6 ms·

As a long-time firefox user (since the very earliest days of phoenix), I have to say: focus on open standards and delivering a faster and more secure browser. M

As a long-time firefox user (since the very earliest days of phoenix), I have to say: focus on open standards and delivering a faster and more secure browser. Make runtimes like electron out of your engine. DO shit that matters. Forget pocket, AI, and all that other junk. That is not your mission!

teekert 1y ago
The Mission is to make enough money to keep existing.
- acka 1y ago
  GNU Emacs doesn't make money, yet it exists. And yes, it contains a web browser. You can launch it using `M-x eww RET`.
  - chaboud 1y ago
    I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Emacs is a spreadsheet, photo editor, toaster oven, or hair stylist. For the right people, it’s a desert-island app.
    - kirito1337 1y ago
      So Do I. EMACS is multi
  - randmeerkat 1y ago
    GNU Emacs actually self funds from the essence of the universe. You can launch that feature with the command `C-x b r r r`
- squidbeak 1y ago
  If it pisses off the people who use it, its existence will be irrelevant.
  - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
    "Nooooo, you need to use FF no matter how much it pisses you off, since we can't let Google be a monopoly (even though it already is and it's the government's job to crack down monopolies)"
    - franga2000 1y ago
      You put that in italics and quotes, presumably to mock the people saying this but...yes, you should! Google does much worse things and is effectively a monopolist, so not using Firefox necessarily means using Google, which only entrenches their monopoly further. Bitch at Mozilla, sure, but don't stop using it.
      - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
        >...yes, you should! Why? They're actively hostile to me as a user and nor catering to my needs and desires. >Google does much worse things and is effectively a monopolist Monopolies are the government's job to tackle so talk to your representative about Google, but leave suers alone to use what they like. When cars polluted we had the government force them to lower emission, not shamed users for buying cars. >Bitch at Mozilla, sure, but don't stop using it. How is bitching more effective tool than not using a product I dislike? Not using their product is my only way of protest as that shows in their statistics and analytics while they can and do ignore bitching. Mozilla is a major corporation not a 15 year old with cancer sewing Knick-Knacks for donations in his bedroom, so it will only improve if the user base goes elsewhere, otherwise if people keep using it out of spite, they have no reason to ever improve.
        glenstein 1y ago
        I think you're overstating the hostility relative to what an average user might say (biased pro-firefox user myself but I don't take their browser imperfections as active hostility). And yeah, despite your protestations to the contrary, not wanting one company to have a browser monopoly really is a legitimate reason to support alternatives. In fact it's one of the best reasons. That's the problem with ridicule detached from reasons, you're going to look down like Wile E. Coyote and see there's no ground under you. I'd love for real conversation about, say, keeping Servo, Web Assembly, the fallacy of "privacy preserving ads", how it would be nice to have a Firefox OS now with Android forcing "verified developers", about working with EFF to keep open standards and privacy at the center of the web. There's a rich conversation to be had about the role of Mozilla in the future of the internet, but incredulity and vague generalizations should be left back in the writer's room at Warner Bros.
- pluto_modadic 1y ago
  Firefox shouldn't try to "be chrome", people who want chrome just use that. Firefox should be /not chrome/.
deleted 1y ago
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dathinab 1y ago
> focus on open standards through many standards today are unilaterally pushed by Google, and standardized by a committed mostly influenced by Google and often only implemented by Google until there is enough pressure for Safari to maybe implement it way later.... and while in the past the standards where mostly pushing for a open, compatible, powerful web priorities seem to have shifted to focus more on pushing Google (Ad,App Focused) then Chrome interests and it's not uncommon that standards aren't made in a generic simple easy to implement for anyone way but in a "that works well with how Chrome currently works internal way" and if your browser works different bad luck. to make that even worse in the cases where Chrome/FF/Safari worked together there had been enough cases where Chrome had last minute forced changes to standards, or simple implemented them differently. I.e. the whole CORS having issues in FF isn't caused by FF not complying with standards but by Chrom last minute adding an exception to the standard as they implemented it slightly different and websites testing against chrome not against web standards. which is the other problem, most websites implement "whatever works with Chrome" not web standards so the whole open standards things is currently kinda not working, not for FF and neither for Safari (which to be fair is the new IE in the aspect of surprisingly lacking features everyone else has or having diverging buggy impl. Like pretty much every web dev team I have worked with had to do extra testing for Safari and frequently "doesn't work in Safari" tickets where FF mostly "just worked" as long as you didn't try to use the lasted grates chrome pushed web features.) > Forget pocket, AI, and all that other junk. That is not your mission! for pocket and a bunch of other projects they did shut them down, pocket is gone as you might not have noticed but the mission is a browser which provides a good usage experience, and if there are features people expect from "alternative not Chrome" browsers you have to compete. If we look at what "AI" FF has this is mostly what you are seeing and many of the things aren't any of the "bad" things people associate with AI: - site translation, chrome had that a long time and people start expecting it to exist - automatic alt text generation, a very based UX/accessibility feature - some "AI" auto grouping for tab groups, unneeded but you can do it with 2015th level of "AI" (i.e. pre LLM) and it shouldn't have bound much additional dev resources. Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if it was mainly surprised to bootstrap the local AI internals needed for useful features like local AI based site translation. - (experimental) link preview with AI summaries, that looks pretty goated if it works as advertised tbh. and might bring new people to FF. - integration with an AI search engine, but, it's basically just another search engine choice so no issue here - allow integration of 3rd party chat bots. No technical people (which can afford it) have started using chat bots _en mass_ (for daily life stuff like grocery lists etc.) Sure a lot of people on HN love to pretend that AI is only used by enthusiasts but that (sadly) just isn't true. ChatBot integration is becoming quite a must have for browsers, no matter how much I don't like it. So all in all maybe except the tab group suggestions feature are all reasonable choices which make people use/stay with Firefox. Some being outright basic features commonly expected (site translate). Lastly outside of telling you it exists when its added FF doesn't seem to try to push it onto people. And if you think that it's not okay if a software tells you about a new features less then once a month in average then IMHO that is a you problem.

teekert 1y ago

The Mission is to make enough money to keep existing.

acka 1y ago
GNU Emacs doesn't make money, yet it exists. And yes, it contains a web browser. You can launch it using `M-x eww RET`.
- chaboud 1y ago
  I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Emacs is a spreadsheet, photo editor, toaster oven, or hair stylist. For the right people, it’s a desert-island app.
  - kirito1337 1y ago
    So Do I. EMACS is multi
- randmeerkat 1y ago
  GNU Emacs actually self funds from the essence of the universe. You can launch that feature with the command `C-x b r r r`
squidbeak 1y ago
If it pisses off the people who use it, its existence will be irrelevant.
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago
  "Nooooo, you need to use FF no matter how much it pisses you off, since we can't let Google be a monopoly (even though it already is and it's the government's job to crack down monopolies)"
  - franga2000 1y ago
    You put that in italics and quotes, presumably to mock the people saying this but...yes, you should! Google does much worse things and is effectively a monopolist, so not using Firefox necessarily means using Google, which only entrenches their monopoly further. Bitch at Mozilla, sure, but don't stop using it.
    - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
      >...yes, you should! Why? They're actively hostile to me as a user and nor catering to my needs and desires. >Google does much worse things and is effectively a monopolist Monopolies are the government's job to tackle so talk to your representative about Google, but leave suers alone to use what they like. When cars polluted we had the government force them to lower emission, not shamed users for buying cars. >Bitch at Mozilla, sure, but don't stop using it. How is bitching more effective tool than not using a product I dislike? Not using their product is my only way of protest as that shows in their statistics and analytics while they can and do ignore bitching. Mozilla is a major corporation not a 15 year old with cancer sewing Knick-Knacks for donations in his bedroom, so it will only improve if the user base goes elsewhere, otherwise if people keep using it out of spite, they have no reason to ever improve.
      - glenstein 1y ago
        I think you're overstating the hostility relative to what an average user might say (biased pro-firefox user myself but I don't take their browser imperfections as active hostility). And yeah, despite your protestations to the contrary, not wanting one company to have a browser monopoly really is a legitimate reason to support alternatives. In fact it's one of the best reasons. That's the problem with ridicule detached from reasons, you're going to look down like Wile E. Coyote and see there's no ground under you. I'd love for real conversation about, say, keeping Servo, Web Assembly, the fallacy of "privacy preserving ads", how it would be nice to have a Firefox OS now with Android forcing "verified developers", about working with EFF to keep open standards and privacy at the center of the web. There's a rich conversation to be had about the role of Mozilla in the future of the internet, but incredulity and vague generalizations should be left back in the writer's room at Warner Bros.
pluto_modadic 1y ago
Firefox shouldn't try to "be chrome", people who want chrome just use that. Firefox should be /not chrome/.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

dathinab 1y ago

> focus on open standards through many standards today are unilaterally pushed by Google, and standardized by a committed mostly influenced by Google and often only implemented by Google until there is enough pressure for Safari to maybe implement it way later.... and while in the past the standards where mostly pushing for a open, compatible, powerful web priorities seem to have shifted to focus more on pushing Google (Ad,App Focused) then Chrome interests and it's not uncommon that standards aren't made in a generic simple easy to implement for anyone way but in a "that works well with how Chrome currently works internal way" and if your browser works different bad luck. to make that even worse in the cases where Chrome/FF/Safari worked together there had been enough cases where Chrome had last minute forced changes to standards, or simple implemented them differently. I.e. the whole CORS having issues in FF isn't caused by FF not complying with standards but by Chrom last minute adding an exception to the standard as they implemented it slightly different and websites testing against chrome not against web standards. which is the other problem, most websites implement "whatever works with Chrome" not web standards so the whole open standards things is currently kinda not working, not for FF and neither for Safari (which to be fair is the new IE in the aspect of surprisingly lacking features everyone else has or having diverging buggy impl. Like pretty much every web dev team I have worked with had to do extra testing for Safari and frequently "doesn't work in Safari" tickets where FF mostly "just worked" as long as you didn't try to use the lasted grates chrome pushed web features.) > Forget pocket, AI, and all that other junk. That is not your mission! for pocket and a bunch of other projects they did shut them down, pocket is gone as you might not have noticed but the mission is a browser which provides a good usage experience, and if there are features people expect from "alternative not Chrome" browsers you have to compete. If we look at what "AI" FF has this is mostly what you are seeing and many of the things aren't any of the "bad" things people associate with AI: - site translation, chrome had that a long time and people start expecting it to exist - automatic alt text generation, a very based UX/accessibility feature - some "AI" auto grouping for tab groups, unneeded but you can do it with 2015th level of "AI" (i.e. pre LLM) and it shouldn't have bound much additional dev resources. Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if it was mainly surprised to bootstrap the local AI internals needed for useful features like local AI based site translation. - (experimental) link preview with AI summaries, that looks pretty goated if it works as advertised tbh. and might bring new people to FF. - integration with an AI search engine, but, it's basically just another search engine choice so no issue here - allow integration of 3rd party chat bots. No technical people (which can afford it) have started using chat bots _en mass_ (for daily life stuff like grocery lists etc.) Sure a lot of people on HN love to pretend that AI is only used by enthusiasts but that (sadly) just isn't true. ChatBot integration is becoming quite a must have for browsers, no matter how much I don't like it. So all in all maybe except the tab group suggestions feature are all reasonable choices which make people use/stay with Firefox. Some being outright basic features commonly expected (site translate). Lastly outside of telling you it exists when its added FF doesn't seem to try to push it onto people. And if you think that it's not okay if a software tells you about a new features less then once a month in average then IMHO that is a you problem.