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I might have differed with Brendan Eich on a few matters, but he was a good steward of Firefox in my book. When Mitchell Baker took the reins, Mozilla became r

I might have differed with Brendan Eich on a few matters, but he was a good steward of Firefox in my book. When Mitchell Baker took the reins, Mozilla became rather more heavy-handed towards us - the irony being that Waterfox was once proudly displayed on the Mozilla website under their "Powered By" banner. I appreciate the constant existential wobble Firefox faces, but they've made some peculiar decisions as of late. On one hand, they're finally implementing features users have been clamouring for ages (tab groups, vertical tabs and the likes) - on the other, rather odd policy choices. I should point out, it seems daft to me when others suggest using forks with no well-established governance of their own, essentially shifting trust from an organisation at least answerable to certain regulations, to individuals with no proper framework or guidelines. I've done my best with Waterfox over the years to have it represented by a proper legal entity with policies to follow; so if anyone is interested take a look. Edit: FWIW I've written some more thoughts on it here: https://www.waterfox.net/blog/a-comment-on-mozilla-changes/ https://www.waterfox.net/blog/a-comment-on-mozilla-changes/

Propelloni 2y ago
Hey, thank you for Waterfox! I'm using it a lot across all my machines. Well done!
jchw 2y ago
Most of the other "forks" (e.g. Librewolf) are just patches on top of vanilla Firefox sources, so it's really not a whole lot to scrutinize by hand. I've skimmed at least most of the patch files personally just out of curiosity. In my distro of choice, NixOS, the sources are built by Hydra or my local machine, so I'm not trusting that their binaries match the source either. That makes it a bit easier to trust, but it does run into the issue that it stops working if Mozilla hits a certain level of untrustworthiness.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
dmantis 2y ago
I don't see how a regulated entity is better in any way than an individual. We repeatedly see attacks on freedom and privacy by the people who are supposed to protect them, those so-called "regulators": chatcontrol, recent UK backdoor wishes, repeated French proposals to enforce DRM even on opensource. And I wouldn't even google Russia, China, or other less democratic states. Regulated is probably worse than some anarchistic who-knows-by-whom software, but FOSS and auditable these days, tbh. Especially as everyone's audit capabilities grow day by day with AI. It's kind of good at grinding tons of code. A heavily regulated entity with all licenses in the world might be more hostile toward users than some niche project.
- MrAlex94 2y ago
  > I don't see how regulated entity is better in any way than individual. I feel you. Regulatory bodies have definitely fallen short in many cases, and we've seen concerning proposals from governments that threaten digital privacy and freedom. "Who watches the watchmen" seems incredibly apt nowadays. However, I feel there's a fundamental difference between imperfect accountability and no accountability at all. With a legal entity governed by stated policies, users have: 1. Transparency about who makes decisions and how 2. Clear terms that create binding commitments 3. Legal mechanisms for recourse if those commitments are violated 4. A persistent entity that can't simply disappear overnight Perfect? Not really. The ICO in the UK, for example, hasn't been amazing at enforcing data protection. But the existence of these frameworks means that accountability is at least possible - there are levers that can be pulled if someone can be bothered to. In contrast, with software maintained by anonymous or loosely affiliated individuals, there's no structural accountability whatsoever. If privacy promises are broken, users have no recourse beyond abandoning the software. FOSS and auditability are valuable safeguards, sure, but they primarily protect against unintentional privacy violations that might be discovered in code reviews. They don't address the human element of intentional policy changes or decisions about data collection.
  - Defletter 2y ago
    I grow wearier by the day by the incessant calls to denounce and disown everything that isn't perfect.
sph 2y ago
Here's my question: in light of what Mozilla is doing, why don't other forks like Waterfox or Librewolf write a manifesto/contract saying they'll never sell your user data and won't turn "evil" (until they do, of course), and then decide to offer a paid version of their browser. Two possible outcomes: 1. No one cares. No one pays for it. Nothing changes and nobody loses anything. 2. Enough people pay for it to keep the product healthy and the user-centric promise alive. The Internet is saved. So why isn't anyone trying to replace Mozilla yet, with a more sane business model than living on the back of Google's fear of antitrust investigation? What's the worse that can happen? Just sell a bonafide paid version alongside the free one, don't just rely on donations. There is a massive difference between offering a paid product and begging passers-by to spare some change.
- mariusmg 2y ago
  >So why isn't anyone trying to replace Mozilla yet, Because writing manifestos is easy and making a browser is proper hard work ?
  - sph 2y ago
    My comment is targeted to the developers of Waterfox and Librewolf - they're already making a browser, so the hard part is done. I'm wondering why don't they try to step it up further by selling a paid version alongside their open source product. What is the worst that can happen? Nobody pays for it and they continue making $0 just like they are happily doing now.
    - bluebarbet 2y ago
      >the hard part is done The hard part is the rendering engine and security. Both are done by the maintainer of the upstream source, i.e. Mozilla.
    - Fnoord 2y ago
      A paid version needs to offer something on top of it, which is usually in one way or another proprietary (such as a proprietary service). Something like this is regarded as the enshitification process, so what typically happens is they (e.g. VC) want to do such after they lured in their users. Which Firefox has (or arguably: had), but Waterfox and Librewolf have not. Good thought experiment. It ain't the first drama or controversy with regards to Mozilla, who have had a long tendency which didn't occur recently (and included the time Eich was there). Nostalgia just makes people forget the bad.
wraptile 2y ago
> I appreciate the constant existential wobble Firefox faces The wobble seems to somewhat artificial. I'm having trouble believing Firefox could ever not be able to afford to continue browser development — there are way too many interests at stake. Google alone would have no choice but to bail Firefox out because Chrome can't be the only browser without being regulated to hell and back.
- SiempreViernes 2y ago
  Google providing most of their funding is a fact, and that this provides a large amount of leverage over what Firefox can do is obvious. So how is the balancing act artificial? For it to be self-imposed there needs to be an comparable amount of money ready to spring forth if Google ever pulled out that Mozilla is somehow keeping a lid on.
  - themaninthedark 2y ago
    We are able to develop not just an open source kernel, multiple different distributions and a large suite of software. I would think that we could also develop a browser that doesn't need to spy on us.
1oooqooq 2y ago
we need to clean cut from mozilla. do they still make ot worthwhile for developers? are any on the payroll still? i think the community should mobilize to sign up for adopting A single fork* as the official fork and completely drop mozilla from existence. * only criteria should be the fork that is most convenient for all the other forks to just point to instead of mozilla and continue to ship with their patches. and that one fork should have the minimum resources to respond to security disclosures in place of mozilla, nothing else as a requirement.
- bluGill 2y ago
  More importantly that fork should be what other forks base off of. Anyone can put a skin on a browser, but someone needs to do the engine. If every fork who wants an engine improvement goes to the one place there is some mass behind making the fork real, and the other forks can still to their skin if they think it useful. That one fork also means that when mozilla comes out with a new version there are enough hands to merge (at least until Mozilla diverges too far from the fork)
  - Y_Y 2y ago
    What about Servo? That's coming along and already has a company/coop behind it. https://blogs.igalia.com/mrego/servo-revival-2023-2024/ https://blogs.igalia.com/mrego/servo-revival-2023-2024/
    - account42 2y ago
      > and already has a company/coop behind it Considering what has happened to Firefox, that's not encouraging.
  - 1oooqooq 2y ago
    the first part of your comment is exactly what i said. the second part, it looks like you ignored my whole comment. there should be no more mozilla. if they exist by means of opensource contributors. i question if they have their own developers on payroll still? which might be slightly harder to replace.
KingOfCoders 2y ago
They got more than $7B to build a browser. "I appreciate the constant existential wobble Firefox faces" I would also love to face $7B existential wobbles.
- ta1243 2y ago
  To put that number in perspective, drawing just 1% of that down each year and putting in a bank account earning interest would fund 100 engineers on $500k/year indefinitely.
  - dtech 2y ago
    They got it over many years with ongoing expenses because they had a browser, so comparing it with 7B lump sum is silly. With the same argument you could probably retire, after all you already earned (years you've been working) * (average salary).
    - nottorp 2y ago
      I don't know... do they even have 100 engineers? Or 20 and the rest is management and crypto and AI projects?
    - KingOfCoders 2y ago
      You are right, they got $400M+ a year. I stand corrected, I would want to face the $400M+ per year existential wobble.
    - ta1243 2y ago
      so if I've worked for 20 years from age 20 with a 100k average salary that's 2m A 2m lump sump at 20 would allow me to live a lifestyle of a 20k/year life, not good enough. Had I lived that over the last 20 years and saved the rest of the 100k in an 8% return fund then I'd have 4m today and could drawdown a 40k/year life at 1%. Had I been given a lump sum of 100 times my desired salary though, or 10m, then sure, no need to work.
      - 2y ago
itscrush 2y ago
1. Is github the best place to report bugs / issues for Waterfox? 2. When (not in your lifetime obviously) Waterfox is broken, what canaries do you have deployed that we can archive now, like Mozilla's tell here? 3. What keeps waterfox afloat? Where/how do you accept funds? 4. How do I find a sync alternative or provide my own? Such that, I'm not reliant on Mozilla sync/backend? ... If none exists, how much would it cost for you to embed one? Would you accept a serious bounty for it assuming the focus is self hosted / no Waterfox backend services?
- rafram 2y ago
  > When (not in your lifetime obviously) Waterfox is broken, what canaries do you have deployed that we can archive now, like Mozilla's tell here? This is so melodramatic. It’s a set of patch files applied to the Firefox source tree. If an evil maintainer hatches a maniacal plan to collect user statistics and deletes the patch that removes telemetry or whatever, you can just `git revert`.
simpaticoder 2y ago
>it seems daft to me when others suggest using forks with no well-established governance of their own Yes, it may be that we are jumping from the frying pan into the fire. On the bright-side this opens up an opportunity for a company, or a suite of companies, to fund an alternative browser. Such an entity might have Signal at its lead, or similar, who's mission is solely to "tighten up" the software stack on which it runs.
- Lio 2y ago
  That sounds very much like Ladybird's mission. Truly independent No code from other browsers. We're building a new engine, based on web standards. Singular focus We are focused on one thing: the web browser. No monetization No "default search deals", crypto tokens, or other forms of user monetization, ever. https://ladybird.org/ https://ladybird.org/
lolinder 2y ago
Rather odd policy choices is an understatement. The context to keep in mind here is that Mozilla purchased an ad company back in June. They spent money on it, and they will move to earn a return on investment. Absent that context this could just be another tone deaf policy choice that gets rolled back when there's enough heat, but with that context in mind it's far more likely to be them laying the legal foundation to incorporate Anonym's targeted advertising into Firefox. From the Register article about the acquisition: > Arielle Garcia, director of intelligence for ad watchdog Check My Ads, told The Register in an email that she's generally skeptical of claims about privacy-preserving ad technology. > "For example, how do Anonym’s audience capabilities, like their lookalike modeling, jibe with what Mozilla considers to be 'exploitative models of data extraction?' The data that is 'securely shared' by platforms and advertisers to enable ad targeting and measurement have to come from somewhere – and there’s more to privacy than not leaking user IDs." https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/18/mozilla_buys_anonym_betting_privacy/ https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/18/mozilla_buys_anonym_b...
- jeltz 2y ago
  This is not the first time Mozilla bought an ad company, last time it was Qlikz. And last time it cost them most of their German users. Wonder how many users they will lose this time.
AyyEye 2y ago
> I should point out, it seems daft to me when others suggest using forks with no well-established governance of their own, essentially shifting trust from an organisation at least answerable to certain regulations, to individuals with no proper framework or guidelines Individuals that care about these things have a far better track record than any business with employees, bills to pay, and investors.
- dylan604 2y ago
  Until that individual tires of the work, and then stops working on it completely or sells it to someone with less scruples or the project gets hijacked by malicious actor.
  - GuinansEyebrows 2y ago
    Aren’t the latter two more or less what happened to Firefox?
    - dylan604 2y ago
      I think it's pretty much what happens to every thing
account42 2y ago
> I should point out, it seems daft to me when others suggest using forks with no well-established governance of their own, essentially shifting trust from an organisation at least answerable to certain regulations, to individuals with no proper framework or guidelines. That just shows that trust in Mozilla has sunk below "random stranger" levels. IMO that shift is entirely deserved.

Propelloni 2y ago

Hey, thank you for Waterfox! I'm using it a lot across all my machines. Well done!

jchw 2y ago

Most of the other "forks" (e.g. Librewolf) are just patches on top of vanilla Firefox sources, so it's really not a whole lot to scrutinize by hand. I've skimmed at least most of the patch files personally just out of curiosity. In my distro of choice, NixOS, the sources are built by Hydra or my local machine, so I'm not trusting that their binaries match the source either. That makes it a bit easier to trust, but it does run into the issue that it stops working if Mozilla hits a certain level of untrustworthiness.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

dmantis 2y ago

I don't see how a regulated entity is better in any way than an individual. We repeatedly see attacks on freedom and privacy by the people who are supposed to protect them, those so-called "regulators": chatcontrol, recent UK backdoor wishes, repeated French proposals to enforce DRM even on opensource. And I wouldn't even google Russia, China, or other less democratic states. Regulated is probably worse than some anarchistic who-knows-by-whom software, but FOSS and auditable these days, tbh. Especially as everyone's audit capabilities grow day by day with AI. It's kind of good at grinding tons of code. A heavily regulated entity with all licenses in the world might be more hostile toward users than some niche project.

MrAlex94 2y ago
> I don't see how regulated entity is better in any way than individual. I feel you. Regulatory bodies have definitely fallen short in many cases, and we've seen concerning proposals from governments that threaten digital privacy and freedom. "Who watches the watchmen" seems incredibly apt nowadays. However, I feel there's a fundamental difference between imperfect accountability and no accountability at all. With a legal entity governed by stated policies, users have: 1. Transparency about who makes decisions and how 2. Clear terms that create binding commitments 3. Legal mechanisms for recourse if those commitments are violated 4. A persistent entity that can't simply disappear overnight Perfect? Not really. The ICO in the UK, for example, hasn't been amazing at enforcing data protection. But the existence of these frameworks means that accountability is at least possible - there are levers that can be pulled if someone can be bothered to. In contrast, with software maintained by anonymous or loosely affiliated individuals, there's no structural accountability whatsoever. If privacy promises are broken, users have no recourse beyond abandoning the software. FOSS and auditability are valuable safeguards, sure, but they primarily protect against unintentional privacy violations that might be discovered in code reviews. They don't address the human element of intentional policy changes or decisions about data collection.
- Defletter 2y ago
  I grow wearier by the day by the incessant calls to denounce and disown everything that isn't perfect.

sph 2y ago

Here's my question: in light of what Mozilla is doing, why don't other forks like Waterfox or Librewolf write a manifesto/contract saying they'll never sell your user data and won't turn "evil" (until they do, of course), and then decide to offer a paid version of their browser. Two possible outcomes: 1. No one cares. No one pays for it. Nothing changes and nobody loses anything. 2. Enough people pay for it to keep the product healthy and the user-centric promise alive. The Internet is saved. So why isn't anyone trying to replace Mozilla yet, with a more sane business model than living on the back of Google's fear of antitrust investigation? What's the worse that can happen? Just sell a bonafide paid version alongside the free one, don't just rely on donations. There is a massive difference between offering a paid product and begging passers-by to spare some change.

mariusmg 2y ago
>So why isn't anyone trying to replace Mozilla yet, Because writing manifestos is easy and making a browser is proper hard work ?
- sph 2y ago
  My comment is targeted to the developers of Waterfox and Librewolf - they're already making a browser, so the hard part is done. I'm wondering why don't they try to step it up further by selling a paid version alongside their open source product. What is the worst that can happen? Nobody pays for it and they continue making $0 just like they are happily doing now.
  - bluebarbet 2y ago
    >the hard part is done The hard part is the rendering engine and security. Both are done by the maintainer of the upstream source, i.e. Mozilla.
  - Fnoord 2y ago
    A paid version needs to offer something on top of it, which is usually in one way or another proprietary (such as a proprietary service). Something like this is regarded as the enshitification process, so what typically happens is they (e.g. VC) want to do such after they lured in their users. Which Firefox has (or arguably: had), but Waterfox and Librewolf have not. Good thought experiment. It ain't the first drama or controversy with regards to Mozilla, who have had a long tendency which didn't occur recently (and included the time Eich was there). Nostalgia just makes people forget the bad.

wraptile 2y ago

> I appreciate the constant existential wobble Firefox faces The wobble seems to somewhat artificial. I'm having trouble believing Firefox could ever not be able to afford to continue browser development — there are way too many interests at stake. Google alone would have no choice but to bail Firefox out because Chrome can't be the only browser without being regulated to hell and back.

SiempreViernes 2y ago
Google providing most of their funding is a fact, and that this provides a large amount of leverage over what Firefox can do is obvious. So how is the balancing act artificial? For it to be self-imposed there needs to be an comparable amount of money ready to spring forth if Google ever pulled out that Mozilla is somehow keeping a lid on.
- themaninthedark 2y ago
  We are able to develop not just an open source kernel, multiple different distributions and a large suite of software. I would think that we could also develop a browser that doesn't need to spy on us.

1oooqooq 2y ago

we need to clean cut from mozilla. do they still make ot worthwhile for developers? are any on the payroll still? i think the community should mobilize to sign up for adopting A single fork* as the official fork and completely drop mozilla from existence. * only criteria should be the fork that is most convenient for all the other forks to just point to instead of mozilla and continue to ship with their patches. and that one fork should have the minimum resources to respond to security disclosures in place of mozilla, nothing else as a requirement.

bluGill 2y ago
More importantly that fork should be what other forks base off of. Anyone can put a skin on a browser, but someone needs to do the engine. If every fork who wants an engine improvement goes to the one place there is some mass behind making the fork real, and the other forks can still to their skin if they think it useful. That one fork also means that when mozilla comes out with a new version there are enough hands to merge (at least until Mozilla diverges too far from the fork)
- Y_Y 2y ago
  What about Servo? That's coming along and already has a company/coop behind it. https://blogs.igalia.com/mrego/servo-revival-2023-2024/ https://blogs.igalia.com/mrego/servo-revival-2023-2024/
  - account42 2y ago
    > and already has a company/coop behind it Considering what has happened to Firefox, that's not encouraging.
- 1oooqooq 2y ago
  the first part of your comment is exactly what i said. the second part, it looks like you ignored my whole comment. there should be no more mozilla. if they exist by means of opensource contributors. i question if they have their own developers on payroll still? which might be slightly harder to replace.

KingOfCoders 2y ago

They got more than $7B to build a browser. "I appreciate the constant existential wobble Firefox faces" I would also love to face $7B existential wobbles.

ta1243 2y ago
To put that number in perspective, drawing just 1% of that down each year and putting in a bank account earning interest would fund 100 engineers on $500k/year indefinitely.
- dtech 2y ago
  They got it over many years with ongoing expenses because they had a browser, so comparing it with 7B lump sum is silly. With the same argument you could probably retire, after all you already earned (years you've been working) * (average salary).
  - nottorp 2y ago
    I don't know... do they even have 100 engineers? Or 20 and the rest is management and crypto and AI projects?
  - KingOfCoders 2y ago
    You are right, they got $400M+ a year. I stand corrected, I would want to face the $400M+ per year existential wobble.
  - ta1243 2y ago
    so if I've worked for 20 years from age 20 with a 100k average salary that's 2m A 2m lump sump at 20 would allow me to live a lifestyle of a 20k/year life, not good enough. Had I lived that over the last 20 years and saved the rest of the 100k in an 8% return fund then I'd have 4m today and could drawdown a 40k/year life at 1%. Had I been given a lump sum of 100 times my desired salary though, or 10m, then sure, no need to work.
    - 2y ago

itscrush 2y ago

1. Is github the best place to report bugs / issues for Waterfox? 2. When (not in your lifetime obviously) Waterfox is broken, what canaries do you have deployed that we can archive now, like Mozilla's tell here? 3. What keeps waterfox afloat? Where/how do you accept funds? 4. How do I find a sync alternative or provide my own? Such that, I'm not reliant on Mozilla sync/backend? ... If none exists, how much would it cost for you to embed one? Would you accept a serious bounty for it assuming the focus is self hosted / no Waterfox backend services?

rafram 2y ago
> When (not in your lifetime obviously) Waterfox is broken, what canaries do you have deployed that we can archive now, like Mozilla's tell here? This is so melodramatic. It’s a set of patch files applied to the Firefox source tree. If an evil maintainer hatches a maniacal plan to collect user statistics and deletes the patch that removes telemetry or whatever, you can just `git revert`.

simpaticoder 2y ago

>it seems daft to me when others suggest using forks with no well-established governance of their own Yes, it may be that we are jumping from the frying pan into the fire. On the bright-side this opens up an opportunity for a company, or a suite of companies, to fund an alternative browser. Such an entity might have Signal at its lead, or similar, who's mission is solely to "tighten up" the software stack on which it runs.

Lio 2y ago
That sounds very much like Ladybird's mission. Truly independent No code from other browsers. We're building a new engine, based on web standards. Singular focus We are focused on one thing: the web browser. No monetization No "default search deals", crypto tokens, or other forms of user monetization, ever. https://ladybird.org/ https://ladybird.org/

lolinder 2y ago

Rather odd policy choices is an understatement. The context to keep in mind here is that Mozilla purchased an ad company back in June. They spent money on it, and they will move to earn a return on investment. Absent that context this could just be another tone deaf policy choice that gets rolled back when there's enough heat, but with that context in mind it's far more likely to be them laying the legal foundation to incorporate Anonym's targeted advertising into Firefox. From the Register article about the acquisition: > Arielle Garcia, director of intelligence for ad watchdog Check My Ads, told The Register in an email that she's generally skeptical of claims about privacy-preserving ad technology. > "For example, how do Anonym’s audience capabilities, like their lookalike modeling, jibe with what Mozilla considers to be 'exploitative models of data extraction?' The data that is 'securely shared' by platforms and advertisers to enable ad targeting and measurement have to come from somewhere – and there’s more to privacy than not leaking user IDs." https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/18/mozilla_buys_anonym_betting_privacy/ https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/18/mozilla_buys_anonym_b...

jeltz 2y ago
This is not the first time Mozilla bought an ad company, last time it was Qlikz. And last time it cost them most of their German users. Wonder how many users they will lose this time.

AyyEye 2y ago

> I should point out, it seems daft to me when others suggest using forks with no well-established governance of their own, essentially shifting trust from an organisation at least answerable to certain regulations, to individuals with no proper framework or guidelines Individuals that care about these things have a far better track record than any business with employees, bills to pay, and investors.

dylan604 2y ago
Until that individual tires of the work, and then stops working on it completely or sells it to someone with less scruples or the project gets hijacked by malicious actor.
- GuinansEyebrows 2y ago
  Aren’t the latter two more or less what happened to Firefox?
  - dylan604 2y ago
    I think it's pretty much what happens to every thing

account42 2y ago

> I should point out, it seems daft to me when others suggest using forks with no well-established governance of their own, essentially shifting trust from an organisation at least answerable to certain regulations, to individuals with no proper framework or guidelines. That just shows that trust in Mozilla has sunk below "random stranger" levels. IMO that shift is entirely deserved.