7 ms·

Taking It Back: Why This Xoogler Is Joining Mozilla

66 points by anaxag0ras 10y ago

nsxwolf 10y ago
"Xoogler" is a new one for me. I went looking for a company called "Xoogle.com" and wondering why anyone would pick a name so close to Google. "Ex-Googler" seems to have been serving its purpose well.
- dpark 10y ago
  It's a long-existing term. You can find Xoogler groups on places like Facebook. Google also use the term noogler for new employees.
- t3nary 10y ago
  Yeah, it's pretty confusing, I thought Xoogler meant someone working at Google X.
Tloewald 10y ago
The problem isn't being for profit. The problem is deriving your income from advertising. Selling the customer.
- nickpsecurity 10y ago
  It's both. Mozilla's advertising model isn't such a big deal. It's even easy to counter in their own product. Being for profit means Google must keep trying to drive its numbers up. A likely side effect is spying on its users in new ways whose results will be sold in new ways. That prediction certainly came to pass several times over.
simplehuman 10y ago
So much fluff. Long gone are the days when Mozilla wanted to build the best browser. You simply have to use the browser everyday to know where they are putting in a their efforts.. it is certainly not in the browser. Rust and servo have noble visions but are irrelevant to the future of the web. UX is what drives browser market share and unless Mozilla refocuses on this, they will contjnue to lose maket share. TBH, it will take years if they start now to convince back all the people they lost.
- jvehent 10y ago
  > it will take years Yes. > if they start now We started last year with e10s, testpilot and dozens of other improvements.
  - FullyFunctional 10y ago
    What's "e10s"?
- sp332 10y ago
  https://testpilot.firefox.com/ https://testpilot.firefox.com/ Looks like they're focusing on UX to me.
  - nol13 10y ago
    Sweet, ty did not know about this. Will happily test pilot Containers and Tab Center! (and page shot prob useful too) Just enabled them instead of tab groups and tree style. So far fit my work flow very nicely, hope they make it into main. (unless you like tab nesting which i guess it cant do? personally just looking for the more readable left-side layout)
    - sp332 10y ago
      They'll eventually add Web Extension APIs that allow new-style addons to put tabs on the side. So even if they don't enable tab nesting in this first-party feature, it will be reasonably easy to add that in a future extension.
    - nol13 10y ago
      ((ok so containers isn't exactly a 1 to 1 comparison/replacement (yet( but i do like it))
  - snowcrshd 10y ago
    Very nice, I didn't know about this.
- 10y ago
spiderfarmer 10y ago
Just today I decided to ditch Firefox after using it daily since the first public release. On my 15 inch Macbook Pro with Retina screen (and a 4k monitor attached) CSS animations are cooking the CPU. I've waited 2 years for improvements but with each new version the issue persisted. It's clearly a Firefox issue, as Safari and Chrome don't have problems with it. But now almost every website uses CSS animations, the problems only have gotten worse. I was hoping the Servo project would somehow solve my problems, but I guess that will take a couple of years to fully develop. https://github.com/servo/servo/wiki/Roadmap https://github.com/servo/servo/wiki/Roadmap
- slededit 10y ago
  I was about to get a new machine as FF was getting unusable on my 2011 macbook pro. I installed Chrome and its like I have a new computer. Web browsers are hard but clearly FireFox is missing something chrome has.
simonpure 10y ago
Based on the comments, this was written in September 2016.
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  "Sep 8, 2016" is the post date
jstewartmobile 10y ago
When the "majority of revenue" comes from Google or Yahoo, what purpose does this serve? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation#Mozilla_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation#Mozilla_Cor... I don't see how going from Google to Google-by-proxy is going to "take back the web."
- Nomentatus 10y ago
  Worth pointing out; but since you can switch to another search engine it's not a deal-breaker, quite.
Nomentatus 10y ago
"Put simply, I believe that technology gives us all superpowers, and that every person should be empowered as much as possible. Developers should be able to build any application they can imagine, and we should all be able to use these applications, without restrictions." - Ryan Pollock I love this sentiment! Unfortunately, Mozilla absolutely disagrees this BSD/MIT license sentiment. Instead Mozilla's MPL 2.0 license makes a broad (hardware and software) patent-grab underlined with a "retaliation clause." So few companies will be "empowered" by this license, they'll have to avoid it like the plague. History shows they'll remake the software all over again, only under a truly permissive software license. An ungodly waste.
- steveklabnik 10y ago
  Not all of Mozilla uses the MPL; Rust uses MIT/Apache 2.0, for example.

66 points by anaxag0ras 10y ago

"Xoogler" is a new one for me. I went looking for a company called "Xoogle.com" and wondering why anyone would pick a name so close to Google. "Ex-Googler" seems to have been serving its purpose well.

dpark 10y ago
It's a long-existing term. You can find Xoogler groups on places like Facebook. Google also use the term noogler for new employees.
t3nary 10y ago
Yeah, it's pretty confusing, I thought Xoogler meant someone working at Google X.

Tloewald 10y ago

The problem isn't being for profit. The problem is deriving your income from advertising. Selling the customer.

nickpsecurity 10y ago
It's both. Mozilla's advertising model isn't such a big deal. It's even easy to counter in their own product. Being for profit means Google must keep trying to drive its numbers up. A likely side effect is spying on its users in new ways whose results will be sold in new ways. That prediction certainly came to pass several times over.

simplehuman 10y ago

So much fluff. Long gone are the days when Mozilla wanted to build the best browser. You simply have to use the browser everyday to know where they are putting in a their efforts.. it is certainly not in the browser. Rust and servo have noble visions but are irrelevant to the future of the web. UX is what drives browser market share and unless Mozilla refocuses on this, they will contjnue to lose maket share. TBH, it will take years if they start now to convince back all the people they lost.

jvehent 10y ago
> it will take years Yes. > if they start now We started last year with e10s, testpilot and dozens of other improvements.
- FullyFunctional 10y ago
  What's "e10s"?
sp332 10y ago
https://testpilot.firefox.com/ https://testpilot.firefox.com/ Looks like they're focusing on UX to me.
- nol13 10y ago
  Sweet, ty did not know about this. Will happily test pilot Containers and Tab Center! (and page shot prob useful too) Just enabled them instead of tab groups and tree style. So far fit my work flow very nicely, hope they make it into main. (unless you like tab nesting which i guess it cant do? personally just looking for the more readable left-side layout)
  - sp332 10y ago
    They'll eventually add Web Extension APIs that allow new-style addons to put tabs on the side. So even if they don't enable tab nesting in this first-party feature, it will be reasonably easy to add that in a future extension.
  - nol13 10y ago
    ((ok so containers isn't exactly a 1 to 1 comparison/replacement (yet( but i do like it))
- snowcrshd 10y ago
  Very nice, I didn't know about this.
10y ago

spiderfarmer 10y ago

Just today I decided to ditch Firefox after using it daily since the first public release. On my 15 inch Macbook Pro with Retina screen (and a 4k monitor attached) CSS animations are cooking the CPU. I've waited 2 years for improvements but with each new version the issue persisted. It's clearly a Firefox issue, as Safari and Chrome don't have problems with it. But now almost every website uses CSS animations, the problems only have gotten worse. I was hoping the Servo project would somehow solve my problems, but I guess that will take a couple of years to fully develop. https://github.com/servo/servo/wiki/Roadmap https://github.com/servo/servo/wiki/Roadmap

slededit 10y ago
I was about to get a new machine as FF was getting unusable on my 2011 macbook pro. I installed Chrome and its like I have a new computer. Web browsers are hard but clearly FireFox is missing something chrome has.

simonpure 10y ago

Based on the comments, this was written in September 2016.

CaptSpify 10y ago
"Sep 8, 2016" is the post date

jstewartmobile 10y ago

When the "majority of revenue" comes from Google or Yahoo, what purpose does this serve? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation#Mozilla_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation#Mozilla_Cor... I don't see how going from Google to Google-by-proxy is going to "take back the web."

Nomentatus 10y ago
Worth pointing out; but since you can switch to another search engine it's not a deal-breaker, quite.

Nomentatus 10y ago

"Put simply, I believe that technology gives us all superpowers, and that every person should be empowered as much as possible. Developers should be able to build any application they can imagine, and we should all be able to use these applications, without restrictions." - Ryan Pollock I love this sentiment! Unfortunately, Mozilla absolutely disagrees this BSD/MIT license sentiment. Instead Mozilla's MPL 2.0 license makes a broad (hardware and software) patent-grab underlined with a "retaliation clause." So few companies will be "empowered" by this license, they'll have to avoid it like the plague. History shows they'll remake the software all over again, only under a truly permissive software license. An ungodly waste.

steveklabnik 10y ago
Not all of Mozilla uses the MPL; Rust uses MIT/Apache 2.0, for example.