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Many people on HN hold Mozilla to impossible and conflicting standards. It is simultaneously a compromised propaganda arm of Google for taking the Google bribe,

by arp242 1y ago

Many people on HN hold Mozilla to impossible and conflicting standards. It is simultaneously a compromised propaganda arm of Google for taking the Google bribe, while also being compromised money-grabbing wankers diluting their mission when they try to generate alternative revenues of income. I realise that HN has different people posting different arguments, but I've seen many people post both over the years. All of that is frequently married with an the amount of vitriol that seems out of place and downright bizarre. There is typically a lack of constructive discourse or suggestions, beyond vague hand-waving about how they should "just do better", or "just do this or that". Well, if it's that easy then why don't you start a browser? In-between all of that there is the inevitable political vitriol and flaming about Mozilla. Have we gotten a flamewar about Brendan Eich (who left over 11 years ago) yet? It's the Godwin Law of Mozilla/Firefox. These threads bring out the absolute worst of the site and many people with more nuanced views probably make a habit of staying out of them. When I've commented on this before I've been accosted with highly aggressive personal attacks. So now I often just hide them.

danotdead 1y ago
It’s not about getting overly vitriolic. It’s simply that they said this: “The Firefox Browser is the only major browser backed by a not-for-profit that doesn’t sell your personal data to advertisers” And then, they changed it: https://www.theregister.com/AMP/2025/03/02/mozilla_introduces_terms_of_use/ https://www.theregister.com/AMP/2025/03/02/mozilla_introduce... Google also had an unofficial motto: “Don’t be evil” and said: “Our search results are the best we know how to produce. They are unbiased and objective, and we do not accept payment for them or for inclusion or more frequent updating” https://time.com/4060575/alphabet-google-dont-be-evil/ https://time.com/4060575/alphabet-google-dont-be-evil/ And they changed it. So- sure, sometimes people change their minds. But, Google never promised it wouldn’t sell your data. Mozilla did, and users continued to use it, many without knowledge of it; it should be a banner over all the pages: “Hey, we sell your data. Click here to acknowledge.”
- chillingeffect 1y ago
  I cant buy your firefox data. I can buy a huge block of aggregate data that has some things of yours in it.
  - throwaway6473 1y ago
    - Advertisers buy user data from Firefox, who can then resell or provide this data to others. - Others buy that data. - Big data companies and others aggregate this information. - Cookie or IP are not necessarily required to identify users; thumbprinting, datetime, and behavioral matching can identify users adequately. - Advertisers and analytics giants can ingest data that includes PII, if it’s encrypted, and that can be decrypted. - New methods of tracking have replaced old ones and new methods are even better than old ones. - This data can be used to group users in many ways, so it can know essentially who you are, when you do things, what you will do, and who you’ll do them with. - This information is used for targeting ads, but can be used for other purposes. - Technology to utilize this data has been evolving much more quickly. - Why just target ads? Why not provide users with a version of reality that optimizes their consumer behavior? - Why attempt to ensure control through enforcement? Why not control motivation and thought? - Why have political elections? Why not control decisions?
    - aspenmayer 1y ago
      Firefox isn't supposed to be a business to begin with. Mozilla is a nonprofit organization, isn't it? If they can't survive off of donations, then they don't deserve to exist. If they want to sell user data or search defaults, Mozilla should fork Firefox. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2H8wx1aBiQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2H8wx1aBiQ When Zuck said this, I could feel the smarm, but I respect his honesty, and I know what he's not saying. Mozilla is trying to spit the same game about its Google search default deal, as if that is the same thing. It's not, because when Facebook does it, it's a for-profit corporation selling out its users. When Mozilla does it, it's a nonprofit organization selling out its users to the single largest for-profit web property in the history of the Internet. Google is a monopolist. They should lose the right to pay off their competition.
safety1st 1y ago
[flagged]
- PaulHoule 1y ago
  This is great: https://aframe.io/ https://aframe.io/
  - mananaysiempre 1y ago
    That’s very... VRML of them. Not that VRML was bad as a concept, just surprised to see it make a comeback.
    - PaulHoule 1y ago
      Kinda inevitable after we got good VR headsets. I was in grad school when VRML came out, I used it for things like visualizing 3-d slices of 5-d energy surfaces embedded in a 6-d phase space. I almost went to the VR CAVE to try it out but didn't quite, ironically I work in the social sciences cluster now and the former CAVE is our storage area and still has some big projectors on the floor which were expensive once. A grad student who sat next to me, who I had endless arguments about "Linux vs Windows" told me that VRML was crap and the evidence was that it wasn't adequate to make 3-d games like Quake. Today I'd compare A-Frame to Entity Component Systems (ECS) like Unity. A-Frame still has an object graph and it still has the awful primitives that VRML had that Horizon Worlds is stuck with, but you can make complex shapes with textures and import real models. My one trouble with it as a developer is memory management, if you load too much geometry on an MQ3 it "just doesn't work." I got stuck on a project with it, I've got a good idea how to fix it but it was enough of a setback that I've been working on other things sense. I did learn a lot more about the ECS paradigm this year when I was in a hackathon and joined up with a good Unity programmer and a designer to make a winning game (brought my mad Project|Product Management skills as well as my startup-honed talent of demonstrating broken software on stage and making it look perfect.) Now I play low-budget games and have a pretty clear idea how you'd implement them with an ECS framework so one day I'll put down the controller and make another crack at my VR project.
  - 1y ago
bitlax 1y ago
[flagged]
isaacremuant 1y ago
[flagged]
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

by arp242 1y ago

danotdead 1y ago

It’s not about getting overly vitriolic. It’s simply that they said this: “The Firefox Browser is the only major browser backed by a not-for-profit that doesn’t sell your personal data to advertisers” And then, they changed it: https://www.theregister.com/AMP/2025/03/02/mozilla_introduces_terms_of_use/ https://www.theregister.com/AMP/2025/03/02/mozilla_introduce... Google also had an unofficial motto: “Don’t be evil” and said: “Our search results are the best we know how to produce. They are unbiased and objective, and we do not accept payment for them or for inclusion or more frequent updating” https://time.com/4060575/alphabet-google-dont-be-evil/ https://time.com/4060575/alphabet-google-dont-be-evil/ And they changed it. So- sure, sometimes people change their minds. But, Google never promised it wouldn’t sell your data. Mozilla did, and users continued to use it, many without knowledge of it; it should be a banner over all the pages: “Hey, we sell your data. Click here to acknowledge.”

chillingeffect 1y ago
I cant buy your firefox data. I can buy a huge block of aggregate data that has some things of yours in it.
- throwaway6473 1y ago
  - Advertisers buy user data from Firefox, who can then resell or provide this data to others. - Others buy that data. - Big data companies and others aggregate this information. - Cookie or IP are not necessarily required to identify users; thumbprinting, datetime, and behavioral matching can identify users adequately. - Advertisers and analytics giants can ingest data that includes PII, if it’s encrypted, and that can be decrypted. - New methods of tracking have replaced old ones and new methods are even better than old ones. - This data can be used to group users in many ways, so it can know essentially who you are, when you do things, what you will do, and who you’ll do them with. - This information is used for targeting ads, but can be used for other purposes. - Technology to utilize this data has been evolving much more quickly. - Why just target ads? Why not provide users with a version of reality that optimizes their consumer behavior? - Why attempt to ensure control through enforcement? Why not control motivation and thought? - Why have political elections? Why not control decisions?
  - aspenmayer 1y ago
    Firefox isn't supposed to be a business to begin with. Mozilla is a nonprofit organization, isn't it? If they can't survive off of donations, then they don't deserve to exist. If they want to sell user data or search defaults, Mozilla should fork Firefox. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2H8wx1aBiQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2H8wx1aBiQ When Zuck said this, I could feel the smarm, but I respect his honesty, and I know what he's not saying. Mozilla is trying to spit the same game about its Google search default deal, as if that is the same thing. It's not, because when Facebook does it, it's a for-profit corporation selling out its users. When Mozilla does it, it's a nonprofit organization selling out its users to the single largest for-profit web property in the history of the Internet. Google is a monopolist. They should lose the right to pay off their competition.

safety1st 1y ago

[flagged]

PaulHoule 1y ago
This is great: https://aframe.io/ https://aframe.io/
- mananaysiempre 1y ago
  That’s very... VRML of them. Not that VRML was bad as a concept, just surprised to see it make a comeback.
  - PaulHoule 1y ago
    Kinda inevitable after we got good VR headsets. I was in grad school when VRML came out, I used it for things like visualizing 3-d slices of 5-d energy surfaces embedded in a 6-d phase space. I almost went to the VR CAVE to try it out but didn't quite, ironically I work in the social sciences cluster now and the former CAVE is our storage area and still has some big projectors on the floor which were expensive once. A grad student who sat next to me, who I had endless arguments about "Linux vs Windows" told me that VRML was crap and the evidence was that it wasn't adequate to make 3-d games like Quake. Today I'd compare A-Frame to Entity Component Systems (ECS) like Unity. A-Frame still has an object graph and it still has the awful primitives that VRML had that Horizon Worlds is stuck with, but you can make complex shapes with textures and import real models. My one trouble with it as a developer is memory management, if you load too much geometry on an MQ3 it "just doesn't work." I got stuck on a project with it, I've got a good idea how to fix it but it was enough of a setback that I've been working on other things sense. I did learn a lot more about the ECS paradigm this year when I was in a hackathon and joined up with a good Unity programmer and a designer to make a winning game (brought my mad Project|Product Management skills as well as my startup-honed talent of demonstrating broken software on stage and making it look perfect.) Now I play low-budget games and have a pretty clear idea how you'd implement them with an ECS framework so one day I'll put down the controller and make another crack at my VR project.
- 1y ago

bitlax 1y ago

[flagged]

isaacremuant 1y ago

[flagged]

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]