Tell Mozilla: it's time to ditch Google

by notpushkin • 1 year ago

424 396 1 year ago

"Firefox needs new revenue streams to be sustainable. New products and services under Mozilla’s umbrella should reflect the same commitment to privacy that defines Mozilla."

This is admirable, but how what would Mozilla replace the 85% ( $555M) revenue with by ditching Google?

I'm assuming a portion of the 15% of revenue is from Mozilla VPN, MDN Plus, etc and also the pay packets of the executives needs to significantly decrease.

But this isn't enough to fill the 85% hole for when Mozilla ditches Google.

notpushkin21• 1 year ago

This won’t happen overnight, of course – in the meantime they’ll have to try and be leaner (which isn’t a bad thing, if you ask me).

Basically, I think that’s the only way Firefox even has a fighting chance: the alternatives are (1) always be the 5% browser Google wants it to be or (2) come crashing into the ground if the DOJ does go through with the search payment ban.

kome• 1 year ago

sorry, very random, but the effect on your personal website looks great!

jisnsm2• 1 year ago

Maybe they will find out you don’t need $555M a year to make a web browser. First good step would be to fire that useless CEO.

exploderate• 1 year ago

Can you explain how? Or is your argument "One guy in a basement in Bulgaria could build Firefox for 50 Stotinki."?

j_maffe• 1 year ago

Mozilla is much larger than the browser.

boomboomsubban2• 1 year ago

Maybe they will find out you don’t need $555M a year to make a web browser.

The only other browser spends significantly more than that. If it's so much cheaper, you'd expect organizations like Microsoft to have stayed in the game.

First good step would be to fire that useless CEO.

The one who stepped down a year ago? Or do you have some issue with the interim? They're still looking for a permanent one

whoopdedo• 1 year ago

The reason they're cozying up to ad-tech is because they're trying to ditch Google.

noirscape2• 1 year ago

If they're turning to ads to replace Google, then maybe Mozilla deserves to die as an organization.

Modern adtech goes entirely against their core values.

ekianjo2• 1 year ago

It does not have to happen overnight. Make a 5 years plan, reduce exposure to Google at 20% of the whole thing per year. Agressively pursue other revenue streams. If it fails, slim down your operations progressively and cut costs year after year. It's not that complicated. The problem is that Mozilla will suck the teat as long as it can because execs directly benefit from it. They will burn Mozilla to the ground and leave for their next opportunity when the time comes.

culi9• 1 year ago

In 2023, it was 75% of their revenue that came from Google.

https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2024/mozilla-fdn-202...

[^a]: this was a weird year where their "other" income got a massive one-time boost. I'm not sure what happened. Did they get a $338m grant? If you take that number out (which is normally at or near zero) the percentage is around 91%

sMarsIntruder• 1 year ago

Mozilla just lost government funding (which is ok). Keeping the machine as it is also by ditching Google is probably infeasible, and in that case do a company slimming care.

_ink_• 1 year ago

IMHO the EU should step in. Having a browser that is not controlled by big tech should be part of an effort to reduce the dependency on the US.

royal_ts• 1 year ago

or to invest in Servo

alex_duf2• 1 year ago

Not sure if you're aware but servo is currently funded by the linux foundation Europe. Not quite tax money, but European capital.

delroth• 1 year ago

The EU invests in Servo already, for example through NLNet grants.

rightbyte• 1 year ago

How about not involving governments in how Firefox is run. Especially not those keen on backdoors and "Chat control".

It could be a stand alone association ruled by its members or a classic free-for-all whatever goes code talks FOSS project.

notpushkin21• 1 year ago

If they can invest some money with no strings attached – hey, why not.

t435626• 1 year ago

A gaggle of governments with conflicting interests are less fearful than some private individuals with simple goals - like getting rich.

Currently private companies rule the browser world and they wield incredible power over everything from standards to PKI. Their interest is a world that depends on them even more.

makeitdouble4• 1 year ago

The non-gov approach has been the last decades. I don't find the result convincing to be honest.

The path you're proposing has been pushed by the community for about how long the Mozilla foundation existed. I'm not sure asking them one more time will make a big difference.

culi9• 1 year ago

They don't have to tell them how to run it. But it would be for the benefit of everyone if they could give grants to Mozilla to help them wean off of Google

Mozilla has been less and less dependent on Google and is now working on a VPN, MDN Plus, and other revenue streams that are also helping it become more independent. But the truth is that if all Google money suddenly stopped today, there would be no more Mozilla

ponow• 1 year ago

As if centralization with one big company weren't enough, now we're not even satisfied with one country, but a block of them. Yikes.

Nope, run in the opposite direction. Unsuck from any teat.

t435626• 1 year ago

a block of countries is what makes them far less worrisome. They're too busy competing with each other - none is going to want the others spying on it's own citizens for gain.

ekianjo2• 1 year ago

A dysfunctional company is not going to benefit from the addition of a dysfunctional political layer

hagbard_c3• 1 year ago

State involvement tends to come with strings attached. The EU would insist on the browser to implement mechanisms to 'limit the spread of mis-, dis- and malinformation' where it is up to the whims of the politicos in Brussels to decide what the populace is allowed to see and what is to be suppressed. To that I say a loud and clear 'thanks but no thanks', I prefer my technology to work for me instead of it being an enforcement mechanism for the powers that be.

t435626• 1 year ago

Possibly but right now you're being guided to whatever information makes the most ad revenue. A choice of two compromised mechanisms might be better than none.

stubish• 1 year ago

The EU could step in for the browser, that bit of common, required infrastructure needed to provide modern government services. If that was the task given, EU bureaucrats could be the best choice for managing it. Any attempt to step beyond that immediately fails at the planning stage, because conflating the infrastructure component with anything else creates a ball of mud and a political and technical black hole. Like your example, where the EU couldn't even consider it because member states haven't given the organization that particular power.

dismalaf6• 1 year ago

There's already an independent Europe based browser...

Vivaldi.

marginalia_nu• 1 year ago

Vivaldi is just a chromium wrapper as far as I understand.

bladeee• 1 year ago

But it depends on the Blink engine.

laweijfmvo2• 1 year ago

Ah yes, the same EU that forced Apple to disable encryption. Perfect

choo-t• 1 year ago

That's UK.

ThrowawayTestr• 1 year ago

What happened to HN that people are arguing for more government regulations?

autoexec2• 1 year ago

Now is the time for Mozilla to take bold steps to reinforce its identity as a privacy-centric nonprofit

Mozilla gave up that identity when it became an ad-tech company whose business model was to sell reports about the internet browsing habits of firefox users to advertisers.

The problem was never Mozilla's dependence Google. The problem is their dependence on the surveillance of internet users.

As far as I know Mozilla hasn't disclosed how much money they spent buying up Anonym, but they'll want a return on their investment. I don't think they're going to abandon it as quickly as they did their ideals.

lallysingh2• 1 year ago

What kind of reports can they generate from the data they collect: https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/compone... ?

zb32• 1 year ago

Searchfox? Not so fast! Don't forget they load "studies" code using so called "normandy" mechanism..

autoexec2• 1 year ago

They opted firefox users into a data collection scheme they call PPA which works kind of like FLOC and uses the browser to gather information about what you do online, then they sell that data to advertisers by first sending it to yet another a third party who will assemble that data into reports for the advertisers. Then they basically said firefox users were too stupid to be trusted to opt-in, and it would be too hard to explain to such dumb users how selling their data was a good thing, so Mozilla had no choice but to force it on everyone by default without telling them about it. (https://web.archive.org/web/20240715112635/https://mastodon....)

Naturally not everyone was happy about it:

https://noyb.eu/en/firefox-tracks-you-privacy-preserving-fea...

bad_user5• 1 year ago

Mozilla gave up that identity when it became an ad-tech company whose business model...

I hope you realize that happened in 2006.

Recent developments can only improve the situation, actually, if it makes Mozilla more independent.

simpss2• 1 year ago

Just a few days ago, they updated their android application info and stated they're going to share location data with third parties for "Advertising or Marketing" purposes...[1]

They also removed a promise to "never sell your data" in their FAQ[2] 2 weeks ago.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43326230

[2] https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/commit/d459addab846d8144b...

NoGravitas2• 1 year ago

Regarding the Anonym acquisition, every adtech acquisition is a reverse-acquisition. Google didn't really go evil until they got reverse-acquired by DoubleClick.

seqizz• 1 year ago

Nah, Firefox devs: It's time to ditch Mozilla and fork it.

notpushkin21• 1 year ago

That’s also a possible scenario!

jqpabc1239• 1 year ago

Not just possible but likely the *only* scenario that can have any real impact at this point.

weinzierl2• 1 year ago

Maybe a new browser will rise from Firefox's ashes. Perhaps we should call the fork Phoenix?

immibis• 1 year ago

Spelled Fenix, of course, or the current cohort of people won't be able to find it.

Wait, they already did that.

magicalhippo2• 1 year ago

For those too young to remember:

https://blog.mozilla.org/community/2013/05/13/milestone-phoe...

1023bytes• 1 year ago

Zen Browser is pretty cool and it's not just a fork

jqpabc1239• 1 year ago

Yes. If you believe in the open source concept, the current situation calls for nothing less.

Let's be real, Mozilla leadership is not going to slaughter their cash cow. They have no incentive to place anything above the needs of Google.

It's already proven --- the user base and market share have been effectively abandoned for lack of impact to the bottom line. Plaintive demands from users now carry no real weight and will most likely be met with marketing doublespeak/lip service while business as usual continues.

Sorry but it's too late now. Any debate over the direction of Mozilla is a done deal settled a decade ago.

maleldil• 1 year ago

How would the fork be funded? You can't expect a complex program like a browser to be developed exclusively by volunteers in their free time.

whyever• 1 year ago

Who is going to pay the devs?

Lerc• 1 year ago

That is precisely the question that should be asked, and not rhetorically.

Firefox is important, the peoples le who make Firefox are important. If someone can form a lean organisation that can fund the development they should do so. Open source allows the potential to abandon a bloated governing structure, but it has to be done with eyes wide open and fully committed to providing the resources to continue development.

It is a very hard problem, but not an intractable problem. It is certainly better than asking managers to decide against their own self interest.

trelane3• 1 year ago

Too late: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Web_browsers_based_on...

Of course, it's never actually too late to add another fork.

raincole• 1 year ago

So who are going to fund them?

Sorry for being cynical, but this "petition" sounds like telling depressed people to "just be more positive." Sure, just find more revenue streams. Just be sustainable. It's so easy!

frontfor• 1 year ago

Agreed. A world where Mozilla ceases to exist due to lack of funding is arguably worse than the current state.

jqpabc1239• 1 year ago

Time to wake up and smell the coffee.

With less than 3% marketshare, Mozilla doesn't exist now for most people --- mainly just for Google.

kevwil2• 1 year ago

Agreed. Mozilla has problems, but bleeding funds from Google to fund their competition has a satisfaction factor. I'd rather sign a petition to keep the Google daddy fund going until the very end.

regularjack• 1 year ago

The petition should instead be asking Mozilla to allow people to directly donate to Firefox development.

notpushkin21• 1 year ago

This is a good idea. I don’t think I should change the petition now that it’s signed by a significant number of people, but I agree targeted donations could help somewhat (although mainly I think we need to urge Mozilla to direct its other income into Firefox development, too).

wmf4• 1 year ago

It sounds like the goal is the same search contract just not with Google.

culi9• 1 year ago

This seems like a weird time to be making noise about this. Mozilla has been trying to become less Google-dependent for a long time. In this past half decade especially they've made huge strides with less and less of their total revenue coming from Google royalties:

  2023: 75.8% of revenues from Google royalties
  2022: 86.0%
  2021: 87.8
  2020: 88.8
  2019: [^a]
  2018: 95.3
  2017: 95.9

This data is based on their independent auditors reports.

matsemann2• 1 year ago

And every time they try to get an alternate revenue stream, someone on HN will then shout "just focus on the browser!!". Mozilla can't please the crowd no matter what they do.

jhasse• 1 year ago

They could try just focussing on the browser.

weinzierl2• 1 year ago

Pressure exposes true colors. Taking away the pressure from Mozilla will only hide the symptoms but not cure the desease.

DoingIsLearning3• 1 year ago

Not looking to grind an axe but facts matter in this case.

Let's look at Mozilla's financial statement for 2007 and 2023 [0][1]:

Expenses

1. Program 'Software Development'

2007: 20.7M | 2023: 260M

2. Management 'General and Administrative' :

2007: 5.1M | 2023: 123M

I am purposefully excluding marketing and fundraising costs. Because arguably you can't get away from those expenses.

Let's ignore inflation and COL and ballooning costs, etc. If we look at just the ratio of expenditure. We have an NPO (on paper at least) that just went from spending a ratio of 4 to 1 between developers and managers to spending a ratio of almost 2 to 1.

I am not familiar with what is typical in American NPO's but I can't help but feel that my money will not be spent on the right stuff.

[0] https://static.mozilla.com/foundation/documents/mf-2007-audi...

[1] https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2024/mozilla-fdn-202...

yummypaint• 1 year ago

Considering how much money is routinely set on fire by the US tech industry, this is a bargain for the best web browser currently in existence.

What alternative do you suggest? Google and Microsoft are certainly worse. Firefox is vastly superior to the offerings of these multi billion dollar companies. Chrome and edge are exactly the prisons that these companies designed them to be.

What specifically should laypeople do to regain something resembling a usable Internet? Firefox and ublock origin is the only answer I have.

jillesvangurp• 1 year ago

The good news is that development could easily be funded by donations. It's only a few million. Enough to keep a few dozen people employed.

The bad news is that donations are unlikely to happen with the current massive misspending on overpaid people with no technical background that don't code that spend 95% of their budget on themselves, support staff that also doesn't code, offices they don't need, commercial products that flop, monetization schemes that fail, etc.

I wouldn't. And I'm a user! Mozilla needs to be restructured. And ideally they diversify their commercial ecosystem as well. Because they are way too dependent on Google.

If you look at Rust, created by Mozilla, they are set up in a more sane way. There's a foundation. It's well funded with sponsorships from the big companies that use and depend on Rust. Those companies employ people that contribute to Rust. Many OSS organizations are set up like that. It works. The diversity of contributors and commercial sponsors ensures neutrality and longevity. No single company has veto power. As long as valuable tech comes out, companies stay involved. Some disappear, new ones come along. Linux development works like that as well.

Ironically, Chromium at this point is better positioned to become like that. The main issue is that Google still employs most of the developers and controls the roadmap. But there are quite a few commercial chromium based products: Edge, Brave, Opera, etc. that each have development teams using and contributing to it. Add Electron (has its own foundation, based on chromium) to the mix and the countless commercial applications using that and you have a healthy ecosystem that could survive Google completely disengaging if they'd be forced to split off their browser activities.

I use Firefox mainly because of the iron grip keeps over Chromium and it's clear intent to cripple ad blocking, grab user data, and exploit its user base. But I worry about the dysfunctional mess that is Mozilla.

notpushkin21• 1 year ago

The better news are, Mozilla gets around $30 million as investment income ($37M in 2023 [1]). Some people argue that it’s not enough to maintain Firefox but that sounds weird to me.

Chromium is not a good alternative: 95% of Chromium commits come from Google. [2]

[1] https://wiki.rossmanngroup.com/wiki/File:501c3_2023_990_Mozi...

[2] https://chromiumstats.github.io/cr-stats/authors/company_aut...

theandrewbailey• 1 year ago

The bad news is that donations are unlikely to happen with the current massive misspending on overpaid people with no technical background that don't code that spend 95% of their budget on themselves, support staff that also doesn't code, offices they don't need, commercial products that flop, monetization schemes that fail, etc.

Mozilla already solicits donations, but I wonder if people who donate to them know that Mozilla funds things that are wildly not Firefox-related, like feminist AI conferences in Africa. Meanwhile Firefox looks more and more like an also-ran compared to its competition. All I ever wanted from Mozilla was a browser, not this.

https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/donate/

https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/mozfest-house-zambia-...

sidewndr46• 1 year ago

My understanding is that donating to Mozilla doesn't actually fund anything explicitly. You donate to the foundation and then they spend it on whatever. So there exists no actual mechanism to do what you state "could easily be funded"

JumpCrisscross3• 1 year ago

good news is that development could easily be funded by donations

Mozilla’s donations are roughly equal to their CEO’s compensation [1][2].

[1] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2024/a... ”$7.8M in donations from the public, grants from foundations, and government funding” in 2023

[2] https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2022/mozilla-fdn-990... $6.9mm in 2022, page 7

st3fan• 1 year ago

The good news is that development could easily be funded by donations. It's only a few million. Enough to keep a few dozen people employed.

These numbers are highly unrealistic.

alfiedotwtf• 1 year ago

I welcome the oncoming hate, but THIS is what DAOs are for…

A DOA specifically setup to build a user-respecting browser run by a Foundation where token holders could vote out the waste we’ve seen Mozilla and the like do, could work.

And for those crypto-haters, I’m not sqying token-based as an speculative investment, I’m saying here token specifically here for voting rights to control asset allocation and business decisions

wmf4• 1 year ago

$260M isn't a few million.

psunavy03• 1 year ago

[flagged]

nightpool• 1 year ago

  The good news is that development could easily be funded by donations. It's only a few million. Enough to keep a few dozen people employed.

Huh? Mozilla currently spends $260M on browser development, of which >90% is salaries. Where are you getting this "it's only a few million" idea from?

mmooss4• 1 year ago

The good news is that development could easily be funded by donations. It's only a few million.

It's $260M.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43341830

Where do you get "a few million"? Do they only have less than 20 developers? Why denigrate Mozilla?

If you look at Rust, created by Mozilla, they are set up in a more sane way. There's a foundation. It's well funded with sponsorships from the big companies that use and depend on Rust.

Firefox isn't used by companies, but by consumers.

paulryanrogers10• 1 year ago

In this landscape I'm curious if any amount of money can overcome the oligopoly advantages of owning the OS (with no anti-trust enforcement) or owning the most popular web properties.

Even if every cent for the past ten years went to browser dev alone, would that have made a difference?

Do regular users even know the difference between one browser and another? Or is it only the icon they recognize, if even that?

n_ary2• 1 year ago

Do regular users even know the difference […]

Honestly, from observing my close family and friends as well as passing by strangers, everyone uses whatever default comes(i.e. Chrome on Android) or again Chrome(on iOS because they saw some banner ad somewhere to install it to access their password stored previously in android life).

The core portal to internet currently appears to be the blue-F(aka Facebook) icon which has an interesting search. People search in Facebook for specific topic and then will reluctantly move over to browser and again search on Google(always default). So, in summary no, everyone uses Chrome and does not know the difference.

Some of my colleagues seem to use Brave and Linux die-hards use Firefox(comes default with ubuntu last I tried ubuntu).

onlyrealcuzzo• 1 year ago

You're spending money in the wrong place - spend it on marketing instead of dev, and you've got a shot.

scarface_742• 1 year ago

Android is only 30% of the market in the US. I don’t know how much browser usage comes from Chromebooks.

Every single Windows and Mac user who uses Chrome made an affirmative choice to download Chrome. Why didn’t they decide to download Firefox?

afavour2• 1 year ago

Yeah, this is my takeaway as well. Folks in this discussion are saying “why can’t Mozilla just focus on making Firefox” and my response would be “because that’s the path to eventual death”.

Firefox is, what, 3% of the browser market today? It isn’t because it’s a bad browser. It’s because people are using OSes with tightly integrated browsers they never think to change. Making Firefox faster or adding vertical tabs or whatever the demand of the day is won’t change that.

alberth• 1 year ago

I know your intention is probably well placed but we do though need to factor in revenues:

  Year    Revenue
  ----    -------
  2007       $75M
  2023      $653M

I bring this up because G&A of big companies (in general) always outpaces R&D once they hit scale ... and in an ideal situation - your revenues should outpace R&D expense because you're getting economies of scale (which further dilutes the R&D to Other Business Function comparison).

And Mozilla has hit scale / become "big company" - with those kinds of revenues.

The reason why G&A outpaces R&D, is because now you have all kinds of work to do that you don't have to do when your small/underdog, like:

- regulatory compliance

- legal

- privacy

- advocacy

- public relations

- etc...

When you're the underdog, you don't have to deal with these activities and as a result, your expense base is more heavily skewed toward R&D.

timewizard• 1 year ago

Isn't Mozilla a non-profit though?

Why does mozilla.ai exist?

Didn't we like a trust the product more in 2007 than we do now?

I mean, yay for scale, but haven't we lost something here?

kjhughes• 1 year ago

G&A = General and Administrative (expenses)

bigfatfrock• 1 year ago

This was wild to contemplate and I was about to raise my finger and say "Really?! 'G&A' at that scale?!" but at the same time even if those kinds of roles are over-hired - they have to be responding to need and within a realm they found risk-averse.

Having said that I just have had the same kinds of questions/trouble as OP about Mozilla's wild spending and budget compared to seeing their devs at grungy linux confs in the midwest when I was an undergrad in the 00s.

You did help point out what I really wondered about also and didn't understand, so thanks.

JoshTriplett• 1 year ago

Mozilla is the underdog, though; they're just not acting like it anymore.

hu3• 1 year ago

    2023      $653M

That's almost all Google money.

CEO's largest accomplishment since 2007 was to put Mozilla on the brink of shutting down anytime Google's money stops flowing in.

amrocha• 1 year ago

I agree with up that you have to take revenue into account as well. However, as an NPO Mozilla has no mandate to grow at all costs.

What’s the benefit of having Mozilla be this huge? How does it compare to the risk of shutting down if their revenue dries up, which is looking like a possibility?

DoingIsLearning3• 1 year ago

Again not diminishing Firefox's efforts but it's difficult not to compare with other _leaner_ open-source projects.

As an example the Linux foundation [0] had 270M in expenses in 2023. Of which even we aggregate international operations and corporate operations the expenditure is less than 21M in G&A equivalent activities.

[0] https://www.linuxfoundation.org/hubfs/Reports/lf_annualrepor...

abtinf• 1 year ago

How much of that $260m is invested in Firefox? The docs don’t say.

dblohm7• 1 year ago

Put it this way: there are a lot more than “a few dozen” engineers working on Firefox.

TimByte3• 1 year ago

Makes you wonder where all that extra administrative cost is really going.

Jzush• 1 year ago

In general it has been my experience that administrators primary functions are to justify administrators jobs. Usually by any ill considered and ill researched manner as possible.

traceroute66• 1 year ago

I am not familiar with what is typical in American NPO's but I can't help but feel that my money will not be spent on the right stuff.

I would agree with you there.

Sadly the art of troughing is a well known feature of larger NPOs.

That's why (IMHO) people should never blindly donate to NPOs without first taking a quick look at their financial accounts to get a feel for how much troughing is going on. Honestly, if I had my way, I would make it law to have a simple-to-read one-page summary of that data for every NPO.

I also do not buy the oft-cited argument "well, we have to attract talent by paying them 'competitively' ".

Well no. If the "talent" wants a fat paycheck, they can go work in the private sector. If they are going to work at an NPO, then they should WANT to work for the NPO, not just see it as another spot for their CV. In many (most?) cases they will be in charge of an army of well-meaning unpaid volunteers, its not a good look for the C-suite to roam around in private cars, businssess-class flights, have fancy "away days" etc. etc.

z3t4• 1 year ago

The solution is to keep adding management layers until the company implode. The problem is that when it has gone too far all the people who are left are those that do not take responsibility.

wkat42423• 1 year ago

Why can't you get away from marketing a free product?

But yeah that ratio is totally off. Paying the CEO 7 million also won't help.

alex_duf2• 1 year ago

I'm afraid it's too late for Mozilla. It's not in their mission anymore.

EdPoincare• 1 year ago

Firefox is done with.

https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/commit/d459addab846d8144b...

hnuser1234562• 1 year ago

Sounds like EU defined "sale of data" to mean a lot of other things besides selling data, like transferring information. And now Firefox cannot so definitively say they don't "sell your data", because they allow you to transfer webpages over the network.

ptx• 1 year ago

Where are you getting this? All Mozilla says is that "the LEGAL definition of 'sale of data' is extremely broad in some places". They don't that it's the EU and definitely not that the EU has defined "sale of data" to include any use of a computer network, which would be absurd.

begueradj• 1 year ago

The new privacy terms of Mozilla Firefox are a big concern [0]

[0] https://medium.com/@mail_18109/mozillas-new-firefox-terms-sp...

iteratethis2• 1 year ago

We need to be honest about what value Firefox really has left.

Commercially, it's completely irrelevant. On big websites it doesn't even show up in the top 10 browsers and it's almost entirely absent on mobile. Site owners can readily ignore Firefox.

Firefox is no longer a developer default. I'm sure some of us in our bubble have strong personal preferences but the entire dev ecosystem is chrome-based. Very advanced devtools, Google having a team of "evangelists", course material is Chrome-based, test-automation, etc. So developers too can ignore Firefox.

Some argue that it's good to have an independent rendering engine. Here too Firefox plays no role at all. The only counter force to Google's web feature roadmap is Apple/Webkit, not Mozilla.

From a privacy preserving perspective, Firefox has no unique value. Install Brave, say no to the one-time crypto pop-up, and you have a very decent and fast browser that also consistently renders along with Chrome and Edge.

I use Firefox. If I ask myself why, it's muscle memory and because uBlock Origin still works.

qwerpy2• 1 year ago

I use Brave and am satisfied with it. The occasional hassle involved in turning things off when a new unwanted feature shows up or when I have to install it on a new machine is worth it for uBlock Origin and the Chromium performance and compatibility.

However the theoretical downside of Brave is that as Google continues changing Chromium's codebase, there's incentive for them to make it harder and harder to maintain a manifest v2-enabled fork. Wouldn't be surprised if extensive refactors randomly happen that multiply the effort needed to merge changes from upstream while maintaining the v2 capability. And how motivated is Brave to do all this labor? At some point they're going to say the tax is too high, we have a nice built-in ad blocker anyway, just use that.

A well-maintained, funded, and focused Firefox would be a good thing for when that day comes.

porridgeraisin4• 1 year ago

Brave does not need manifest v2 for it's ad blocker to work. It is not implemented as an extension. It is built into the browser itself.

apeace• 1 year ago

How does Brave survive financially?

JumpCrisscross3• 1 year ago

How does Brave survive financially?

Crypto [1].

[1] https://brave.com/wallet/

magicmicah852• 1 year ago

I use Firefox for Container tabs. It’s useful for sites where I can’t have multiple tabs opened to same site but different login. That’s my main reason for sticking to Firefox.

throwaway484762• 1 year ago

Container tabs is the most useful browser feature anywhere. Now if they would just add tab history tracking.

bdangubic• 1 year ago

just curious - why not use browser profiles available in Chrome/Brave…?

dietr1ch• 1 year ago

Mine too, but they have existed for a while now and seems their development is stuck and left to rot, there's many improvements around them that could be made to help improve privacy.

Happily2020• 1 year ago

Container tabs and specifically Temporary Containers are the two things I always miss on non-Firefox browsers

catlikesshrimp• 1 year ago

Neither Safari nor -B- are opensource. Brave is even chromium based.

EDIT: Brave is opensource

e44858• 1 year ago

Brave appears to be opensource: https://github.com/brave/brave-browser

dntbrsnbl• 1 year ago

Brave is definitely open source [1] (under the MPL)? The source for Safari is closed, but their rendering engine is completely open source [2].

[1] https://github.com/brave/brave-core

[2] https://github.com/WebKit/WebKit

jmb99• 1 year ago

While Safari is not open source, WebKit is[0].

[0] https://github.com/WebKit/WebKit

benatkin2• 1 year ago

It's to the point where there doesn't seem to be much left to lose. Anything is worth trying. Their CEO should definitely be out the door. Still, I won't be holding my breath. They're hostile to their community, developers who want to work on web technologies, and to the open web.

https://www.theregister.com/Tag/Firefox/

So I am glad to see this page full of signatures. It might not help, but it won't hurt either.

wackget• 1 year ago

Firefox is no longer a developer default

Web developer here, and Chrome dev tools suck balls. I exclusively use Firefox.

winrid• 1 year ago

Yeah, the chrome dev tools seem to have gotten worse over the last 10yrs. Basic CSS editing stuff breaks all the time.

chilldsgn• 1 year ago

Same. I absolutely hate using Chrome dev tools. It's because of the dev tools I still use Firefox.

kevwil2• 1 year ago

Some argue that it's good to have an independent rendering engine. Here too Firefox plays no role at all. The only counter force to Google's web feature roadmap is Apple/Webkit, not Mozilla.

I'd like to understand this point better. Does Firefox use the Chromium engine under the hood?

mythmon_• 1 year ago

It doesn't use Chromium. I think that their point is that Firefox's rendering engine, Gecko, can only have an impact on the rendering engine space proportional to its user base, which they have argued is insignificant.

javchz• 1 year ago

Nope, Firefox still uses its own rendering engine and JavaScript engine—except on iOS, where it's essentially Safari with a UI wrapper. But that’s due to Apple’s ToS, not Firefox’s fault.

I assume the previous comment was about market share. It’s low, yes, but I still think Firefox has influence despite that. Having a third rendering engine is valuable—especially now, after Microsoft killed IE/Edge and turned it into a Chromium fork. The percentage might not be high, but the people who use Firefox are usually the ones pushing for keeping the web an open standard.

brooke2k• 1 year ago

I have never once had an issue with a website that was solved by opening it in Chrome instead. and I switched to firefox like three years ago. If firefox is so much less supported, I'm not seeing it at least

hinkley• 1 year ago

I switched to firefox when Firebug came out. I haven't switched since, although I spend a lot of time on iOS so maybe half my browsing is FF.

I'm sure I've seen a few things not work on FF, but not many, and likely things that would break on Safari too (I've had govt stuff just not work on tablet safari for sure).

derkster3• 1 year ago

I've been bringing this up in every single thread about Chrome and Manifest V3 pops up. I'm been using Firefox, 100% of the time, on three different operating systems, for probably six years at this point.

I can remember a single time I had to swap to Chrome for something, and it was three years ago, and involved some flavor of WebAssembly, I believe.

If anyone can point out a current website that is acting up under Firefox and not Chrome, please post it. I just want want to know that the "Firefox is inferior" argument isn't a decade old echo.

makeitdouble4• 1 year ago

Firefox works pretty well on most sites. Web standards are IMHO in a good enough Shape that anything properly developed will be fine.

Firefox doesn't work well on Google properties (for obvious and non obvious reasons). It's decent, but in my experience it 's significantly slow and resource intensive in most of Google Suite and subpar on YouTube[0]. Useable, but definitely heavier than Chrome. I ended up with a dedicated Chrome instance for meet and Sheets.

Recently I found Notion to be more and more sluggish, it might be because of cache and other relics as I spend my life in Notion, but fresh Chrome instances behave better. All in all, Notion has become worse and worse, so it might be just part of that trend.

Many enterprise extensions currently won't work at all in Firefox. It's in no part Firefox's fault, and enterprise software has always been shitty, but this is becoming a reality to me.

[0] I don't have the link at hand, but it was notably due to Google intentionally screwing up Firefox last time I looked into it...

crabbone• 1 year ago

Let me introduce you to Microsoft's Office 365 or w/e this pile of garbage is called. Especially Teams. This fiasco of Web chat programs is the reason I have to keep two browsers open.

Also Slack.

iszomer• 1 year ago

For me, webgl/shadertoy stuff as well as webusb and webserial while tinkering with esp32-based boards.

fireburning3• 1 year ago

these threads really are ads huh? hilarious

charles_f• 1 year ago

On big websites it doesn't even show up in the top 10 browsers and it's almost entirely absent on mobile

I'm not too sure why it's majorly relevant. The fact that it's not popular doesn't make it any less of a desirable option

From a privacy preserving perspective, Firefox has no unique value

Similarly, the fact that it's not unique is somewhat irrelevant. Though the thing that's scary is what they removed from their terms and conditions.

culi9• 1 year ago

Chrome users are often really familiar with Chrome's devtools and think Firefox is behind because they have trouble finding their way around FireFox's devtools. Truth is that Firefox built a reputation for itself amongst developers specifically because of it's very advanced devtools. Chrome has mostly caught up, but I'd still place Firefox ahead here

Besides that, uBlock Origin, Bypass Paywalls Clean, and AdNauseum working have been enough of an argument for me to be able to convince my friends to make the switch.

vlad-roundabout3• 1 year ago

Even better than Brave is a "no-name" browser like Ungoogled Chromium made to protect actual privacy, not the interests of some company!

hoppyhoppy2• 1 year ago

No thinly-modified version of Chromium is going to save us from Google having almost unilateral power over the implementation of web standards, creating a browser monoculture. None of these forks is making substantive changes to the browser engine; it's often just Chromium with a few configuration tweaks and cosmetic enhancements.

TimByte3• 1 year ago

I still think having an independent browser matters... especially as Google tightens its grip on the web

internet_points• 1 year ago

Those arguments all sound like "We nearly have a monoculture so let's embrace the monoculture and give up". The downward curve needs to be counter-acted, not accelerated.

greenchair• 1 year ago

good points. I use it for a very specific plugin which the author only makes available on that platform.

user3939382• 1 year ago

Firefox on iOS has a feature called “Turn on Night Mode” which can color invert any page. I use it about 100x a day and couldn’t find it anywhere else. A perfect example of why we need options.

NoGravitas2• 1 year ago

It's true that Apple has the only independent browser engine that has enough users to make developers cater to it. But it's also true that Mozilla has seats on the relevant standards bodies, and on privacy-related issues, their presence helps act as a counterweight along with Apple.

ac29• 1 year ago

Commercially, it's completely irrelevant. On big websites it doesn't even show up in the top 10 browsers

Chrome, Edge and Safari are all bigger than Firefox. But Firefox not in the top ten results? Unless you are counting different versions of browsers as unique entries, I cant imagine what other 7+ browsers are bigger than Firefox.

Hyperboreanal2• 1 year ago

Firefox wins handily on the following:

- Sidebery (tree style vertical tabs)

- userChrome.css editing

- Stylus and all other manifest v2 extensions that Brave won't be developing custom replacements for

- Better performance with lots of tabs/windows

- Container tabs

Firefox is better for powerusers and those who like customization, Chrome is better for those who don't care about customization and just watch Netflix. Pretty much equivalent to the Android/iOS debate.

iteratethis2• 1 year ago

This polls suggests that there's some decision holding back Mozilla from ditching Google, and that with enough pressure, they'll finally do it.

They're long aware that they should. They made the strategic announcement some 7-8 years back if I remember correctly. Since then they tried to diversify and failed miserably.

Sure enough incompetence is involved but we should also consider how very hard it is.

Making hundreds of millions from a new tech product in the consumer space is impossibly difficult. You're up against Big Tech and a generally very competitive and saturated space where any idea can be easily replicated. And you're up against consumers that really don't want to pay, hence ads.

That said, I do feel Mozilla barely tried and wasted a lot of money on distractions. They're way too comfortable raking half a billion for effectively doing nothing at all: keep the search box pointing at Google.

pseudalopex2• 1 year ago

Since then they tried to diversify and failed miserably.

I wish my miserable failures brought in $65 million annually.

tlb• 1 year ago

Yes, $65M revenue is a decent success. The miserable failure is bloating their expenses to 5x that.

dralley4• 1 year ago

I wish my miserable failures brought in $65 million annually.

HN users complain about that $65 million constantly. Mozilla is stuck in a spot where the same angry nerds that want them to diversify away from Google won't actually let them spin up diverse sources of revenue.

mvdtnz• 1 year ago

Start selling $100 notes for $50. I am confident you can get your company to $65M revenue.

krunck• 1 year ago

Can't sign the form as nocodeform.io seems to be having problems.

notpushkin21• 1 year ago

Sorry for that! There was a nasty bug which I’ve worked around for now (and tomorrow I’ll switch over to a backend I host myself).

Does it work now? If you’re still running into errors, please let me know your name / website and I’ll add you to the list! (or send to mozillapetition@ale.sh)

dismalaf6• 1 year ago

Mozilla will never do so willingly.

Organizations always grow, since the entire point of an organization is to exist for the sake of its stakeholders. The bigger it is, the better for stakeholders.

Willingly burning 85% of your revenue and downsizing isn't something that stakeholders want.

Odds are Mozilla will simply die and their browser with it, since the Chromium based ecosystem is much more robust.

bugtodiffer• 1 year ago

I think you are confusing organizations and companies. Yes, under capitalism, companies only exist to reek in profits, but from a non-profit organization you'd expect something else...

dismalaf6• 1 year ago

Stakeholders include employees, and it is all organisations.

NGOs and government organisations follow the same pattern. They all expand, hire, and the people within each org all have a vested interest in the organization expanding and keeping them all employed, given raises, etc...

bell-cot• 1 year ago

Sadly, the "companies only exist to..." version of capitalism is about as accurate as the "Santa only brings presents to Nice little ..." version of Christmas.

Substantial Organizations - whether capitalist, non-profit, or other - give a great deal of power to their leaders, and jobs to their workers. Those folks - most especially the former - may give lip service to the org's supposed mission...but their for-sure #1 priority is looking out for their own interests.

kebokyo• 1 year ago

Something that this petition does not mention at all are possible alternatives to Google search as the default search engine. If Google isn’t the default, who should be the default?

wmf4• 1 year ago

Yahoo, Bing, DDG, Perplexity...

trelane3• 1 year ago

Bing is already the default, if you use Windows.

culi9• 1 year ago

Ecosia, DuckDuckGo, Brave Search, Startpage, etc. Plenty of privacy-respecting and non-profit search engines

zoobab2• 1 year ago

Searx.be

Gothmog69• 1 year ago

Chrome wouldn't be so big if edge wasn't so shit

renewiltord• 1 year ago

Haha, "Mozilla, please commit suicide". Whatever they're currently doing is fine. They've succeeded in their aim and now they're searching for a new thing to target affiliated with their space given their revenue numbers. Pretty logical thing to do for them. Good luck to Mozilla.

johnea• 1 year ago

Why specificallly throw stones at Mozilla?

EVERYONE should ditch goggle 8-/

but, but, muh g-stuff!!! pathetic, really.

The corps has been for the purpose of user surveilance from the beginning.

If you want your donations to be well spent, send them to a firefox fork maintainer...

mightybyte• 1 year ago

My default uninformed assumption would be that Google is paying Mozilla for making Google the default search engine for Firefox. Does anyone know if this is the case, and if so, what the likely magnitudes are? Because it seems like Google can throw quantities of money at Mozilla that would easily overwhelm whatever pressure this petition might put on them.

manifoldgeo• 1 year ago

Yes, this is correct. Google pays Mozilla hundreds of millions of dollars annually to be the default search engine. This makes up the vast majority of Mozilla Corporation's revenue. It's somewhere in the ballpark of 85% of all their annual revenue last I heard.

They've tried hard in recent years to get out from under Google by diversifying into other areas. For example, they have a VPN service that is a wrapper around Mullvad, and they've made some privacy tools that you can pay to use, also largely wrappers around other companies' tools.

I was an employee of Mozilla Corporation and saw first-hand the effort they were making. In my opinion, it's been a pretty abysmal failure so far. Pulling Google funding would effectively hamstring Mozilla Corp.

cantrecallmypwd2• 1 year ago

Mozilla needs to operate like NPR by having pledge drives and seeking charitable investment by organizations and nations because depending on for-profit arrangements means inevitable corruption just like any other corporation.

adultSwim2• 1 year ago

NPR needs to get rid of the ads. That half of the budget is influencing their news coverage and content.

cantrecallmypwd2• 1 year ago

I didn't say the "same as" NPR, I said "like". Aspects.

pipeline_peak• 1 year ago

Firefox isn’t even going to usable around in 20 years and these people think they could drop their lifeline?

What’s a petition without a solution?

This idea is more detached than Mastodon.

shmerl• 1 year ago

If possible, Mozilla should go back to making Servo their main engine.

But how fund all that is still a major question.

vondur• 1 year ago

If they ditch Google, they lose their income. Seems like a bad idea...

waterlu• 1 year ago

Tell Mozilla: it’s time to ditch Google

Oh, so _they_ are the problem now?

And I thought the problem was that Mozilla was selling user data!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43209768

Silly me!

whyenot• 1 year ago

I donated a lot of time, code, and at least a little money to early Mozilla and Firefox. They were a lot more dynamic and engaging when they were a small nonprofit. Now it feels like thanks to Google money they have become fat and lazy. Unable to take risks because it might threaten their income stream or their relationship with Google. It makes me sad and angry to see what they have become. Maybe a diet will help, but I fear the patient is beyond help at this point.

stogot• 1 year ago

I still won’t donate unless the money goes to Firefox and not their parties, activism, or side projects (that they inevitably shut down)

icelancer• 1 year ago

I'm good with side projects. The activism stuff has to stop.

Seb-C• 1 year ago

Even if they did allow that, a big part of the budget would probably go into another useless UI revamp.

thfuran• 1 year ago

Now it feels like thanks to Google money they have become fat and lazy. Unable to take risks

I think Google has that problem too.

nextos• 1 year ago

I guess it's the usual lifecycle most organizations go through, and generous funding has accelerated the process. The only upside is that, in theory, anyone could fork Firefox and continue development within a healthier structure. It's a critical project for the Internet. Hopefully, Ladybird will be viable soon, adding a bit of redundancy. Else, we risk becoming a Chrome monoculture.

mmooss4• 1 year ago

One one hand, they are criticized for taking risks - being risks, inevitably many don't work out - including their AI project. On the other, now they don't take enough risks.

culi9• 1 year ago

They've been pretty hard at work to offer services that will let them wean themselves off of Google money. This is how much of their income came from search royalties yearly according to their independent auditor reports

kbrosnan• 1 year ago

That is the Oath Verizon/Yahoo search contract settlement.

tamis022• 1 year ago

Would you pay for Firefox? I would.

adultSwim2• 1 year ago

I don't support this change. Most people want to be using Google. Mozilla needs money. There's not even a suggestion of how to replace the funds.

gigatexal5• 1 year ago

Marc Andreesen owes his riches to Netscape whose ashes became Mozilla. I don’t understand why he doesn’t give the Mozilla foundation and endowment such that the interest on the endowment would fund work solely on the browser. They could then just work on the browser and nothing more.

No need to do marketing, have a venture arm, millions for management, etc. it could be a group of 10 or 20 really awesome engineers and maybe a bunch of passionate open source folks contributing.

Will he do it? No. Do I wish he would? Yes. Would I if I could? Hell yes because there needs to be a viable alternative to chrome and how is that possible when chrome butters their bread and pays their bills?

Or! The some hundreds of millions they did get from Google they just out in an endowment and then shrink staff (start with management) until they can live comfortably off the interest…

Kwpolska5• 1 year ago

I don't want my browser to be dependent on Marc Andreessen. And he doesn't want to do things useful to humanity anyway.

gigatexal5• 1 year ago

Right. The money would be a gift to a foundation where he couldn’t control it. A no strings attached 100% tax deductible gift to the foundation with the only strings that they focus on the browser and survive on the interest, and lay off unnecessary management (10-20 dedicated web engineers and a PM and an HR person what else do you need).

But do you also want the browser beholden to the parent company of its direct competitor?

This is a fantasy land hypothetical of course as we know exactly the kind of guy Marc is, he’ll want a say.

renegat0x0• 1 year ago

To be honest browser is not that important for me. It collects a lot of data about you, but I think search engine is more important for society. It is the lens through which we see the world.

I have already seen that many folks switched to using several engines, because you see more that way. Personally I like searxng. There is gpt also obviously.

Sometimes I also search domains I crawled.

https://github.com/rumca-js/Internet-Places-Database

TimByte3• 1 year ago

I'd love to see them double down on privacy-first revenue models, but the question is: can they make it work before the money runs out?

vlad-roundabout3• 1 year ago

I think shipping Google is fair. It's not forced upon anyone, and much better than collecting data themselves, or advertising their own services, or making proprietary software.

bmacho• 1 year ago

I've read the petition. I'm not convinced. However, this must be the single most harmful petition I've ever read (IMO).

I believe that Google money is a huge net positive for Firefox: free money for basically nothing asked in return.

Additionally I think that the biggest problem of Firefox have been Mozilla for 10-15 years and there is no sign of improving, only getting worse and worse. I wish Firefox could ditch Mozilla (and probably keep Google money flow if possible).

nubinetwork• 1 year ago

Tell Mozilla: it's time to ditch Mozilla

chakintosh• 1 year ago

Wishful thinking.

Not a single mention of the fact Google contributed to 89% of Mozilla's income since 2005 [1]. Good luck convincing Mozilla to bite the hand that feeds it.

[1] https://windscribe.com/blog/windscribe-expose-mozilla/

zoobab2• 1 year ago

It's more boycottfirefox.com that is needed.

hkt• 1 year ago

Mozilla's greatest contribution to the web could well end up being a fork of Firefox with an accompanying standard for html and CSS which halts the march of SPAs and curtails interactivity, cookies, etc. Call it HTML4+.

It wouldn't need hundreds of millions of dollars to achieve, and if it took off it'd hurt Google and their ilk massively.

At the moment the Faustian pact is that they act as a competition fig leaf in the browser space: Google can point to a nearly-as-good browser and say "look, we don't control everything" while they steam ahead setting standards that largely benefit themselves. The reason they can do this is the sheer capital intensity of the exercise: nobody can keep up or catch up. So a captive competitor makes perfect sense.

Shedding that capital intensity - by means of devising a simpler to implement, slower moving standard - is the only real escape hatch. Mozilla won't get anywhere by begging forever, and it'll lose its character if it doesn't keep it's nonprofit status.

poulpy1232• 1 year ago

I don't understand what is the point of a petition when almost all revenue for Mozilla comes from Google being scared of a anti-trust trial

andai• 1 year ago

Yeah, that's the joke, Firefox is Google's "antitrust insurance."

jmorenoamor• 1 year ago

As a Firefox user since 1.0, my future expectatives are put on Ladybird

speckx• 1 year ago

Hypothetically speaking, can we estimate how long Firefox can survive once Google pulls the funding? A year? Two?

notpushkin21• 1 year ago

Mozilla has money. Not an awful lot, but they will survive – they just need to bite the bullet.

(Or maybe they won’t, depending on how fast they can go from burning through $300M a year to a mere $30M. That’s up to the management, though.)

asdf6969• 1 year ago

mozilla burnt my shake and fucked my wife

Tell Mozilla: it's time to ditch Google

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