6 ms·

Mozilla shuts down even more Firefox services

71 points by bundie 1y ago

jxjdnendj 1y ago
This is a win. Mozilla should focus on their core product, Firefox. Even though I'm a fan of Thunderbird, still Firefox is much more important All the other services always seemed like somebody wanted to add a bullet point to their CV
- elric 1y ago
  Bold of you to assume that that's what they'll use the freed resources on. From everything I've seen over the last couple of years, it seems more likely they'll spend more time on AI garbage no one wants, and will increase the CEO's bonus.
  - shakna 1y ago
    > This shift allows us to shape the next era of the internet – with tools like vertical tabs, smart search and more AI-powered features on the way. We’ll continue to build a browser that works harder for you: more personal, more powerful and still proudly independent. https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/building-whats-next/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/building-whats-next/
    - elric 1y ago
      Are they serious? Vertical tabs? That's a trivial feature that's been implemented by plugins for decades. I've been using vertical tabs for as long as I've been using firefox, probably since it was still called Phoenix or Firebird. Smart search: what even is that? Is that the default garbage in the address bar that I have to disable on every fresh install? I don't want my browser to search. I've got search engines for that. I might want a better in-page search, with regex support. Maybe even with fuzzy search support. But that's probably not considered "smart". AI-powered features: such as what? Why would this be a compelling feature? A better editor on saved form data would be actually useful. Editable, per-website autocomplete in forms would be useful. But I guess that's not as flashy. If these are their best ideas for "the next era of the internet", they might as well throw in the towel. I'm trying my best not to be too negative, but yikes they make it hard.
      - shakna 1y ago
        Smart Search is adding a few dropdowns to let you search your history easier. [0] It's... Not exactly a killer feature. What's the bet that AI is where they're spending all their effort? [0] https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/address-bar/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/address-bar/
        elric 1y ago
        Yeah, I hate it. I've mostly tweaked mine to be as close to an address bar as possible, but I still haven't found a way to fully revert it to an address bar. I don't mind it searching in my history or bookmarks. But automatically sending my keystrokes to a search engine by default is something that really pisses me off. I have an address bar and a search bar. One is for entering addresses, the other is for entering searches. I don't quite get why they insist on turning them into one big ball of mud.
        JohnFen 1y ago
        Yeah, the "awesome bar" has long been one of my pet peeves about Firefox. It used to be possible to correct it by disabling stuff, but as time has gone on that has become less effective.
    - LtdJorge 1y ago
      Yeah, we’ll see about that
mrks_hy 1y ago
From TFA, the services: * Pocket * Fakespot * Deep fake detector * Orbit I feel that this is a good thing. Have not used any of them, have been annoyed by Pocket integrations, just want a browser.
- me_me_me 1y ago
  [dead]
- xandrius 1y ago
  They pushed Pocket in a weird way but otherwise it was a useful tool for article readers. I found it much better not to have to read on my phone/laptop but using an e-reader through stuff I saved on Pocket. It felt very much going back to read a newspaper of interesting articles. I wonder what replacement will be available on Kobos.
notachatbot123 1y ago
A thing like Fakespot existed? And it was by Mozilla? I would have LOVED to use it. Maybe if Firefox' new tabs would suggest useful ethic things like this instead of clickbait and spam, Mozilla would be more successful in its goals.
- burnt-resistor 1y ago
  No, they acquired it. It was a service that worked with Amazon and other platforms to supposedly uncover inflated and/or spam reviews. This was perhaps the strategy all along. Their executives are ex-MBB consultants and corporate lawyers.
red_admiral 1y ago
From 136 on it seems you need to about:config to turn off the integrated AI. Just connects to gemini by default so some kind of funding deal? This should be OPT IN, not out. Also, long live udm14.
- askl 1y ago
  What integrated AI? I'm on 141 alpha and haven't noticed anything. And just in case, how to turn it off in about:config?
  - duser1 1y ago
    There are 'browser.ml...' settings in the config that are on by default.
    - graemep 1y ago
      The provider seems to be blank by default until you try to use the chatbot in the sidebar and choose which one to use.
      - baobun 1y ago
        Different experiences may come from their "remote settings", where they toggle rollout/enabling of features depending on results from API calls to Mozilla servers. Defaults may differ by inferred country, for example. I don't believe this remote-toggling can be disabled via config, even if you'd expect it covered by "experiments".
jfernandezr 1y ago
I would love that Firefox focuses on the browser. I think I wouldn't oppose some monetizing strategy like DDG based on affiliate sales, or even a realistic affordable subscription model (10€/year?). They should put the efforts on privacy and good website usage, maybe include an ad blocker. But we'll have to wait until Google finally stops paying them for the default search engine. Maybe diverting resources on the Firefox Focus brand will be a transition phase.
- prox 1y ago
  I wouldn’t mind that, for 10 bucks. I do want a subscriber version that doesn’t have a google search or any telemetry beyond a crash log.
  - LtdJorge 1y ago
    I’d be ok with anonymous telemetry which allows them to uncover performance problems and fix bugs.
Klaster_1 1y ago
> This brings us to the AI tools. Following the pattern, the Orbit website was updated with a banner that announced the service would shut down by June 26 ... Orbit's private, self-contained setup can be replaced with the new sidebar built directly into Firefox, letting you connect to third-party chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini. Orbit served me well for summarizing pages and videos. I tried to ask the ChatGPT in the sidebar to do the same, but it seems to lack the browsing context. Any idea how to achieve similar one click experience Orbit used to provide?
- internet_points 1y ago
  The new sidebar seems to do something like that. To enable: ctrl+alt+x to open, pick a model, then click the ... at the top and ensure "show shortcut on selecting text" is clicked. To use: select text, then hover over the sparkles and click summarize
  - Klaster_1 1y ago
    Hey, thanks for pointing in this direction. I just tried that and it really sucked - you have to select what you want to summarize (there's also a RMB option for AI features), and when selecting a whole page, it throws and error. Really hope Firefox addresses this soon.
bradley13 1y ago
Mozilla-the-company is, in the end, mainly about Firefox. These other projects sound more like hobby-projects, at best something to do in someone's spare time. Governance is the job of the foundation. Thunderbird has been spun off. So why does Mozilla need 750 employees? Correct me if I'm being naive, but that seems like 10 or even 20 times the number of employees they ought to have.
- trhway 1y ago
  >mainly about Firefox. just couple hours ago loaded new Rasp Pi 5, and between Chromium and FF I of course chose FF (first time i built it, ie. Mozilla, back then in 99, and i really don't like Chrome and the ilk). The FF didn't took a bunch of keyboard keys while for every other application i used there the keyboard works just fine. Didn't have time or intention to troubleshoot, just switched to Chromium. Pity. Just another illustrative FF loss vs. Chrome in that downhill ride of FF losses under the stewardship of Mozilla, whether it is the company or foundation, doesn't seem to matter.
  - wobfan 1y ago
    What does this have to do with anything here? File a bug report, or try to find out the problem yourself. Or ask in a Forum. Or, as you did, switch browsers, if all of that is not worth the time for you.
- mort96 1y ago
  Do you think Google has fewer than 750 people dedicated to their browser? Not just developers but supporting positions like managers, HR, product managers, designers, etc etc. I mean Google has almost 200 000 employees, if even 0.5% of Google's employees are involved with Chrome in some way they have more manpower dedicated to Chrome than the foundation's 750 employees. Or does the Foundation not employ Firefox developers? The relationship between the Corporation and the Foundation isn't entirely clear to me.
  - ta1243 1y ago
    For 750 people I would expect something like 600 developers (qa etc) and 150 support staff, maybe as low as 500 developers, 100 for tech support, and 150 support (lawyers, accountants etc) I don't know how many people who have say "commented on a pull request in the last 12 months" that mozilla employs. Maybe it is hundereds.
dvh 1y ago
I think they should cancel all those BS Firefox-the-browser unrelated project, and then use the resources to fork chromium while still developing Firefox as their main project. I would use Mozilla-maintained chromium fork (with manifest v2 and ublock origin) rather then using Google's Chrome. I tried FF but it's just too slow. I really want just chromium from trustworthy organisation.
- arnoooooo 1y ago
  Firefox has caught up or surpassed Chrome in most performance benchmarks. Example : https://kahana.co/blog/fastest-web-browsers-2025 https://kahana.co/blog/fastest-web-browsers-2025
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- alpaca128 1y ago
  Firefox hasn't been slow in years.
- irvinfly 1y ago
  If Mozilla had double of the engineer size and money to manintain two engines.
Theodores 1y ago
I wish Firefox existed in a world of 'perfect competition' where multiple independent browsers existed, with none of them able to out-compete the others, and with all of them implementing the HTML and CSS specs as quickly as possible, in order to escape 'perfect competition'. But we went beyond 'perfect competition' and now have Chrome or Safari, with Firefox as this poor kid that we have to cater for too. The problem with Firefox is that they have just enough users to be a blocker on features such as scoped CSS, which we really should be implementing right now, as it is the way to go. However, Firefox are not planning to do scoped CSS urgently. Without them then we could go back to the IE6 days of no innovation, and I think we have that with Safari, which is also slow to implement some cool things that have been in Chrome for a while. I used to use Firefox but nowadays it is the IE6 of the browser world, it still has to be accommodated, even though the world has moved on.
arnvald 1y ago
Not to defend Mozilla (they have lots of issues), but it feels they're in an impossible position: * their revenue comes mostly from Google, they need to diversify * but nobody will pay for a browser, so they need to offer other services * then everyone criticises that they shill their other services and should instead focus on the browser Realistically, what should they do to stop relying on money from their competitor and be continue their mission?
- joelthelion 1y ago
  Very hard decision, but I wonder if they could reduce costs by going to lower cost countries. Aren't they still mostly based in the silicon Valley?
- timmg 1y ago
  > their revenue comes mostly from Google, they need to diversify Arguably, they get more revenue than what they need to fund browser development. So they could be banking a fair amount. That would allow them to build an endowment that might keep them funded in perpetuity. I think there’s an option where they don’t diversify and don’t act like a tech startup and do fine. Maybe Wikipedia is a model for them.
  - maccard 1y ago
    > Maybe Wikipedia is a model for them People who have a problem with Mozilla the org tend to have a problem with Wikipedia the organisation too in my experience.
    - Gud 1y ago
      Maybe there is an overlap but my main concern with Mozilla is their funding model.
      - maccard 1y ago
        Like I said, that’s what people have a problem with. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34106982 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34106982
jhosft 1y ago
Mozilla stated that they sell user data, so I assume that many stopped using their products: https://adguard.com/en/blog/mozilla-deletes-promise-to-never-sell-your-data.html https://adguard.com/en/blog/mozilla-deletes-promise-to-never... The trust is gone.
- KingOfCoders 1y ago
  That was the point where I left Mozilla for Zen after 30 years and I hope Zen switches to a Ladybird engine should that become possible - or take over together with other browsers engine development.
- bgwalter 1y ago
  "We need a license to allow us to make some of the basic functionality of Firefox possible. Without it, we couldn’t use information typed into Firefox, for example." This is really bad. "Basic functionality" is typing something into a form, which Mozilla has no business spying on. I'd pay for a browser that just follows the standards, does not change layout and menus in every release and does not spy on me. Also, I'd not finance an overpaid CEO. In this instance though Mozilla is shutting down annoying services like Pocket, so maybe they'll recover.
- akimbostrawman 1y ago
  they have sold user data for decades or what do you think the google default search engine deal was....
braiamp 1y ago
I am very disappointed by most comments here. Firefox is not a simple product. Mozilla funded Rust because it could help their other products (specifically Firefox). Mozilla has, depending how you count, 4 engines to support for all their target platforms. They have a bunch of frameworks to deal with networking, layouts and JS. They maintain the second most used repository of Root CA. And all those projects all work towards the betterment of the browser, Firefox. If people think that MS with all their resources decided to use Chrome because it was cheaper, you will be missing the full picture: browsers are very complex beast that have to deal with swats of devices, platforms, interactive code, and all of that while being the biggest surface of attack for all your users. That's not easy, nor cheap.
- oblio 1y ago
  I'm way past forgetting them. It's been 20 years. Gecko is still not truly embeddable. Stuff like Taurus tries to embed WebkitGTK, instead. Servo should have been pushed more, if it's truly meant to be the replacement for Gecko.
incomingpain 1y ago
Mozilla and Elon Musk are learning the hard lesson. Elon will weather this storm; he's well beyond cancelling. Mozilla's marketshare has rather dwindled and i dont see them recovering. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeikdFrx78k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeikdFrx78k https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/campaigns/platforms-promises-and-politics/ https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/campaigns/platforms-pro... Mozilla is doubling down on their mistake.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
OutOfHere 1y ago
Mozilla seems to slowly be fading. Ladybird browser will hopefully come right in time.
internet_points 1y ago
Most of these make sense. I never liked the creepy style of the orbit plugin (though I like that they hosted their own llm). Deep Fake Detector seems like a lost cause? And pocket was never truly integrated, had to keep logging in again and again even though I was logged into my browser. It's good that they can try things and know when to stop. OTOH, are there currently any Firefox-related services that make money? Like a service I (or a company) can pay for to get something slightly-useful but the money goes to Firefox development?

71 points by bundie 1y ago

This is a win. Mozilla should focus on their core product, Firefox. Even though I'm a fan of Thunderbird, still Firefox is much more important All the other services always seemed like somebody wanted to add a bullet point to their CV

elric 1y ago
Bold of you to assume that that's what they'll use the freed resources on. From everything I've seen over the last couple of years, it seems more likely they'll spend more time on AI garbage no one wants, and will increase the CEO's bonus.
- shakna 1y ago
  > This shift allows us to shape the next era of the internet – with tools like vertical tabs, smart search and more AI-powered features on the way. We’ll continue to build a browser that works harder for you: more personal, more powerful and still proudly independent. https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/building-whats-next/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/building-whats-next/
  - elric 1y ago
    Are they serious? Vertical tabs? That's a trivial feature that's been implemented by plugins for decades. I've been using vertical tabs for as long as I've been using firefox, probably since it was still called Phoenix or Firebird. Smart search: what even is that? Is that the default garbage in the address bar that I have to disable on every fresh install? I don't want my browser to search. I've got search engines for that. I might want a better in-page search, with regex support. Maybe even with fuzzy search support. But that's probably not considered "smart". AI-powered features: such as what? Why would this be a compelling feature? A better editor on saved form data would be actually useful. Editable, per-website autocomplete in forms would be useful. But I guess that's not as flashy. If these are their best ideas for "the next era of the internet", they might as well throw in the towel. I'm trying my best not to be too negative, but yikes they make it hard.
    - shakna 1y ago
      Smart Search is adding a few dropdowns to let you search your history easier. [0] It's... Not exactly a killer feature. What's the bet that AI is where they're spending all their effort? [0] https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/address-bar/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/address-bar/
      - elric 1y ago
        Yeah, I hate it. I've mostly tweaked mine to be as close to an address bar as possible, but I still haven't found a way to fully revert it to an address bar. I don't mind it searching in my history or bookmarks. But automatically sending my keystrokes to a search engine by default is something that really pisses me off. I have an address bar and a search bar. One is for entering addresses, the other is for entering searches. I don't quite get why they insist on turning them into one big ball of mud.
        JohnFen 1y ago
        Yeah, the "awesome bar" has long been one of my pet peeves about Firefox. It used to be possible to correct it by disabling stuff, but as time has gone on that has become less effective.
  - LtdJorge 1y ago
    Yeah, we’ll see about that

mrks_hy 1y ago

From TFA, the services: * Pocket * Fakespot * Deep fake detector * Orbit I feel that this is a good thing. Have not used any of them, have been annoyed by Pocket integrations, just want a browser.

me_me_me 1y ago
[dead]
xandrius 1y ago
They pushed Pocket in a weird way but otherwise it was a useful tool for article readers. I found it much better not to have to read on my phone/laptop but using an e-reader through stuff I saved on Pocket. It felt very much going back to read a newspaper of interesting articles. I wonder what replacement will be available on Kobos.

notachatbot123 1y ago

A thing like Fakespot existed? And it was by Mozilla? I would have LOVED to use it. Maybe if Firefox' new tabs would suggest useful ethic things like this instead of clickbait and spam, Mozilla would be more successful in its goals.

burnt-resistor 1y ago
No, they acquired it. It was a service that worked with Amazon and other platforms to supposedly uncover inflated and/or spam reviews. This was perhaps the strategy all along. Their executives are ex-MBB consultants and corporate lawyers.

red_admiral 1y ago

From 136 on it seems you need to about:config to turn off the integrated AI. Just connects to gemini by default so some kind of funding deal? This should be OPT IN, not out. Also, long live udm14.

askl 1y ago
What integrated AI? I'm on 141 alpha and haven't noticed anything. And just in case, how to turn it off in about:config?
- duser1 1y ago
  There are 'browser.ml...' settings in the config that are on by default.
  - graemep 1y ago
    The provider seems to be blank by default until you try to use the chatbot in the sidebar and choose which one to use.
    - baobun 1y ago
      Different experiences may come from their "remote settings", where they toggle rollout/enabling of features depending on results from API calls to Mozilla servers. Defaults may differ by inferred country, for example. I don't believe this remote-toggling can be disabled via config, even if you'd expect it covered by "experiments".

jfernandezr 1y ago

I would love that Firefox focuses on the browser. I think I wouldn't oppose some monetizing strategy like DDG based on affiliate sales, or even a realistic affordable subscription model (10€/year?). They should put the efforts on privacy and good website usage, maybe include an ad blocker. But we'll have to wait until Google finally stops paying them for the default search engine. Maybe diverting resources on the Firefox Focus brand will be a transition phase.

prox 1y ago
I wouldn’t mind that, for 10 bucks. I do want a subscriber version that doesn’t have a google search or any telemetry beyond a crash log.
- LtdJorge 1y ago
  I’d be ok with anonymous telemetry which allows them to uncover performance problems and fix bugs.

Klaster_1 1y ago

> This brings us to the AI tools. Following the pattern, the Orbit website was updated with a banner that announced the service would shut down by June 26 ... Orbit's private, self-contained setup can be replaced with the new sidebar built directly into Firefox, letting you connect to third-party chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini. Orbit served me well for summarizing pages and videos. I tried to ask the ChatGPT in the sidebar to do the same, but it seems to lack the browsing context. Any idea how to achieve similar one click experience Orbit used to provide?

internet_points 1y ago
The new sidebar seems to do something like that. To enable: ctrl+alt+x to open, pick a model, then click the ... at the top and ensure "show shortcut on selecting text" is clicked. To use: select text, then hover over the sparkles and click summarize
- Klaster_1 1y ago
  Hey, thanks for pointing in this direction. I just tried that and it really sucked - you have to select what you want to summarize (there's also a RMB option for AI features), and when selecting a whole page, it throws and error. Really hope Firefox addresses this soon.

bradley13 1y ago

Mozilla-the-company is, in the end, mainly about Firefox. These other projects sound more like hobby-projects, at best something to do in someone's spare time. Governance is the job of the foundation. Thunderbird has been spun off. So why does Mozilla need 750 employees? Correct me if I'm being naive, but that seems like 10 or even 20 times the number of employees they ought to have.

trhway 1y ago
>mainly about Firefox. just couple hours ago loaded new Rasp Pi 5, and between Chromium and FF I of course chose FF (first time i built it, ie. Mozilla, back then in 99, and i really don't like Chrome and the ilk). The FF didn't took a bunch of keyboard keys while for every other application i used there the keyboard works just fine. Didn't have time or intention to troubleshoot, just switched to Chromium. Pity. Just another illustrative FF loss vs. Chrome in that downhill ride of FF losses under the stewardship of Mozilla, whether it is the company or foundation, doesn't seem to matter.
- wobfan 1y ago
  What does this have to do with anything here? File a bug report, or try to find out the problem yourself. Or ask in a Forum. Or, as you did, switch browsers, if all of that is not worth the time for you.
mort96 1y ago
Do you think Google has fewer than 750 people dedicated to their browser? Not just developers but supporting positions like managers, HR, product managers, designers, etc etc. I mean Google has almost 200 000 employees, if even 0.5% of Google's employees are involved with Chrome in some way they have more manpower dedicated to Chrome than the foundation's 750 employees. Or does the Foundation not employ Firefox developers? The relationship between the Corporation and the Foundation isn't entirely clear to me.
- ta1243 1y ago
  For 750 people I would expect something like 600 developers (qa etc) and 150 support staff, maybe as low as 500 developers, 100 for tech support, and 150 support (lawyers, accountants etc) I don't know how many people who have say "commented on a pull request in the last 12 months" that mozilla employs. Maybe it is hundereds.

dvh 1y ago

I think they should cancel all those BS Firefox-the-browser unrelated project, and then use the resources to fork chromium while still developing Firefox as their main project. I would use Mozilla-maintained chromium fork (with manifest v2 and ublock origin) rather then using Google's Chrome. I tried FF but it's just too slow. I really want just chromium from trustworthy organisation.

arnoooooo 1y ago
Firefox has caught up or surpassed Chrome in most performance benchmarks. Example : https://kahana.co/blog/fastest-web-browsers-2025 https://kahana.co/blog/fastest-web-browsers-2025
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
alpaca128 1y ago
Firefox hasn't been slow in years.
irvinfly 1y ago
If Mozilla had double of the engineer size and money to manintain two engines.

Theodores 1y ago

I wish Firefox existed in a world of 'perfect competition' where multiple independent browsers existed, with none of them able to out-compete the others, and with all of them implementing the HTML and CSS specs as quickly as possible, in order to escape 'perfect competition'. But we went beyond 'perfect competition' and now have Chrome or Safari, with Firefox as this poor kid that we have to cater for too. The problem with Firefox is that they have just enough users to be a blocker on features such as scoped CSS, which we really should be implementing right now, as it is the way to go. However, Firefox are not planning to do scoped CSS urgently. Without them then we could go back to the IE6 days of no innovation, and I think we have that with Safari, which is also slow to implement some cool things that have been in Chrome for a while. I used to use Firefox but nowadays it is the IE6 of the browser world, it still has to be accommodated, even though the world has moved on.

arnvald 1y ago

Not to defend Mozilla (they have lots of issues), but it feels they're in an impossible position: * their revenue comes mostly from Google, they need to diversify * but nobody will pay for a browser, so they need to offer other services * then everyone criticises that they shill their other services and should instead focus on the browser Realistically, what should they do to stop relying on money from their competitor and be continue their mission?

joelthelion 1y ago
Very hard decision, but I wonder if they could reduce costs by going to lower cost countries. Aren't they still mostly based in the silicon Valley?
timmg 1y ago
> their revenue comes mostly from Google, they need to diversify Arguably, they get more revenue than what they need to fund browser development. So they could be banking a fair amount. That would allow them to build an endowment that might keep them funded in perpetuity. I think there’s an option where they don’t diversify and don’t act like a tech startup and do fine. Maybe Wikipedia is a model for them.
- maccard 1y ago
  > Maybe Wikipedia is a model for them People who have a problem with Mozilla the org tend to have a problem with Wikipedia the organisation too in my experience.
  - Gud 1y ago
    Maybe there is an overlap but my main concern with Mozilla is their funding model.
    - maccard 1y ago
      Like I said, that’s what people have a problem with. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34106982 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34106982

jhosft 1y ago

Mozilla stated that they sell user data, so I assume that many stopped using their products: https://adguard.com/en/blog/mozilla-deletes-promise-to-never-sell-your-data.html https://adguard.com/en/blog/mozilla-deletes-promise-to-never... The trust is gone.

KingOfCoders 1y ago
That was the point where I left Mozilla for Zen after 30 years and I hope Zen switches to a Ladybird engine should that become possible - or take over together with other browsers engine development.
bgwalter 1y ago
"We need a license to allow us to make some of the basic functionality of Firefox possible. Without it, we couldn’t use information typed into Firefox, for example." This is really bad. "Basic functionality" is typing something into a form, which Mozilla has no business spying on. I'd pay for a browser that just follows the standards, does not change layout and menus in every release and does not spy on me. Also, I'd not finance an overpaid CEO. In this instance though Mozilla is shutting down annoying services like Pocket, so maybe they'll recover.
akimbostrawman 1y ago
they have sold user data for decades or what do you think the google default search engine deal was....

braiamp 1y ago

I am very disappointed by most comments here. Firefox is not a simple product. Mozilla funded Rust because it could help their other products (specifically Firefox). Mozilla has, depending how you count, 4 engines to support for all their target platforms. They have a bunch of frameworks to deal with networking, layouts and JS. They maintain the second most used repository of Root CA. And all those projects all work towards the betterment of the browser, Firefox. If people think that MS with all their resources decided to use Chrome because it was cheaper, you will be missing the full picture: browsers are very complex beast that have to deal with swats of devices, platforms, interactive code, and all of that while being the biggest surface of attack for all your users. That's not easy, nor cheap.

oblio 1y ago
I'm way past forgetting them. It's been 20 years. Gecko is still not truly embeddable. Stuff like Taurus tries to embed WebkitGTK, instead. Servo should have been pushed more, if it's truly meant to be the replacement for Gecko.

incomingpain 1y ago

Mozilla and Elon Musk are learning the hard lesson. Elon will weather this storm; he's well beyond cancelling. Mozilla's marketshare has rather dwindled and i dont see them recovering. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeikdFrx78k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeikdFrx78k https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/campaigns/platforms-promises-and-politics/ https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/campaigns/platforms-pro... Mozilla is doubling down on their mistake.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

OutOfHere 1y ago

Mozilla seems to slowly be fading. Ladybird browser will hopefully come right in time.

internet_points 1y ago

Most of these make sense. I never liked the creepy style of the orbit plugin (though I like that they hosted their own llm). Deep Fake Detector seems like a lost cause? And pocket was never truly integrated, had to keep logging in again and again even though I was logged into my browser. It's good that they can try things and know when to stop. OTOH, are there currently any Firefox-related services that make money? Like a service I (or a company) can pay for to get something slightly-useful but the money goes to Firefox development?