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There's a theory in the Free Software community that BigTech sponsorship of Mozilla was intended to bring about the current state of affairs. The idea is that

by bm3719 5y ago

There's a theory in the Free Software community that BigTech sponsorship of Mozilla was intended to bring about the current state of affairs. The idea is that MS, Google, and others really have no reason to donate to a direct competitor. Perhaps they did so because they knew it would give them control. That control was exercised over the years and now Mozilla is more a social justice advocacy organization than a foundation that develops a web browser. The sorry state of FF was the inevitable result. Whether you buy this narrative or not, the fact is there remains no effective threat whatsoever to the massive data collection that occurs whenever you use Chrome or Edge. 10 years ago, MS/Google had no ability to spy on the web surfing of the vast majority of computer users. Now they do.

krylon 5y ago
Well, once upon a time, Microsoft invested quite a bit of money in Apple to keep them alive. Allegedly, they did this so they could tell the DoJ with a straight face that they were not a monopolist, after all they had a competitor. I would not be surprised if Google's support for Mozilla is based on similar reasoning.
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  I don't think that was the only thing. There was also also the friendship between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Monopoly laws care about marketshare and Apple's was tiny at that point, especially in the business market
- nerdponx 5y ago
  This theory is frequently stated as fact here on HN, so clearly you're not the only one to feel that way.
- JohnFen 5y ago
  But Apple and Microsoft weren't competitors then. Apple was a hardware manufacturer. Microsoft was a software manufacturer. While there was some overlap in their product offerings, they were in different businesses and so weren't really competitors.
- rasz 5y ago
  >Well, once upon a time, Microsoft invested quite a bit of money in Apple to keep them alive. This is not what happened. Microsoft was involved in a lawsuit after paying one of Apple contractors to steal QuickTime code. "investing" in Apple was part of the settlement. https://www.theregister.com/1998/10/29/microsoft_paid_apple_150m/ https://www.theregister.com/1998/10/29/microsoft_paid_apple_... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5TdqfNE1QU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5TdqfNE1QU
  - krylon 5y ago
    Huh, I didn't know that. You learn something new every day.
BeefWellington 5y ago
> The sorry state of FF was the inevitable result. What sorry state? The thing I don't get about this narrative is that Firefox works and works very well for me and so when I see people saying things like this it doesn't jive with reality.
- SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
  I’ve used Firefox since it replaced Netscape. I agree, I think “sorry state” is an exaggeration. They’ve made some choices I don’t love, but my browser isn’t part of me, I open a tab, I get some info, I get back to work. My job isn’t to play Firefox. I don’t get the “UI sucks, they made it like Chrome… so instead I use Chrome”. However… > That control was exercised over the years and now Mozilla is more a social justice advocacy organization than a foundation that develops a web browser. I do think they’re happy to spend too much time/money on their pet projects. Given the layoffs and poor market performance, this has come at the cost of their product. I’m allowed to dislike that despite still using it. Sorry state of Firefox, I disagree. Sorry state of Mozilla, yes. So I look at M and do expect FF to get worse.
- Tagbert 5y ago
  i think it is less about the state of the browser itself and more about it’s continuing drop in user base.
- ymolodtsov 5y ago
  3.54% of market share is a pretty sorry state for once a major browser. At this point it's reasonable to suggest users to try a different browser if Firefox has issues with your website.
- phendrenad2 5y ago
  Every single time Firefox updates, it pops up a page telling me how great Firefox is, how great it would be if I donated. Updates happen weekly. It's effectively shareware at this point.
webmobdev 5y ago
I completely buy that argument - BigTech (in particular Google) have a huge influence today on Firefox development. Moreover, Mozilla's Firefox is deliberately hostile to the open source movement too - their code is a convulated mess by design, to discourage others from developing competing products with it. (Remember, that Firefox has provided Mozilla with 100's of millions of dollars - so the excuse of legacy code and all is just bullshit). It's no wonder that both Webkit (Safari) and Blink (Chrome / Opera) are more popular than Gecko (the browser engine of Firefox), with developers. (All that money is just wasted on them ... ).
- dralley 5y ago
  >Moreover, Mozilla's Firefox is deliberately hostile to the open source movement too - their code is a convulated mess by design, to discourage others from developing competing products with it. This is total nonsense. It's a mess because it has 25 years of legacy behind it, and because until a few years ago all of that legacy was considered a "feature" by half of the userbase, who was screaming at them not to remove the "mess" because it would break their addons. Even in this very thread you see people whining about removing XUL addon support. And ironically, most of the "competing projects" are based around preserving that mess. It's only since 2017 that they've really been able to clean up the architecture at all. And saying that they're "hostile to open source" is practically defamatory. Mozilla has contributed more to open source across a broad swath of organizations than 99.9% of companies that are 100x their size.
  - webmobdev 5y ago
    I stand by what I said - their code is a convulated mess by design. It's 25 years and they still haven't modularised their code that anyone can use the Gecko engine on the desktop and creating competing browsers. All anyone can do is create a clone of Firefox, which ofcourse, cannot really compete with Firefox or other desktop browser as it will still have all the flaws of Firefox. And this is what Mozilla wants. They may have started with altruistic reasons, but after tasting Google's money, their greed corrupted them. Mobile is a good example. Mozilla realised it was in a precarious position on the mobile platform, which is dominated by Chrome, Opera and Safari. And so they have now been forced to release the Gecko rendering engine for mobile ( https://github.com/mozilla/geckoview https://github.com/mozilla/geckoview ) and are encouraging others to create mobile browsers, in the hopes that this may provide a fillip to Mobile Firefox. Desperation drove them to this move as the money is now in mobile platform (Google paying 15 billion dollars to Apple / Safari highlights this). If they can do this for the mobile platform, why can't they do it for the Desktop platform too? This kind of deliberate convulated code mess is like a "dark pattern" where in you know the developer isn't really interested in supporting the open source movement. Yes, there are many other open source projects that have poor code or lack documentation, but unlike the Firefox project, none of them has 100's of millions of dollars at their disposal - it's a travesty how they have wasted all that money!
jollybean 5y ago
The reason they do it is a strategy called 'commoditize your complement'. [1] If browsers were all private, and they had power and control, it'd be harder for G and MS to poke through. So the 'erase' a layer of the value chain by making it all open-source. One less barrier between them and the customer. Chrome is as important to Google as many other things, it's just not where the revenue is captured. [1] https://www.gwern.net/Complement https://www.gwern.net/Complement
ymolodtsov 5y ago
Google is literally paying Apple billions for that default search position in Safari. What kind of control over Safari are they getting through that? The fact Mozilla squandered those "free" money is their management's fault.

by bm3719 5y ago

krylon 5y ago

Well, once upon a time, Microsoft invested quite a bit of money in Apple to keep them alive. Allegedly, they did this so they could tell the DoJ with a straight face that they were not a monopolist, after all they had a competitor. I would not be surprised if Google's support for Mozilla is based on similar reasoning.

GekkePrutser 5y ago
I don't think that was the only thing. There was also also the friendship between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Monopoly laws care about marketshare and Apple's was tiny at that point, especially in the business market
nerdponx 5y ago
This theory is frequently stated as fact here on HN, so clearly you're not the only one to feel that way.
JohnFen 5y ago
But Apple and Microsoft weren't competitors then. Apple was a hardware manufacturer. Microsoft was a software manufacturer. While there was some overlap in their product offerings, they were in different businesses and so weren't really competitors.
rasz 5y ago
>Well, once upon a time, Microsoft invested quite a bit of money in Apple to keep them alive. This is not what happened. Microsoft was involved in a lawsuit after paying one of Apple contractors to steal QuickTime code. "investing" in Apple was part of the settlement. https://www.theregister.com/1998/10/29/microsoft_paid_apple_150m/ https://www.theregister.com/1998/10/29/microsoft_paid_apple_... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5TdqfNE1QU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5TdqfNE1QU
- krylon 5y ago
  Huh, I didn't know that. You learn something new every day.

BeefWellington 5y ago

> The sorry state of FF was the inevitable result. What sorry state? The thing I don't get about this narrative is that Firefox works and works very well for me and so when I see people saying things like this it doesn't jive with reality.

SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
I’ve used Firefox since it replaced Netscape. I agree, I think “sorry state” is an exaggeration. They’ve made some choices I don’t love, but my browser isn’t part of me, I open a tab, I get some info, I get back to work. My job isn’t to play Firefox. I don’t get the “UI sucks, they made it like Chrome… so instead I use Chrome”. However… > That control was exercised over the years and now Mozilla is more a social justice advocacy organization than a foundation that develops a web browser. I do think they’re happy to spend too much time/money on their pet projects. Given the layoffs and poor market performance, this has come at the cost of their product. I’m allowed to dislike that despite still using it. Sorry state of Firefox, I disagree. Sorry state of Mozilla, yes. So I look at M and do expect FF to get worse.
Tagbert 5y ago
i think it is less about the state of the browser itself and more about it’s continuing drop in user base.
ymolodtsov 5y ago
3.54% of market share is a pretty sorry state for once a major browser. At this point it's reasonable to suggest users to try a different browser if Firefox has issues with your website.
phendrenad2 5y ago
Every single time Firefox updates, it pops up a page telling me how great Firefox is, how great it would be if I donated. Updates happen weekly. It's effectively shareware at this point.

webmobdev 5y ago

I completely buy that argument - BigTech (in particular Google) have a huge influence today on Firefox development. Moreover, Mozilla's Firefox is deliberately hostile to the open source movement too - their code is a convulated mess by design, to discourage others from developing competing products with it. (Remember, that Firefox has provided Mozilla with 100's of millions of dollars - so the excuse of legacy code and all is just bullshit). It's no wonder that both Webkit (Safari) and Blink (Chrome / Opera) are more popular than Gecko (the browser engine of Firefox), with developers. (All that money is just wasted on them ... ).

dralley 5y ago
>Moreover, Mozilla's Firefox is deliberately hostile to the open source movement too - their code is a convulated mess by design, to discourage others from developing competing products with it. This is total nonsense. It's a mess because it has 25 years of legacy behind it, and because until a few years ago all of that legacy was considered a "feature" by half of the userbase, who was screaming at them not to remove the "mess" because it would break their addons. Even in this very thread you see people whining about removing XUL addon support. And ironically, most of the "competing projects" are based around preserving that mess. It's only since 2017 that they've really been able to clean up the architecture at all. And saying that they're "hostile to open source" is practically defamatory. Mozilla has contributed more to open source across a broad swath of organizations than 99.9% of companies that are 100x their size.
- webmobdev 5y ago
  I stand by what I said - their code is a convulated mess by design. It's 25 years and they still haven't modularised their code that anyone can use the Gecko engine on the desktop and creating competing browsers. All anyone can do is create a clone of Firefox, which ofcourse, cannot really compete with Firefox or other desktop browser as it will still have all the flaws of Firefox. And this is what Mozilla wants. They may have started with altruistic reasons, but after tasting Google's money, their greed corrupted them. Mobile is a good example. Mozilla realised it was in a precarious position on the mobile platform, which is dominated by Chrome, Opera and Safari. And so they have now been forced to release the Gecko rendering engine for mobile ( https://github.com/mozilla/geckoview https://github.com/mozilla/geckoview ) and are encouraging others to create mobile browsers, in the hopes that this may provide a fillip to Mobile Firefox. Desperation drove them to this move as the money is now in mobile platform (Google paying 15 billion dollars to Apple / Safari highlights this). If they can do this for the mobile platform, why can't they do it for the Desktop platform too? This kind of deliberate convulated code mess is like a "dark pattern" where in you know the developer isn't really interested in supporting the open source movement. Yes, there are many other open source projects that have poor code or lack documentation, but unlike the Firefox project, none of them has 100's of millions of dollars at their disposal - it's a travesty how they have wasted all that money!

jollybean 5y ago

The reason they do it is a strategy called 'commoditize your complement'. [1] If browsers were all private, and they had power and control, it'd be harder for G and MS to poke through. So the 'erase' a layer of the value chain by making it all open-source. One less barrier between them and the customer. Chrome is as important to Google as many other things, it's just not where the revenue is captured. [1] https://www.gwern.net/Complement https://www.gwern.net/Complement

ymolodtsov 5y ago

Google is literally paying Apple billions for that default search position in Safari. What kind of control over Safari are they getting through that? The fact Mozilla squandered those "free" money is their management's fault.