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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 bu

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
This! And I'm so glad somebody said it. The problem with your audience being contrarians is that they're impossible to please, and while you're competition gets blind followers, you're left with nothing but criticism. Okay, you have some issues with how things are being run, maybe some or all of those are even valid. But show some support for the only other player, or at the very least some _constructions_ feedback.
jillesvangurp 5y ago
You are right. A lot of people here seem very proud of themselves for installing a Chromium derivative or using Chrome itself. They don't seem to realize that without Mozilla, Google effectively controls web standards far more than Microsoft was ever able to dream of. The web is going to be whatever they dictate it to be. There's nobody left to challenge them. Most of the old competition has thrown the hat in the ring. Opera killed their browsing engine long time ago. MS followed when they released Edge. Apple is still holding out with Safari of course but only on Apple controlled operating systems. There are a few independent engines with minuscule market share. And there is Mozilla. There are a gazillion Chromium based browsers and they are each dependent on Google developing and maintaining that. Google controls its roadmap, the internals that render your pages, it employs the engineers working on it, and the gate keepers vetting the occasional pull request from outside Google. But lets be honest, most of the work is done by Google engineers. Nothing happens to Chromium without their consent and backing. They control it completely. So, the likes of Brave, Edge, Opera, etc. might do a fine job adding their window dressing, minor tweaks, and what not. But they are outsourcing the core browsing components to Google. Without Mozilla it's down to just Apple and Google running the show. Apple has Safari and Google has Chrome. The rest does not really matter since it is effectively all Chromium. Unless you are paying the Apple tax, you'll have just one choice: consume the web via a Google provided code base. That's why it is important to keep Mozilla going. With three major browsing engines, most websites have to make sure to work with all of them. Apple, Mozilla, and Google have been doing great work together in standardizing what they do and collaborating on new non exclusive features that each of them then implement in a way that works the same in each browser. Mozilla has a crucial role in keeping the other two honest. It matters. And Firefox is pretty nice. I use it on desktop and on Android.
idoubtit 5y ago
I agree on the general position. And I use Firefox as my main browser on my secondary laptop. But I think your rant goes too far in the other direction. For instance: > You are free to donate, instead. Donations go to the Mozilla Foundation, which allocates money to various internal and external projects. So why donate if it doesn't fund the web browser? From their own words: "Mozilla Fellows and Awardees represent a range of disciplines and geographies: They are policymakers in Kenya, journalists in Brazil, engineers in Germany, privacy activists in the United States, and data scientists in the Netherlands." in https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/what-we-fund/ https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/what-we-fund/ > So they bundled a service or two at some point. You clicked 'no' and were never bothered again. That's not the only problem, and far from it. As a power user, I've been annoyed by the removal of features. At some point, to keep vertical tabs, I had to modify obscure config files, and venture into the poorly document about:config. And Firefox last rewrite of their download manager was full of bugs, with half of them still there a year after. If not for the free software and web engine competitor, I would not use Firefox. For my aging parents, the Firefox experience is far from smooth. An upgrade lost their frontpage bookmarks. Several others changed the UI to the point they had to call me.
- ajb 5y ago
  Firefox is open source. If people don't like how mozilla is spending it's money, there is nothing stopping another foundation being set up solely to fund developers to work on it. Unlike Mozilla, it wouldn't be in control of the releases. But features are certainly less likely to disappear if someone is there to maintain them. At the moment Mozilla does feel like an eggs in one basket situation for the community.
pjmlp 5y ago
The only one that can stand anything against Chrome is Safari, and Apple's resistance to adopt everything that Google thinks of into iOS. Mozilla has long lost the browser war. Browsers are the modern thin clients into Cloud OSes, and there Mozilla has very little that they can push. I still use Firefox whenever I can, but the writing is on the wall, without Apple's resistance (naturally due to native store apps), the correct title for Web developers would be ChromeOS developer.
account42 5y ago
> Wow, this thread is a shitshow. Mozilla gets criticism because they do things that deserve criticism. That there are others who are worse is irrelevant. If anything, not having a better alternative makes is more important to keep Mozilla from getting even less user-focused. This notion that they should not be criticized for the shit they pull because hey they are the good guys* is ridiculous. * relatively, conditions apply > You are free to donate, instead. You CANNOT donate to Firefox browser development. Mozilla corp does not accept donations. Mozilla org does not do any browser development. Even if Mozilla corp did accept donations it would be ridiculous for anyone to donate to an organization that pays thear leadership an amonout that is ridiculously high compared to even the US average income. > People mouth off about privacy and security but will not follow through with $5/yr if they aren't forced to. I donate to plenty of organizations. I would't donate to Mozilla corp even if I could because they don't want to be a non-profit organization that exists to serve a mission but rather a SV for profit corporation that focuses on competitive executive compensation complete with all the bullshit that comes with that like ignoring user feedback and replacing it with telemetry.
- fabrice_d 5y ago
  If you want to donate to fund Gecko development, I encourage you to keep an eye on initiatives like https://www.igalia.com/open-prioritization/ https://www.igalia.com/open-prioritization/
denton-scratch 5y ago
> You are free to donate, instead. Huh? Apart from the fact that your donation goes to Mozilla Foundation, who will likely spend it on something you don't care about and don't want (and not) to Firefox), making a donation in the hope that some misfeature will be removed for you is magical thinking. It's in the nature of a donation that it's given freely, not in exchange for some consideration, and that once it's given you no longer control it. A "gift" made in exchange for a consideration is usually called a contract. Like, how much do I have to donate to get them to rip out Pocket?

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

This! And I'm so glad somebody said it. The problem with your audience being contrarians is that they're impossible to please, and while you're competition gets blind followers, you're left with nothing but criticism. Okay, you have some issues with how things are being run, maybe some or all of those are even valid. But show some support for the only other player, or at the very least some _constructions_ feedback.

jillesvangurp 5y ago

You are right. A lot of people here seem very proud of themselves for installing a Chromium derivative or using Chrome itself. They don't seem to realize that without Mozilla, Google effectively controls web standards far more than Microsoft was ever able to dream of. The web is going to be whatever they dictate it to be. There's nobody left to challenge them. Most of the old competition has thrown the hat in the ring. Opera killed their browsing engine long time ago. MS followed when they released Edge. Apple is still holding out with Safari of course but only on Apple controlled operating systems. There are a few independent engines with minuscule market share. And there is Mozilla. There are a gazillion Chromium based browsers and they are each dependent on Google developing and maintaining that. Google controls its roadmap, the internals that render your pages, it employs the engineers working on it, and the gate keepers vetting the occasional pull request from outside Google. But lets be honest, most of the work is done by Google engineers. Nothing happens to Chromium without their consent and backing. They control it completely. So, the likes of Brave, Edge, Opera, etc. might do a fine job adding their window dressing, minor tweaks, and what not. But they are outsourcing the core browsing components to Google. Without Mozilla it's down to just Apple and Google running the show. Apple has Safari and Google has Chrome. The rest does not really matter since it is effectively all Chromium. Unless you are paying the Apple tax, you'll have just one choice: consume the web via a Google provided code base. That's why it is important to keep Mozilla going. With three major browsing engines, most websites have to make sure to work with all of them. Apple, Mozilla, and Google have been doing great work together in standardizing what they do and collaborating on new non exclusive features that each of them then implement in a way that works the same in each browser. Mozilla has a crucial role in keeping the other two honest. It matters. And Firefox is pretty nice. I use it on desktop and on Android.

idoubtit 5y ago

I agree on the general position. And I use Firefox as my main browser on my secondary laptop. But I think your rant goes too far in the other direction. For instance: > You are free to donate, instead. Donations go to the Mozilla Foundation, which allocates money to various internal and external projects. So why donate if it doesn't fund the web browser? From their own words: "Mozilla Fellows and Awardees represent a range of disciplines and geographies: They are policymakers in Kenya, journalists in Brazil, engineers in Germany, privacy activists in the United States, and data scientists in the Netherlands." in https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/what-we-fund/ https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/what-we-fund/ > So they bundled a service or two at some point. You clicked 'no' and were never bothered again. That's not the only problem, and far from it. As a power user, I've been annoyed by the removal of features. At some point, to keep vertical tabs, I had to modify obscure config files, and venture into the poorly document about:config. And Firefox last rewrite of their download manager was full of bugs, with half of them still there a year after. If not for the free software and web engine competitor, I would not use Firefox. For my aging parents, the Firefox experience is far from smooth. An upgrade lost their frontpage bookmarks. Several others changed the UI to the point they had to call me.

ajb 5y ago
Firefox is open source. If people don't like how mozilla is spending it's money, there is nothing stopping another foundation being set up solely to fund developers to work on it. Unlike Mozilla, it wouldn't be in control of the releases. But features are certainly less likely to disappear if someone is there to maintain them. At the moment Mozilla does feel like an eggs in one basket situation for the community.

pjmlp 5y ago

The only one that can stand anything against Chrome is Safari, and Apple's resistance to adopt everything that Google thinks of into iOS. Mozilla has long lost the browser war. Browsers are the modern thin clients into Cloud OSes, and there Mozilla has very little that they can push. I still use Firefox whenever I can, but the writing is on the wall, without Apple's resistance (naturally due to native store apps), the correct title for Web developers would be ChromeOS developer.

account42 5y ago

> Wow, this thread is a shitshow. Mozilla gets criticism because they do things that deserve criticism. That there are others who are worse is irrelevant. If anything, not having a better alternative makes is more important to keep Mozilla from getting even less user-focused. This notion that they should not be criticized for the shit they pull because hey they are the good guys* is ridiculous. * relatively, conditions apply > You are free to donate, instead. You CANNOT donate to Firefox browser development. Mozilla corp does not accept donations. Mozilla org does not do any browser development. Even if Mozilla corp did accept donations it would be ridiculous for anyone to donate to an organization that pays thear leadership an amonout that is ridiculously high compared to even the US average income. > People mouth off about privacy and security but will not follow through with $5/yr if they aren't forced to. I donate to plenty of organizations. I would't donate to Mozilla corp even if I could because they don't want to be a non-profit organization that exists to serve a mission but rather a SV for profit corporation that focuses on competitive executive compensation complete with all the bullshit that comes with that like ignoring user feedback and replacing it with telemetry.

fabrice_d 5y ago
If you want to donate to fund Gecko development, I encourage you to keep an eye on initiatives like https://www.igalia.com/open-prioritization/ https://www.igalia.com/open-prioritization/

denton-scratch 5y ago

> You are free to donate, instead. Huh? Apart from the fact that your donation goes to Mozilla Foundation, who will likely spend it on something you don't care about and don't want (and not) to Firefox), making a donation in the hope that some misfeature will be removed for you is magical thinking. It's in the nature of a donation that it's given freely, not in exchange for some consideration, and that once it's given you no longer control it. A "gift" made in exchange for a consideration is usually called a contract. Like, how much do I have to donate to get them to rip out Pocket?