So long as someone still has the source code for the latest build somewhere on the internet, and that code builds into a working executable, Firefox still lives. It's all of the other crap that dies, the crap that no one asked for.
FF needs to be run like the group handling the Linux kernel or the Python Software Foundation. There's a BDFL or a trusted group handling the general direction of the project, and volunteers who give their time to develop the code. Occasionally there are sponsors who throw a few bucks the way of the volunteers so more concrete efforts can occur.
Really, really wish that Mozilla just shuts down, so that the FOSS community can turn their attention to an actual, intentionally competitive alternative. Would love to see Canonical or similar lead the way here.
I think the point is more that Google has propped up a hapless, ineffectual competitor so that it can point to “competition” when antitrust probes seek to have them spin off their Chrome division or whatever.
I wonder if -should we ever be so lucky as to get a complete account- we'll learn that something vaguely similar happened with the OpenAI/Anthropic situation... not that one is financially dependent on the other, but that the fact that there are two companies doing the same thing instead of one gives the appearance of competition, which tends to ward off antitrust regulators.
Mozilla seems to be going down a lot of rather futile side-paths, if you know what I mean. Nobody asked for this? Just make Firefox a better browser, work on the web standards I guess, do the things people actually need.
But that's the only thing I've liked, and they keep killing projects that were genuinely useful and worth paying for (Pocket, Firefox Send).
I'd use the page summaries too if they didn't rely on some foreign server processing all the text.
That’s even before we factor in their LLM usage. LLMs are data harvesters by nature.
Like a kind of super-Turing test.
Who has to answer for these expenditures?
Please note the Reviews are auto-generated
Mozilla has the dumbest priorities.
Every conversation about free browsers results in Firefox, which is trash. And community efforts are almost singularly focused on supporting this thing that is 90% of the way there, but never actually getting there, while Mozilla is able to sit back and do nothing but still get paid. It's the resource curse applied to tech, with the lazy teammate being the one people are hoping will one day wake up and do the work.
It really is time for a reset.
That's what I wish they would do too. But, realistically, that stuff doesn't actually pay the bills. How many Firefox users actually pay for it? So I'm not surprised that they're thrashing around trying to find some way to make money beyond Google paying them for the search bar.
None, since you can't.
An absolute failure of Mozilla's leadership.
The AI push and all of their little side-projects that no one asked for are pushes to make money that they arguably wouldn't need to make if they stopped with their little side-projects.
I know that there's a bit of for-profit/non-profit mix going on with the corporate structure of Mozilla. Ultimately, if you make free software, just stick with the non-profit side of things. Make browser improvements, update documentation. That's it. That's all that Mozilla needs to do.
This has a been a pattern for Mozilla for a long time. I think part of the reason reason is they are trying to find a way to make money that isn't dependent on a search deal with Google. But most of their attempts end up not being something people actually want and/or what they make isn't actually good enough to draw people. But even when they make something decent, like Lockwise and Send, they seem to lose interest and give it up.
This accusation seriously has to stop. They're constantly pushing performance improvements (most recently they've made their PDF viewer more efficient and found some efficiencies with images), they push millions of lines of new code every year on a rapid release cycle with an extremely rapid release cadence throughout the year in the release notes for every updated version go deep on the weeds for everything from CSS fixes to performance improvements to bug fixes and so on.
I at least understand the accusation that a bunch of their side projects didn't end up contributing to their bottom line and may have hurt user experience, but the velocity and volume of code they're pushing is not debatable. and the vast majority of it is exactly these kinds of improvements in technical fixes that people in the HN comment sections keep claiming aren't happening.
I'm not going to say everyone should read the release notes, but you definitely should if you're comfortable accusing them of not actually working on the code.
Elaborate? it's done nothing but ruin the internet so far. Slop content, search engines are unusable, and now the lowest common denominator simply chatbots a half-baked website and thinks it's good when it isn't.
rvz•1h ago