Not every open source software has spyware and ads activated by default, while marketing itself as privacy friendly.
Yes, can all be deactivated, I also use FF, but I do not trust Mozilla anymore.
Yes, can all be deactivated, I also use FF, but I do not trust Mozilla anymore.
- Acquire companies like Pocket, Anonym in multi-million dollar deals and also the millions in bonuses that the CEO likes to enjoy.
- At the same time, no significant expenditure towards developing its core software. Firefox is still ridden with bugs. They even went as far as firing the people that used to work on Servo, Rust, WASM, etc.
I think it's clear to them that there's not enough money to be made with small tricks like Pocket, VPN, Relay, etc. Firefox is still the only profitable product and contributes ~90% to Mozilla's revenue. Much of it coming from Google which is the one thing that people have been asking them to be less dependent on.
And we shouldn't be surprised if they double down on making more money off of Google and also introduce ads. Acquiring Anonym, an ads company, implies that it might have already started.
And at the same time greatly raising compensation for the CEO, despite shrinking numbers.
Such a loss to see it jettisoned and abandoned. Myopic decisions like these are filling the cloud of pessimism that now shrouds Mozilla.
Full browser feature set is hard, but an app that bundles its own webview can choose to not trigger the edge cases, so that's a realistic path forward.
Lots of companies with centuries-long record of manufacturing previously durable goods have in the last decade or two switched to using e.g. inferior quality steel to increase profits. That'll destroy the brand, but in the meanwhile there's great profits to be had!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goose_that_Laid_the_Golden...
The project limped along for a bit, then recently Igalia started putting resources into it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39269949
But I very much endorse both. And yes, in theory energy should be focused, but I rather have 2 smallish projects, but with potential, than one slightly bigger one, with fighting about direction all the time.
With that said, almost all of Mozilla's revenue comes from Google, which might possibly influence what features they implement, their stance on various web standards etc.
They all tend to lag behind over time, until the fork is eventually too old and it's either abandoned, useful changes I was relying on are dropped, or becomes just too old compared to upstream to be fully compatible (and thus just annoying to use).
Just the burden to upkeep the upstream changes, in either firefox or chrome forks, seems to be significant enough that I'm quite pessimistic on the lifespan of these projects.
You might just as well do your own thing, and don't pretend to be a mainstream browser replacement altogether.
But long term, I would much rather see a truly independent open source browser engine.
Unless you’ve got some examples to back this up, it’s FUD. Posting hypotheticals is how rumours start, and this is just stirring the pot.
And as a bonus, those were added and activated as features via update, without telling. At least for me.
(and paid ads you have on the home screen)
The backlash resulted in studies being opt-in, and I thought it still was but I don't know, I use "policies.json" to setup my browsers.
https://i.imgur.com/S7d4ZXg.png
Ouch, they were new to me and also activated.
And so I feel much more at home with Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome.