Mozilla’s privacy-heavy browser is flatlining but still crucial to future of the web.
Read the whole story
Read the whole story
Is Firefox OK?
- Thread starter JournalBot
- Start date
From Wikipedia, meanwhile the CEO:
"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."
"In the same year the Mozilla Corporation laid off approximately 250 employees due to shrinking revenues"
Source: 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."
"In the same year the Mozilla Corporation laid off approximately 250 employees due to shrinking revenues"
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Baker
Upvote
146
(150
/
-4)
Could you tell me more?
Who is Eich?
I've totally missed that story, probably.
Upvote
-6
(14
/
-20)
This so much!
I mean they treat their users with disdain, spit in our faces with near enough every 'update' and then wonder why there's a steady stream of users leaving? Gee wiz I can't possibly imagine why that might be...
I mean there's a prime example of this sort of shit in this very article:
No.
Just. No.
If I wanted my browser to fuck around with things on its own and try to direct what I can see/do for me, I'd just use Chrome. I use FF in part because I do not want someone trying to tell me what I want based on their highest paying advertisers for this week, but this is just yet another incredibly stupid 'feature' that seems designed to piss off their few remaining users, ie a standard FF 'new feature' I guess.
Upvote
44
(47
/
-3)
I played with Phoenix and Firebird before the final name change (and used Netscape before that). I used Firefox almost exclusively from the day it launched until the day that Mozilla abandoned XUL and almost every other feature that let users decide what they wanted to do with their browser and how they wanted it to look (version somewhere in the 50s?).
Mozilla didn't just shoot themselves in the foot; they pretty much cut their legs off at the knees. Users didn't abandon Firefox so much as Mozilla abandoned Firefox users first. Mozilla decided that what its users wanted didn't matter anymore, so we left.
Mozilla didn't just shoot themselves in the foot; they pretty much cut their legs off at the knees. Users didn't abandon Firefox so much as Mozilla abandoned Firefox users first. Mozilla decided that what its users wanted didn't matter anymore, so we left.
Upvote
50
(52
/
-2)
I used it some years ago but something (can't remember what) broke and I ran back to FF. Nowadays I'm mostly on Librewolf (basically Firefox + Arkenfox.js). Currently taking a look at Palemoon's website. I do like that it offers a traditional repository install method instead of the new-age Snap/Flatpak nonsense. Some questions about the Linux version, if you don't mind;
How's Palemoon doing these days on the security front? Are they up-to-date with all the usual CVEs and whatnot?
What kind of browser-fingerprint does it leave, and can I spoof it?
Does uBlock Origin work? Currently looking at the Extensions section on Palemoon's site and it's listed as "Legacy".
Does it integrate with my GTK theme? Current Firefox/Librewolf doesn't either, but at least I can beat it into submission with CSS editing, unlike Brave or Chrome which just look like their Windows versions.
X11 or Wayland, or both? For X11, will the usual firejail sandboxing cause problems?
GPU acceleration?
Upvote
18
(18
/
0)
Upvote
-1
(2
/
-3)
Brendan Eich worked at Netscape and then co-founded Mozilla, doing a lot of the fundamental technology like the javascript rendering engines and becoming first a member of the Board, then filling C-level offices. Eventually he was appointed CEO of Mozilla, but faced pushback from Mozilla employees and contributors because it was revealed he'd donated money to support Proposition 8 and its backers, which was a measure to ban same-sex marriages in California. Since several Moz employees and contributors were LBTQ+, he was essentially pushing politics that would criminalize their relationships and relegate them to second-class citizens. When he didn't change his stance on SSM, he decided to step down.
He's now at Brave, the subscription-based Chromium-based browser. I see that lately he's been creating crypto currencies (at least one specifically for Brave), an ad network, and has attacked Anthony Fauci while saying masks and lockdowns don't work.
Upvote
131
(142
/
-11)
Mozilla/Firefox needs a niche? I'll give them one (free of charge) - right here, right now.
You want me to stop using Chrome? Actively block ads 100% of the time. All ads all the time. Blacklist sites that pump out ads. Block nasty javascript that tries to load ads. Just do it. As a consumer, when a website breaks because they don't want to agree to the 'new' Firefox, I'll take on that battle as long as Firefox gives me the protection I ask for.
Then, to get revenue, because now you'll have a very strong niche of advocates, set out 'advertising guidelines' so that all ads must be non-intrusive, can only fit on a select portion of the screen, must not have pop-ups or music or anything - effectively 'newspaper' ads (they can't do anything other than exist).
Also, make semi-incognito the default (actively block all cookies that are known to be tracking/advertising). Cross-site scripting should be very limited too (and I really don't want to see a ton of sneaky iframes to get around this).
If you do that - I'll use it regularly (currently I only use Firefox because there is a particular website I like that caters to it)
You want me to stop using Chrome? Actively block ads 100% of the time. All ads all the time. Blacklist sites that pump out ads. Block nasty javascript that tries to load ads. Just do it. As a consumer, when a website breaks because they don't want to agree to the 'new' Firefox, I'll take on that battle as long as Firefox gives me the protection I ask for.
Then, to get revenue, because now you'll have a very strong niche of advocates, set out 'advertising guidelines' so that all ads must be non-intrusive, can only fit on a select portion of the screen, must not have pop-ups or music or anything - effectively 'newspaper' ads (they can't do anything other than exist).
Also, make semi-incognito the default (actively block all cookies that are known to be tracking/advertising). Cross-site scripting should be very limited too (and I really don't want to see a ton of sneaky iframes to get around this).
If you do that - I'll use it regularly (currently I only use Firefox because there is a particular website I like that caters to it)
Upvote
31
(37
/
-6)
Upvote
35
(38
/
-3)
People here are talking about Brave, Chromium etc being a de-googlified Chrome. While this is technically true, guess who still has control over which web standards to implement?
Upvote
56
(57
/
-1)
Completely agree. Practically every version it's back to https://www.userchrome.org to figure out how to change the css to get it sort of back to what I had before. It's never perfect but it helps a little.
Another issue I have is the address bar itself. For many years the address bar drop down would show you a list of your most frequently typed in sites and items could be removed easily with the delete key (removed entries would come back if you typed it back in and continued to go there). The important part for me was it was specifically based on addresses you typed into the address bar. Not links you followed, not bookmarks, only what you typed. Now it shows a list of random sites you visit frequently (I guess?) but it's not consistent, the order and entries constantly change randomly even within a single session and between tabs, it seems to be limited to six sites, and it doesn't differentiate between sites I type versus follow links versus use bookmarks versus even my default homepage. The address bar also has a bunch of stuff at the bottom related to different search engines that you have to customize/remove from a new tab page. So, if you have set new tab to blank you can't get to those settings and you have to go back to the default, change the setting, then revert back to a blank page. It's a UI disaster area.
Upvote
26
(28
/
-2)
Chromium is not de Googled. It has all the same nonsense as Google, just without the official support and proprietary codecs. It takes quite a bit of effort to clean Chromium
Upvote
32
(37
/
-5)
One easy way to donate something to Mozilla, even if you do not use it, is to use amazon smile, and set the donations to Mozilla Foundation.
Upvote
-5
(6
/
-11)
"Eich was demonized" for voting to remove rights from minorities which he thought they didn't deserve the way he did, yes.
Upvote
77
(90
/
-13)
Sad.
Australis added way more customization. The new theme was just that--a default theme. Easy to change, which I did. The changes to the internals really improved things for devs (except for those that had so much invested in their own old code that they refused to change anything). I developed tons of CSS for Firefox during the more than a decade that I used it. Fx 29 thru 50-something was a joy to use. Mozilla just made it not worth using anymore.
Upvote
16
(16
/
0)
A bit of reading history might help. Firefox is basically using sponsorship money to evade what happened to quite a lot of companies in the computer industry, both software and hardware side; Somebody appeared and did it better.
I used to use Firefox a lot too but the selling points just arent there anymore. For the sake of this comment i'll install it as i type and see if it's changed but a pretty harsh truth is that it got left in the dust by Chrome. As they smartly say being the biggest doesn't matter...
...But the self-mutilation left it worse than most chromium based browsers in all of their previously strong points. They've embraced the spartan Chrome-style to the point where customization doesn't really matter anymore - What is there really to customize?
What most people think nowadays when it comes to modifying a browser is basically convinience bloat: My most used websites are here, i can see info about stuff i like here... Firefox technically has or at least had brains in it's ranks that could figure out what the next big thing might be or what we didn't know we needed yet. But what i just used was an off-brand Chrome that advertised it's privacy in a tab and then functioned almost exactly the same as Edge.
In a very melancholic goodbye the checkbox to give feedback on the uninstaller is unchecked by default.
I used to use Firefox a lot too but the selling points just arent there anymore. For the sake of this comment i'll install it as i type and see if it's changed but a pretty harsh truth is that it got left in the dust by Chrome. As they smartly say being the biggest doesn't matter...
...But the self-mutilation left it worse than most chromium based browsers in all of their previously strong points. They've embraced the spartan Chrome-style to the point where customization doesn't really matter anymore - What is there really to customize?
What most people think nowadays when it comes to modifying a browser is basically convinience bloat: My most used websites are here, i can see info about stuff i like here... Firefox technically has or at least had brains in it's ranks that could figure out what the next big thing might be or what we didn't know we needed yet. But what i just used was an off-brand Chrome that advertised it's privacy in a tab and then functioned almost exactly the same as Edge.
In a very melancholic goodbye the checkbox to give feedback on the uninstaller is unchecked by default.
Upvote
-2
(13
/
-15)
Thanks, I don't see what you see using my Mac version, but I can disable JS with uBlock - it's just as you say, rather convoluted vs. Safari. I do hope the FF search for cash doesn't lead them towards crypto.
Upvote
2
(3
/
-1)
Been a Firefox fan since inception, but the last 1-2 years I have mainly used Brave for two reasons:
1 - I get the privacy things from the get-go rather than having to configure and install add-ons and whatnot.
2 - Firefox does not fix large-resolution displays that well in Linux. On a 4K TV with 200% scaling, fonts and stuff get annoyingly big.
On my Ubuntu desktop, a script on my homepage correctly reports my resolution as 2560x1440 with Brave, but Firefox says it's 1246x1338 for some reason. No scaling set anywhere. Also, when no special fonts are defined with CSS, they are way thicker in Firefox than in Brave.
Firefox on Android is not quite great either. I don't remember exactly why i got disappointed, but I think it had to do with the rendering as well.
Still keep Firefox on my desktop though because I store a bunch of passwords in it.
1 - I get the privacy things from the get-go rather than having to configure and install add-ons and whatnot.
2 - Firefox does not fix large-resolution displays that well in Linux. On a 4K TV with 200% scaling, fonts and stuff get annoyingly big.
On my Ubuntu desktop, a script on my homepage correctly reports my resolution as 2560x1440 with Brave, but Firefox says it's 1246x1338 for some reason. No scaling set anywhere. Also, when no special fonts are defined with CSS, they are way thicker in Firefox than in Brave.
Firefox on Android is not quite great either. I don't remember exactly why i got disappointed, but I think it had to do with the rendering as well.
Still keep Firefox on my desktop though because I store a bunch of passwords in it.
Upvote
1
(7
/
-6)
I note that you do not name the cause, presumably because its incredible stupidity would not aid your case. The cause was a continued ban on same-sex marriage.
I actually agree with you that people shouldn't be fired, or forced to resign, for their political donations unless they bring the issue into the workplace. But don't pretend that it wasn't a shitty donation to a shitty cause.
Eich also inflicted JavaScript on the world. After that atrocity, he ought to consider himself lucky to be allowed to draw breath.
Upvote
46
(59
/
-13)
Are you on Android? iOS has had swipe down to reload for quite a while now.
Settings -> Homepage -> Opening Screen: Last tab. That option has been there since the beginning.
Ctrl+K is your friend. It gives focus to the search bar. Alt+D for URL, Ctrl+K for search. And if you have the search bar removed, like me, Ctrl+K turns the URL bar into the search bar.
Upvote
0
(4
/
-4)
I virtually never comment on Ars, but I feel very strongly about this subject. I used Netscape Navigator (and Mosaic before it), switched to Mozilla when it first came out, and switched to Firefox when it came out. I've used it ever since.
But Mozilla has an absolutely massive footgun, and they appear determined to keep using it.
Every few releases, they do one or more of the following:
1) Add new anti-features that I don't want, and which they go out of their way to hide the way to disable them. A lot of them have no UI setting to control them and need to be disabled in about:config. They're features I don't want, will never use, and which have questionable impacts on privacy.
2) Remove controls and settings which I use for better privacy. Sometimes they live on in about:config, but sometimes they're just gone.
3) Outright remove features I use. Sometimes someone has reimplemented them as an extension, but sometimes that's just not possible due to the limitations of the non-XUL extension framework after they dropped XUL.
4) Make gratuitous changes to the UI which actively harm usability. I'm not talking about things that just require a period of adjustment; I mean things that no matter how long you use them, it is more difficult to actually use the browser for browsing. Sometimes they leave a setting there for you to switch back, but not often, and those settings usually go away in the next release or two. You have to go hunting for someone to have figured out how to reverse the breakage using userChrome -- and note they've disabled the ability to even use userChrome by default -- you have to enable it in about:config. Some of these UI changes simply cannot be worked around, because of the limitations of extensions and userChrome.
Perhaps worst is that if you try to report these types of issues with usability or deleted preferences, their response isn't "How is this change impacting your usage of Firefox?" or "What problem is this causing?" or even "Unfortunately it's no longer possible because of <required change> which we introduced for security reasons". It's usually "You shouldn't want to do that." Completely paternalistic, and absolutely unwilling to see that not all users have precisely the same needs and requirements in using a browser.
I still use Firefox. But I no longer recommend it to anyone else. And I can see the day coming when I will switch to a non-Chrome Blink-based browser like Brave or DuckDuckGo's which still believes in user choice and privacy. Unless Mozilla make a serious change in their approach to Firefox and their users, they're heading towards 0% market share.
C.
But Mozilla has an absolutely massive footgun, and they appear determined to keep using it.
Every few releases, they do one or more of the following:
1) Add new anti-features that I don't want, and which they go out of their way to hide the way to disable them. A lot of them have no UI setting to control them and need to be disabled in about:config. They're features I don't want, will never use, and which have questionable impacts on privacy.
2) Remove controls and settings which I use for better privacy. Sometimes they live on in about:config, but sometimes they're just gone.
3) Outright remove features I use. Sometimes someone has reimplemented them as an extension, but sometimes that's just not possible due to the limitations of the non-XUL extension framework after they dropped XUL.
4) Make gratuitous changes to the UI which actively harm usability. I'm not talking about things that just require a period of adjustment; I mean things that no matter how long you use them, it is more difficult to actually use the browser for browsing. Sometimes they leave a setting there for you to switch back, but not often, and those settings usually go away in the next release or two. You have to go hunting for someone to have figured out how to reverse the breakage using userChrome -- and note they've disabled the ability to even use userChrome by default -- you have to enable it in about:config. Some of these UI changes simply cannot be worked around, because of the limitations of extensions and userChrome.
Perhaps worst is that if you try to report these types of issues with usability or deleted preferences, their response isn't "How is this change impacting your usage of Firefox?" or "What problem is this causing?" or even "Unfortunately it's no longer possible because of <required change> which we introduced for security reasons". It's usually "You shouldn't want to do that." Completely paternalistic, and absolutely unwilling to see that not all users have precisely the same needs and requirements in using a browser.
I still use Firefox. But I no longer recommend it to anyone else. And I can see the day coming when I will switch to a non-Chrome Blink-based browser like Brave or DuckDuckGo's which still believes in user choice and privacy. Unless Mozilla make a serious change in their approach to Firefox and their users, they're heading towards 0% market share.
C.
Upvote
62
(63
/
-1)
Chemical Tribe
Ars Legatus Legionis
You know that your source completely contradicts what you assert, right?
Upvote
18
(19
/
-1)
I love Firefox and have used it for years because I can't trust putting all my eggs in one basket with Safari. Google already has too much info from other services I use. Admittedly though sometimes I get frustrated and can't help but think it's why my Mac is always hot. Maybe all modern browsers are RAM/CPU heavy? I haven't ventured to Chrome long enough to see...
Upvote
0
(0
/
0)
I do not agree. JavaScript may not be the best language in the world, but it's perfectly useable and allows one to do a lot of extremely nice and useful stuff in the browser. The fact that there are a lot of developers who insist on writing horribly slow, bloated code with it isn't the language's fault: they'd still write slow and bloated code, even if they had to switch to something else.
Upvote
-5
(19
/
-24)
Chemical Tribe
Ars Legatus Legionis
Um, no. They pull their own ad shit and are led by the former CEO of Mozilla.
Fuck them.
Upvote
42
(51
/
-9)
Chemical Tribe
Ars Legatus Legionis
To confirm what others said, no this isn't true. It used to not have the google login system, but now it does.
A real degoogled verision for android would be bromite.
Upvote
8
(10
/
-2)
A shame to see it falling like this.
It's not good for Google to basically own the browser market (since Edge is now running on Chrome's code base anyways).
And as a web developer Firefox still has the superior set of browser tools to Chrome.
It's not good for Google to basically own the browser market (since Edge is now running on Chrome's code base anyways).
And as a web developer Firefox still has the superior set of browser tools to Chrome.
Upvote
12
(14
/
-2)
One clear benefit Firefox offers that I didn't see covered in either this article or other comments: to my knowledge, Firefox is the only browser that offers users control over if / when extensions update.
Ars and Krebs on Security have offered excellent coverage about When Good Extensions Go Bad, e.g. A 0-day, malicious extension, and sync abuse are keeping Google developers busy., The Case for Limiting Your Browser Extensions, and Is Your Browser Extension a Botnet Backdoor?
Ars and Krebs on Security have offered excellent coverage about When Good Extensions Go Bad, e.g. A 0-day, malicious extension, and sync abuse are keeping Google developers busy., The Case for Limiting Your Browser Extensions, and Is Your Browser Extension a Botnet Backdoor?
Upvote
31
(31
/
0)
Chemical Tribe
Ars Legatus Legionis
"On April 4, 2014, the Washington Times reported that conservative “activist Ben Shapiro is leading up an online charge of fellow political compadres to boycott the browser Firefox — an outraged response to the Mozilla chief’s departure from his CEO role due to gay rights’ protests.”
The Washington Times article went on to say, “Mr. Shapiro has started a movement — complete with petition — to get as many Internet users as possible to ‘uninstall or cease using Mozilla.”
You were saying?
Upvote
45
(52
/
-7)
My preferred browser has been FF for years. Yes, it has done some questionable user-experience changes (like that hasn't happened with every other browser), but it's interest in user-privacy and the use of containers appeals.
If I must use a Chromium browser, I use Vivaldi rather than Chrome or Edge, while I can't tell you the last time I used Safari.
If I must use a Chromium browser, I use Vivaldi rather than Chrome or Edge, while I can't tell you the last time I used Safari.
Upvote
5
(5
/
0)
Speaking of Amazon. They themselves should make large donations to the company. I use the AWS Workspaces service. The Default image they created has Firefox installed instead of Chrome for the Windows version. Because it uses a Server running as a desktop license.
Upvote
6
(6
/
0)
This exists now. It’s a pain to use though compared to what Google provides. Or was. I haven’t had time to dig back into it after it went out of “beta”
Upvote
2
(2
/
0)
It just doesn't work well with a lot of sites and you end up with weird issues. They're all designed with the idea that you'll probably be using Chrome or Safari. I love the focus on privacy, but it just isn't a good daily driver browser.
Upvote
-12
(6
/
-18)
Damned if they did, and damned if they didn't. Like you, I ditched FF when they ditched XUL, making all the addons I used obsolete. There ceased to be any compelling reason to use it. But, there is no doubt that XUL was a security nightmare. They ditched it for the right reasons, but it also took away everything that made Firefox unique. Not sure if it's even possible to for them to turn it around at this point. Still, I wish them the best.
Upvote
11
(17
/
-6)
You shouldn't be able to do "nice and useful stuff" in a browser. HTTP and HTML were not designed as application platforms, and abusing them that way has cause incredible amounts of pain. Come for the layers of incomprehensible hacks, stay for the continuous 20-year stream of security holes.
If people wanted a remote platform for general applicaitons, they should have designed one from scratch, not tried to shove it into an architecturally incompatible system.
The funny thing is that I was in a room where Netscape pitched JavaScript as a "more secure" alternative than Java applets for server-side code. It's true that the JVM was shit and the Java sandbox was incredibly porous, but JavaScript never even had a sandbox.
It's also nasty just viewed as programming language, but honestly I have to cut some slack for that part. It was thrown together in like a week, and the intended application was validating forms, not writing every possible kind of computer application.
Upvote
32
(43
/
-11)