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This has been happening for god knows how many releases now. Release notes make it seem like it's a minor version update and I'm not sure there were that many c

This has been happening for god knows how many releases now. Release notes make it seem like it's a minor version update and I'm not sure there were that many changes since they don't and haven't been caring. I will still use Firefox since it's not Chrome, but what people have been saying is true: it's a facade so google does not get sued for antitrust/monopoly. I don't know how to fix this, but I believe sometime down the road the EU is going to sue Google and also believe Firefox is going to be forked. Can't wait for both of those things to happen.

jakub_g 5y ago
Release notes are generally very concise. They are typically followed up with a detailed blog on https://hacks.mozilla.org/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/
- charcircuit 5y ago
  Why can't they just make a combined reason notes with both of those. Casual readers don't need to scroll to the bottom and understand everything and it makes updates look more meaty.
  - WorldMaker 5y ago
    Casual readers not confronted with a wall of text also don't feel compelled to accidentally drown in scrolling through all of it just in case there was a juicy morsel buried somewhere down below. Both approaches have pros/cons.
    - hypertele-Xii 5y ago
      If only the web had some kind of technology to make more content appear when clicking on things... Almost as if they were linked, somehow. Then we'd need some kind of program to browse that content by clicking on stuff.
elithrar 5y ago
> and also believe Firefox is going to be forked Out of curiosity: by whom? I don't think this is likely at this point, short of some truly benevolent benefactor pushing tens of millions of dollars per-year into a competing foundation. None of the "alternative" browser companies today built upon Gecko or forked Firefox itself, because _it's really hard to maintain a browser engine_. Mozilla itself barely manages to keep up, and Apple sort-of-does (and can riff off work on Blink due to WebKit's shared history). This is also why Chrome & Chromium tend to drive de-facto standards (some good, some not so good) with an implementation-first approach. Building browsers is hard. Really hard, especially as we consume more media and build richer applications on top of the web. Dedicated teams for video & audio, WebRTC, Wasm, CSS, JS itself (huge, let alone the security challenges), etc.
- fleddr 5y ago
  Not even Brave, founded by Mozilla's ex-CTO/CEO forked Firefox. Microsoft Edge switched from homegrown to Chromium. These two clues should be enough to cement your idea about how hard it is. Even more important though is that it doesn't matter. You don't have reach. Apple locks you into Safari on mobile and Google pushes Chrome on Android and services having billions of users, like Youtube. That's Mozilla's real problem. They lack in engineering power but engineering isn't the problem anyway. It's reach.
  - charcircuit 5y ago
    I think it's less about being hard and more about it being expensive redundent work. You will have to spend a lot of money to essentially make a duplicate version of an existing piece of software which you can use and build upon right now.
    - fleddr 5y ago
      True, and if we're honest, the result of this hard work is a negative. Nobody in commercial software development benefits from having multiple slightly different engines. It just means more testing and more bugs, differences in feature support, the like.
germandiago 5y ago
Though I do not like monopolies, how did Google reach this position? Is there any kind of abuse going on? Or it is just a better product? I say so because I think there should be alternatives, but suing just for being better does not make any sense to me, if that is the case, of course.
- jfk13 5y ago
  > how did Google reach this position? In part, at least, by relentlessly promoting Chrome on their (hugely popular) web properties, as well as other advertising channels. Was it legitimate for them to use their dominance of online search to aggressively push their web browser? I'm no expert, but some people may think that was improper.
  - germandiago 5y ago
    I think there are two different things here being discussed. > In part, at least, by relentlessly promoting Chrome on their (hugely popular) web properties, as well as other advertising channels. It is their property, of course they can use it to promote their stuff. The other topic is how much they are doing without user consent. That would definitely could incur in privacy violations. But promoting my stuff in my own places? That is not a reason to complain.
    - skinkestek 5y ago
      >It is their property, of course they can use it to promote their stuff. Luckily for consumers and small and medium-sized businesses Microsoft vs Eu and Microsoft vs US tells a different story about the legality of using a monopoly in one area to push for monopoly in other areas. I'd not invest significant shares of my money into either MS or Google before we see the end of this, then maybe there is a chance to pick up some at a more realistic price. As the saying goes: the wheels of justice grinds slowly.
      - germandiago 5y ago
        You as a consumer have the power of where to put your money. If you think a company is creating monopolies just use an alternative. If you keep using the one from the big company, you should wonder why as well. Maybe they are offering something better than the alternatives and I do not think someone should be entitled to force all the other consumers have inferior or more expensive products because a third party decides that they are too big. By this reasoning, what you are saying is that we have to stop companies making better products for the people on the basis that they are too big. The dynamics of competition tells us that when IBM existed, it appeared Microsoft, when Microsoft and IBM existed, it appeared Google, Apple came back, Facebook appeared. If big companies had absolute power then this would not happen. More companies will be born, the same way Zara was born in Spain from a guy sewing at his own home. Telling someone that because they are "too big" they cannot make better products makes no sense to me, since you just said you support consumers. Me too, that is why I won't force inferior products on them. The reasons should be something else like agreeing prices among companies or similar stuff. But even that could make some small company emerge if the prices are artificially puffed up, because it makes them less competitive. It is a business chance for someone else in that case.
dblohm7 5y ago
You know that site isolation shipped recently, right? That was a massive, massive amount of work.

jakub_g 5y ago

Release notes are generally very concise. They are typically followed up with a detailed blog on https://hacks.mozilla.org/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/

charcircuit 5y ago
Why can't they just make a combined reason notes with both of those. Casual readers don't need to scroll to the bottom and understand everything and it makes updates look more meaty.
- WorldMaker 5y ago
  Casual readers not confronted with a wall of text also don't feel compelled to accidentally drown in scrolling through all of it just in case there was a juicy morsel buried somewhere down below. Both approaches have pros/cons.
  - hypertele-Xii 5y ago
    If only the web had some kind of technology to make more content appear when clicking on things... Almost as if they were linked, somehow. Then we'd need some kind of program to browse that content by clicking on stuff.

elithrar 5y ago

> and also believe Firefox is going to be forked Out of curiosity: by whom? I don't think this is likely at this point, short of some truly benevolent benefactor pushing tens of millions of dollars per-year into a competing foundation. None of the "alternative" browser companies today built upon Gecko or forked Firefox itself, because _it's really hard to maintain a browser engine_. Mozilla itself barely manages to keep up, and Apple sort-of-does (and can riff off work on Blink due to WebKit's shared history). This is also why Chrome & Chromium tend to drive de-facto standards (some good, some not so good) with an implementation-first approach. Building browsers is hard. Really hard, especially as we consume more media and build richer applications on top of the web. Dedicated teams for video & audio, WebRTC, Wasm, CSS, JS itself (huge, let alone the security challenges), etc.

fleddr 5y ago
Not even Brave, founded by Mozilla's ex-CTO/CEO forked Firefox. Microsoft Edge switched from homegrown to Chromium. These two clues should be enough to cement your idea about how hard it is. Even more important though is that it doesn't matter. You don't have reach. Apple locks you into Safari on mobile and Google pushes Chrome on Android and services having billions of users, like Youtube. That's Mozilla's real problem. They lack in engineering power but engineering isn't the problem anyway. It's reach.
- charcircuit 5y ago
  I think it's less about being hard and more about it being expensive redundent work. You will have to spend a lot of money to essentially make a duplicate version of an existing piece of software which you can use and build upon right now.
  - fleddr 5y ago
    True, and if we're honest, the result of this hard work is a negative. Nobody in commercial software development benefits from having multiple slightly different engines. It just means more testing and more bugs, differences in feature support, the like.

germandiago 5y ago

Though I do not like monopolies, how did Google reach this position? Is there any kind of abuse going on? Or it is just a better product? I say so because I think there should be alternatives, but suing just for being better does not make any sense to me, if that is the case, of course.

jfk13 5y ago
> how did Google reach this position? In part, at least, by relentlessly promoting Chrome on their (hugely popular) web properties, as well as other advertising channels. Was it legitimate for them to use their dominance of online search to aggressively push their web browser? I'm no expert, but some people may think that was improper.
- germandiago 5y ago
  I think there are two different things here being discussed. > In part, at least, by relentlessly promoting Chrome on their (hugely popular) web properties, as well as other advertising channels. It is their property, of course they can use it to promote their stuff. The other topic is how much they are doing without user consent. That would definitely could incur in privacy violations. But promoting my stuff in my own places? That is not a reason to complain.
  - skinkestek 5y ago
    >It is their property, of course they can use it to promote their stuff. Luckily for consumers and small and medium-sized businesses Microsoft vs Eu and Microsoft vs US tells a different story about the legality of using a monopoly in one area to push for monopoly in other areas. I'd not invest significant shares of my money into either MS or Google before we see the end of this, then maybe there is a chance to pick up some at a more realistic price. As the saying goes: the wheels of justice grinds slowly.
    - germandiago 5y ago
      You as a consumer have the power of where to put your money. If you think a company is creating monopolies just use an alternative. If you keep using the one from the big company, you should wonder why as well. Maybe they are offering something better than the alternatives and I do not think someone should be entitled to force all the other consumers have inferior or more expensive products because a third party decides that they are too big. By this reasoning, what you are saying is that we have to stop companies making better products for the people on the basis that they are too big. The dynamics of competition tells us that when IBM existed, it appeared Microsoft, when Microsoft and IBM existed, it appeared Google, Apple came back, Facebook appeared. If big companies had absolute power then this would not happen. More companies will be born, the same way Zara was born in Spain from a guy sewing at his own home. Telling someone that because they are "too big" they cannot make better products makes no sense to me, since you just said you support consumers. Me too, that is why I won't force inferior products on them. The reasons should be something else like agreeing prices among companies or similar stuff. But even that could make some small company emerge if the prices are artificially puffed up, because it makes them less competitive. It is a business chance for someone else in that case.

dblohm7 5y ago

You know that site isolation shipped recently, right? That was a massive, massive amount of work.