True, but the brand of Firefox has definitely died off. I remember the old days when even tech illiterate people knew about Firefox and wanted it installed on their computer.
Obviously this is on the desktop. If you want a presence on the desktop, you have to own the OS like Windows, macOS and Chrome, unless regulators force a choice.
You can change browsers, just not browser engines. This might bother me if any other browser engines seemed to give a damn about battery life, but since they don't, it's justifiable for the reason of preventing people from "mysteriously" having terrible battery life because ads on Google properties convinced them to install Chrome, at least.
The rest all demonstrably eat battery like it's free on every other platform? IDK, maybe Edge doesn't, but FF and Chrome sure do.
[EDIT] Let me put it this way: I see no reason to expect the FF or Chrome engines to perform better on iOS than they do on Android, especially since that's the closest to a "home" platform that Chrome has (ChromeOS aside).
iOS does not allow you to use any engine other than WebKit (Safari). Firefox, Chrome, Brave etc, whatever browser you use on iOS is a wrapper around Safari's engine.
Anyone else who worries about Firefox's market share? At which point does it become too difficult for Mozilla to fund the research and development of Firefox?
The only thing keeping the lights on at Mozilla right now is their default search engine deal with Google. Which is quite ironic considering their constant anti-Google rhetoric - that Google is the one actually funding them.
If Google were to decide they didn't need them anymore though or that deal due to their small market share, Mozilla is toast.
Principled? Maybe, but at the same time, consider that if you anger Google, that's literally 90% of your funding gone overnight and the platform by which you publish your principles won't exist anymore because it went bankrupt. It doesn't make sense to promote principles that bite the hand that feeds you, if that hand is the difference between you even existing or not.
In which case, if you make your "principled" stance and bite Google's hand enough that Google drops the funding... great, you made headlines for a day, but it didn't really accomplish anything and have made the situation worse for everyone by making WebKit the only rendering engine left standing. Great job for principles.
Your logic is not lost on the people at Firefox, I'm sure. The fact that they are willing to risk pissing off Google when it contradicts Mozilla's stance about the open web is precisely why it is principled.
Imagine working for a boss and you find out that he is cheating customers for millions of dollars. Say you objected to your boss, or reported him/her to the police. Would that be ironic because you might lose your job?
@tasty_freeze But in that situation, I'm just one guy who lost a job. The stakes are not like that for this. We have two browser engines left standing, WebKit and Quantum, and the organization building Quantum has been angering their sole source of income. If they fail, they make headlines for a day, and then the web is a WebKit monoculture.
In this case, I get it that they have Principles. It's just that those Principles will kill them and what they hope to accomplish by those Principles in the first place. In this situation, I would still have principles, but I wouldn't be so vocal about it until I could stand on my own two feet and withstand the loss of funding.
The only thing keeping the lights on at Mozilla
right now is their default search engine deal
with Google.
I'm perhaps splitting hairs and I apologize accordingly, but you're saying "right now" as if it was a new situation. While decidedly non-ideal, their default search engine deals are the only things that have ever kept the lights on there, right?
That's a smart and rational decision of google to support a competing browser so that they don't have a monopoly (that may be natural) and don't get suit for abusing this monopoly.
I wonder if it would be worth for Google to finance Mozilla regardless of its user base. Just to keep it around as a competitor to Chrome to avoid monopoly issues with regulators.
Google funds Mozilla because of this (keeping them around as puppet competition) and also because of their market share.
However, with browsers like Brave, Edge, and Vivaldi rising and Firefox's market share falling, Google doesn't need Firefox as its puppet much longer to avoid antitrust scrutiny, and Firefox's dwindling share reduces the value of it's userbase and thus the default search engine contract, so I would not be surprised if Google eventually cuts the funding.
Same concern. I switched last year from Chrome back to Firefox after a few too many anti-consumer moves by Google and really hoping Firefox remains a viable alternative.
They're already lagging in a few places and that gap will only grow.
They laid off most of the engineering team at Firefox already. With that move, and the fact that they are losing market share to their Chromium-based competitors (Edge, Vivaldi, etc.), that put's Google's default search engine deal in question, which is like 90% of Mozilla's funding. Should they lose enough market share that Google decides they don't need them anymore, Firefox is dead overnight.
The really frustrating thing is that the gap hasn't only been growing. Firefox was far slower than Chrome for a long time, and over the past couple of years pulled off a pretty impressive catch-up, which is why I and others finally went back. Now Mozilla's laid off most of the team that executed that very catch-up with Servo. Either my anecdotal experience of the speed bringing people back is an overestimation, or Mozilla's management really are as inept as everyone seems to think.
Yes. It's my 1st browser on my Macbook and iPhone. The only time I visited Warsaw was August 2013 and I remember being so excited to see a giant Firefox billboard. A decade before that I was already wrestling with infuriating IE quirks since Microsoft had literally abandoned all development on IE, and then Firefox rescued us from all that long before Chrome was a twinkle in Google's eye.
Even as Firefox continues losing market share, which put's Google's default search engine contract (which is like 90% of Firefox's funding) into jeopardy. Excellent management at Mozilla there.
> They've also had plenty of spare energy to participate in trying to cancel rms in recent weeks.
How hard is writing a letter? I won't restart this argument again, but surely you have to be being deliberately obtuse if you can't at very least appreciate why people want rms gone?
>Anyone else who worries about Firefox's market share? At which point does it becomes difficult for Mozilla to fund the research and development of Firefox?
I am curious about this as well. I feel like Firefox/Mozilla died years ago. At least 5 years ago.
The only things I've really heard out of Mozilla is how they are battling 'systemic racism' and how the internet needs more deplatforming and how Trump is reprehensible and a white supremacist.
Oh wait why is Mozilla going into US politics? Isn't that in direct violation of their 501c3 status?
Why are they so concerned with US politics and not their products?
It's really self-defeating. They think that talking politics makes a difference (even though how many people listen to Mozilla on politics? Anyone?), while neglecting the core product which allows them to have a platform in the first place.
one could reasonably fairly argue that Microsoft and Google are also involved in US politics and that Mozilla is no different in this regard. (obviously both of those corporations are much, much larger than Mozilla.) but still, I liked Mozilla much better when they were the independent browser company with no views on social justice outside of their own walls.
whenever corporations or previously non-political non-profits start becoming overtly political, I don't want anything to do with them if at all possible. which is increasingly difficult these days as everyone seems 100% willing to pretend like corporations are people and as such can have views on opinions about politics and social justice and such. there is no shortage of outspoken activism on the Internet, attaching your company's (and product's) cart to any sort of political horse is just stupid, and makes me respect said company and product much, much less.
when was the last time someone said to themselves, "man, I just can't bring myself to give a single shit about #BlackLivesMatter (or whatever other current political issue)... oh wait! what's this? my favorite browser/code editor/etc. is posting tweets about it? well, now, that changes everything! sure, all these other major corporations are talking about these things, absolutely inundating my social feeds with it, but... my favorite browser/code editor/etc.? jeez! I guess I'd better pay attention!"
really getting sick of this—entirely independent of what I think about any of these social/political issues. I can form my own opinions based upon my consumption of the vast amounts of political takes that I see every day on the Internet, without the input of your company/product, thank you very much. also, all of these other takes I consume are from people, individuals instead of corporations-pretending-to-be-individuals-for-political-purposes. it's not like you're not trying to increase your market share or bottom line or anything by grifting off of these causes.
man, it sucks though... I was that weird kid who frequently wore a Firefox t-shirt to high school in the mid 00s. I used to be such a fan.
At which point does it becomes difficult for
Mozilla to fund the research and development of Firefox?
Their ability to fund themselves is probably more a function of their user base size, not market share.
I worry about their falling market share in the sense that it:
1. Affects their ability to influence web standards in a positive and pro-user way.
2. Affects the willingness of developers and corporations to ensure that their sites work and work well on Firefox. Already, this is often an afterthought and has been for some time.
The first being the 'top browsers' are just Chrome based anyway, creating a "works in Chrome only" scenario from decades ago. Which further fuels FF's decline.
The second being the case of defaults, by which I mean the default browser that comes with phones and desktops (Chrome and Safari and Edge), which in turn promote the lack of openness of the web by being tied to the OS and again recreating/forcing the same scenarios from decades ago. The only difference this time is that there's nobody keeping these companies in check.
Vertical tabs, tab groupings, and collections are some of the reasons I switched from Opera. I do miss the pinnable Opera side dock for social media, and advanced shortcut customizations.
I switch from Chrome to Edge and I have never come back. I even use Edge in my macOS for data sync. However, I face some heating problems on my Android device when using Edge.
Hope that there will no "trick" from Google with Edge Chromium like Edge Legacy.
Same here. I use Edge on all my PCs and Macs. I had issues with the android version so I use Samsung browser on my phone. I just want to get rid of everything google in my life.
To be honest, the value proposition with Edge is quite compelling for my use cases. #1, I get a Chromium-based browser; #2) I get a browser that is supported by a big player who can stand on their own two feet; and #3) I get rid of all of the Google tracking that Chrome has built-in.
It does work, I have noticed my experience on Google properties (Android devices included) becoming slowly de-personalized over time. This was the desired effect, and it has worked (at least on the surface) as intended. Now, please understand that my web experience is still largely shaped by Google, just not in the same way.
I will admit that on the surface it seems so, and ultimately, you are probably correct. But I view it as the lesser of two evils at this point in time.
Google is tied, quite literally, to nearly every website out there (essentially) through their analytics and ads. Using Chrome causes a perceptible difference in the way ads and even some content is presented to me. I have not noticed the same issue when using Edge. I'm sure it is there, and I'm sure Microsoft can probably go even lower into the OS. But I just don't pervasively feel MS tracking like I do Google's. And frankly, it isn't even close.
There is certainly a marketing power in forcing the users of Windows 10 to interact with your browser. I'm not sure why there isn't more skepticism about the claim that edge is "built into" Windows 10. Not even the superuser stackexchange is willing to engage with the idea of fully removing it from the operating system at this point.
What on earth do you mean why would I want to remove it? It's code that I don't want to run on MY computer. Maybe you need it to download another browser, but I am happily free of that necessity.
Windows is an OS meant for normal users. Every normal user needs a default built-in browser. I'm sure you will do fine with a stripped down linux distro that ships without a window manager, but that's not what Windows is designed for. I don't want my old grandfather to uninstall edge by mistake and have no way to access any website.
And where do you stop? What do you consider essential in an OS? Is the shell essential? Is a calculator essential? Is a terminal essential? How would you feel if Windows let users uninstall keyboard and mouse drivers?
If it was maybe 2.5 million, then they probably would have fired 245 programmers instead of 250, or maybe 247 programmers if they were senior level ($200+k/year once payroll tax and social security taxes are factored in. Hell, maybe 300k if we add benefits like health care or 401k plans)
Even if the CEO were paid $0, we are looking at maybe 10 to 30 jobs at the best for that $3million (100k juniors to 300k seniors).
I feel like you're misleadingly quoting the Wikipedia article.
> In 2018 she received a total of $2,458,350 in compensation from Mozilla, which represents a 400% payrise since 2008.
......
> By 2020 her salary had risen to over $3 million, while in the same year the Mozilla Corporation had to lay off approximately 250 employees due to shrinking revenues. Baker blamed this on the Coronavirus pandemic.[16]
----------
So its a 400% increase between 2008 and 2018, suggesting that her initial pay was an abysmal (for a CEO) pay of only $500k in 2008.
For the period suggested (the period where Mozilla fired 250 employees), her pay only raised from ~$2.5 million to $3 million, which is in line with my expectations.
My expectations for a CEO who presided over the level of performance we've seen from Mozilla in recent years would be that their salary would be reduced to zero. Because they would get fired.
Or could have paid the ceo $1M and kept 10 out of 250 at $200k. Do you think 10 would have stayed for $200k/year.
The point, I think, is that the Mozilla CEO is sucking, as measured by failing product lines and poor resource management resulting in firing 250 people, and got a raise.
I'm not a manager anymore, but I often hear that browser development can happen outside of the Valley, where annual programmer staff costs are less than 400k a year... Three million might buy you 200 competent SWE in Romania or Russia.
Note that this is absolutely bullshit. If you combine Edge and Edge legacy into one product, we see less than a factor of 2.
Edit: additionally note the conspicuous absence of internet explorer from this list which has been likewise EOLed. The total market share held by Chrome Safari and Firefox over this time has remained constant, and they had to get those 4% from somewhere, my guess is IE.
I see your perspective. It is much easier to group things into Microsoft vs Google vs Mozilla browsers. For Microsoft the picture is different, they are releasing new versions on a schedule and getting people to switch to whatever X+1 (Windows, Office, Edge, etc.) is a big deal. After all, if users think your new product is much worse than the old one is a hell of a signal on how well you are doing.
That is absolutely not what is happening here. Microsoft hasn't convinced anyone to switch from legacy edge to chromium edge. They end of lifed legacy edge and internet explorer. It cannot be a measure of preference. You cannot even use admin tools to revert or uninstall.
This is simply not true. Look around on some popular website comments. There are plenty of people singing the praises of the new Microsoft Edge.
Personally I can't wait until it's fully released for Linux so that I can use it. I just want another chromium/webkit based choice from a major provider.
The hidden killer feature of edge is IE compatibility mode. This is what allowed our organization to finally move on from IE to a chromium based browser. Internally we just maintain a list for pages that require IE compatibility mode and no one notices at all. Prior to this IE was a required browser on all corporate machines and it was hell.
If your are going for a Chromium based browser I think that Microsoft Edge is one of the better ones. You can configure it to be somewhat minimal and does not force login you to some service like Chrome. Edge can also switch between profiles, like private and work, within the same browser session.
Go woke, go broke Mozilla. You could have concentrated on Firefox being the most secure and privacy-focused browser, but instead you spent energy on "progressive changes".
You're first mistake was getting rid of Brendan Eich.
Then you started removing useful features in Firefox (see RSS support, etc).
I've moved on from Firefox now, but there's still a part of me that hopes you see the light and change your focus.
82 comments
[ 0.19 ms ] story [ 157 ms ] threadHow do you know? How can you have measured it if Apple are having an ego trip and not letting them try?
[EDIT] Let me put it this way: I see no reason to expect the FF or Chrome engines to perform better on iOS than they do on Android, especially since that's the closest to a "home" platform that Chrome has (ChromeOS aside).
If Google were to decide they didn't need them anymore though or that deal due to their small market share, Mozilla is toast.
In which case, if you make your "principled" stance and bite Google's hand enough that Google drops the funding... great, you made headlines for a day, but it didn't really accomplish anything and have made the situation worse for everyone by making WebKit the only rendering engine left standing. Great job for principles.
Imagine working for a boss and you find out that he is cheating customers for millions of dollars. Say you objected to your boss, or reported him/her to the police. Would that be ironic because you might lose your job?
In this case, I get it that they have Principles. It's just that those Principles will kill them and what they hope to accomplish by those Principles in the first place. In this situation, I would still have principles, but I wouldn't be so vocal about it until I could stand on my own two feet and withstand the loss of funding.
However, with browsers like Brave, Edge, and Vivaldi rising and Firefox's market share falling, Google doesn't need Firefox as its puppet much longer to avoid antitrust scrutiny, and Firefox's dwindling share reduces the value of it's userbase and thus the default search engine contract, so I would not be surprised if Google eventually cuts the funding.
They're already lagging in a few places and that gap will only grow.
https://calpaterson.com/mozilla.html
They've also had plenty of spare energy to participate in trying to cancel rms in recent weeks.
1) https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2021/01/08/we-need-more-than-d...
How hard is writing a letter? I won't restart this argument again, but surely you have to be being deliberately obtuse if you can't at very least appreciate why people want rms gone?
I am curious about this as well. I feel like Firefox/Mozilla died years ago. At least 5 years ago.
The only things I've really heard out of Mozilla is how they are battling 'systemic racism' and how the internet needs more deplatforming and how Trump is reprehensible and a white supremacist.
Oh wait why is Mozilla going into US politics? Isn't that in direct violation of their 501c3 status?
Why are they so concerned with US politics and not their products?
It's really self-defeating. They think that talking politics makes a difference (even though how many people listen to Mozilla on politics? Anyone?), while neglecting the core product which allows them to have a platform in the first place.
whenever corporations or previously non-political non-profits start becoming overtly political, I don't want anything to do with them if at all possible. which is increasingly difficult these days as everyone seems 100% willing to pretend like corporations are people and as such can have views on opinions about politics and social justice and such. there is no shortage of outspoken activism on the Internet, attaching your company's (and product's) cart to any sort of political horse is just stupid, and makes me respect said company and product much, much less.
when was the last time someone said to themselves, "man, I just can't bring myself to give a single shit about #BlackLivesMatter (or whatever other current political issue)... oh wait! what's this? my favorite browser/code editor/etc. is posting tweets about it? well, now, that changes everything! sure, all these other major corporations are talking about these things, absolutely inundating my social feeds with it, but... my favorite browser/code editor/etc.? jeez! I guess I'd better pay attention!"
really getting sick of this—entirely independent of what I think about any of these social/political issues. I can form my own opinions based upon my consumption of the vast amounts of political takes that I see every day on the Internet, without the input of your company/product, thank you very much. also, all of these other takes I consume are from people, individuals instead of corporations-pretending-to-be-individuals-for-political-purposes. it's not like you're not trying to increase your market share or bottom line or anything by grifting off of these causes.
man, it sucks though... I was that weird kid who frequently wore a Firefox t-shirt to high school in the mid 00s. I used to be such a fan.
I worry about their falling market share in the sense that it:
1. Affects their ability to influence web standards in a positive and pro-user way.
2. Affects the willingness of developers and corporations to ensure that their sites work and work well on Firefox. Already, this is often an afterthought and has been for some time.
The first being the 'top browsers' are just Chrome based anyway, creating a "works in Chrome only" scenario from decades ago. Which further fuels FF's decline.
The second being the case of defaults, by which I mean the default browser that comes with phones and desktops (Chrome and Safari and Edge), which in turn promote the lack of openness of the web by being tied to the OS and again recreating/forcing the same scenarios from decades ago. The only difference this time is that there's nobody keeping these companies in check.
On Mac I use Safari, with Edge as my Blink test browser. As far as I can tell it does not use Keystone for updates (https://chromeisbad.com)
It does work, I have noticed my experience on Google properties (Android devices included) becoming slowly de-personalized over time. This was the desired effect, and it has worked (at least on the surface) as intended. Now, please understand that my web experience is still largely shaped by Google, just not in the same way.
Google is tied, quite literally, to nearly every website out there (essentially) through their analytics and ads. Using Chrome causes a perceptible difference in the way ads and even some content is presented to me. I have not noticed the same issue when using Edge. I'm sure it is there, and I'm sure Microsoft can probably go even lower into the OS. But I just don't pervasively feel MS tracking like I do Google's. And frankly, it isn't even close.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss?
And where do you stop? What do you consider essential in an OS? Is the shell essential? Is a calculator essential? Is a terminal essential? How would you feel if Windows let users uninstall keyboard and mouse drivers?
If it was maybe 2.5 million, then they probably would have fired 245 programmers instead of 250, or maybe 247 programmers if they were senior level ($200+k/year once payroll tax and social security taxes are factored in. Hell, maybe 300k if we add benefits like health care or 401k plans)
Even if the CEO were paid $0, we are looking at maybe 10 to 30 jobs at the best for that $3million (100k juniors to 300k seniors).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Baker
> In 2018 she received a total of $2,458,350 in compensation from Mozilla, which represents a 400% payrise since 2008.
......
> By 2020 her salary had risen to over $3 million, while in the same year the Mozilla Corporation had to lay off approximately 250 employees due to shrinking revenues. Baker blamed this on the Coronavirus pandemic.[16]
----------
So its a 400% increase between 2008 and 2018, suggesting that her initial pay was an abysmal (for a CEO) pay of only $500k in 2008.
For the period suggested (the period where Mozilla fired 250 employees), her pay only raised from ~$2.5 million to $3 million, which is in line with my expectations.
My expectations for a CEO who presided over the level of performance we've seen from Mozilla in recent years would be that their salary would be reduced to zero. Because they would get fired.
$500k is an incredible amount of money, which should be sufficient for anyone as compensation.
Optics matter, but they arent the only consideration.
The point, I think, is that the Mozilla CEO is sucking, as measured by failing product lines and poor resource management resulting in firing 250 people, and got a raise.
I don’t think it’s about the number of devs but more about how they rewarded failure with a big raise.
Edit: additionally note the conspicuous absence of internet explorer from this list which has been likewise EOLed. The total market share held by Chrome Safari and Firefox over this time has remained constant, and they had to get those 4% from somewhere, my guess is IE.
Personally I can't wait until it's fully released for Linux so that I can use it. I just want another chromium/webkit based choice from a major provider.
They are working a Linux port
https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com/en-us/download
Unfortunate no AppImage, Flatpak or Snap.
You're first mistake was getting rid of Brendan Eich.
Then you started removing useful features in Firefox (see RSS support, etc).
I've moved on from Firefox now, but there's still a part of me that hopes you see the light and change your focus.
How to even account for that?