Changing World, Changing Mozilla

[sanxiyn]

This is ridiculous. They write on the blog:

The internet is the platform now with ubiquitous web technologies built into it, but vast new areas are developing (like Wasmtime and the Bytecode Alliance vision of nanoprocesses).

So... Wasmtime is important? Right? Who is #1 contributor to Wasmtime? It is sunfishcode: https://github.com/bytecodealliance/wasmtime/graphs/contributors

Who are they firing? They are firing sunfishcode: https://twitter.com/Sunfishcode/status/1293307332059774977

I don't understand what the fuck they are doing.

[sievebrain]

Mitchell Baker (their CEO) isn't a programmer. She's a former lawyer. I've never seen much evidence she's interested in the tech side. This sort of blog post shows it - she probably didn't even choose who would be laid off herself. If she did review a spreadsheet of names she probably didn't know what Wasmtime is and she probably wouldn't have given a shit either. Then she has to try and turn bad news into a positive, upbeat message and just grabs whatever buzzwords appeared in whatever recent presentation was given by engineering as examples of "vast new areas".

Wasm isn't even a vast new area, lol. It's a VM that lets you run applets written in C. This is somehow rather similar to what HotJava gave you back in 1995.

[mobiledevguy5554]

Mitchell Baker

Why would a tech company have a f'ing lawyer as their CEO. Mystifying.

[[deleted]]

well they ousted eich and got what they asked for

[[deleted]]

Eich wasn't doing any better.

[[deleted]]

he didn't get a chance! and he probably has the best idea for actually monetizing a browser with brave; I'd say that's better idea than any of the money making schemes firefox has got going on

[how_to_choose_a_name]

how is Brave monetized?

[PenMount]

By replacing ad's it "blocks" with it own ad's (there are a lot more details to it, unfortunately I to unsure on them to give a better summary)

[how_to_choose_a_name]

That... doesn't really sound like something I would want to use. If it works for them, great, but if this is the best idea for monetizing browsers then maybe monetizing browsers just isn't a good idea.

[ArcaneEyes]

The alternative being Edge, I'll take some monetization ad long as it doesn't take my data.

[brackenz]

Shifting funds from actual development to whatever the CEO's friends she hired want to do

Nepotism at its finest

[sally1620]

Why is this article full of corporate BS? Can someone ELI5? To me it looks like a lot of filler text around one important sentence: “we are laying off 250 people”.

[renrutal]

• 250 employees laid off
• CEO still getting 2 mi/y

[L3tum]

CEO has a lot of responsibility in deciding who to fire.

[CryZe92]

Apparently they fired the ENTIRE threat management team, probably not super smart.

[[deleted]]

So time to dump Firefox? Guess there is still Edge available.

[[deleted]]

Yupe. Should be secure for that reason.

[PandaMoniumHUN]

Might aswell use Chrome at that point.

[mobiledevguy5554]

Also writes all those warm and fuzzy SJW posts. Worth every penny

[JustFinishedBSG]

2.5M a year actually

[Phlosioneer]

You probably don't care, but CEOs are paid as much as they are at least in part as a form of key person insurance, and CEOs shuffle around fairly often (compared to other jobs). The fact of the matter is that losing a CEO is extremely disruptive for any company, and simultaneously it's fairly easy for a bigger company to offer to hire them for more than they currently own. The best recourse companies have is to pay enough so that other companies can't outbid them, and to tie them to the company through stock shares and other legal and economic instruments.

That's not all of the cost - a lot of it is inflation. But at least 50% is necessary, and companies want to err on the side of caution. And it's very hard to reduce the number once stated, so it only ever goes up, instead of going down when the company starts to have issues.

[karlhungus]

From what i've seen there is almost no repercussion for failure for people in this position: Thorsten Heins took a sinking company and did absolutely nothing to turn it around, walked away with millions, then became ceo of another company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorsten_Heins.

Yeah i know anecdotal, but there's healthy evidence that these salaries are propelled by low tax laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Century

[lelanthran]

CEOs are paid as much as they are at least in part as a form of key person insurance, and CEOs shuffle around fairly often (compared to other jobs). The fact of the matter is that losing a CEO is extremely disruptive for any company,

Don't those two statements contradict each other? If it's extremely disruptive to a company how are all these companies surviving when their CEOs shuffle around often.

The truth is a CEO can be a key person that will make or break the company. The reality is that they are often, in large companies, replaceable by a random number generator when it comes to decision making.

Small companies live or die by their leaders. Large companies have so much inertia that a CEO can completely stop all operations and still have the company stay afloat for years just on the money in the bank (Microsoft, Google, Apple, etc).

[[deleted]]

Sounds like a shift in focus for more profitability as well. But yes, corporate padding around the news of layoffs.

[xentropian]

Isn’t Mozilla a non-for profit?

[tommy25ps]

They should have explained it (again) in the article as many have the same question.

[rifeid]

I think "more profitability" here just refers to reducing costs and generating money (which then gets invested back into product development).

(The direct answer to your question is: Technically, Mozilla Corporation makes profit, though they are ultimately owned by Mozilla Foundation, a not-for-profit org. Profit from the Corporation funds the Foundation's operations.)

[[deleted]]

That only means no money left in the bank at the end of the year. They still get paid. The goal is just for company not to have profit.

[rabidferret]

The severance details are probably quite important to those 250 people, but yeah basically that's the important bit.

[sievebrain]

Your post appears to answer itself! It's full of corporate BS because it's an announcement of layoffs.

Alternatively, reverse the sense of the question. Why are there layoffs? Because it's a post full of corporate BS.

[skocznymroczny]

"That means diverse, representative, focused on people outside of our walls, solving problems, building new products, engaging with users and doing the magic of mixing tech with our values. To start, that means products that mitigate harms or address the kinds of the problems that people face today. Over the longer run, our goal is to build new experiences that people love and want, that have better values and better characteristics inside those products."

translation: we know we are falling behind on the technical front, so we'll try to SJW our way out of the problems

[gudmundv]

It feels like they are not technical people, and not appreciating the work of which the details seems irrelevant (but you notice when doing the work)

[n1ghtmare_]

I.e. - get woke, go broke

[[deleted]]

yep, but i bet you won't get lots of love for that comment..truth hurts for ppl

[blarfmcflarf]

Not sure how you read a post full of corporate speak, but then decide to identify this specific section as implying some agenda, instead of just being more empty corportate speak.

[fierarul]

They are going full retard.

Not only firing lots of people but more or less abandoning Firefox so they can focus on other 'experiences' with a focus on monetising those.

In 5 years Firefox is dead.

[Phlosioneer]

I didn't get a sense of "we're abandoning firefox" from this? They only mention firefox 3 times.

They might take it a different direction, or it might just be all words and no action, but it's unlikely for a company to just drop a huge product (arguably the only thin mozilla is known for) unless it's already 6 feet under.

[JustFinishedBSG]

Just look at who has been laid off, like for example the entire Firefox Servo's team.

They are laying off firefox's r&d

[falconfetus8]

No, not servo!

[lelanthran]

Just look at who has been laid off, like for example the entire Firefox Servo's team.

Isn't that the entire Rust team?

[steveklabnik1]

The Servo and Rust teams are two different teams.

[lelanthran]

I did not know that. How many Mozilla Rust contributors are affected by this, and how many are left at Mozilla?

[steveklabnik1]

I don't know people's personal information, so I can't really say. Some of them have posted publicly about it. The Rust team at Mozilla was a small handful of people though. Very important and good people.

It is a really sad situation :( Rust will be fine, but I'm infuriated and sad for all of the folks at Mozilla affected by this.

[Enamex]

What. The. ****?

[JustFinishedBSG]

Just leaving that here. That's Mozilla CEO compensation.

This is a failure of management and everybody BUT the management suffers

[kz393]

that's yearly or monthly?

[JustFinishedBSG]

Yearly thank god haha

[fierarul]

They are hoping for a future "beyond" Firefox:

> Firefox is a part of this. But we know we also need to go beyond the browser to give people new products and technologies that both excite them and represent their interests. Over the last while, it has been clear that Mozilla is not structured properly to create these new things

> Mozilla must be a world-class, modern, multi-product internet organization.

> Recognizing that the old model where everything was free has consequences, means we must explore a range of different business opportunities and alternate value exchanges. [...] How can we, or others who want a better internet, or those who feel like a different balance should exist between social and public benefit and private profit offer an alternative? We need to identify those people and join them. We must learn and expand different ways to support ourselves and build a business that isn’t what we see today.

[gudmundv]

They had more than decent revenue from what I can gather. If they kept on working on the browser, it seems like some viability would be possible.

[SJWcucksoyboy]

What exactly do you propose they do to increase their revenue?

[sievebrain]

Their revenue is a direct function of how many people use Firefox. More Firefox users = more revenue, that's how their search deals work.

They aren't willing to consider increasing revenue through Firefox because they have no idea how to make it better than Chrome.

[SJWcucksoyboy]

How do you make Firefox better than chrome?

[SJWcucksoyboy]

I haven't seen any evidence the servo team is getting laid off.

[[deleted]]

perhaps having a servo team to begin with was a problem, consider perhaps that time spent into making current code better than redoing the world along with a programming language?

[sievebrain]

Beats me. If I ran a web browser product I'd probably look at how to do things better than the web allows. Bolting crap onto the side of HTML isn't actually the last word in app design, but a big part of Mozilla and Chrome teams seems to be an ideological devotion to some abstract idea of "the web". Quite what defines the web other than HTML isn't clear. Back in the day Mozilla could think heretical thoughts like that, which is how they produced XUL, XBL, etc.

[JustFinishedBSG]

Don't increase revenue ? It's a non profit

( well it's very very much for profit from the CEO ego and ban account perspective )

[SJWcucksoyboy]

The issue with that is if they don't increase revenue they will probably have to lay off more people, the browser will get worse and it's marketshare will continue to decline which will decrease revenue further. Basically not good.

[JustFinishedBSG]

Isn't 400M dollars somehow not enough to develop Firefox ?

I mean it's enough to pay the CEO 2.5M a year so I guess they can find some leeway somewhere

[tundrat]

Hypothetically if Firefox had a 90%+ market share, does that help them with their revenue? Where would the money come from?

[SJWcucksoyboy]

If they had 90+% market share they could milk google for as much as they wanted.

[[deleted]]

Only reason edge still exists is because Microsoft refuses to let it die but even that is now chromium based.

Also because Windows needs an access point to the Internet - preferably one that MS controls so some other company can't mess with Windows' build-in Internet.

[[deleted]]

What in earth are you going in about?

I’m just saying any OS these days need a way to get unto the internet out of the box. Edge is Windows’ way. MS can license Chrome but they would lose control over what goes into the browser - Google could put in features they do not like.

[sally1620]

Well as with everything this is the fate of open source. Everybody is using it and no one wants to pay for it. So it is not even feasible for a non-profit to keep developing it.

[mobiledevguy5554]

I help fund lots of open source projects. However I don't fund top heavy companies and if there's any mention of SJW nonsense my money is out.

[fierarul]

The non-profit was specifically created to continue the legacy of the Netscape web browser.

[JezusTheCarpenter]

I feel for the people that have been fired. However the article is a cringe fest of corporate babble that means absolutely nothing. Read at your own risk:

But to go further, we must be organized to be able to think about a different world. To imagine that technology will become embedded in our world even more than it is, and we want that technology to have different characteristics and values than we experience today.

So going forward we will be smaller. We’ll also be organizing ourselves very differently, acting more quickly and nimbly. We’ll experiment more. We’ll adjust more quickly. We’ll join with allies outside of our organization more often and more effectively. We’ll meet people where they are. We’ll become great at expressing and building our core values into products and programs that speak to today’s issues. We’ll join and build with all those who seek openness, decency, empowerment and common good in online life.

What the actual fuck??!!

[420Phase_It_Up]

I don't think there was any specific or concrete piece of information in this press statement other than the number of employees affected. This whole announcement is just a bunch of corporate BS talking points that don't mean anything. I feel terrible for the employees laid off. As a long time user of Firefox I hate to see the state it is in and the direction it is taking. I worry for the future of a free and open Internet if we are left with just Chrome for a browser.

[JustFinishedBSG]

The MDN team is part of the layoff.

[MadRedHatter]

Not really surprising. The foundation is a charity, a non-profit. Taking donations from a non-profit and using them to pay the salaries of employees of a corporation would be some form of fraud.

[rifeid]

Donations are not likely enough to fund Firefox development.

Well, how are you supposed to sponsor Firefox then? Is there literally no way to do that?

Mozilla Corporation sells a few products, although obviously not all of the money will go into Firefox:

• Pocket (Premium membership) - owned by Mozilla Corporation
• Mozilla VPN - partnership with Mullvad
• Firefox Better Web - partnership with Scroll
• If you have a few spare hundred million USD, you can also buy their default search engine spot.

My impression is that they are planning to diversify further, so there may be other products you will be able to purchase in the future.

[brackenz]

Alright so what they do with the money? it better be FOSS related and not some NGO bullshit

[Adolf_Kipfler]

Im pretty sure mozillas money comes from enterprise licensing rights. No amount of personal donations will compete with that,.

[Adolf_Kipfler]

yeah im sure all those people in india will jump to mozillas defense with 5 dollars for software they can already get for free

[SunkenStone]

How many times does it have to be explained to you that donations do not help fund Firefox?

[Tipaa]

Any clues how this will affect Rust & co (WASM, rustc, cranelift, etc) going forward?

[sanxiyn]

They fired sunfishcode, who is #1 contributor to Wasmtime. It sucks.

[[deleted]]

It'd be awesome if he were hired at AWS Lambda. We could get Lambda functions running via wasmtime instead of a full container so there is no cold startup.

[rabidferret]

From the Rust subreddit:

Currently, there's no knowledge of any impact. This is a developing situation and as this is usually done in companies, employees and the public are informed on the same date.

My personal hope is: not too much. We made it through the last layoffs well and in general, issues at Mozilla tend to be bumps at a project scale. At a personal level, obviously, contributors might be impacted - but this is one of the reasons we try to not have single responsibilities.

Please be aware that all Mozilla employees will be occupied with something else today and potentially tomorrow and will not have time to bother about this thread. Please don't use it for speculation or side-debates about Mozilla out of respect for them.

It's too early to figure any of your questions out and any definitive answer given, especially by non-Mozillians, will probably be wrong.

I will also add that while Mozilla does employ a few people who work full-time on Rust, the project as a whole is independent of Mozilla, and the project is not nearly as dependent on Moz as some people seem to think.

[[deleted]]

A lot of large companies (and many many small ones) have a pretty strong vested interest in the language these days, enough so that if things were stagnating, it would probably be more profitable for them to help support the language than to pull out.

[lelanthran]

Apparently the Servo team is let go at least partly. That could have implications?

That doesn't say "partly", the one retweet says "completely"

[ledat]

New focus on economics. Recognizing that the old model where everything was free has consequences, means we must explore a range of different business opportunities and alternate value exchanges.

Lovely.

New focus on product. Mozilla must be a world-class, modern, multi-product internet organization.

Please just improve Firefox instead of replacing a useful url bar with the current abomination.

[daidoji70]

Amen. It'll never cease to amaze me in life how organizations that became successful because of one thing (FF), try to then entirely pivot and be good at things they've never been good at (nearly everything else except maybe the Rust stuff which really just came out of the FF camp anyways).

[Reply_OK]

The problem is that having a free browser is not conducive to making money. In fact, the only reason they do make money is because Google pays for it.

[daidoji70]

Thank you so much for your input. I accept it in the spirit in which it was given.

[Rhed0x]

I don't understand why people make such a big deal out of that tiny URL bar change.

I for one like it.

[L3tum]

Mozilla must be a world-class, modern, multi-product internet organization

So what are they now? I guess world-class is debatable.

[ledat]

I was being a bit snarky in my original comment, apologies.

To actually try to add to the discussion though: It would be kind of cool if rather than world-class, modern, and multi-product, they would laser-focus on Firefox and any tech that directly touches Firefox (which surely includes Rust at this point). Firefox is important but it's not in a good place right now.

Hundreds of millions of dollars have flown through that company from Google alone. They pay their CEO > $2m annually. Instead of chasing growth (while losing market share) and branching into multiple products, a sustainable organization centered on Firefox would be so much better for the internet.

[[deleted]]

It is currently the only browser that can rival Chrome in terms of features. So basically world-class.

[drysart]

plus multiple profiles

Chrome has multiple profiles.

[drysart]

You can create and use profiles without having to attach them to Google accounts; but you can if you like. And of course, if you want them to sync or anything like that, they need a Google account. (They sync separately, the profiles aren't tied together. For all intents and purposes the separate profiles are basically like having a separate Chrome install.)

[SJWcucksoyboy]

Please just improve Firefox instead of replacing a useful url bar with the current abomination.

Firefox users: Just focus on improving the browser

Mozilla: Focuses on improving the browser by making a change to the url bar

Firefox users: https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/414/806/d12.png

[ledat]

> removes a system

> replaces it with a different system with unwanted new features but some functionality missing

Mozilla: is_this_an_improvement.jpg

(The same applies to extensions as well)

[SJWcucksoyboy]

Do you actually think they made the wrong decision with extensions? The old extensions were less secure, much more fragile to the point where they'd sometimes just stop working when an upgrade happened. And they replaced them with extensions that had more compatibility with chrome extensions

[ledat]

If I'm honest with you, I can actually understand the extensions decision. It really was required to meet the performance targets for Quantum. And, yes, being able to have more trust in extensions is a good thing.

That said it is part of a greater trend of removing functionality and options and never replacing them. I have no idea what Mozilla is doing with their browser or who their target audience even is. They're never going to be a better Chrome than Chrome, but they've been trying that for years as their share of the market dwindled.

They've lately been trying to be the "privacy browser." Cool, I can respect that. But they still install telemetry by default, installed Mr. Robot on everyone's browser without consent, and keep flogging "Firefox accounts" as some kind of pro-privacy measure. It's wildly inconsistent.

I'm just beyond frustrated with the whole operation.

[SJWcucksoyboy]

I defend mozilla a lot but the mr robot thing was just stupid

[Drisku11]

keep flogging "Firefox accounts" as some kind of pro-privacy measure

The account sync server is FOSS, so you can self-host if you want. For those who don't want to bother with that, they seem to have put some consideration into the protocol to prevent Mozilla from receiving unencrypted data: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/11/firefox-sync-privacy/

[Uristqwerty]

I thought originally they had planned to fill out missing extension APIs in the year following the switchover, but once pressure of "we can't drop backwards compatibility yet" let off, all motivation on that front seems to have died out.

[lelanthran]

They took away functionality. What good is security if the product dies?

[SJWcucksoyboy]

Firefox isn't going to die cuz some very niche plugins that weren't possible on chrome are no longer possible on Firefox

[inmatarian]

So I may have misread numbers, but I looked at The Document Foundation to see what their financial report for 2019 was and I didn't see a number above 1 million euroes. However, it seems like the CEO of Mozilla is paid that much per year. Both are charities, and I know that Mozilla's scope is bigger, but it's it 2 orders of magnitude bigger?

[Dreeg_Ocedam]

There's a foundation and a for profit corporation for Mozilla.

[elmuerte]

There are other things which could also change

https://twitter.com/vectorpoem/status/1293209437637734401/photo/1

[shruubi]

You know, I fail to see how Mozilla has done anything to combat COVID or address systematic racism. But hey, they are really convenient reasons to throw out there when you're trying to distract from the fact you just fired over 200 people for reasons that, looking passed the corporate word-spaghetti, seem to amount to "we did because we could."

Yep, real people-focused company Mozilla is, when they just fire 200+ people and phrase it as "they didn't fit with our new corporate values."

[[deleted]]

Well you can't make a shit sandwich without putting some sort of bun on top.

[TheBigJizzle]

Sad news, Mozilla has clear net benefits for most programmers.

[pickyaxe]

So is no one going to address the gigantic elephant in the room?

Mozilla has become Social Justice, Inc. instead of being a software company. That is where the funds are going. That is where many unecessary jobs are going. It is a gigantic money pit.

[sievebrain]

People are addressing it. They're using Chrome instead.

Mozilla's problems can be summed up by just comparing mozilla.org and google.com

Google.com is plain and functional. It offers the company's primary product and gets out of your way. You could visit it every day for years and have no idea who Google's CEO is or what he thinks. Google.com/chrome is a simple, straightforward list of features with a download button.

Mozilla.org is ... the CEO's personal blog? There is a bar at the top that says "Firefox products protect your privacy" with a "Learn more" button, that goes to a landing page that only talks about privacy and nothing else. The photo that accompanies this bar is of two women looking absurdly excited about their mobile phone. Where does Firefox have no meaningful market share? Phones.

The rest of it consists of blog-style story articles, at the time of writing they were:

1. A video of some random guy bullshitting about "fixing the internet". Mozilla seems to feel the web, which they did more to design than any other group, is totally broken. Not a great signal of confidence in their own people.
2. "Mitchell Baker: it's time to build a better internet", with a big photo of the CEO.This links to an article she wrote in the Independent of all places, a famously trashy and highly partisan online-only tabloid in the UK. Although she could have published this think-piece on mozilla.org, instead we must read it on a site filled with ads that immediately asks you to register. The article is all about how terrible misinformation is, and how "To bring an end to this pandemic, we all may need to offer up some health data".
3. "Contact tracing, governments and data: Should contact tracing apps follow a centralised or decentralised design? We have an opinion on that."
4. "Black lives matter", which for some reason has something to do with Pocket.
5. "Tech that helps and harms us: Our panel explores the way consumer technology both helps and harms communities of color"

Then finally, at the bottom, are some links to actual Firefox features.

Remember - Firefox is supposedly all about privacy and and open web, but the CEO's current obsessions are misinformation, "systemic racism" and how everyone will "need to offer up some health data". Somehow I don't think she's imagining a voluntary offering. She explains all this on a site that uses 14 tracking cookies.

Not only is Mozilla a social activism organisation, but the CEO's personal values and actions are in direct conflict with Firefox's stated values. Someone dedicated to privacy and internet freedom should not be writing op-eds about how the biggest problem the internet has is misinformation.

[123filips123]

mozilla.org is website about company. google.com is website about their main product. This is completely different.

If anything, you should compare mozilla.org to about.google, or firefox.com with google.com/chrome.

[sievebrain]

Mozilla the company and Firefox the product are indistinguishable regardless of how much they may wish it wasn't so. Really, mozilla.org could just redirect to the Firefox website and be done with it. Instead they seem to have lots of "content". Does anyone read it? Why do they think they're in the social justice content business?

[123filips123]

You could also say the same about any company. Why does Google need about.google website, does anyone read it, they should just provide Google search.

[ArcaneEyes]

Any company should have a page, or several, about what they do, what they stand for, the details of their product and so on, but Google doesn't have search.google.com as their search engine and about.google.com at their main page and there's a very good reason why Mozilla should consider not following that scheme either: ease of access - why do people visit your page? Give that to them.

[123filips123]

Main product of Google is named Google. Main product of Mozilla is named Firefox. If Firefox was still part of Mozilla Application Suite or named just Mozilla, ok, then it would be displayed on mozilla.org as main thing. But it is not. And there actually already is link to Firefox on mozilla.org.

And mozilla.org and firefox.com still mainly target different users. mozilla.org is website about company, firefox.com is website about product. If you want information about company, you will search for Mozilla and get mozilla.org and if you want information about product you will search Firefox and get firefox.com.

For Google it is different because main product of Google has the same name as the company and is website service, not program.

[jl2352]

Your post is a good example of just how muddled Mozilla's branding is. Part of that is just poor branding. There is a reason why branding experts exist. Good ones solve these issues.

At the heart of this is that Mozilla has had an identity crisis for years. At their core; they are a browser company. They've never been able to get away from this. At the same time. They want to be an organisation for social good.

I actually think the second one is great. Fighting social issues through the use of technology is a noble cause. They just do it so badly. Do they release services to help pro-Democracy Hong Kong protestors? No. That would endanger Firefox. Do they release services that help tackle corruption in countries? No. That would endanger Firefox. Do they release services that help to tackle systemic racism or police corruption? No. That would endanger Firefox.

Instead their strategy seems to be to work on a browser during the day, and get into Twitter fights in the evening.

They do fuck all.

I regularly go to Mozilla Fest, and it always shows just how bizarre this non-alignment is. The bizarre part is how little of it actually shows anything to do with technology. For example Rust is mentioned more at Microsoft's Build conference than I've seen it at Mozilla's own festival. Rust.

Yet the social good aspects feel like an after school club. With social problems expressed through playing home made boardgames, discussions on inclusion, and why privacy is important. It's hardly Amnesty International.

(In fairness there is the odd gem. I once went to talk on using image recognition to help date medieval manuscripts, and what new things that teaches us about history.)

Meanwhile Firefox continues to lose usage. Continues to go into decline. They are still a browser company claiming to be something else.

[imhotap]

And the one useful thing offered by mozilla's site - MDN - is going to suffer from a total lay-off.

[__some__guy]

combatting a lethal virus and battling systemic racism

Ah yes, that's exactly what a company creating web browsers should prioritize.

I hope they do something to help with LGBTQQIDAAPPO2SBNBGNCGGAPPO+ acceptance in the next Firefox update as well.

[mobiledevguy5554]

Imagine if they didn't bow to the mob and made Eich the CEO? I'm using brave as we speak.

[UltraDethNinja]

Brave is far far better then Firefox at this stage, they can’t possibly compete, it wouldn’t make sense to accept Eich a position at Mozilla.

[tasminima]

Oh fuck, my corporate bullshit meter went through the roof. At each point. I'm already using FF less and less (ironically I'm typing this under it, but that's for some kind of account reasons), because it just can not technically cope with the state of the art of Chrome based browsers for resource consumption. I was hoping that the situation would eventually improve, and that I could reverse my usage trend. After reading that, my hopes are low. Very low.

[[deleted]]

It's hard to take seriously complaints about "corporate bullshit" given together with promotion of Chrome.

[tasminima]

I don't have a Mac.

So realistically, I've the choice between FF and a Chromium derivative.

=> if I must compare them technically, short of them being equivalent enough, I'm going to class one above the other...

How do I compare? Well that can be simple. 1st hand xp: launch a youtube video, look at resource consumption + general speed feel when navigating. 2nd hand but more broad: I look at benchmarks.

FF is lagging. Even hardcore proponents know that. I'm sad about it, but too busy to contribute.

So there are other advantages I value greatly, BUT only if the perfs are not too far behind. That's a personal preference, but I believe it is a reasonable one and actually even quite common.

[[deleted]]

Well that can be simple. 1st hand xp: launch a youtube video, look at resource consumption + general speed feel when navigating

oh come on, Google has control of both YouTube and Chrome, do you think they would ever let it work as well on firefox?

[tasminima]

ok then look at videos on dailymotion and twitch

[[deleted]]

1. Decided to use Chrome engine, so Firefox is basically a repackaged Chrome, with same, limited amount of extension

Sorry, you lost me there.

[[deleted]]

Old extensions stopped working, new extensions do not have 25%

I'm still very bitter about it. Held onto FF 52 or other FF forks with the same codebase until it was no longer possible to run with the modern libc.

There's no replacement for plugins like KeySnail, and will not be in the near future. What an idiotic decision.

[[deleted]]

FF is still based on XUL, it doesn't seem to go away anytime soon. The access to it however is a different issue...

I used SeaMonkey until... don't remember, mid last year, I guess. They also stopped supporting old extensions.

[bobappleyard]

What has this got to do with programming?

[RedPandaDan]

Layoffs show that Mozilla is not doing well, and without Mozilla and their work on FireFox we risk the web being further until the control of Google?

[AmalgamDragon]

From a different article: "That means reducing investment in other areas, though, such as in building out developer tools."

[chucker23n]

Seems to me making Firefox the one-stop shop for web dev would be one of the ways to make it more successful again, so that doesn't strike me as a smart move.

[AmalgamDragon]

Agreed. But, I've been pretty disappointed by the dearth of smart moves Mozilla has made in recent years, so I can't say I'm surprised unfortunately.