Hacker News Reader

Comment by gruez | Hacker News Reader

>I think this is because simply chasing Chrome didn't have the desired effect anyway. By doing so, Mozilla hurt Firefox by gradually reducing what differentiated it from Chrome in the first place, relegating it to be kind of just a worse Chrome that looks even weirder.

That logic might work for firefox's product direction as a whole, but narrowly looking at the EME issue, what should have they done? If they didn't implement EME, then people will have to install chrome to watch netfilx. The users who are there as a matter of principle (eg. HN readers) might still use firefox as their daily driver, but they'd almost certainly lose some normies who were using firefox on inertia. Meanwhile because they refused to negotiate, they won't be able to influence the direction of the standard, which means no sandboxing of DRM modules and other privacy features. Both firefox and their users lose out in this scenario.

View on HN

Simple: allow those users to be lost to preserve the product. The entire Internet is not Netflix. Most Netflix users today don't even use their laptops or desktops for Netflix: they use it on their TVs, phones, video game consoles.

Firefox is a bad way to use Netflix anyways. It doesn't support high resolutions because it has limited Widevine support anyways. It doesn't support Widevine l1 and never has. So... It is a worse way to watch Netflix.

I'm sorry but this "we can't possibly take a risk like this" mentality is cancerous. It is comfortable to "play it safe" and all, but nobody takes any risks for anything anymore. It's not calculated when the calculation is "avoid risk at all costs".

> Simple: allow those users to be lost to preserve the product.

Lose the users lose the funding. Firefox can't live out of HN as its sole userbase. Have you checked how much it costs to build and maintain a modern browser?

Plenty of users who have no money for TV or consoles, watch it on their laptop on low quality. I am one of those who watches Netflix on Linux Firefox :)

This isn't just any risk. It's an existential one for Firefox. You are asking them to make something that would be unpopular to the majority of its userbase at a point when they are borderline extinct. You are asking Mozilla to jeopardise Firefox for the same of a feature that YOU dislike enough to want to burn Firefox to the ground to get rid of it.

Yes I am asking them to have principles. I'm sorry this is such an insane concept to understand or appreciate. Maybe the next Mozilla will understand that having principles is not optional.

>Maybe the next Mozilla will understand that having principles is not optional.

But what does "having principles" translate to? Focusing on the EME issue, how many people are going to be like "humpf, firefox added EME so I'm going to use chrome instead!"? Is that small slice of the user base even worth keeping? If they're going to be incensed by random issues like this, they're probably not worth the trouble to cater to, or maybe they'll just flip flop between chrome and firefox (depending on what the latest outrage headline is) that there's not much point in catering to.

If you can't articulate specific benefits to "having principles", then you're not really interested in firefox winning, you just want it to die a martyr.

> But what does "having principles" translate to? Focusing on the EME issue, how many people are going to be like "humpf, firefox added EME so I'm going to use chrome instead!"? Is that small slice of the user base even worth keeping? If they're going to be incensed by random issues like this, they're probably not worth the trouble to cater to, or maybe they'll just flip flop between chrome and firefox (depending on what the latest outrage headline is) that there's not much point in catering to.

> If you can't articulate specific benefits to "having principles", then you're not really interested in firefox winning, you just want it to die a martyr.

You've got it backwards. It's not that people use Chrome in retaliation for Firefox having zero principles, it's that people stop caring to install Firefox because there's no clear reason to keep using it.

Having no principles itself eventually loses you a small minority of users... and those were your core supporters and evangelists. It is not a huge number of people, but it's not good when your base of supporters is rotting from the inside-out.

> it's that people stop caring to install Firefox because there's no clear reason to keep using it.

Who's going to switch to chrome (or not install firefox, next time they install a browser), even though that also has DRM, and unlike firefox's EME implementation, can't be disabled and is even more invasive? Either they care about DRM/EME and therefore they'll choose the least bad option, or it's all posturing.

People often don't bother chosing less bad options when they don't feel like they like either option very much, they instead choose the path of least resistance. It's one thing to put up with Firefox lagging behind when you think Mozilla is standing up for you, but it is a totally different story when they don't really seem to stand for anything. For a lot of people Chrome is the lowest path of resistance. It's often already there...

And frankly, they really don't seem to stand for a whole lot. Being a bit better than Google is possibly the lowest bar ever cleared.

Call it posturing, or whatever you want. Sentiment turned on Mozilla and sentiment matters, you can say whatever you want about why. For the record, I do not think implementing EME killed Firefox, I think it is just one poor Chrome-chasing choice among many that sealed its fate.

> Having no principles itself eventually loses you a small minority of users... and those were your core supporters and evangelists

If pleasing that minority doesn't help Firefox gain more users (looking at the numers, it sure hasn't), then what's the point of having core supporters and evangelists at the cost of your existence? Would you rather have a Chrome only existence where you are forced to have EME on and no adblock just because you don't want Firefox to do something you morally disapprove of?

> It doesn't support Widevine l1 and never has.

Firefox supports Widevine Level 1 on Windows 11 devices with the requisite hardware and has for a year or so.

Not many providers other than Netflix support it still, but it does.

Sorry for any misinformation; I did try to quickly verify that this was still true, and I made the silly mistake of just assuming the Google AI Overview was good enough confirmation:

> Firefox does not support Widevine L1 (hardware-based DRM) on any operating system, and is restricted strictly to Widevine L3 (software-based DRM).

Tsk tsk, that one's on me.

> Firefox supports Widevine Level 1 on Windows 11 devices with the requisite hardware and has for a year or so.

I am not familiar with the way Widevine works, but if that is true, there must be a way to hack that support into the Linux version. After all, the code is there and it should be possible to spoof hardware identifiers or whatever is needed to run Widevine on an open platform.

Yes, this is a no brainer. Whenever someone accesses NetFlix on a Firefox with no EME, just display a page which has a short description explaining why Firefox doesn't support EME ("EME is not included to protect your privacy as it allows websites to profile and identify you more easily") and provide a button to open Netflix either through a Netflix app or the pre-installed OS browser (Edge or Safari). Educate your users rather than treating everyone as dumb.

Or, reintroduce browser plugins (with permission based architecture).

>and provide a button to open Netflix either through a Netflix app or the pre-installed OS browser (Edge or Safari). Educate your users rather than treating everyone as dumb.

I think it's pretty reasonable to assume the overwhelming majority of users are going to install the app or use chrome. The average internet user is someone who thinks facebook and tiktok is spying on them but uses those apps anyways. What makes you think they'd take a stand on netfilx, of all things?

>Or, reintroduce browser plugins (with permission based architecture).

That's literally what EME is, with better sandboxing.

What stand people take, or what people do, depends on how educated they are on the specific issue. Creating awareness is the first step.

> overwhelming majority of users are going to install the app or use chrome

If they are already using Firefox, why would they use Chrome? And if Firefox suggests OS default browser (like Edge or Safari) to watch NetFlix, why do assume someone who wishes to use Firefox, wouldn't return to Firefox and continue using it for their other browsing needs? (If it really bothers you that Firefox is suggesting Edge or Safari, another implementation can be to open popup that uses the Edge or Safari Webview in it - most users won't even realise that they aren't using Firefox).

> That's literally what EME is, with better sandboxing.

Yeah. So leave it to the user to determine if they want to install a particular plugin if they want to watch some content (which is how it was before). Let Netflix or Prime or Apple or Disney etc. etc. offer their own DRM plugins, which should be tied to their domains (i.e. work only with that particular domain). That's a much better way than bundling a DRM (spyware), created by BigTech, in the browser.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com