14 ms·

Tell Mozilla: it's time to ditch Google

424 points by notpushkin 2y ago

jmorenoamor 2y ago
As a Firefox user since 1.0, my future expectatives are put on Ladybird
colesantiago 2y ago
"Firefox needs new revenue streams to be sustainable. New products and services under Mozilla’s umbrella should reflect the same commitment to privacy that defines Mozilla." This is admirable, but how what would Mozilla replace the 85% ( $555M) revenue with by ditching Google? I'm assuming a portion of the 15% of revenue is from Mozilla VPN, MDN Plus, etc and also the pay packets of the executives needs to significantly decrease. But this isn't enough to fill the 85% hole for when Mozilla ditches Google.
- notpushkin 2y ago
  This won’t happen overnight, of course – in the meantime they’ll have to try and be leaner (which isn’t a bad thing, if you ask me). Basically, I think that’s the only way Firefox even has a fighting chance: the alternatives are (1) always be the 5% browser Google wants it to be or (2) come crashing into the ground if the DOJ does go through with the search payment ban.
  - kome 2y ago
    sorry, very random, but the effect on your personal website looks great!
    - notpushkin 2y ago
      Thank you so much! Just don’t leave it running for too long – it’s not the most optimized piece of code I’ve ever written :-)
- jisnsm 2y ago
  Maybe they will find out you don’t need $555M a year to make a web browser. First good step would be to fire that useless CEO.
  - exploderate 2y ago
    Can you explain how? Or is your argument "One guy in a basement in Bulgaria could build Firefox for 50 Stotinki."?
    - ItsBob 2y ago
      Let's do some back-of-a-napkin maths here and see if we could... Just for fun of course :D === ANNUAL COSTS === 20 developers at $150k each = $3M Other staff costs, like pensions etc. = $1.5M Someone in charge of overall project = $250k (this doesn't have to be the case. He could easily be a dev on $150k but lets run with it) Infrastructure for testing and whatnot. Lets say Azure (expensive!) = $1M 2 x Marketing peeps = $250k Other expenses (travel, rubber ducks etc.) = $1M I literally pulled these figures out my ass (as you can no doubt tell!) but lets add it up: $3M + $1.5M + $0.25M + $1M + $0.25M + $1M = $7M per year. That's really, really expensive imo and you could do it for way less, but given their current revenue stream that's 80 years of development if they took in no more money ever! Now, I don't know how many it would take to program a browser but it's already written so it's not as hard as doing it from scratch so I reckon 20 good devs would give you something special. Honestly, if someone said to me "Mick, here's $560M, put a team together and fork Firefox and Thunderbird. Pay yourself 250k and go for it"... I'd barely let them finish the sentence before signing a contract :)
      - iggldiggl 2y ago
        Firefox has way more than 20 developers. Looking at https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/mots/index.html https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/mots/index.html, if I'm not mistaken in my count, there are currently 147 module owners and peers alone. Some of those might be volunteers, but I think the large majority of them are Mozilla staff. On top of that there are probably a number of further Mozilla staff developers who aren't owners or peers, QA staff, product managers, sysadmins and other support staff…
- whoopdedo 2y ago
  The reason they're cozying up to ad-tech is because they're trying to ditch Google.
  - noirscape 2y ago
    If they're turning to ads to replace Google, then maybe Mozilla deserves to die as an organization. Modern adtech goes entirely against their core values.
    - t43562 2y ago
      If it's already essentially paying for them then .... what is the difference if they get it via Google or directly?
    - dralley 2y ago
      The whole point of their foray into adtech was to figure out a privacy-preserving way to do it that doesn't involve wholesale selling people's browsing history.
      - AlotOfReading 2y ago
        How is that fundamentally different than what Google's done with chrome and the topics API? If you don't trust Google's solution, why would you trust Mozilla's?
        wmf 2y ago
        Because most people in this discussion don't know or care about the tech, just "ads bad" and "Google bad".
- ekianjo 2y ago
  It does not have to happen overnight. Make a 5 years plan, reduce exposure to Google at 20% of the whole thing per year. Agressively pursue other revenue streams. If it fails, slim down your operations progressively and cut costs year after year. It's not that complicated. The problem is that Mozilla will suck the teat as long as it can because execs directly benefit from it. They will burn Mozilla to the ground and leave for their next opportunity when the time comes.
- culi 2y ago
  In 2023, it was 75% of their revenue that came from Google. https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2024/mozilla-fdn-2023-fs-final-short-1209.pdf https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2024/mozilla-fdn-202... 2023: 75.8 2022: 86.0 2021: 87.8 2020: 88.8 2019: [^a] 2018: 95.3 2017: 95.9 [^a]: this was a weird year where their "other" income got a massive one-time boost. I'm not sure what happened. Did they get a $338m grant? If you take that number out (which is normally at or near zero) the percentage is around 91%
sMarsIntruder 2y ago
Mozilla just lost government funding (which is ok). Keeping the machine as it is also by ditching Google is probably infeasible, and in that case do a company slimming care.
alex_duf 2y ago
I'm afraid it's too late for Mozilla. It's not in their mission anymore.
koshdim 2y ago
[flagged]
- vasachi 2y ago
  Can you provide any details?
- mvdtnz 2y ago
  Even if you're right (I don't know or care) I don't know what your point is. That Mozilla should form a commercial agreement with Google instead of DuckDuckGo? Is the latter even an option?
- notpushkin 2y ago
  As a Russian, I share your enthusiasm in not supporting our regime. Could you share some more details about DuckDuckGo? IIRC they’ve ended their partnership with Yandex already. Of course, there’s also search engines other than Google and DuckDuckGo, so we have options.
- freehorse 2y ago
  Guess who "collaborates" with criminal regimes, like saudi arabia.
_ink_ 2y ago
IMHO the EU should step in. Having a browser that is not controlled by big tech should be part of an effort to reduce the dependency on the US.
- royal_ts 2y ago
  or to invest in Servo
  - alex_duf 2y ago
    Not sure if you're aware but servo is currently funded by the linux foundation Europe. Not quite tax money, but European capital.
  - delroth 2y ago
    The EU invests in Servo already, for example through NLNet grants.
- rightbyte 2y ago
  How about not involving governments in how Firefox is run. Especially not those keen on backdoors and "Chat control". It could be a stand alone association ruled by its members or a classic free-for-all whatever goes code talks FOSS project.
  - notpushkin 2y ago
    If they can invest some money with no strings attached – hey, why not.
    - fauigerzigerk 2y ago
      The funding is the string simply because it can be taken away.
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > funding is the string simply because it can be taken away Endow a working group under Fraunhofer [1]. Their product is simply and solely a browser engine. Nothing more. [1] https://www.fraunhofer.de/en.html https://www.fraunhofer.de/en.html
autoexec 2y ago
> Now is the time for Mozilla to take bold steps to reinforce its identity as a privacy-centric nonprofit Mozilla gave up that identity when it became an ad-tech company whose business model was to sell reports about the internet browsing habits of firefox users to advertisers. The problem was never Mozilla's dependence Google. The problem is their dependence on the surveillance of internet users. As far as I know Mozilla hasn't disclosed how much money they spent buying up Anonym, but they'll want a return on their investment. I don't think they're going to abandon it as quickly as they did their ideals.
- lallysingh 2y ago
  What kind of reports can they generate from the data they collect: https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/components/telemetry/Scalars.yaml https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/compone... ?
  - zb3 2y ago
    Searchfox? Not so fast! Don't forget they load "studies" code using so called "normandy" mechanism..
    - lallysingh 2y ago
      I don't understand what you're talking about. Do you have a reference? All I can find are UI experiments, AFAICT "what impact to telemetry does this UI change make?" Where telemetry is what I linked above.
      - zb3 2y ago
        List of experiments I was talking about: https://experimenter.services.mozilla.com/api/v1/experiments/ https://experimenter.services.mozilla.com/api/v1/experiments... I see some have addons.. but actually my point is precisely that I don't understand it - these addons can be auto installed? They can make requests? They're not on searchfox?
    - 2y ago
seqizz 2y ago
Nah, Firefox devs: It's time to ditch Mozilla and fork it.
- notpushkin 2y ago
  That’s also a possible scenario!
  - jqpabc123 2y ago
    Not just possible but likely the *only* scenario that can have any real impact at this point.
- weinzierl 2y ago
  Maybe a new browser will rise from Firefox's ashes. Perhaps we should call the fork Phoenix?
  - immibis 2y ago
    Spelled Fenix, of course, or the current cohort of people won't be able to find it. Wait, they already did that.
  - magicalhippo 2y ago
    For those too young to remember: https://blog.mozilla.org/community/2013/05/13/milestone-phoenix-0-1-released-first-version-of-firefox/ https://blog.mozilla.org/community/2013/05/13/milestone-phoe...
  - 1023bytes 2y ago
    Zen Browser is pretty cool and it's not just a fork
    - notpushkin 2y ago
      There’s also Waterfox and Librewolf (which are more vanilla). There’s a problem, though: there’s little to no core development happening in any of these forks. If Mozilla comes crashing down, somebody will have to pick it up.
raincole 2y ago
So who are going to fund them? Sorry for being cynical, but this "petition" sounds like telling depressed people to "just be more positive." Sure, just find more revenue streams. Just be sustainable. It's so easy!
- frontfor 2y ago
  Agreed. A world where Mozilla ceases to exist due to lack of funding is arguably worse than the current state.
  - jqpabc123 2y ago
    Time to wake up and smell the coffee. With less than 3% marketshare, Mozilla doesn't exist now for most people --- mainly just for Google.
    - timbit42 2y ago
      Regardless of whether people know it exists, the world where it exists is much better than a world where it doesn't and there is only one option.
      - jqpabc123 2y ago
        So open source doesn't work? Alternative browsers are available based on Firefox source code. The same is true with Chromium.
        timbit42 2y ago
        Sure, but they would all cease to exist if Firefox or Chrome ceased to exist or even ceased to be worked on because they don't have the labour to keep their project going without the parent projects doing most of the work.
  - kevwil 2y ago
    Agreed. Mozilla has problems, but bleeding funds from Google to fund their competition has a satisfaction factor. I'd rather sign a petition to keep the Google daddy fund going until the very end.
weinzierl 2y ago
Pressure exposes true colors. Taking away the pressure from Mozilla will only hide the symptoms but not cure the desease.
DoingIsLearning 2y ago
Not looking to grind an axe but facts matter in this case. Let's look at Mozilla's financial statement for 2007 and 2023 [0][1]: > Expenses 1. Program 'Software Development' 2007: 20.7M | 2023: 260M 2. Management 'General and Administrative' : 2007: 5.1M | 2023: 123M I am purposefully excluding marketing and fundraising costs. Because arguably you can't get away from those expenses. Let's ignore inflation and COL and ballooning costs, etc. If we look at just the ratio of expenditure. We have an NPO (on paper at least) that just went from spending a ratio of 4 to 1 between developers and managers to spending a ratio of almost 2 to 1. I am not familiar with what is typical in American NPO's but I can't help but feel that my money will not be spent on the right stuff. [0] https://static.mozilla.com/foundation/documents/mf-2007-audited-financial-statement.pdf https://static.mozilla.com/foundation/documents/mf-2007-audi... [1] https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2024/mozilla-fdn-2023-fs-final-short-1209.pdf https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2024/mozilla-fdn-202...
- yummypaint 2y ago
  Considering how much money is routinely set on fire by the US tech industry, this is a bargain for the best web browser currently in existence. What alternative do you suggest? Google and Microsoft are certainly worse. Firefox is vastly superior to the offerings of these multi billion dollar companies. Chrome and edge are exactly the prisons that these companies designed them to be. What specifically should laypeople do to regain something resembling a usable Internet? Firefox and ublock origin is the only answer I have.
  - Hyperboreanal 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - KingMob 2y ago
      [flagged]
- jillesvangurp 2y ago
  The good news is that development could easily be funded by donations. It's only a few million. Enough to keep a few dozen people employed. The bad news is that donations are unlikely to happen with the current massive misspending on overpaid people with no technical background that don't code that spend 95% of their budget on themselves, support staff that also doesn't code, offices they don't need, commercial products that flop, monetization schemes that fail, etc. I wouldn't. And I'm a user! Mozilla needs to be restructured. And ideally they diversify their commercial ecosystem as well. Because they are way too dependent on Google. If you look at Rust, created by Mozilla, they are set up in a more sane way. There's a foundation. It's well funded with sponsorships from the big companies that use and depend on Rust. Those companies employ people that contribute to Rust. Many OSS organizations are set up like that. It works. The diversity of contributors and commercial sponsors ensures neutrality and longevity. No single company has veto power. As long as valuable tech comes out, companies stay involved. Some disappear, new ones come along. Linux development works like that as well. Ironically, Chromium at this point is better positioned to become like that. The main issue is that Google still employs most of the developers and controls the roadmap. But there are quite a few commercial chromium based products: Edge, Brave, Opera, etc. that each have development teams using and contributing to it. Add Electron (has its own foundation, based on chromium) to the mix and the countless commercial applications using that and you have a healthy ecosystem that could survive Google completely disengaging if they'd be forced to split off their browser activities. I use Firefox mainly because of the iron grip keeps over Chromium and it's clear intent to cripple ad blocking, grab user data, and exploit its user base. But I worry about the dysfunctional mess that is Mozilla.
webscout 2y ago
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EdPoincare 2y ago
Firefox is done with. https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/commit/d459addab846d8144b61939b7f4310eb80c5470e https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/commit/d459addab846d8144b...
- hnuser123456 2y ago
  Sounds like EU defined "sale of data" to mean a lot of other things besides selling data, like transferring information. And now Firefox cannot so definitively say they don't "sell your data", because they allow you to transfer webpages over the network.
  - ptx 2y ago
    Where are you getting this? All Mozilla says is that "the LEGAL definition of 'sale of data' is extremely broad in some places". They don't that it's the EU and definitely not that the EU has defined "sale of data" to include any use of a computer network, which would be absurd.
    - hnuser123456 2y ago
      Sorry, I was recalling from here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43213612 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43213612
begueradj 2y ago
The new privacy terms of Mozilla Firefox are a big concern [0] [0] https://medium.com/@mail_18109/mozillas-new-firefox-terms-spark-privacy-concerns-are-users-switching-to-chrome-b6b160e203f6 https://medium.com/@mail_18109/mozillas-new-firefox-terms-sp...
iteratethis 2y ago
We need to be honest about what value Firefox really has left. Commercially, it's completely irrelevant. On big websites it doesn't even show up in the top 10 browsers and it's almost entirely absent on mobile. Site owners can readily ignore Firefox. Firefox is no longer a developer default. I'm sure some of us in our bubble have strong personal preferences but the entire dev ecosystem is chrome-based. Very advanced devtools, Google having a team of "evangelists", course material is Chrome-based, test-automation, etc. So developers too can ignore Firefox. Some argue that it's good to have an independent rendering engine. Here too Firefox plays no role at all. The only counter force to Google's web feature roadmap is Apple/Webkit, not Mozilla. From a privacy preserving perspective, Firefox has no unique value. Install Brave, say no to the one-time crypto pop-up, and you have a very decent and fast browser that also consistently renders along with Chrome and Edge. I use Firefox. If I ask myself why, it's muscle memory and because uBlock Origin still works.
- qwerpy 2y ago
  I use Brave and am satisfied with it. The occasional hassle involved in turning things off when a new unwanted feature shows up or when I have to install it on a new machine is worth it for uBlock Origin and the Chromium performance and compatibility. However the theoretical downside of Brave is that as Google continues changing Chromium's codebase, there's incentive for them to make it harder and harder to maintain a manifest v2-enabled fork. Wouldn't be surprised if extensive refactors randomly happen that multiply the effort needed to merge changes from upstream while maintaining the v2 capability. And how motivated is Brave to do all this labor? At some point they're going to say the tax is too high, we have a nice built-in ad blocker anyway, just use that. A well-maintained, funded, and focused Firefox would be a good thing for when that day comes.
  - porridgeraisin 2y ago
    Brave does not need manifest v2 for it's ad blocker to work. It is not implemented as an extension. It is built into the browser itself.
    - 2y ago
iteratethis 2y ago
This polls suggests that there's some decision holding back Mozilla from ditching Google, and that with enough pressure, they'll finally do it. They're long aware that they should. They made the strategic announcement some 7-8 years back if I remember correctly. Since then they tried to diversify and failed miserably. Sure enough incompetence is involved but we should also consider how very hard it is. Making hundreds of millions from a new tech product in the consumer space is impossibly difficult. You're up against Big Tech and a generally very competitive and saturated space where any idea can be easily replicated. And you're up against consumers that really don't want to pay, hence ads. That said, I do feel Mozilla barely tried and wasted a lot of money on distractions. They're way too comfortable raking half a billion for effectively doing nothing at all: keep the search box pointing at Google.
- pseudalopex 2y ago
  > Since then they tried to diversify and failed miserably. I wish my miserable failures brought in $65 million annually.
  - tlb 2y ago
    Yes, $65M revenue is a decent success. The miserable failure is bloating their expenses to 5x that.
  - dralley 2y ago
    >I wish my miserable failures brought in $65 million annually. HN users complain about that $65 million constantly. Mozilla is stuck in a spot where the same angry nerds that want them to diversify away from Google won't actually let them spin up diverse sources of revenue.
    - zamalek 2y ago
      I wonder how many of this angry crowd donate. Mozilla do accept donations. Or maybe the idea is that employees/developers don't need to eat, which is incredibly ironic given who HN users typically are. There isn't a single line in this petition dedicated to how Mozilla should raise funds instead. Maybe signing the petition should be behind a paywall, I would be very interested to see how many votes that would gather.
krunck 2y ago
Can't sign the form as nocodeform.io seems to be having problems.
- notpushkin 2y ago
  Sorry for that! There was a nasty bug which I’ve worked around for now (and tomorrow I’ll switch over to a backend I host myself). Does it work now? If you’re still running into errors, please let me know your name / website and I’ll add you to the list! (or send to mozillapetition@ale.sh)
dismalaf 2y ago
Mozilla will never do so willingly. Organizations always grow, since the entire point of an organization is to exist for the sake of its stakeholders. The bigger it is, the better for stakeholders. Willingly burning 85% of your revenue and downsizing isn't something that stakeholders want. Odds are Mozilla will simply die and their browser with it, since the Chromium based ecosystem is much more robust.
- bugtodiffer 2y ago
  I think you are confusing organizations and companies. Yes, under capitalism, companies only exist to reek in profits, but from a non-profit organization you'd expect something else...
  - dismalaf 2y ago
    Stakeholders include employees, and it is all organisations. NGOs and government organisations follow the same pattern. They all expand, hire, and the people within each org all have a vested interest in the organization expanding and keeping them all employed, given raises, etc...
  - bell-cot 2y ago
    Sadly, the "companies only exist to..." version of capitalism is about as accurate as the "Santa only brings presents to Nice little ..." version of Christmas. Substantial Organizations - whether capitalist, non-profit, or other - give a great deal of power to their leaders, and jobs to their workers. Those folks - most especially the former - may give lip service to the org's supposed mission...but their for-sure #1 priority is looking out for their own interests.
kebokyo 2y ago
Something that this petition does not mention at all are possible alternatives to Google search as the default search engine. If Google isn’t the default, who should be the default?
- wmf 2y ago
  Yahoo, Bing, DDG, Perplexity...
  - trelane 2y ago
    Bing is already the default, if you use Windows.
    - Kwpolska 2y ago
      [citation needed] Why would Google pay to be the default if the majority of users would have a different engine?
      - trelane 2y ago
        https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/windows-11-how-to-set-google-as-your-default-search-engine-instead-of-bing/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/windows-11-h... If you mean for firefox specifically, that's Google. But, since it's firefox instead of Edge, you've already left the defaults far behind.
- culi 2y ago
  Ecosia, DuckDuckGo, Brave Search, Startpage, etc. Plenty of privacy-respecting and non-profit search engines
  - zoobab 2y ago
    Searx.be
Gothmog69 2y ago
Chrome wouldn't be so big if edge wasn't so shit
renewiltord 2y ago
Haha, "Mozilla, please commit suicide". Whatever they're currently doing is fine. They've succeeded in their aim and now they're searching for a new thing to target affiliated with their space given their revenue numbers. Pretty logical thing to do for them. Good luck to Mozilla.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
johnea 2y ago
Why specificallly throw stones at Mozilla? EVERYONE should ditch goggle 8-/ but, but, muh g-stuff!!! pathetic, really. The corps has been for the purpose of user surveilance from the beginning. If you want your donations to be well spent, send them to a firefox fork maintainer...
mightybyte 2y ago
My default uninformed assumption would be that Google is paying Mozilla for making Google the default search engine for Firefox. Does anyone know if this is the case, and if so, what the likely magnitudes are? Because it seems like Google can throw quantities of money at Mozilla that would easily overwhelm whatever pressure this petition might put on them.
- manifoldgeo 2y ago
  Yes, this is correct. Google pays Mozilla hundreds of millions of dollars annually to be the default search engine. This makes up the vast majority of Mozilla Corporation's revenue. It's somewhere in the ballpark of 85% of all their annual revenue last I heard. They've tried hard in recent years to get out from under Google by diversifying into other areas. For example, they have a VPN service that is a wrapper around Mullvad, and they've made some privacy tools that you can pay to use, also largely wrappers around other companies' tools. I was an employee of Mozilla Corporation and saw first-hand the effort they were making. In my opinion, it's been a pretty abysmal failure so far. Pulling Google funding would effectively hamstring Mozilla Corp.
rickandmortyy 2y ago
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cantrecallmypwd 2y ago
Mozilla needs to operate like NPR by having pledge drives and seeking charitable investment by organizations and nations because depending on for-profit arrangements means inevitable corruption just like any other corporation.
- adultSwim 2y ago
  NPR needs to get rid of the ads. That half of the budget is influencing their news coverage and content.
  - cantrecallmypwd 2y ago
    I didn't say the "same as" NPR, I said "like". Aspects.
pipeline_peak 2y ago
Firefox isn’t even going to usable around in 20 years and these people think they could drop their lifeline? What’s a petition without a solution? This idea is more detached than Mastodon.
shmerl 2y ago
If possible, Mozilla should go back to making Servo their main engine. But how fund all that is still a major question.
vondur 2y ago
If they ditch Google, they lose their income. Seems like a bad idea...
waterlu 2y ago
> Tell Mozilla: it’s time to ditch Google Oh, so _they_ are the problem now? And I thought the problem was that Mozilla was selling user data! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43209768 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43209768 Silly me!
whyenot 2y ago
I donated a lot of time, code, and at least a little money to early Mozilla and Firefox. They were a lot more dynamic and engaging when they were a small nonprofit. Now it feels like thanks to Google money they have become fat and lazy. Unable to take risks because it might threaten their income stream or their relationship with Google. It makes me sad and angry to see what they have become. Maybe a diet will help, but I fear the patient is beyond help at this point.
- stogot 2y ago
  I still won’t donate unless the money goes to Firefox and not their parties, activism, or side projects (that they inevitably shut down)
  - icelancer 2y ago
    I'm good with side projects. The activism stuff has to stop.
  - Seb-C 2y ago
    Even if they did allow that, a big part of the budget would probably go into another useless UI revamp.
- thfuran 2y ago
  >Now it feels like thanks to Google money they have become fat and lazy. Unable to take risks I think Google has that problem too.
- nextos 2y ago
  I guess it's the usual lifecycle most organizations go through, and generous funding has accelerated the process. The only upside is that, in theory, anyone could fork Firefox and continue development within a healthier structure. It's a critical project for the Internet. Hopefully, Ladybird will be viable soon, adding a bit of redundancy. Else, we risk becoming a Chrome monoculture.
- mmooss 2y ago
  One one hand, they are criticized for taking risks - being risks, inevitably many don't work out - including their AI project. On the other, now they don't take enough risks.
tamis022 2y ago
Would you pay for Firefox? I would.
adultSwim 2y ago
I don't support this change. Most people want to be using Google. Mozilla needs money. There's not even a suggestion of how to replace the funds.
fishcrackers 2y ago
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gigatexal 2y ago
Marc Andreesen owes his riches to Netscape whose ashes became Mozilla. I don’t understand why he doesn’t give the Mozilla foundation and endowment such that the interest on the endowment would fund work solely on the browser. They could then just work on the browser and nothing more. No need to do marketing, have a venture arm, millions for management, etc. it could be a group of 10 or 20 really awesome engineers and maybe a bunch of passionate open source folks contributing. Will he do it? No. Do I wish he would? Yes. Would I if I could? Hell yes because there needs to be a viable alternative to chrome and how is that possible when chrome butters their bread and pays their bills? Or! The some hundreds of millions they did get from Google they just out in an endowment and then shrink staff (start with management) until they can live comfortably off the interest…
- Kwpolska 2y ago
  I don't want my browser to be dependent on Marc Andreessen. And he doesn't want to do things useful to humanity anyway.
  - gigatexal 2y ago
    Right. The money would be a gift to a foundation where he couldn’t control it. A no strings attached 100% tax deductible gift to the foundation with the only strings that they focus on the browser and survive on the interest, and lay off unnecessary management (10-20 dedicated web engineers and a PM and an HR person what else do you need). But do you also want the browser beholden to the parent company of its direct competitor? This is a fantasy land hypothetical of course as we know exactly the kind of guy Marc is, he’ll want a say.
    - netsharc 2y ago
      Haha, I can see the strings you're attaching if you had his money. Of course we all believe "But what I think is best for them is a good thing!".
    - notpushkin 2y ago
      10-20 dedicated web engineers doesn’t sound like – but Mozilla Foundation already has money for about 350–700 full-time developers.
renegat0x0 2y ago
To be honest browser is not that important for me. It collects a lot of data about you, but I think search engine is more important for society. It is the lens through which we see the world. I have already seen that many folks switched to using several engines, because you see more that way. Personally I like searxng. There is gpt also obviously. Sometimes I also search domains I crawled. https://github.com/rumca-js/Internet-Places-Database https://github.com/rumca-js/Internet-Places-Database
throwaway984393 2y ago
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TimByte 2y ago
I'd love to see them double down on privacy-first revenue models, but the question is: can they make it work before the money runs out?
vlad-roundabout 2y ago
I think shipping Google is fair. It's not forced upon anyone, and much better than collecting data themselves, or advertising their own services, or making proprietary software.
bmacho 2y ago
I've read the petition. I'm not convinced. However, this must be the single most harmful petition I've ever read (IMO). I believe that Google money is a huge net positive for Firefox: free money for basically nothing asked in return. Additionally I think that the biggest problem of Firefox have been Mozilla for 10-15 years and there is no sign of improving, only getting worse and worse. I wish Firefox could ditch Mozilla (and probably keep Google money flow if possible).
nubinetwork 2y ago
Tell Mozilla: it's time to ditch Mozilla /s
chakintosh 2y ago
Wishful thinking. Not a single mention of the fact Google contributed to 89% of Mozilla's income since 2005 [1]. Good luck convincing Mozilla to bite the hand that feeds it. [1] https://windscribe.com/blog/windscribe-expose-mozilla/ https://windscribe.com/blog/windscribe-expose-mozilla/
zoobab 2y ago
It's more boycottfirefox.com that is needed.
hkt 2y ago
Mozilla's greatest contribution to the web could well end up being a fork of Firefox with an accompanying standard for html and CSS which halts the march of SPAs and curtails interactivity, cookies, etc. Call it HTML4+. It wouldn't need hundreds of millions of dollars to achieve, and if it took off it'd hurt Google and their ilk massively. At the moment the Faustian pact is that they act as a competition fig leaf in the browser space: Google can point to a nearly-as-good browser and say "look, we don't control everything" while they steam ahead setting standards that largely benefit themselves. The reason they can do this is the sheer capital intensity of the exercise: nobody can keep up or catch up. So a captive competitor makes perfect sense. Shedding that capital intensity - by means of devising a simpler to implement, slower moving standard - is the only real escape hatch. Mozilla won't get anywhere by begging forever, and it'll lose its character if it doesn't keep it's nonprofit status.
poulpy123 2y ago
I don't understand what is the point of a petition when almost all revenue for Mozilla comes from Google being scared of a anti-trust trial
- andai 2y ago
  Yeah, that's the joke, Firefox is Google's "antitrust insurance."
speckx 2y ago
Hypothetically speaking, can we estimate how long Firefox can survive once Google pulls the funding? A year? Two?
- notpushkin 2y ago
  Mozilla has money. Not an awful lot, but they will survive – they just need to bite the bullet. (Or maybe they won’t, depending on how fast they can go from burning through $300M a year to a mere $30M. That’s up to the management, though.)
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
asdf6969 2y ago
mozilla burnt my shake and fucked my wife

424 points by notpushkin 2y ago

As a Firefox user since 1.0, my future expectatives are put on Ladybird

"Firefox needs new revenue streams to be sustainable. New products and services under Mozilla’s umbrella should reflect the same commitment to privacy that defines Mozilla." This is admirable, but how what would Mozilla replace the 85% ( $555M) revenue with by ditching Google? I'm assuming a portion of the 15% of revenue is from Mozilla VPN, MDN Plus, etc and also the pay packets of the executives needs to significantly decrease. But this isn't enough to fill the 85% hole for when Mozilla ditches Google.

notpushkin 2y ago
This won’t happen overnight, of course – in the meantime they’ll have to try and be leaner (which isn’t a bad thing, if you ask me). Basically, I think that’s the only way Firefox even has a fighting chance: the alternatives are (1) always be the 5% browser Google wants it to be or (2) come crashing into the ground if the DOJ does go through with the search payment ban.
- kome 2y ago
  sorry, very random, but the effect on your personal website looks great!
  - notpushkin 2y ago
    Thank you so much! Just don’t leave it running for too long – it’s not the most optimized piece of code I’ve ever written :-)
jisnsm 2y ago
Maybe they will find out you don’t need $555M a year to make a web browser. First good step would be to fire that useless CEO.
- exploderate 2y ago
  Can you explain how? Or is your argument "One guy in a basement in Bulgaria could build Firefox for 50 Stotinki."?
  - ItsBob 2y ago
    Let's do some back-of-a-napkin maths here and see if we could... Just for fun of course :D === ANNUAL COSTS === 20 developers at $150k each = $3M Other staff costs, like pensions etc. = $1.5M Someone in charge of overall project = $250k (this doesn't have to be the case. He could easily be a dev on $150k but lets run with it) Infrastructure for testing and whatnot. Lets say Azure (expensive!) = $1M 2 x Marketing peeps = $250k Other expenses (travel, rubber ducks etc.) = $1M I literally pulled these figures out my ass (as you can no doubt tell!) but lets add it up: $3M + $1.5M + $0.25M + $1M + $0.25M + $1M = $7M per year. That's really, really expensive imo and you could do it for way less, but given their current revenue stream that's 80 years of development if they took in no more money ever! Now, I don't know how many it would take to program a browser but it's already written so it's not as hard as doing it from scratch so I reckon 20 good devs would give you something special. Honestly, if someone said to me "Mick, here's $560M, put a team together and fork Firefox and Thunderbird. Pay yourself 250k and go for it"... I'd barely let them finish the sentence before signing a contract :)
    - iggldiggl 2y ago
      Firefox has way more than 20 developers. Looking at https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/mots/index.html https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/mots/index.html, if I'm not mistaken in my count, there are currently 147 module owners and peers alone. Some of those might be volunteers, but I think the large majority of them are Mozilla staff. On top of that there are probably a number of further Mozilla staff developers who aren't owners or peers, QA staff, product managers, sysadmins and other support staff…
whoopdedo 2y ago
The reason they're cozying up to ad-tech is because they're trying to ditch Google.
- noirscape 2y ago
  If they're turning to ads to replace Google, then maybe Mozilla deserves to die as an organization. Modern adtech goes entirely against their core values.
  - t43562 2y ago
    If it's already essentially paying for them then .... what is the difference if they get it via Google or directly?
  - dralley 2y ago
    The whole point of their foray into adtech was to figure out a privacy-preserving way to do it that doesn't involve wholesale selling people's browsing history.
    - AlotOfReading 2y ago
      How is that fundamentally different than what Google's done with chrome and the topics API? If you don't trust Google's solution, why would you trust Mozilla's?
      - wmf 2y ago
        Because most people in this discussion don't know or care about the tech, just "ads bad" and "Google bad".
ekianjo 2y ago
It does not have to happen overnight. Make a 5 years plan, reduce exposure to Google at 20% of the whole thing per year. Agressively pursue other revenue streams. If it fails, slim down your operations progressively and cut costs year after year. It's not that complicated. The problem is that Mozilla will suck the teat as long as it can because execs directly benefit from it. They will burn Mozilla to the ground and leave for their next opportunity when the time comes.
culi 2y ago
In 2023, it was 75% of their revenue that came from Google. https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2024/mozilla-fdn-2023-fs-final-short-1209.pdf https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2024/mozilla-fdn-202... 2023: 75.8 2022: 86.0 2021: 87.8 2020: 88.8 2019: [^a] 2018: 95.3 2017: 95.9 [^a]: this was a weird year where their "other" income got a massive one-time boost. I'm not sure what happened. Did they get a $338m grant? If you take that number out (which is normally at or near zero) the percentage is around 91%

sMarsIntruder 2y ago

Mozilla just lost government funding (which is ok). Keeping the machine as it is also by ditching Google is probably infeasible, and in that case do a company slimming care.

alex_duf 2y ago

I'm afraid it's too late for Mozilla. It's not in their mission anymore.

koshdim 2y ago

[flagged]

vasachi 2y ago
Can you provide any details?
mvdtnz 2y ago
Even if you're right (I don't know or care) I don't know what your point is. That Mozilla should form a commercial agreement with Google instead of DuckDuckGo? Is the latter even an option?
notpushkin 2y ago
As a Russian, I share your enthusiasm in not supporting our regime. Could you share some more details about DuckDuckGo? IIRC they’ve ended their partnership with Yandex already. Of course, there’s also search engines other than Google and DuckDuckGo, so we have options.
freehorse 2y ago
Guess who "collaborates" with criminal regimes, like saudi arabia.

_ink_ 2y ago

IMHO the EU should step in. Having a browser that is not controlled by big tech should be part of an effort to reduce the dependency on the US.

royal_ts 2y ago
or to invest in Servo
- alex_duf 2y ago
  Not sure if you're aware but servo is currently funded by the linux foundation Europe. Not quite tax money, but European capital.
- delroth 2y ago
  The EU invests in Servo already, for example through NLNet grants.
rightbyte 2y ago
How about not involving governments in how Firefox is run. Especially not those keen on backdoors and "Chat control". It could be a stand alone association ruled by its members or a classic free-for-all whatever goes code talks FOSS project.
- notpushkin 2y ago
  If they can invest some money with no strings attached – hey, why not.
  - fauigerzigerk 2y ago
    The funding is the string simply because it can be taken away.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > funding is the string simply because it can be taken away Endow a working group under Fraunhofer [1]. Their product is simply and solely a browser engine. Nothing more. [1] https://www.fraunhofer.de/en.html https://www.fraunhofer.de/en.html

autoexec 2y ago

> Now is the time for Mozilla to take bold steps to reinforce its identity as a privacy-centric nonprofit Mozilla gave up that identity when it became an ad-tech company whose business model was to sell reports about the internet browsing habits of firefox users to advertisers. The problem was never Mozilla's dependence Google. The problem is their dependence on the surveillance of internet users. As far as I know Mozilla hasn't disclosed how much money they spent buying up Anonym, but they'll want a return on their investment. I don't think they're going to abandon it as quickly as they did their ideals.

lallysingh 2y ago
What kind of reports can they generate from the data they collect: https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/components/telemetry/Scalars.yaml https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/compone... ?
- zb3 2y ago
  Searchfox? Not so fast! Don't forget they load "studies" code using so called "normandy" mechanism..
  - lallysingh 2y ago
    I don't understand what you're talking about. Do you have a reference? All I can find are UI experiments, AFAICT "what impact to telemetry does this UI change make?" Where telemetry is what I linked above.
    - zb3 2y ago
      List of experiments I was talking about: https://experimenter.services.mozilla.com/api/v1/experiments/ https://experimenter.services.mozilla.com/api/v1/experiments... I see some have addons.. but actually my point is precisely that I don't understand it - these addons can be auto installed? They can make requests? They're not on searchfox?
  - 2y ago

seqizz 2y ago

Nah, Firefox devs: It's time to ditch Mozilla and fork it.

notpushkin 2y ago
That’s also a possible scenario!
- jqpabc123 2y ago
  Not just possible but likely the *only* scenario that can have any real impact at this point.
weinzierl 2y ago
Maybe a new browser will rise from Firefox's ashes. Perhaps we should call the fork Phoenix?
- immibis 2y ago
  Spelled Fenix, of course, or the current cohort of people won't be able to find it. Wait, they already did that.
- magicalhippo 2y ago
  For those too young to remember: https://blog.mozilla.org/community/2013/05/13/milestone-phoenix-0-1-released-first-version-of-firefox/ https://blog.mozilla.org/community/2013/05/13/milestone-phoe...
- 1023bytes 2y ago
  Zen Browser is pretty cool and it's not just a fork
  - notpushkin 2y ago
    There’s also Waterfox and Librewolf (which are more vanilla). There’s a problem, though: there’s little to no core development happening in any of these forks. If Mozilla comes crashing down, somebody will have to pick it up.

raincole 2y ago

So who are going to fund them? Sorry for being cynical, but this "petition" sounds like telling depressed people to "just be more positive." Sure, just find more revenue streams. Just be sustainable. It's so easy!

frontfor 2y ago
Agreed. A world where Mozilla ceases to exist due to lack of funding is arguably worse than the current state.
- jqpabc123 2y ago
  Time to wake up and smell the coffee. With less than 3% marketshare, Mozilla doesn't exist now for most people --- mainly just for Google.
  - timbit42 2y ago
    Regardless of whether people know it exists, the world where it exists is much better than a world where it doesn't and there is only one option.
    - jqpabc123 2y ago
      So open source doesn't work? Alternative browsers are available based on Firefox source code. The same is true with Chromium.
      - timbit42 2y ago
        Sure, but they would all cease to exist if Firefox or Chrome ceased to exist or even ceased to be worked on because they don't have the labour to keep their project going without the parent projects doing most of the work.
- kevwil 2y ago
  Agreed. Mozilla has problems, but bleeding funds from Google to fund their competition has a satisfaction factor. I'd rather sign a petition to keep the Google daddy fund going until the very end.

weinzierl 2y ago

Pressure exposes true colors. Taking away the pressure from Mozilla will only hide the symptoms but not cure the desease.

DoingIsLearning 2y ago

Not looking to grind an axe but facts matter in this case. Let's look at Mozilla's financial statement for 2007 and 2023 [0][1]: > Expenses 1. Program 'Software Development' 2007: 20.7M | 2023: 260M 2. Management 'General and Administrative' : 2007: 5.1M | 2023: 123M I am purposefully excluding marketing and fundraising costs. Because arguably you can't get away from those expenses. Let's ignore inflation and COL and ballooning costs, etc. If we look at just the ratio of expenditure. We have an NPO (on paper at least) that just went from spending a ratio of 4 to 1 between developers and managers to spending a ratio of almost 2 to 1. I am not familiar with what is typical in American NPO's but I can't help but feel that my money will not be spent on the right stuff. [0] https://static.mozilla.com/foundation/documents/mf-2007-audited-financial-statement.pdf https://static.mozilla.com/foundation/documents/mf-2007-audi... [1] https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2024/mozilla-fdn-2023-fs-final-short-1209.pdf https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2024/mozilla-fdn-202...

yummypaint 2y ago
Considering how much money is routinely set on fire by the US tech industry, this is a bargain for the best web browser currently in existence. What alternative do you suggest? Google and Microsoft are certainly worse. Firefox is vastly superior to the offerings of these multi billion dollar companies. Chrome and edge are exactly the prisons that these companies designed them to be. What specifically should laypeople do to regain something resembling a usable Internet? Firefox and ublock origin is the only answer I have.
- Hyperboreanal 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - KingMob 2y ago
    [flagged]
jillesvangurp 2y ago
The good news is that development could easily be funded by donations. It's only a few million. Enough to keep a few dozen people employed. The bad news is that donations are unlikely to happen with the current massive misspending on overpaid people with no technical background that don't code that spend 95% of their budget on themselves, support staff that also doesn't code, offices they don't need, commercial products that flop, monetization schemes that fail, etc. I wouldn't. And I'm a user! Mozilla needs to be restructured. And ideally they diversify their commercial ecosystem as well. Because they are way too dependent on Google. If you look at Rust, created by Mozilla, they are set up in a more sane way. There's a foundation. It's well funded with sponsorships from the big companies that use and depend on Rust. Those companies employ people that contribute to Rust. Many OSS organizations are set up like that. It works. The diversity of contributors and commercial sponsors ensures neutrality and longevity. No single company has veto power. As long as valuable tech comes out, companies stay involved. Some disappear, new ones come along. Linux development works like that as well. Ironically, Chromium at this point is better positioned to become like that. The main issue is that Google still employs most of the developers and controls the roadmap. But there are quite a few commercial chromium based products: Edge, Brave, Opera, etc. that each have development teams using and contributing to it. Add Electron (has its own foundation, based on chromium) to the mix and the countless commercial applications using that and you have a healthy ecosystem that could survive Google completely disengaging if they'd be forced to split off their browser activities. I use Firefox mainly because of the iron grip keeps over Chromium and it's clear intent to cripple ad blocking, grab user data, and exploit its user base. But I worry about the dysfunctional mess that is Mozilla.

webscout 2y ago

[dead]

EdPoincare 2y ago

Firefox is done with. https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/commit/d459addab846d8144b61939b7f4310eb80c5470e https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/commit/d459addab846d8144b...

hnuser123456 2y ago
Sounds like EU defined "sale of data" to mean a lot of other things besides selling data, like transferring information. And now Firefox cannot so definitively say they don't "sell your data", because they allow you to transfer webpages over the network.
- ptx 2y ago
  Where are you getting this? All Mozilla says is that "the LEGAL definition of 'sale of data' is extremely broad in some places". They don't that it's the EU and definitely not that the EU has defined "sale of data" to include any use of a computer network, which would be absurd.
  - hnuser123456 2y ago
    Sorry, I was recalling from here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43213612 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43213612

begueradj 2y ago

The new privacy terms of Mozilla Firefox are a big concern [0] [0] https://medium.com/@mail_18109/mozillas-new-firefox-terms-spark-privacy-concerns-are-users-switching-to-chrome-b6b160e203f6 https://medium.com/@mail_18109/mozillas-new-firefox-terms-sp...

iteratethis 2y ago

We need to be honest about what value Firefox really has left. Commercially, it's completely irrelevant. On big websites it doesn't even show up in the top 10 browsers and it's almost entirely absent on mobile. Site owners can readily ignore Firefox. Firefox is no longer a developer default. I'm sure some of us in our bubble have strong personal preferences but the entire dev ecosystem is chrome-based. Very advanced devtools, Google having a team of "evangelists", course material is Chrome-based, test-automation, etc. So developers too can ignore Firefox. Some argue that it's good to have an independent rendering engine. Here too Firefox plays no role at all. The only counter force to Google's web feature roadmap is Apple/Webkit, not Mozilla. From a privacy preserving perspective, Firefox has no unique value. Install Brave, say no to the one-time crypto pop-up, and you have a very decent and fast browser that also consistently renders along with Chrome and Edge. I use Firefox. If I ask myself why, it's muscle memory and because uBlock Origin still works.

qwerpy 2y ago
I use Brave and am satisfied with it. The occasional hassle involved in turning things off when a new unwanted feature shows up or when I have to install it on a new machine is worth it for uBlock Origin and the Chromium performance and compatibility. However the theoretical downside of Brave is that as Google continues changing Chromium's codebase, there's incentive for them to make it harder and harder to maintain a manifest v2-enabled fork. Wouldn't be surprised if extensive refactors randomly happen that multiply the effort needed to merge changes from upstream while maintaining the v2 capability. And how motivated is Brave to do all this labor? At some point they're going to say the tax is too high, we have a nice built-in ad blocker anyway, just use that. A well-maintained, funded, and focused Firefox would be a good thing for when that day comes.
- porridgeraisin 2y ago
  Brave does not need manifest v2 for it's ad blocker to work. It is not implemented as an extension. It is built into the browser itself.
  - 2y ago

iteratethis 2y ago

This polls suggests that there's some decision holding back Mozilla from ditching Google, and that with enough pressure, they'll finally do it. They're long aware that they should. They made the strategic announcement some 7-8 years back if I remember correctly. Since then they tried to diversify and failed miserably. Sure enough incompetence is involved but we should also consider how very hard it is. Making hundreds of millions from a new tech product in the consumer space is impossibly difficult. You're up against Big Tech and a generally very competitive and saturated space where any idea can be easily replicated. And you're up against consumers that really don't want to pay, hence ads. That said, I do feel Mozilla barely tried and wasted a lot of money on distractions. They're way too comfortable raking half a billion for effectively doing nothing at all: keep the search box pointing at Google.

pseudalopex 2y ago
> Since then they tried to diversify and failed miserably. I wish my miserable failures brought in $65 million annually.
- tlb 2y ago
  Yes, $65M revenue is a decent success. The miserable failure is bloating their expenses to 5x that.
- dralley 2y ago
  >I wish my miserable failures brought in $65 million annually. HN users complain about that $65 million constantly. Mozilla is stuck in a spot where the same angry nerds that want them to diversify away from Google won't actually let them spin up diverse sources of revenue.
  - zamalek 2y ago
    I wonder how many of this angry crowd donate. Mozilla do accept donations. Or maybe the idea is that employees/developers don't need to eat, which is incredibly ironic given who HN users typically are. There isn't a single line in this petition dedicated to how Mozilla should raise funds instead. Maybe signing the petition should be behind a paywall, I would be very interested to see how many votes that would gather.

krunck 2y ago

Can't sign the form as nocodeform.io seems to be having problems.

notpushkin 2y ago
Sorry for that! There was a nasty bug which I’ve worked around for now (and tomorrow I’ll switch over to a backend I host myself). Does it work now? If you’re still running into errors, please let me know your name / website and I’ll add you to the list! (or send to mozillapetition@ale.sh)

dismalaf 2y ago

Mozilla will never do so willingly. Organizations always grow, since the entire point of an organization is to exist for the sake of its stakeholders. The bigger it is, the better for stakeholders. Willingly burning 85% of your revenue and downsizing isn't something that stakeholders want. Odds are Mozilla will simply die and their browser with it, since the Chromium based ecosystem is much more robust.

bugtodiffer 2y ago
I think you are confusing organizations and companies. Yes, under capitalism, companies only exist to reek in profits, but from a non-profit organization you'd expect something else...
- dismalaf 2y ago
  Stakeholders include employees, and it is all organisations. NGOs and government organisations follow the same pattern. They all expand, hire, and the people within each org all have a vested interest in the organization expanding and keeping them all employed, given raises, etc...
- bell-cot 2y ago
  Sadly, the "companies only exist to..." version of capitalism is about as accurate as the "Santa only brings presents to Nice little ..." version of Christmas. Substantial Organizations - whether capitalist, non-profit, or other - give a great deal of power to their leaders, and jobs to their workers. Those folks - most especially the former - may give lip service to the org's supposed mission...but their for-sure #1 priority is looking out for their own interests.

kebokyo 2y ago

Something that this petition does not mention at all are possible alternatives to Google search as the default search engine. If Google isn’t the default, who should be the default?

wmf 2y ago
Yahoo, Bing, DDG, Perplexity...
- trelane 2y ago
  Bing is already the default, if you use Windows.
  - Kwpolska 2y ago
    [citation needed] Why would Google pay to be the default if the majority of users would have a different engine?
    - trelane 2y ago
      https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/windows-11-how-to-set-google-as-your-default-search-engine-instead-of-bing/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/windows-11-h... If you mean for firefox specifically, that's Google. But, since it's firefox instead of Edge, you've already left the defaults far behind.
culi 2y ago
Ecosia, DuckDuckGo, Brave Search, Startpage, etc. Plenty of privacy-respecting and non-profit search engines
- zoobab 2y ago
  Searx.be

Gothmog69 2y ago

Chrome wouldn't be so big if edge wasn't so shit

renewiltord 2y ago

Haha, "Mozilla, please commit suicide". Whatever they're currently doing is fine. They've succeeded in their aim and now they're searching for a new thing to target affiliated with their space given their revenue numbers. Pretty logical thing to do for them. Good luck to Mozilla.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

johnea 2y ago

Why specificallly throw stones at Mozilla? EVERYONE should ditch goggle 8-/ but, but, muh g-stuff!!! pathetic, really. The corps has been for the purpose of user surveilance from the beginning. If you want your donations to be well spent, send them to a firefox fork maintainer...

mightybyte 2y ago

My default uninformed assumption would be that Google is paying Mozilla for making Google the default search engine for Firefox. Does anyone know if this is the case, and if so, what the likely magnitudes are? Because it seems like Google can throw quantities of money at Mozilla that would easily overwhelm whatever pressure this petition might put on them.

manifoldgeo 2y ago
Yes, this is correct. Google pays Mozilla hundreds of millions of dollars annually to be the default search engine. This makes up the vast majority of Mozilla Corporation's revenue. It's somewhere in the ballpark of 85% of all their annual revenue last I heard. They've tried hard in recent years to get out from under Google by diversifying into other areas. For example, they have a VPN service that is a wrapper around Mullvad, and they've made some privacy tools that you can pay to use, also largely wrappers around other companies' tools. I was an employee of Mozilla Corporation and saw first-hand the effort they were making. In my opinion, it's been a pretty abysmal failure so far. Pulling Google funding would effectively hamstring Mozilla Corp.

rickandmortyy 2y ago

[dead]

cantrecallmypwd 2y ago

Mozilla needs to operate like NPR by having pledge drives and seeking charitable investment by organizations and nations because depending on for-profit arrangements means inevitable corruption just like any other corporation.

adultSwim 2y ago
NPR needs to get rid of the ads. That half of the budget is influencing their news coverage and content.
- cantrecallmypwd 2y ago
  I didn't say the "same as" NPR, I said "like". Aspects.

pipeline_peak 2y ago

Firefox isn’t even going to usable around in 20 years and these people think they could drop their lifeline? What’s a petition without a solution? This idea is more detached than Mastodon.

shmerl 2y ago

If possible, Mozilla should go back to making Servo their main engine. But how fund all that is still a major question.

vondur 2y ago

If they ditch Google, they lose their income. Seems like a bad idea...

waterlu 2y ago

> Tell Mozilla: it’s time to ditch Google Oh, so _they_ are the problem now? And I thought the problem was that Mozilla was selling user data! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43209768 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43209768 Silly me!

whyenot 2y ago

I donated a lot of time, code, and at least a little money to early Mozilla and Firefox. They were a lot more dynamic and engaging when they were a small nonprofit. Now it feels like thanks to Google money they have become fat and lazy. Unable to take risks because it might threaten their income stream or their relationship with Google. It makes me sad and angry to see what they have become. Maybe a diet will help, but I fear the patient is beyond help at this point.

stogot 2y ago
I still won’t donate unless the money goes to Firefox and not their parties, activism, or side projects (that they inevitably shut down)
- icelancer 2y ago
  I'm good with side projects. The activism stuff has to stop.
- Seb-C 2y ago
  Even if they did allow that, a big part of the budget would probably go into another useless UI revamp.
thfuran 2y ago
>Now it feels like thanks to Google money they have become fat and lazy. Unable to take risks I think Google has that problem too.
nextos 2y ago
I guess it's the usual lifecycle most organizations go through, and generous funding has accelerated the process. The only upside is that, in theory, anyone could fork Firefox and continue development within a healthier structure. It's a critical project for the Internet. Hopefully, Ladybird will be viable soon, adding a bit of redundancy. Else, we risk becoming a Chrome monoculture.
mmooss 2y ago
One one hand, they are criticized for taking risks - being risks, inevitably many don't work out - including their AI project. On the other, now they don't take enough risks.

tamis022 2y ago

Would you pay for Firefox? I would.

adultSwim 2y ago

I don't support this change. Most people want to be using Google. Mozilla needs money. There's not even a suggestion of how to replace the funds.

fishcrackers 2y ago

[dead]

gigatexal 2y ago

Marc Andreesen owes his riches to Netscape whose ashes became Mozilla. I don’t understand why he doesn’t give the Mozilla foundation and endowment such that the interest on the endowment would fund work solely on the browser. They could then just work on the browser and nothing more. No need to do marketing, have a venture arm, millions for management, etc. it could be a group of 10 or 20 really awesome engineers and maybe a bunch of passionate open source folks contributing. Will he do it? No. Do I wish he would? Yes. Would I if I could? Hell yes because there needs to be a viable alternative to chrome and how is that possible when chrome butters their bread and pays their bills? Or! The some hundreds of millions they did get from Google they just out in an endowment and then shrink staff (start with management) until they can live comfortably off the interest…

Kwpolska 2y ago
I don't want my browser to be dependent on Marc Andreessen. And he doesn't want to do things useful to humanity anyway.
- gigatexal 2y ago
  Right. The money would be a gift to a foundation where he couldn’t control it. A no strings attached 100% tax deductible gift to the foundation with the only strings that they focus on the browser and survive on the interest, and lay off unnecessary management (10-20 dedicated web engineers and a PM and an HR person what else do you need). But do you also want the browser beholden to the parent company of its direct competitor? This is a fantasy land hypothetical of course as we know exactly the kind of guy Marc is, he’ll want a say.
  - netsharc 2y ago
    Haha, I can see the strings you're attaching if you had his money. Of course we all believe "But what I think is best for them is a good thing!".
  - notpushkin 2y ago
    10-20 dedicated web engineers doesn’t sound like – but Mozilla Foundation already has money for about 350–700 full-time developers.

renegat0x0 2y ago

To be honest browser is not that important for me. It collects a lot of data about you, but I think search engine is more important for society. It is the lens through which we see the world. I have already seen that many folks switched to using several engines, because you see more that way. Personally I like searxng. There is gpt also obviously. Sometimes I also search domains I crawled. https://github.com/rumca-js/Internet-Places-Database https://github.com/rumca-js/Internet-Places-Database

throwaway984393 2y ago

[dead]

TimByte 2y ago

I'd love to see them double down on privacy-first revenue models, but the question is: can they make it work before the money runs out?

vlad-roundabout 2y ago

I think shipping Google is fair. It's not forced upon anyone, and much better than collecting data themselves, or advertising their own services, or making proprietary software.

bmacho 2y ago

I've read the petition. I'm not convinced. However, this must be the single most harmful petition I've ever read (IMO). I believe that Google money is a huge net positive for Firefox: free money for basically nothing asked in return. Additionally I think that the biggest problem of Firefox have been Mozilla for 10-15 years and there is no sign of improving, only getting worse and worse. I wish Firefox could ditch Mozilla (and probably keep Google money flow if possible).

nubinetwork 2y ago

Tell Mozilla: it's time to ditch Mozilla /s

chakintosh 2y ago

Wishful thinking. Not a single mention of the fact Google contributed to 89% of Mozilla's income since 2005 [1]. Good luck convincing Mozilla to bite the hand that feeds it. [1] https://windscribe.com/blog/windscribe-expose-mozilla/ https://windscribe.com/blog/windscribe-expose-mozilla/

zoobab 2y ago

It's more boycottfirefox.com that is needed.

hkt 2y ago

Mozilla's greatest contribution to the web could well end up being a fork of Firefox with an accompanying standard for html and CSS which halts the march of SPAs and curtails interactivity, cookies, etc. Call it HTML4+. It wouldn't need hundreds of millions of dollars to achieve, and if it took off it'd hurt Google and their ilk massively. At the moment the Faustian pact is that they act as a competition fig leaf in the browser space: Google can point to a nearly-as-good browser and say "look, we don't control everything" while they steam ahead setting standards that largely benefit themselves. The reason they can do this is the sheer capital intensity of the exercise: nobody can keep up or catch up. So a captive competitor makes perfect sense. Shedding that capital intensity - by means of devising a simpler to implement, slower moving standard - is the only real escape hatch. Mozilla won't get anywhere by begging forever, and it'll lose its character if it doesn't keep it's nonprofit status.

poulpy123 2y ago

I don't understand what is the point of a petition when almost all revenue for Mozilla comes from Google being scared of a anti-trust trial

andai 2y ago
Yeah, that's the joke, Firefox is Google's "antitrust insurance."

speckx 2y ago

Hypothetically speaking, can we estimate how long Firefox can survive once Google pulls the funding? A year? Two?

notpushkin 2y ago
Mozilla has money. Not an awful lot, but they will survive – they just need to bite the bullet. (Or maybe they won’t, depending on how fast they can go from burning through $300M a year to a mere $30M. That’s up to the management, though.)

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

asdf6969 2y ago

mozilla burnt my shake and fucked my wife