13 ms·

Mozilla’s Vision for the Evolution of the Web

151 points by fabrice_d 5y ago

Buttons840 5y ago
> User Control > The Web is unique because it offers users unparalleled control over the content they experience. This control is the foundation of agency, but the reality has not always lived up to the promise, and we see threats to it going forward. Consequently, we seek to protect and expand the mechanisms that empower people to experience the Web on their own terms. > we eventually chose to support EME, but nevertheless view it as a regrettable chapter in the Web’s evolution These are a few interesting parts I saw. Overall this looks good and I haven't seen any part of this I disagree with. Is this a new publication from Mozilla? When was this written? I don't see a date on it.
- fabrice_d 5y ago
  This was linked from the executive summary published today at https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-webvision-future-of-web/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-webvision-future...
- perihelions 5y ago
  It references 2022 data, so it must be recent: - "As a result of these and other changes, the fraction of encrypted page loads has gone from around 30% in 2015 to the vast majority of traffic in 2022. "
throwaway0x7E6 5y ago
>Agency >Privacy multiple forks exist exactly because agency and privacy are not mozilla's values anymore. just half-hearted lip service
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- DonHopkins 5y ago
- hkt 5y ago
  For the sake of argument.. isn't the fact that people can freely make those forks something of a guarantee around agency, and possibly also privacy? My guess is that because Mozilla is a hostage (and arguably antitrust human shield) of Google etc, it can't be too aggressive in its privacy approach, but it can at least not intentionally break privacy enhancing patchsets and features. Maybe I'm being too optimistic about them though.
  - HKH2 5y ago
    Chromium is open source. You can freely fork it too. There is a trade-off between privacy and convenience, and one between agency and simplicity. Mozilla is quite okay with pushing their own proprietary products and removing customization.
olliej 5y ago
Does it include more full page ads built directly into Firefox?
istillwritecode 5y ago
The document hilariously contains the word privacy but does not include the word "cookie".
ChrisArchitect 5y ago
Blog post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30781230 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30781230
userbinator 5y ago
Reinterpretable content is necessary for control, but it's not sufficient: the browser needs to provide users with levers by which to control their experience. ...says the organisation that is continuously removing functionality, especially whenever they feel like redesigning the UI. Mozilla has been saying stuff like this for a long time (and "puts users in control" was the Firefox slogan for a while, before they did s/users/individuals/), but what they've done to Firefox is clearly in a different direction. I still use Firefox because it's the "least bad" of all the alternatives, but that's a pretty low bar and their continuing hypocrisy is definitely irritating. "Actions speak louder than words."
- zagrebian 5y ago
  What functionality was removed?
  - rom1v 5y ago
    `about:config` on the Android version.
    - causi 5y ago
      Frankly most of the functionality was removed on the Android version. You can't even change your user agent anymore. All you get is that pathetic "show desktop version" checkbox which not only still tells websites you're on a mobile browser but breaks if you check it, tap a link, and then hit the back button. I still have to do half my mobile browsing in Chrome because it may be an ad-riddled mess but at least it doesn't constantly break.
      - gnomewascool 5y ago
        You can access about:config and change your user agent if you use Firefox Beta or Firefox Nightly. The latter is annoying since you get constant updates, but the former is about as stable as normal Firefox.
    - cpeterso 5y ago
moralestapia 5y ago
Is Mozilla relevant anymore? Most people don't care and the ones who do know Mozilla enough to know they failed miserably to live up to their standards. They dug a hole they can't get out of now.
- mind-blight 5y ago
  Mozilla is still very relevant. Rust was built and, until recently, managed there. They maintain some of the best and accessible documentation about web technologies on the internet. Firefox is actually pretty good again. They dropped the ball for a while and let Chrome eat their lunch, but I switched back a couple years ago when the whole fiasco that forced users with Google accounts to automatically log in with their browsers occurred. Google eventually added an option after the backlash, but I trust Mozilla's incentive structure more than Google's when it comes to my browser
  - tremon 5y ago
    Rust was built and, until recently, managed there. They maintain some of the best and accessible documentation about web technologies on the internet. What you're saying is that Mozilla threw out the very things that made them relevant?
    - mind-blight 5y ago
      I think that's a bit hyperbolic. They still maintain the web documentation that is used daily by web developers across the globe. Rust is now managed by the Rust foundation. Having the language shepherded by a dedicated foundation is healthier than keeping it all in house. It's definitely fair to argue that laying off some of the core Rust developers harms their relevance, but it's definitely more nuanced than "they just threw out..."
- echelon 5y ago
  > Is Mozilla relevant anymore? Despite the Mozilla leadership and the at times questionable investments, Firefox could never be more relevant. We need a non-Chrome browser just as we need multiple operating systems with different design paradigms. It gives us flexibility, increased surface area for experimentation, and acts as an anchor for web standards (at least as long as non-Chrome browser share remains). If running instructions should be free, so should reading information. Even if Chromium is itself open source, Firefox (and mostly Safari) keep Chrome from turning into a thin client that bakes in Google's self interested designs for the web. I think Mozilla corporation should be acquired or merge with Canonical, Framework, or some other open-minded computing company. The leadership should build a strong "complete package" offering: laptop, phone, operating system, browser. That makes more sense to me than continued investments into weird side projects with little chance of developing traction. And by weird side projects, I don't mean their efforts in VR or discontinued efforts in TTS. I think building open platforms in these domains makes a lot of sense. I just don't know if Mozilla should be the folks to do it. Their core mission - web - should be their singular focus. The absolute best thing Mozilla could do, though, is spend money on marketing and partnerships to improve Firefox adoption and stem the losses. After they get growth back, the next thing to do is to develop stable, sensible revenue streams. The browser has become a commodity, which is why I think premium hardware sales could do the trick. Especially if it's "ethical" open hardware. nrp (Framework founder's HN username), you should go have a chat with Mozilla folks sometime. Now isn't the time to consider an acquisition, but after you achieve growth and scale - please buy them out. Tout them as part of your offering, and use them as an additional funnel to drive Framework hardware sales.
ofrzeta 5y ago
You can bash Mozilla (deservedly) all you want but I will keep using Firefox. After all it's the only serious competitor to Chrome and competition's a good thing, right?
- after_care 5y ago
  I specifically want to use a browser released by a non-market leader because it encourages the web to be a more open standard.
  - encryptluks2 5y ago
    Until you realize that Mozilla is doing the same telemetry. Just like politicians, I don't think it matters if you use Firefox or Chromium. They are two sides to the same coin.
    - ofrzeta 5y ago
      They are not. Mozilla with all its flaws is still a foundation while Google is .. not. Even if they were two sides of the same coin I'd rather have a coin with two sides so I can flip it if I want.
      - encryptluks2 5y ago
        Mozilla is a non-profit in the same sense that a church is a non-profit, while the preacher drives a Bentley. Maybe they should be investigated.
      - ThrashBeard 5y ago
        > Mozilla with all its flaws is still a foundation Not exactly. There is a Mozilla Foundation and a Mozilla Corporation
      - southerntofu 5y ago
        In my opinion a non-profit where workers are legally prevented (by contract) from talking about their pay and where CEO makes more money than other people should not be called a non-profit. A non-profit should have equal pay for everyone, from office cleaners to administrators.
IfOnlyYouKnew 5y ago
Wow, this thread is a shitshow. The single non-commercial browser option, one of essentially just three remaining players in the market, and they get nothing but scorn for trying to survive. Google created Chrome, in part, to become less dependent on browser defaults. That worked, and Mozilla's main source of revenue was/is almost certain to dry up. So they bundled a service or two at some point. You clicked 'no' and were never bothered again. That's too much of an ask? You are free to donate, instead. You, and everyone else, was always free to do so, of course. It didn't work, it doesn't work, and it will never work, but that doesn't stop anyone from suggesting it, in this case and every other (music, journalism). People mouth off about privacy and security but will not follow through with $5/yr if they aren't forced to. They'll get their fix from Google or Microsoft, use the same pretentious arguments about security to also screw the people that write what they like reading and act surprised when they wake up in a paywalled garden. I bet it's the same people that litter whenever nobody is watching.
- hoseja 5y ago
  Trying to survive?? Trying to extract as much cash as possible for the C-suite maybe.
- jjcon 5y ago
  > they get nothing but scorn for trying to survive I guess selling user data is fine as long as it is done ‘to survive’? Nah… I’ll take the browser with the best privacy and that is sadly just not Firefox anymore.
- hypertele-Xii 5y ago
  Why would I donate when literally every update takes away something I was using?
  - IfOnlyYouKnew 5y ago
    You donate to avoid ever noticing that Hyperbole is not a Hypertext browser. (Unless you're on MacOS)
- ghusto 5y ago
vorpalhex 5y ago
Well, the talk is good. I'd like to see Mozilla do the walk and not just talk. I still use firefox, and I still think it's a good browser. I hope Mozilla's recent forays into VPNs and such helps stabilize their ship and lets them focus back on their mission and not forcing pocket on me.
- wodenokoto 5y ago
  Their mission isn’t to build a web browser, which is what I think you are insinuating.
- mrjin 5y ago
  Ditched Chrome for FireFox years ago. But now I get increasing concerned on the direction Mozilla is moving towards. A couple of recent moves: 1. Pockets and Accounts. 2. Unique Ids on installer downloads. 3. DNS over HTTP push. All those moves can directly be linked to user tracking and I just feels something like "Block others and allows myself and myself only to track". So far I've no evidence to support it but let's wait and see.
  - kibwen 5y ago
    There are reasons not to like DNS over HTTP, but it's not there to let Mozilla track you. We have had ample evidence for years that ISPs have been using your unencrypted DNS traffic to track and profile you. Providing DNS over HTTP out of the box makes it easier for users to configure the browser based on their own threat model (Cloudflare is the default DoH target, but you can also provide your own).
    - mrjin 5y ago
      Yes, I fully understand the context and that's why I mentioned as it could be used to track us rather than was used to track us in the first place. Providing DNS over HTTPS can be deemed as goodwill as it indeed make it easier for some of the people. But making it default is something questionable, might be I remembered it wrong though. Pointing to Cloudflare does not make it any better as: 1. It can be changed anytime in the future and for most if not all users, they can hardly tell if there were changes to their DNS settings. 2. As end users, we have no idea what's the deal behind the scene between Mozilla and Cloudflare, and what was Cloudflare doing with the data collected. I might have worried too much about it for now. But at least, such move broke the design principle as DNS was never meant to be concerns at application level.
PedroBatista 5y ago
I don't know, I feel Mozilla in the last decade or so had good politicians that produce texts like this, definitely some good developers but no vision, let alone visionaries ( the ones that actually deliver, not good talkers who adopt the lingo of whatever the industry they are in and fake it until they make it [ out of there ]) These are good ideas and concepts and stuff, but.. it misses something.
beefman 5y ago
Mozilla won't employ its founder because of who he donated money to in 2008. What makes them believe they can champion an open web?
- gurumeditations 5y ago
  - taylorius 5y ago
    Not supporting same sex marriage != hating gay people.
    - Consultant32452 5y ago
      This need to purge people with wrong-think is going to destroy science and technology advancement. Many, many people who we recognize as major players in our understanding of the universe were absolutely abhorrent on a personal level with terrible ideas about the world. Many people pushing the boundaries of tech are also super high functioning autistics. Punishing them for bad social takes is just punishing a handicapped person because you can't stand the sight of a one-legged person.
    - tuckerman 5y ago
      If someone were going around telling me that they don’t think my husband and I should be married isn’t hate, then I’m not sure hate as a word has a lot of meaning left. This is a bit off topic from the article, but to say why I think that: in the US a great deal of rights are conferred to married couples. Being able to have a child through surrogacy and have both of us presumed parents, being able to visit my husband in the hospital, getting to be on his health insurance. If anyone wishes that we don’t have access to those things but claims to not hate me, I think they are carefully choosing to ignore the ramifications of their opinion. All that said, as it was said elsewhere, Eich wasn’t fired, he resigned because of the backlash. The public has just as much a right to protest and boycott as someone does to spout off hate.
tannhaeuser 5y ago
What is this piece about? People who have visions should go see a doctor, as Helmut Schmidt put it. There are concrete steps that Moz could be taking, such as working towards drastically simplifying the web by eg defining HTML/CSS profiles/subsets, define formal semantics of CSS, separate-out stuff only there in support of apps vs content-oriented sites, address conflicting goals of security vs questionable protocol complexity (HTTP/3, DoH), stop engaging in "web standards" activities where the user doesn't sit at the table, ...
pjmlp 5y ago
I missed the part how that will help to grow beyond the 3% and current trend downwards.
- tempodox 5y ago
  I guess Mozilla will never be coated in Google-can-do-no-wrong teflon, no matter how Chrome-like they make their browser.
azinman2 5y ago
Basically everything quoted has been table stakes for a while, especially between Chrome pushing speed and extensibility and Safari privacy. There doesn’t seem to be much vision here, and certainly nothing original. That’s quite disappointing.
rwl 5y ago
I agree with most of this vision, think these values are important, and would love to see Mozilla realize them. Given the values outlined here, I was sad to see that Mozilla doesn't seem to be looking much beyond the centralized platforms of today's commercial web. They see the "minimal barriers to entry for both users and publishers" as one of the key properties that makes the web such an important communication medium, and "Site-Building Ergonomics" is a top-level area where they see possibilities for improvement. Despite this, I don't see any recognition that it's still too difficult for ordinary users to publish their own information, which is why we have big commercial platforms where people do this, funded by ads, with all the problems that come along with that. I think the most revolutionary thing Mozilla (and other browser makers) could do to realize this vision would be to turn their browser into a publishing platform. Browsers already have excellent tools for editing HTML, CSS, and JS built in, and they already speak the relevant protocols. Why not give every user a base URL for their personal site, and serve pages under it directly from the browser running on their computer? That would really lower the barrier to entry for users to become publishers and help realize the values of Openness and Agency. Of course, such sites wouldn't be available 100% of the time, but they would probably be available enough to cover most of things people use the big platforms for: sharing text, photos and videos with their family and Internet friends. They would not need to be ad-supported and wouldn't raise the associated privacy issues. There are other problems to solve, but Mozilla is uniquely qualified to solve them. The very first web browser had this feature: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WorldWideWeb#Features https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WorldWideWeb#Features And it seems the perfect way to realize much of this vision. Why not bring it back?
- lioeters 5y ago
  > Why not give every user a base URL for their personal site, and serve pages under it directly from the browser running on their computer? Your description reminds me of Beaker, the "peer-to-peer Web browser". https://beakerbrowser.com/ https://beakerbrowser.com/ I feel like Mozilla could do more to fund and otherwise support/promote such efforts for re-decentralizing the web, to bring the power balance back to the user.
  - rwl 5y ago
grishka 5y ago
So when do we consider the web to be finished and stop evolving it?
- tremon 5y ago
  When it is in the hands of a single corporation. We're nearly there.
  - grishka 5y ago
    But isn't Google the main driving force behind the feature creep we're currently seeing?
dmitriid 5y ago
It's a "what the hell have we (browser vendors) been doing these past 20 years?" shout with a surprisingly clear path forward. Additionally, this is as close to be anti-Chrome as possible without shouting "Anti-Chrome manifesto", which tells you a lot about Chrome-dominated web.
charcircuit 5y ago
Why is there still an extremely limited whitelist on android for allowed addons? Give me the *agency* Mozilla.
aledthemathguy 5y ago
what if Mozilla completely ditched the entire "front-end" and just focus on core (and let every wanting person/company build on top of it)?
insulfrable 5y ago
Mozilla of the past decade is a political and lobbying organization that must maintain market share in the browser market to remain relevant. Firefox has good engineers who work hard and deserve your trust but they don't set the product direction. The lawyers and politicians do.
pipeline_peak 5y ago
Eventually Mozilla will probably ditch Firefox as they can’t afford to do any significant development other than UI. They will just make some Chromium distribution and wrap it with Rust.
- incomingpain 5y ago
  >Eventually Mozilla will probably ditch Firefox as they can’t afford to do any significant development other than UI. It's not that they can't afford. They get truckloads of free money every year. The reason they dont have significant development is because they actively attacked their developers and pushed them to other projects. https://www.theverge.com/2015/8/24/9202067/mozilla-ceo-chris-beard-reddit-hate-speech https://www.theverge.com/2015/8/24/9202067/mozilla-ceo-chris... ""If they are an employee, they will be fired."" The Mozilla CEO went to the press to threaten an anonymous person on the internet with dismissal. >And regardless, either way, they are not welcome to continue to participate in the Mozilla project. It is not who we are." Lets say you dont even agree and even believe this anonymous person was hate speech. You can't stay with the project after the CEO does this crazy shit. Mozilla lost the talent they needed to make improvements to firefox.
  - pipeline_peak 5y ago
    It's a mix of strict politics and financial problems. Millions of dollars may sound like a lot, but those are some of their only sources of income and they rarely seem viable. Google has hired Lars Bak and many distinguished WebKit and Runtime environment developers to make a high performance browser. They're practically leading the standards, the aging Gecko/SpiderMonkey codebase can't keep up because no one feels secure working for a dying company that likely doesn't have a competitive salary. That combined with how little a development team there is to work with. To work on the technical side of Firefox is philanthropic at this point, to steer away from Chromium dominance.
  - polski-g 5y ago
    California companies cannot fire employees for their political beliefs. So that the CEO would admit to doing just that is a bit funny.
d33 5y ago
What I wish they prioritized instead was empowering users to download things and share them. When you think about it, it's actually crazy that some websites prevent you from copy-pasting. That you need to learn how to use the "network" tab to save a video you came across online. I wish some browser prioritized going beyond the URL and actually turning content back into files we can share.
- bobajeff 5y ago
  Second. I would like something a kin to Gopher but with videos, forums, games, search engines etc. All neatly in document formats that I have full control over.
slightwinder 5y ago
Disappointing that their vision does not include the working user. For me, ability has higher priority than security, till a certain degree. But even more, we can even have MORE security, by offering different abilities. But for a long time now, Mozilla is reducing ability, breaking promises and driving users away who are not just consumers. This is really sad, and I don't think this is healthy for the web either. Knowledge Workers and power users are a strong force for the web. Neglecting them will harm the world in the long run. If you want a free and open web, open it for everyone, not just for the low-hanging fruits with low demand.
ilaksh 5y ago
Here is a (in my humble opinion, vastly superior, and definitely, much more radical) vision for the evolution of the web: - move to a totally content-centric system (something like IPFS maybe) - give new browsers (and web assembly) first-class networking support such as direct UDP and TCP - simplify browser into three categories of functionality: applications (web assembly), text (markdown/rst), and data (JSON? RDF?) - drop CSS (can be used for user styles if implemented in particular browsers, but text advertisements that really needs to be formatted can be images) - encrypted content should be handled in a different, non-authoritarian way. HTTPS ensures that state actors can access data with MITM. - create at least two tiers for data sizes. one intended for low-bandwidth or very fast browsing that severely limits the size of files transferred.
- jcranmer 5y ago
  > - encrypted content should be handled in a different, non-authoritarian way. HTTPS ensures that state actors can access data with MITM. Given what happened the last two times Kazakhstan tried to MITM their entire country, I don't think you can honestly say that "HTTPS ensures that state actors can access data with MITM."
  - ilaksh 5y ago
    It means that some can barring other circumstances. It's a structural design flaw.
stereoradonc 5y ago
Each time I try to read what Mozilla has planned for itself, I find it dug deeper in the hole it dug for itself (and its loyal users).
- incomingpain 5y ago
  >Each time I try to read what Mozilla has planned for itself, I find it dug deeper in the hole it dug for itself (and its loyal users). I just posted: "Mozilla might be irreparably damaged by their political activism." What exactly could Mozilla do to get themselves out of this hole. I really struggle to fathom what they could do.
  - emerged 5y ago
    You can’t fix Mozilla without chopping heads off the top. They aren’t authentic actors in the game they’ve presented on this HN link. They are activists who commandeered a vehicle.
    - incomingpain 5y ago
      >You can’t fix Mozilla without chopping heads off the top. They aren’t authentic actors in the game they’ve presented on this HN link. They are activists who commandeered a vehicle. They have had multiple new leaders with no change. It was Mozilla CEO Chris Beard who went to the press to threaten anonymous people on the internet. It was Michelle Baker who said deplatforming trump isnt enough. She was involved in deplatforming the new social media sites off of firefox. So I don't think the leaders at the top are anywhere near enough.
throw7 5y ago
Give me a way to disable the download finished popup notifier. Give me a way to disable floating videos. Don't break what's working (emacs keys broken in url bar). fix performance issues (when firefox first starts sometimes will just do nothing for up to a minute all locked up). Your CEO is useless (do you even know what a ceo is for?).
- hidden-spyder 5y ago
  > Give me a way to disable the download finished popup notifier. When was this shipped? I have no idea why this is a thing now, but it's incredibly annoying.
incomingpain 5y ago
Firefox market share: 3% How far the mighty has fallen. Firefox was once the best browser. We could go into Mozilla's political activism that led up to this utter collapse. That's unnecessary. Mozilla's political activism was clearly toxic to their organization and they didn't have the vision of the damage they were doing to themselves. So what value does this vision for the web have? Mozilla clearly needs to fix their own house before telling the entire world what we should do. >The experience of using the Web must not subject individuals to harm. I read through this vision and it's all things that are already true today. It's difficult to find things they truly wish to change or improve upon. My take is that this is really what this entire vision is about the "harm" they perceive. This is what they want to change. They don't want to harm people on the internet. Which in a high level virtually everyone agrees. Everyone already agrees Scams, Fraud, phishing, malware, etc should not be allowed on the internet. No vision needs to be written on this. Mozilla wants to go further than this. >This can lead to situations in which users have very negative experiences (including misinformation, .... in the past platforms have actively cooperated in abusive behavior, for instance via providing extremely fine-grained targeting for advertisements designed to manipulate users' political behavior. So they are worried about misinformation and manipulating user's political behaviour? Mozilla and firefox is more than welcome to keep going down this road. I won't try to stop them. That 3% can go lower and lower. >Every company is influenced by its own agenda, business needs, and politics. Left unchecked, those pressures can easily result in the inclusion of ill-conceived features that everyone comes to regret. The irony is that Mozilla clearly proved in this document they haven't fixed anything internally. They clearly have not given up their political activism. >The Web’s multi-stakeholder development process is far from perfect, but nonetheless serves as a powerful bulwark against a corporate agenda-du-jour pushing bad ideas into the Web. "corporate agenda pushing bad ideas" That's what this is really about isn't it. Bad ideas. Misinformation. Mozilla wants to do "more than deplatform" their political opponents. Who gets to decide what is misinformation? Mozilla? Some single government who gets to unilaterally censor the internet for all other countries? No. This is just Mozilla still derailed and crashing. Mozilla might be irreparably damaged by their political activism.
- cherrycherry98 5y ago
  Exactly, this paternalism over (mis)information needs to stop. What kind of free society can we have if dissent is not tolerated? Some of that dissent will be nonsense but some of it will have some truth to it. It all reminds me of Paul Graham's What You Can't Say essay (http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html) "The statements that make people mad are the ones they worry might be believed. I suspect the statements that make people maddest are those they worry might be true."
ComradePhil 5y ago
I would be wary of "values" from a company whose entire existence depends on being an alternative for company that pays them to not be hit with anti-trust. They don't answer to their users and hence they have no skin in the game to abide by these values or make sure they are accountable for them. It's just cheap talk.

151 points by fabrice_d 5y ago

> User Control > The Web is unique because it offers users unparalleled control over the content they experience. This control is the foundation of agency, but the reality has not always lived up to the promise, and we see threats to it going forward. Consequently, we seek to protect and expand the mechanisms that empower people to experience the Web on their own terms. > we eventually chose to support EME, but nevertheless view it as a regrettable chapter in the Web’s evolution These are a few interesting parts I saw. Overall this looks good and I haven't seen any part of this I disagree with. Is this a new publication from Mozilla? When was this written? I don't see a date on it.

fabrice_d 5y ago
This was linked from the executive summary published today at https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-webvision-future-of-web/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-webvision-future...
perihelions 5y ago
It references 2022 data, so it must be recent: - "As a result of these and other changes, the fraction of encrypted page loads has gone from around 30% in 2015 to the vast majority of traffic in 2022. "

throwaway0x7E6 5y ago

>Agency >Privacy multiple forks exist exactly because agency and privacy are not mozilla's values anymore. just half-hearted lip service

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
DonHopkins 5y ago
hkt 5y ago
For the sake of argument.. isn't the fact that people can freely make those forks something of a guarantee around agency, and possibly also privacy? My guess is that because Mozilla is a hostage (and arguably antitrust human shield) of Google etc, it can't be too aggressive in its privacy approach, but it can at least not intentionally break privacy enhancing patchsets and features. Maybe I'm being too optimistic about them though.
- HKH2 5y ago
  Chromium is open source. You can freely fork it too. There is a trade-off between privacy and convenience, and one between agency and simplicity. Mozilla is quite okay with pushing their own proprietary products and removing customization.

olliej 5y ago

Does it include more full page ads built directly into Firefox?

istillwritecode 5y ago

The document hilariously contains the word privacy but does not include the word "cookie".

ChrisArchitect 5y ago

Blog post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30781230 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30781230

userbinator 5y ago

Reinterpretable content is necessary for control, but it's not sufficient: the browser needs to provide users with levers by which to control their experience. ...says the organisation that is continuously removing functionality, especially whenever they feel like redesigning the UI. Mozilla has been saying stuff like this for a long time (and "puts users in control" was the Firefox slogan for a while, before they did s/users/individuals/), but what they've done to Firefox is clearly in a different direction. I still use Firefox because it's the "least bad" of all the alternatives, but that's a pretty low bar and their continuing hypocrisy is definitely irritating. "Actions speak louder than words."

zagrebian 5y ago
What functionality was removed?
- rom1v 5y ago
  `about:config` on the Android version.
  - causi 5y ago
    Frankly most of the functionality was removed on the Android version. You can't even change your user agent anymore. All you get is that pathetic "show desktop version" checkbox which not only still tells websites you're on a mobile browser but breaks if you check it, tap a link, and then hit the back button. I still have to do half my mobile browsing in Chrome because it may be an ad-riddled mess but at least it doesn't constantly break.
    - gnomewascool 5y ago
      You can access about:config and change your user agent if you use Firefox Beta or Firefox Nightly. The latter is annoying since you get constant updates, but the former is about as stable as normal Firefox.
  - cpeterso 5y ago

moralestapia 5y ago

Is Mozilla relevant anymore? Most people don't care and the ones who do know Mozilla enough to know they failed miserably to live up to their standards. They dug a hole they can't get out of now.

mind-blight 5y ago
Mozilla is still very relevant. Rust was built and, until recently, managed there. They maintain some of the best and accessible documentation about web technologies on the internet. Firefox is actually pretty good again. They dropped the ball for a while and let Chrome eat their lunch, but I switched back a couple years ago when the whole fiasco that forced users with Google accounts to automatically log in with their browsers occurred. Google eventually added an option after the backlash, but I trust Mozilla's incentive structure more than Google's when it comes to my browser
- tremon 5y ago
  Rust was built and, until recently, managed there. They maintain some of the best and accessible documentation about web technologies on the internet. What you're saying is that Mozilla threw out the very things that made them relevant?
  - mind-blight 5y ago
    I think that's a bit hyperbolic. They still maintain the web documentation that is used daily by web developers across the globe. Rust is now managed by the Rust foundation. Having the language shepherded by a dedicated foundation is healthier than keeping it all in house. It's definitely fair to argue that laying off some of the core Rust developers harms their relevance, but it's definitely more nuanced than "they just threw out..."
echelon 5y ago
> Is Mozilla relevant anymore? Despite the Mozilla leadership and the at times questionable investments, Firefox could never be more relevant. We need a non-Chrome browser just as we need multiple operating systems with different design paradigms. It gives us flexibility, increased surface area for experimentation, and acts as an anchor for web standards (at least as long as non-Chrome browser share remains). If running instructions should be free, so should reading information. Even if Chromium is itself open source, Firefox (and mostly Safari) keep Chrome from turning into a thin client that bakes in Google's self interested designs for the web. I think Mozilla corporation should be acquired or merge with Canonical, Framework, or some other open-minded computing company. The leadership should build a strong "complete package" offering: laptop, phone, operating system, browser. That makes more sense to me than continued investments into weird side projects with little chance of developing traction. And by weird side projects, I don't mean their efforts in VR or discontinued efforts in TTS. I think building open platforms in these domains makes a lot of sense. I just don't know if Mozilla should be the folks to do it. Their core mission - web - should be their singular focus. The absolute best thing Mozilla could do, though, is spend money on marketing and partnerships to improve Firefox adoption and stem the losses. After they get growth back, the next thing to do is to develop stable, sensible revenue streams. The browser has become a commodity, which is why I think premium hardware sales could do the trick. Especially if it's "ethical" open hardware. nrp (Framework founder's HN username), you should go have a chat with Mozilla folks sometime. Now isn't the time to consider an acquisition, but after you achieve growth and scale - please buy them out. Tout them as part of your offering, and use them as an additional funnel to drive Framework hardware sales.

ofrzeta 5y ago

You can bash Mozilla (deservedly) all you want but I will keep using Firefox. After all it's the only serious competitor to Chrome and competition's a good thing, right?

after_care 5y ago
I specifically want to use a browser released by a non-market leader because it encourages the web to be a more open standard.
- encryptluks2 5y ago
  Until you realize that Mozilla is doing the same telemetry. Just like politicians, I don't think it matters if you use Firefox or Chromium. They are two sides to the same coin.
  - ofrzeta 5y ago
    They are not. Mozilla with all its flaws is still a foundation while Google is .. not. Even if they were two sides of the same coin I'd rather have a coin with two sides so I can flip it if I want.
    - encryptluks2 5y ago
      Mozilla is a non-profit in the same sense that a church is a non-profit, while the preacher drives a Bentley. Maybe they should be investigated.
    - ThrashBeard 5y ago
      > Mozilla with all its flaws is still a foundation Not exactly. There is a Mozilla Foundation and a Mozilla Corporation
    - southerntofu 5y ago
      In my opinion a non-profit where workers are legally prevented (by contract) from talking about their pay and where CEO makes more money than other people should not be called a non-profit. A non-profit should have equal pay for everyone, from office cleaners to administrators.

IfOnlyYouKnew 5y ago

Wow, this thread is a shitshow. The single non-commercial browser option, one of essentially just three remaining players in the market, and they get nothing but scorn for trying to survive. Google created Chrome, in part, to become less dependent on browser defaults. That worked, and Mozilla's main source of revenue was/is almost certain to dry up. So they bundled a service or two at some point. You clicked 'no' and were never bothered again. That's too much of an ask? You are free to donate, instead. You, and everyone else, was always free to do so, of course. It didn't work, it doesn't work, and it will never work, but that doesn't stop anyone from suggesting it, in this case and every other (music, journalism). People mouth off about privacy and security but will not follow through with $5/yr if they aren't forced to. They'll get their fix from Google or Microsoft, use the same pretentious arguments about security to also screw the people that write what they like reading and act surprised when they wake up in a paywalled garden. I bet it's the same people that litter whenever nobody is watching.

hoseja 5y ago
Trying to survive?? Trying to extract as much cash as possible for the C-suite maybe.
jjcon 5y ago
> they get nothing but scorn for trying to survive I guess selling user data is fine as long as it is done ‘to survive’? Nah… I’ll take the browser with the best privacy and that is sadly just not Firefox anymore.
hypertele-Xii 5y ago
Why would I donate when literally every update takes away something I was using?
- IfOnlyYouKnew 5y ago
  You donate to avoid ever noticing that Hyperbole is not a Hypertext browser. (Unless you're on MacOS)
ghusto 5y ago

vorpalhex 5y ago

Well, the talk is good. I'd like to see Mozilla do the walk and not just talk. I still use firefox, and I still think it's a good browser. I hope Mozilla's recent forays into VPNs and such helps stabilize their ship and lets them focus back on their mission and not forcing pocket on me.

wodenokoto 5y ago
Their mission isn’t to build a web browser, which is what I think you are insinuating.
mrjin 5y ago
Ditched Chrome for FireFox years ago. But now I get increasing concerned on the direction Mozilla is moving towards. A couple of recent moves: 1. Pockets and Accounts. 2. Unique Ids on installer downloads. 3. DNS over HTTP push. All those moves can directly be linked to user tracking and I just feels something like "Block others and allows myself and myself only to track". So far I've no evidence to support it but let's wait and see.
- kibwen 5y ago
  There are reasons not to like DNS over HTTP, but it's not there to let Mozilla track you. We have had ample evidence for years that ISPs have been using your unencrypted DNS traffic to track and profile you. Providing DNS over HTTP out of the box makes it easier for users to configure the browser based on their own threat model (Cloudflare is the default DoH target, but you can also provide your own).
  - mrjin 5y ago
    Yes, I fully understand the context and that's why I mentioned as it could be used to track us rather than was used to track us in the first place. Providing DNS over HTTPS can be deemed as goodwill as it indeed make it easier for some of the people. But making it default is something questionable, might be I remembered it wrong though. Pointing to Cloudflare does not make it any better as: 1. It can be changed anytime in the future and for most if not all users, they can hardly tell if there were changes to their DNS settings. 2. As end users, we have no idea what's the deal behind the scene between Mozilla and Cloudflare, and what was Cloudflare doing with the data collected. I might have worried too much about it for now. But at least, such move broke the design principle as DNS was never meant to be concerns at application level.

PedroBatista 5y ago

I don't know, I feel Mozilla in the last decade or so had good politicians that produce texts like this, definitely some good developers but no vision, let alone visionaries ( the ones that actually deliver, not good talkers who adopt the lingo of whatever the industry they are in and fake it until they make it [ out of there ]) These are good ideas and concepts and stuff, but.. it misses something.

beefman 5y ago

Mozilla won't employ its founder because of who he donated money to in 2008. What makes them believe they can champion an open web?

gurumeditations 5y ago
- taylorius 5y ago
  Not supporting same sex marriage != hating gay people.
  - Consultant32452 5y ago
    This need to purge people with wrong-think is going to destroy science and technology advancement. Many, many people who we recognize as major players in our understanding of the universe were absolutely abhorrent on a personal level with terrible ideas about the world. Many people pushing the boundaries of tech are also super high functioning autistics. Punishing them for bad social takes is just punishing a handicapped person because you can't stand the sight of a one-legged person.
  - tuckerman 5y ago
    If someone were going around telling me that they don’t think my husband and I should be married isn’t hate, then I’m not sure hate as a word has a lot of meaning left. This is a bit off topic from the article, but to say why I think that: in the US a great deal of rights are conferred to married couples. Being able to have a child through surrogacy and have both of us presumed parents, being able to visit my husband in the hospital, getting to be on his health insurance. If anyone wishes that we don’t have access to those things but claims to not hate me, I think they are carefully choosing to ignore the ramifications of their opinion. All that said, as it was said elsewhere, Eich wasn’t fired, he resigned because of the backlash. The public has just as much a right to protest and boycott as someone does to spout off hate.

tannhaeuser 5y ago

What is this piece about? People who have visions should go see a doctor, as Helmut Schmidt put it. There are concrete steps that Moz could be taking, such as working towards drastically simplifying the web by eg defining HTML/CSS profiles/subsets, define formal semantics of CSS, separate-out stuff only there in support of apps vs content-oriented sites, address conflicting goals of security vs questionable protocol complexity (HTTP/3, DoH), stop engaging in "web standards" activities where the user doesn't sit at the table, ...

pjmlp 5y ago

I missed the part how that will help to grow beyond the 3% and current trend downwards.

tempodox 5y ago
I guess Mozilla will never be coated in Google-can-do-no-wrong teflon, no matter how Chrome-like they make their browser.

azinman2 5y ago

Basically everything quoted has been table stakes for a while, especially between Chrome pushing speed and extensibility and Safari privacy. There doesn’t seem to be much vision here, and certainly nothing original. That’s quite disappointing.

rwl 5y ago

I agree with most of this vision, think these values are important, and would love to see Mozilla realize them. Given the values outlined here, I was sad to see that Mozilla doesn't seem to be looking much beyond the centralized platforms of today's commercial web. They see the "minimal barriers to entry for both users and publishers" as one of the key properties that makes the web such an important communication medium, and "Site-Building Ergonomics" is a top-level area where they see possibilities for improvement. Despite this, I don't see any recognition that it's still too difficult for ordinary users to publish their own information, which is why we have big commercial platforms where people do this, funded by ads, with all the problems that come along with that. I think the most revolutionary thing Mozilla (and other browser makers) could do to realize this vision would be to turn their browser into a publishing platform. Browsers already have excellent tools for editing HTML, CSS, and JS built in, and they already speak the relevant protocols. Why not give every user a base URL for their personal site, and serve pages under it directly from the browser running on their computer? That would really lower the barrier to entry for users to become publishers and help realize the values of Openness and Agency. Of course, such sites wouldn't be available 100% of the time, but they would probably be available enough to cover most of things people use the big platforms for: sharing text, photos and videos with their family and Internet friends. They would not need to be ad-supported and wouldn't raise the associated privacy issues. There are other problems to solve, but Mozilla is uniquely qualified to solve them. The very first web browser had this feature: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WorldWideWeb#Features https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WorldWideWeb#Features And it seems the perfect way to realize much of this vision. Why not bring it back?

lioeters 5y ago
> Why not give every user a base URL for their personal site, and serve pages under it directly from the browser running on their computer? Your description reminds me of Beaker, the "peer-to-peer Web browser". https://beakerbrowser.com/ https://beakerbrowser.com/ I feel like Mozilla could do more to fund and otherwise support/promote such efforts for re-decentralizing the web, to bring the power balance back to the user.
- rwl 5y ago

grishka 5y ago

So when do we consider the web to be finished and stop evolving it?

tremon 5y ago
When it is in the hands of a single corporation. We're nearly there.
- grishka 5y ago
  But isn't Google the main driving force behind the feature creep we're currently seeing?

dmitriid 5y ago

It's a "what the hell have we (browser vendors) been doing these past 20 years?" shout with a surprisingly clear path forward. Additionally, this is as close to be anti-Chrome as possible without shouting "Anti-Chrome manifesto", which tells you a lot about Chrome-dominated web.

charcircuit 5y ago

Why is there still an extremely limited whitelist on android for allowed addons? Give me the *agency* Mozilla.

aledthemathguy 5y ago

what if Mozilla completely ditched the entire "front-end" and just focus on core (and let every wanting person/company build on top of it)?

insulfrable 5y ago

Mozilla of the past decade is a political and lobbying organization that must maintain market share in the browser market to remain relevant. Firefox has good engineers who work hard and deserve your trust but they don't set the product direction. The lawyers and politicians do.

pipeline_peak 5y ago

Eventually Mozilla will probably ditch Firefox as they can’t afford to do any significant development other than UI. They will just make some Chromium distribution and wrap it with Rust.

incomingpain 5y ago
>Eventually Mozilla will probably ditch Firefox as they can’t afford to do any significant development other than UI. It's not that they can't afford. They get truckloads of free money every year. The reason they dont have significant development is because they actively attacked their developers and pushed them to other projects. https://www.theverge.com/2015/8/24/9202067/mozilla-ceo-chris-beard-reddit-hate-speech https://www.theverge.com/2015/8/24/9202067/mozilla-ceo-chris... ""If they are an employee, they will be fired."" The Mozilla CEO went to the press to threaten an anonymous person on the internet with dismissal. >And regardless, either way, they are not welcome to continue to participate in the Mozilla project. It is not who we are." Lets say you dont even agree and even believe this anonymous person was hate speech. You can't stay with the project after the CEO does this crazy shit. Mozilla lost the talent they needed to make improvements to firefox.
- pipeline_peak 5y ago
  It's a mix of strict politics and financial problems. Millions of dollars may sound like a lot, but those are some of their only sources of income and they rarely seem viable. Google has hired Lars Bak and many distinguished WebKit and Runtime environment developers to make a high performance browser. They're practically leading the standards, the aging Gecko/SpiderMonkey codebase can't keep up because no one feels secure working for a dying company that likely doesn't have a competitive salary. That combined with how little a development team there is to work with. To work on the technical side of Firefox is philanthropic at this point, to steer away from Chromium dominance.
- polski-g 5y ago
  California companies cannot fire employees for their political beliefs. So that the CEO would admit to doing just that is a bit funny.

d33 5y ago

What I wish they prioritized instead was empowering users to download things and share them. When you think about it, it's actually crazy that some websites prevent you from copy-pasting. That you need to learn how to use the "network" tab to save a video you came across online. I wish some browser prioritized going beyond the URL and actually turning content back into files we can share.

bobajeff 5y ago
Second. I would like something a kin to Gopher but with videos, forums, games, search engines etc. All neatly in document formats that I have full control over.

slightwinder 5y ago

Disappointing that their vision does not include the working user. For me, ability has higher priority than security, till a certain degree. But even more, we can even have MORE security, by offering different abilities. But for a long time now, Mozilla is reducing ability, breaking promises and driving users away who are not just consumers. This is really sad, and I don't think this is healthy for the web either. Knowledge Workers and power users are a strong force for the web. Neglecting them will harm the world in the long run. If you want a free and open web, open it for everyone, not just for the low-hanging fruits with low demand.

ilaksh 5y ago

Here is a (in my humble opinion, vastly superior, and definitely, much more radical) vision for the evolution of the web: - move to a totally content-centric system (something like IPFS maybe) - give new browsers (and web assembly) first-class networking support such as direct UDP and TCP - simplify browser into three categories of functionality: applications (web assembly), text (markdown/rst), and data (JSON? RDF?) - drop CSS (can be used for user styles if implemented in particular browsers, but text advertisements that really needs to be formatted can be images) - encrypted content should be handled in a different, non-authoritarian way. HTTPS ensures that state actors can access data with MITM. - create at least two tiers for data sizes. one intended for low-bandwidth or very fast browsing that severely limits the size of files transferred.

jcranmer 5y ago
> - encrypted content should be handled in a different, non-authoritarian way. HTTPS ensures that state actors can access data with MITM. Given what happened the last two times Kazakhstan tried to MITM their entire country, I don't think you can honestly say that "HTTPS ensures that state actors can access data with MITM."
- ilaksh 5y ago
  It means that some can barring other circumstances. It's a structural design flaw.

stereoradonc 5y ago

Each time I try to read what Mozilla has planned for itself, I find it dug deeper in the hole it dug for itself (and its loyal users).

incomingpain 5y ago
>Each time I try to read what Mozilla has planned for itself, I find it dug deeper in the hole it dug for itself (and its loyal users). I just posted: "Mozilla might be irreparably damaged by their political activism." What exactly could Mozilla do to get themselves out of this hole. I really struggle to fathom what they could do.
- emerged 5y ago
  You can’t fix Mozilla without chopping heads off the top. They aren’t authentic actors in the game they’ve presented on this HN link. They are activists who commandeered a vehicle.
  - incomingpain 5y ago
    >You can’t fix Mozilla without chopping heads off the top. They aren’t authentic actors in the game they’ve presented on this HN link. They are activists who commandeered a vehicle. They have had multiple new leaders with no change. It was Mozilla CEO Chris Beard who went to the press to threaten anonymous people on the internet. It was Michelle Baker who said deplatforming trump isnt enough. She was involved in deplatforming the new social media sites off of firefox. So I don't think the leaders at the top are anywhere near enough.

throw7 5y ago

Give me a way to disable the download finished popup notifier. Give me a way to disable floating videos. Don't break what's working (emacs keys broken in url bar). fix performance issues (when firefox first starts sometimes will just do nothing for up to a minute all locked up). Your CEO is useless (do you even know what a ceo is for?).

hidden-spyder 5y ago
> Give me a way to disable the download finished popup notifier. When was this shipped? I have no idea why this is a thing now, but it's incredibly annoying.

incomingpain 5y ago

Firefox market share: 3% How far the mighty has fallen. Firefox was once the best browser. We could go into Mozilla's political activism that led up to this utter collapse. That's unnecessary. Mozilla's political activism was clearly toxic to their organization and they didn't have the vision of the damage they were doing to themselves. So what value does this vision for the web have? Mozilla clearly needs to fix their own house before telling the entire world what we should do. >The experience of using the Web must not subject individuals to harm. I read through this vision and it's all things that are already true today. It's difficult to find things they truly wish to change or improve upon. My take is that this is really what this entire vision is about the "harm" they perceive. This is what they want to change. They don't want to harm people on the internet. Which in a high level virtually everyone agrees. Everyone already agrees Scams, Fraud, phishing, malware, etc should not be allowed on the internet. No vision needs to be written on this. Mozilla wants to go further than this. >This can lead to situations in which users have very negative experiences (including misinformation, .... in the past platforms have actively cooperated in abusive behavior, for instance via providing extremely fine-grained targeting for advertisements designed to manipulate users' political behavior. So they are worried about misinformation and manipulating user's political behaviour? Mozilla and firefox is more than welcome to keep going down this road. I won't try to stop them. That 3% can go lower and lower. >Every company is influenced by its own agenda, business needs, and politics. Left unchecked, those pressures can easily result in the inclusion of ill-conceived features that everyone comes to regret. The irony is that Mozilla clearly proved in this document they haven't fixed anything internally. They clearly have not given up their political activism. >The Web’s multi-stakeholder development process is far from perfect, but nonetheless serves as a powerful bulwark against a corporate agenda-du-jour pushing bad ideas into the Web. "corporate agenda pushing bad ideas" That's what this is really about isn't it. Bad ideas. Misinformation. Mozilla wants to do "more than deplatform" their political opponents. Who gets to decide what is misinformation? Mozilla? Some single government who gets to unilaterally censor the internet for all other countries? No. This is just Mozilla still derailed and crashing. Mozilla might be irreparably damaged by their political activism.

cherrycherry98 5y ago
Exactly, this paternalism over (mis)information needs to stop. What kind of free society can we have if dissent is not tolerated? Some of that dissent will be nonsense but some of it will have some truth to it. It all reminds me of Paul Graham's What You Can't Say essay (http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html) "The statements that make people mad are the ones they worry might be believed. I suspect the statements that make people maddest are those they worry might be true."

ComradePhil 5y ago

I would be wary of "values" from a company whose entire existence depends on being an alternative for company that pays them to not be hit with anti-trust. They don't answer to their users and hence they have no skin in the game to abide by these values or make sure they are accountable for them. It's just cheap talk.