foolish. Even if they behaved well until now, power inevitably corrupts and even if they kept your data safe, let's say for the sake of this argument, you don't know where that data will be tomorrow. Plus there are people that lost access to everything due to one of their automated processes that bans accounts based on weird heuristics, e.g. people getting banned from their email account because they've bought and sold a Pixel. How fucked up is that? I must also say that even though I can forgive Mozilla for every one of their failures because they were in good faith, I cannot forgive Google for killing Google Reader in order to promote Google+. So I would say that non-Google is definitely a feature. I use Firefox because I trust Mozilla more than Google, Apple or Microsoft, with the browser being the window to all my communications and secret desires. Of course, I still use other Google products, including Chrome and Android, though not full time, my work email is GSuite (personal is FastMail), etc.
schoen 10y ago
Mozilla also has its own internal list of target user demographics https://blog.mozilla.org/ux/2013/08/firefox-user-types-in-north-america/ https://blog.mozilla.org/ux/2013/08/firefox-user-types-in-no... It might be interesting to compare that to your list.

bad_user 10y ago

The millions they are getting from Google are probably spent mostly on salaries, since developers are expensive and it takes big teams to build products like Firefox and do marketing for it. Saying that they "burn through millions" is mean spirited, since that's the cost of doing business in this industry. Plus they've earned those millions, so it's theirs to burn. They also can't stand still, so they invest in experiments and R&D, much like how companies are doing. Most of those experiments are failures naturally, so they tried Firefox OS and failed, they tried Persona and failed, but that's what experimenting is, HN readers should understand that and without burning some money on that, you'll never build those projects that make a difference. Reading your message again, I don't understand what's your problem with Mozilla. And why is Mozilla under so much pressure on HN, whereas companies such as Apple and Google are getting a free pass on how they spend their money and on moral issues? Is it because they are a non-profit? That's the only explanation that's reasonable for what is in my eyes a huge double standard. > Alternatively, ditch "Mozilla" and "Foundation", and rebrand as just "Firefox". Everybody loves Firefox. Except that Firefox per se isn't why I love supporting them. I'm supporting Mozilla because of their values and I use Firefox as my main browser because I trust Mozilla to protect my interests more than I trust others, not because Firefox is technically the best, because saying that at this point wouldn't be true.

aaron-lebo 10y ago
They also can't stand still, so they invest in experiments and R&D, much like how companies are doing. Most of those experiments are failures naturally, so they tried Firefox OS and failed, they tried Persona and failed, but that's what experimenting is and without burning some money on that, you'll never build those projects that make a difference. There is a reason those failed (lack of focus or any long-term plans are one). Reading your message again, I don't understand what's your problem with Mozilla. And why is Mozilla under so much pressure on HN, whereas companies such as Apple and Google are getting a free pass? Is it because they are a non-profit Have we been reading the same HN? I think people are critical of Mozilla because they are one of the few groups trying to build an open web and their constant back and forth and closing down projects has had some real effects on progress. Also, the firing of Eich for political views will always be controversial.

MichaelGG 10y ago

Well what kind of things do you expect to hear about the corp/foundation itself? If you exclude info about their projects, then it seems almost tautological you're going to hear self referential stuff! I've heard Mozilla's "politics" are very much different to what I prefer, but whatever. It doesn't leak into the end products. As long as they keep producing a browser that prevents Google Browser from taking over, they're a force of good. And Rust is amazing and probably life-changing for me, so that's two massive positive things they do. As far as the logo, that "retro" dinosaur looked a bit outdated. I fully support them "burning" millions on branding if it means more people use Firefox. I use FF for "freedom" but that's a tough sell. Even technically inclined people I know use Chrome and don't wanna change because of freedom. My only request would be for them to throw more weight behind Rust. The community and tech is amazing. But getting buy-in from clients to use Rust might benefit from knowing there's a "company" behind it. Maybe.

tedmielczarek 10y ago
> My only request would be for them to throw more weight behind Rust. The community and tech is amazing. But getting buy-in from clients to use Rust might benefit from knowing there's a "company" behind it. Maybe. I'd have to check, but I'm pretty sure we employ most of the core Rust and Servo teams. We also pay for all the infrastructure costs for both projects (web hosting, crates.io, CI). Additionally we've also spent a lot of time engineering the Rust ecosystem to meet the needs of large projects like Firefox and Servo to ensure that it meets real-world needs. One thing people need to keep in mind when saying "Mozilla should put more resources into X" is that we're not a very large company in the space we work in. We have something like 1,200 full-time equivalent employees and we ship software that competes with products from companies like Apple, Google and Microsoft. We constantly have an outflow of employees who get offers for more money from larger companies, or who leave to join startups. We're well-funded, but we're not a public company not will we have an IPO, so it's hard to compete with stock options for the promise of big money. That doesn't matter to everyone, but it's hard to fault people for wanting it. We don't always get everything right, but I think right now we're doing about the best we possibly can to fulfill our mission with the resources available.

andy_ppp 10y ago

I really like this redesign it's clever and interesting; it looks more modern to my eye and makes me realise that Moz://a are all about the web. It presents several ways in which the logo can be shortened and I had to go to the Mozilla site to look up what the old logo was. I'll remember this new one instantly. The way of thinking in your comment is really common... let's look backwards, never modernise or improve things. Never make a considerably better Macbook Pro (in terms of design anyway), BBC website (thousands of users says every redesign is terrible and they want this back: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4832892.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4832892.stm) or logo identity (I still rate the 2012 olympics logo - https://www.fastcodesign.com/1670429/the-surprisingly-smart-strategy-behind-london-s-infamous-olympic-branding https://www.fastcodesign.com/1670429/the-surprisingly-smart-...). Let's keep everything the same or look backwards to see how we should move forward. I know lots of people doing interesting things at Mozilla and I have no idea why they get such a bad rap; the worst thing they have done is shutting down Persona IMO.

gcp 10y ago
I know lots of people doing interesting things at Mozilla and I have no idea why they get such a bad rap The other movers in this space are for-profit corporations. Nobody's expecting anything of them. The resulting dread leads to unrealistic and even conflicting expectations for Mozilla.
- Sylos 10y ago
  Yeah, that's something that I absolutely hate about journalism, or well, rather our culture in general. If for example Google does something bad, then that's no news worth reporting about. It's just business as usual. And people will even defend Google, saying that they are a company, they are supposed to do everything to maximize profits, even if what they do is just barely scraping along the borders of legality. If instead Mozilla does something vaguely questionable, then most journalists will just leap at the opportunity to report about the innocent-thought Mozilla turning evil.
josteink 10y ago
Looking at the video I must admit I was pretty meh'ed, but looking at it in use at http://www.mozilla.org http://www.mozilla.org (especially on mobile) I have to admit it works well.

fnord123 10y ago

>but I have the impression that they mostly exist to burn through the millions they get from Google Isn't the money from Yahoo now?

RileyKyeden 10y ago
Yahoo was default when I installed Firefox on my phone, so it seems likely.
callahad 10y ago
Predominantly, though it is based on your locale. Some folks (including en-US) get Yahoo, others Baidu, Yandex, or Google.

jldugger 10y ago

> Most of the time I hear about them, it is self-referential. Either some dispute at the management level, or they are doing some outreach / marketing / branding stuff. Note that marketing is how they get the install base that Google pays for default searches for.

revelation 10y ago
Not through marketing of mozilla, nobody cares about mozilla.
- icc97 10y ago
  I care about Mozilla.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- callahad 10y ago
  That sounds like a bug worth addressing.
wott 10y ago
> Note that marketing is how they get the install base In which spatio-temporal continuum did it happen this way?
- jldugger 10y ago
  In the timeline where they fund a dozen 'protect the internet' campaigns, where they issue grants to a dozen open source projects, where they print up banners, stickers, websites, etc. If you like, marketing is how they _keep_ their install base.

m0llusk 10y ago

Shallow criticism like this is terribly irresponsible. Not only does the Mozilla Foundation function as a kind of foundation for the Internet in critical ways including their documentation being even more popular than W3C materials, but they have plenty of great offerings including L20n which may be one of the most powerful and usable localization frameworks available. Your comment might make sense as long as you never need to look up any documentation of Internet standards or translate content into other languages.

type0 10y ago

They could just as well had rebranded to ^^0>>://a ;-)

em3rgent0rdr 10y ago
You forgot to change the "a" into "@".