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Mozilla employee here. > There have been people within Mozilla who just want to abandon their own code and simply release a re-branded Chromium. Citation need

Mozilla employee here. > There have been people within Mozilla who just want to abandon their own code and simply release a re-branded Chromium. Citation needed. Here's my quote: we're committed to Gecko.

mook 8y ago
roc did, supposedly, in late 2007. See https://robert.ocallahan.org/2018/01/ancient-browser-wars-history-md5-hashed.html https://robert.ocallahan.org/2018/01/ancient-browser-wars-hi... It dates from back when Mozilla seemed to be losing quickly, and actually rebranding Chrome (with their own changes) might have made sense. I'm glad they didn't, of course. I have no reason believe he, or anybody else at Mozilla, currently thinks that way.
- gsnedders 8y ago
  Obviously by 2013 his views had changed: See https://robert.ocallahan.org/2013/02/and-then-there-were-three.html https://robert.ocallahan.org/2013/02/and-then-there-were-thr... on Presto's demise (except it lives on after death in Opera Mini, to this day!) And https://robert.ocallahan.org/2013/04/blink.html https://robert.ocallahan.org/2013/04/blink.html on the Blink fork.
  - andrewshadura 8y ago
    According to the developers of Opera, they have actually switched to Blink for Opera Mini pretty soon.
seabrookmx 8y ago
I believe you, and honestly with the latest improvements with Quantum I can see why. I _am_ curious about the motivation behind Firefox Focus though. I use vanilla Firefox on Android and really enjoy it.. what was the motivation for using a Webkit base for Focus? Seems like the stripped down, privacy focused experience would have worked fine based on Firefox proper?
- gsnedders 8y ago
  > I _am_ curious about the motivation behind Firefox Focus though. I use vanilla Firefox on Android and really enjoy it.. what was the motivation for using a Webkit base for Focus? Seems like the stripped down, privacy focused experience would have worked fine based on Firefox proper? I'm pretty sure the answer is quite simple, which is that the Gecko embedding story has been diabolical for a long time (i.e., it's hard to put Gecko in a new product), whereas the majority of WebKit ports and Chromium (through its Embedding Framework, or to a somewhat lesser extent its Content API) are designed to be easily embedded in new applications. AIUI, the fact this led to this ridiculous situation is part of the reason for the renewed interest in embedding Gecko (and the emergence of GeckoView).
  - mncolinlee 8y ago
    Firefox Focus developer here. Recent improvements in Geckoview (the componentized version of Gecko) mean that it will be much easier to integrate into your own browser projects. We have a whole suite of Android components being developed just for building browser-like software. The work to make GeckoView offer a full set of functionality in Focus should also help other apps.
- cpeterso 8y ago
  Firefox Focus first launched on iOS, where Apple's WebKit is the only web engine permitted. Focus on Android followed a similar approach using Android's WebView so the Focus team could focus ;) on the app's user experience and privacy features instead of the web engine. However, Focus (on Android) is now moving to "GeckoView", Firefox for Android's Gecko engine repackaged into a WebView-like component. GeckoView will be available for app developers (Mozilla or others) to build new browsers. Watch Mozilla's Hacks blog for news coming soon! :) Here are instructions for test driving Focus+GeckoView now: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/focus-android/wiki/Release-tracks#nightly https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/focus-android/wiki/Release...
  - cpeterso 8y ago
    The Mozilla Hacks blog post about Firefox Focus and GeckoView is now live: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/09/focus-with-geckoview/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/09/focus-with-geckoview/
fabrice_d 8y ago
Gecko these days is pretty good, but that's only half of the story unfortunately. This is a web runtime with no successful product to power anymore. Firefox Desktop is still declining despite the Quantum work, and on Mobile Mozilla products are not registering on any chart. Ironically, the only successfully growing Gecko-based product is KaiOS (see http://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/mobile/india http://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/mobile/india) but the current MoCo+MoFo leadership killed the upstream support a while ago to focus on Desktop. Maybe they will see the light...
- abeyer 8y ago
  > Firefox Desktop is still declining despite the Quantum work Despite? I'd say because of. The last of my primary reasons for using FF over chrome were killed with Quantum.
  - hsribei 8y ago
    >The last of my primary reasons for using FF over chrome were killed with Quantum. Which?
    - SllX 8y ago
      Not the parent, but Firefox Quantum while an advancement in some ways, also killed XUL Extensions and Mozilla moved Firefox entirely to WebExtensions without the APIs to fully support existing popular add-ons. NoScript for example is a shell of what it once was, every vim keybinding extension was pretty much cutoff, TabMix Plus discontinued development since many of its popular features weren't possible with the WebExtensions API and there still isn't a great tree-style tab extension. Most likely the parent used one or more of these, as they were some of the extensions you could point to that Firefox had but Chrome never really did, and without them Firefox arguably doesn't have the same appeal. There's still plenty of reasons to use Firefox over Chrome, but there are also plenty of users bitter about the loss of their previously working extensions.
      - 8y ago
Endy 8y ago
Mozilla was also committed to a good browser experience that looked and felt like something that was not Chrome or Safari. Then Australis happened. And Mozilla was committed to XUL. Then WebExtensions happened. Mozilla is committed to Gecko today. Tomorrow, Blink/Chromium will happen.
- dblohm7 8y ago
  I'd suggest that you read my colleague's comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15696184 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15696184 to understand just how much friction the legacy addon ecosystem was creating. It just wasn't sustainable.
  - Endy 8y ago
    As a user of some of those "legacy" addons, I sincerely don't care about the upstream friction. I care that Mozilla has tried to cut my user experience off at the ankles more than once. The burden of having a thriving community & ecosystem is the responsibility of stewardship over that ecosystem. Mozilla has abrogated that implicit stewardship responsibility toward their community.

mook 8y ago

roc did, supposedly, in late 2007. See https://robert.ocallahan.org/2018/01/ancient-browser-wars-history-md5-hashed.html https://robert.ocallahan.org/2018/01/ancient-browser-wars-hi... It dates from back when Mozilla seemed to be losing quickly, and actually rebranding Chrome (with their own changes) might have made sense. I'm glad they didn't, of course. I have no reason believe he, or anybody else at Mozilla, currently thinks that way.

gsnedders 8y ago
Obviously by 2013 his views had changed: See https://robert.ocallahan.org/2013/02/and-then-there-were-three.html https://robert.ocallahan.org/2013/02/and-then-there-were-thr... on Presto's demise (except it lives on after death in Opera Mini, to this day!) And https://robert.ocallahan.org/2013/04/blink.html https://robert.ocallahan.org/2013/04/blink.html on the Blink fork.
- andrewshadura 8y ago
  According to the developers of Opera, they have actually switched to Blink for Opera Mini pretty soon.

seabrookmx 8y ago

I believe you, and honestly with the latest improvements with Quantum I can see why. I _am_ curious about the motivation behind Firefox Focus though. I use vanilla Firefox on Android and really enjoy it.. what was the motivation for using a Webkit base for Focus? Seems like the stripped down, privacy focused experience would have worked fine based on Firefox proper?

gsnedders 8y ago
> I _am_ curious about the motivation behind Firefox Focus though. I use vanilla Firefox on Android and really enjoy it.. what was the motivation for using a Webkit base for Focus? Seems like the stripped down, privacy focused experience would have worked fine based on Firefox proper? I'm pretty sure the answer is quite simple, which is that the Gecko embedding story has been diabolical for a long time (i.e., it's hard to put Gecko in a new product), whereas the majority of WebKit ports and Chromium (through its Embedding Framework, or to a somewhat lesser extent its Content API) are designed to be easily embedded in new applications. AIUI, the fact this led to this ridiculous situation is part of the reason for the renewed interest in embedding Gecko (and the emergence of GeckoView).
- mncolinlee 8y ago
  Firefox Focus developer here. Recent improvements in Geckoview (the componentized version of Gecko) mean that it will be much easier to integrate into your own browser projects. We have a whole suite of Android components being developed just for building browser-like software. The work to make GeckoView offer a full set of functionality in Focus should also help other apps.
cpeterso 8y ago
Firefox Focus first launched on iOS, where Apple's WebKit is the only web engine permitted. Focus on Android followed a similar approach using Android's WebView so the Focus team could focus ;) on the app's user experience and privacy features instead of the web engine. However, Focus (on Android) is now moving to "GeckoView", Firefox for Android's Gecko engine repackaged into a WebView-like component. GeckoView will be available for app developers (Mozilla or others) to build new browsers. Watch Mozilla's Hacks blog for news coming soon! :) Here are instructions for test driving Focus+GeckoView now: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/focus-android/wiki/Release-tracks#nightly https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/focus-android/wiki/Release...
- cpeterso 8y ago
  The Mozilla Hacks blog post about Firefox Focus and GeckoView is now live: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/09/focus-with-geckoview/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/09/focus-with-geckoview/

fabrice_d 8y ago

Gecko these days is pretty good, but that's only half of the story unfortunately. This is a web runtime with no successful product to power anymore. Firefox Desktop is still declining despite the Quantum work, and on Mobile Mozilla products are not registering on any chart. Ironically, the only successfully growing Gecko-based product is KaiOS (see http://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/mobile/india http://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/mobile/india) but the current MoCo+MoFo leadership killed the upstream support a while ago to focus on Desktop. Maybe they will see the light...

abeyer 8y ago
> Firefox Desktop is still declining despite the Quantum work Despite? I'd say because of. The last of my primary reasons for using FF over chrome were killed with Quantum.
- hsribei 8y ago
  >The last of my primary reasons for using FF over chrome were killed with Quantum. Which?
  - SllX 8y ago
    Not the parent, but Firefox Quantum while an advancement in some ways, also killed XUL Extensions and Mozilla moved Firefox entirely to WebExtensions without the APIs to fully support existing popular add-ons. NoScript for example is a shell of what it once was, every vim keybinding extension was pretty much cutoff, TabMix Plus discontinued development since many of its popular features weren't possible with the WebExtensions API and there still isn't a great tree-style tab extension. Most likely the parent used one or more of these, as they were some of the extensions you could point to that Firefox had but Chrome never really did, and without them Firefox arguably doesn't have the same appeal. There's still plenty of reasons to use Firefox over Chrome, but there are also plenty of users bitter about the loss of their previously working extensions.
    - 8y ago

Endy 8y ago

Mozilla was also committed to a good browser experience that looked and felt like something that was not Chrome or Safari. Then Australis happened. And Mozilla was committed to XUL. Then WebExtensions happened. Mozilla is committed to Gecko today. Tomorrow, Blink/Chromium will happen.

dblohm7 8y ago
I'd suggest that you read my colleague's comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15696184 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15696184 to understand just how much friction the legacy addon ecosystem was creating. It just wasn't sustainable.
- Endy 8y ago
  As a user of some of those "legacy" addons, I sincerely don't care about the upstream friction. I care that Mozilla has tried to cut my user experience off at the ankles more than once. The burden of having a thriving community & ecosystem is the responsibility of stewardship over that ecosystem. Mozilla has abrogated that implicit stewardship responsibility toward their community.