Reclaim the Internet with Mozilla | Hacker News Reader

Reclaim the Internet with Mozilla

blog.mozilla.org

85 pointsgslin58 comments

> To commemorate this moment, we are hosting a five-day event at the Alte Münze in Berlin this Oct. 12 to 16 that embodies all of what Mozilla has been, what it aims to be and what it envisions for the internet.

If Mozilla really wanted to reclaim the internet they'd focus their efforts on their flagship product rather than hosting awards ceremonies to "explore the future through four immersive rooms that show what’s possible when internet users reclaim individual expression, inspiration, wonder and community"[sic]

I switched to Firefox when Chrome started blocking/disabling ad blocker extensions. I would rather use Internet Explorer with an ad blocker than Chrome without an ad blocker. I'm really not sure what more one could want from a browser than what Firefox offers.

HDR support, I have this fancy monitor that's great for watching content on but I can't view it at full quality because of my browser.

Is there a lot of HDR content on the web?

No, not yet. 4K is still relatively niche as well.

Some youtube videos have it now, but not really. I ripped all my blurays and have them hosted on Jellyfin for consumption which I prefer to use as just a tab in my browser than their dedicated player.

The same can be said for Safari. It doesn't surprise me that YouTube has inferior support on browsers other than Chrome/Chromium base. Likewise there are features in Safari that are exclusive to Safari.

I don't really consume HDR content through Youtube,so the Chromium relation doesn't have much bearing on my situation. Although it does make me sad that the only browser that really caters to what I want from a technical perspective is Chromium, I'd love to continue daily driving Firefox.

I miss Chrome tab groups. Firefox doesn’t seem to have an elegant equivalent.

Firefox has an extension (developed by Mozilla I believe) that allows you to have multiple tabs open of the same website but logged into different accounts. This was handy when I had to sign in to different Azure accounts every day at my old job. Basically prevented me from needing to open multiple Private windows or use Firefox for one, Firefox Developer Edition for another, etc.

I know this is different from tab groups, but it's something I don't think exists in Chrome, at least not as a Google-maintained extension. I've encountered some really awful 3rd party Chrome extensions.

Yep, this extension is called "Multi-Account Containers" and I highly recommend it as it allows me to be logged on in different contexts without polluting sessions on non-containerized tabs. I have a container for each specific Workspace within Google. This makes it much easier to avoid accidentally logging in with Google in some random website that wants my account info.

I have a RedditSucks container that allows my account to not be linked to anything else I do, and have a company account accessible if I need it. Really a great feature.

Try Sidbery extension.

Not sure whether this is a good recommendation at the moment, after their major update last week seems to have been a big fail.

Firefox on iOS still doesn’t support content blockers, or web extensions - something supported by Safari and other browsers on iOS.

> what more one could want

The prospect of Firefox surviving?

The prospect of a non-Chrome browser having significant enough sway in defining interoperable web standards to steer much of web tech away, not towards, ad-industry-driven tech like Topics et al.

The status quo is never something to wish for

A commitment by its makers to advantace the product, to regain its pathetically dwindled market share?

Oh no, nevermind, the company wants to virtue signal and shmooz. Carry on.

Being able to easily use different profiles, I like to have one profile for work and one for personal stuff. Chrome/Edge implementation is really nice, you can have different taskbar icons, different theme, history, bookmarks, etc.

The modern Firefox solution are the containers mentioned elsewhere in this thread. Basic UI for that feature is part of default install, and that basic UI covers exactly the work/personal/banking/porn usecase.

Also, Firefox still supports the original Mozilla concept of multiple profiles (which probably even comes from Netscape 4) which is more or less the same thing as Chromium profiles. IIRC the command line options involved in that are same, except last time I cared about that (~2017) Chromium did not have an GUI profile selection/management dialog

> when Chrome started blocking/disabling ad blocker extensions.

That has never actually happened (yet). Though it is true that firefox offers APIs for better blocking.

Mozilla's entire existence as anti-monopoly "paid opposition" seems more and more plausible.

This is the dumbest take i have ever seen, is apple paid opposition? mozilla are paid to have google as the default search engine just the same way google pays apple billions for the right to be the default search in ios

That feels a bit negative and hostile. They can do both. Price of hosting this event is, hopefully, negligible compared to money that goes into Firefox development.

We all here would prefer technical goals, but raising awareness and social projects are, for better or worse, other major Mozilla goals.

> That feels a bit negative and hostile. They can do both.

Why they don't do it ? Why they copied the Chrome interface ? Why they use Google as a service ?

> Why they copied the Chrome interface ?

Because Chrome did a lot of things right and copying it is a benefit to most users.

Getting rid of the status bar and menu bar comes to mind (both can still be added back in firefox). Or the unified address bar, most people WANT it to search (and again, in firefox you can disable that).

> Why they use Google as a service ?

Is this really a question? It's of course for the money. But guess what? When they briefly switched to bing, people were just switching back to Google. Because for better or worse, people expect/want Google Search.

The firefox UI works like chrome, but looks worse, calls attention to itself while chrome stays in the background. They want to look different, but they can't do the same thing better. If they did an actually different interface, like tree-style tabs, they might find a niche.

Tbh the browser is alright.. the problem is that nobody uses it and nobody tests their code on it. I'm not sure how (or if) they can fix that.

At this point, I think they are really just incapable of doing the right things for promoting their products and cause. I'm recently getting a lot of Ads for Mozilla on Instagram, but surprisingly they are the most useless ads I've ever seen. They tell absolute nothing, communicate nothing and are probably just pure waste of money. It's just random pictures, without any text, no message, no logo, without the advertiser-name in the corner, I wouldn't even know it is from Mozilla.

If you want to do this why don’t you put your money into triple the number of bug fixes in releases, and focus on the quality of Firefox instead of the adventure projects.

If you want to see an example of a very complex software project with an impressive release schedule that’s focused on quality check out the release notes for the JetBrains IDEs.

Agreed - posted something very similar. Check out their partners and grants, sure seems like they think that Firefox doesn't need the money

https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/what-we-fund/fellowships-a...

you've linked to the Mozilla Foundation.

"Mozilla’s work is guided by the Mozilla Manifesto. Founded as a community open source project in 1998, Mozilla currently consists of two organizations: the 501(c)3 Mozilla Foundation, which leads our movement building work; and its wholly owned subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation, which leads our market-based work. The two organizations work in close concert with each other and a global community of tens of thousands of volunteers under the single banner: Mozilla."

not sure where everyone is getting the idea that Mozilla just makes a web browser. they've been saying for years and years and years that the browser is not their only focus.

> that the browser is not their only focus.

No one thinks that it is. The annoyance is that it seems to be their last focus.

I've seen a ton of press from Mozilla recently and none of it has been about Firefox. It's all been shitty virtue signaling like this.

I don't give a shit about Mozilla's lofty ideals when they aren't actually doing anything to achieve them.

I disliked Mozilla enough years ago to switch to chrome and now that I want to get rid of chrome I have no other options.

It seems clear that Mozilla doesn't care to or feel the need to actually improve the product. They'll continue to exist because they must so why bother with a product? Yeah sure, just blow a ton of money on some modern art exhibit why not?

God, it's bad enough that we have a chrome monopoly. Does Mozilla really have to be actively shitty in response? Why can't we have an actually good alternative?

Incredible to see mozilla steal the name of this obnoxious blog[1], which constantly gets to the HN frontpage[2]. I'll take this as an opportunity to express what has always bothered me about this line: To talk about "reclaiming" the net is to adopt the territorial language of revanchist movements, which does not make sense for networks. A website is not a territory. There's no need to "reclaim" what was never yours in the first place. You can make your own website.

[1]: https://reclaimthenet.org/

[2]: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=reclaim+the+net&utm_source=opensea...

> To talk about "reclaiming" the net is to adopt the territorial language of revanchist movements, which does not make sense for networks.

I don't think that's necessarily true, "reclaim" can easily be used to refer to restoring an overall state of affairs or social-norm, as opposed to involving legal ownership or control of some tangible asset.

For example, consider the statement: "This holiday is too commercialized, we must reclaim Christmas." It would indeed be creepy-nonsense if that meant making Christmas® a trademark and all related paraphernalia copyrighted beneath a quasi-governmental entity tasked with its ideological purity... But that's probably not what someone means, they're calling for a broad cultural change.

I'm so sick of Mozilla's constant posturing as the "open internet" champion. Unfortunately it seems to be working based on the hordes of goons who interject in any discussion of web browsers that Firefox is the "morally superior" choice.

Mozilla is lost. Not just directionless, but in my opinion a total shell of the organization they once were. Chrome's complete dominance can be directly attributed to Mozilla's mismanagement.

Just continuing to burn funds on dishonest virtue signaling and failed experiments...

All I gathered from your comment is that "Mozilla is lost," and some other negative epithets, but nothing on why you think that.

Tell me who is morally superior, then.

No one really. Which is the morally superior hammer manufacturer?

I think their problem is trying so hard to sell something that most people don't really care too much about (even though they should):

Firefox is more than a browser. Learn more about Firefox products that handle your data with respect and are built for privacy anywhere you go online.

People will takes "works better" or "do stuff you want to do" over "more privacy" every time. That's why we have to have laws like CCPA and GDPR to get businesses to even care about privacy.

I can't believe how hostile everyone is. You may dislike Mozilla, but they're doing a hell of a lot more to respect users and promote an open internet than Google and Microsoft

Saying that they are doing a lot more than Microsoft and Google is to say they are not actively hurting an open internet. I don't think this is even true, Mozilla year after year burns millions of dollars on random unrelated projects while watching its market share slip more and more. The management at Mozilla have effectively killed the browser duopoloy, and probably ensured a permanent chromium environment.

I struggle to think of anyone who has done more than Google, FWIW.

Chrome made JS viable, as opposed to Flash/ActiveX everywhere.

I struggle to think of anyone who has done more to hurt the open Internet than Google.

Reclaim open standards like RSS, then? Why remove it in the first place? I contemplate more and more to start consuming news in the form of RSS, because there's no algorithmic curation, or even by the HN hivemind, which is fickle.

>Why remove it in the first place?

Because that would get in the way of Pocket.

Firefox removed RSS support long before they bought Pocket.

Nice! What % of ticket sales will go to the Wikipedia for Refugees and the ADL (I'm Jewish, but wtf?)?

Seriously, why can't the open source foundations just use the donations/income the way it's intended? Wiki does the same exact thing, and every year it's a bigger hunk of money.

https://www.mozillapulse.org/projects?keyword=grants https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/what-we-fund/fellowships-a...

They de-prioritized Firefox. Probably rightfully so, it doesn't stand a chance against Chrome and Safari being shipped as defaults on mobile. They can't really "organically" engineer it back to meaningful market share.

Anyway, somehow Google seems to keep sending them hundreds of millions anyway, so why not spend it on activist blogs that read like a HR DEI policy?

"Reclaim the internet" and they post event stuff on Instagram and TikTok?? Even big projects like Blender have embraced open platforms like Peertube, it feels more and more that Mozilla is just PR and no action.

At the heart of it, if they want to do the bare minimum to "reclaim the internet", they just need to not alienate everyone still using firefox and let Chrome fall on its own sword with anti-adblock lockdown. That literally requires doing nothing but waiting.

I mean if they want to get bonus points they could be better, but that's just crazy talk.

Or, just make Firefox faster , at least for better web developer experience ?

And use less battery on my mobile.

dunno, seems comparable to chromium-based alternatives in terms of power drain.

I hope they advocate for decentralization. AWS and Azure have centralized the Internet even more than it already was by 2010. Companies like Reddit and "X" and Meta are ruining the Internet. All of my Reddit accounts have been permanently banned, yet I never wrote anything illegal or discriminatory (their rules about what you can and can't say are actually quite exhaustive for an American company that seems fine with spreading misinformation, racist/sexist comments, et. al).

Considering the quantity of unsavory content on Reddit, it's incredible they ban anyone. (But somehow they do...)

My account was banned for _upvoting_ vaccine hesitancy a few years ago.

It's all evil. You only have the choice between lesser evils. It shouldn't be like that.

Firefox on mobile has less features than Chrome, can't even view source markup. The only advantage is you can install ublock.

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