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Comment by protomyth | Hacker News Reader

Firefox doesn't have the developer tools that Chrome does so developers use Chrome to develop with meaning their websites work better in Chrome so Firefox is playing catch-up or just plain looks worse keeping adoption of Firefox lower.

Mozilla solves the problem by killing development of developer tools insuring Firefox is an afterthought.

Is there anyone in Mozilla management that has a technical bone in their body?

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Not saying I agree with the lay-offs here, but it's incredibly rare I find myself wishing I was using Chrome's developer tools whilst doing web development.

I have missed functionality when I've had to use Chrome though - like Edit & Re-send for network requests, copy as cURL (which arrived a few years later to Chrome), the accessibility inspector (which is not Lighthouse), services like https://profiler.firefox.com/ etc

I think the only thing I have found that Chrome sometimes performs better on is source maps and breakpoints in prettified code.

I’ve always believed that Firefox dev tools probably had most of the things I need but the interface is always...uglier and less familiar, so I don’t bother. It’s a low threshold to just use Chrome for development and FF for everything else.

Also I believe the OP was talking about more development tooling than just the front-end browser dev tools. Chromium always seems to have the most advanced debugging tools for browser development at the systems level. At least from what I’ve read...

> I’ve always believed that Firefox dev tools probably had most of the things I need but the interface is always...uglier and less familiar, so I don’t bother.

Is it just familiarity? Because I feel the same way about Chrome.

I consistently have to switch to Chrome devtools as FF (my default browser) devtools crash or hang on large (1.29MB gzipped) bundles like one of the apps I regularly maintain. While we want to do some code splitting, module lazy loading, and refactor to make tree shaking more effective, the fact that Chrome just works when FF does not is very frustrating.

Interesting - while the FF dev tools are not perfect, I find the Chrome tools much much much worse. I remember a few months ago searching where the !#$@ one can see POST request parameters for a networks request (I'm sure they are there, because it's such a basic functionality, but it took me 10 minutes to finally give up and replicate a bug in FF, where I could debug without problems).

So maybe, as someone who never switched to Chrome, I am simply used to the way things work and unconsciously avoid the traps, while in Chrome I fall right into them? And probably others are simply used to Chrome dev tools?

Anyway, I hope they manage to turn the boat around and make it profitable, while keeping the browser alive and privacy-focused.

I'm sure management understands those teams are important. Who should they have cut instead?

These are hard decisions. I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that management doesn't understand tech, they obviously do, it's Mozilla.

I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that management doesn't understand tech, they obviously do, it's Mozilla.

What in these decisions should make that obvious? Just because its Mozilla doesn't mean its management staff understand tech.

Cut the CEO salary and remove some management first.

They cut 25% of their workforce. That's 250 people. Figure all-in loaded cost of $200K per person let go, and that's $50 million in budget they cut. Mitchell Baker had made $2.5 million. You don't get $50 million out of non-technical cuts.

But a pay reduction to all C level execs would free up a few million that would allow you to maybe keep some of (what the community consider) Mozilla's most important projects.

I used to donate to Mozilla until these news. In fact, I started specifically donating because of the Servo and Rust projects. I was impressed with the way Mozilla was pushing the envelope and once again returning to the forefront of tech, in an open source manner.

Instead, C execs keep getting raises and the guys doing the real work keep getting axed.

> Who should they have cut instead?

Anything that is not touching engineering / technical problems, such as management and the rest of the C-suite team, that apparently are getting fatter salaries while "low level" employees are getting the boot.

> they obviously do, it's Mozilla

This mindset is dangerous on so many levels (assuming they don't have technical expertise is equally dangerous). Mozilla used to stand for an open web, by any costs. Lately, this is obviously not true, but it's hard to say who's to blame for this. Management gets paid extra much since they hold much of the power in an organization, which also means they should be the first to blame for the problems.

working at a tech company does not make one tech savvy, and you know what they say about assuming. I wouldnt assume the decisions makers are always fully understanding of the tech they manage at any company. ive seen it personally at a few.

> they obviously do

Only time will tell. If the ship finally does sink (i.e. gets acquired by IBM), then I'll take that as evidence that management decided to throw in the towel on figuring out tech and focus on short-term business instead.

As somebody who worked in the university field for a while I can tell you one thing: bureaucrats will cut anything before even considering cutting bureaucracy. Just like that managers will cut anything before they will cut in the management department (unless it is a political move to gain more power).

> Who should they have cut instead?

Maybe their AI experts? Support staff?

Just heavens forbid they reduce CEO wages.

Well, I think nobody really got the punchline, huh?

Mozilla laid off nearly all their engineers – which are the ~250 people, who are A QUARTER of Mozilla. Wait what?

What for do they need so many people? Everybody who is not brainfried by corporate will agree that there are better options. But that is the faith of any organisation getting too big. The bureaucrats are taking over (think Boeing) and eradicate every single occurence of common sense. And of course greed and pride kicks in soon after. Not a single time has management ever fired management.

Firefox has development tools? Is there certain features that are missing? Because you can bring up a dev console and inspect elements and such. Genuine question from a not full-time frontend developer, not being snarky.

Firefox has dev tools, and they are very similar for basic things.

There are some differences with some of the more advanced dev tools.

I like both

Firefox has had development tools from way before Chrome even existed. They started as an (awesome!) Firebug extension, which they later included in the browser itself (not that it matters, but it was Chrome that basically copied them at the time).

Was looking for this comment! This is key here, because the story is extra sad given Mozilla/FF's initial strong surge in leader front-end developer tools. Before the Firebug extension I think I just did like View Source still from the menu? Yikes!

Chrome copied it and at first IMO it wasn't nearly as good inside Chrome as in FF. But that did eventually change and for some years now I (sadly) agree I also prefer Chrome's.

Before Firebug Mozilla had Venkman and the DOM Inspector.

> Mozilla/FF's initial strong surge in leader front-end developer tools

Back in the days when Mozilla put a focus on the needs of power-users and developers...

It's hard to pin down a single point where they dropped that ideal, but it's definitely long gone now.

Firebug was amazing, it was way ahead of what Chrome had when it was released!

Dedicated work on Chrome DevTools started only in 2009 and before version 3 or 4 Chrome had only had Elements panel inherited from Web Inspector, Console and gdb-style command line debugger (perhaps basic Network don't remember). It was catching up with Firebug quickly though because web developer tools was stated as a priority for the project.

I use firefox dev tools, but since like, 99% of the app users are on chrome, we optimize for chrome. I've never like that but that's been the reality.

Better than my last job at least which for some reason people were using ie11 and even worse to access our app.

And I had just started switching to FF for their dev tools. Call stacks would collapse unnecessary rows (looking at you, rxjs), and the changes view for CSS were both great

Are you suggesting that they should eat cake instead?

Honestly I don't know how dire Mozilla's situation is, but I would not assume it was unwarranted.

Are you suggesting that they should eat cake instead?

I'm not sure what you mean. I think capableweb had the best suggestion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24144625

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