11 ms·

The Sad Story of Mozilla Keeps Getting Sadder

38 points by URfejk 6y ago

nwah1 6y ago
I like the Pocket recommendations, and the various campaigns aren't that annoying so long as they remain focused on tech freedom, not other causes. I generally agree with the choice of killing off XUL, since WebExtensions has clearly won and they needed to move to it, and help participate in its development so they can steer it towards user freedom. I think the Multi-Account Containers idea is fantastic, and the Facebook Container in particular was nice. That is a recent development, but I feel like it is an essential privacy feature now. But Mozilla is failing, that much is true. And they just killed off their most promising blue sky initiatives like Servo, so I no longer see a future for them at the moment. If they moved to foster a type of open cloud ecosystem, along the lines of OwnCloud, that would be an interesting direction, but I don't see that happening either since I don't see much vision at the top... even though it would dovetail with Firefox Sync, Lockwise, VPN, and other Mozilla initiatives. I am passively looking for other browsers now, however, since I have lost faith in Mozilla.
- metacork 6y ago
  Multi-Account Containers is what is keeping me on Firefox at this point.
  - DevoidSimo 6y ago
    That and tree style tabs. I don't think I could go back to the mess of tabs in the top bar
sacomo 6y ago
They should convert to a Worker-owned Cooperative https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/how-to-convert-a-business-into-a-worker-owned-cooperative https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/how-to-convert-a-business-into-a...
FandangoRanger 6y ago
When they stopped caring so much about the browser and became a social and Rust advocacy concern they signaled that it was pretty much over. Thankfully there's still Seamonkey.
ampdepolymerase 6y ago
This is the long-term consequence when you force out a CEO that has an engineering background and replace him with a lawyer over perceived social juatice reasons. The market is now more fragmented (see Brave) and nobody is better off for it.
- rvz 6y ago
  For Mozilla and its mission, it's over. Why project a mission for supporting privacy when you sign a contract with your closest competitor who goes directly against your own mission? Especially as the default search engine? I don't think they're quite serious about your privacy, more like they are focused on the 'social justice' than generating their own revenue. It seems that they either ruin their own credibility by being a hypocrite or they risk going bankrupt trying to fight for your privacy with products failing generating any sustainable revenue for themselves. Either way, it's in Google's hands. As for the 'social justice reasons' it's a classic side example of going woke will make you and your business broke.
- yuhong 6y ago
  Which reminds me that even Techrights (formerly Boycott Novell) had Google ads almost 15 years ago. Which is part of why I wrote https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Effects_of_the_2007-2008_financial_crisis_on_Google https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Effects_of_the_2007-2008... in the first place.
- ZeroGravitas 6y ago
  Or alternatively, what happens when regressive techies take a dislike to your org and bring this up in every thread for a decade afterwards. Congrats, you really showed those social justice warriors by handing the market to Google, who you also hate for being social justice warriors.
- TheOperator 6y ago
  Eich headed the company for like a week and people pronounce his firing as the sole mistake that took the company down. If Eich is such a god of leadership why aren't we all using Brave? Sure in hindsight maybe it would be nice if there was as much outrage over the CEO driving Mozilla into the ground as there was over Eich's donations. What I saw was Mozilla getting beat when it comes to marketing, product quality, and ecosystem level for years and deciding to stick with a bad CEO for years.
dblohm7 6y ago
Sheesh, somebody has a chip on their shoulder...
Angeo34 6y ago
Sponsored by Brendan Eich
dpc_pw 6y ago
Mozilla doesn't owe you anything. You think you can do better? Go build a better browser that's free yourself. Oh, not so though now, are you? The moment every complexity imaginable were shoved into the web "because user experience", it became impossible to develop and maintain a competitive browser project by a non-profit company. More and more websites simply do not work correctly with FF, because companies don't give a shit anymore. "Just use Chrome". And if you install any anti-tracking software, they just break and you can't get any stuff done. So now bend over and get used to Googlenet, where in just couple of years you're only going to be allowed to visit content "fact-checked" by Google's Ministry of Truth, and you need to sign an EULA that require you to wear an anal probe at all times when browsing the web, and half the screen is always an ad. Good job everyone! You destroyed the WWW, and turned it into oppression tool, because what we needed was SPAs, dynamic content, 4 versions of CSS, 4 versions of HTML, and so on. Google & other corps embraced, extended and extinguished web and we were cheering.
- core-questions 6y ago
  The correct answer here is accelerationism. Let the web get bad. Let everyone hate FAANG. Good. That makes things ripe for disruption. We need a technology that replaces web browsers, period; they're terrible, slow, inefficient, bloated, and it's not because of the browser, it's because of what it's trying to do. A new open remote application system is what is called for here. Something that truly learns from what the Web lacked and builds these things in as part of the platform from day 1. - Form, table widgets that don't suck - Sane layout engine - Fast, optionall-type-safe language that doesn't need a million build tools that always break - Easy ways to host your own content without any central authority beyond the DNS I sincerely believe this can and will be done at some point and a decent group of people will get back an Internet experience that died in the early 00s - and I don't mean from a UX standpoint, I mean from a personal standpoint. We need to be able to create and host our own content without middlemen but without a barrier to entry that causes people to need to be a programmer to use it.
  - sn41 6y ago
    Some of the issues you raise are important. But I am questioning the social dynamics of what you are suggesting. You could have copied your comment from sometime in the late 90s. Because the same argument could have been made by replacing FAANG with Internet Explorer. A bunch of decent folks did come together and fix things. It was called the Mozilla foundation. There is an opinion that the old decent folks don't matter anymore, but I don't share it. I think what is happening is nothing short of sabotage within Mozilla. I am sad that this is happening.

38 points by URfejk 6y ago

I like the Pocket recommendations, and the various campaigns aren't that annoying so long as they remain focused on tech freedom, not other causes. I generally agree with the choice of killing off XUL, since WebExtensions has clearly won and they needed to move to it, and help participate in its development so they can steer it towards user freedom. I think the Multi-Account Containers idea is fantastic, and the Facebook Container in particular was nice. That is a recent development, but I feel like it is an essential privacy feature now. But Mozilla is failing, that much is true. And they just killed off their most promising blue sky initiatives like Servo, so I no longer see a future for them at the moment. If they moved to foster a type of open cloud ecosystem, along the lines of OwnCloud, that would be an interesting direction, but I don't see that happening either since I don't see much vision at the top... even though it would dovetail with Firefox Sync, Lockwise, VPN, and other Mozilla initiatives. I am passively looking for other browsers now, however, since I have lost faith in Mozilla.

metacork 6y ago
Multi-Account Containers is what is keeping me on Firefox at this point.
- DevoidSimo 6y ago
  That and tree style tabs. I don't think I could go back to the mess of tabs in the top bar

sacomo 6y ago

They should convert to a Worker-owned Cooperative https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/how-to-convert-a-business-into-a-worker-owned-cooperative https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/how-to-convert-a-business-into-a...

FandangoRanger 6y ago

When they stopped caring so much about the browser and became a social and Rust advocacy concern they signaled that it was pretty much over. Thankfully there's still Seamonkey.

ampdepolymerase 6y ago

This is the long-term consequence when you force out a CEO that has an engineering background and replace him with a lawyer over perceived social juatice reasons. The market is now more fragmented (see Brave) and nobody is better off for it.

rvz 6y ago
For Mozilla and its mission, it's over. Why project a mission for supporting privacy when you sign a contract with your closest competitor who goes directly against your own mission? Especially as the default search engine? I don't think they're quite serious about your privacy, more like they are focused on the 'social justice' than generating their own revenue. It seems that they either ruin their own credibility by being a hypocrite or they risk going bankrupt trying to fight for your privacy with products failing generating any sustainable revenue for themselves. Either way, it's in Google's hands. As for the 'social justice reasons' it's a classic side example of going woke will make you and your business broke.
yuhong 6y ago
Which reminds me that even Techrights (formerly Boycott Novell) had Google ads almost 15 years ago. Which is part of why I wrote https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Effects_of_the_2007-2008_financial_crisis_on_Google https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Effects_of_the_2007-2008... in the first place.
ZeroGravitas 6y ago
Or alternatively, what happens when regressive techies take a dislike to your org and bring this up in every thread for a decade afterwards. Congrats, you really showed those social justice warriors by handing the market to Google, who you also hate for being social justice warriors.
TheOperator 6y ago
Eich headed the company for like a week and people pronounce his firing as the sole mistake that took the company down. If Eich is such a god of leadership why aren't we all using Brave? Sure in hindsight maybe it would be nice if there was as much outrage over the CEO driving Mozilla into the ground as there was over Eich's donations. What I saw was Mozilla getting beat when it comes to marketing, product quality, and ecosystem level for years and deciding to stick with a bad CEO for years.

dblohm7 6y ago

Sheesh, somebody has a chip on their shoulder...

Angeo34 6y ago

Sponsored by Brendan Eich

dpc_pw 6y ago

Mozilla doesn't owe you anything. You think you can do better? Go build a better browser that's free yourself. Oh, not so though now, are you? The moment every complexity imaginable were shoved into the web "because user experience", it became impossible to develop and maintain a competitive browser project by a non-profit company. More and more websites simply do not work correctly with FF, because companies don't give a shit anymore. "Just use Chrome". And if you install any anti-tracking software, they just break and you can't get any stuff done. So now bend over and get used to Googlenet, where in just couple of years you're only going to be allowed to visit content "fact-checked" by Google's Ministry of Truth, and you need to sign an EULA that require you to wear an anal probe at all times when browsing the web, and half the screen is always an ad. Good job everyone! You destroyed the WWW, and turned it into oppression tool, because what we needed was SPAs, dynamic content, 4 versions of CSS, 4 versions of HTML, and so on. Google & other corps embraced, extended and extinguished web and we were cheering.

core-questions 6y ago
The correct answer here is accelerationism. Let the web get bad. Let everyone hate FAANG. Good. That makes things ripe for disruption. We need a technology that replaces web browsers, period; they're terrible, slow, inefficient, bloated, and it's not because of the browser, it's because of what it's trying to do. A new open remote application system is what is called for here. Something that truly learns from what the Web lacked and builds these things in as part of the platform from day 1. - Form, table widgets that don't suck - Sane layout engine - Fast, optionall-type-safe language that doesn't need a million build tools that always break - Easy ways to host your own content without any central authority beyond the DNS I sincerely believe this can and will be done at some point and a decent group of people will get back an Internet experience that died in the early 00s - and I don't mean from a UX standpoint, I mean from a personal standpoint. We need to be able to create and host our own content without middlemen but without a barrier to entry that causes people to need to be a programmer to use it.
- sn41 6y ago
  Some of the issues you raise are important. But I am questioning the social dynamics of what you are suggesting. You could have copied your comment from sometime in the late 90s. Because the same argument could have been made by replacing FAANG with Internet Explorer. A bunch of decent folks did come together and fix things. It was called the Mozilla foundation. There is an opinion that the old decent folks don't matter anymore, but I don't share it. I think what is happening is nothing short of sabotage within Mozilla. I am sad that this is happening.