4 ms·

This is a very pessimistic post about mozilla, and a lot of it is warrented -- but also it's trivial to disable the AI stuff. dead simple. so until that day com

This is a very pessimistic post about mozilla, and a lot of it is warrented -- but also it's trivial to disable the AI stuff. dead simple. so until that day comes, I'll still be supporting mozilla (for now, using firefox relay). It looks like till then google will be propping up mozilla to avoid looking like a browser monopoly, and i'm not sure about a future where the community maintains the remains of the firefox source.

nicce 11mo ago
It is not about disabling AI; rather all the made effort for AI is away from something else.
sir_pepe 11mo ago
It does not count as "easy" if the features don't stay disabled.
- undeveloper 11mo ago
  I have had no issues with this, but n=1.
- zzo38computer 11mo ago
  Maybe it is possible to make it (and other functions) to stay disabled by the enterprise policies file.
m000 11mo ago
The problem with AI integrations in Firefox is not in whether they could be disabled or not. Given that Mozilla Foundation isn't swimming in cash, "investing" in AI (a well known money sink) makes very little sense and will definitely undermine the development of their core product (the freaking browser). Also, the timing of their Nov. 13 announcement is pretty bad. There is already chatter that AI may be a bubble bigger than the dotcom bubble. For a company that doesn't have deep pockets, it would be prudent to take the back seat on this.
- tempest_ 11mo ago
  I mean maybe it needs to be said again but > Given that Mozilla Foundation isn't swimming in cash, "investing" in AI (a well known money sink) makes very little sense and will definitely undermine the development of their core product (the freaking browser). The browser doesn't make any money (the Google search bar money would not be replaced by another entity if they stopped). That is why Microsoft abandoned theirs and why Safari is turning in to IE. Every one of these threads lambasting Mozilla for the "side projects" doesnt seem to have an answer for how does mozilla make money. Often it will be people complaining they can't "donate directly to browser development" not realizing that it will be peanuts compared to the google money. Most people in the market wont pay for a web browser.
  - hamandcheese 11mo ago
    It would be one thing if the side projects made money. But they don't. If they aren't making money either way, I'd prefer they focused on the core product. Or charge for an actually useful feature like Firefox sync which is currently free.
    - deleted 11mo ago
      [deleted]
    - PunchyHamster 11mo ago
      I'm not paying company monthly fee to sync 50KB's worth of data and I think you find not many other people would
      - hamandcheese 11mo ago
        You can be the customer, or you can be the product. Seems like you choose to be the product.
    - pseudalopex 11mo ago
      Mozilla's 2023 subscription and advertising revenue was $65 million. Does any browser with measurable market share not provide Firefox Sync's features without payment?
kev009 11mo ago
It's pretty clear opportunists displaced the software ideologues at Mozilla a long time ago, but I still find the products to be more palatable than alternatives. It would take a long time to burn off all relevance of Firefox and Thunderbird even without adequate maintenance.
pdpi 11mo ago
It’s also trivially easy to disable ads in the Windows start menu, but the fact that they’re even there is shocking. I use Firefox because I want to do at least something to keep the web browser market from becoming a monoculture again, but they’re making it increasingly hard to justify.
- pjmlp 11mo ago
  Sadly Firefox has been out of our browser matrix for several years now, it is only taken into consideration by FE teams when the customers explicitly ask for it being supported. I also use because I care, but at 3% hardly any business does any longer.
  - wredcoll 11mo ago
    I had a ceo type person ask me just last week if we were testing on firefox and I kinda did a double take.
    - larrymcp 11mo ago
      I think I understand where he's at. If your web site has compatibility issues with smaller browsers like Firefox at 3%, Opera at 2% etc. then you could be losing out on 5% of your sales. If you were to approach any CEO and ask if they'd be interested in an initiative to increase sales by 5%, they would most likely express an interest.
      - PunchyHamster 11mo ago
        there is good chance whoever site didn't worked for will just switch to chrome for that site. I did that few times. We have "any browser above 5% market share" in deals with our clients. So FF testing is not even required
      - wredcoll 11mo ago
        I mean, I don't object in principle, I in general consider this to be "doing a good job" that we all strive for, but in this particular case it was a "line of business" app with like 500 users so I genuinely hadn't even considered it. We'll see if it comes up later!
culi 11mo ago
> It looks like till then google will be propping up mozilla to avoid looking like a browser monopoly This is less and less the case each year. Historically, Google's accounted for over 95% of Mozilla's revenue. But through the recent launches of a bunch of products it's gradually knocked that number down to under 70% and seems to continue decreasing rapidly. I often see two demands made of Mozilla: (1) focus on Firefox; (2) become financially independent from Google. IMO these two goals are going to be in conflict with each other. They started their own VPN, launched MDN Plus, etc in an effort to improve their financial independence. The AI gimmicks feel like they're in the same thread. I don't like it and don't ever wanna use it but I can't fault Mozilla for exploring that option. Based on independent audits they are accomplishing (2) and based on their amazing performance in interop-25, interop-24, etc they are also accomplishing (1) as best they could.
- tyre 11mo ago
  I like the author’s suggestion of an enterprise build. At every company I’ve worked at, we told internal users to use Chrome exclusively. We could have chosen Firefox (most devs seemed to prefer it), but as the market share numbers bear out, most people are familiar with Chrome; most are not with Firefox. If Firefox had specific features that made it easier for enterprises, or even internal teams at startups, then companies would happily pay $10/user/mo for something as critical as a browser. There isn’t any such reason afaik. Edit: Some examples off the top of my head include - VPNs - user and permission management (identity) - ad- and tracker-blocking - internal auto-updating and easily managed/deployed extensions
  - hedora 11mo ago
    I can imagine manifest v2 support being a key differentiator for enterprises.
- pseudalopex 11mo ago
  > I often see two demands made of Mozilla: (1) focus on Firefox; (2) become financially independent from Google. IMO these two goals are going to be in conflict with each other. Yes. > Historically, Google's accounted for over 95% of Mozilla's revenue. But through the recent launches of a bunch of products it's gradually knocked that number down to under 70% and seems to continue decreasing rapidly. Someone who read this might infer other products were 30% of Mozilla's revenue. But they were 10% in 2023. And this was lower than 2022. Royalties were 76%. Google could be under 70%. But interest, dividends, and investment gains contributed more than products.[1] Did you see more recent information? > They started their own VPN The servers were Mullvad's. [1] https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2024/mozilla-fdn-2023-fs-final-short-1209.pdf https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2024/mozilla-fdn-202...
dreamcompiler 11mo ago
> It looks like till then google will be propping up mozilla to avoid looking like a browser monopoly The US government (via the courts) has sent a very clear message to Google that they can be as monopolistic as they want without consequences. I cannot imagine Google will continue supporting Mozilla for much longer.
_zagj 11mo ago
> but also it's trivial to disable the AI stuff That's the problem: the number of things you have to disable to stop Firefox--a browser that sold itself on protecting user's privacy--from spying on you, or facilitating the spying of third parties, keeps growing with successive versions, to the point that you now need a running checklist of what to about:config (thanks to the "simplified" Privacy & Security window) and extensions to add. I still use it only because Chrome is worse, and even with Chromium, certain extensions either aren't available or are a bitch to use. And what's increasingly annoying is that many web sites (for example, banking and utilities) don't even bother properly testing for Firefox support, given how obscure a browser it has become. Your traffic is also much more likely to be flagged as "suspicious" as a FF user, so expect to spend much more time playing "spot the traffic light/bicycle/bus/stairs" games.

nicce 11mo ago

It is not about disabling AI; rather all the made effort for AI is away from something else.

sir_pepe 11mo ago

It does not count as "easy" if the features don't stay disabled.

undeveloper 11mo ago
I have had no issues with this, but n=1.
zzo38computer 11mo ago
Maybe it is possible to make it (and other functions) to stay disabled by the enterprise policies file.

m000 11mo ago

The problem with AI integrations in Firefox is not in whether they could be disabled or not. Given that Mozilla Foundation isn't swimming in cash, "investing" in AI (a well known money sink) makes very little sense and will definitely undermine the development of their core product (the freaking browser). Also, the timing of their Nov. 13 announcement is pretty bad. There is already chatter that AI may be a bubble bigger than the dotcom bubble. For a company that doesn't have deep pockets, it would be prudent to take the back seat on this.

tempest_ 11mo ago
I mean maybe it needs to be said again but > Given that Mozilla Foundation isn't swimming in cash, "investing" in AI (a well known money sink) makes very little sense and will definitely undermine the development of their core product (the freaking browser). The browser doesn't make any money (the Google search bar money would not be replaced by another entity if they stopped). That is why Microsoft abandoned theirs and why Safari is turning in to IE. Every one of these threads lambasting Mozilla for the "side projects" doesnt seem to have an answer for how does mozilla make money. Often it will be people complaining they can't "donate directly to browser development" not realizing that it will be peanuts compared to the google money. Most people in the market wont pay for a web browser.
- hamandcheese 11mo ago
  It would be one thing if the side projects made money. But they don't. If they aren't making money either way, I'd prefer they focused on the core product. Or charge for an actually useful feature like Firefox sync which is currently free.
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
  - PunchyHamster 11mo ago
    I'm not paying company monthly fee to sync 50KB's worth of data and I think you find not many other people would
    - hamandcheese 11mo ago
      You can be the customer, or you can be the product. Seems like you choose to be the product.
  - pseudalopex 11mo ago
    Mozilla's 2023 subscription and advertising revenue was $65 million. Does any browser with measurable market share not provide Firefox Sync's features without payment?

kev009 11mo ago

It's pretty clear opportunists displaced the software ideologues at Mozilla a long time ago, but I still find the products to be more palatable than alternatives. It would take a long time to burn off all relevance of Firefox and Thunderbird even without adequate maintenance.

pdpi 11mo ago

It’s also trivially easy to disable ads in the Windows start menu, but the fact that they’re even there is shocking. I use Firefox because I want to do at least something to keep the web browser market from becoming a monoculture again, but they’re making it increasingly hard to justify.

pjmlp 11mo ago
Sadly Firefox has been out of our browser matrix for several years now, it is only taken into consideration by FE teams when the customers explicitly ask for it being supported. I also use because I care, but at 3% hardly any business does any longer.
- wredcoll 11mo ago
  I had a ceo type person ask me just last week if we were testing on firefox and I kinda did a double take.
  - larrymcp 11mo ago
    I think I understand where he's at. If your web site has compatibility issues with smaller browsers like Firefox at 3%, Opera at 2% etc. then you could be losing out on 5% of your sales. If you were to approach any CEO and ask if they'd be interested in an initiative to increase sales by 5%, they would most likely express an interest.
    - PunchyHamster 11mo ago
      there is good chance whoever site didn't worked for will just switch to chrome for that site. I did that few times. We have "any browser above 5% market share" in deals with our clients. So FF testing is not even required
    - wredcoll 11mo ago
      I mean, I don't object in principle, I in general consider this to be "doing a good job" that we all strive for, but in this particular case it was a "line of business" app with like 500 users so I genuinely hadn't even considered it. We'll see if it comes up later!

culi 11mo ago

> It looks like till then google will be propping up mozilla to avoid looking like a browser monopoly This is less and less the case each year. Historically, Google's accounted for over 95% of Mozilla's revenue. But through the recent launches of a bunch of products it's gradually knocked that number down to under 70% and seems to continue decreasing rapidly. I often see two demands made of Mozilla: (1) focus on Firefox; (2) become financially independent from Google. IMO these two goals are going to be in conflict with each other. They started their own VPN, launched MDN Plus, etc in an effort to improve their financial independence. The AI gimmicks feel like they're in the same thread. I don't like it and don't ever wanna use it but I can't fault Mozilla for exploring that option. Based on independent audits they are accomplishing (2) and based on their amazing performance in interop-25, interop-24, etc they are also accomplishing (1) as best they could.

tyre 11mo ago
I like the author’s suggestion of an enterprise build. At every company I’ve worked at, we told internal users to use Chrome exclusively. We could have chosen Firefox (most devs seemed to prefer it), but as the market share numbers bear out, most people are familiar with Chrome; most are not with Firefox. If Firefox had specific features that made it easier for enterprises, or even internal teams at startups, then companies would happily pay $10/user/mo for something as critical as a browser. There isn’t any such reason afaik. Edit: Some examples off the top of my head include - VPNs - user and permission management (identity) - ad- and tracker-blocking - internal auto-updating and easily managed/deployed extensions
- hedora 11mo ago
  I can imagine manifest v2 support being a key differentiator for enterprises.
pseudalopex 11mo ago
> I often see two demands made of Mozilla: (1) focus on Firefox; (2) become financially independent from Google. IMO these two goals are going to be in conflict with each other. Yes. > Historically, Google's accounted for over 95% of Mozilla's revenue. But through the recent launches of a bunch of products it's gradually knocked that number down to under 70% and seems to continue decreasing rapidly. Someone who read this might infer other products were 30% of Mozilla's revenue. But they were 10% in 2023. And this was lower than 2022. Royalties were 76%. Google could be under 70%. But interest, dividends, and investment gains contributed more than products.[1] Did you see more recent information? > They started their own VPN The servers were Mullvad's. [1] https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2024/mozilla-fdn-2023-fs-final-short-1209.pdf https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2024/mozilla-fdn-202...

dreamcompiler 11mo ago

> It looks like till then google will be propping up mozilla to avoid looking like a browser monopoly The US government (via the courts) has sent a very clear message to Google that they can be as monopolistic as they want without consequences. I cannot imagine Google will continue supporting Mozilla for much longer.

_zagj 11mo ago

> but also it's trivial to disable the AI stuff That's the problem: the number of things you have to disable to stop Firefox--a browser that sold itself on protecting user's privacy--from spying on you, or facilitating the spying of third parties, keeps growing with successive versions, to the point that you now need a running checklist of what to about:config (thanks to the "simplified" Privacy & Security window) and extensions to add. I still use it only because Chrome is worse, and even with Chromium, certain extensions either aren't available or are a bitch to use. And what's increasingly annoying is that many web sites (for example, banking and utilities) don't even bother properly testing for Firefox support, given how obscure a browser it has become. Your traffic is also much more likely to be flagged as "suspicious" as a FF user, so expect to spend much more time playing "spot the traffic light/bicycle/bus/stairs" games.