4 ms·

No one has or likely will. Mozilla might not be perfect but they are the only ones who give half a shit about an open web.

dleslie 6y ago
They could give it their all in support of an open web but it wouldn't matter so long as their user share continues to decline.
- Polylactic_acid 6y ago
  Their user share is almost irrelevant now. They have no significant user base anymore but they will continue to exist for a long time because they are funded by google purely to make them not a monopoly.
  - dleslie 6y ago
    I'm inclined to agree, and I've been a Firefox/Mozilla/Netscape user since the first release; my previous browser was Cello. For me, there were three worrying changes: 1. The end of Netscape 2. The end of the Suite 3. The end of XUL And now, I think: 4. The gutting of important development teams to refocus on ... VPN service reselling?!
  - nitrogen 6y ago
    They have no significant user base anymore but they will continue to exist for a long time because they are funded by google purely to make them not a monopoly. This is exactly where Microsoft was with Apple in the 1990s, before Jobs returned. Is there some way to break this cycle?
    - nsomaru 6y ago
      Seems to me like Jobs needs to return
      - rahoulb 6y ago
        Well what Jobs did was eliminate all the extras and focus in on Apple’s core strength. Which resulted in the famous four product matrix. And then once stabilised, innovate around their core vision - appliances (Jobs always wanted the Mac to be an appliance) that are a delight to use. Which resulted in the iPod. How would that apply to Mozilla? Core strength - development platform for the web? Core vision - open and privacy-safe information sharing?
        kikokikokiko 6y ago
        Mozilla was great when it focused on making a browser that people loved. Tabbed browsing, addon extensibility leveraging the power of thousands of user-developers, lightweight on resources and application size to download... Those where the days. In the early 2000s the only thing that would steal the focus of the company from their killer app was Thunderbird, and it was ok. Nobody cared about it but it did not imapct the quality of their amaaaaazing browser, Firefox. Then starting around the time that Brendan Eich was ousted, I don't even know what is the real focus of Mozilla anymore. What was the name of that company that they bought, and bloated Firefox with, that button were you could save tabs for later? I mean, I can't even remember the name of the damn thing. Now it's VPN and God knows what else. I just want a lightweight, extensible browser. Is that too much to ask?
        dingaling 6y ago
        > Which resulted in the iPod. The iPod was an unsolicited walk-in concept previously offered to Philips and Sony
        rahoulb 6y ago
        Exactly. Two companies that had lost their vision
  - jhoechtl 6y ago
    I do not think that Mozilla will prevent Google from being legally perceived a monopoly, rather Yandex and Alibaba will prevent the US administration from braking up Google. Imagine Google be broken up to be effectively less influential compared to what they are right now. Do you really think Yandex or Alibaba will give a shit and give up their quasi-monopoly in their realms as well? It's effectively Googles size which prevents these two from taking over.
  - aasasd 6y ago
    The way things are going, Google will probably have to also hire some programmers and designers for Mozilla. And then see that they are working on things that appeal to users—so that the users don't all abandon FF.
fwn 6y ago
Mozilla just replaced an open app ecosystem (incl. side loading) with a centralized opt-in nine entry app gallery. Maybe there's a time to call them interested in an open web but this specific release is a big step away from their former principles. A browser should be an user agent. Their principles are probably, just like in any other company, primarily marketing and we should evaluate them just the same as we do other companies. Every time Google centralizes an ecosystem we do call that out. It's usually a power grab. We should do the same in cases in which Mozilla does it. I think that the open extension ecosystem on desktop Firefox is save as long as Chrome on desktop still has somewhat open extension support. On Android there is no chrome extensions, hence there's no competitive advantage for Mozilla to keep them - which probably made it all costs and no gains. ... which is probably the moment they're out of the window, if principles are no concern. I think it's a dilemma. If Mozilla can't do it Firefox deserves a better organizational structure that enables the product to continue to work as a gateway to user autonomy and software freedom on increasingly closed platforms like Android.
- Polylactic_acid 6y ago
  On mobile, virtually the only extension that anyone uses is an adblocker. From what I understand, it still works perfectly fine. Mozilla has probably looked at the stats and decided putting a year of work and holding off the new version is not worth it for the 10 users who installed something else.
  - pmlnr 6y ago
    Unless you link to stats, this is nothing, but an opinion.

dleslie 6y ago

They could give it their all in support of an open web but it wouldn't matter so long as their user share continues to decline.

Polylactic_acid 6y ago
Their user share is almost irrelevant now. They have no significant user base anymore but they will continue to exist for a long time because they are funded by google purely to make them not a monopoly.
- dleslie 6y ago
  I'm inclined to agree, and I've been a Firefox/Mozilla/Netscape user since the first release; my previous browser was Cello. For me, there were three worrying changes: 1. The end of Netscape 2. The end of the Suite 3. The end of XUL And now, I think: 4. The gutting of important development teams to refocus on ... VPN service reselling?!
- nitrogen 6y ago
  They have no significant user base anymore but they will continue to exist for a long time because they are funded by google purely to make them not a monopoly. This is exactly where Microsoft was with Apple in the 1990s, before Jobs returned. Is there some way to break this cycle?
  - nsomaru 6y ago
    Seems to me like Jobs needs to return
    - rahoulb 6y ago
      Well what Jobs did was eliminate all the extras and focus in on Apple’s core strength. Which resulted in the famous four product matrix. And then once stabilised, innovate around their core vision - appliances (Jobs always wanted the Mac to be an appliance) that are a delight to use. Which resulted in the iPod. How would that apply to Mozilla? Core strength - development platform for the web? Core vision - open and privacy-safe information sharing?
      - kikokikokiko 6y ago
        Mozilla was great when it focused on making a browser that people loved. Tabbed browsing, addon extensibility leveraging the power of thousands of user-developers, lightweight on resources and application size to download... Those where the days. In the early 2000s the only thing that would steal the focus of the company from their killer app was Thunderbird, and it was ok. Nobody cared about it but it did not imapct the quality of their amaaaaazing browser, Firefox. Then starting around the time that Brendan Eich was ousted, I don't even know what is the real focus of Mozilla anymore. What was the name of that company that they bought, and bloated Firefox with, that button were you could save tabs for later? I mean, I can't even remember the name of the damn thing. Now it's VPN and God knows what else. I just want a lightweight, extensible browser. Is that too much to ask?
      - dingaling 6y ago
        > Which resulted in the iPod. The iPod was an unsolicited walk-in concept previously offered to Philips and Sony
        rahoulb 6y ago
        Exactly. Two companies that had lost their vision
- jhoechtl 6y ago
  I do not think that Mozilla will prevent Google from being legally perceived a monopoly, rather Yandex and Alibaba will prevent the US administration from braking up Google. Imagine Google be broken up to be effectively less influential compared to what they are right now. Do you really think Yandex or Alibaba will give a shit and give up their quasi-monopoly in their realms as well? It's effectively Googles size which prevents these two from taking over.
- aasasd 6y ago
  The way things are going, Google will probably have to also hire some programmers and designers for Mozilla. And then see that they are working on things that appeal to users—so that the users don't all abandon FF.

fwn 6y ago

Mozilla just replaced an open app ecosystem (incl. side loading) with a centralized opt-in nine entry app gallery. Maybe there's a time to call them interested in an open web but this specific release is a big step away from their former principles. A browser should be an user agent. Their principles are probably, just like in any other company, primarily marketing and we should evaluate them just the same as we do other companies. Every time Google centralizes an ecosystem we do call that out. It's usually a power grab. We should do the same in cases in which Mozilla does it. I think that the open extension ecosystem on desktop Firefox is save as long as Chrome on desktop still has somewhat open extension support. On Android there is no chrome extensions, hence there's no competitive advantage for Mozilla to keep them - which probably made it all costs and no gains. ... which is probably the moment they're out of the window, if principles are no concern. I think it's a dilemma. If Mozilla can't do it Firefox deserves a better organizational structure that enables the product to continue to work as a gateway to user autonomy and software freedom on increasingly closed platforms like Android.

Polylactic_acid 6y ago
On mobile, virtually the only extension that anyone uses is an adblocker. From what I understand, it still works perfectly fine. Mozilla has probably looked at the stats and decided putting a year of work and holding off the new version is not worth it for the 10 users who installed something else.
- pmlnr 6y ago
  Unless you link to stats, this is nothing, but an opinion.