4 ms·

On one hand Mozilla doing something like that is anti privacy. On the other hand how is Mozilla supposed to impprove FF w/o detailed usage data. In theory can

by zaro 9y ago

On one hand Mozilla doing something like that is anti privacy. On the other hand how is Mozilla supposed to impprove FF w/o detailed usage data. In theory can be done, but in practice they are competing with Chrome and their team has waaay more data to use. And th is data gives them an edge at least on the decision which parts are worth improving. So they can either start collecting some data and really piss off their most vocal privacy minded users and try to use this data to improve FF and steer it away from the death spiral it's on. Or they can keep the vocal privacy minded people happy continue to work in the dark and pretty much ensure that FF will become one of the insignificant .3% market share browsers. Because somehow I kind of feel that multimilion fundraisers to make FF popular again aren't gonna happen second time.

madez 9y ago
Why would FireFox be on a dead spiral for not tracking it's users? If they want browsing data, then can use their own.
- zaro 9y ago
  English is not my native language so maybe I didn't express myself clearly. It is not on a death spiral bevause of the missing user tracking. It's on a death spiral because of Google and Chrome. And tracking is a way of catching up. It's much easier to improve when you know what your users do with your software.
- froydnj 9y ago
  (Disclaimer: I work for Mozilla) The problem with our own browsing data--by which I'm assuming you mean the browsing habits of our ~1000 employees--is that it's wildly non-representative of the broader population. For instance, people here routinely have browser sessions with 10, 100, or even 1000+ tabs. These numbers also indicate that the browser is an application you start, and then you just leave up for a while, perhaps until you restart your computer or you have to update for whatever reason. The latest statistics we collected on a broader sample of users indicates that the average number of tabs is...2. The average session length is on the order of minutes, not days. Such knowledge leads to very different choices when deciding what browser features to prioritize. And it's not just browsing usage, either: most employees probably have a top-of-the line (or close to it) Mac laptop, Windows desktop, or Linux desktop; developers have a machine with four, eight, or even more cores. These machines are hardly representative of the wider Firefox user base: a significant majority of our users (~70%) has a machine with two cores, and users with a single core in their machines outnumber users with 8+ cores. We'll not even cover graphics hardware or screen resolution here; see https://hardware.metrics.mozilla.com/ https://hardware.metrics.mozilla.com/ for more examples. Using our own browsing habits and our own machine specs for making decisions is not feasible.
  - zaro 9y ago
    Thnak you for the detailed explanation!
  - madez 9y ago
    Then I realize Firefox is not a browser made for me. I don't care about the marketshare of my browser. I want it to to make my browsing easier and faster, while never compromising on security and privacy. _Any_ outgoing connection without my action is not OK. Not even Googles Safe browsing. If have to decide between having both Javascript and Google Safe Browsing, or neither, I would take the latter. I value the expertise at Mozilla. Could you point to a browser that might fit me?

by zaro 9y ago

madez 9y ago

Why would FireFox be on a dead spiral for not tracking it's users? If they want browsing data, then can use their own.

zaro 9y ago
English is not my native language so maybe I didn't express myself clearly. It is not on a death spiral bevause of the missing user tracking. It's on a death spiral because of Google and Chrome. And tracking is a way of catching up. It's much easier to improve when you know what your users do with your software.
froydnj 9y ago
(Disclaimer: I work for Mozilla) The problem with our own browsing data--by which I'm assuming you mean the browsing habits of our ~1000 employees--is that it's wildly non-representative of the broader population. For instance, people here routinely have browser sessions with 10, 100, or even 1000+ tabs. These numbers also indicate that the browser is an application you start, and then you just leave up for a while, perhaps until you restart your computer or you have to update for whatever reason. The latest statistics we collected on a broader sample of users indicates that the average number of tabs is...2. The average session length is on the order of minutes, not days. Such knowledge leads to very different choices when deciding what browser features to prioritize. And it's not just browsing usage, either: most employees probably have a top-of-the line (or close to it) Mac laptop, Windows desktop, or Linux desktop; developers have a machine with four, eight, or even more cores. These machines are hardly representative of the wider Firefox user base: a significant majority of our users (~70%) has a machine with two cores, and users with a single core in their machines outnumber users with 8+ cores. We'll not even cover graphics hardware or screen resolution here; see https://hardware.metrics.mozilla.com/ https://hardware.metrics.mozilla.com/ for more examples. Using our own browsing habits and our own machine specs for making decisions is not feasible.
- zaro 9y ago
  Thnak you for the detailed explanation!
- madez 9y ago
  Then I realize Firefox is not a browser made for me. I don't care about the marketshare of my browser. I want it to to make my browsing easier and faster, while never compromising on security and privacy. _Any_ outgoing connection without my action is not OK. Not even Googles Safe browsing. If have to decide between having both Javascript and Google Safe Browsing, or neither, I would take the latter. I value the expertise at Mozilla. Could you point to a browser that might fit me?