mozilla and firefox need to learn more away from ai and more towards ethical not for profit governance. be the opposite of big tech and stand for the internet as a public utility and force or good and decency. instead of going ai bro, y'all need to stand up against racism and discrimination while pushing internet for everybody, free of profits.
Firefox is fine. The people running it are not
Submitted 3 weeks ago by eli001@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/08/firefox_isnt_dead/?td=rt-3a
Comments
cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
anachrohack@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
[deleted]cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
i was talking about mozilla and firefox... and the internet has plenty to do with that as a communication device for good.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
stand up against racism and discrimination
What does this mean for a browser company? I understand this being an important company value, but I don’t want them filtering the internet or anything. Their primary goal should be to foster a privacy respecting web and a high performance, standards based browser.
I don’t think eliminating profit from the web should be a goal. I don’t care if websites make money, I just care they don’t profit from my data without me agreeing to it explicitly.
I think Firefox needs to become financially independent, and that means finding a privacy respecting business model. My personal preference is a micro payment system where I can pay websites for content in exchange for no ads. That provides value to me and websites that I’d otherwise block ads on.
If AI is part of that, sure, just make it opt-in and very obvious when it’s working.
001Guy001@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
y’all need to stand up against racism and discrimination
I concur, I think they should push towards a more positive internet. Though I think they are a bit wary of doing it ever since the toxic backlash to this blog post
cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
which is exactly why they need a strong positive leadership that doesn't bend the knee to bigots.
rottingleaf@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I personally think it’s not about Mozilla. It’s about the Web.
You need to see the bigger picture always.
The Web as an application for global system of hypertext documents served from different computers is fine.
The Web wasn’t intended as a platform for platforms for global applications.
It’s used as one, because that allows a certain kind of people to gather power. Networked personal computers made the civil society too powerful. Needed a solution.
Why the Web and not just “Facebook native application” and “Google native application”? Well, it’s hard to maintain a hypertext document system made application platform. It limits competition. It also allows Facebook and Google popularity to affect web browser and web techologies popularity. If these don’t work in a browser, that browser is doomed.
While the verticals and monopolies themselves allow thieves and murderers in governments to control the Internet.
So - there weren’t that many websites, if you think about it, requiring any particular web technology when it came into existence. Those mostly started specifically for Google, Facebook etc services and/or policies. Say, HTML5 to phase out Netscape plugin API, which was presented as phasing out Flash (everybody hated Flash).
Mozilla followed those policies and appeared neutral, yes.
But in general the moment using Dillo or Netsurf or Links became plainly, completely not an option for the Web, it was decided. A world standard that has only a handful of compliant realizations is not a standard. It’s an oligopoly.
So, getting back to hypertext - Flash was hated by some because it didn’t allow to turn the whole webpage into an application, but that wasn’t its purpose. JS was a mistake, I think. Any interpreted content should have been embedded in its clear place separate from the rest of the page with its own plugin, similar to Flash applets. But - one can accept that in year 1996 they didn’t think of such consequences.
And remote big services not being standardized were also a mistake. I wrote a bit on that from time to time here, gets tiring to repeat - a lot of what the server side of many applications does is just routing to another client, computation and storage. One can devise a standard for remote services. So that local applications would be different, but would use the same pooled infrastructure, found and announced via trackers similar to torrents. With global identifiers of entities to allow interoperability, so that “post #12435324646dasgtshdryh” would be the same text on any of such storage services (having it) and at any point in time.
That, of course, is a bit late. In our current world things like Briar and other mesh are probably a better direction. One can have what I described over them too, but it will also require management of bandwidth and bottlenecks and stuff not reachable directly.
Vinstaal0@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
Companies should be allowed to make a profit, you need that to cover bad years, invest in the future of the company, etc. A company without profit (unless it is a non-profit) will not survive.
brendansimms@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
And what share of the profit should go right in executives pockets? How many employees should be laid off to increase this profit? Is 6 million $/yr enough for a CEO to feed their fucking family?
Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
That’s a weird way of saying firefox is not fine.
samus12345@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I can’t keep browser hopping. I want to stay with firefox. Please don’t get worse!
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
forks cant survive without firefox unfortunately
_cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Firefox is open source, it’s not going anywhere.
Ajen@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
The article says you should stick with Firefox. If you have time, I’d recommend reading the entire article!
rozodru@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Qutebrowser is my main and Lynx is my “feed” browser. Qutebrowser you don’t need anything else. it just works and you can script the thing to your hearts content.
For a long time I was using Floorp, and while I like floorp and the dev team behind it, I just stopped using it as my main. Sure it’s a fork of firefox and they’re at the whims of mozilla which lately has been clearly evident with the slow updates to floorp.
Qutebrowser just works. The dev for it is a nice dude who is easily accessible for help. the community for it is also very helpful. the integration with things like greasemonkey make scripting and customizing anything so painfully easy. I mean there’s a great script for it right now that completely 100% circumvents youtube ads and it’s been working for months straight without any need to update. It also meshes extremely well with my Bitwarden.
I’ll never use a different browser again.
finitebanjo@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I’ve been very happy with Waterfox so far. Made with the Gecko Engine but not maintained by Mozilla.
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
For clarity, Mozilla isn’t one thing. There’s Mozilla Corporation (profit) and the Mozilla Foundation (nonprofit). Firefox is a product of Mozilla Corporation. And yes, the need to make a profit is a bug not a feature.
pupbiru@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
and it’s incredibly shit that you can’t donate to firefox… people donate to mozilla assuming they’re donating to firefox but none of the donations go towards firefox development
i emailed them about this a while ago… i can’t remember exactly what i said, but basically that i didn’t want to donate to adtech and ai slop but wanted to support firefox development… this is their reply
Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback with us. We genuinely value hearing from our supporters, as your insights help us understand what matters most to the Mozilla community.
It’s important to note that the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation are two separate entities within the Mozilla umbrella - Mozilla Corporation is responsible for developing and maintaining Firefox and other software products, and they are continuously working on improving the user experience, including addressing compatibility issues and promoting the browser to a wider audience.
The Mozilla Foundation, on the other hand, focuses on broader internet health and advocacy work. Our mission is to ensure the internet remains open and accessible for everyone, and this includes issues related to privacy, digital rights, and equity. To confirm, the survey that you had received was from the Mozilla Foundation.
With that being said, Firefox is funded by revenue generated through the product rather than donations. At the moment, there is no way for supporters to make a donation that will be designated to the development of Firefox. Have no fear, things are looking good for Firefox’s future and they plan to be around a long time, supporting folks with the most secure browser experience! Continuing to use Firefox, and recommending it to others, is the best way to support this project.
We truly appreciate your concerns about Firefox and their top priorities - We on the Mozilla Foundation strongly believe that issues such as privacy, online safety, and data security are connected to the products and services we all use every day. The work we do in these areas complements Mozilla Corporation’s focus on building better, more secure software like Firefox, and w encourage you to participate in our survey!
If you would like to input some of your thoughts and ideas into our Ideas discussion forum regarding Firefox and other Mozilla products, please visit: connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/idb-p/ideas
We thank you again for reaching out to our Mozilla Foundation Donor Care team, and please let us know if we can support your further!
All the best,
<redacted their name> Donor Care Team
Mozilla Foundation foundation.mozilla.org
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Unfortunately Firefox is a product whose job is to show ads for profit, so the only way to “donate” to it is to click ads.
buddascrayon@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Yeah, this is part of the new Reaganomics I like to call AIconomics. The goal isn’t to produce a good product, the goal to make something flashy that tech billionaires want to throw cash at. It’s not unlike crypto. Crypto has literally no actual value yet people are shitting money into bitcoins of every type in hopes that one will hit it big. Meanwhile tech billionaires keep minting new ones to entice new suckers every other week. The tech billionaires want you hooked on AI so you’ll give up your private info that they can sell to each other so they can cash in, the software companies are investing their time and resources into making AI LLMs in order to get tech billionaires to give them money. It’s a viscous capitalist circle. Only thing that will stop it is heavy regulation. But with Republicans in charge that will absolutely never happen. Trump practically made his entire cabinet out of billionaires and corporate shills. And too many Democrats gave them the thumb up, so don’t count of Dems doing a whole lot to stall the big tech chokehold on everything either.
Twelve20two@slrpnk.net 3 weeks ago
How viscous is the cycle
HiTekRedNek@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Very. It’s like molasses.
oo1@lemmings.world 3 weeks ago
There’s been investment bubbles, overshooting and disingenuous rent seeking in many economies before. It was temporarily reduced in many western economies by various FDR type policies in the '30s-'60s. The '70s and '80s were just the banks wresting back their freedom to implement market “rationality”. And we get the benefits ever since.
People do keep voting for it though so it is hard to argue they’re not satisfied. Even the ones who protest vote don’t seem to see the “investment” markets as any part of the problem; or as important at all. That’s either some pretty effective demagoguery, or some dumb fucking electorate.
e461h@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
The amount of power shareholders hold over every major (American) enterprise isn’t talked about in a way that presents a clear problem between increasingly expensive and shitty services, layoffs, anti-worker practices, political corruption and these shareholder groups. C-suite are part of this group but they’re also afraid of removal via hostile board takeovers and so easily justify acquiescing to shareholder demands. Perhaps it’s because the same investors hold the same sway over (American) media with the added benefit of using it to brand themselves as exceptional leaders. Lots to untangle there…
Airowird@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
I’ld like to vote Cryptonimics as term, because it encompasses both the cryptic nature of the product, and the clear example of cryptocurrency.
Woht24@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Where do you think you are?
rottingleaf@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Crypto has literally no actual value yet people are shitting money into bitcoins of every type in hopes that one will hit it big.
That’s not entirely correct. Black and white stones used in voting in someplace antique also have no actual value, but they substitute a vote.
BTC is used as a mechanism of exchange, like a decentralized bank.
Only thing that will stop it is heavy regulation.
Would you agree if someone told you that the only thing to resolve some political problem is heavy artillery?
Or would you doubt that the person talking has good idea of the problem and the solutions, offering the bluntest one?
“Regulation” of the “property rights protection” kind is needed. Providing a service presented as a good that doesn’t work without dancing to a certain tune is simply cheating, it’s theft. Providing a “communication platform” augmenting and weighing your words for recommendation system leading to some intended effect is cheating, theft and impersonation at the same time. These should be prosecuted. But that’s not heavy regulation, that’s an update to pretty light regulation.
Maybe also obligation for every big service on the Internet to have global identifiers and provide a global API exposing all its inner entities, be that posts or users or comments or reactions, with those global identifiers. So that you could export all of Facebook to a decentralized cache, for example. That’s heavy regulation, but also pretty reasonable, in line with old approaches to libraries, press and freedom of speech.
gian@lemmy.grys.it 3 weeks ago
Only thing that will stop it is heavy regulation.
Would you agree if someone told you that the only thing to resolve some political problem is heavy artillery?
Well, if everything else failed…
“Regulation” of the “property rights protection” kind is needed. Providing a service presented as a good that doesn’t work without dancing to a certain tune is simply cheating, it’s theft. Providing a “communication platform” augmenting and weighing your words for recommendation system leading to some intended effect is cheating, theft and impersonation at the same time. These should be prosecuted. But that’s not heavy regulation, that’s an update to pretty light regulation.
The problem with light regulation is that it would probably be too easy to workaround, not that a heavy regulation do not have the same problem btw, but more than the regulation itself is the punishment (and the certainty and timeliness of it) that is important.
BillyCrystalMeth@slrpnk.net 3 weeks ago
Check out enshittification and the rot economy. I feel like those two terms encompass pretty much what we are seeing these days
buddascrayon@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I’m quite aware of enshittifacation. And, though the word is new, the concept is not. It was most recently called “planned obsolescence” and I think older folks just called it “trashy new stuff” or something folksy like that. But that’s harder to apply to the amorphous entity that is the Internet and the economy that’s been built around it. Don’t fall for the doomsday cult of “it’s all just going to shit anyway so let’s only care about ourselves”. That’s how we got Baptists, Seventh Day Adventists, and Mormons (among so many others).
network_switch@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
One observer has been spectating and commentating on Mozilla since before it was a foundation – one of its original co-developers, Jamie Zawinksi
…
Zawinski has repeatedly said:
Now hear me out, but What If…? browser development was in the hands of some kind of nonprofit organization?
In my humble but correct opinion, Mozilla should be doing two things and two things only:
- Building THE reference implementation web browser, and
- Being a jugular-snapping attack dog on standards committees.
- There is no 3.
This makes sense to me. I initially thought everything that Proton does, that should have been Mozilla. They should have been a collection of services to compete with like O365 and Google One. So I didn’t see a problem with Mozilla selling a VPN, even though if I remember right it being just a Mullvad rebrand.
Right now to me it looks like Proton is the closest mostly missing a web browser and a more cloud office offering.
Mozilla functioning more as the reference browser for others to finish packaging and supporting sounds good to me because Mozilla doesn’t seem to be great at attracting general users. Linux kernel devs do Linux kernel development and distros small and large do the integration with everything else needed for an operating system, branding, support, etc. Sounds like Mozilla should have been the core devs for a number of reference software projects. Firefox browser engine. Maybe an equivalent to Electron based on Servo. Shouldn’t have dropped Rust and been the steward for the reference Rust compiler. Could have been the steward for FirefoxOS/KaiOS/etc. Linux foundation stewards or contributes to all sorts of software projects not just the kernel
rekabis@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Markup pro tip: to have multiple separate lines appear as a single block quote, have the separating new lines have a quote signifier as well.
so this
is one giant
block quote
despite the newlines.
rottingleaf@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Mozilla functioning more as the reference browser for others to finish packaging and supporting sounds good to me because Mozilla doesn’t seem to be great at attracting general users or even picking what businesses to try and break into.
Unfortunately others are deciding on web standards mostly. Which makes it hard for it to keep up even if it were trying to be such.
Also Mozilla was kinda that, until it wasn’t - because they decided to go the other way and because apparently they lacked money (doesn’t look like that from their spending, but).
barryamelton@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
That assumes though that the definition of web browser and its needed stack stays static.
What happens if we all browse the net primarily via VR then? The line is blurry, so is Mozilla org.
Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Sadly I am running into more and more things that don’t work on firefox. Stuff like medical record portals, financial websites for my companies retirement plan. Stuff I have little choice about. And most fail silently. They don’t say it is the browser. I don’t know how they are doing it, but google is winning the fight.
underline960@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
When I asked a couple of developers who work on websites/webapps with a lot of moving parts, they said it was easiest to just test for chrome, since that’s what most people use.
It’s turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
MinusPi@pawb.social 3 weeks ago
It’s so damn stupid. If your site works meaningfully differently in Firefox vs Chromium, you’re already doing something very, very wrong.
okmko@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It’s ironic that I use Firefox personally but unfortunately we mostly did too when I did more front end work. Firefox would often render views differently compared to Chrome (Safari was also a shetshow) but we had to prioritize work ofc.
The thing is, as a pure guess, I would bet that it’s Chrome that’s not adhering to the web standards.
Stabbitha@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I switched from Chrome to Firefox at work recently once they added tab groups. A few parts of one of the web apps my team maintains straight up don’t work. I mentioned it in a meeting, received a full 10 seconds of silence before someone said “Well customers aren’t complaining…”
Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Yeah, I’m not a dev, but I work with dev teams. They all don’t test with firefox anymore. Not enough ROI according to the product managers.
swelter_spark@reddthat.com 3 weeks ago
If a site I have to use doesn’t work for no apparent reason, I e-mail the company’s Support. Let them sort it out, or provide another way I can do what I’m trying to do. Personally, I think a lot of the problems are from more and more websites integrating privacy-invading “features”, and FF interfering with their operation.
Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I talked to tech support once, they said it won’t get fixed, and there was no workaround. It was a platform type site. So I’m not their direct custom. A small business is. And the people at the small business have never heard of firefox. So they don’t even understand the problem.
NoodlePoint@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Stuff like medical record portals, financial websites for my companies retirement plan. Stuff I have little choice about. And most fail silently.
I recall how South Korea literally painted itself into a corner for becoming too dependent on Internet Explorer after years of using it with a security implementation based entirely on ActiveX.
I’m currently using a user-agent switcher plugin. Allows me to spoof servers into believing I’m running a different browser.
Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I tried the spoofer on a few, and they still failed. I thought it was supposed to be all chromium under the hood, but somehow it’s different. And companies don’t test firefox, nor care.
xeekei@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
You know you fucked up when even a traditionally hardcore Mozilla fan since the early 2000s like myself has had enuff and recently switched to Librewolf.
nek0d3r@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
I’m with you. I was using Netscape way back and loved Firefox from its inception, and tried to convince everyone I knew to use it. Earlier this year I finally switched to Waterfox, and I haven’t looked back. I tried Librewolf first, and it was great, but they don’t have an app and that was a dealbreaker for me. Waterfox feels a lot like older Firefox UI-wise, and I love the tab containers.
xeekei@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Librewolf has tab containers as well. So does Firefox. Unless Waterfox works differently somehow?
Baggie@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Is it good so far?
xeekei@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Yes! A bit annoying with no built in pw manager but I manage. It did show me how much of the problems which Iv hought were Gecko related were actually Firefox related, tho.
Basically it’s a faster, bluer, and less buggy Firefox. 🐺>🦊
neuracnu@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
For those holding out for a hero: ladybird.org
Ladybird is a brand-new browser & web engine. Driven by a web standards first approach, Ladybird aims to render the modern web with good performance, stability and security.
TimewornTraveler@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
I’m not looking for a hero, I’m looking for stability.
cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
the ladybird devs have a history of major transphobia though
neuracnu@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
I think this may be the issue to which you are referring:
hyperborea.org/reviews/…/ladybird-inclusivity/
While this is troubling to read about, this narrative’s lack of evidence or references keep me from accepting it at face value. Old mastodon chatter (and perhaps deleted posts or scuttled instances) may be difficult to retrieve, but GitHub discussions shouldn’t be hard to find.
So I’m withholding judgement for the moment.
NotAnonymousAtAll@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
some context and/or link would help for everyone who just learned about this project and knows nothing about the devs
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
with a project named ladybird you’d think otherwise.
dzso@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
If that’s true, shame on them. But it doesn’t mean their browser isn’t good.
0x0@infosec.pub 3 weeks ago
Right, so what does that have to do with ladybird
infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net 3 weeks ago
Why not just run a community build of Firefox, like IceCat?
iopq@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
If Firefox doesn’t keep up with web standards, neither will any of the forks
bigredcar@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Firefox still hasn’t fixed Bug 1938998 despite me reporting it multiple times. There’s a reason why Firefox is almost non existent on mobile. I’ve been using the internet for 26 years, and have used Mozilla based browsers since 2001, I want them to survive to the next era of the internet, but they are struggling to keep up. Opera and Edge already gave up their engines, Webkit and Blink are basically the same engine with different standards enabled, and Firefox is under 2% on some days on Statcounter. I feel that soon AI based browsers using their own AI-engine will probably take over the internet soon anyway.
chunes@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The fact that they are now selling our data seems like both a browser problem and a leadership problem. If the browser were fine, we wouldn’t be seeing a moderate exodus to choices like Librewolf and Zen.
MITM0@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
So what do we do ? Go to Chromium & expand it’s monopoly ?
FF forks have to become their own thing via Servo, at least until we get LadyBird
MajesticElevator@lemmybefree.net 3 weeks ago
mozilla sucks
aceshigh@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I just moved back to ff in November, because of ubo. I have to move again? Where to?
finitebanjo@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Called it
Pro@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
Both currently sucks.
rekabis@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
I have been using the same web browser, in terms of ideology, codebase and heritage, since the release of NCSA Mosaic.
That was 32 years ago. And holy f**ck, that dates me.
Sure, I dabbled around with others. There was the original Opera, back when Netscape cratered and the only other real option was IE. Opera’s tab behaviours made me install Tab Mix Plus for FF, and I still find that extension to be the second-most critical extension FF has, right after UBlock Origin.
And lately I took a shine to Vivaldi, but I have been weaning myself off of it once I realized that the Manifest v2 shutdown was unavoidable for it as well.
And the only reason why I even have Chromium is as a sandbox for any Google services I access and as a “naked” web browser for those websites who implement malware and spyware in the name of “website security”.
And of course, I also run forks, such as Librewolf and others, also with the appropriate anti-malware and anti-spyware add-ins. It can be useful having multiple web browsers up at once.
But my main will always be Firefox.
underline960@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
rottingleaf@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I dunno, Firefox of 3.0 times was the shit. It itself was the browser that should be, more welcoming to customization than Windows of the time was to porn winlockers. They also had XULRunner for alternative ideas. Gecko was the FOSS browser engine that various alternative “nice” MacOS and Linux browsers used.
Though between 2004 and 2008 only four years passed. Less than between Windows 2000 and Vista (let’s ignore XP as a more glossy consumer version of 2000).
atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
That feels like a dangerous argument;
Unless you are prepared to argue that everything since has just been an updated version of Vista.
interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
All firefox really needed to be once google took over everything, was to be a viable alternative and find a way to metabolize all this cash in a way that doesn’t damage google’s own cash machine or threaten it’s actual dominance.
For google the pitance they give firefox is a very cheap insurance policy against against anti-trust legislation. Just like Intel with AMD, this shows how toothless the liberal anti-trust legislation are, even if they were really being enforced, they cannot handle a token 2nd player. It cannot handle controlled opposition if it’s credible and believable. So an actual thriving ecosystem doesn’t need to exist, we just get duopolies instead of monopolies but in practices we get ducked up the cloaca just the same.
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
This is the exact block I came to quote.
The rest of the article is good too, though.