7 ms·

Because developers need to be paid for their time and there isn’t enough charity in the world to pay them without advertising, nor is the general public willing

by parsimo2010 6y ago

Because developers need to be paid for their time and there isn’t enough charity in the world to pay them without advertising, nor is the general public willing to pay $10 for an ad-free Firefox. I probably prefer this compared to Mozilla’s deal with Google to be the default search engine- sponsored tiles can go to a variety of sites, but the search engine deal pushed even more market share to a single player.

panpanna 6y ago
Mozilla is getting hundreds of millions of dollars to set Google as the default search engine. You can change that in 10 seconds. How are these stupid additions better for anyone? Consumers find them more annoying and they probably don't result in any significant month for Mozilla. Anyway, we need another open source browser, one that is controlled by the community and not some SV company.
- parsimo2010 6y ago
  You can also turn off sponsored tiles, so this isn’t different in that respect. Plus, while Mozilla the corporation is technically a for profit entity, they operate under the direction of the not for profit Mozilla Foundation. They are already the best choice for a browser that is free from an SV company’s influence. But they do have to pay their employees and keep the lights on. How are they supposed to pay for things if they don’t do stuff like this? At least they are honest about which things they are making money from.
  - panpanna 6y ago
    > You can also turn off sponsored tiles, so this isn’t different in that respect. The point is, I should not need to keep a close eye on Mozilla and disable stuff regularly. I should not need to fight my browser.
    - bllguo 6y ago
      There are a lot of "should"s in the world. People should not feel entitled to something they use extensively but do not pay for, yet here we are.
    - Krisando 6y ago
      > I should not need to keep a close eye on Mozilla That is a bit hyperbolic. You see a feature in the browser you don't like, you can turn it off. Not really a 'close eye' issue to me. > I should not need to fight my browser. This also is hyperbolic, switching a single option is fighting with a browser?
      - mPReDiToR 6y ago
        On a FF install... Turn off telemetry. Set search to DDG. Set "Do Not Track" always on. Get rid of the Mozilla start page. Disable any suggestions for Top Sites or other junk like "Snippets". That's just as I type, with no thought. There are myriad tweaks in about:config that I've promised myself I'll remember over the years since Phoenix. My favourite browser is adversarial because they need millions of dollars to write a piece of software which shows text and pictures from a network connection in the intended place on a screen. Why is this so complicated and expensive? What has the Internet become? Turn it off and start over. This one is broken.
        Krisando 6y ago
        > Turn off telemetry. Set search to DDG. Set "Do Not Track" always on. Get rid of the Mozilla start page. Disable any suggestions for Top Sites or other junk like "Snippets". I just login to my Mozilla account, and move buttons on the UI around (for some reason that's the one thing that isn't synced). > Why is this so complicated and expensive? In the older days, people were willing to give up more for their faiths, their drives. You could make this choice and essentially live a life of service if you wanted. > What has the Internet become? It's still an open network and there is nothing stopping you really from doing your own thing on it.
        jamienicol 6y ago
- franga2000 6y ago
  Mozilla is directly competing with Google - probably the most powerful tech company in the world. Google could kill them in a heartbeat, but they keep them around to avoid antitrust issues. If that ever changes and Mozilla doesn't have any other sources of income to fall back on, they can't possibly survive that.
beojan 6y ago
Mozilla's deal with Google gets them a lot of funding for setting as default the search engine most users would have selected anyway.
lmm 6y ago
> and there isn’t enough charity in the world to pay them without advertising And yet the KDE team was able to build the best browser in the world (Konqueror) while being funded only by charity and charity-like governmental development grants.
- franga2000 6y ago
  Except they don't build the engine. They used to, many many years ago, when the web was much simpler and everyone and their dog could build their own engine. These days, that is no longer the case. So even if Konqueror is still "the best browser in the world", that is meaningless to this discussion. Building the chrome around an existing engine is almost trivial compared to developing a 100% independent browser engine.
  - lmm 6y ago
    They built the engine originally. Others have contributed to it since which is exactly how open source is supposed to work.
    - franga2000 6y ago
      As I acknowledged. But what they did originally is only a fraction of what's required for a browser these days. Saying "KDE did it" today is like saying "look, the Wright brothers built a plane! You can, too!". Back then, the web was simpler and so we had many different engines. Today, we really only have two. All other attempts have failed - even Microsoft couldn't compete. The only reason Mozilla is still going is because of their head start and Google money. If Apple hadn't picked up KHTML and turned it into WebKit and Google developed their own thing, KHTML would be even more dead than Gecko is today.
      - Krisando 6y ago
        > the web was simpler and so we had many different engines I would argue it was more complex, trying to get something moderately advanced to render the same between many browsers became a massive chore compared to today.

panpanna 6y ago

Mozilla is getting hundreds of millions of dollars to set Google as the default search engine. You can change that in 10 seconds. How are these stupid additions better for anyone? Consumers find them more annoying and they probably don't result in any significant month for Mozilla. Anyway, we need another open source browser, one that is controlled by the community and not some SV company.

parsimo2010 6y ago
You can also turn off sponsored tiles, so this isn’t different in that respect. Plus, while Mozilla the corporation is technically a for profit entity, they operate under the direction of the not for profit Mozilla Foundation. They are already the best choice for a browser that is free from an SV company’s influence. But they do have to pay their employees and keep the lights on. How are they supposed to pay for things if they don’t do stuff like this? At least they are honest about which things they are making money from.
- panpanna 6y ago
  > You can also turn off sponsored tiles, so this isn’t different in that respect. The point is, I should not need to keep a close eye on Mozilla and disable stuff regularly. I should not need to fight my browser.
  - bllguo 6y ago
    There are a lot of "should"s in the world. People should not feel entitled to something they use extensively but do not pay for, yet here we are.
  - Krisando 6y ago
    > I should not need to keep a close eye on Mozilla That is a bit hyperbolic. You see a feature in the browser you don't like, you can turn it off. Not really a 'close eye' issue to me. > I should not need to fight my browser. This also is hyperbolic, switching a single option is fighting with a browser?
    - mPReDiToR 6y ago
      On a FF install... Turn off telemetry. Set search to DDG. Set "Do Not Track" always on. Get rid of the Mozilla start page. Disable any suggestions for Top Sites or other junk like "Snippets". That's just as I type, with no thought. There are myriad tweaks in about:config that I've promised myself I'll remember over the years since Phoenix. My favourite browser is adversarial because they need millions of dollars to write a piece of software which shows text and pictures from a network connection in the intended place on a screen. Why is this so complicated and expensive? What has the Internet become? Turn it off and start over. This one is broken.
      - Krisando 6y ago
        > Turn off telemetry. Set search to DDG. Set "Do Not Track" always on. Get rid of the Mozilla start page. Disable any suggestions for Top Sites or other junk like "Snippets". I just login to my Mozilla account, and move buttons on the UI around (for some reason that's the one thing that isn't synced). > Why is this so complicated and expensive? In the older days, people were willing to give up more for their faiths, their drives. You could make this choice and essentially live a life of service if you wanted. > What has the Internet become? It's still an open network and there is nothing stopping you really from doing your own thing on it.
      - jamienicol 6y ago
franga2000 6y ago
Mozilla is directly competing with Google - probably the most powerful tech company in the world. Google could kill them in a heartbeat, but they keep them around to avoid antitrust issues. If that ever changes and Mozilla doesn't have any other sources of income to fall back on, they can't possibly survive that.

beojan 6y ago

Mozilla's deal with Google gets them a lot of funding for setting as default the search engine most users would have selected anyway.

lmm 6y ago

> and there isn’t enough charity in the world to pay them without advertising And yet the KDE team was able to build the best browser in the world (Konqueror) while being funded only by charity and charity-like governmental development grants.

franga2000 6y ago
Except they don't build the engine. They used to, many many years ago, when the web was much simpler and everyone and their dog could build their own engine. These days, that is no longer the case. So even if Konqueror is still "the best browser in the world", that is meaningless to this discussion. Building the chrome around an existing engine is almost trivial compared to developing a 100% independent browser engine.
- lmm 6y ago
  They built the engine originally. Others have contributed to it since which is exactly how open source is supposed to work.
  - franga2000 6y ago
    As I acknowledged. But what they did originally is only a fraction of what's required for a browser these days. Saying "KDE did it" today is like saying "look, the Wright brothers built a plane! You can, too!". Back then, the web was simpler and so we had many different engines. Today, we really only have two. All other attempts have failed - even Microsoft couldn't compete. The only reason Mozilla is still going is because of their head start and Google money. If Apple hadn't picked up KHTML and turned it into WebKit and Google developed their own thing, KHTML would be even more dead than Gecko is today.
    - Krisando 6y ago
      > the web was simpler and so we had many different engines I would argue it was more complex, trying to get something moderately advanced to render the same between many browsers became a massive chore compared to today.