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It also shows the poor management Mozilla has since they effectually cut-loose the Rust team and aren't investing too much in rewriting parts of FireFox in Rust

It also shows the poor management Mozilla has since they effectually cut-loose the Rust team and aren't investing too much in rewriting parts of FireFox in Rust. Rust would've been a great USP for FireFox. They squandered it and now the competition is running with it. Both Google and Microsoft are all-in with Rust.

Gigachad 4y ago
Mozilla is too busy trying to build online censorship tools and VR junk to bother with making their browser more secure.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  Microsoft and Apple are building pack-in browsers that users neither love nor hate. Brave is trying to sustain themselves on a comedy routine of a cryptocurrency, and Google is 30 seconds away from relapsing into web domination. Relative to the rest of the circus, I'd say Mozilla is doing an okay job.
  - thrwawy74 4y ago
    As a sidenote, I had the impression Brave was some cryptocurrency delusion too. They have a much more extensive list of privacy modifications than Firefox does. I was impressed on a 2nd look, and you opt-in to the crypto nonsense.
    - smoldesu 4y ago
      There are worse things than supporting cryptocurrency in your project, but Brave's implementation is downright nefarious. BAT was a funnel that led directly into the developers pockets, it didn't even pretend to be pro-community. I don't trust Brave any more than I trust Google, since ultimately they're both funded by dwindling ad revenue.
  - djhn 4y ago
    While I don't disagree, there is nothing wrong with Apple and Microsoft making perfectly adequate, boring browsers. Eliciting strong emotions is an anti-feature, surely!
    - smoldesu 4y ago
      I agree, so long as I'm not forced to use their boring browser.
- ilikehurdles 4y ago
  What is this in reference to?
lolinder 4y ago
Rewriting in Rust is not necessarily a good idea for any given project, and Google is almost certainly not going to be proactively rewriting large amounts of Chrome in Rust any more than Mozilla is. The reason is that bugs exist primarily in new code, not code that has been untouched for a long time. While you may solve some latent memory issues by rewriting in Rust, you're likely to introduce new regressions as well which may be much worse. It makes much more sense to focus on writing your new code in the safe language and gradually migrate things only when they would require a substantial rewrite anyway.
- aidenn0 4y ago
  There are parts of mozilla that will need significant rewrites anyways, and writing parts of those in Rust could be a win if they can keep the interfaces clean.
  - swsieber 4y ago
    And they did that for a while; my understanding is that letting the rust language team didn't stop that, but that's mostly a guess.
  - tialaramex 4y ago
    Right, the finding from Google's Android team was that security bugs tend to be in new code, and so therefore choosing a safe language for new code is a much bigger win than rewriting stuff that you weren't going to change otherwise and which might be fine.
    - tadfisher 4y ago
      I hope they took into consideration a corollary: that new code often _exposes_ bugs in the old, by exercising untested code paths or just by breaking assumptions. When a bug arises this way, do you attribute it to the new code or the old? A good takeaway is that the old code should not have exposed paths that didn't yet have a consumer. I frequently fall into the trap of making my code too general to support future use cases, and this usually ends up being rewritten when those use cases are actually implemented, or the code is just dead for the lifetime of the project.
AceJohnny2 4y ago
I don't blame Mozilla. They're in a tough situation, with their star product, Firefox, trending at Opera-levels of Market share. They're scrambling to find revenue, and funding a blue-sky effort like Rust, as great as it is for the industry, just isn't something they can afford.
- UltraViolence 4y ago
  Right now they don't have a unique selling point (USP). Rust could've been that selling point but they instead focused on making divisive UI changes and adding subscriptions. Also their crusade against taking money from Google is ill-conceived. There's simply no other source of revenue for a web browser (unless they start their own search engine, but that would be suicide since Google would immediately cut off their funding). They should focus on building the best and most secure browser and then their market share will almost certainly improve.
jbirer 4y ago
The CEO has to get her 2.5 million / year somehow.
- UltraViolence 4y ago
  The management team should've been fired along time ago. But they essentially hijacked Mozilla. All the trademarks and copyrights belong to the Mozilla Corporation, not the Foundation. Management are filthy crooks, scum and carpetbaggers.
- speed_spread 4y ago
  I'm sure she feels like it's peanuts and that she's doing Mozilla a favor.
dblohm7 4y ago
> and aren't investing too much in rewriting parts of FireFox in Rust. False. You haven’t been paying attention.

Gigachad 4y ago

Mozilla is too busy trying to build online censorship tools and VR junk to bother with making their browser more secure.

smoldesu 4y ago
Microsoft and Apple are building pack-in browsers that users neither love nor hate. Brave is trying to sustain themselves on a comedy routine of a cryptocurrency, and Google is 30 seconds away from relapsing into web domination. Relative to the rest of the circus, I'd say Mozilla is doing an okay job.
- thrwawy74 4y ago
  As a sidenote, I had the impression Brave was some cryptocurrency delusion too. They have a much more extensive list of privacy modifications than Firefox does. I was impressed on a 2nd look, and you opt-in to the crypto nonsense.
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    There are worse things than supporting cryptocurrency in your project, but Brave's implementation is downright nefarious. BAT was a funnel that led directly into the developers pockets, it didn't even pretend to be pro-community. I don't trust Brave any more than I trust Google, since ultimately they're both funded by dwindling ad revenue.
- djhn 4y ago
  While I don't disagree, there is nothing wrong with Apple and Microsoft making perfectly adequate, boring browsers. Eliciting strong emotions is an anti-feature, surely!
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    I agree, so long as I'm not forced to use their boring browser.
ilikehurdles 4y ago
What is this in reference to?

lolinder 4y ago

Rewriting in Rust is not necessarily a good idea for any given project, and Google is almost certainly not going to be proactively rewriting large amounts of Chrome in Rust any more than Mozilla is. The reason is that bugs exist primarily in new code, not code that has been untouched for a long time. While you may solve some latent memory issues by rewriting in Rust, you're likely to introduce new regressions as well which may be much worse. It makes much more sense to focus on writing your new code in the safe language and gradually migrate things only when they would require a substantial rewrite anyway.

aidenn0 4y ago
There are parts of mozilla that will need significant rewrites anyways, and writing parts of those in Rust could be a win if they can keep the interfaces clean.
- swsieber 4y ago
  And they did that for a while; my understanding is that letting the rust language team didn't stop that, but that's mostly a guess.
- tialaramex 4y ago
  Right, the finding from Google's Android team was that security bugs tend to be in new code, and so therefore choosing a safe language for new code is a much bigger win than rewriting stuff that you weren't going to change otherwise and which might be fine.
  - tadfisher 4y ago
    I hope they took into consideration a corollary: that new code often _exposes_ bugs in the old, by exercising untested code paths or just by breaking assumptions. When a bug arises this way, do you attribute it to the new code or the old? A good takeaway is that the old code should not have exposed paths that didn't yet have a consumer. I frequently fall into the trap of making my code too general to support future use cases, and this usually ends up being rewritten when those use cases are actually implemented, or the code is just dead for the lifetime of the project.

AceJohnny2 4y ago

I don't blame Mozilla. They're in a tough situation, with their star product, Firefox, trending at Opera-levels of Market share. They're scrambling to find revenue, and funding a blue-sky effort like Rust, as great as it is for the industry, just isn't something they can afford.

UltraViolence 4y ago
Right now they don't have a unique selling point (USP). Rust could've been that selling point but they instead focused on making divisive UI changes and adding subscriptions. Also their crusade against taking money from Google is ill-conceived. There's simply no other source of revenue for a web browser (unless they start their own search engine, but that would be suicide since Google would immediately cut off their funding). They should focus on building the best and most secure browser and then their market share will almost certainly improve.

jbirer 4y ago

The CEO has to get her 2.5 million / year somehow.

UltraViolence 4y ago
The management team should've been fired along time ago. But they essentially hijacked Mozilla. All the trademarks and copyrights belong to the Mozilla Corporation, not the Foundation. Management are filthy crooks, scum and carpetbaggers.
speed_spread 4y ago
I'm sure she feels like it's peanuts and that she's doing Mozilla a favor.

dblohm7 4y ago

> and aren't investing too much in rewriting parts of FireFox in Rust. False. You haven’t been paying attention.