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I think it's time there was a legitimate, organized fork of Firefox. None of this Iceweasel nonsense, but a proper, mature, organized initiative to diverge from

I think it's time there was a legitimate, organized fork of Firefox. None of this Iceweasel nonsense, but a proper, mature, organized initiative to diverge from Mozilla's codebase. They've made it very clear with the addition of Pocket, suggested sites, and now this addon that their calling has been diluted in pursuit of sustaining their own existence.

jjawssd 9y ago
It is impossible to fork Firefox and survive. If you destroy Mozilla all the users will migrate to Chrome. There is no successful financial model for browser development. Browser development is a financial black hole and requires alternative revenue streams for developers to put food on the table.
- onli 9y ago
  A real fork might be impossible, but a soft fork that just disables features like this should be possible.
  - Pete_D 9y ago
    Indeed, this is how IceCat works: by taking the Firefox ESR release and sed'ing out things like EME and telemetry. https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/gnuzilla.git/tree/makeicecat https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/gnuzilla.git/tree/makeicec...
- squarefoot 9y ago
  "It is impossible to fork Firefox and survive" Pale Moon did this a while ago and is still around, although in need of donations as many other volunteer-driven projects. https://www.palemoon.org/ https://www.palemoon.org/
  - AsyncAwait 9y ago
    Pale Moon would sink in a week if Mozilla closes, it does not have the resources to implement or influence new standards.
    - digi_owl 9y ago
      And Mozilla has?!
      - AsyncAwait 9y ago
        Certainly more so than Pale Moon.
    - squarefoot 9y ago
      That wasn't a Mozilla vs Pale Moon contest, anyway if Mozilla would close Pale Moon would likely inherit at least part of its developers and user base. Surviving economically however would be a totally different beast.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
moxious 9y ago
So what's the plan to sustain the existence of the fork? Browsers are very complex and expensive to keep cutting edge.
- pmlnr 9y ago
  Maybe we need a stable browser without surprises. Less cutting edge. Maybe.
  - marcosdumay 9y ago
    Like Konqueror? It isn't going that well. The web is evolving fast, and for good reasons.
    - pmlnr 9y ago
      Could you please expand those 'good reasons'? I honestly don't see them. I see a world in 2017 where my instant messenger lacks functions I had in ICQ in 2000 (p2p file sharing, for example); I see video conferencing struggle to work which I had in 2007 (p2p skype); I see my browser spying on me and coming with baked in backdoors.
      - marcosdumay 9y ago
        The only one of those that is about the web is the sites spying on you. And JS has been evolving better sandboxes, not worse.
        pmlnr 9y ago
        Erm... no. The trouble with video calls is that it's webrtc these days and melting CPUs with their inefficiency. The messenger apps are built on electron, and a unicorns with rainbows IRC client can eat 4GB of memory (yes, I'm talking about Slack). Everything is forced through HTTP. Those were only examples though.
      - bo1024 9y ago
jacobr 9y ago
What's wrong with Pocket?
- michaelt 9y ago
  The fact it ought to be an extension that pocket users could add by visiting addons.mozilla.org but instead it was rolled into the core browser. People assume Pocket offered Mozilla a lot of money, as there's really no other reason Pocket shouldn't be an extension. People are naturally nervous when browsers start deploying third-party code in exchange for cash. Especially when auto-update mechanisms are used. Some would see that as an important line to cross - will they be able to resist the much larger sums they'll be offered to "help users see more relevant ads" and "help users keep safe from viruses"?
  - oatmealsnap 9y ago
    Mozilla owns Pocket, though. It's more of a bookmarking UI/service than a 3rd party add-on. Sort of like Safari's Reading List feature. That's how I've always seen it anyway. I didn't know there was controversy around it, but I can understand how people would be sensitive to seeing another company's logo in the URL bar.
    - bpeebles 9y ago
      Mozilla bought pocket early this year. The pocket integration was before that in mid-2015.
- crankylinuxuser 9y ago
  It makes a fine browser extension. It ABSOLUTELY does not make good embedded code. There is no good reason for it to be "core functionality" in a browser, other than the fact that Moz://a got a fistfull of dollars and foisted it upon us. EDIT: For example, what would be a good use of core functionality, is if Moz://a included IPFS resolution and native support. That is a protocol level support, and thus would need native support rather than plugins. Plugins do indeed work, but require significant workarounds. For example, native could be ipfs://hash whereas the plugins need to specify http://127.0.0.1:8080/ipfs/hash http://127.0.0.1:8080/ipfs/hash
Sylos 9y ago
And you don't see a problem with having no money for actually developing the browser?

jjawssd 9y ago

It is impossible to fork Firefox and survive. If you destroy Mozilla all the users will migrate to Chrome. There is no successful financial model for browser development. Browser development is a financial black hole and requires alternative revenue streams for developers to put food on the table.

onli 9y ago
A real fork might be impossible, but a soft fork that just disables features like this should be possible.
- Pete_D 9y ago
  Indeed, this is how IceCat works: by taking the Firefox ESR release and sed'ing out things like EME and telemetry. https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/gnuzilla.git/tree/makeicecat https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/gnuzilla.git/tree/makeicec...
squarefoot 9y ago
"It is impossible to fork Firefox and survive" Pale Moon did this a while ago and is still around, although in need of donations as many other volunteer-driven projects. https://www.palemoon.org/ https://www.palemoon.org/
- AsyncAwait 9y ago
  Pale Moon would sink in a week if Mozilla closes, it does not have the resources to implement or influence new standards.
  - digi_owl 9y ago
    And Mozilla has?!
    - AsyncAwait 9y ago
      Certainly more so than Pale Moon.
  - squarefoot 9y ago
    That wasn't a Mozilla vs Pale Moon contest, anyway if Mozilla would close Pale Moon would likely inherit at least part of its developers and user base. Surviving economically however would be a totally different beast.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

moxious 9y ago

So what's the plan to sustain the existence of the fork? Browsers are very complex and expensive to keep cutting edge.

pmlnr 9y ago
Maybe we need a stable browser without surprises. Less cutting edge. Maybe.
- marcosdumay 9y ago
  Like Konqueror? It isn't going that well. The web is evolving fast, and for good reasons.
  - pmlnr 9y ago
    Could you please expand those 'good reasons'? I honestly don't see them. I see a world in 2017 where my instant messenger lacks functions I had in ICQ in 2000 (p2p file sharing, for example); I see video conferencing struggle to work which I had in 2007 (p2p skype); I see my browser spying on me and coming with baked in backdoors.
    - marcosdumay 9y ago
      The only one of those that is about the web is the sites spying on you. And JS has been evolving better sandboxes, not worse.
      - pmlnr 9y ago
        Erm... no. The trouble with video calls is that it's webrtc these days and melting CPUs with their inefficiency. The messenger apps are built on electron, and a unicorns with rainbows IRC client can eat 4GB of memory (yes, I'm talking about Slack). Everything is forced through HTTP. Those were only examples though.
    - bo1024 9y ago

jacobr 9y ago

What's wrong with Pocket?

michaelt 9y ago
The fact it ought to be an extension that pocket users could add by visiting addons.mozilla.org but instead it was rolled into the core browser. People assume Pocket offered Mozilla a lot of money, as there's really no other reason Pocket shouldn't be an extension. People are naturally nervous when browsers start deploying third-party code in exchange for cash. Especially when auto-update mechanisms are used. Some would see that as an important line to cross - will they be able to resist the much larger sums they'll be offered to "help users see more relevant ads" and "help users keep safe from viruses"?
- oatmealsnap 9y ago
  Mozilla owns Pocket, though. It's more of a bookmarking UI/service than a 3rd party add-on. Sort of like Safari's Reading List feature. That's how I've always seen it anyway. I didn't know there was controversy around it, but I can understand how people would be sensitive to seeing another company's logo in the URL bar.
  - bpeebles 9y ago
    Mozilla bought pocket early this year. The pocket integration was before that in mid-2015.
crankylinuxuser 9y ago
It makes a fine browser extension. It ABSOLUTELY does not make good embedded code. There is no good reason for it to be "core functionality" in a browser, other than the fact that Moz://a got a fistfull of dollars and foisted it upon us. EDIT: For example, what would be a good use of core functionality, is if Moz://a included IPFS resolution and native support. That is a protocol level support, and thus would need native support rather than plugins. Plugins do indeed work, but require significant workarounds. For example, native could be ipfs://hash whereas the plugins need to specify http://127.0.0.1:8080/ipfs/hash http://127.0.0.1:8080/ipfs/hash

Sylos 9y ago

And you don't see a problem with having no money for actually developing the browser?