5 ms·

The biggest loser in the Google search ruling could be Mozilla and its Firefox

33 points by jnord 2y ago

breput 2y ago
Redistribute the (potential) DOJ judgement to Firefox with no preconditions.
- anotherhue 2y ago
  Literally anything else would be preferable. A NIST competition, open source grants, IE6 Remastered edition... Mozilla exists to hinder the development of other browsers. They're the well financed vote spoiler. IIRC the CEO makes many millions a year while laying off browser developers.
  - horsawlarway 2y ago
    I will second this opinion. Mozilla has strongly displayed a willingness to be "the other side of the coin" to Google's browser monopoly. They go hand in hand. IMO poster above is correct - they exist mostly as a scapegoat Google can point to in order to avoid monopoly claims (And Google is paying Mozilla more than 80% of their revenue to prop them up in this act). Mozilla markets themselves as the "privacy focused alternative" but in reality I find that marketing mostly whitewash. Please do pretty much anything else instead of giving this money to Mozilla.
  - flufluflufluffy 2y ago
    > Mozilla exists to hinder the development of other browsers. ???? They’re sure doing a bad job of that… providing us with pretty much the internet’s most extensive and highest quality documentation of html/css/JavaScript & web apis, providing us with a non-WebKit/blink engine (& the only major browser not using those)…
- tivert 2y ago
  > Redistribute the (potential) DOJ judgement to Firefox with no preconditions. If the money is distributed to Firefox, the precondition that it be spent on browser development is an absolute must. It's pretty scandalous that they take donations but spend the money on pretty much everything except funding Firefox development, which is almost certainly the only reason people donated it in the first place. No one really cares about any of the other things they do, especially not compared to the browser itself.
horsawlarway 2y ago
Good - Mozilla is only propped up in this position by Google, it's time to kick the crutch away. I'm tired of hearing people who think Firefox is the alternative to google when they're clearly both happy with the terrible status quo. Break the chromium team out of google and put some actual damn laws in place for data collection.
- tivert 2y ago
  > Good - Mozilla is only propped up in this position by Google, it's time to kick the crutch away. I'd rather see Mozilla reformed rather than sink. It's the only non Chromium browser that still exists, isn't such a memory hog, and has good extensibility.
  - mike_hearn 2y ago
    Safari?
    - tivert 2y ago
      > Safari? Touche, but it's only available one one platform and aren't the both descended from WebKit?
      - foobarchu 2y ago
        I don't personally like the browser, but Safari has been on Windows for decades
        rawgabbit 2y ago
        Discontinued on windows. https://www.xda-developers.com/safari-for-windows-editorial/ https://www.xda-developers.com/safari-for-windows-editorial/
  - yesco 2y ago
    If Mozilla disappeared then I don't think that would imply the death of Firefox, I suspect there is enough motivation in the community to support a "successor" fork to fill the vacuum. I'm sure the transition would be pretty awkward though, and it could have some negative implications on new WC3 standards in the short term. It ultimately depends on the "how" though, like if Mozilla were to act selfishly, they could get aggressive with the trademark and kill the brand recognition of a fork, possibly even requiring interface changes. Alternatively on the other end of the spectrum, if they simply passed Firefox in it's entirety to the community, it could possibly end up in a Thunderbird situation where it experiences a revival without a fork being necessary. Absent Googles funding, I think the best case scenario would be it's top leadership leaving as the budget stops being capable of sustaining the salaries critical for "supporting their families" and Mozilla gradually transitions into the non-profit it was always meant to be, soliciting donations exclusively for browser development. All while free from any concerns about pissing of Google and losing their main source of funding.
macros 2y ago
Mozilla has a moment being presented to them right now and I fear they are going to totally blow it. With manifestv3 and inaction on tracking cookies google is obviously acting in their own interests instead of their end users and Mozilla should be pouncing on this in a big and visible way but they just aren't
hcfman 2y ago
Firefox, after 10 years, is still the only browser that correctly renders adding mjpeg images to the dom and have them play in response to an event on a websocket. not chrome, not safari, not edge. Very specific use case. Maybe I'm the only one that uses it. But it's interesting to note that I discovered this back around 2013 and it's not changed in that time. It's nice for making popup video camera views in javascript. Interesting to note, it's only not working when it's a websocket initiated dom change. Keyboard input, result of an http call, all fine. So please don't take firefox away :)

33 points by jnord 2y ago

breput 2y ago

Redistribute the (potential) DOJ judgement to Firefox with no preconditions.

anotherhue 2y ago
Literally anything else would be preferable. A NIST competition, open source grants, IE6 Remastered edition... Mozilla exists to hinder the development of other browsers. They're the well financed vote spoiler. IIRC the CEO makes many millions a year while laying off browser developers.
- horsawlarway 2y ago
  I will second this opinion. Mozilla has strongly displayed a willingness to be "the other side of the coin" to Google's browser monopoly. They go hand in hand. IMO poster above is correct - they exist mostly as a scapegoat Google can point to in order to avoid monopoly claims (And Google is paying Mozilla more than 80% of their revenue to prop them up in this act). Mozilla markets themselves as the "privacy focused alternative" but in reality I find that marketing mostly whitewash. Please do pretty much anything else instead of giving this money to Mozilla.
- flufluflufluffy 2y ago
  > Mozilla exists to hinder the development of other browsers. ???? They’re sure doing a bad job of that… providing us with pretty much the internet’s most extensive and highest quality documentation of html/css/JavaScript & web apis, providing us with a non-WebKit/blink engine (& the only major browser not using those)…
tivert 2y ago
> Redistribute the (potential) DOJ judgement to Firefox with no preconditions. If the money is distributed to Firefox, the precondition that it be spent on browser development is an absolute must. It's pretty scandalous that they take donations but spend the money on pretty much everything except funding Firefox development, which is almost certainly the only reason people donated it in the first place. No one really cares about any of the other things they do, especially not compared to the browser itself.

horsawlarway 2y ago

Good - Mozilla is only propped up in this position by Google, it's time to kick the crutch away. I'm tired of hearing people who think Firefox is the alternative to google when they're clearly both happy with the terrible status quo. Break the chromium team out of google and put some actual damn laws in place for data collection.

tivert 2y ago
> Good - Mozilla is only propped up in this position by Google, it's time to kick the crutch away. I'd rather see Mozilla reformed rather than sink. It's the only non Chromium browser that still exists, isn't such a memory hog, and has good extensibility.
- mike_hearn 2y ago
  Safari?
  - tivert 2y ago
    > Safari? Touche, but it's only available one one platform and aren't the both descended from WebKit?
    - foobarchu 2y ago
      I don't personally like the browser, but Safari has been on Windows for decades
      - rawgabbit 2y ago
        Discontinued on windows. https://www.xda-developers.com/safari-for-windows-editorial/ https://www.xda-developers.com/safari-for-windows-editorial/
- yesco 2y ago
  If Mozilla disappeared then I don't think that would imply the death of Firefox, I suspect there is enough motivation in the community to support a "successor" fork to fill the vacuum. I'm sure the transition would be pretty awkward though, and it could have some negative implications on new WC3 standards in the short term. It ultimately depends on the "how" though, like if Mozilla were to act selfishly, they could get aggressive with the trademark and kill the brand recognition of a fork, possibly even requiring interface changes. Alternatively on the other end of the spectrum, if they simply passed Firefox in it's entirety to the community, it could possibly end up in a Thunderbird situation where it experiences a revival without a fork being necessary. Absent Googles funding, I think the best case scenario would be it's top leadership leaving as the budget stops being capable of sustaining the salaries critical for "supporting their families" and Mozilla gradually transitions into the non-profit it was always meant to be, soliciting donations exclusively for browser development. All while free from any concerns about pissing of Google and losing their main source of funding.

macros 2y ago

Mozilla has a moment being presented to them right now and I fear they are going to totally blow it. With manifestv3 and inaction on tracking cookies google is obviously acting in their own interests instead of their end users and Mozilla should be pouncing on this in a big and visible way but they just aren't

hcfman 2y ago

Firefox, after 10 years, is still the only browser that correctly renders adding mjpeg images to the dom and have them play in response to an event on a websocket. not chrome, not safari, not edge. Very specific use case. Maybe I'm the only one that uses it. But it's interesting to note that I discovered this back around 2013 and it's not changed in that time. It's nice for making popup video camera views in javascript. Interesting to note, it's only not working when it's a websocket initiated dom change. Keyboard input, result of an http call, all fine. So please don't take firefox away :)