As usual, you see a lot of hate against Mozilla's management team on HN. It makes me wonder, the people who hold these views, do they begrudingly use firefox? Do they use a different browser?
I also use Firefox, and I plan to keep using it while waiting for the current managers to get replaced by someone who actually understands that you need a strong browser to even have a place at the table.
The side projects that some complains about I to some respect think is a good thing as it can help to diversify revenue sources. The only way Firefox is ever going to be a cashcow is how it is a cashcow today which at the end of the day puts Mozilla in a somewhat precarious situation.
First and foremost, allow me to donate to Firefox. Not to the foundation, to Firefox. Second, and related, increase Firefox' budget. Remember how extensions were essentially dead on Android since 2020 until recently? Or how they fired a chunk of the Rust team due to budget cuts? That should not have happened.
Third, put Firefox front and center. The article linked here has exactly one mention of Firefox, and that's in the standard footer at the very bottom. The fact that "State of Mozilla" doesn't talk about Firefox as point one (or at all) worries me.
Fourth, go to the offensive. Stop chasing whatever Chrome is doing and, more important, stop implementing their every dumb idea. I am glad they said no to Manifest V3 but, at the same time, I can't remember when was the last time they stood their ground before that (and even then, they are following Chrome's lead too).
I'm fine with exploring other sources of revenue, but I worry that those sources are benefiting Mozilla more than they are benefiting Firefox. The fact that Firefox' usage has plummeted and yet the CEO has not lost their job over it is, to me, a worrisome indicator of where Mozilla's priorities are.
I’d like to see this too. They already have a donation option for Thunderbird, which is officially under MZLA Technologies Corporation. There could be something similar for Firefox.
Not complete sure on this, but right now the only way to give money to Mozilla Corporation (the one owning and developing Firefox) is by subscribing to Mozilla VPN (offered by Mullvad). I don’t think any subscriptions to Pocket or MDN Plus go towards Firefox development and support. All these paid subscriptions are available only in certain countries though.
Laying off the Servo team is one example I remember, that didn't look like Mozilla cares about Firefox. Personally I keep on using Firefox and can't really complain about the browser itself, even though it's noticeable that incompatibilities increased over the years as the market share decreased.
I also agree, that it's the correct approach for Mozilla to search for different revenue streams. They just haven't been succesful with that for years, which together with the fact, that market share is declining drastically, paints a bleak future for Mozilla.
A lot of people care about Mozilla's declared goal of an "open internet" (for which a browser monoculture is the greatest risk). That's why you hear so many complains.
There are two complaints I see in this thread: they are being distracted by social justice stuff, and they are overpaid and wasting money they desperately need for technical matters.
IMO the former is not really all that consequential to most people. If you are just a user, you don’t have to abide by any of their contributor guidelines.
The money thing seems troubling, though.
It would be preferable if the web wasn’t so over complicated that it required a multi-billion dollar company to make a browser.
I do, despite the useless manager parasites who are intent to bleed Firefox dry to fatten themselves up.
If I didn't use Firefox then I'd have no motivation to care that Firefox is grossly mismanaged. It would be not my problem.