7 ms·

Ladybird and other browser alternatives cannot come fast enough. Every other week we've got a thread here about some stupid move Mozilla have made, I can't reme

Ladybird and other browser alternatives cannot come fast enough. Every other week we've got a thread here about some stupid move Mozilla have made, I can't remember the last time I heard positive news about Mozilla.

shaky-carrousel 1y ago
It's bad when the only positive thing one can say about them is that they're not Google/Microsoft.
OvbiousError 1y ago
There is a very loud part of HN that strongly dislikes mozilla/firefox. It's disproportionate imo, I don't understand why they're singled out so often.
- Levitz 1y ago
  Speaking for myself, it's really irritating to support a chrome alternative precisely because it's a chrome alternative and have it constantly shoot itself in the foot. It sucks that I can't even attempt to convince someone to use it beyond "it's not Google", and data privacy. The vast majority of users won't ever give a damn about either of those by themselves.
  - pessimizer 1y ago
    A dozen years ago I was installing it on every computer I touched for more than a few minutes. Now I can't recommend it to anyone convincingly, especially because what I have to do to it to keep it as usable as it is for me (and what people see when they see me using it) is nothing that I could expect anyone normal to put up with. I honestly don't even want to use it at all without Debian standing between me and them. But the sad part is all the hassle I go through gets it to about 80% of where it was a dozen years ago. A lot less crashy, though, I'll have to give them that - although everything is less crashy now. But they haven't destroyed the browser. That's in a way even sadder: they decide every day to wake up and be bad, when any day they could decide to be better. Instead they've entered the modern massive predatory nonprofit space. Which usually is a vehicle for insiders to get rich off government grants, but Firefox have chosen the even eviller alternative of running interference for google as a product. Any day they could choose to center the user and the health of the internet again. Every day they choose not to. They're just a valve that keeps paranoid and aware techies from going berserk and seriously competing against chrome, and that keeps antitrust away from google (not that there's anything for big business to to fear with horrible Obama judges like Amit Mehta on the bench.) It's their only serious source of income.
    - skopje 1y ago
      >> because what I have to do to it to keep it as usable I find this confusing. Why is Firefox so much effort? Install it + badger + adnauseum. Done. Why so hard for you? I am not a power user, is that why I don't see the effort?
      - hulitu 1y ago
        > I find this confusing. Why is Firefox so much effort? The new UI sucks (titlebar highjacking, tiny scrollbar), phones to Google by default (safe browsing), a lot of bad defaults. > Install it + badger + adnauseum So you need to install other stuff to make it usable. /s
        skopje 1y ago
        Oh I see what you mean. I think of that as "one time setup" that any software needs, and not a bellyache.
- LunaSea 1y ago
  Gobbling up hundreds of millions of dollars to finance non-core missions and fat director bonuses while you sack the Servo development team might be a cause.
  - jamespo 1y ago
    They generated that money.
    - behringer 1y ago
      Haha thats a good one.
    - pessimizer 1y ago
      The ads from a search engine that bought Doubleclick generated that money.
      - jamespo 1y ago
        Yes, they pass a fraction down to other companies that generate traffic for them, it's a little known model.
        LunaSea 1y ago
        No, they don't. Firefox represents essentially $0 of revenue for Google because their market share is tiny and rate of adblock usage is high. The only reason Google gives money to Mozilla is because they don't want to get sued for monopoly.
        jamespo 1y ago
        Source for this conjecture?
        LunaSea 1y ago
        Firefox market share: 2.17% Firefox ad block use: 17.81% Remaining addressable Firefox market share: 1.78% So essentially peanuts. Especially since most of said users would have used Google anyway.
- rwmj 1y ago
  You have to separate the browser (I'm using it to type this), and the Mozilla corporation / C-suite. The C-suite at Mozilla took the Google firehose of money, spent most of it on their own salaries, followed by idiotic vanity projects, and spent least of all on the browser itself. Never mind building a warchest or anything responsible like that. It's quite rational to dislike what Mozilla managers are doing, while supporting Firefox as a browser and the developers and volunteers who make that happen.
- N_Lens 1y ago
  Maybe because HN folk are more familiar with Mozilla leadership fuckups and "less than ideal" decisions?
- ecshafer 1y ago
  They fired the inventor of Javascript as their CEO. They hired some grifter as their CEO who just keeps giving themselves more money. They keep throwing money at vanity side hustles. They purposefully confuse the Mozilla foundation with the browser, and have increasingly made the foundation redirect their funds to C level salaries and their own personal political passion projects that are not aligned with the Mozilla Firefox project. If there were actually focusing on being the best browser and web privacy, it would be good. But they aren't.
  - rectang 1y ago
    At least part of the Mozilla antagonism on HN comes from highly motivated culture war participants. The Brendan Eich situation was a seminal event, but the underlying reasons for it are why the grudge endures.
    - mvdtnz 1y ago
      Not true.
    - mikkupikku 1y ago
      If Mozilla were consistently making good decisions in the years since then, nobody would be wasting their time with "What if Eich were still in charge?" The only reason anybody still talks about that ousting is because they have other more current grievances with Mozilla. Also, the reason HN has so many people ready to gripe about Firefox is because HN still has a large number of people using Firefox. I never complain about technical or policy decisions from Chrome or Safari because I don't use those browsers! The only reason I have complaints about Mozilla is because I actually use Firefox.
      - ecshafer 1y ago
        I used to give money to Mozilla foundation, even when I didnt have much. Then I learned none of it goes to firefox. I think if Eich was still in charge there would be more focus on Servo, Rust, etc. making a better browser and less on selling AI and channeling money to absurd NGO causes.
- Mr_Bees69 1y ago
  Bc mozilla kills more products than google.
- joseda-hg 1y ago
  This feels like asking why do English people have strong opinions on soccer compared to the US? If there ever was a comunity I'd expect to have strong opinions on Mozilla/Firefox, it's HackerNews
  - neilv 1y ago
    Agreed, though I think that spectator-sports-fandom (if that's what you meant) analogy also has emotional team-identification connotations that don't apply to the majority of HN strong opinions about browsers. (But apply more to, say, Emacs vs. Vim, or tabs vs. spaces.) I think lot of the HN browsers strong opinions more akin to "Why do historians have strong opinions on geopolitical intrigue X" or "Why do doctors have strong opinions on the effectiveness of pharmaceutical Y". Strong opinions, because they are experts who care for important objective reasons.
- estimator7292 1y ago
  I don't think it's disproportionate at all. Nerds very badly want a viable alternative to Chrome and "Chrome with s paintjob". The only alternative is Firefox, but Mozilla has been a pretty shitty company and very bad stewards of an open web. People are mad at Mozilla and Firefox because they're squandering resources on PR and "optics", shoveling in ads and AI crap instead of focusing development efforts on making Firefox actually competitive. People are mad because Mozilla wants us to think they're a good company who will bring back a fair and open web, but their actions say they're just a profit motivated company who is content to put in the minimum viable resources into Firefox without investing in a real competitor to Chrome. Mozilla is just gobbling up google money and is content to let google and chrome continue operating a near monopoly with a browser and internet that are actively bad for and hostile towards users.
  - burnermore 1y ago
    I definitely couldn't have told this better. This sums it all up.
  - rurp 1y ago
    Yes, this exactly. Firefox became the one good avenue for preventing a Google monopoly over the web and Mozilla just completely fumbled the opportunity again and again. This isn't about one or two screwups, it's been a decade or more of the same problems. It sucks. I absolutely don't want Google to have total control over the web and still want Firefox to succeed, but at this point it's clear they have failed. I still use Firefox, but much less than I used to and I stopped recommending it to non-techies a while back when they broke a bunch of functionality on mobile.
    - ryandrake 1y ago
      The only thing Mozilla seems to do is pay their leadership a fortune so that they can kick own-goals over and over.
      - delfinom 1y ago
        Yep, their CEO and other leadership are stereotypical deadweight that holds layoffs annually to increase their salaries and bonuses. Absolute trash.
- School-Cotton 1y ago
  For what it's worth, Firefox is the only browser I've ever used that shows me ads by default in the blank tab page.
- dimal 1y ago
  Betrayal has that effect. They're supposed to be the good side. They abandoned that, and now they're just like any other unsuccessful tech company, desperately clinging to relevance while discarding all the ideals that made some of us support them.
  - Seattle3503 1y ago
    How would you run Firefox? How would you challenge Google and keep the web open?
    - nativeit 1y ago
      I missed the part where the parent commenter applied for the job.
    - dimal 1y ago
      Ok, I'll bite. Off the top of my head: Fire 80% of the C-level employees (make them justify their positions, DOGE-style); investigate and publicize the internal decision-making processes that lead to Mozilla becoming a de facto subsidiary of Google; do a full auditing of the financials and determine how much money the organization really needs to fund browser development (Servo and Ladybird seem to be getting shit done with a lot less money than Mozilla. How is that possible?); do an auditing of all non-browser related initiatives (stuff like MDN is worthwhile, but what other BS is sucking up money and time?); talk to the existing development staff about what's working and what's not and what opportunities exist that an outsider wouldn't know about. I would listen to the developers. Developers are often an underutilized business resource. This would give me a basis to start thinking about revenue. Once it's clear what fat can be cut (and I think the cuts would be huge), then it'd be clearer exactly what revenue model might work. At this point, it's worth going for broke. Mozilla is effectively dead, so there's nothing to lose. If it fails, that's still better than the status quo.
    - johnnyanmac 1y ago
      It's a bit futile with the current structure. But if you really gave me the keys, I'd make sure we cut out Firefox to the properly nonprofit side of Mozilla. And then I'd probably have to fire a lot of people. Anything that isn't laser focused on improving the browser is slashed. No vpn services, no privacy services. It's a browser, with docs to maintain to keep a browser running. There's still too many problems to solve to branch out to more. Monetization definitely isn't easy. It'd be a mix of donations, fundraising, and corporate deals that align with the mission. With a very lean team it should be sustainable, though. The goal is to become an objectively better experience than any other browser, and there's still a lot of jank to work on to achieve that.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- LaGrange 1y ago
  ...because a lot of us like Firefox and hate seeing it slowly die?
- Seattle3503 1y ago
  The tenor of criticism Firefox/Moz gets is akin to the purity testing that happens in some ideological space.
  - detaro 1y ago
    Not wrong, but that comes with promoting yourself on ideology grounds. If you want support because you are the plucky underdog community project that cares about people and are running ad campaigns how you are not evil big tech, then don't be surprised if people hold you to it. Mozilla is in this weird space where it wants to be both the good little guys and a proper Silicon Valley tech company, and those don't necessarily mix well.
surajrmal 1y ago
If ladybird becomes popular, it will see a similar segment of detractors as well. No product can appeal to everyone. This is why you need multiple options for different segments.
- pessimizer 1y ago
  That's the law of averages, and it is not a law. Different things are actually different, not all the same in the end.
- burnermore 1y ago
  Either you dont know or dont care. This didn't happen over night. The community members had a huge voice in the project. They were part of the releases. And I dont remember what they were called. Community managers?? They pushed them off and took all their access and privileges systematically. Which led to an exodus of them back in 2015? '16? Or was it in '13? Am just waiting for Firefox to show ads since they have acquired anonym - behavioral ad company which is essentially surveillance data economy.
- SabrinaJewson 1y ago
  Well, Ladybird appears to be getting a headstart on having detractors.[0] [0]: https://drewdevault.com/2025/09/24/2025-09-24-Cloudflare-and-fascists.html https://drewdevault.com/2025/09/24/2025-09-24-Cloudflare-and...
  - kyleee 1y ago
    That person, while clearly smart, is a bit of a professional detractor. So don’t mind him.
cardanome 1y ago
If Ladybird ever gets successful it will get get the same enshittification as Firefox did. It is so vexing that people refuse to learn from our failures. If you want to keep corporate grifter away to need to build the structure to do so. You need a strong license like GPL-v3 to scare the pricks away. You need a non profit foundation, if possible not based in the US, that actually does the development. If Google or Microsoft or any other monopolist wants to sponsor you, tell them to bugger off. Don't take the devil's money. Allow actual user to directly donate to development.

shaky-carrousel 1y ago

It's bad when the only positive thing one can say about them is that they're not Google/Microsoft.

OvbiousError 1y ago

There is a very loud part of HN that strongly dislikes mozilla/firefox. It's disproportionate imo, I don't understand why they're singled out so often.

Levitz 1y ago
Speaking for myself, it's really irritating to support a chrome alternative precisely because it's a chrome alternative and have it constantly shoot itself in the foot. It sucks that I can't even attempt to convince someone to use it beyond "it's not Google", and data privacy. The vast majority of users won't ever give a damn about either of those by themselves.
- pessimizer 1y ago
  A dozen years ago I was installing it on every computer I touched for more than a few minutes. Now I can't recommend it to anyone convincingly, especially because what I have to do to it to keep it as usable as it is for me (and what people see when they see me using it) is nothing that I could expect anyone normal to put up with. I honestly don't even want to use it at all without Debian standing between me and them. But the sad part is all the hassle I go through gets it to about 80% of where it was a dozen years ago. A lot less crashy, though, I'll have to give them that - although everything is less crashy now. But they haven't destroyed the browser. That's in a way even sadder: they decide every day to wake up and be bad, when any day they could decide to be better. Instead they've entered the modern massive predatory nonprofit space. Which usually is a vehicle for insiders to get rich off government grants, but Firefox have chosen the even eviller alternative of running interference for google as a product. Any day they could choose to center the user and the health of the internet again. Every day they choose not to. They're just a valve that keeps paranoid and aware techies from going berserk and seriously competing against chrome, and that keeps antitrust away from google (not that there's anything for big business to to fear with horrible Obama judges like Amit Mehta on the bench.) It's their only serious source of income.
  - skopje 1y ago
    >> because what I have to do to it to keep it as usable I find this confusing. Why is Firefox so much effort? Install it + badger + adnauseum. Done. Why so hard for you? I am not a power user, is that why I don't see the effort?
    - hulitu 1y ago
      > I find this confusing. Why is Firefox so much effort? The new UI sucks (titlebar highjacking, tiny scrollbar), phones to Google by default (safe browsing), a lot of bad defaults. > Install it + badger + adnauseum So you need to install other stuff to make it usable. /s
      - skopje 1y ago
        Oh I see what you mean. I think of that as "one time setup" that any software needs, and not a bellyache.
LunaSea 1y ago
Gobbling up hundreds of millions of dollars to finance non-core missions and fat director bonuses while you sack the Servo development team might be a cause.
- jamespo 1y ago
  They generated that money.
  - behringer 1y ago
    Haha thats a good one.
  - pessimizer 1y ago
    The ads from a search engine that bought Doubleclick generated that money.
    - jamespo 1y ago
      Yes, they pass a fraction down to other companies that generate traffic for them, it's a little known model.
      - LunaSea 1y ago
        No, they don't. Firefox represents essentially $0 of revenue for Google because their market share is tiny and rate of adblock usage is high. The only reason Google gives money to Mozilla is because they don't want to get sued for monopoly.
        jamespo 1y ago
        Source for this conjecture?
        LunaSea 1y ago
        Firefox market share: 2.17% Firefox ad block use: 17.81% Remaining addressable Firefox market share: 1.78% So essentially peanuts. Especially since most of said users would have used Google anyway.
rwmj 1y ago
You have to separate the browser (I'm using it to type this), and the Mozilla corporation / C-suite. The C-suite at Mozilla took the Google firehose of money, spent most of it on their own salaries, followed by idiotic vanity projects, and spent least of all on the browser itself. Never mind building a warchest or anything responsible like that. It's quite rational to dislike what Mozilla managers are doing, while supporting Firefox as a browser and the developers and volunteers who make that happen.
N_Lens 1y ago
Maybe because HN folk are more familiar with Mozilla leadership fuckups and "less than ideal" decisions?
ecshafer 1y ago
They fired the inventor of Javascript as their CEO. They hired some grifter as their CEO who just keeps giving themselves more money. They keep throwing money at vanity side hustles. They purposefully confuse the Mozilla foundation with the browser, and have increasingly made the foundation redirect their funds to C level salaries and their own personal political passion projects that are not aligned with the Mozilla Firefox project. If there were actually focusing on being the best browser and web privacy, it would be good. But they aren't.
- rectang 1y ago
  At least part of the Mozilla antagonism on HN comes from highly motivated culture war participants. The Brendan Eich situation was a seminal event, but the underlying reasons for it are why the grudge endures.
  - mvdtnz 1y ago
    Not true.
  - mikkupikku 1y ago
    If Mozilla were consistently making good decisions in the years since then, nobody would be wasting their time with "What if Eich were still in charge?" The only reason anybody still talks about that ousting is because they have other more current grievances with Mozilla. Also, the reason HN has so many people ready to gripe about Firefox is because HN still has a large number of people using Firefox. I never complain about technical or policy decisions from Chrome or Safari because I don't use those browsers! The only reason I have complaints about Mozilla is because I actually use Firefox.
    - ecshafer 1y ago
      I used to give money to Mozilla foundation, even when I didnt have much. Then I learned none of it goes to firefox. I think if Eich was still in charge there would be more focus on Servo, Rust, etc. making a better browser and less on selling AI and channeling money to absurd NGO causes.
Mr_Bees69 1y ago
Bc mozilla kills more products than google.
joseda-hg 1y ago
This feels like asking why do English people have strong opinions on soccer compared to the US? If there ever was a comunity I'd expect to have strong opinions on Mozilla/Firefox, it's HackerNews
- neilv 1y ago
  Agreed, though I think that spectator-sports-fandom (if that's what you meant) analogy also has emotional team-identification connotations that don't apply to the majority of HN strong opinions about browsers. (But apply more to, say, Emacs vs. Vim, or tabs vs. spaces.) I think lot of the HN browsers strong opinions more akin to "Why do historians have strong opinions on geopolitical intrigue X" or "Why do doctors have strong opinions on the effectiveness of pharmaceutical Y". Strong opinions, because they are experts who care for important objective reasons.
estimator7292 1y ago
I don't think it's disproportionate at all. Nerds very badly want a viable alternative to Chrome and "Chrome with s paintjob". The only alternative is Firefox, but Mozilla has been a pretty shitty company and very bad stewards of an open web. People are mad at Mozilla and Firefox because they're squandering resources on PR and "optics", shoveling in ads and AI crap instead of focusing development efforts on making Firefox actually competitive. People are mad because Mozilla wants us to think they're a good company who will bring back a fair and open web, but their actions say they're just a profit motivated company who is content to put in the minimum viable resources into Firefox without investing in a real competitor to Chrome. Mozilla is just gobbling up google money and is content to let google and chrome continue operating a near monopoly with a browser and internet that are actively bad for and hostile towards users.
- burnermore 1y ago
  I definitely couldn't have told this better. This sums it all up.
- rurp 1y ago
  Yes, this exactly. Firefox became the one good avenue for preventing a Google monopoly over the web and Mozilla just completely fumbled the opportunity again and again. This isn't about one or two screwups, it's been a decade or more of the same problems. It sucks. I absolutely don't want Google to have total control over the web and still want Firefox to succeed, but at this point it's clear they have failed. I still use Firefox, but much less than I used to and I stopped recommending it to non-techies a while back when they broke a bunch of functionality on mobile.
  - ryandrake 1y ago
    The only thing Mozilla seems to do is pay their leadership a fortune so that they can kick own-goals over and over.
    - delfinom 1y ago
      Yep, their CEO and other leadership are stereotypical deadweight that holds layoffs annually to increase their salaries and bonuses. Absolute trash.
School-Cotton 1y ago
For what it's worth, Firefox is the only browser I've ever used that shows me ads by default in the blank tab page.
dimal 1y ago
Betrayal has that effect. They're supposed to be the good side. They abandoned that, and now they're just like any other unsuccessful tech company, desperately clinging to relevance while discarding all the ideals that made some of us support them.
- Seattle3503 1y ago
  How would you run Firefox? How would you challenge Google and keep the web open?
  - nativeit 1y ago
    I missed the part where the parent commenter applied for the job.
  - dimal 1y ago
    Ok, I'll bite. Off the top of my head: Fire 80% of the C-level employees (make them justify their positions, DOGE-style); investigate and publicize the internal decision-making processes that lead to Mozilla becoming a de facto subsidiary of Google; do a full auditing of the financials and determine how much money the organization really needs to fund browser development (Servo and Ladybird seem to be getting shit done with a lot less money than Mozilla. How is that possible?); do an auditing of all non-browser related initiatives (stuff like MDN is worthwhile, but what other BS is sucking up money and time?); talk to the existing development staff about what's working and what's not and what opportunities exist that an outsider wouldn't know about. I would listen to the developers. Developers are often an underutilized business resource. This would give me a basis to start thinking about revenue. Once it's clear what fat can be cut (and I think the cuts would be huge), then it'd be clearer exactly what revenue model might work. At this point, it's worth going for broke. Mozilla is effectively dead, so there's nothing to lose. If it fails, that's still better than the status quo.
  - johnnyanmac 1y ago
    It's a bit futile with the current structure. But if you really gave me the keys, I'd make sure we cut out Firefox to the properly nonprofit side of Mozilla. And then I'd probably have to fire a lot of people. Anything that isn't laser focused on improving the browser is slashed. No vpn services, no privacy services. It's a browser, with docs to maintain to keep a browser running. There's still too many problems to solve to branch out to more. Monetization definitely isn't easy. It'd be a mix of donations, fundraising, and corporate deals that align with the mission. With a very lean team it should be sustainable, though. The goal is to become an objectively better experience than any other browser, and there's still a lot of jank to work on to achieve that.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
LaGrange 1y ago
...because a lot of us like Firefox and hate seeing it slowly die?
Seattle3503 1y ago
The tenor of criticism Firefox/Moz gets is akin to the purity testing that happens in some ideological space.
- detaro 1y ago
  Not wrong, but that comes with promoting yourself on ideology grounds. If you want support because you are the plucky underdog community project that cares about people and are running ad campaigns how you are not evil big tech, then don't be surprised if people hold you to it. Mozilla is in this weird space where it wants to be both the good little guys and a proper Silicon Valley tech company, and those don't necessarily mix well.

surajrmal 1y ago

If ladybird becomes popular, it will see a similar segment of detractors as well. No product can appeal to everyone. This is why you need multiple options for different segments.

pessimizer 1y ago
That's the law of averages, and it is not a law. Different things are actually different, not all the same in the end.
burnermore 1y ago
Either you dont know or dont care. This didn't happen over night. The community members had a huge voice in the project. They were part of the releases. And I dont remember what they were called. Community managers?? They pushed them off and took all their access and privileges systematically. Which led to an exodus of them back in 2015? '16? Or was it in '13? Am just waiting for Firefox to show ads since they have acquired anonym - behavioral ad company which is essentially surveillance data economy.
SabrinaJewson 1y ago
Well, Ladybird appears to be getting a headstart on having detractors.[0] [0]: https://drewdevault.com/2025/09/24/2025-09-24-Cloudflare-and-fascists.html https://drewdevault.com/2025/09/24/2025-09-24-Cloudflare-and...
- kyleee 1y ago
  That person, while clearly smart, is a bit of a professional detractor. So don’t mind him.

cardanome 1y ago

If Ladybird ever gets successful it will get get the same enshittification as Firefox did. It is so vexing that people refuse to learn from our failures. If you want to keep corporate grifter away to need to build the structure to do so. You need a strong license like GPL-v3 to scare the pricks away. You need a non profit foundation, if possible not based in the US, that actually does the development. If Google or Microsoft or any other monopolist wants to sponsor you, tell them to bugger off. Don't take the devil's money. Allow actual user to directly donate to development.