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I’m not sure he knows the type of person that actually uses Firefox. > Enzor-DeMeo says it is important that AI features in Firefox are “something people can e

I’m not sure he knows the type of person that actually uses Firefox. > Enzor-DeMeo says it is important that AI features in Firefox are “something people can easily turn off”. It seems like it should be opt-in instead of opt-out. At the very least, ask up front, and have a single switch to make it like it’s not there at all.

taurath 11mo ago
If they go in this direction they're going full bore. I love how with tech, now the only future that anyone can imagine is one that nobody but tech executives want.
- al_borland 11mo ago
  We can only hope the market lets their preferences known. Also, that the executives don’t assume it’s a victory because people begrudgingly use the stuff, because there are no other options.
  - asdff 11mo ago
    How? Everyone is doing this crap. There is no alternative.
    - Incipient 11mo ago
      Isn't Brave the go-to for a good techie/privacy browser?
      - asdff 11mo ago
        It is a crypto browser
    - nickthegreek 11mo ago
      there are forks of firefox that are privacy focused. personally, I use zen.
skywal_l 11mo ago
The only fact that there is a "CEO" of Firefox is in itself asinine.
- popalchemist 11mo ago
  Mozilla is a large organization that produces many products.
  - nickf 11mo ago
    ...which is arguably the problem. Firefox. Thunderbird. That should be it. According to their own site, beyond that they have the browser app for mobile devices. A VPN service, an email-forwarding service, and MDN. Hardly 'many products'.
    - al_borland 11mo ago
      One could argue that the only product that really matters is the ability to have a default search engine. I checked out their Wikipedia[0] article and their financials table has a column dedicated to the percent of revenue derived from Google—81-95%, depending on the year. It feels a little like when Microsoft invested in Apple back in the 90s. Microsoft needed Apple so they didn’t look like too much of a monopoly. Google has been funding Mozilla’s whole existence for at least 20 years. At first it may have purely been do dominate search, but at some point I think the incentives shifted to Google needing Firefox so they can claim they aren’t a monopoly in the browser space and competition exists. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation
    - popalchemist 11mo ago
      You've clearly never built a product. One product alone requires a CEO. More than one, much more so. And anyway you're factually wrong. They produce much more than what you listed, many of their undertakings are contributions to open-source, the development of web standards, underlying technologies that browsers (not just Firefox) use to render the web, etc. You're being childish and somewhat absurdly so. Mozilla and Firefox are a large part of the reason the modern web is usable (in the technical sense - usability for the deaf and blind, screen readers, etc)
bruce511 11mo ago
>> I’m not sure he knows the type of person that actually uses Firefox I'm sure he does, but he is trying to get different users. The problem Firefox has is that it has accumulated "problem" users who are only there because they've left everywhere else. In other words, people didn't choose Firefox cause its better, they chose it because it "wasn't x". They were offended by some action of their last browser, and left. This is the worst user demographic to have. They'll only hang around till you do something that offends them. Which will inevitably happen. With 2% market share the goal of the new CEO is not to pander to existing users. It's to convince new users to switch because Firefox is better.
- jval43 11mo ago
  I'm still here. But it hurts to see Mozilla shoot themselves in the foot again and again. They just don't get it, and they won't survive. I was even a Pocket user when they acquired it, immediately stopped using it at that point because it was clear as day how stupid that integration was. It's death by a thousand cuts, all to get some "other users" while alienating all the existing ones. I'm even for all the AI features, but please let me add my own self-hosted LLM. Currently you can only set one via about:config, and as soon as you use any other LLM, the settings are lost. If I wanted everything locked down I could just use Chrome instead.
- 7bit 11mo ago
  I think you're wrong and people choose Firefox because they believe it's better.
  - intothemild 11mo ago
    You're both arguing the same thing. It's not X is the same as it's better than X. Just because someone chooses something because it isn't the other thing isn't saying both suck.
- qbrass 11mo ago
  They didn't accumulate "problem" users, they drove off everyone else. Throwing their fans under the bus to try and get new users has been Mozilla's tactic for the last 15 years. Which is why they're down to 2% market share. Doing it harder isn't going to help them.

taurath 11mo ago

If they go in this direction they're going full bore. I love how with tech, now the only future that anyone can imagine is one that nobody but tech executives want.

al_borland 11mo ago
We can only hope the market lets their preferences known. Also, that the executives don’t assume it’s a victory because people begrudgingly use the stuff, because there are no other options.
- asdff 11mo ago
  How? Everyone is doing this crap. There is no alternative.
  - Incipient 11mo ago
    Isn't Brave the go-to for a good techie/privacy browser?
    - asdff 11mo ago
      It is a crypto browser
  - nickthegreek 11mo ago
    there are forks of firefox that are privacy focused. personally, I use zen.

skywal_l 11mo ago

The only fact that there is a "CEO" of Firefox is in itself asinine.

popalchemist 11mo ago
Mozilla is a large organization that produces many products.
- nickf 11mo ago
  ...which is arguably the problem. Firefox. Thunderbird. That should be it. According to their own site, beyond that they have the browser app for mobile devices. A VPN service, an email-forwarding service, and MDN. Hardly 'many products'.
  - al_borland 11mo ago
    One could argue that the only product that really matters is the ability to have a default search engine. I checked out their Wikipedia[0] article and their financials table has a column dedicated to the percent of revenue derived from Google—81-95%, depending on the year. It feels a little like when Microsoft invested in Apple back in the 90s. Microsoft needed Apple so they didn’t look like too much of a monopoly. Google has been funding Mozilla’s whole existence for at least 20 years. At first it may have purely been do dominate search, but at some point I think the incentives shifted to Google needing Firefox so they can claim they aren’t a monopoly in the browser space and competition exists. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation
  - popalchemist 11mo ago
    You've clearly never built a product. One product alone requires a CEO. More than one, much more so. And anyway you're factually wrong. They produce much more than what you listed, many of their undertakings are contributions to open-source, the development of web standards, underlying technologies that browsers (not just Firefox) use to render the web, etc. You're being childish and somewhat absurdly so. Mozilla and Firefox are a large part of the reason the modern web is usable (in the technical sense - usability for the deaf and blind, screen readers, etc)

bruce511 11mo ago

>> I’m not sure he knows the type of person that actually uses Firefox I'm sure he does, but he is trying to get different users. The problem Firefox has is that it has accumulated "problem" users who are only there because they've left everywhere else. In other words, people didn't choose Firefox cause its better, they chose it because it "wasn't x". They were offended by some action of their last browser, and left. This is the worst user demographic to have. They'll only hang around till you do something that offends them. Which will inevitably happen. With 2% market share the goal of the new CEO is not to pander to existing users. It's to convince new users to switch because Firefox is better.

jval43 11mo ago
I'm still here. But it hurts to see Mozilla shoot themselves in the foot again and again. They just don't get it, and they won't survive. I was even a Pocket user when they acquired it, immediately stopped using it at that point because it was clear as day how stupid that integration was. It's death by a thousand cuts, all to get some "other users" while alienating all the existing ones. I'm even for all the AI features, but please let me add my own self-hosted LLM. Currently you can only set one via about:config, and as soon as you use any other LLM, the settings are lost. If I wanted everything locked down I could just use Chrome instead.
7bit 11mo ago
I think you're wrong and people choose Firefox because they believe it's better.
- intothemild 11mo ago
  You're both arguing the same thing. It's not X is the same as it's better than X. Just because someone chooses something because it isn't the other thing isn't saying both suck.
qbrass 11mo ago
They didn't accumulate "problem" users, they drove off everyone else. Throwing their fans under the bus to try and get new users has been Mozilla's tactic for the last 15 years. Which is why they're down to 2% market share. Doing it harder isn't going to help them.