5 ms·

I think the core disagreement here is not ideological per se, but on premises. I agree with the motivation of not collecting any data. That said, I don't fee

I think the core disagreement here is not ideological per se, but on premises. I agree with the motivation of not collecting any data. That said, I don't feel that we have a choice but to compromise. If we don't build a better browser, then the other browsers will win by default, which means you lose all those privacy and security motivations anyway. This is not some gleeful romp down the yellow brick road of data collection. It's a hard-searched, difficult compromise to a question that there are no good answers to, and LOTS of disagreement about.

syshum 9y ago
What are we attempting to "win". Again I go back to my statement of compromising princibles in the name of market share I have used FF since Ver 1.0 for a few reasons the top ones being it is Open Source, it has always been the most privacy and security focused browser, and were strong advocates of Open Standards that where inter-operable on ALL platforms with out vendor lock in FF is still open source.... the rest that seems to be in flux now.
- kannanvijayan 9y ago
  > What are we attempting to "win". Again I go back to my statement of compromising princibles in the name of market share I don't see it as an either-or, but rather a balance to strike. A perfectly private browser with no marketshare doesn't help users. A completely compromised browser with 100% marketshare doesn't help users either.
  - syshum 9y ago
    It would not be no marketshare. It would be the market share you have today people that respect the princibles FF once stood for Mozilla is not happy with us current users though, they would much rather trade us for Edge and Chrome Users.. Mozilla has made it clear it does not value the Users that desire Privacy, Customization, and Power in the hands of the user. Mozilla has Dreams of "beating chrome" a pursuit I have no interest in and place no value in.
    - sp332 9y ago
      But the marketshare "today" is tanking. It's at 10% and falling. There's no reason it won't get so small that it can't support development any longer.
      - pessimizer 9y ago
        Then it might be more appropriate to say "has attempted to trade us for Edge and Chrome Users." I think it's inevitable that if they continue on the path they've been on since they started losing marketshare they will disappear, and sadly with so many years of audience-alienating development behind them that no one will pick it up. The only hope is that one of the forks of earlier versions manages to get enough developers and an institution behind it that they can bring it back to popularity, but before that happens we might be calling the internet "Chromenet" and google won't allow you to visit their sites unless they have been signed with a valid Chrome developer key.
quickben 9y ago
Nah, we'll just switch. If you are trying to become Chrome, we'll just use Chrome. (Firefox+data collection < Chrome not logged in). Edit: I've been with you guys since the beginning, but the line is drawn here.
throwaway2048 9y ago
If you become everything people dislike about the other browser, nobody is going to care what happens to you.
dannysu 9y ago
Why is the choice between opt-in vs opt-out of automatic behavior? If Mozilla wants perf data, collect it and then prompt the user "crash reporting" style. I would totally opt-in to prompts. Give it a threshold and ask, "This page seems to frequently perform less well on your computer, would you like to send us a report?"
- kannanvijayan 9y ago
  Random sampling, basically. The value of random sampling is hard to overstate - it gives you a real picture of what's going on. A non-random sampling gives you a picture, but you have no way of confirming that the picture is a reflection of reality. Random sampling and privacy run into conflicts not just in the browser space, but everywhere else. For example, recently the Canadian government went through a period where it allowed census respondents to optionally answer some questions that were previously mandatory (using privacy arguments). The result was several years of poor census information. The recent government reinstated the mandatory census questions. The browser is just one arena where this everpresent conflict between knowledge and privacy plays out.
  - CanadianChester 9y ago
    I've used Netscape then switched to Firefox when Netscape became way too bloated, then enjoyed years and years of Firefox getting better, supporting new JS and HTML5 features all WITHOUT telemetry and with the Crash Reporting window where I can see the data that is being submitted and submit it if I want to submit it. What have changed so much in last 5 years or so that now you have to get all this data? What is wrong with just building a standarts compliant browser that runs JS fast and has easy to understand settings (where I don't have to go to about:config to disable the WebRTC/telemetry/Pocket etc) ?
    - kannanvijayan 9y ago
      > What have changed so much in last 5 years or so that now you have to get all this data? To be honest, a lot. Once again, this is my personal take on the matter, not Mozilla's view. First off, browsers were a LOT simpler back then. The sophistication and complexity in a browser has grown significantly in the last decade or so. Secondly, browsers have matured. Remember that this software category has only been around for 20 years or so. Compared to the code quality in browsers today, browsers of 10 years ago were crude and simple. As a software category matures, the low-hanging fruit dry up, so it's harder and harder to improve your product. Lastly, competition. Firefox has the luxury of being released when the biggest competitor (Microsoft) wasn't putting real effort into its browser product. Google will not make that same mistake with Chrome. Basically, the information we needed back then was less, because the problems were much more obvious, because the whole industry was still pretty young. Now browsers are much more mature, the ecosystem is much more complex, has a much wider user base, and the problems are becoming harder and harder to pin down.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
disconnected 9y ago
Here's what's going to happen. You people are going ahead with this idiotic plan - because that is what Mozilla does, asks for feedback and then proceeds to ignore feedback - and you will lose another 2% market share. The reason is painfully obvious: You betrayed one of the core principles of Firefox, which is privacy. You pissed off a lot of people which will NEVER come back because you stabbed them in the face and spat in the wound. You also gave Microsoft and Google a freebie. Now they have something else to throw back at you: your supposed "more private" Firefox phones home with your users' browsing history (not strictly true, but people don't dig that deep into the minutiae). Hows that stopping them from winning by default? You basically just disqualified yourself... Make this thing optional, otherwise you are dead meat. If you can't "win" without betraying your principles, it's time to either throw down the towel and give up or just be upfront and admit that you are going to go all in, users be damned. That last option would actually probably gain you a few users. Edit: spelling...

syshum 9y ago

What are we attempting to "win". Again I go back to my statement of compromising princibles in the name of market share I have used FF since Ver 1.0 for a few reasons the top ones being it is Open Source, it has always been the most privacy and security focused browser, and were strong advocates of Open Standards that where inter-operable on ALL platforms with out vendor lock in FF is still open source.... the rest that seems to be in flux now.

kannanvijayan 9y ago
> What are we attempting to "win". Again I go back to my statement of compromising princibles in the name of market share I don't see it as an either-or, but rather a balance to strike. A perfectly private browser with no marketshare doesn't help users. A completely compromised browser with 100% marketshare doesn't help users either.
- syshum 9y ago
  It would not be no marketshare. It would be the market share you have today people that respect the princibles FF once stood for Mozilla is not happy with us current users though, they would much rather trade us for Edge and Chrome Users.. Mozilla has made it clear it does not value the Users that desire Privacy, Customization, and Power in the hands of the user. Mozilla has Dreams of "beating chrome" a pursuit I have no interest in and place no value in.
  - sp332 9y ago
    But the marketshare "today" is tanking. It's at 10% and falling. There's no reason it won't get so small that it can't support development any longer.
    - pessimizer 9y ago
      Then it might be more appropriate to say "has attempted to trade us for Edge and Chrome Users." I think it's inevitable that if they continue on the path they've been on since they started losing marketshare they will disappear, and sadly with so many years of audience-alienating development behind them that no one will pick it up. The only hope is that one of the forks of earlier versions manages to get enough developers and an institution behind it that they can bring it back to popularity, but before that happens we might be calling the internet "Chromenet" and google won't allow you to visit their sites unless they have been signed with a valid Chrome developer key.

quickben 9y ago

Nah, we'll just switch. If you are trying to become Chrome, we'll just use Chrome. (Firefox+data collection < Chrome not logged in). Edit: I've been with you guys since the beginning, but the line is drawn here.

throwaway2048 9y ago

If you become everything people dislike about the other browser, nobody is going to care what happens to you.

dannysu 9y ago

Why is the choice between opt-in vs opt-out of automatic behavior? If Mozilla wants perf data, collect it and then prompt the user "crash reporting" style. I would totally opt-in to prompts. Give it a threshold and ask, "This page seems to frequently perform less well on your computer, would you like to send us a report?"

kannanvijayan 9y ago
Random sampling, basically. The value of random sampling is hard to overstate - it gives you a real picture of what's going on. A non-random sampling gives you a picture, but you have no way of confirming that the picture is a reflection of reality. Random sampling and privacy run into conflicts not just in the browser space, but everywhere else. For example, recently the Canadian government went through a period where it allowed census respondents to optionally answer some questions that were previously mandatory (using privacy arguments). The result was several years of poor census information. The recent government reinstated the mandatory census questions. The browser is just one arena where this everpresent conflict between knowledge and privacy plays out.
- CanadianChester 9y ago
  I've used Netscape then switched to Firefox when Netscape became way too bloated, then enjoyed years and years of Firefox getting better, supporting new JS and HTML5 features all WITHOUT telemetry and with the Crash Reporting window where I can see the data that is being submitted and submit it if I want to submit it. What have changed so much in last 5 years or so that now you have to get all this data? What is wrong with just building a standarts compliant browser that runs JS fast and has easy to understand settings (where I don't have to go to about:config to disable the WebRTC/telemetry/Pocket etc) ?
  - kannanvijayan 9y ago
    > What have changed so much in last 5 years or so that now you have to get all this data? To be honest, a lot. Once again, this is my personal take on the matter, not Mozilla's view. First off, browsers were a LOT simpler back then. The sophistication and complexity in a browser has grown significantly in the last decade or so. Secondly, browsers have matured. Remember that this software category has only been around for 20 years or so. Compared to the code quality in browsers today, browsers of 10 years ago were crude and simple. As a software category matures, the low-hanging fruit dry up, so it's harder and harder to improve your product. Lastly, competition. Firefox has the luxury of being released when the biggest competitor (Microsoft) wasn't putting real effort into its browser product. Google will not make that same mistake with Chrome. Basically, the information we needed back then was less, because the problems were much more obvious, because the whole industry was still pretty young. Now browsers are much more mature, the ecosystem is much more complex, has a much wider user base, and the problems are becoming harder and harder to pin down.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

disconnected 9y ago

Here's what's going to happen. You people are going ahead with this idiotic plan - because that is what Mozilla does, asks for feedback and then proceeds to ignore feedback - and you will lose another 2% market share. The reason is painfully obvious: You betrayed one of the core principles of Firefox, which is privacy. You pissed off a lot of people which will NEVER come back because you stabbed them in the face and spat in the wound. You also gave Microsoft and Google a freebie. Now they have something else to throw back at you: your supposed "more private" Firefox phones home with your users' browsing history (not strictly true, but people don't dig that deep into the minutiae). Hows that stopping them from winning by default? You basically just disqualified yourself... Make this thing optional, otherwise you are dead meat. If you can't "win" without betraying your principles, it's time to either throw down the towel and give up or just be upfront and admit that you are going to go all in, users be damned. That last option would actually probably gain you a few users. Edit: spelling...