I will never understand the intense hatred people have for Mozilla and Firefox then go on to tell them how they should run the company. Which usually boils down to stuff they are already doing or fixing things they have no control over.
i feel like there ought to be a meaningfully large market for a "trusted" company where part of the brand identity is being able to form sentences that do not include the token "ai", especially with e.g. microsoft's recent excesses in this direction, but what do i know about the alleged realities of running a tech company in $YEAR
I'm afraid they're delegated to coding nowadays and even open source projects are run like corporations with attached "foundations" parasites where funneling out money on unrelated stuff occurs.
This piece linked is a dry marketing and nothing else, and I don't believe in a single bit this guy is saying or will ever say.
The line about AI being always a choice that user can simply turn it off: I need to go to about:config registry to turn every occurrence of it in Firefox. So there's that.
Yes and he is writing like an MBA/Product Manager (or is it the AI?)
Actually he is most likely a drone. Meaning he is speaking like he believes he is the CEO of a public company talking to the shareholders, so of course he talks about how AI is changing software.
But guess what Mozilla is not a public company, there is no stock to pump and the thing it really miss is its users. Going from 30% to less than 5% market share in 15 years with a good product.
Actually I am pretty sure the users who left just do not want to much AI.
But he is an MBA drone so he is just gonna play the same music as every other MBA drone.
Looking at his LinkedIn profile, he seems to be the MBA type, with little to no technical experience. For the past year he's been the SVP or GM of Firefox, whatever that means. Take that as you will...
Does anyone else feel like the "Trust" angle is the only card they have left to play? Technically, Chrome is faster on JS benchmarks. Edge has better OS integration on Windows and comes by default. Safari wins on battery life on Mac. Firefox's only unique selling point is "We aren't a massive data vampire." If they clutter the browser with AI which inherently requires data processing, often in the cloud, they dilute their only true differentiator.
Fitefox has faster WASM and WebGPU at least.
Kind of doesn't matter since Chrome has bloated the standard so much that many websites only work in chrome
>Firefox's only unique selling point is "We aren't a massive data vampire."
That's a big selling point. Along with "still allows ad-blocking extensions".
Besides being able to turn off all online AI features, and the fact that forks like Librewolf will inevitably strip it out, I am stunned by how HN readers think "Translate this for me immediately and accurately" and related functions are not desirable to the average person.
I find that any performance benefits Chrome and Safari have are more than offset by the performance benefits Firefox gets by being massively better at blocking ads and the huge amount of JS and tracking garbage that comes with them.
Firefox always feels snappier to me, and I think most of that comes from less time downloading a bunch of ad shit I don't want anyway.
Meanwhile, in the real world, a JS engine can be half the speed of the Chrome one and the browser can still be faster, because blocking ads is what gives you the biggest speed up.
All the performance advantages in the world fail to matter if you're still loading ads.
To me, Firefox has way better dev tools than Chrome. I don't even mention Safari here - who can stand their horrible dev tools? Firefox has a fantastic add on marketplace which competes with Chrome's. Firefox without too many addons actually do not drain battery life on MacOS. Firefox has "native" profile management with real separation of cookies. JS benchmarks provide no value to me, since I try to avoid heavy-JS web apps anyway.
I don't know. As a dev and user, Firefox wins on every single aspect for me. I understand that every user is different. But I'm glad it exists.
> Firefox's only unique selling point is "We aren't a massive data vampire."
The fact that they haven't moved away from apparently needing 90%+ of their money to come from Google, after more than a decade of that being an issue, means that claim is a moot point. This "AI first" move was probably heavily influenced by Google behind the scenes too.
> If they clutter the browser with AI which inherently requires data processing, often in the cloud
Where are you getting the “often in the cloud” from? So far Firefox has some local models for certain features. Using a specific cloud based AI is a conscious decision by the user within the sidebar.
It is the angle that is important to ME, a European user. I would happily throw moneydollars at the browser project but the Mozilla suits won't allow me to, for whatever-the-fuck reason.
What product or market mozilla still relevant?
Of all the sites I manage, or companies I worked with in the last 5 years mozilla browsers were less than 1% of the userbase.
Currently they spend millions of dollars (that mostly come from people wanting to support their browser) on huge salaries and projects that have nothing to do with their browser. At the same time they keep on taking steps to alienate those that are donating or using their products.
The bar for success is pretty low - stop wasting all them bucks, and stop alienating your users.
If you could do that, there is plenty of next steps.
I don't trust Mozilla. I don't trust them with my donation money. I don't trust their software any more than other browser vendors.
"Third: Firefox will grow from a browser into a broader ecosystem of trusted software. Firefox will remain our anchor. It will evolve into a modern AI browser and support a portfolio of new and trusted software additions."
Yeah, no. Just make a browser that doesn't suck. Mozilla has been wasting a ton of money, lost almost all of their market share, and have been focusing on making new products nobody wants for a VERY long time and this looks to continue.
Chrome is able to capture the mass consumer market, due to Google’s dark pattern to nag you to install Chrome anytime you’re on a Google property.
Edge target enterprise Fortune 500 user, who is required to use Microsoft/Office 365 at work (and its deep security permission ties to SharePoint).
Safari has Mac/iOS audience via being the default on those platform (and deep platform integration).
Brave (based on Chromium), and LibreWolf (based on Firefox) has even carved out those user who value privacy.
---
What’s Firefox target user?
Long ago, Firefox was the better IE, and it had great plugins for web developers. But that was before Chrome existed and Google capturing the mass market. And the developers needed to follow its users.
So what target user is left for a Firefox?
Note: not trolling. I loved Firefox. I just don’t genuine understand who it’s for anymore.
Firefox users are people who would use LibreWolf, but installed it, tried it, saw it doesn't have dark mode, and figured that Firefox was good enough after all.
It seems as if you ask Mozilla, the answer would be "Not current Firefox users."
I really don't know the answer to this question, and I don't know if Mozilla has defined it internally, which probably leads to a lot of the problems that the browser is facing. Is it the privacy focused individual? They seem to be working very hard against that. Is it the ad-sensitive user? Maybe, but they're not doing a lot to win that crowd over.
It kind of feels like Firefox is not targeted at anyone in particular. But long gone are the days when you can just be an alternative browser.
Maybe the target user is someone who wants to use Firefox, regardless of what that means.
It seems to me Android users who want to block ads are a strong target market. Desktop Chrome has extensions and despite the nerf, it has adblockers that mostly work; Android Chrome doesn't have extensions.
A built in adblocker would probably help Firefox attract those users, but might destroy their Google revenue stream.
Somehow its target user group includes my father, who is 90 years old. As far as I can recall, we got him using Firefox years ago and he became a committed user.
I wish more browsers would target seniors. Accessibility and usability is universally a nightmare.
"Trust" and "AI" are mutually exclusive. Not really impressed with this guy. My guess is the board vetted this guy to be more politically correct than anything else.
The only answer is for them to go back to "plan A" and do their own things. Stop copying Chrome. Stop looking at Safari and Edge. Stop the rapid release nonsense. Go back to the fundamentals of speed, security, and stability on desktops and leave the rest to plugins. Once desktop is back on track, they should begin fixing mobile. When both are great, do nothing else except bugfix and performance fixes. We want this and nothing more.
- focus 100% on Firefox Desktop & Mobile
- just a fast solid minimalist browser (no AI, no BS)
- other features should be addons
- privacy centric
- builtin, first-class, adblocker
- run on donations
- partner with Kagi
- layoff 80% of the non-tech employees
I worked for them for many years, I guarantee you that Mozilla will be fine without all the non-sense people, just put engineers in charge.
I don't know that a partnership with Kagi is the move, as great as the two work for me. The last thing you want users to see when starting up a new browser is a paywall. It would be rad to see Firefox treat Kagi as a first-class citizen, but I think a true partnership would be detrimental to both.
Frankly, looking at the shape of Firefox I don't think that Mozilla cares for it at all - they just hold the brand because it's really well-established.
What would be the best solution today is to convince all these Firefox spinoff projects into combining forces and fully forking Firefox away from Mozilla, and don't look back. But seeing what happens around, how various projects - even the smallest ones are being lead, the moods in communities, I highly doubt that's actually possible.
DDG uses Bing instead, that's not really any better. Ideally a Browser should not partner with any websites. It's always been a deal with the devil even when Google was not as evil.
> Mozilla will be fine without all the non-sense people, just put engineers in charge.
That's always said by the engineers and never seems more than the obvious egocentric bias: What I do is important, everyone and everythying else is pointless.
> I guarantee you that Mozilla will be fine without all the non-sense people
> just put engineers in charge
I would like that but is that even possible? Look at Wikipedia. Look at schools. Once an organization develops a bad case of fat "administrator" class, can it be cured or is it terminal?
I for one, am grateful to Mozilla for still being around, pushing for an open web.
Their documentation is excellent, the improvements and roadmap for Thunderbird made me finally adopt it, and I appreciate their privacy-friendlier translation services. uBO works great in Firefox, and I can't stand using a browser without its full features.
About MBA types: the free software project I work for has an MBA type, which I initially resented as being an outsider. However, they manage the finances, think about team and project growth long-term (with heavy financial consequences), and ignore the daily technical debates (which are left to the lead devs), and listen to users, big and small. Some loud users like to complain that we don't listen to them, and sometimes we kick them out, because we do listen to users.
I don't know much about Mozilla internals, if I am to judge from the results: Mozilla is still here, despite everyone saying for 10+ years that they are going to die. They are still competitive. They are still holding big tech accountable, despite having a fraction of their power. I can imagine that they make a lot of people here very uncomfortable.
> despite everyone saying for 10+ years that they are going to die.
What many people have been saying in my experience is pretty much the opposite: that Mozilla isn't going anywhere because Google wants them (needs them) to be around. That it's their antitrust Trojan horse.
Oh, let's see who's going to be the leader of the organization that's going to save privacy on the internet. Bet he has a track record of valuing free information and user privacy.
Wait, just like the last CEO, the only way to find out anything about him is a LinkedIn page. I'd have to create an account, log in, and consent to letting them collect and do anything they want with my information.
Apparently Mozilla doesn't have the technical capability of displaying an html web page that doesn't require a login and surrendering to data collection in order to view. Now try to find information about Satya Nadella without giving up your privacy.
Firefox exists as long as uBlock exists. It’s a niche product and the only (thin) argument about using it is “don’t let Google become a monopoly" (the very same company that keeps Mozilla alive).
Its terrible management decisions, its questionable telemetry and at the end of the day, its performance are the reasons why it will never catch up and it will never get new users.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 106 ms ] threadThis piece linked is a dry marketing and nothing else, and I don't believe in a single bit this guy is saying or will ever say.
The line about AI being always a choice that user can simply turn it off: I need to go to about:config registry to turn every occurrence of it in Firefox. So there's that.
Actually he is most likely a drone. Meaning he is speaking like he believes he is the CEO of a public company talking to the shareholders, so of course he talks about how AI is changing software.
But guess what Mozilla is not a public company, there is no stock to pump and the thing it really miss is its users. Going from 30% to less than 5% market share in 15 years with a good product. Actually I am pretty sure the users who left just do not want to much AI.
But he is an MBA drone so he is just gonna play the same music as every other MBA drone.
That's a big selling point. Along with "still allows ad-blocking extensions".
Besides being able to turn off all online AI features, and the fact that forks like Librewolf will inevitably strip it out, I am stunned by how HN readers think "Translate this for me immediately and accurately" and related functions are not desirable to the average person.
Firefox always feels snappier to me, and I think most of that comes from less time downloading a bunch of ad shit I don't want anyway.
I'm not browsing benchmarks :-/
When I do then chrome will have an advantage.
Meanwhile, in the real world, a JS engine can be half the speed of the Chrome one and the browser can still be faster, because blocking ads is what gives you the biggest speed up.
All the performance advantages in the world fail to matter if you're still loading ads.
I don't know. As a dev and user, Firefox wins on every single aspect for me. I understand that every user is different. But I'm glad it exists.
Anything left ?
The fact that they haven't moved away from apparently needing 90%+ of their money to come from Google, after more than a decade of that being an issue, means that claim is a moot point. This "AI first" move was probably heavily influenced by Google behind the scenes too.
Where are you getting the “often in the cloud” from? So far Firefox has some local models for certain features. Using a specific cloud based AI is a conscious decision by the user within the sidebar.
Currently they spend millions of dollars (that mostly come from people wanting to support their browser) on huge salaries and projects that have nothing to do with their browser. At the same time they keep on taking steps to alienate those that are donating or using their products.
The bar for success is pretty low - stop wasting all them bucks, and stop alienating your users.
If you could do that, there is plenty of next steps.
Good luck
"Third: Firefox will grow from a browser into a broader ecosystem of trusted software. Firefox will remain our anchor. It will evolve into a modern AI browser and support a portfolio of new and trusted software additions."
Yeah, no. Just make a browser that doesn't suck. Mozilla has been wasting a ton of money, lost almost all of their market share, and have been focusing on making new products nobody wants for a VERY long time and this looks to continue.
Welp. Starting off on the wrong foot. "AI should always be a choice - something people can easily opt in to".
Can't teach what there's profit in not learning, etc. Oh well.
Chrome is able to capture the mass consumer market, due to Google’s dark pattern to nag you to install Chrome anytime you’re on a Google property.
Edge target enterprise Fortune 500 user, who is required to use Microsoft/Office 365 at work (and its deep security permission ties to SharePoint).
Safari has Mac/iOS audience via being the default on those platform (and deep platform integration).
Brave (based on Chromium), and LibreWolf (based on Firefox) has even carved out those user who value privacy.
---
What’s Firefox target user?
Long ago, Firefox was the better IE, and it had great plugins for web developers. But that was before Chrome existed and Google capturing the mass market. And the developers needed to follow its users.
So what target user is left for a Firefox?
Note: not trolling. I loved Firefox. I just don’t genuine understand who it’s for anymore.
It seems as if you ask Mozilla, the answer would be "Not current Firefox users."
I really don't know the answer to this question, and I don't know if Mozilla has defined it internally, which probably leads to a lot of the problems that the browser is facing. Is it the privacy focused individual? They seem to be working very hard against that. Is it the ad-sensitive user? Maybe, but they're not doing a lot to win that crowd over.
It kind of feels like Firefox is not targeted at anyone in particular. But long gone are the days when you can just be an alternative browser.
Maybe the target user is someone who wants to use Firefox, regardless of what that means.
A built in adblocker would probably help Firefox attract those users, but might destroy their Google revenue stream.
I wish more browsers would target seniors. Accessibility and usability is universally a nightmare.
It still gets bundled a TON on Linux. So if you use Linux a lot, Firefox gets into your muscle memory.
But honestly, that bundling is likely just momentum from the 2010s. Better tech exists now.
One sentence later:
> It will evolve into a modern AI browser
One more sentence later:
> In the next three years, that means investing in AI that reflects the Mozilla Manifesto
I mean if you wanted to concretely see how much ignoring their users is in their DNA.
What a daring approach. Truly worth the millions he's gonna earn.
- focus 100% on Firefox Desktop & Mobile - just a fast solid minimalist browser (no AI, no BS) - other features should be addons - privacy centric - builtin, first-class, adblocker - run on donations - partner with Kagi - layoff 80% of the non-tech employees
I worked for them for many years, I guarantee you that Mozilla will be fine without all the non-sense people, just put engineers in charge.
Agree with you on everything else, though.
What would be the best solution today is to convince all these Firefox spinoff projects into combining forces and fully forking Firefox away from Mozilla, and don't look back. But seeing what happens around, how various projects - even the smallest ones are being lead, the moods in communities, I highly doubt that's actually possible.
Also, speaking of trust, return the "never sell your data" to the FAQ.
That's always said by the engineers and never seems more than the obvious egocentric bias: What I do is important, everyone and everythying else is pointless.
> just put engineers in charge
I would like that but is that even possible? Look at Wikipedia. Look at schools. Once an organization develops a bad case of fat "administrator" class, can it be cured or is it terminal?
I don't want to get my hopes up for nothing.
Their documentation is excellent, the improvements and roadmap for Thunderbird made me finally adopt it, and I appreciate their privacy-friendlier translation services. uBO works great in Firefox, and I can't stand using a browser without its full features.
About MBA types: the free software project I work for has an MBA type, which I initially resented as being an outsider. However, they manage the finances, think about team and project growth long-term (with heavy financial consequences), and ignore the daily technical debates (which are left to the lead devs), and listen to users, big and small. Some loud users like to complain that we don't listen to them, and sometimes we kick them out, because we do listen to users.
I don't know much about Mozilla internals, if I am to judge from the results: Mozilla is still here, despite everyone saying for 10+ years that they are going to die. They are still competitive. They are still holding big tech accountable, despite having a fraction of their power. I can imagine that they make a lot of people here very uncomfortable.
What many people have been saying in my experience is pretty much the opposite: that Mozilla isn't going anywhere because Google wants them (needs them) to be around. That it's their antitrust Trojan horse.
> Strength: $1.3B in reserves + diverse operating models (product, deep tech, venture, philanthropy) make Mozilla unusually free to bet long-term.
> Strategy: Pillar 1: AI. Pillar 2: AI. Pillar 3: AI.
Oh yes.
Cut executive pay 75% back to what Brendan was getting paid, and invest that money in the company instead of lining your own pockets.
Ditch the AI crap that nobody wants or needs and focus on making a good browser and email application, and advertising them to increase user count.
Anything less than this is not trustworthy, it's just another lecherous MBA who is hastening the death of Mozilla.
Wait, just like the last CEO, the only way to find out anything about him is a LinkedIn page. I'd have to create an account, log in, and consent to letting them collect and do anything they want with my information.
Apparently Mozilla doesn't have the technical capability of displaying an html web page that doesn't require a login and surrendering to data collection in order to view. Now try to find information about Satya Nadella without giving up your privacy.
https://www.theverge.com/tech/845216/mozilla-ceo-anthony-enz... (https://archive.ph/li0ig)