4 ms·

Obligatory reference to the inverse relationship between Firefox market share and the Mozilla Foundation's chair's compensation [1]. It is sad to see Firefox b

by jmyeet 4y ago

Obligatory reference to the inverse relationship between Firefox market share and the Mozilla Foundation's chair's compensation [1]. It is sad to see Firefox become so irrelevant. As much as people blame Google for this (and it is true Google relentlessly pushed Chrome) but people forget just how innovative Chrome was and how Firefox didn't respond to these issues. I remember when Chrome launched and it was revolutionary how it was one-process-per-tab (technically, it's site isolation not tab isolation but let's not get lost in the sauce). No longer could an errant website take down your entire browser (mostly). I kept wondering why Firefox didn't copy this. It took them years. What were they doing? Now I appreciate Mozilla bringing Rust into existence (not without problems and early design mistakes [2]) but the initial goal seemed to be rewriting the browser in a memory-safe language and that never seem to eventuate.. [1]: https://calpaterson.com/mozilla.html https://calpaterson.com/mozilla.html [2]: https://www.pingcap.com/blog/rust-compilation-model-calamity/ https://www.pingcap.com/blog/rust-compilation-model-calamity...

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zackmorris 4y ago
Wow I didn't know that! Looks like it's $3 million now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Baker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Baker An entire web browser could be written from scratch independently for that kinda cash. That's so disappointing that I don't think I can ever look at Mozilla or Firefox the same way again. As a software engineer, I would not work at an organization with such a huge discrepancy in pay. It almost makes me feel better about a lifetime of failure, so I guess I should be grateful. It's just looking more and more every day like wealth inequality is the great problem of our time, effectively halting progress beyond a certain point.
- vkou 4y ago
  > An entire web browser could be written from scratch independently for that kinda cash. Only if you think you could re-implement Twitter in a weekend.
- EMM_386 4y ago
  > An entire web browser could be written from scratch independently for that kinda cash. It honestly couldn't be. Not one that is on par with Chromium. I can't imagine how much Chrome "costs" if you add up all the engineering man-hours that have gone into that browser. I wouldn't be surprised if it exceeded (exceeds?) $3 million a month at times. Everything from V8 to pretty much full standards compliance (and beyond). Web browseres are an immensely complex beast.
noAnswer 4y ago
> I remember when Chrome launched and it was revolutionary how it was one-process-per-tab (technically, it's site isolation not tab isolation but let's not get lost in the sauce). No longer could an errant website take down your entire browser (mostly) I still used Opera 12 in 2016 when I finally searched for an alternative. Not only did websites crash(upside down bird) way more often in Chrome (multiple times a week in Chrome vs. once every two weeks in Opera), but every time a crashed tab took the entire browser with it! It's one of those times where you question reality. Everyone says one thing, your experience says something else! It literally took years for that feature to materialise. Now™ if a tab crashes, the browser stays. Since I'm a Vivaldi user now I couldn't even tell if that's more Vivaldi's or Chrome's doing. I also remember, opening a new tab in Opera 12 was without delay. You gave the command and it was just there. On Chrome, with a !EIGHT!YEAR!newer! CPU it took 3 to 4 seconds! I figured it must be the 4MB JPG background image I chose. Sure enough, it was the image. Without it, it was still 1/2 seconds to open a new tab, though. Only now, with an even newer CPU, it feels on par with Opera 12.

by jmyeet 4y ago

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zackmorris 4y ago

Wow I didn't know that! Looks like it's $3 million now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Baker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Baker An entire web browser could be written from scratch independently for that kinda cash. That's so disappointing that I don't think I can ever look at Mozilla or Firefox the same way again. As a software engineer, I would not work at an organization with such a huge discrepancy in pay. It almost makes me feel better about a lifetime of failure, so I guess I should be grateful. It's just looking more and more every day like wealth inequality is the great problem of our time, effectively halting progress beyond a certain point.

vkou 4y ago
> An entire web browser could be written from scratch independently for that kinda cash. Only if you think you could re-implement Twitter in a weekend.
EMM_386 4y ago
> An entire web browser could be written from scratch independently for that kinda cash. It honestly couldn't be. Not one that is on par with Chromium. I can't imagine how much Chrome "costs" if you add up all the engineering man-hours that have gone into that browser. I wouldn't be surprised if it exceeded (exceeds?) $3 million a month at times. Everything from V8 to pretty much full standards compliance (and beyond). Web browseres are an immensely complex beast.

noAnswer 4y ago

> I remember when Chrome launched and it was revolutionary how it was one-process-per-tab (technically, it's site isolation not tab isolation but let's not get lost in the sauce). No longer could an errant website take down your entire browser (mostly) I still used Opera 12 in 2016 when I finally searched for an alternative. Not only did websites crash(upside down bird) way more often in Chrome (multiple times a week in Chrome vs. once every two weeks in Opera), but every time a crashed tab took the entire browser with it! It's one of those times where you question reality. Everyone says one thing, your experience says something else! It literally took years for that feature to materialise. Now™ if a tab crashes, the browser stays. Since I'm a Vivaldi user now I couldn't even tell if that's more Vivaldi's or Chrome's doing. I also remember, opening a new tab in Opera 12 was without delay. You gave the command and it was just there. On Chrome, with a !EIGHT!YEAR!newer! CPU it took 3 to 4 seconds! I figured it must be the 4MB JPG background image I chose. Sure enough, it was the image. Without it, it was still 1/2 seconds to open a new tab, though. Only now, with an even newer CPU, it feels on par with Opera 12.