15 ms·

This feels like a good long term vision for Mozilla. The browser wars are basically over, and Mozilla as an organization would benefit from a longer term visio

by bcx 3y ago

This feels like a good long term vision for Mozilla. The browser wars are basically over, and Mozilla as an organization would benefit from a longer term vision to improve veracity on the internet. With the ability to generate content at the cost of basically 0, figuring out what's real and not real is going to be an increasingly hard challenge. Browser stats (as of Feb): 79.7% - Chrome 8.6% - Edge 4.8% - Firefox/Mozilla 3.9% - Safari

blacksmith_tb 3y ago
Stats vary a lot by source, for example[1] puts FF and Safari neck and neck (which seems optimistic to me, as much as I like FF). 1: https://kinsta.com/browser-market-share/ https://kinsta.com/browser-market-share/
- capitainenemo 3y ago
  https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/worldwide https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/worl... 5.59% for Firefox in the desktop category. (mobile is tough for any alternative browser - chrome has a hard time on iOS although I'm sure only being a skin over webkit doesn't help) Desktop is a better market to compare anyway, if including Edge. Is Microsoft even trying anymore on mobile?
- derefr 3y ago
  I think a lot of University computer labs still use Firefox. At least at some point, that was because it was easier to lock down — no directory "an administrator" (i.e. malware) could just dump an extension into to treat it as force-installed.
kjkjadksj 3y ago
Its amazing how consistently poor safari adoption has been.
- eli 3y ago
  It doesn't really run at all on Windows, the most popular desktop operating system by a huge margin.
- fafzv 3y ago
  Safari only runs on Apple hardware and the world at large is poor. Like really, really poor. Safari has 34.6% share in the US: https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/all/united-states-of-america https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/all/united-s...
  - capitainenemo 3y ago
    I was surprised that was still 22.4% even after narrowing down to desktop US https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/united-states-of-america https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/unit... I didn't realise Macs were a quarter of the desktop market.
    - tracker1 3y ago
      I'm not that surprised... They're not just trendy, but hardware wise pretty nice in terms of quality, appearance and battery life. I don't use it much, but my M1 Air that I got for personal use generally makes it through a week of use on road trips without needing to recharge. Hour or two of email/reading a day, about 60% brightness. I think MacOS feels a bit old at this point, but the hardware is pretty nice for what's on offer in the mobile space. I may well go framework for my next laptop in a few years though.
      - JenrHywy 3y ago
        I just bought my first Mac in ~30 years, having been all Windows or Linux in that period. I've been blown away by now nice it is - both the hardware and MacOS. Sure, there are some annoyances for a "power user" where something like showing hidden files requires an obscure key combo, but for the most part it has been a refreshing change. It's also just blazingly fast compared to the similarly priced ~3yo Dell that it replaced.
jzb 3y ago
Leaning hard into delivering content that you can "trust" would be an interesting direction for Mozilla. I suspect that will put some crosshairs on Mozilla as an organization, though. While that would be good for users, there will be folks who don't like the idea of spotting fake content or doing any labeling of content...
- timtom39 3y ago
  Given their complete reliance on google for funding and biased political stance. I don't think they are in a great position to deliver content you can "trust".
  - tracker1 3y ago
    While I do agree to some extent. I think the vast majority of the tech side of Mozilla who work on the products and not the marketing are more concerned about the tech. I only wish they got the bulk of funding, and Mozilla org would cut way back and let the products speak for themselves for a while. If they hadn't spent so much trying to find other funding and revenue streams, they could have had decades of runway to work on improving their software.
- justinclift 3y ago
  Do you reckon they'll be the same people unhappy with Mozilla about their pro-privacy / "lets try and cut down ads" approach?
fafzv 3y ago
The browser wars are over because Firefox lost them by spending all the time patting themselves on the back about how much better they were than the competition, wasting their money on stupid stuff like this instead of improving their browser. Getting themselves into a deeper hole is unlikely to help, imo.
- KingOfCoders 3y ago
  Remember "Firefox OS"?
  - failbuffer 3y ago
    It was a fantastic gamble IMO. Low chance of success, but enormous payoff if it had succeeded. Imagine a commercially viable alternative to iPhone and Android with multiple manufacturers and a completely open platform. Ultimately, I think they came to market too late and Android moved into the niche (low end market) they were targeting.
    - wpietri 3y ago
      Yeah, I'm glad they tried. I absolutely think they should be spending a chunk of their money on things that might broaden their impact and their revenue, even when some of those things don't pan out.
    - capitainenemo 3y ago
      I seem to recall them saying they did reuse part of that work in Firefox on Android in terms of low-end performance, so it wasn't 100% wasted.
    - fafzv 3y ago
      They took Gecko, the slowest rendering engine that there was (is?), made an entire OS around it, and put it on the slowest mobile phones that existed back then. That was not a gamble, that was throwing money down the drain.
    - KingOfCoders 3y ago
whywhywhywhy 3y ago
>This feels like a good long term vision for Mozilla. >The browser wars are basically over and why is that? Oh because Mozilla hasn't put any energy into getting better or pulling back market share from the moment it started to bleed out to Chrome. Let's not just sit back and go "Oh well, they lost nothing they could do" shrug. They built their tech in such an obtuse and opinionated way it's impossible to integrate anywhere else, milked their millions selling off customer data to Google via the default search interface, burned the money on private jets and shockingly overpaid low-talent low-vision executives. Burned engineering talent on a VPN service no one asked for just because it's a good money making scam if you advertize it on the right podcasts, made huge parts of their deep engineering teams redundant. To be perfectly honest the only good long term vision for Mozilla is an empty office or a landfill. Their existence under the current management doomed the internet back to the IE6 era of browser variety. Firefox the browser would be way better off if Mozilla the company didn't exist. Baffles me they have any good will left at all from people who care about the internet. This company will literally do anything else than work hard on their browser.
- KingOfCoders 3y ago
  To me - as a long term FF user and Mozilla critic - it looks like: Spend money on everything except browser development (>$5 billions!). Market share down the drain. Use the market share as an argument for a lost cause and spend money on everything except Browser development. Ladybird - a browser spearheaded by one person - will expose Mozilla of what it is.
  - leidenfrost 3y ago
    I haven't actually looked at it, but I have the feeling that the Firefox code base is godawful and nobody who isn't being paid for a 40 hour weekday actually wants to get involved in it.
    - asldkfjaslkdj 3y ago
      oh google pay a LOT of people to do it. Either outright commits by at-google email addresses, or things like summer of code. All to play catch up with the features they shove on chrome.
wodenokoto 3y ago
Surely that is desktop browser stats. Safari must be doing better when accounting for iPads and iPhones.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
recursive 3y ago
The browser wars were also over 20 years ago. Until the next ones.
robocat 3y ago
Browser stats for just desktop computers, worldwide: Google Chrome 66% Safari 12% Edge 11% Firefox 6% Source https://www.macrumors.com/2023/05/02/safari-overtakes-edge-popular-browsers/ https://www.macrumors.com/2023/05/02/safari-overtakes-edge-p... discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35786080 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35786080 https://radar.cloudflare.com/adoption-and-usage https://radar.cloudflare.com/adoption-and-usage shows distribution of requests to Cloudflare by user agent: Chrome 29.1% Chrome Mobile 27.1% Mobile Safari 11.4% Chrome Mobile Webview 6.5% Firefox 5.7% Edge 4.4% Facebook 3.5% Safari 3.3% No idea where commenter is getting their stats from.
b112 3y ago
The browser wars are basically over That's silly. More than once, browsers have had more marketshare than chrome. IE's highest marketshare makes chrome look silly in comparison. Now, is not the same as "what will happen".
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

by bcx 3y ago

blacksmith_tb 3y ago

Stats vary a lot by source, for example[1] puts FF and Safari neck and neck (which seems optimistic to me, as much as I like FF). 1: https://kinsta.com/browser-market-share/ https://kinsta.com/browser-market-share/

capitainenemo 3y ago
https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/worldwide https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/worl... 5.59% for Firefox in the desktop category. (mobile is tough for any alternative browser - chrome has a hard time on iOS although I'm sure only being a skin over webkit doesn't help) Desktop is a better market to compare anyway, if including Edge. Is Microsoft even trying anymore on mobile?
derefr 3y ago
I think a lot of University computer labs still use Firefox. At least at some point, that was because it was easier to lock down — no directory "an administrator" (i.e. malware) could just dump an extension into to treat it as force-installed.

kjkjadksj 3y ago

Its amazing how consistently poor safari adoption has been.

eli 3y ago
It doesn't really run at all on Windows, the most popular desktop operating system by a huge margin.
fafzv 3y ago
Safari only runs on Apple hardware and the world at large is poor. Like really, really poor. Safari has 34.6% share in the US: https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/all/united-states-of-america https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/all/united-s...
- capitainenemo 3y ago
  I was surprised that was still 22.4% even after narrowing down to desktop US https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/united-states-of-america https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/unit... I didn't realise Macs were a quarter of the desktop market.
  - tracker1 3y ago
    I'm not that surprised... They're not just trendy, but hardware wise pretty nice in terms of quality, appearance and battery life. I don't use it much, but my M1 Air that I got for personal use generally makes it through a week of use on road trips without needing to recharge. Hour or two of email/reading a day, about 60% brightness. I think MacOS feels a bit old at this point, but the hardware is pretty nice for what's on offer in the mobile space. I may well go framework for my next laptop in a few years though.
    - JenrHywy 3y ago
      I just bought my first Mac in ~30 years, having been all Windows or Linux in that period. I've been blown away by now nice it is - both the hardware and MacOS. Sure, there are some annoyances for a "power user" where something like showing hidden files requires an obscure key combo, but for the most part it has been a refreshing change. It's also just blazingly fast compared to the similarly priced ~3yo Dell that it replaced.

jzb 3y ago

Leaning hard into delivering content that you can "trust" would be an interesting direction for Mozilla. I suspect that will put some crosshairs on Mozilla as an organization, though. While that would be good for users, there will be folks who don't like the idea of spotting fake content or doing any labeling of content...

timtom39 3y ago
Given their complete reliance on google for funding and biased political stance. I don't think they are in a great position to deliver content you can "trust".
- tracker1 3y ago
  While I do agree to some extent. I think the vast majority of the tech side of Mozilla who work on the products and not the marketing are more concerned about the tech. I only wish they got the bulk of funding, and Mozilla org would cut way back and let the products speak for themselves for a while. If they hadn't spent so much trying to find other funding and revenue streams, they could have had decades of runway to work on improving their software.
justinclift 3y ago
Do you reckon they'll be the same people unhappy with Mozilla about their pro-privacy / "lets try and cut down ads" approach?

fafzv 3y ago

The browser wars are over because Firefox lost them by spending all the time patting themselves on the back about how much better they were than the competition, wasting their money on stupid stuff like this instead of improving their browser. Getting themselves into a deeper hole is unlikely to help, imo.

KingOfCoders 3y ago
Remember "Firefox OS"?
- failbuffer 3y ago
  It was a fantastic gamble IMO. Low chance of success, but enormous payoff if it had succeeded. Imagine a commercially viable alternative to iPhone and Android with multiple manufacturers and a completely open platform. Ultimately, I think they came to market too late and Android moved into the niche (low end market) they were targeting.
  - wpietri 3y ago
    Yeah, I'm glad they tried. I absolutely think they should be spending a chunk of their money on things that might broaden their impact and their revenue, even when some of those things don't pan out.
  - capitainenemo 3y ago
    I seem to recall them saying they did reuse part of that work in Firefox on Android in terms of low-end performance, so it wasn't 100% wasted.
  - fafzv 3y ago
    They took Gecko, the slowest rendering engine that there was (is?), made an entire OS around it, and put it on the slowest mobile phones that existed back then. That was not a gamble, that was throwing money down the drain.
  - KingOfCoders 3y ago

whywhywhywhy 3y ago

>This feels like a good long term vision for Mozilla. >The browser wars are basically over and why is that? Oh because Mozilla hasn't put any energy into getting better or pulling back market share from the moment it started to bleed out to Chrome. Let's not just sit back and go "Oh well, they lost nothing they could do" shrug. They built their tech in such an obtuse and opinionated way it's impossible to integrate anywhere else, milked their millions selling off customer data to Google via the default search interface, burned the money on private jets and shockingly overpaid low-talent low-vision executives. Burned engineering talent on a VPN service no one asked for just because it's a good money making scam if you advertize it on the right podcasts, made huge parts of their deep engineering teams redundant. To be perfectly honest the only good long term vision for Mozilla is an empty office or a landfill. Their existence under the current management doomed the internet back to the IE6 era of browser variety. Firefox the browser would be way better off if Mozilla the company didn't exist. Baffles me they have any good will left at all from people who care about the internet. This company will literally do anything else than work hard on their browser.

KingOfCoders 3y ago
To me - as a long term FF user and Mozilla critic - it looks like: Spend money on everything except browser development (>$5 billions!). Market share down the drain. Use the market share as an argument for a lost cause and spend money on everything except Browser development. Ladybird - a browser spearheaded by one person - will expose Mozilla of what it is.
- leidenfrost 3y ago
  I haven't actually looked at it, but I have the feeling that the Firefox code base is godawful and nobody who isn't being paid for a 40 hour weekday actually wants to get involved in it.
  - asldkfjaslkdj 3y ago
    oh google pay a LOT of people to do it. Either outright commits by at-google email addresses, or things like summer of code. All to play catch up with the features they shove on chrome.

wodenokoto 3y ago

Surely that is desktop browser stats. Safari must be doing better when accounting for iPads and iPhones.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

recursive 3y ago

The browser wars were also over 20 years ago. Until the next ones.

robocat 3y ago

Browser stats for just desktop computers, worldwide: Google Chrome 66% Safari 12% Edge 11% Firefox 6% Source https://www.macrumors.com/2023/05/02/safari-overtakes-edge-popular-browsers/ https://www.macrumors.com/2023/05/02/safari-overtakes-edge-p... discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35786080 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35786080 https://radar.cloudflare.com/adoption-and-usage https://radar.cloudflare.com/adoption-and-usage shows distribution of requests to Cloudflare by user agent: Chrome 29.1% Chrome Mobile 27.1% Mobile Safari 11.4% Chrome Mobile Webview 6.5% Firefox 5.7% Edge 4.4% Facebook 3.5% Safari 3.3% No idea where commenter is getting their stats from.

b112 3y ago

The browser wars are basically over That's silly. More than once, browsers have had more marketshare than chrome. IE's highest marketshare makes chrome look silly in comparison. Now, is not the same as "what will happen".

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]