6 ms·

Dear Mozilla, We want you to make a browser that is so good, that it can function independenty of Google and Chrome financially and technologically. This is no

Dear Mozilla, We want you to make a browser that is so good, that it can function independenty of Google and Chrome financially and technologically. This is not an end in itself. Google is just not a very trustworthy steward of the marketshare that they have on the browser market. You are in a unique position to make this possible. Please double down on it instead of throwing away your hundreds of millions of monies that you have on unfocused, irrelevant bullshit that noone will remember in two years. You made a whole browser engine that actually improved on current engines in Rust and then you basically threw it away. What on earth was that about ? Mozilla we want you to make Firefox without any tracking, and without and advertizing shit in it , and we want it fast and secure, and we love your extensions. Some of us here are even willing to pay you subscription fees to support the browser! But keep in mind that you have millions of dollars already. We loved you all the way from when your product was still called phoenix, Mozilla suite even, and everyone was so excited to have this excellent browser. We pooled money to take out full page ads in a paper newspaper for Firefox. Because we believed in your product so much. I still have the page here. Do you remember ? Please. Stop with this stupid bullshit. Focus, Mozilla, Focus! From the depth of our hearts, PS: and if you find some time, go fix that bug that makes the active tab so difficult to differentiate if lighting conditions or eyesight aren't perfect.

torstenvl 5y ago
> PS: and if you find some time, go fix that bug that makes the active tab so difficult to differentiate if lighting conditions or eyesight aren't perfect. https://github.com/torstenvl/userChrome.css https://github.com/torstenvl/userChrome.css
bee_rider 5y ago
> PS: and if you find some time, go fix that bug that makes the active tab so difficult to differentiate if lighting conditions or eyesight aren't perfect. Is it possible that this is just a theme issue?
- kevincox 5y ago
  It is, but it is an issue with the default theme.
  - bee_rider 5y ago
    Ah, well that does seem annoying. I think (I switched it a while ago) Firefox defaulted to System Theme on my machine (Ubuntu), not sure how that works in the Windows ecosystem though.
maxwelljoslyn 5y ago
/sign
tomrod 5y ago
Where can I sign this petition?
weaksauce 5y ago
> PS: and if you find some time, go fix that bug that makes the active tab so difficult to differentiate if lighting conditions or eyesight aren't perfect. fwiw you can change the firefox chrome(what they call the browser widgets itself and predates googlechrome) css to highlight the active tab fairly easily if it's important to you. https://www.reddit.com/r/FirefoxCSS/ https://www.reddit.com/r/FirefoxCSS/
- sundarurfriend 5y ago
  And true to form, Mozilla have in the past few years been hiding this customization behind a "legacy" preference in about:config, calling it a "relic of the XUL era", and threatening to take it away at any future version. [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1541233#c62 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1541233#c62]
twblalock 5y ago
I get it, but do you really think there are enough people willing to pay a subscription to keep Mozilla's business alive? At this point the average consumer is used to free stuff, and a subscription model would ensure that Firefox is only used by a niche audience.
- beebeepka 5y ago
  Not OP but I do. At this point in time it's clear who uses Firefox and it's not the masses. It's the ones like you and me. Maybe our closest loved ones, too. It is doable. If there is an outrage, it would be manufactured.
- CodeGlitch 5y ago
  How about the payed version has a solid VPN thrown in? And I mean a VPN using Mozilla infrastructure... Not a 3rd party. There's a whole market around VPNs... So obviously enough money in that space.
  - notriddle 5y ago
    > And I mean a VPN using Mozilla infrastructure... Not a 3rd party. There is no Mozilla infrastructure. All their servers run in AWS.
    - CodeGlitch 5y ago
      > There is no Mozilla infrastructure. All their servers run in AWS. Yes I know - that would be a good place to start though don't you think?
      - akoncius 5y ago
        have you seen AWS/azure/GCP data transfer fees? mozilla would go bankrupt overnight
      - notriddle 5y ago
        Would running their own servers actually be a good idea? Their workloads seem pretty well-served by AWS's offerings: services with extremely bursty traffic (like updates and TaskCluster CI) that can take advantage of the Elastic part of EC2, and mostly-static websites (like MDN and the Firefox installer) that can use a caching CDN like CloudFront.
staticelf 5y ago
Completely agree of course but honestly they fired Brendan Eich that was all about this and installed a CEO that is all about identity politics. What do you expect to come out of that?
- cfcosta 5y ago
  And warts and all, brave is a really good browser.
  - staticelf 5y ago
    This is what I use every day :)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
notriddle 5y ago
You are fundamentally misunderstanding something very important: a browser is nothing without content to view in it. In order to achieve Google independence, Mozilla can't just focus on Firefox. They need an ecosystem of web apps that are Firefox-first, or at least not Firefox-second the way Google's YouTube and Search are. They can build it themselves, or they can get other people to do it, just as long as it gets done. Nobody seems interested in doing it for them. Most web pages either work better in Chrome, or they work about equally well in both browsers. The obvious allies that I can think of who might want to help elevate Firefox are Google's competitors, like NetFlix, Vimeo, various third-party ad companies, and, back when Google+ was still a thing, Facebook, but there are ideological reasons why being too overtly friendly with most of these companies can't happen. Ideologically, Firefox would want to ally with hobbyist groups, but they're small and fragmented: if there was a widespread movement to push Firefox at the exclusion of Chrome, many hobbyists would be happy to participate, because fuck Google, but nobody wants to go on this stag hunt[1] alone, and nobody has enough influence to organize such a thing except maybe Mozilla themselves (if enough websites start blocking Chrome at Mozilla's request, YouTube will retaliate by blocking Firefox, and I'm pretty sure Google's war chest is big enough that they'd be the ones who live through this metaphorical nuclear war). So most hobbyist websites work about equally well in both browsers, which overall means that the set of websites that work well in Chrome is a superset of the ones that work well in Firefox. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stag_hunt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stag_hunt Thus, Mozilla is stuck in a position where Google is vertically monopolizing them into irrelevance. Their repeated failure to launch their own products has proven that they don't have the power to go their own way, and working on their browser engine just means you have an excellent web browser engine, but that Chrome has them beat in the category of "stuff to actually do with it," which is much more important. This is, of course, the reason why Google desperately needs to be broken up.
drstrangelok 5y ago
Mozilla already make a browser that is a great alternative to Chrome, and it's not enough. Would better CPU/RAM usage, fixing security bugs, or removing "advertizing shit" really change consumers opinions and gain a significant share of the market from Chrome? Every time Mozilla attempts to innovate on the web they're publicly berated for not refocusing the company on the cries of enthusiast developer crowd, as if continued criticism will eventually compel Mozilla to be a better company. Where's the support?
sharps1 5y ago
Install Lepton, it fixes all the issues with the UI. https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix
nxtbl 5y ago
Also, Mozilla should stop removing features, buttons and preference items based on bullshit metrics that majority of the power users don't even keep enabled, thus skewing the studies completely.
Abishek_Muthian 5y ago
All that makes me feel about Mozilla, Exactly how I felt about Nokia between 2010-2015; Having everything to make a turnaround yet making deliberate decisions to bury yourself deeper. Just like Nokia, I'm not ruling out internal sabotage entirely either. At this point it just seems like Google is keeping Mozilla alive for avoiding anti-trust issues, But all horizontal monopolies are switching to being vertical monopolies anyways as they've learnt there are no laws to stop them and so I don't think Google would have reasons to put up this facade for much longer either. Yet I still use Firefox as main browser, But have started to switch mission critical websites to Brave. Mainly because I don't want to use 3rd party extensions(Found a recommended Firefox add-on involved in malicious activity[1]) and that websites have started to treat Chrome as the only browser(We're back to IE 6 times again). [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20210924045611/https://github.com/ken107/read-aloud/issues/232 https://web.archive.org/web/20210924045611/https://github.co...
dopkew 5y ago
And for us power-users, please implement the hiding of all the bars (tab bar, location bar etc), so we can save some screen real estate on our tiny laptop screens, when using the browser with other windows side-by-side. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1332447 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1332447

torstenvl 5y ago

> PS: and if you find some time, go fix that bug that makes the active tab so difficult to differentiate if lighting conditions or eyesight aren't perfect. https://github.com/torstenvl/userChrome.css https://github.com/torstenvl/userChrome.css

bee_rider 5y ago

> PS: and if you find some time, go fix that bug that makes the active tab so difficult to differentiate if lighting conditions or eyesight aren't perfect. Is it possible that this is just a theme issue?

kevincox 5y ago
It is, but it is an issue with the default theme.
- bee_rider 5y ago
  Ah, well that does seem annoying. I think (I switched it a while ago) Firefox defaulted to System Theme on my machine (Ubuntu), not sure how that works in the Windows ecosystem though.

maxwelljoslyn 5y ago

/sign

tomrod 5y ago

Where can I sign this petition?

weaksauce 5y ago

> PS: and if you find some time, go fix that bug that makes the active tab so difficult to differentiate if lighting conditions or eyesight aren't perfect. fwiw you can change the firefox chrome(what they call the browser widgets itself and predates googlechrome) css to highlight the active tab fairly easily if it's important to you. https://www.reddit.com/r/FirefoxCSS/ https://www.reddit.com/r/FirefoxCSS/

sundarurfriend 5y ago
And true to form, Mozilla have in the past few years been hiding this customization behind a "legacy" preference in about:config, calling it a "relic of the XUL era", and threatening to take it away at any future version. [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1541233#c62 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1541233#c62]

twblalock 5y ago

I get it, but do you really think there are enough people willing to pay a subscription to keep Mozilla's business alive? At this point the average consumer is used to free stuff, and a subscription model would ensure that Firefox is only used by a niche audience.

beebeepka 5y ago
Not OP but I do. At this point in time it's clear who uses Firefox and it's not the masses. It's the ones like you and me. Maybe our closest loved ones, too. It is doable. If there is an outrage, it would be manufactured.
CodeGlitch 5y ago
How about the payed version has a solid VPN thrown in? And I mean a VPN using Mozilla infrastructure... Not a 3rd party. There's a whole market around VPNs... So obviously enough money in that space.
- notriddle 5y ago
  > And I mean a VPN using Mozilla infrastructure... Not a 3rd party. There is no Mozilla infrastructure. All their servers run in AWS.
  - CodeGlitch 5y ago
    > There is no Mozilla infrastructure. All their servers run in AWS. Yes I know - that would be a good place to start though don't you think?
    - akoncius 5y ago
      have you seen AWS/azure/GCP data transfer fees? mozilla would go bankrupt overnight
    - notriddle 5y ago
      Would running their own servers actually be a good idea? Their workloads seem pretty well-served by AWS's offerings: services with extremely bursty traffic (like updates and TaskCluster CI) that can take advantage of the Elastic part of EC2, and mostly-static websites (like MDN and the Firefox installer) that can use a caching CDN like CloudFront.

staticelf 5y ago

Completely agree of course but honestly they fired Brendan Eich that was all about this and installed a CEO that is all about identity politics. What do you expect to come out of that?

cfcosta 5y ago
And warts and all, brave is a really good browser.
- staticelf 5y ago
  This is what I use every day :)

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

notriddle 5y ago

You are fundamentally misunderstanding something very important: a browser is nothing without content to view in it. In order to achieve Google independence, Mozilla can't just focus on Firefox. They need an ecosystem of web apps that are Firefox-first, or at least not Firefox-second the way Google's YouTube and Search are. They can build it themselves, or they can get other people to do it, just as long as it gets done. Nobody seems interested in doing it for them. Most web pages either work better in Chrome, or they work about equally well in both browsers. The obvious allies that I can think of who might want to help elevate Firefox are Google's competitors, like NetFlix, Vimeo, various third-party ad companies, and, back when Google+ was still a thing, Facebook, but there are ideological reasons why being too overtly friendly with most of these companies can't happen. Ideologically, Firefox would want to ally with hobbyist groups, but they're small and fragmented: if there was a widespread movement to push Firefox at the exclusion of Chrome, many hobbyists would be happy to participate, because fuck Google, but nobody wants to go on this stag hunt[1] alone, and nobody has enough influence to organize such a thing except maybe Mozilla themselves (if enough websites start blocking Chrome at Mozilla's request, YouTube will retaliate by blocking Firefox, and I'm pretty sure Google's war chest is big enough that they'd be the ones who live through this metaphorical nuclear war). So most hobbyist websites work about equally well in both browsers, which overall means that the set of websites that work well in Chrome is a superset of the ones that work well in Firefox. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stag_hunt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stag_hunt Thus, Mozilla is stuck in a position where Google is vertically monopolizing them into irrelevance. Their repeated failure to launch their own products has proven that they don't have the power to go their own way, and working on their browser engine just means you have an excellent web browser engine, but that Chrome has them beat in the category of "stuff to actually do with it," which is much more important. This is, of course, the reason why Google desperately needs to be broken up.

drstrangelok 5y ago

Mozilla already make a browser that is a great alternative to Chrome, and it's not enough. Would better CPU/RAM usage, fixing security bugs, or removing "advertizing shit" really change consumers opinions and gain a significant share of the market from Chrome? Every time Mozilla attempts to innovate on the web they're publicly berated for not refocusing the company on the cries of enthusiast developer crowd, as if continued criticism will eventually compel Mozilla to be a better company. Where's the support?

sharps1 5y ago

Install Lepton, it fixes all the issues with the UI. https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix

nxtbl 5y ago

Also, Mozilla should stop removing features, buttons and preference items based on bullshit metrics that majority of the power users don't even keep enabled, thus skewing the studies completely.

Abishek_Muthian 5y ago

All that makes me feel about Mozilla, Exactly how I felt about Nokia between 2010-2015; Having everything to make a turnaround yet making deliberate decisions to bury yourself deeper. Just like Nokia, I'm not ruling out internal sabotage entirely either. At this point it just seems like Google is keeping Mozilla alive for avoiding anti-trust issues, But all horizontal monopolies are switching to being vertical monopolies anyways as they've learnt there are no laws to stop them and so I don't think Google would have reasons to put up this facade for much longer either. Yet I still use Firefox as main browser, But have started to switch mission critical websites to Brave. Mainly because I don't want to use 3rd party extensions(Found a recommended Firefox add-on involved in malicious activity[1]) and that websites have started to treat Chrome as the only browser(We're back to IE 6 times again). [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20210924045611/https://github.com/ken107/read-aloud/issues/232 https://web.archive.org/web/20210924045611/https://github.co...

dopkew 5y ago

And for us power-users, please implement the hiding of all the bars (tab bar, location bar etc), so we can save some screen real estate on our tiny laptop screens, when using the browser with other windows side-by-side. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1332447 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1332447