Conversation

Notices

1. LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw48a1@nu.federati.net)'s status on Tuesday, 11-Aug-2020 20:30:20 UTC LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}
   Looks like #Mozilla is in some trouble. Laid off 1/4 of its workforce—250 people—and is going to focus on revenue-generating projects. https://nu.federati.net/url/273858 [www theverge com]
   • LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw48a1@nu.federati.net)'s status on Tuesday, 11-Aug-2020 20:39:35 UTC LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}

     in reply to
     I think I’ve written this before, but back in their heyday, #Mozilla was flying high, driven by the funds coming from its search deal with #Google. When the GOOG started to cut back and then launched a competing browser, Moz panicked (rightly) because all the high-sounding promises they made were predicated on this huge level of funding that went away.
     
     Now that #Firefox holds a small sliver of its former market share, and nearly all of its competitors build upon Google’s code (which forked from Apple’s code, which itself was forked from KDE’s code), the going is rough and getting rougher.
   • LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw48a1@nu.federati.net)'s status on Tuesday, 11-Aug-2020 20:40:20 UTC LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}

     in reply to
     The decisions that #Mozilla made in their search for more money have not made things better, either. They integrated #Pocket into Firefox and eventually purchased Pocket, but privacy-aware people have always considered Pocket and similar software to be dangerous. Thus, “use Firefox, the privacy-oriented browser” becomes “avoid Firefox unless you turn off their data-collection and Pocket” ... and its refusal to integrate ad-blocking leads to Brave and similar browsers’ ability to brag about their integrated ad-blocking, despite their own privacy flaws. (They did recently turn on enhanced tracking-blocking, but they’re behind the Apple and some others on this.)
   • LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw48a1@nu.federati.net)'s status on Tuesday, 11-Aug-2020 20:43:43 UTC LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}

     in reply to
     When I write these things, I’m not trying to condemn #Mozilla. Once their primary funder also became their primary competitor, the handwriting was on the wall.
     
     Unless a new fiscal beneficiary suddenly appears or one of these money-making products catches on, their future is bleak. Probably the last hope is to make Firefox code understandable enough that the user community can take over maintenance and keep the browser going.