6 ms·

Mozilla has decided to "throw the baby out with the bathwater" as a business strategy.

burtonator 6y ago
The HN community is going to hate on me for this but it's partially their own fault for spending money trying to differentiate in the browser. They should just focus on Chromium. It's going to win anyway. Mozilla has a small market share percentage and eventually the gap is going to be large enough they will have to abandon the FF code base anyway. It's looking like they're going to focus more on the consumer market and building consumer products and less on infrastructure. FF as needed back when all the browsers were proprietary. Sure... Google can do evil things with Chrome but Chromium is Open Source - it can always be forked. There's nothing advantageous in maintaining FF as a dedicate code base. It's just duplication. One of the major points of OSS is to prevent people from competing on things that are non-differentiating. If's OSS so they can fork it and make their own changes if they want.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- danShumway 6y ago
  If Mozilla can't maintain their own browser codebase that competes with Chrome now, what makes you think they'll be able to maintain a fork? The moment they fork it and make their own changes, they are now back in the same position they were in -- a separate codebase under separate branding that needs to keep pace with Chrome. There are two reasons forks work: - They allow you to pull upstream changes. That's nice, but pulling upstream changes doesn't work once your codebase starts to heavily diverge from its source, so getting that benefit means you can't make changes that are too divergent from the upstream. - They also allow you to get rid of upfront work and start from a solid base. That's also nice, but getting rid of the upfront work isn't valuable to Mozilla. Firefox is already basically on par with Chrome where most features are concerned. It's not the upfront work that's the problem, it's maintenance, advertising, and monetization. A Mozilla fork of Chrome would be effectively the same thing as giving Google control over the entire web standards process.
- StevePerkins 6y ago
  For what it's worth, I agree with you. Chromium has won. It's the "Linux kernel" of web browsers. However, that DOESN'T necessarily mean that every Linux user has to run Ubuntu! I recently switched from Firefox to Vivaldi. Just because: 1. I got tired of nagging compatibility issues with websites that I can't easily do with out (e.g. bank and stock broker). 2. I dabbled with Opera once upon a time, and liked it. I don't trust Opera's current Chinese ownership, but the original developers formed this new company and their (Chromium-based) browser is quite nice. However, I still don't like the fact that Vivaldi is proprietary and closed-source. I would love to have a browser that is both built on a Chromium core, AND built for privacy by a trustworthy open-source company. If Mozilla would fill this niche, then I'd be back tomorrow. They've already sort of dabbled in this area, with their Chromium-based "Firefox Focus" browser for mobile devices. But that's a very thin shell with no features. I wish they would just acknowledge reality, throw in the towel on Gecko, and build an awesome Chromium-based browser. Microsoft managed to do it seemingly overnight, surely Mozilla could as well if they so wanted. FIREFOX'S VALUE-ADD IS NOT GECKO! It's all of the functionality layered on top of that engine.
  - jtxx 6y ago
    > I would love to have a browser that is both built on a Chromium core, AND built for privacy by a trustworthy open-source company. what about Brave?
    - StevePerkins 6y ago
      I tried them for a little while. Unfortunately, Brave's sync service just flat-out doesn't work. To the point where they have it disabled by default, and you have to crack open advanced settings to see if it will actually work reliably for you (SPOILER ALERT: It won't). I think they were too focused on making it "blockchain-based" and "crypto-trendy", and just can't build something sensible that works. THIS is the value-add that browser vendors can bring to the table going forward. Chromium the kernel has won. But at the user-feature level: 1. Google and Microsoft's Chromium-based browsers spy on you. 2. Opera's Chromium-based browser has Chinese ownership, and probably spies on you. 3. Brave is buggy and flaky with all of the user features that they've built on top of their Chromium-based browser. 4. Vivalid's Chromium-based browser is pretty awesome and solid, and probably doesn't spy on you. But it's closed-source. 5. Firefox is solid, and has good no-spying values. But their browser is not Chromium-based, and it's dying because the Internet is simply moving on away from it. With this list, Vivaldi is currently the "least-bad" option from my POV. But I would love to go back to Firefox if they would get real with the times.
- BigJ1211 6y ago
  Just because two different codebases try to achieve similar things, doesn't mean it's duplication. It certainly serves not only consumers, but also businesses well to have firefox (and mozilla) so web standards don't get dictated by a single private entity.
- est31 6y ago
  > Google can do evil things with Chrome but Chromium is Open Source - it can always be forked. It takes more to maintain a Chromium competitor than its source code. You also need engineers to implement new features of the rapidly changing web. If Google decided to close the source code in 2030, nobody would be able to do anything about it. Mozilla would have laid off its last engineers by 2025 and they'd have found new jobs by now, having 5 year old outdated knowledge about how browsers work. Even if you have engineers with the required knowledge, you still need to organize them, etc. All of this takes time, and gigantic investments.
  - Someone 6y ago
    Because of its heritage (it’s a fork of WebKit, and thus started out as KHTML, which is LGPL licensed), I don’t think the Chromium code can be closed easily. They probably can split it and gradually replace most real functionality into a separate closed source part, like they did with Android, but that will take time.
  - criddell 6y ago
    > You also need engineers to implement new features of the rapidly changing web. What kind of things are rapidly changing these days?
    - jlokier 6y ago
      JavaScript itself (ES language changes), APIs callable from JavaScript (there are a lot), CSS, HTTP(s)/TLS and evolving security, ever-evolving compatibility requirements to keep popular pages working, performance expectations of the rendering model (what must be smooth nowadays didn't used to be and it's expected by sites), things like WASM, WebGL (new version on its) & WebGPU, the sandbox, evolving security patterns (HTML/HTTP/JS security model is complex) and dealing with new security issues (it never stops), compatibility with OS version releases (always new issues), compatibility with GPU drivers (always new issues), video codecs. These things by themselves require a well-funded team to keep the browser relevant to modern sites. Well-funded because they take a lot of time and ideally to be done to a professional standard. The number of spare-time or independently-wealthy volunteers around to do the work seems thoroughly insufficent compared with what it would take to keep up. That list doesn't even have new user-visible features (so nothing to "sell" to users except "we still work with current sites"). They are just moving-target "basics", minimal expectations by users and sites to remain "current" on the web. I'm sure I've left off a lot too, it's just off the top of my head.
- caeril 6y ago
  > but Chromium is Open Source It should be noted that the base Chromium packages still include Google-specific and Google-friendly features, such as automatically deriving your browsing profile from whatever Google account you happen to be logged into.
  - hu3 6y ago
    Indeed. Perhaps they could join gorces with the Ungoogled Chromium project: https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium
- houreaction 6y ago
  so basically google controls the web? great. >They should just focus on Chromium. It's going to win anyway. Mozilla has a small market share percentage and eventually the gap is going to be large enough they will have to abandon the FF code base anyway. What does it matter if chrome has a large market share, so long as mozilla is profitable? Also, abandon a perfectly good browser for no reason?' >It's looking like they're going to focus more on the consumer market and building consumer products and less on infrastructure. >FF as needed back when all the browsers were proprietary. chrome is still proprietary! and there are dozens of chromium forks already! why in the world would anyone want another chromium fork?

The HN community is going to hate on me for this but it's partially their own fault for spending money trying to differentiate in the browser. They should just focus on Chromium. It's going to win anyway. Mozilla has a small market share percentage and eventually the gap is going to be large enough they will have to abandon the FF code base anyway. It's looking like they're going to focus more on the consumer market and building consumer products and less on infrastructure. FF as needed back when all the browsers were proprietary. Sure... Google can do evil things with Chrome but Chromium is Open Source - it can always be forked. There's nothing advantageous in maintaining FF as a dedicate code base. It's just duplication. One of the major points of OSS is to prevent people from competing on things that are non-differentiating. If's OSS so they can fork it and make their own changes if they want.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
danShumway 6y ago
If Mozilla can't maintain their own browser codebase that competes with Chrome now, what makes you think they'll be able to maintain a fork? The moment they fork it and make their own changes, they are now back in the same position they were in -- a separate codebase under separate branding that needs to keep pace with Chrome. There are two reasons forks work: - They allow you to pull upstream changes. That's nice, but pulling upstream changes doesn't work once your codebase starts to heavily diverge from its source, so getting that benefit means you can't make changes that are too divergent from the upstream. - They also allow you to get rid of upfront work and start from a solid base. That's also nice, but getting rid of the upfront work isn't valuable to Mozilla. Firefox is already basically on par with Chrome where most features are concerned. It's not the upfront work that's the problem, it's maintenance, advertising, and monetization. A Mozilla fork of Chrome would be effectively the same thing as giving Google control over the entire web standards process.
StevePerkins 6y ago
For what it's worth, I agree with you. Chromium has won. It's the "Linux kernel" of web browsers. However, that DOESN'T necessarily mean that every Linux user has to run Ubuntu! I recently switched from Firefox to Vivaldi. Just because: 1. I got tired of nagging compatibility issues with websites that I can't easily do with out (e.g. bank and stock broker). 2. I dabbled with Opera once upon a time, and liked it. I don't trust Opera's current Chinese ownership, but the original developers formed this new company and their (Chromium-based) browser is quite nice. However, I still don't like the fact that Vivaldi is proprietary and closed-source. I would love to have a browser that is both built on a Chromium core, AND built for privacy by a trustworthy open-source company. If Mozilla would fill this niche, then I'd be back tomorrow. They've already sort of dabbled in this area, with their Chromium-based "Firefox Focus" browser for mobile devices. But that's a very thin shell with no features. I wish they would just acknowledge reality, throw in the towel on Gecko, and build an awesome Chromium-based browser. Microsoft managed to do it seemingly overnight, surely Mozilla could as well if they so wanted. FIREFOX'S VALUE-ADD IS NOT GECKO! It's all of the functionality layered on top of that engine.
- jtxx 6y ago
  > I would love to have a browser that is both built on a Chromium core, AND built for privacy by a trustworthy open-source company. what about Brave?
  - StevePerkins 6y ago
    I tried them for a little while. Unfortunately, Brave's sync service just flat-out doesn't work. To the point where they have it disabled by default, and you have to crack open advanced settings to see if it will actually work reliably for you (SPOILER ALERT: It won't). I think they were too focused on making it "blockchain-based" and "crypto-trendy", and just can't build something sensible that works. THIS is the value-add that browser vendors can bring to the table going forward. Chromium the kernel has won. But at the user-feature level: 1. Google and Microsoft's Chromium-based browsers spy on you. 2. Opera's Chromium-based browser has Chinese ownership, and probably spies on you. 3. Brave is buggy and flaky with all of the user features that they've built on top of their Chromium-based browser. 4. Vivalid's Chromium-based browser is pretty awesome and solid, and probably doesn't spy on you. But it's closed-source. 5. Firefox is solid, and has good no-spying values. But their browser is not Chromium-based, and it's dying because the Internet is simply moving on away from it. With this list, Vivaldi is currently the "least-bad" option from my POV. But I would love to go back to Firefox if they would get real with the times.
BigJ1211 6y ago
Just because two different codebases try to achieve similar things, doesn't mean it's duplication. It certainly serves not only consumers, but also businesses well to have firefox (and mozilla) so web standards don't get dictated by a single private entity.
est31 6y ago
> Google can do evil things with Chrome but Chromium is Open Source - it can always be forked. It takes more to maintain a Chromium competitor than its source code. You also need engineers to implement new features of the rapidly changing web. If Google decided to close the source code in 2030, nobody would be able to do anything about it. Mozilla would have laid off its last engineers by 2025 and they'd have found new jobs by now, having 5 year old outdated knowledge about how browsers work. Even if you have engineers with the required knowledge, you still need to organize them, etc. All of this takes time, and gigantic investments.
- Someone 6y ago
  Because of its heritage (it’s a fork of WebKit, and thus started out as KHTML, which is LGPL licensed), I don’t think the Chromium code can be closed easily. They probably can split it and gradually replace most real functionality into a separate closed source part, like they did with Android, but that will take time.
- criddell 6y ago
  > You also need engineers to implement new features of the rapidly changing web. What kind of things are rapidly changing these days?
  - jlokier 6y ago
    JavaScript itself (ES language changes), APIs callable from JavaScript (there are a lot), CSS, HTTP(s)/TLS and evolving security, ever-evolving compatibility requirements to keep popular pages working, performance expectations of the rendering model (what must be smooth nowadays didn't used to be and it's expected by sites), things like WASM, WebGL (new version on its) & WebGPU, the sandbox, evolving security patterns (HTML/HTTP/JS security model is complex) and dealing with new security issues (it never stops), compatibility with OS version releases (always new issues), compatibility with GPU drivers (always new issues), video codecs. These things by themselves require a well-funded team to keep the browser relevant to modern sites. Well-funded because they take a lot of time and ideally to be done to a professional standard. The number of spare-time or independently-wealthy volunteers around to do the work seems thoroughly insufficent compared with what it would take to keep up. That list doesn't even have new user-visible features (so nothing to "sell" to users except "we still work with current sites"). They are just moving-target "basics", minimal expectations by users and sites to remain "current" on the web. I'm sure I've left off a lot too, it's just off the top of my head.
caeril 6y ago
> but Chromium is Open Source It should be noted that the base Chromium packages still include Google-specific and Google-friendly features, such as automatically deriving your browsing profile from whatever Google account you happen to be logged into.
- hu3 6y ago
  Indeed. Perhaps they could join gorces with the Ungoogled Chromium project: https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium
houreaction 6y ago
so basically google controls the web? great. >They should just focus on Chromium. It's going to win anyway. Mozilla has a small market share percentage and eventually the gap is going to be large enough they will have to abandon the FF code base anyway. What does it matter if chrome has a large market share, so long as mozilla is profitable? Also, abandon a perfectly good browser for no reason?' >It's looking like they're going to focus more on the consumer market and building consumer products and less on infrastructure. >FF as needed back when all the browsers were proprietary. chrome is still proprietary! and there are dozens of chromium forks already! why in the world would anyone want another chromium fork?