How Mozilla lost the Internet (& what's next)

[@TechAltar]

Get 40% off an annual Nebula subscription here: go.nebula.tv/techaltar

[@AabhashPandey]

Nobody cares about Nebula

[@grizeldabrown]

@@AabhashPandey I care about nebula. It's a great platform, and I love his extra content he provides there vs the ad you get here.

[@andrzejpokorowski7642]

Hey, I just recently started using Nebula and noticed very low rating on the google app store. In fact I checked if its not a scam attempt but it wasnt and after i installed i realized why the reviews were so low. The app just suddenly stops playing videos, you have to restart it. Can happen every 5 minutes. Such a bummer ngl, pls fix, the videos are cool but unwatchable atm

[@Kas-_-]

@@AabhashPandey except you who seem to care at least as much as to comment on it ;)

[@rasmis]

I watched it on Nebula, but had to come here to comment on the content. Nebula's choice to fight hard against a community emerging is such a weird choice.

[@iamsometimes6712]

Been using Firefox for years. Was a regular donor until I read that their CEO's pay got recently doubled to $7M "to be more salary competitive with large tech companies", while their market share hit bottom at around 4% 😲 What on earth makes that CEO deserve $7M in that context ? 😡 Was thinking that I was supporting a David company, discovered that I was instead feeding a Goliath out-of-touch CEO. Bye donations...

[@SuperSSSSooonniicccc]

Please do some research on what CEOs actually do. A bad CEO will tank a company very quickly and thus they are in high demand and get a much larger salary. Look at GamerNexus's coverage on the failure of EK Water Blocks. Where the EK founders had a disagreement with a good CEO they had, the CEO left, they tried to manage it themselves, ended up splitting up the company, and now they are money laundering. All of this could have been prevented if they kept the same CEO and agreed with him. Certainly yes I wish CEOs didn't make as much, but a good one is still extremely valuable and thus the price makes sense. If they could get more at another company, they will and thus the salary is high to keep them on-board. Whether they deserve it or not is up to the company's board of directors. Also look at any well funded Charity. Almost all of them have a CEO that is paid well, because they know how to pool money for the Charity effectively. As long as the Charity's overall goal of say 90% or more donations actually go to the Charity target, then that CEO is doing a good job.

[@Arkanthrall]

Meanwhile Nintendo CEO halved his salary to prevent layoffs.

[@NubeBuster]

@@Arkanthrall Nintendo always gives mixed signals. Their products are great and then you hear this. But they are evil in many other aspects. Quite confusing

[@L2002]

​@@NubeBusternot really evil, just more noticing than other companies

[@selectionn]

@@L2002 Oh no, definitely evil. I wont comment on their corporate structure or how employees are treated. But how they interact with their customers is downright evil. Take a look at their stance on emulation on their website. And then realize that you literally cannot legally play or buy many nintendo games, as they removed them from sale. Take note of their new "music app" (lol) and how they DMCA'd HUNDREDS of videos with nintendo music in it, despite it being fair use under the Digital millenia act.

[@lenOwOo]

Annual spending the foundation of Kde : $1 mill Gnome : $2.5 mill Blender : $3.5 mill Apache : $ 3 mill Krita : $ 70k-100k Linux : $ 8 mill (kernel only) Mozilla : $400 mill - $ 500mill? Exuse me? Blender have around 50 full time employee while other foundation have around just 10-20. Yet Mozilla have almost 1k? And ceo that got paid for $8 mill for what?. . Pushing away people?

[@darko.v]

Good point... why is this?

[@AbteilungsleiterinBeiAntifaEV]

According to their latest annual report KDE spent sub 500k

[@turtlefrog369]

mozilla is more than firefox. they ahve a lot of projects.

[@juli123456789123]

​@@turtlefrog369kde also has a lot of projects.

[@PandaMacaroni]

@@AbteilungsleiterinBeiAntifaEV freak

[@segfault-berlin]

the main problem is the core user base do not believe that firefox actually need 600mil to build and maintiain a browser. Its difficult to justfiy given how many resources they waste on flashy side projects that have nothing to do with the core mission of providing free and un surveiled access to the web.

[@RandomLucker]

Yeah thats a very good point! Think the same. I also donate to Firefox and Thunderbird from time to time knowing without it can not work but to hear so much money gos to one person is not ok.

[@AiMimi-Lunix]

Nothing is free in life, maybe It's time to go back to the board and brainstorm ideas for how to make enough money to sustain the project and for i+d this muh free stuff is not working. Google being the big enemy and the same time the one who keeps the thing running is a nightmare.

[@0LoneTech]

It's hard to see unsurveiled access to the web as a goal of Mozilla while Firefox keeps reporting in your keystrokes when trying to enter an address, automatically downloading and running hostile DRM binaries, etc.

[@xDMG15x]

Yeah, i used to donate to wikipedia until I actually checked their finances and saw how much money they have in surplus and how much they give away.

[@mirageowl]

also how many of the side projects that weren't acquisitions have been abandoned

[@mr.alkenly889]

I think the bigger issue is the upper management at the company, they need to cut costs not increase revenue

[@NeroVingian40]

They need to do both, can’t just choose one.

[@eIektrinis]

Yes, I wonder how do they manage to spend $600M/y on a browser. 1% of that should be enough to maintain a web browser.

[@Lambda_Ovine]

Yeah, and they should start with their own salaries. how much is the CEO making? 7 million? That could fund the entirety of one of the most popular FOSS projects for a year... a very good year

[@MarcPagan]

Mozilla is Twitter pre Elon Musk - Gynocentric cackling hen HR ladies, essentially "The View", running a tech firm. X /Twitter runs like a top after cutting 80% its staff, ....and 100% of its power mad authoritarian Leftist Censorship Karens, and Beta Males Mozilla can do the same.

[@kenlen8029]

Well they just fired a large amount of people so yeah about that lol

[@INSTAFLIXMEDIA]

Don't care how many users use firefox. I have been using it for almost two decades and will continue to do till they shut down the damn company!

[@Chikowski101]

There's no place like chrome

[@TechnoMinded-qp5in]

@@Chikowski101 Chrome is spyware jokes on you hackers are already trying to steal your data.

[@nishant54]

@@Chikowski101 There is

[@jacobgames3412]

​@@Chikowski101there is

[@grapy83]

Same 😁. I love Firefox and don't even understand why they aren't super hit

[@derplo8372]

Now that Google is actively restricting Ad Blockers in Chrome and chrome-based browsers with Manifest v3, I hope Firefox gets a push.

[@floppa9415]

I'm running edge and litterly nothing has changed.

[@darklord-mw7jd]

​@@floppa9415yet.

[@jirikral1052]

Unfortunately most people won't probably care.

[@derplo8372]

​@@floppa9415 Some chrome-based browsers still support Manifest v2, at least for the time being. uBlock Origin had to release a lite version for Manifest v3, so there were definitely limitations with Manifest v3. It's then just a question of how slowly they cook the frog.

[@derplo8372]

@@floppa9415 Some chrome-based browsers will still support Manifest v2 for now. uBlock Origin had to release a lite version for Manifest v3, so there were definitely limitations with Manifest v3. It's then just a question of how slowly they cook the frog...

[@ferdgerbeler8494]

They don't need more income, they need to get rid of the corporate leaches calling themselves 'management' .

[@GeorgeWashingtonLaserMusket]

Bro they're a fraction of the size they were, they could need both, it's not mutually exclusive.

[@Bob-qz5yj]

~30% of their employee costs went to management, at least a couple years ago

[@RhythmGamer]

If you have no money you can pay anyone to do anything… no one works for free forever, some time you have to pay for your bills.

[@blanktester]

You just described the entire system.

[@sirflimflam]

The very future of Mozilla is up in the air right now with the whole Google deal potentially on the chopping block as Google deals with the consequences of its Monopoly. They do need more income. More income that isn't from Google.

[@Strammeiche]

I'd donate to Firefox but Mozilla is spending so much money on crap I don't want to support.

[@cbs1710]

Give me an option to donate EXCLUSIVELY to the Firefox Development and Firefox team, with fully-transparent 0% going anywhere else (especially not C-suite scum), and I will gladly donate 10 USD every single month.

[@bader3677]

oof u rich af

[@natanmaia3575]

Cool. Google still pays a few billion to Firefox each year. 120USD is nothing even if there were millions like you (there aren't). They're in a pickle. Delving into ads may also make Google see them as a competitor and cut some funding as well. It's a shame, I'm not even sure what they're doing to accrue all those expenses...

[@cbs1710]

@@bader3677 By all means, share with the rest of the class the assumptions you have made about me. Let's see how close you got it.

[@mysterry2000]

​@@natanmaia3575 iirc Google's investments mainly for two things: 1. to maintain MDN (a worldwide resource for web developers, including for Chrome) and 2. to provide Google as the main search engine. The way I understand it, Google doesn't give a hot diggidy damn about Firefox's development as a browser - they focus on Chrome Mostly, at least. The exception is to push the online advertising agenda so that the Web can be monetizable to their monopoly, even if it gets enshittified (which they wouldn't give a damn about either)

[@cbs1710]

@@natanmaia3575 They are being terribly mismanaged IMO, they never stick around with anything, keep cancelling projects that would have been worth it if they stuck to it, etc. The Google "safe bet" has led to the C-suite payouts, and arrogance, and errosion of trust we have been seeing for years. Meanwhile, they stagnated on the development and Chrome overtook them, then Google maintained the stagnation with its payouts. Then they did the Quantum revamp of Firefox, and pissed off majority of their users by deprecating all addons, promising they will bring the features back (guess what, not even the promissed session management API got back). No customizability of that level was ever restored back. Then the C-holes fired the whole servo team, whule giving themselves bonuses (all yhe while complaining that they are underpaid). Way before that - there was Proton, also abandoned. Mozilla could and should be the beacon and promoter of privacy on the internet, but they can stick with anything. And 120 USD of my money would isn't a lot, but multiplied by a factor would make it possible for Firefox to be Firefox, and be self-reliant.

[@gmt1]

I like Firefox and I've used it for years, but realistically speaking it's nothing special. Their biggest selling point is that they're not Google or Microsoft. With how much money Mozilla receives they could literally develop several entirely new browsers from the ground up, but instead they fork over millions to a useless CEO that is actively ruining their reputation and burying what's left.

[@FloydMaxwell]

Wiki: "Chambers stated that she will not be seeking a permanent position as CEO, as she plans to return to Australia later in 2024 for family reasons" Another bad sign.

[@thecianinator]

Oh god, she's one of those "turnaround CEOs".

[@SunIsLost]

So she is just filling a Paycheck.

[@dashcharger24]

​@@thecianinatorShe will claim Mozilla was doing great under her leadership and didn't do anything wrong. It's basically hit and run, but because she dropped the family word and she is a woman, it's okay.

[@rus.t]

As much as a subscription model is a somewhat safer option for Mozilla, I don't think the general public will bite this... specially considering that people are starting to get tired of subscription services in so many things.

[@sanjay_swain]

Yes. Subscription model would be a complete destruction of their entire marketshare... There is no browser with a subscription model and no way in hell VAST majority even those who are VERY vocal about "privacy" will pay for it. They will just fork it and use a clone of firefox but no one would pay for it.

[@aieverythingsfine]

why the flying christ would i pay for a broswer that uses 6gb of ram to load a single web page? its bonkers mun

[@hastyscorpion]

​@@aieverythingsfineit doesn't...

[@aieverythingsfine]

@@hastyscorpion mine is bro, and when you google it,its normal. Google "why is firefox using all my memory"

[@cosmiccat3383]

​@@aieverythingsfineHi this goes for all browsers but add-ons multiple their ram usage by tabs so make sure you don't have a bunch of useless shit

[@milunacodes]

it just doesn't make sense to spend 600M on improving the products, can you imagine the amount of engineers that you can pay for that amount of money? is obvious that the money is leaking somewhere in Mozilla

[@DiegoGZorrilla]

Sure, I'll donate so they can give 8 mill to the CEO, when Firefox forks are the ones actually innovating.

[@lussor1]

Zen and Floorp be like

[@samuele5931]

Innovating on the shoulder of the ones mantaining the engine, which cost a lot more than adding a couple of UI features

[@michalsvihla1403]

The dev team gets pennies on the dollar...

[@TheArcticWitch]

​@@samuele5931Luckily, we know they have at least 7 million more than they need for development so no biggie

[@mangu4558]

​@@lussor1 Zen is so good

[@edhahaz]

The rest of Mozzilla is not of my concern, and it's NOT POSSIBLE to donate for FIREFOX directly, like you can for Thunderbird.

[@dirtypure2023]

Why does it matter?

[@balmashev93]

'cos people don't want to pay CEO 7 millions, who wants to add advertising to privacy focused browser

[@ar1fur]

Mozilla Corporation is leeching Mozilla Foundation.

[@SilencioTortilla]

I want to love firefox, but Mozilla wasting money on already rich management and ceo's is bizarre. You can't claim you are for a free and equal web and then lay them off but dont salary cut your own ceo.

[@user-xp8nq5mf9y]

"i have a competitor" and "im even paying him" are literally contradicting.

[@AiMimi-Lunix]

Not if you want to avoid the monopoly treatment

[@LightningSnake]

No, because they pay for something specific: The usage of the search engine by default (which nobody changes) Chrome is for a tighter integration, nothing more

[@drachna]

​@LightningSnake I use duck duck go on firefox, so at least one person has changed it lol.

[@Lambda_Ovine]

The CEO makes, what? 7 to 8 million a year? Do you know how much funding that that means in the FOSS world? That's like 7 times more than the ENTIRE funding of the average FOSS oriented nonprofit foundation out there...! In a good year! I'm going to say, the issue with Mozilla has always been management, not enthusiasts, and it's not looking like it's going to improve

[@nfineon]

The same issue as with Boeing, the company is run by bean counters and less than qualified executives instead of ENGINEERS. See how that went.

[@ca09z]

I donate to other projects and I would donate to Mozilla too if the money was used for browser development... apparently it's not, so I don't.

[@chb3546]

Why they need $600M / year ?

[@lenOwOo]

Because they need to pay 750 people that barely or not even contribute to the actual browsers betterment. Edit, they actually have around 900 people this year

[@Mario583a]

Believe it or not, it takes money to develop a browser and to pay their employees for their time doing so. Also, foundation is not just the browser portion.

[@hastyscorpion]

​@@Mario583a700 million dollars pays for 3000 to 7000 developers...

[@-zero-]

its money laundering, plus look at ceo salary 😂

[@VeganCossack]

@@Mario583a I'm a Firefox user myself but I don't see much of that development going on. There have been no new meaningful features in years and FF now looks like Internet Explorer compared to Vivaldi and Edge (their performance seems to be worse though)

[@dm9335]

Its always an out of touch CEO, pushing a stupid project just to make themselves look like they are doing something.

[@RoyaltyInTraining.]

Two things need to happen for me to donate to Mozilla. They need to streamline the process of removing all the advertisement and tracking from their browser after a fresh install, and they gotta fire their overpaid CEO. After that, I could imagine donating 100 bucks a year.

[@tryfinally]

the ceo needs to go

[@larscwallin]

Will you start paying for Firefox then?

[@samyt681]

there have been like 3 ceos in these past 5 years this is hilarious

[@Deliveredmean42]

Apparently she is a temp CEO, so maybe soon at the end of the year.

[@SirWolf2018]

@@larscwallin Screw paying, screw ads. We need a privacy and security oriented browser, not hundreds of fancy features that noone asked for. The CEOs simply need to do a better job, because OSS forks currently do much better.

[@larscwallin]

@SirWolf2018 someone still needs to pay though, you know. The job of a CEO is ultimately to make sure that the business can continue to operate in a responsible way. Such as paying salaries. This takes money. So if you don't want ads, are you prepared to pay?

[@aaronboothproduction]

I'm watching this on Firefox right now. I've used it since the early 2000's and never even knew they were in a decline.

[@irregulargamer1352]

Can't really decline if they've never risen

[@DanWalshTV]

@@irregulargamer1352 Never risen? Firefox had a HUGE percentage of the browser marketshare ~15 years ago. There was literally a graph of it in the video, lol.

[@yoshi314]

not to be crude, but are you really REALLY unaware of their dropping market share ever since google chrome got released?

[@lokifrostpaw2976]

​@irregulargamer1352 what are you talking about? Firefox was very popular around 2009-2011. That's also when I first used it, and later on, it became slower, which is why I and many people switched to other browsers (but I switched back after they fixed it). There's also a whole lot of people who didn't use browsers as much back in those days. I just noticed that when my tech-illiterate colleagues barely ever heard of Firefox (they even called it "Mozilla").

[@Iskelderon]

Bit like Internet Explorer only noticing something's up decades after it happened.

[@PuOop-j9l]

can someone explain to me wtf does mozilla with 600 million eruros a year? like do they have 100.000 employees?

[@PuOop-j9l]

@@randomuser-xc2wr the question is, 267 millions would hire a lot of developers, or if the current developers are enough, does it really need so many managers?

[@RandomLucker]

more like 15.000 but yes its interessting

[@PuOop-j9l]

@@RandomLucker for a project that is basically on maintenance for now? like 1k developer are more than enough for firefox.. what do the others do?

[@Azarilh]

No, they got one greedy CEO to feed 7mil€ per year. I'd assume other leaders take almost as much, but i don't know.

[@blender_tom]

What they've done with Thunderbird is amazing - it's still open source, but they've taken back some control so it's not a dumpster fire full of features and sub menus.

[@amunak_]

It's fascinating how Mozilla "kicking them out" was the best they could've done for them... They have more funding, more development, and seemingly some direction now, too.

[@Charvin]

Thunderbird is a bad client, I tried to switch to that for a week and my mail notifications on it showed up really late compared to outlook or the Gmail app on the phone. Both of them have instant mail notifications. It only has one job to do, let me know when the mail comes in and it fails spectacularly at that every time I try to switch to it to get away from outlook.

[@dashcharger24]

​@@amunak_Servo is also back

[@Zyugo]

They need to divest Firefox.

[@mik3lang3lo]

"You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain."

[@RandomLucker]

😅 hopefully not... i mean both NOT 😅

[@Nobody2989]

It doesn't matter what Mozilla the company does; privacy junkies will just fork the browser into a more privacy-focused version without intrusive ads if the company goes too far.

[@CalicoCrack]

already a thing, its called librewolf

[@0LoneTech]

They regularly do (e.g. Pale Moon), and then people complain that the team supporting those forks must be too small, and the splintering continues.

[@YukariAkiyama]

Floorp is the way to go. No telemetry garbage, no huge corporation. Just a few japanese dudes tired of mozilla corp

[@VictorZenloth]

Firefox highlights the resilience of open source software as it is essentially the open sourcing of Netscape Navigator. Even if Mozilla the company goes under, it will live on as an open source project as plenty of corporations are interested in an open source alternative to Chrome as well as Mozilla's development of the Rust programming language.

[@FengLengshun]

@@VictorZenloth I don't know. Maybe it can be kept alive, but for them to continue being developed? Whatever the shape that Mozilla and Firefox was, when you consider how hard it has been to push for features users asked for years, you have to admit it has been reshaped into the bloated entity and codebase it has become now. It just never had the benefit of a passionate, focused, and competent BDFL like Linux kernel did. I have more hopes in the Ladybug browser becoming good than post-Mozilla Firefox being able to continue to advance beyond its last state.

[@sanjay_swain]

Bruh. If mozilaa goes down that is the literal end of firefox... It is impossible for any kind of browser to be properly funded by donations due to the sheer complexity of web. Trust me there is no one going to take over the development of an entire browser engine unless someone ACTUALLY pays for it at market rates. The backward compaitibility and changing web standard support is NOT fun. It is not like linux. Not even close. There are no thousands of companies who use linux for there businesses. It is not 2000s where the web standards can be written in few page of a document. Now you need an entire 1000 page book just to show current web standards and that is not even accounting for depracated stuff which have to be supported unless you want to simply make millions of POPULAR old webpages unusable.

[@Andre-LA]

I think Servo is more likely to be the push as an FOSS browser engine than Gecko if moz gets closed. It was from moz labs, and now under linux foundation.

[@xanderplayz3446]

⁠@@sanjay_swain*laughs in people maintaining forks because they like the project*

[@xanderplayz3446]

@@Andre-LAI personally think Ladybird will. It is relatively slow now, but you can order a pizza from it!

[@tlhIngan]

The problem is Firefox's user base are enthusiasts. No one using Firefox anymore is of the "general audience" nature - only hardcore Firefox users are left. All their changes to Firefox over the years alienated the userbase - and even those same enthusiasts who were installing Firefox on everyone's computers. But they started changing things and driving those people away, and the people who use Firefox on a daily basis (like me) are hardcore Firefox people. Or Linux people (where it is default). They really don't have a "general audience" left - those people left for Chrome after Firefox kept screwing with them and they gave up. And those people are the ones Mozilla cannot alienate without losing even more of their base. I don't know anyone who uses Firefox for fun nowadays - even what Google has done with ad blockers, most people are taking it over switching to Firefox.

[@fuseteam]

Proton succeeded because of the identity aspect: mailbox. It'd be interesting if mozilla either offers their own or partners with proton. Integration into thunderbird would be awesome xd

[@DanKillam]

As a subscriber to Pocket, VPN and the mail relay, all these products feel on long-term EOL support. No new features. I've lost faith in Mozilla's ability to maintain product focus. With the new Ad focus, I have a very bad feeling. I wish someone would hard fork and free Mozilla from the corporate stooges that seem to be running it into the ground.

[@sciteceng2hedz358]

Agree on Pocket. I still use it but no way I can justify a subscription for literally 1 feature...full text search...which I would love...but not worth $10/mo just for that. They could do so much with Pocket but it just sits there with no new features for years

[@0LoneTech]

I tried to use Pocket once. It didn't make much sense, and there was no way to tell what it regarded as an "article". Konqueror's "Archive Web Page" is far more predictable.

[@brutester]

I can tell you how they lost me as user in 2009-2010, after a patch I was no longer able to use Firefox to login to Office Web Access. This meant nobody in office can do their daily job. A bug was open by many folks to Mozilla, and the reply of the developers was "OWA should fix their code, we won't touch anything". Chrome had similar issue, but they've pushed an emergency patch. All corporate computers got Chrome instead of Firefox the same day.

[@viliml2763]

That's a W for Mozilla. You filed the bug to the wrong place.

[@LordWaterBottle]

​@@viliml2763as much as I want to agree, when Microsoft intentionally does something wrong it becomes the defacto standard and needs to be supported. Is it Mozilla's fault? No. Does Mozilla need to fix it? Ultimately yes. It sucks that Microsoft intentionally breaks web standards. It sucks that Google intentionally breaks web standards. The thing is, it is not Mozilla's job to determine what the standards are, it is their job to support the protocols being used. Even if they are broken. Even if it was intentionally broken to cause problems for Mozilla.

[@interruptingPreempt]

It wouldn't be the first time Microsoft has hamstrung other companies by deliberately, silently designing Microsoft products to not work and making it look like someone else's fault. (OS/2, Microsoft Word on Mac, etc.)

[@brutester]

@@interruptingPreempt just to make myself clear. The OWA portal was working for years, and then an update in Firefox happened that made it stop working. And wile giving an FU is good to Microsoft, still this is business customers that don't care about politics. If you are not flexible, then business makes you obsolete.

[@interruptingPreempt]

@@brutester And nothing will change for the better if people involved have no principles.

[@triadwarfare]

Mozilla seems to be covertly arrogant. They removed the ability to open files without saving since build 99 because they believe that's it's good for the users. I don't like it because I have one-off reports and I do not like cluttering my downloads folder. I think there's a way to re-enable it but this requires special access in a group policy if you're working under an organization. Good luck getting dev access approved if you're not part of security or a web developer.

[@a.yashwanth]

In edge it downloads the files in temp folder by default and it gives a save as option if you want to save somewhere else. So once it downloads the file I click save as and select respective folder only if I want to save it specific location.

[@abdur2890]

I am not sure because you have organization thingy. But i still have the option to just open the file. Had to manually turn on, but it was just in the settings and it was one click. Although I am not sure, wheather its platform specific issue. I use Windows 11. And opening docs without saving is one the single thing i use day to day

[@man_like_tim]

That option is in settings > generals > applications. Find the what should Firefox do with other files and choose the one that you want It's all on one page btw

[@amunak_]

They are and always have been extremely arrogant, knowing better than their users, and alienating people for it all the time. Remember when they switched to the new WebExtensions, completely cutting off legacy extensions for most of which there was no replacement at the time, and there is still none to some to this day? That's like 5+ years ago. One of their reasons was "because they don't want to maintain the code to support them". Well, turns out the code is still there and some people found how to re-enable it so you can still run some maintained legacy extensions (like Tab Mix Plus). And they do shit like this all the time.

[@MadsterV]

this sounds like a problem with your organization, not a firefox problem

[@gnerkus]

Mozilla has cancer. Patiently waiting for Mozilla to introduce a huge e-begging banner, Wikipedia style.

[@kenlen8029]

It blows my mind how so many technology companies continually get worse and enforce their ideas on consumers who are left eternally disappointed, somewhat powerless but almost surely less trusting on a larger scale. How do companies not understand that people don't care about their ads? They actively avoid them if they see them too much. It has become dystopian. Always liked Mozilla but am becoming skeptical of their direction. If they want to charge $5 per year to use their browser I am 100% ok with that if they get back to focusing on what their users want. Also seeing search engines become such a wasteland was something I couldn't have foreseen. Absolutely crazy how much the internet has changed for the worst over the past 1-2 decades.

[@centy64]

"People say they want software without tracking, without ads" They do indeed but that isn't what Mozilla are offering. FF has tracking on by default, doesn't come with a built in ad blocker, and thanks to the deal with google comes with the least privacy respecting search engine on by default. I am much more willing to donate to say the Librewolf team because they take the Firefox that Mozilla make and actually makes it privacy respecting and ad free. They are doing a much better job with Thunderbird and the rest of the company should learn from that part.

[@0LoneTech]

It's worse than just on by default. We can't even configure cookie whitelisting anymore, and if you turn DRM off and remove the preinstalled DRM blobs, then open dropbox (not even logged in or accessing any media), you get to see it complain that the DRM blob it freshly downloaded and ran didn't work as expected. Firefox actively lies about the privacy features it offers.

[@atsizbalik]

i want to use duckduckgo but it's terrible

[@atsizbalik]

i want to use duckduckgo but it's terrible

[@s_amoku]

Sorry but you dont know what you are talking about! According to you, Mozilla need 600M $ to develop and maintain a browser? This is nonsense. It is very clear that the major part of the founding dont go to the developers. With 600M $ you can employ around 2000 developers. I don't think that they have more than 500.

[@Cheekia2]

Turns out you need more than just developers working alone to push out a viable product for use. Firefox weirdos really are coping.

[@aieverythingsfine]

yeah theres some nonsense going on by here clearly

[@-zero-]

​​@@Cheekia2"Turns out you need more than just developers" wrong, firefox originally was made by developers to push out a viable browser which was taken over by lunatics and now is in hands of people with no knowledge of code. so much money? most of that money is probably just money laundering in legal ways.

[@yungfisherman4]

@@Cheekia2 Firefox weirdos actually look at their financial reports to see that their dumbass CEO gets paid double while laying off employees during COVID. They think critically instead of agreeing like a sheep

[@Tienisto]

@@Cheekia2 Linux only needs $8M , Blender only $3.5M

[@cat86581]

Them losing shares in not surprising, considering most phones come with chrome pre-installed and uninstallable. I use a xiaomi, it drives me up the wall, I have a folder named garbage just for apps like this.

[@pedro.alcatra]

exactly man.

[@musamabinather]

I am also using a Xiaomi phone, and I hate that we cannot uninstall all the Google related bloat ware. I have installed the Firefox mobile browser and use it as my main browser and surprisingly it works really well with all my main extensions from the desktop version working for the mobile version too.

[@masterfevi]

you can use adb to remove all Google and Xiaomi bloatwares it​ takes around 5 minutes @@musamabinather

[@xpforevergaming8609]

​@@musamabinather Use adb to „uninstall" any app you don't need and doesn't break the OS. It technically only uninstalls the app from the user, but it's the best you can do without root.

[@RandomLucker]

Yeah thats it. In very many countrys of the world its common do not have a desktop computer or not even Laptop.

[@Aphelia.]

I've switched to Mozilla Firefox a few years ago and it has been fantastic. They can pry it from my cold dead hands, I'm not letting that foundation go.

[@syed2194]

Agreed. I absolutely love Firefox.

[@sergey_a]

there is librewolf. Why use Firefox?

[@haomingli6175]

I don't think firefox has an advantage over the chromium bros in functionality or UI/UX

[@francisquebachmann7375]

That foundation's upper management is the one killing forefox though.

[@MadsterV]

@@haomingli6175 you haven't used it for long I guess. Try a stress test. Open a bunch of tabs, switch between them. Firefox performs way better.

[@freechurros]

Proton should seize the opportunity and just build a browser.

[@azmah1999]

Yeah sure, it’s not like web browsers are one of the most complicated kinds of software, right?

[@Lambda_Ovine]

They could fork firefox ig

[@SirFaceFone]

And use what engine?

[@TheBackyardChemist]

@@SirFaceFone servo

[@_Zaid]

@@azmah1999 Kagi is way smaller than Proton and successfully built a non Chromium browser (Orion).

[@SirWolf2018]

Screw advertising. The WWW is too painful to use without adblockers. If a CEO can't understand how much torture the Internet is now due to ads, then they don't understand anything, and they're bad at their job. Stop this bullcrap, ads are not the only choice, there are others.

[@SirWolf2018]

Just so we are clear, I don't want ads in Windows either, and I never will tolerate them. Firefox users use Firefox because their users are more conscious about their privacy and everything in average than those who don't care about ads in Windows and don't mind using Edge. So comparing Windows users and Firefox users is just stupid.

[@AiMimi-Lunix]

What are the other choices, are we going to start paying a monthly subscription to use a browser? Or are we going to convince governments to donate money to the cause?

[@SirWolf2018]

@@AiMimi-Lunix I don't know, but I'm not going to pay subscription for 99999 things. The world wants to go that way, and we need to fight back, because this is nonsense, and annoys the heck out of me.

[@ShadowOfTheSPQR]

@@AiMimi-Lunix we could start with ending the age of predatory advertising and return to a simpler, less intrusive, advertise by content relevance not by profiling model. A lot of goodwill would be gained if the ad industry itself was leashed. Probably more realistic than putting everything under subscription.

[@Zyugo]

We need to usher in a new era for at least Firefox to redeem themselves with at least using their main brand logo as their new browser logo. Either they go full-Chromium or have the brand be bought up by Proton or Kagi or anyone interested. This decline shows that Mozilla Corp needs a new head to bring them back to the competition and rebuild the once best browser to even be on par with the best Chromium browsers. They are just waiting for a messiah to raise them back up on their feet. I do not know when will be the time we'll be seeing a drastic change in Firefox, heck I've never used Firefox since 2021 since I've switched to Google Chrome (maybe MS Edge), and then to Brave.

[@ShaferHart]

Firefox went on a wild goose chase trying to be more like Chrome, thinking the normie users who left because Google spammed Chrome on their home page would come back. In the end, all it did was give their pro users fewer reasons to stick around. They dug their own grave, and I say that as a Firefox user.

[@FM-kl7oc]

LibreWolf is what people think Firefox is; privacy focused and ad-free.

[@alok.01]

What about zen browser

[@BeefIngot]

But what is it based on. The point is that that doesn't exist without its base. I doubt they could keep up with the constant security changes of the web.

[@FM-kl7oc]

@@BeefIngot LibreWolf being based on FireFox does not (a) make FireFox privacy focused and ad-free like LibreWolf, and does not (b) make LibreWolf privacy intrusive and ad-based like FireFox. Arguing a, b or both is either ignorant and/or dishonest, and is either way just a distraction from the dishonest and untrustworthy path Mozilla has gone with FireFox.

[@BeefIngot]

@@FM-kl7oc Did you even _read_ my comment?

[@ggz21]

And Mull on Android

[@Chris-yc3mm]

Firefox user here 👍

[@Shadow_banned_by_YouTube]

Chrome user there 👇

[@SushmaVivek-xq4nv]

Posting from firefox

[@shortycarnage]

Must be lonely

[@Ethereal_Mind_YT]

​@@shortycarnage At the top? Yeah it is.

[@manymoretrades]

I use zen which is a Mozilla fork

[@bgezal]

I've been a loyal Mozilla user since the dawn of Netscape. Firefox, Thunderbird, Filezilla... Their freedom fight is fine but I like the software. I don't care about market share or drama. My only wish is that they stop bullying addon developers with api changes and publish more mobile addons, that exists on PC. Oh, and also there needs to be tools for syncing and backup of start page collections.

[@NEVIXIA]

I use Firefox on everything… I appreciate the simplicity of getting much needed extensions on it & not being screwed over by googles chrome browser or anything with MV3 being shoved down our throats. If Firefox does end up doing it then I’ll look into something else that fits my needs/expectations. I don’t mind ads if they aren’t intrusive and over an hour or non skippable.

[@sciteceng2hedz358]

Brave?

[@sonnenhafen5499]

Advertisement is basically the last thing i want Firefox to be focused on. That would be the only reason for me to actually switch away.

[@navixaxa5023]

Just answer this - who uses Firefox? I'll give you the answer. Anybody, who understands, and actually gives 2 shits about Privacy, No Ads or Tracking, and or for supporting an Open Source Platform. By bringing in Ads, who are you gonna alienate? Well, fucking everybody! L Move Mozilla. Btw, what tf do they need $600 Mil every single year? What are they developing? GTA VI?

[@GamesFromSpace]

You sound like a vegan who won't shut up.

[@Anteksanteri]

I just think it's a good browser with fewer annoyances than chrome.

[@silversolver7809]

"Privacy, No Ads or Tracking" Hasn't Proton been the better choice for a while now?

[@aarspar]

​@@silversolver7809 Proton doesn't have a browser though

[@NElectronicSoul]

@@silversolver7809 is proton a bowser....

[@KuruGDI]

I would donate to Mozilla or Firefox, but as there looks to be like making Firefox worse over the last decade, I don't see any reason why a donation would be a good investment.

[@snygg1993]

I would not donate to a corporation that pay's their CEO $8M. That's the pay for at least 80 full time developers wasted for nothng. Why should I donate if it is not spend on the product but only wasted for the next new yacht of that CEO?

[@Lambda_Ovine]

well, donations are never a good investments because they aren't investments at all... but yeah, I get what you mean, what would be the point

[@KuruGDI]

@@snygg1993 Also a fair and very good point!

[@duckmeat4674]

A donation isn't an investment...it's literally in the name, it's a donation, 0 return

[@snygg1993]

@@duckmeat4674 ... except for the thinkg that is developed.

[@Chuck_vs._The_Comment_Section]

Maybe it's just not a good idea to run a project like Firefox like a company.

[@pieterrossouw8596]

Recently switched back to Firefox after about a decade using Chrome... It's honestly fine.

[@NeistH2o]

I switched to firefox on my PC about 2 years ago, i m never going back. i really love it :)

[@archiver22]

Yeah me too, one of the best changes I've done digitally

[@krollpeter]

I do not see how Chrome is better in use, as compared to Firefox, which is what people say. How? Why is it supposed to be better?

[@MadsterV]

@@krollpeter I have to used both to keep compatibility in check and Firefox is definitely better. At one point Chrome got the network inspector and I started using it more, but then Firefox got it too and I'm back to it. It's just better behaved and the picture-in-picture feature for any video is ace.

[@krollpeter]

@@MadsterV Some websites here in Singapore especially government and banking require Chrome. I have no idea why they are all under one blanket with Google. I am using Chromium then for privacy, but Librewolf is my main browser.

[@drachna]

After Google and Microsoft started pushing AI features onto their browsers, I switched to Firefox. The ability to fully block ads on mobile is also a game changer.

[@executive]

watching this from my Firefox browser.

[@hsianghyue]

For a long time, Firefox has been my default browser, and I haven't encountered too many problems using it. That is, until Mozilla started adding some low-quality advertisements, and in 2020, Mozilla started deciding that they wanted to amplify some 'voices'. They transitioned from a tool to a 'I will teach you what to do' role. This is not only arrogant but also a huge insult to users.

[@kinanalhawat6753]

I even use Firefox on my mobile devices.

[@akse]

It's a must.. gets you the adblock to everywhere on mobile as well. Nobody wants to have that small mobile screen filled with ads.

[@althyk]

When their "worsenhancements" just added stuff nobody wanted. Happens all the time when a software lose it's identity. Like winamp, Skype, etc.

[@sciteceng2hedz358]

Used FF for years until their updates came in constantly and took forever to startup. Then the browsing was slow. That was 10 years ago and I heard FF got faster, but switched to Brave which was lightning fast and never looked back.

[@codycast]

2:55 how does Mozilla know how many people are using the browser and for how long? Once you download it aren’t you done with them? Does it phone home your usage?

[@looseycanon]

nah, if you look at some techie sites, you'll see small icons about their systems. What browser you use can be extracted from site backend.

[@tntblast500]

Websites can tell when you're using Firefox btw. Not sure if Mozilla tracks directly or not, but they could definitely tell without it.

[@RandomLucker]

don't you use updates? 🤣😂😅 There are many ways but i am pretty shure there is for example kind of time counter in it.

[@oCMSo]

Anonym is just the google proposal that everyone said no 2 freaking years ago…

[@Wampa842]

I often criticise Mozilla for their poor decisions and increasingly Big Corpo attitude, and somehow get called a Google shill for it...

[@0LoneTech]

6:53 How would donating to Mozilla get us ad-free privacy friendly software again? Firefox has added automatic downloading and running of hostile "DRM" binaries specifically against both claimed advantages and user requests (the setting not to do that doesn't stop it, and that's not the only sanity option removed or broken), and grown increasingly hostile towards ad blockers, albeit at a slightly slower rate than Google. It seems it would make more sense to support KDE, Pale Moon or Mullvad. KDE's KHTML for Konqueror is the origin of Apple's WebKit, by the way.

[@Freak80MC]

Me obliviously using Firefox not knowing or caring about it's greater extent among the browser competition. I just love Firefox, always have since I switched from Chrome lol

[@wile123456]

Proton did what mozilla should: Make a VPN way earlier, challenge google's drive and documents suite.

[@duckmeat4674]

Firefox did have a Google drive alternative, it was Firefox send, it was expensive

[@Thoughtflux]

Been using Mozilla Firefox for over 2 decades now. Won't be going to any other browser ever. Hopefully they don't make annoying changes like removing multi-tab support.

[@jakeyounglol]

i was gonna donate to mozilla until i found out they were trying to do ads. i can't stand ads at all

[@Software2TF2]

Firefox forced two breaking UX changes on me just during the watching of this video.

[@adrianwolff2007]

Have been using Firefox based browser and always will no matter what.

[@marinoceccotti9155]

Can't wait to install the anti-Anonym Firefox extension.

[@phantomwise67]

Or just switching to a fork like Waterfox or Librewolf

[@Ali-e5h1b]

2:41 - At that distance, with that bokeh and lighting, I think you can use white gaffers tape on those wires for the neon. Otherwise, you'd probably have to mount it into a backer board, then have the wires through a wall socket.

[@knightlautrec4311]

It's open source, we will maintain it ourselves if Mozilla go under.

[@korakys]

Proton should build a browser based on the Servo engine.

[@Bounty2223]

I switched back to Firefox thanks to Chrome not supporting ublock anymore

[@samgirard8660]

There are better ad-free browser with more privacy. I stopped using Mozilla because of that

[@alexanderwhite8320]

Mozilla Firefox went down when Mozilla kicked out the director who disapproved homosexuals. Then the homosexuals who are sick in head released Firefox version 29 with that new ugly chromified theme. It all went down because of major version race to compete with google chrome. By version numbers! How stupid! You cannot win by emulating a dumbed down spyware. You will alienate the power users who made a majority of Firefox users. Wokism killed Firefox Palemoon is somewhat good but the performance is noticeably worse than Firefox. And also Moonchild is stubborn and refuses to implement a DNS over HTTPS that makes huge difference in bypassing state censorship and surveillance.

[@Naltrex]

You're delusional, go to sleep

[@Zyugo]

Amen. I think it is true about this and their current browser logo looks ugly as hell, I wished they'd used their brand logo with a more sleeker look making them feel a lot like Opera GX without the gaming push.

[@PaulPlay]

Firefox is not only the only real competitor to Chromium, it's also the better web engine, in my opinion.

[@Trauma_Clown]

that's edge

[@tntblast500]

@@Trauma_Clown You don't know what you're talking about do you?

[@xpforevergaming8609]

​@@Trauma_ClownEdge has been using Chromium for years. It became a much better browser since the change, but that's a completely different topic.

[@Mario583a]

I don't care who Google sends, I am not switching to Chrome/Chromium!

[@mitchelstewart9969]

I would be willing to donate, but mozilla is not a company worth donating too.

[@imqqmi]

I am one of the regular donators of FF and TB, about $20 each every year since say 2015. It's sad that the ads monetization scheme is the only one most of the companies see as the one to go for. What FF really needs is a good ad campaign itself, not being an ads platform of itself. Google probably doesn't allow it, so there's the rub.

[@Iskelderon]

When for years they ignored memory leaks and spent their time rounding button corners instead, that's when I abandoned it for good. Hell, some bugs that should have been trivial to fix (like when checking "Do this always for this file type" for the attachment handler did anything but that...) had celebrated their TENTH anniversary!!

[@garminizator]

Couldn't be happier with Firefox, from its UI that I simply like more to Mozilla's "better than Google's" focus on privacy, so I'm really hoping they figure it out somehow, there's a lot of room for improvements in management department that seems to be the only thing that's actually ruining Mozilla right now. Firefox's continued existence (and may I also add amazing technical prowess) is especially impressive considering they're standing alone on their own in a room full of gigantic corporations using and standing behind Chromium for their browsers.

[@cy9nvs]

Been using Firefox for like 5 years now, and couldn't be more satisfied. Switching from chrome was super easy, once everything is set up, you won't even notice a difference.

[@Charvin]

Switching back is super easy too, you will likely notice some performance differences though, not to chrome but may be to something like Vivaldi.

[@Bassalicious]

As a long time Firefox user I ask for management cost be cut by >90%, the CEO to resign and a direct pathway for donations towards Firefox's development to be implemented instead of having to give Mozilla's management free reign over where donations are to be invested.

[@plushyneko]

As long as Firefox remains FOSS, its forks will thrive.

[@brawales]

I love Firefox. I've been using it for years and do not intend to change it.

[@burhanbudak6041]

8:10 Mozilla had more cool projects for de-googling like TTS, STT, voice to search, mobileOS etc. But that social project board spent on crap. But I don't know what to expect, they shit down developer projects for instead to spend on social issues.

[@44Hd22]

3:43 Just got the idea for perfect Firefox add. Absolute meme potential. There is an analogy of chemistry safety and different browsers. Then there is an eye liquid with really small eyes kinda like foam maybe at like 2-3 millimetres. Then they form into one eye which is still liquid and is looking at a chemist. That person takes of their protection glasses as one with regular glasses would and then the camera does a cut like they do in dialogues to the eye. Then it cuts back and the person is putting on sunglasses. To separate firefox even more you can give the sunglass person an orange t-shirt or opened thin (leather) jacket. Like MatPat's.

[@Valoric]

Mozilla leadership has become some of the worst I’ve ever seen. Step by step started moving away to Brave lately. Still gonna use Firefox every now and then. But I’ve lost hope in them.

[@Daikuro1]

Worth noting that's it hardly a fair comparison to just look at usage numbers. The way someone usually encounters a web browser these days is through what's preinstalled on their new smartphone or other device. Unless they are dissatisfied in some way with the default option they won't have a reason to switch. I don't know what percentage of Chrome's lead they owe to the shift away from PC browsing to phone/tablet browsing, but it's definitely significant. Basically, there isn't an equal opportunity to acquire a potential user. Firefox takes a search, a couple of taps, a download, and an install to get running on my Android phone. Meanwhile, Chrome is right there.

[@Dkeralite]

Switched to linux when windows 7 went EOL. and ever since i just use FF. Love it. Especially their add on containers. its not that i hate chromium based browsers but literally everything is chromium is what i hate.

[@redcrafterlppa303]

6:45 i would pay 10$ a year if Firefox was endangered and it means Firefox will keep going. But otherwise money doesn't grow on trees.

[@cpuuk]

I've been FF since day 1, still never seen a single ad on YT ^__^

[@naufalap]

you're certainly not wrong about the enthussiast trap, I've never switched from Firefox since Windows XP days and I'm the type of person who uses ublock origin and other ad preventing methods on both their phone and PC, so I haven't been subjected to online ads for almost over a decade

[@timogul]

Why is managing a browser so expensive anyway? They don't actually _improve_ in any way, they just continue to work basically the same they have for decades, and all they really need to do is patch vulnerabilities and keep up to date with existing standards so that all the websites keep working. Shouldn't that be relatively simple to do?

[@no.no.4680]

Wrt the money part of your question: in an ideal world Mozilla’s main expenses would be paying full time developers to work on FF and Thunderbird. In our much sadder world they have lots of pet projects that they love to burn money on. Wrt the improvements, here’s a list of some things that browsers have added in my lifetime: tabs, sandboxing (prevents tabs from crashing the entire browser), multithreading, gpu rendering, more open extension APIs (before extensions there were toolbars and plugins which only big companies had the resources to make), animated objects in pages which finally killed flash and shockwave, 2-way connections with web servers without reloading the page, DRM (lol), compressing the content before it is sent to the user. These are just some off the top of my head. It’s a moving target and the browser with the biggest market share is who drives what the web will look like. A long time ago it was IE and now it’s chrome. These companies always keep introducing new features and if the other browsers don’t adapt they will get left behind. That’s why so much work goes into it. I get how you feel about browsers not actually improving, but they have improved a lot. I think the biggest leap they’ve made is allowing pages to get new information without completely reloading, and adding all the different ways to animate. These 2 completely killed the need for Java applets, shockwave, and flash which were security hole Swiss cheese.

[@timogul]

@@no.no.4680 If a browser improvement would make it so that a certain page wouldn't load properly without it, then that should have to be open source, something that any other browser could implement without serious difficulty. If Chrome is implementing features that impact how the web is displayed, then that is an abuse of Google's monopoly position.

[@scheitinjebroek]

I'm curious to see how Servo, and Ladybird engines will do once they come stable

[@JeffBilkins]

I feel they have way too much overpaid staff and side activities like this CEO lady.

[@kimi17171]

I was a longtime firefox user. ditched it 4 years ago for brave. never looked back.

[@wuliou]

It's really sad to see Mozilla came to this situation as a long term user of Firefox since 1.5 (2005). I rather they change like one dolloar per month to keep this project going.

[@veryCreativeName0001-zv1ir]

there's a reason why foss not funded by big corps fail because building a browser is hard work and good engineers don't exactly come cheap, while open-source contributors do exist it will never achieve the same level of finas of chrome unless you pay someone to do it as a day job the alternative is obvious - monetization