9 ms·

Mozilla 2023 annual report: CEO pay skyrockets, Firefox market share nosedives

379 points by stl_fan 3y ago

vjulian 3y ago
Honest question: I use (and like) Firefox and rely on many of its features including password vault. However, should I be looking elsewhere? Any suggestions? (I avoid Google Chrome.)
- evasb 3y ago
  Unfortunately, nothing non-Chromium based.
- aquatica 3y ago
  As for the password vault, I suggest you switch to Bitwarden. But for browsers? There isn't really much of a choice, it's either Firefox or Chromium-based.
- PedroBatista 3y ago
  Firefox will continue to survive for a long time, at least Mozilla has the money to do so for many many years. I would not panic, also because there is no other viable alternative to Chrome or Chrome/Webkit based browsers other than Firefox that I know of. And Firefox is actually a very good browser and better than Chrome in some aspects.
- layer8 3y ago
  No, why would you?
- mewse-hn 3y ago
  I was getting uncomfortable with how I was tied into google chrome so I started storing my passwords in keepass.
- NegativeLatency 3y ago
  Safari is fine (if you have a Mac), it’s great on battery life and I actually use it for web dev. If you’re happy with Firefox I’d say just keep using it.
  - nottorp 3y ago
    It's not. No uBlock Origin.
    - NegativeLatency 3y ago
      Yes that’s true, I do miss it but I’ve found 1Blocker and adguard home to be sufficient
      - nottorp 3y ago
        Hmm I've taken a quick look at these two but I have questions: - are their blocking lists public so they can be verified? - adguard home seems to be a dns based solution that you install in your home... which means it won't help when you're on someone else's wifi - also adguard is "protecting your children". I just want tracking protection not censorship.
- tinco 3y ago
  No, it is still your only option. And using it is the best way of signalling that it is still an important browser.
- ksec 3y ago
  >However, should I be looking elsewhere? Why should you be looking else where if it is working well for you? Unless you feel so wrong about CEO's pay I dont see how it is relevant until the product quality declined.
ksec 3y ago
Here is a dopey idea, What if Wikimedia Foundation were to acquire Mozilla ?
sydbarrett74 3y ago
Mitchell Baker needs to go. I hold her responsible for much of Firefox's slide in use over the years. She keeps pulling in a larger and larger salary for doing less and less.
- j16sdiz 3y ago
  According to the article,"Transitioning Mozilla away from Firefox." is the current organisation goal. She have done her job great. why was it a goal, I have bo idea
  - duped 3y ago
    Not affiliated with Mozilla in any way, but their mission isn't to create a browser. It's to "ensure the Internet is a global public resource, open and accessible to all." (1) Given that Firefox has kinda lost the browser war it seems obvious that they should be focusing efforts on other things that further that mission besides dumping money into a browser a tiny slice of people want to use. (1) https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/mission/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/mission/
    - baal80spam 3y ago
      > their mission isn't to create a browser Aaaand that's why I don't use Firefox.
      - LightHugger 3y ago
        As long as you use something better, that isnt chrome. Chrome blatant spyware that scans your whole pc ever since google had the bright idea of sneaking an "antivirus" into chrome and enabling it by default. Firefox is better that chrome, but there's lots better than firefox.
        macspoofing 3y ago
        >As long as you use something better, that isnt chrome. This is why it is critical to have a meaningful alternative. Developers and end-users are pragmatic - all things being equal they will choose privacy and openness, but not at the expense of performance and capabilities. This is why it is so perplexing seeing Mozilla just focus on everything except for the one thing that gives them relevance and is actually important.
stalfosknight 3y ago
CEOs need to be stopped.
- jdksmdbtbdnmsm 3y ago
  Yes, we must violently defend the business owners and cororate boards who hire them and sign their checks, while specifically attacking the CEOs themselves.
  - anon-sre-srm 3y ago
    Forget scapegoating one group or another as "the" problem. A lasting solution to the diffuse solidarity, fair pay, and job security problems with the tech industry is worker-owned co-ops and nonprofits. Without the people doing the work that make the profits having equal participation in policy and ownership in the profits, there will always be a layer who does little to nothing yet demands more money. The problem is too many tech people presume they're making what they're worth when they're making wildly varying amounts with little or no security. Highly-productive shops with good morale and fairness will retain good people for longer than shitty places subject to the whims of golden parachute types, publicly-traded stock investors, and board of directors who are also majority owners.
gardenhedge 3y ago
How does this even happen?
- laweijfmvo 3y ago
  Who's going to stop it? She's also Chairwoman of the Board.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
zaik 3y ago
This might be the first article I've read that has more charts than data points.
mroche 3y ago
Direct link to the reports: https://stateof.mozilla.org/ https://stateof.mozilla.org/ 2022 Audited Financial Statement: https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2022/mozilla-fdn-2022-fs-final-0908.pdf https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2022/mozilla-fdn-202... 2022 Form 990: https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2022/mozilla-fdn-990-ty22-public-disclosure.pdf https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2022/mozilla-fdn-990...
- _m2rf 3y ago
  [flagged]
mips_r4300i 3y ago
"The focus for the future of Mozilla -- according to Mozilla -- is primarily based around Artificial Intelligence services." I sense a great disturbance in the Force...
- jdksmdbtbdnmsm 3y ago
  LMAO the tech industry is such a joke.
- petermcneeley 3y ago
  I saw the same line and LOLed so hard.
- agilob 3y ago
  Last year it was IoT
  - sjfjsjdjwvwvc 3y ago
    Or blockchain, Or metaverse, Or something else utterly useless that no one wants or asked for
  - janice1999 3y ago
    Before that it was a mobile OS that failed to gain traction.
    - pas 3y ago
      at least boot2gecko made 1000x more sense than a painfully vague "focus on AI"
      - 1attice 3y ago
        I love FF and T-bird hard, but I have this mental image of a huddle full of brilliant, 20-year-plus systems engineers sitting in a room staring at a whiteboard with 'AI?' in the middle of it. "Ok, everybody popcorn up some ideas. Don't be shy." [one of them opens a laptop and begins fiddling with a flame graph]
PedroBatista 3y ago
This Mozilla "situation" comes up here from time to time, unfortunately as a long time Firefox user all I have to say is: Mitchell Baker and their clique will only leave when Mozilla is completely dead and even by that time she'll retire and will make a wonderful post about her "legacy" in opensource and the Web. I will not go further because it will turn into an all-bashing post, but Mozilla ( as you like to think of it ) is dead and has been dead for a long time. Deal with it.
- phpisthebest 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - asystole 3y ago
    Everything coming out of them recently, including the mailshots I see and even the onboarding copy, seems to indicate they see themselves as a political advocacy org first and a browser developer second.
    - macspoofing 3y ago
      >they see themselves as a political advocacy org first and a browser developer second. That would be an improvement. Being a browser developer does not factor in anything they focus on.
    - ydlr 3y ago
      The tragedy of it is that building Firefox is the most impactful political advocacy they do.
    - toomuchtodo 3y ago
      Developing and operating open technology is political advocacy. Technology and its implementation is simply the expression of the ideology, rights, etc. Leadership choices, as well as their efficacy and compensation is still an important discussion.
      - 3y ago
macspoofing 3y ago
Maybe, at some point the Mozilla Foundation will acknowledge Firefox as the fundamental pillar of their relevance and existence ... instead of seeing it as this vestigial organ that they can't 'cut loose'[1] ... one can hope. [1] https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mark-surman-mozilla-25-years/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mark-surman-mozilla-25-y...
- ZeroGravitas 3y ago
  The word 'cut' and 'loose' don't appear in that linked blog post. Nor does the general idea you are suggesting.
ykonstant 3y ago
(×_×) We need a modular, open source browser engine desperately; one not beholden to Google or any other for profit entity. The Servo people are trying, but the task is enormous. I don't know what can be done (｡•́︿•̀｡)
- TheCoreh 3y ago
  The SerenityOS/Ladybird project has been making very steady progress towards that goal https://ladybird.dev/ https://ladybird.dev/
  - jeroenhd 3y ago
    Ladybird is developing at an impressive pace, but it's nowhere close to being as usable as Servo, and it'll probably take a while before it can be. Even with the experienced and skilled developers Ladybird has attracted, it'll take a few years before it can compete with a project that had whole teams working on it full-time. On the other hand, it could well become the de-facto standard browser for embedded applications, though. The browser frame can be ported to different UI frameworks quite easily and the code has practically no dependencies outside the project itself.
- pas 3y ago
  Could you elaborate on modularity? Also Chromium is there, it's open enough to be a base for Chrome, Brave, Edge, and probably a few more, and it's open source, forkable at any moment Google adds something unpatchably bad. (of course independent implementations are welcome, but the ultimate goal is a healthier web through user freedom, and that doesn't necessitate Firefox directly, a ChromiumFox would be just as perfect)
- surajrmal 3y ago
  The open source solution to Windows is not a os that runs windows applications. It's an OS which has it's own user space and application ecosystem. Sometimes I wonder why folks don't take the same tact with other platforms like the web. Alternatively, if you look at mobile, no one is seriously pursuing alternatives to Android. They just make Android based distros and no one seems to complain. What makes the web different?
evasb 3y ago
People complain all the time and nothing changes. She doesn't care and in a month everybody forget that Firefox is in dire straits. Google's Chromium project push new standards every month or so, and web developers are fast to adopt these standards and don't care about testing it on Firefox anymore. The Chromium monopoly is already a reality.
- kabanda1 3y ago
  You have reminded me about this. I failed an interview the other day because the site couldn't work with Firefox. I hate it. I have been forced to install Google chrome for just interviews and other things where Firefox fails. It seems like devs no longer do Firefox tests
- PsylentKnight 3y ago
  I've been using Firefox for years and rarely run into websites where something works on Chrome but not Firefox. The only one I can think of is my apartment's payment portal, and that website is just generally awful.
- jqpabc123 3y ago
  The Chromium monopoly is already a reality. Yes. They got it fair and square --- they paid Mozilla for it --- and they still are.
superasn 3y ago
It's almost as if a competing browser co is paying majority of their salaries and lobbying the CEO to kill the only remaining competition by slowly stopping all development.
throwawa14223 3y ago
If they're trying to get rid of Firefox, then can I support whatever spin-off organization is just Firefox?
- evasb 3y ago
  They did with Thunderbird, and Thunderbird is becoming better.
  - sharps1 3y ago
    Thunderbird rejoined Mozilla - from Wikipedia “ On January 28, 2020, the Mozilla Foundation announced that the project would henceforth be operating from a new wholly owned subsidiary, MZLA Technologies Corporation, in order to explore offering products and services that were not previously possible and to collect revenue through partnerships and non-charitable donations.[69][70]”
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
esafak 3y ago
Now may be a good time to support new browsers like Arc.
- ivanjermakov 3y ago
  It's built on WebKit and this does not bring any diversity to the browser market, it's no different from Chromium-based browsers
  - sirwhinesalot 3y ago
    WebKit isn't Blink anymore. The only thing keeping WebKit alive is apple's tight grip on the iOS browser engine, and that will likely be a thing of the past soon. Once that's gone, it's all going to be reskined chromium. Since I think apple should open up iOS more, I hope WebKit develops a healthy marketshare outside of that ecosystem.
_m2rf 3y ago
tl;dr: we need an open source browser & infra, and there are candidates. How c[u]ome, with all the power of open source we still do not have an open browser with an open sync infra?. emotions aside, this is dumb (some words cannot be used). Why can't we, as a group, stop complaining, and actually devote real time hours into developing the serenity browser to work as chrome / brave / firefox? Why can't we, use the knowledge we have gained from IPFS and actually work on a distributed no server sync platform? Why can't I, simply stop using the mentioned above software and devote myself into something more hopefully reliable? I think it is hard to lose your daddy and leave home, but it's something we all have to do in order to actually grow.
- sjfjsjdjwvwvc 3y ago
  I don’t know if we need a new one. Firefox is still a good (the best?) browser IMO. Developing a new one is really difficult and many more intelligent people than me have failed doing it. But if you feel like you have to act, do so and do a show HN; I’m always willing to give a new browser a try :-)
User23 3y ago
Looks like they’re entering the classic looting of the company by the executive team phase of the corporate lifecycle.
jqpabc123 3y ago
To the casual observer, it appears the CEO is being paid/rewarded to shed Firefox users. Who would want them to do that?
- wmf 3y ago
  Marissa Mayer was paid more to accomplish even less. Maybe that's just what she's worth.
- waterhouse 3y ago
  Well, nearly all of Mozilla's revenue (I see numbers around 80-90%) comes from Google. And Google presumably doesn't mind if Firefox users switch to Chrome. I'm not sure if anyone involved actively considers this the goal, but it's possible that this creates some perverse incentives.
  - squarefoot 3y ago
    I just don't see how having their biggest revenue coming from their #1 competitor wrt browser adoption, can't create a plain and simple conflict of interests.
    - jqpabc123 3y ago
      I'll bet $7 million of Google money could make any conflict look less interesting.
CharlesW 3y ago
Governments have been creating web/native/mobile apps for some time, which is a trend that continues to accelerate. Firefox continues to limp along but seemingly can't even retain its most ardent fans, and there's no sign of this changing. What if the EU were to fork Firefox (Openfox?) and fund its evolution of a privacy-first alternative? Among other benefits, this would: • Help ensure that key digital infrastructure is not solely dependent on non-European entities. • Balance the US's outsized role as a gatekeeper for web innovation. • Support the EU's user privacy and data protection values and comply-by-default with EU regulations. • Help bolster Europe's economic and tech independence. What else?
- locallost 3y ago
  That's a pretty neat idea. I don't know if the people in power would get all of that, but I think you could sell them on balancing the US's influence.
- fifteen1506 3y ago
  State-based, forked software? Good grief! No fork please. But do pay more contributors to work on the upstream codebase towards benefiting Firefox's downstream. PS: don't forget eidas 2.0 has a loophole regarding SSL snooping, check EFF's article on eidas 2.0's article 45.
- fabrice_d 3y ago
  In concrete terms, what would this fork change compared to current Firefox? Just shouting "privacy-first alternative" is pretty vague. Also, good luck getting enough sustainable funding for that kind of project from the EU. Most of EU funding for OSS project is spread out to lots of projects, with relatively small amounts - Gnome got $1M recently and celebrated as a "big" milestone. I'm not saying that this is bad, but that's not how you can fund a core browser team.
  - ksjskskskkk 3y ago
    for one: not giving in to every google whim. recent examples: address bar becomes search bar. referrer header always sent cross domain with full url. webextensions3. hundreds of apis that only benefit ad "viewability" detectors. removal of websocket permission (like you have for notification etc). etc soon: adding Floc
evasb 3y ago
Does no mechanism exist to fire Mitchell Baker or, at least, addressing her leadership at Mozilla?
- wmf 3y ago
  She answers to the board. I guess they're happy with her.
  - junofan 3y ago
    There’s an implicit public interest. You don’t get to do whatever you feel like just because you decide not to pay taxes.
    - wmf 3y ago
      Yes, the board is supposed to represent the public interest.
  - fabrice_d 3y ago
    She's also the board chair so answers to herself, see https://wiki.mozilla.org/Board https://wiki.mozilla.org/Board
ls612 3y ago
What's the over/under on Firefox still existing in 2030? Man that's a depressing thing to have to say but that feels like that's where things are heading?
- mlinksva 3y ago
  Play money, but https://manifold.markets/quther/will-mozilla-still-maintain-firefox https://manifold.markets/quther/will-mozilla-still-maintain-... has "Will Mozilla still maintain Firefox in 2030?" at 71%
pjmlp 3y ago
As long time Mozzilla user since the Navigator days, it is sad to see Firefox going down, while the CEO gets money for nothing. When Firefox is no more, the legacy will be Thunderbird and Rust, not the Web browser, and despite how they won over PNaCL, it is Chrome that drives WebAssembly.
woodruffw 3y ago
In a previous thread (these "Mozilla is dead" threads appear perennially) someone pointed out that Firefox's apparent marketshare drop is potentially indistinguishable from their deployment of privacy-improving features, including stubbing out Google Analytics when "Enhanced Tracking Protection" is enabled. I'm a Firefox user, so I have a vested interest in Mozilla's long term health and financial viability. But "marketshare nosedives" appears to be primarily an editorialization to fit the post's larger narrative.
- wmf 3y ago
  I would assume that Firefox revenue is proportional to usage and revenue is only down a few percent. This implies that Firefox usage is declining much slower than people say.
  - halflings 3y ago
    Not if you account for the increase in ad revenue from the company paying them.
  - bee_rider 3y ago
    I don’t understand how to read their “assets” table; but it looks like most of their revenue comes from “royalties,” which I’m sure has some specific meaning for these kinds of reports, but I’m not sure if it scales with numbers of users or not. If that’s the money they get from Google (huge guess alert, I’m probably wrong!), then I’m not sure if it would scale in the short there with the number of users; I guess they must re-negotiate their contract every couple years, right?
    - lupusreal 3y ago
      Mozilla Corp pays royalties to Mozilla Foundation to use Mozilla Foundation's trademarks. Mozilla Corp makes money by selling the default search engine position to Google, spends some of that money on Firefox development, and sends a lot of the rest to Mozilla Foundation in the form of those royalties.
jasoneckert 3y ago
While I don't feel as if I have enough knowledge to make a comment specifically about how the Mozilla Foundation is run, I do feel as if Firefox's uncertain future resulting from poor adoption is something that should be given priority given that the web browser market is roughly Firefox vs everything else. I use both Ungoogled Chromium and Firefox on my main workstation, which runs Fedora Asahi Linux exclusively on Apple Silicon (I never boot into macOS), and should add that on aarch64, my overall experience with every Firefox build has been stellar. Unfortunately, I can't say the same about Ungoogled Chromium.
mvdtnz 3y ago
I hope Mozilla leadership realises that Firefox is the only thing lending their company any credibility with their subscription products. Without Firefox, Mozilla VPN and any of their supposed "AI" products are just another also-ran in a saturated commodity market. That "subscription and advertising" line item on their balance sheet relies on Firefox, it doesn't replace it. Firefox's nosediving market share should represent a catastrophic, company-endangering situation. It's depressing that they don't seem to understand that.
- nvm0n2 3y ago
  Revenue from Google is not falling fast enough for Baker to care any time soon. She'll be retired before it's a problem.
harpiaharpyja 3y ago
I feel like this question is a decade too late, but FF is open source right? Why hasn't Mozilla been jettisoned years ago?
- boomboomsubban 3y ago
  Because despite what everybody seems to think, Mozilla spends several hundred millions of dollars every year developing Firefox, and that's not the kind of thing the community can just fork and replace.
  - harpiaharpyja 3y ago
    I see. I asked the question because I legitimately didn't know, and haven't heard any conversation about it. Maybe that's because continuing Firefox outside of Mozilla seems like an insurmountable task, but doing nothing seems like a guaranteed dead end. I've been waiting a very long time for the ship to right, and it ain't happening. I guess if what's Firefox needs is a reliable source of funding, at least recognizing that is a necessary first step. Who knows, maybe it could happen somehow.
  - wannacboatmovie 3y ago
    WHAT? That seems like a gross misuse of funds because they're definitely not spending hundreds of millions fixing bugs. They must be spending it on useless changes like the 300th UI refresh no one asked for. Firefox still sucks in every way imaginable and it's not measurably getting better. That number is shockingly unbelievable. Their crapware is not worth that budget. For comparison, look at what the OpenBSD team has accomplished (and continues to accomplish) with a small core team and they surely do not have hundreds of millions.
    - boomboomsubban 3y ago
      Feel free to build your own browser engine that stays up to date with the current web, supports nearly a hundred languages, and runs on basically every computer with a shoestring budget. It must be easy, that's why there are so many hobby projects that manage it.
givemeethekeys 3y ago
[flagged]
- evasb 3y ago
  Mitchell Baker was important for Mozilla/Netscape in the past. She was the primary author of Mozilla Public License in 1998 (MPL 2.0 is a very good license). I bet that many of us were just infants when she was at Mozilla. The problem is that many feel that she is not a good leader for Mozilla today, not that she is not a historical figure for Mozilla and the open source community in general.
  - givemeethekeys 3y ago
    She's an excellent lawyer. How did she get promoted to head the software company that makes software?
subins2000 3y ago
Wikimedia compensation is far better than what Mozilla is doing, nobody there receives > 1million$ in compensation: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_salaries https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_salarie... while in Mozilla a single person is receiving close to 7million dollars!
dougmwne 3y ago
Wow, nearly 7 million. That’s incredible for a nonprofit CEO. Much, much large orgs have CEOs that get paid 10-15x less. This should be criminal. The taxpayers are being stolen from.
- skrebbel 3y ago
  Which taxpayers exactly are you referring to?
  - anotherhue 3y ago
    Whoever is funding them can claim charitable donations as part of a write-off - I guess that's opportunity cost to the treasury? Mozilla is a tar pit designed to prevent alternative browsers forming. Firefox deserves better.
- erulabs 3y ago
  Nonprofit does not necessarily mean taxpayer subsidized.
  - dougmwne 3y ago
    That’s exactly what a 501(c)(3) is. While nonprofits do not receive actual funding from the US government, unless in the form of grants, there is a revenue cost to the government due to lost tax revenues. We have given these orgs tax exempt status so that they may serve the public good, not the third homes of their executive staff.
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  The CEO is paying income tax on that, presumably.
  - dougmwne 3y ago
    A for-profit corporation would also pay taxes on profits. A 501(c)(3) is a special class of org exempt from taxes due to the benefit it presumably provides to the public.
caycep 3y ago
I guess the question - why can't Mozilla (or at least Firefox) - be like the Linux kernel or the Debian group? They are healthy open source projects, some funding from industry, sure, but they're staying current in the latest tech/comp-sci tech while not beholden to anyone in particular (I hope) Organizational baggage?
- sjfjsjdjwvwvc 3y ago
  Last time I checked the Linux Foundation had a similar problem, spending 2% on the Kernel development and the rest on the latest tech trends, AI, blockchain, metaverse etc.
  - TwentyPosts 3y ago
    Do you have any source for this? This would be quite shocking for me, if true.
    - sjfjsjdjwvwvc 3y ago
      I read it on the same site, didn’t check the actual report to confirm: https://lunduke.locals.com/post/5049241/linux-foundation-now-spends-only-2-of-their-revenue-on-linux https://lunduke.locals.com/post/5049241/linux-foundation-now... Edit: checked it, figures are on page 158. they still spend 7,8 M$ on Linux kernel but it’s 2% of the total spend - to be fair a lot of the total is going to the community and related topics. Still a bit concerning. (I still think both the Linux Foundation and Mozilla are great organisations that should get more support to be clear)
- caskstrength 3y ago
  I don't know about "Debian group", but absolute majority of kernel developers are full time employees of tech companies. Not sure what would be the incentive for those companies to pay bunch of people to develop privacy-focused browser full-time.
beginning_end 3y ago
1) Sigh 2) Firefox still works great though, I'm a very happy user!
janmo 3y ago
Firefox will make a massive comeback if chromes kicks out Adblocker next year.
- sjfjsjdjwvwvc 3y ago
  I would love to believe that.. Same as next year will be the year of mass adoption of Linux by consumers. Yet history and trends point in the other direction
  - PsylentKnight 3y ago
    The recent Unity-Godot debacle would seem to indicate to me that titans aren't invincible. They can do a lot of harm to themselves when they overestimate how much people want or need their product. Switching from Chrome to Firefox isn't even nearly as difficult as switching from Unity to Godot (or say, from Windows to Linux). For the average user, Chrome and Firefox are functionally identical. If Chrome kicks off Adblocker, Firefox will be obviously better for a lot of people.
    - sjfjsjdjwvwvc 3y ago
      Agreed it’s not a fair comparison. And I would love if Firefox gets more adoption (again)! I have converted a lot of people in my bubble - also in general FF seems a lot more popular in EU than in the US, not sure why…
- gnicholas 3y ago
  Firefox, Brave, and other browsers will benefit for sure.
- jeroenhd 3y ago
  I think you mean Edge, Safari, Opera, Brave, Vivaldi, and those fancy new browsers. Firefox has become the Linux of web browsers.
bee_rider 3y ago
If they are prioritizing projects other than Firefox, what are people’s favorite non-Firefox, non-Chrome/Chromium (for obvious reasons) browsers? Firefox makes a lot of noise about their anti-tracking and pro-privacy features. I liked Suckless surf, but missed the granular JavaScript setting of noscript. And, I have no idea, but Privacy Badger must be doing something I guess?
jmyeet 3y ago
This isn't new [1]. There's a real opportunity here. People are increasingly distrustful of, say, Google. I use it because it's still performant, cross-platform and has sync. But , like many, are increasingly leerly abou tGoogle using Chrome's position to, say, attack ad blockers. The ultimate question is how does and should Mozilla fund itself? Well, if the CEO can't lay out a vision and deliver on that then why are they still there? Why is their compensation still increasing despite not performing? Instead we get platitudes about "add on services". Previously it was "VPN services" and now it's "AI services"? It's almost like the future revenue plan is always "<current buzzword> services". [1]: https://calpaterson.com/mozilla.html https://calpaterson.com/mozilla.html
Barrin92 3y ago
I think the narrative provided in the article is actually reasonable. Firefox is practically dead, but even worse with Firefox almost all of Mozilla's income stream is literally just a Google handout. The article states that revenue from services is up from 50 to 70 million. Still only about 10% of what they make from Firefox, but at least that's independent revenue, going up, directly from consumers. Can someone please provide a rational argument, not a kneejerk emotional response why focusing on the source of revenue that is Google independent and growing is not the better way to fulfill their stated mission, that is creating a privacy respecting and open web? People are acting like Ahab and the whale when it comes to Firefox, there's no point in dumping more resources into the thing if's going down anyway and makes you subservient to a tech monopolist.
- HackerThemAll 3y ago
  If Firefox is dead then we're left with only two options: Google browser or Apple browser. I'm comfortable with none of them. Google has become a de facto monopoly with Microsoft Edge, Opera, Brave, Vivaldi, Chromium et al pretending it hasn't, and the rest of the market is Apple browser, and I'm not an Apple user and never will be. We should keep Firefox at all costs as a true alternative respecting user choices, such as not mandating manifest v3 and allowing users to control web browsing entirely.
wubbert 3y ago
[dead]
yumraj 3y ago
I believe the fault lies at the board. They are the ones who approve compensation for the CEO. The problem is it’s unclear to me how competent/independent the members of the board are. I don’t see any face I recognize, but that obviously means nothing. Do people know if there are any good people on the board? The best option would be for someone to fork Firefox and perhaps get it sponsored by Apache foundation. Then we can write it off. Firefox is my daily browser across multiple platforms, and I worry for its future.
- kyleee 3y ago
  Who is on the board?
  - yumraj 3y ago
    https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/leadership/#boards https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/leadership/#boards
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
juujian 3y ago
Not saying the complaint isn't valid, but I see things trending in the right direction. Firefox is fast, support for add-ons is coming (back) to mobile, and Firefox is as free and open and modifiable as always. If we're talking things that are in managers hands, like features and usability, as opposed to user numbers, then the last year was good.
Osmose 3y ago
Worrying about Mozilla CEO compensation when 1. Mitchell Baker is also chairwoman of the board of the Mozilla Foundation and is a founding member of Mozilla, and receives no stock compensation because there is none to give, 2. Google can definitionally outspend Mozilla on browser development and has used that to cement their market position for over a decade now, and 3. as long as Google is the primary source of Mozilla funding, they can (effectively) kill Firefox at any time, and diversifying revenue / building up a war chest of funds is the only defense against that, just seems silly to me. As a former Mozillian I don't like the choices Mitchell Baker has made (AI and services are poor plays IMO) but the obsession with CEO compensation at Mozilla has always smelled less like a genuine concern for alternatives to Chrome and more like holding a smaller player to an unreasonable standard. A more interesting comparison would compare these numbers to the head of Chrome's compensation, and more specifically Chrome's spending and revenue vs Firefox's.
- mort96 3y ago
  I think the general critique is: the performance of a CEO should be tied somehow to the performance of the company, yet year after year, the company performs worse while CEO compensation goes up.
  - Osmose 3y ago
    Right, but part of my point with #2 and #3 there is that "browser share" is a really poor choice for the performance metric in question to tie compensation to. Browsers just duking it out on features and ease of use is not how the browser market works—Google can and does leverage their dominance in non-browser markets to boost their browser, and Mozilla is not going to raise their browser share against tactics like that if they simply focus really hard on making a better browser. Tying it to a more functional goal like successful diversification of revenue makes much more sense (even if you disagree with how they did it in this particular case).
    - mort96 3y ago
      I think you've more or less hit the nail on the head. Computer/FOSS nerds (like myself) want to see Mozilla do good engineering and also gain browser market share; that's "good performance" to us. Investors want more revenue and better and more diversified revenue streams; that's "good performance" to them.
prakhar897 3y ago
discussed a few months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37015592 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37015592 Moz seems like a controlled opposition at this point.
cvalka 3y ago
Mozilla should be renamed to Rust foundation and deprecate the Gecko browser engine.
1attice 3y ago
This just saying, "Bob's rent skyrockets, while his grocery purchasing plummets." No sht Bob is having a hard time buying groceries. CEOs are important -- not intrinsically, but to survival. Their actions are important. Their decisions are important. Their attention is important. And there's a lot of competition for good ones. If you get a bad one, it's an existential crisis, and the good ones can always go elsewhere for more money. Want to help nonprofits and small corps? Support the passage of laws limiting CEO pay.
LanzVonL 3y ago
The best thing to do at this point is use one of the privacy-enhanced forks, Firefox is desperate for more cash and will sell you, the user, out for a song.
the_third_wave 3y ago
Owncloud was forked to become Nextcloud and seems to have gotten better for it. Openoffice was forked to become Libreoffice and seems to have gotten beter for it. Time to fork Firefox [1] and take over where Baker dropped the ball because she thought the rules of the game could be changed to make it no longer necessary to play to win. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38533785 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38533785
ksec 3y ago
Reposting what I wrote in 2021 [1], still holds true. And here is another unpopular opinion. I dont care if her salary is 3 million or even 30 million. If she had managed to bring Firefox to 60% marketshare and bring down Chrome on Desktop, would you have still complained if she was paid 30 million? The problem is Mozilla is in such a bad shape and she is under performing as a CEO. Unfortunately people dont learn much from history. And history dictate the only way to solve this problem is that Mozilla think of it as a problem. Otherwise its current status at 10% marketshare is enough to sustain the operation. Nothing bad enough is happening, no interest or incentive for changes. Inertia. Let's keep thing this way. So yes, it is counter intuitive. The only way to save Mozilla ( or change Mozill's direction, I guess the word "save" is a hyperbole, at least from Mozilla's perspective. ) isn't trying to get more user to use it. It is actually push people to abandon it. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28961544 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28961544
alberth 3y ago
Source: https://stateof.mozilla.org/ https://stateof.mozilla.org/ Is it normal for Non-Profits to not the include Income Statement in their financials? Because Mozilla doesn’t. https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2022/mozilla-fdn-2022-fs-final-0908.pdf https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2022/mozilla-fdn-202...
endofreach 3y ago
Google is just funding mozilla to avoid the legal headache (browser monopoly), right? For all those being annoyed by the decreasing usage of FF in favor of Chrome: If Mozilla & FF died, couldn't this create better scenarios? Idea: Google might get into legal trouble, maybe even having to lose chrome, opening the market or Chrome / Chromium base for a fresh start?
Baldbvrhunter 3y ago
> Mozilla intends to focus on A.I. -- so we can expect more A.I. investment, and possible A.I. services, in the year ahead. back in March Moziila announced $30m for A.I. services [0] what's weird is that wound business strategy is usually "what are our core strengths?" instead we get > A little over two years ago, Mozilla started an ambitious project: deciding where we should focus our efforts to grow the movement of people committed to building a healthier digital world. We landed on the idea of trustworthy AI. [1] OK, despite my skeptisism what's the plan > Mozilla.ai’s initial focus? Tools that make generative AI safer and more transparent. And, people-centric recommendation systems that don’t misinform or undermine our well-being. We’ll share more on these — and what we’re building — in the coming months. [0] While that's all very nice, who on earth are the customers? Is there a eshop somewhere lamenting "our recommendation system is not people centric" ? [0] https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/introducing-mozilla-ai-investing-in-trustworthy-ai/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/introducing-mozilla-ai-i... [1] https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozillas-vision-for-trustworthy-ai/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozillas-vision-for-trus...
- lupusreal 3y ago
  > Is there a eshop somewhere lamenting "our recommendation system is not people centric" ? I think they mean content recommendation systems used by social media. Mozilla Foundation likes to larp as a social media startup or something. Their big angle is that existing social media doesn't shut out 'bad people' e.g. people with opinions to the right of wherever the American west coast zeitgeist is this year. They want recommendation engines that only serve 'good people', or which engineer people's opinions to be more 'good'. But of course they don't actually have a social media platform worth a damn for them to impose their own agenda onto, so it'll end up tacked onto a mastadon instance nobody uses, or incorporated into the 'New Page' of Firefox, or maybe turned into a browser extension that tries to block or inject stories on other social media websites. All a huge waste of time and money.
  - Baldbvrhunter 3y ago
    Sounds like they have this huge pile of cash and can't think of a way to improve Firefox with it in any way that seems gee whizz enough. They tried hopping on Blockchain train and ended up jumping back off after getting roasted by JWZ [0] "we are reviewing if and how our current policy on crypto donations fits with our climate goals. ... [although] decentralized web technology continues to be an important area for us to explore." I guess AI is gee whizz enough to escape the Planet Burning argument for now. A piece of software - with climate goals. They had a stab at VR with Mozilla Hubs [1] - and copied off Meta by also not including legs in the avatars! Your personal Hub for only $10 a month. Judging by the code commits it is, er, stable [2]. No-one explained how a GPU driven chatroom meets the climate goals! Imagine if they put all that effort into innovating the browser. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/6/22870787/mozilla-pauses-crypto-donations-backlash-jwz https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/6/22870787/mozilla-pauses-cr... [1] https://hubs.mozilla.com/ https://hubs.mozilla.com/ [2] https://github.com/mozilla/hubs/tree/master/src https://github.com/mozilla/hubs/tree/master/src
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
nojvek 3y ago
Most companies die from slow starvation instead of murder. IMO Mozilla is default dead and so is Firefox. With 500M of revenue, ~$7M going to CEO is >1% of revenue being sucked by CEO (not even net profit). From a distant observer, Mitchell is a parasite. The Chromium Hegemony is winning and Safari is barely alive.

379 points by stl_fan 3y ago

Honest question: I use (and like) Firefox and rely on many of its features including password vault. However, should I be looking elsewhere? Any suggestions? (I avoid Google Chrome.)

evasb 3y ago
Unfortunately, nothing non-Chromium based.
aquatica 3y ago
As for the password vault, I suggest you switch to Bitwarden. But for browsers? There isn't really much of a choice, it's either Firefox or Chromium-based.
PedroBatista 3y ago
Firefox will continue to survive for a long time, at least Mozilla has the money to do so for many many years. I would not panic, also because there is no other viable alternative to Chrome or Chrome/Webkit based browsers other than Firefox that I know of. And Firefox is actually a very good browser and better than Chrome in some aspects.
layer8 3y ago
No, why would you?
mewse-hn 3y ago
I was getting uncomfortable with how I was tied into google chrome so I started storing my passwords in keepass.
NegativeLatency 3y ago
Safari is fine (if you have a Mac), it’s great on battery life and I actually use it for web dev. If you’re happy with Firefox I’d say just keep using it.
- nottorp 3y ago
  It's not. No uBlock Origin.
  - NegativeLatency 3y ago
    Yes that’s true, I do miss it but I’ve found 1Blocker and adguard home to be sufficient
    - nottorp 3y ago
      Hmm I've taken a quick look at these two but I have questions: - are their blocking lists public so they can be verified? - adguard home seems to be a dns based solution that you install in your home... which means it won't help when you're on someone else's wifi - also adguard is "protecting your children". I just want tracking protection not censorship.
tinco 3y ago
No, it is still your only option. And using it is the best way of signalling that it is still an important browser.
ksec 3y ago
>However, should I be looking elsewhere? Why should you be looking else where if it is working well for you? Unless you feel so wrong about CEO's pay I dont see how it is relevant until the product quality declined.

ksec 3y ago

Here is a dopey idea, What if Wikimedia Foundation were to acquire Mozilla ?

sydbarrett74 3y ago

Mitchell Baker needs to go. I hold her responsible for much of Firefox's slide in use over the years. She keeps pulling in a larger and larger salary for doing less and less.

j16sdiz 3y ago
According to the article,"Transitioning Mozilla away from Firefox." is the current organisation goal. She have done her job great. why was it a goal, I have bo idea
- duped 3y ago
  Not affiliated with Mozilla in any way, but their mission isn't to create a browser. It's to "ensure the Internet is a global public resource, open and accessible to all." (1) Given that Firefox has kinda lost the browser war it seems obvious that they should be focusing efforts on other things that further that mission besides dumping money into a browser a tiny slice of people want to use. (1) https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/mission/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/mission/
  - baal80spam 3y ago
    > their mission isn't to create a browser Aaaand that's why I don't use Firefox.
    - LightHugger 3y ago
      As long as you use something better, that isnt chrome. Chrome blatant spyware that scans your whole pc ever since google had the bright idea of sneaking an "antivirus" into chrome and enabling it by default. Firefox is better that chrome, but there's lots better than firefox.
      - macspoofing 3y ago
        >As long as you use something better, that isnt chrome. This is why it is critical to have a meaningful alternative. Developers and end-users are pragmatic - all things being equal they will choose privacy and openness, but not at the expense of performance and capabilities. This is why it is so perplexing seeing Mozilla just focus on everything except for the one thing that gives them relevance and is actually important.

stalfosknight 3y ago

CEOs need to be stopped.

jdksmdbtbdnmsm 3y ago
Yes, we must violently defend the business owners and cororate boards who hire them and sign their checks, while specifically attacking the CEOs themselves.
- anon-sre-srm 3y ago
  Forget scapegoating one group or another as "the" problem. A lasting solution to the diffuse solidarity, fair pay, and job security problems with the tech industry is worker-owned co-ops and nonprofits. Without the people doing the work that make the profits having equal participation in policy and ownership in the profits, there will always be a layer who does little to nothing yet demands more money. The problem is too many tech people presume they're making what they're worth when they're making wildly varying amounts with little or no security. Highly-productive shops with good morale and fairness will retain good people for longer than shitty places subject to the whims of golden parachute types, publicly-traded stock investors, and board of directors who are also majority owners.

gardenhedge 3y ago

How does this even happen?

laweijfmvo 3y ago
Who's going to stop it? She's also Chairwoman of the Board.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

zaik 3y ago

This might be the first article I've read that has more charts than data points.

mroche 3y ago

Direct link to the reports: https://stateof.mozilla.org/ https://stateof.mozilla.org/ 2022 Audited Financial Statement: https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2022/mozilla-fdn-2022-fs-final-0908.pdf https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2022/mozilla-fdn-202... 2022 Form 990: https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2022/mozilla-fdn-990-ty22-public-disclosure.pdf https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2022/mozilla-fdn-990...

_m2rf 3y ago
[flagged]

mips_r4300i 3y ago

"The focus for the future of Mozilla -- according to Mozilla -- is primarily based around Artificial Intelligence services." I sense a great disturbance in the Force...

jdksmdbtbdnmsm 3y ago
LMAO the tech industry is such a joke.
petermcneeley 3y ago
I saw the same line and LOLed so hard.
agilob 3y ago
Last year it was IoT
- sjfjsjdjwvwvc 3y ago
  Or blockchain, Or metaverse, Or something else utterly useless that no one wants or asked for
- janice1999 3y ago
  Before that it was a mobile OS that failed to gain traction.
  - pas 3y ago
    at least boot2gecko made 1000x more sense than a painfully vague "focus on AI"
    - 1attice 3y ago
      I love FF and T-bird hard, but I have this mental image of a huddle full of brilliant, 20-year-plus systems engineers sitting in a room staring at a whiteboard with 'AI?' in the middle of it. "Ok, everybody popcorn up some ideas. Don't be shy." [one of them opens a laptop and begins fiddling with a flame graph]

PedroBatista 3y ago

This Mozilla "situation" comes up here from time to time, unfortunately as a long time Firefox user all I have to say is: Mitchell Baker and their clique will only leave when Mozilla is completely dead and even by that time she'll retire and will make a wonderful post about her "legacy" in opensource and the Web. I will not go further because it will turn into an all-bashing post, but Mozilla ( as you like to think of it ) is dead and has been dead for a long time. Deal with it.

phpisthebest 3y ago
[flagged]
- asystole 3y ago
  Everything coming out of them recently, including the mailshots I see and even the onboarding copy, seems to indicate they see themselves as a political advocacy org first and a browser developer second.
  - macspoofing 3y ago
    >they see themselves as a political advocacy org first and a browser developer second. That would be an improvement. Being a browser developer does not factor in anything they focus on.
  - ydlr 3y ago
    The tragedy of it is that building Firefox is the most impactful political advocacy they do.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    Developing and operating open technology is political advocacy. Technology and its implementation is simply the expression of the ideology, rights, etc. Leadership choices, as well as their efficacy and compensation is still an important discussion.
    - 3y ago

macspoofing 3y ago

Maybe, at some point the Mozilla Foundation will acknowledge Firefox as the fundamental pillar of their relevance and existence ... instead of seeing it as this vestigial organ that they can't 'cut loose'[1] ... one can hope. [1] https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mark-surman-mozilla-25-years/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mark-surman-mozilla-25-y...

ZeroGravitas 3y ago
The word 'cut' and 'loose' don't appear in that linked blog post. Nor does the general idea you are suggesting.

ykonstant 3y ago

(×_×) We need a modular, open source browser engine desperately; one not beholden to Google or any other for profit entity. The Servo people are trying, but the task is enormous. I don't know what can be done (｡•́︿•̀｡)

TheCoreh 3y ago
The SerenityOS/Ladybird project has been making very steady progress towards that goal https://ladybird.dev/ https://ladybird.dev/
- jeroenhd 3y ago
  Ladybird is developing at an impressive pace, but it's nowhere close to being as usable as Servo, and it'll probably take a while before it can be. Even with the experienced and skilled developers Ladybird has attracted, it'll take a few years before it can compete with a project that had whole teams working on it full-time. On the other hand, it could well become the de-facto standard browser for embedded applications, though. The browser frame can be ported to different UI frameworks quite easily and the code has practically no dependencies outside the project itself.
pas 3y ago
Could you elaborate on modularity? Also Chromium is there, it's open enough to be a base for Chrome, Brave, Edge, and probably a few more, and it's open source, forkable at any moment Google adds something unpatchably bad. (of course independent implementations are welcome, but the ultimate goal is a healthier web through user freedom, and that doesn't necessitate Firefox directly, a ChromiumFox would be just as perfect)
surajrmal 3y ago
The open source solution to Windows is not a os that runs windows applications. It's an OS which has it's own user space and application ecosystem. Sometimes I wonder why folks don't take the same tact with other platforms like the web. Alternatively, if you look at mobile, no one is seriously pursuing alternatives to Android. They just make Android based distros and no one seems to complain. What makes the web different?

evasb 3y ago

People complain all the time and nothing changes. She doesn't care and in a month everybody forget that Firefox is in dire straits. Google's Chromium project push new standards every month or so, and web developers are fast to adopt these standards and don't care about testing it on Firefox anymore. The Chromium monopoly is already a reality.

kabanda1 3y ago
You have reminded me about this. I failed an interview the other day because the site couldn't work with Firefox. I hate it. I have been forced to install Google chrome for just interviews and other things where Firefox fails. It seems like devs no longer do Firefox tests
PsylentKnight 3y ago
I've been using Firefox for years and rarely run into websites where something works on Chrome but not Firefox. The only one I can think of is my apartment's payment portal, and that website is just generally awful.
jqpabc123 3y ago
The Chromium monopoly is already a reality. Yes. They got it fair and square --- they paid Mozilla for it --- and they still are.

superasn 3y ago

It's almost as if a competing browser co is paying majority of their salaries and lobbying the CEO to kill the only remaining competition by slowly stopping all development.

throwawa14223 3y ago

If they're trying to get rid of Firefox, then can I support whatever spin-off organization is just Firefox?

evasb 3y ago
They did with Thunderbird, and Thunderbird is becoming better.
- sharps1 3y ago
  Thunderbird rejoined Mozilla - from Wikipedia “ On January 28, 2020, the Mozilla Foundation announced that the project would henceforth be operating from a new wholly owned subsidiary, MZLA Technologies Corporation, in order to explore offering products and services that were not previously possible and to collect revenue through partnerships and non-charitable donations.[69][70]”

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

esafak 3y ago

Now may be a good time to support new browsers like Arc.

ivanjermakov 3y ago
It's built on WebKit and this does not bring any diversity to the browser market, it's no different from Chromium-based browsers
- sirwhinesalot 3y ago
  WebKit isn't Blink anymore. The only thing keeping WebKit alive is apple's tight grip on the iOS browser engine, and that will likely be a thing of the past soon. Once that's gone, it's all going to be reskined chromium. Since I think apple should open up iOS more, I hope WebKit develops a healthy marketshare outside of that ecosystem.

_m2rf 3y ago

tl;dr: we need an open source browser & infra, and there are candidates. How c[u]ome, with all the power of open source we still do not have an open browser with an open sync infra?. emotions aside, this is dumb (some words cannot be used). Why can't we, as a group, stop complaining, and actually devote real time hours into developing the serenity browser to work as chrome / brave / firefox? Why can't we, use the knowledge we have gained from IPFS and actually work on a distributed no server sync platform? Why can't I, simply stop using the mentioned above software and devote myself into something more hopefully reliable? I think it is hard to lose your daddy and leave home, but it's something we all have to do in order to actually grow.

sjfjsjdjwvwvc 3y ago
I don’t know if we need a new one. Firefox is still a good (the best?) browser IMO. Developing a new one is really difficult and many more intelligent people than me have failed doing it. But if you feel like you have to act, do so and do a show HN; I’m always willing to give a new browser a try :-)

User23 3y ago

Looks like they’re entering the classic looting of the company by the executive team phase of the corporate lifecycle.

jqpabc123 3y ago

To the casual observer, it appears the CEO is being paid/rewarded to shed Firefox users. Who would want them to do that?

wmf 3y ago
Marissa Mayer was paid more to accomplish even less. Maybe that's just what she's worth.
waterhouse 3y ago
Well, nearly all of Mozilla's revenue (I see numbers around 80-90%) comes from Google. And Google presumably doesn't mind if Firefox users switch to Chrome. I'm not sure if anyone involved actively considers this the goal, but it's possible that this creates some perverse incentives.
- squarefoot 3y ago
  I just don't see how having their biggest revenue coming from their #1 competitor wrt browser adoption, can't create a plain and simple conflict of interests.
  - jqpabc123 3y ago
    I'll bet $7 million of Google money could make any conflict look less interesting.

CharlesW 3y ago

Governments have been creating web/native/mobile apps for some time, which is a trend that continues to accelerate. Firefox continues to limp along but seemingly can't even retain its most ardent fans, and there's no sign of this changing. What if the EU were to fork Firefox (Openfox?) and fund its evolution of a privacy-first alternative? Among other benefits, this would: • Help ensure that key digital infrastructure is not solely dependent on non-European entities. • Balance the US's outsized role as a gatekeeper for web innovation. • Support the EU's user privacy and data protection values and comply-by-default with EU regulations. • Help bolster Europe's economic and tech independence. What else?

locallost 3y ago
That's a pretty neat idea. I don't know if the people in power would get all of that, but I think you could sell them on balancing the US's influence.
fifteen1506 3y ago
State-based, forked software? Good grief! No fork please. But do pay more contributors to work on the upstream codebase towards benefiting Firefox's downstream. PS: don't forget eidas 2.0 has a loophole regarding SSL snooping, check EFF's article on eidas 2.0's article 45.
fabrice_d 3y ago
In concrete terms, what would this fork change compared to current Firefox? Just shouting "privacy-first alternative" is pretty vague. Also, good luck getting enough sustainable funding for that kind of project from the EU. Most of EU funding for OSS project is spread out to lots of projects, with relatively small amounts - Gnome got $1M recently and celebrated as a "big" milestone. I'm not saying that this is bad, but that's not how you can fund a core browser team.
- ksjskskskkk 3y ago
  for one: not giving in to every google whim. recent examples: address bar becomes search bar. referrer header always sent cross domain with full url. webextensions3. hundreds of apis that only benefit ad "viewability" detectors. removal of websocket permission (like you have for notification etc). etc soon: adding Floc

evasb 3y ago

Does no mechanism exist to fire Mitchell Baker or, at least, addressing her leadership at Mozilla?

wmf 3y ago
She answers to the board. I guess they're happy with her.
- junofan 3y ago
  There’s an implicit public interest. You don’t get to do whatever you feel like just because you decide not to pay taxes.
  - wmf 3y ago
    Yes, the board is supposed to represent the public interest.
- fabrice_d 3y ago
  She's also the board chair so answers to herself, see https://wiki.mozilla.org/Board https://wiki.mozilla.org/Board

ls612 3y ago

What's the over/under on Firefox still existing in 2030? Man that's a depressing thing to have to say but that feels like that's where things are heading?

mlinksva 3y ago
Play money, but https://manifold.markets/quther/will-mozilla-still-maintain-firefox https://manifold.markets/quther/will-mozilla-still-maintain-... has "Will Mozilla still maintain Firefox in 2030?" at 71%

pjmlp 3y ago

As long time Mozzilla user since the Navigator days, it is sad to see Firefox going down, while the CEO gets money for nothing. When Firefox is no more, the legacy will be Thunderbird and Rust, not the Web browser, and despite how they won over PNaCL, it is Chrome that drives WebAssembly.

woodruffw 3y ago

In a previous thread (these "Mozilla is dead" threads appear perennially) someone pointed out that Firefox's apparent marketshare drop is potentially indistinguishable from their deployment of privacy-improving features, including stubbing out Google Analytics when "Enhanced Tracking Protection" is enabled. I'm a Firefox user, so I have a vested interest in Mozilla's long term health and financial viability. But "marketshare nosedives" appears to be primarily an editorialization to fit the post's larger narrative.

wmf 3y ago
I would assume that Firefox revenue is proportional to usage and revenue is only down a few percent. This implies that Firefox usage is declining much slower than people say.
- halflings 3y ago
  Not if you account for the increase in ad revenue from the company paying them.
- bee_rider 3y ago
  I don’t understand how to read their “assets” table; but it looks like most of their revenue comes from “royalties,” which I’m sure has some specific meaning for these kinds of reports, but I’m not sure if it scales with numbers of users or not. If that’s the money they get from Google (huge guess alert, I’m probably wrong!), then I’m not sure if it would scale in the short there with the number of users; I guess they must re-negotiate their contract every couple years, right?
  - lupusreal 3y ago
    Mozilla Corp pays royalties to Mozilla Foundation to use Mozilla Foundation's trademarks. Mozilla Corp makes money by selling the default search engine position to Google, spends some of that money on Firefox development, and sends a lot of the rest to Mozilla Foundation in the form of those royalties.

jasoneckert 3y ago

While I don't feel as if I have enough knowledge to make a comment specifically about how the Mozilla Foundation is run, I do feel as if Firefox's uncertain future resulting from poor adoption is something that should be given priority given that the web browser market is roughly Firefox vs everything else. I use both Ungoogled Chromium and Firefox on my main workstation, which runs Fedora Asahi Linux exclusively on Apple Silicon (I never boot into macOS), and should add that on aarch64, my overall experience with every Firefox build has been stellar. Unfortunately, I can't say the same about Ungoogled Chromium.

mvdtnz 3y ago

I hope Mozilla leadership realises that Firefox is the only thing lending their company any credibility with their subscription products. Without Firefox, Mozilla VPN and any of their supposed "AI" products are just another also-ran in a saturated commodity market. That "subscription and advertising" line item on their balance sheet relies on Firefox, it doesn't replace it. Firefox's nosediving market share should represent a catastrophic, company-endangering situation. It's depressing that they don't seem to understand that.

nvm0n2 3y ago
Revenue from Google is not falling fast enough for Baker to care any time soon. She'll be retired before it's a problem.

harpiaharpyja 3y ago

I feel like this question is a decade too late, but FF is open source right? Why hasn't Mozilla been jettisoned years ago?

boomboomsubban 3y ago
Because despite what everybody seems to think, Mozilla spends several hundred millions of dollars every year developing Firefox, and that's not the kind of thing the community can just fork and replace.
- harpiaharpyja 3y ago
  I see. I asked the question because I legitimately didn't know, and haven't heard any conversation about it. Maybe that's because continuing Firefox outside of Mozilla seems like an insurmountable task, but doing nothing seems like a guaranteed dead end. I've been waiting a very long time for the ship to right, and it ain't happening. I guess if what's Firefox needs is a reliable source of funding, at least recognizing that is a necessary first step. Who knows, maybe it could happen somehow.
- wannacboatmovie 3y ago
  WHAT? That seems like a gross misuse of funds because they're definitely not spending hundreds of millions fixing bugs. They must be spending it on useless changes like the 300th UI refresh no one asked for. Firefox still sucks in every way imaginable and it's not measurably getting better. That number is shockingly unbelievable. Their crapware is not worth that budget. For comparison, look at what the OpenBSD team has accomplished (and continues to accomplish) with a small core team and they surely do not have hundreds of millions.
  - boomboomsubban 3y ago
    Feel free to build your own browser engine that stays up to date with the current web, supports nearly a hundred languages, and runs on basically every computer with a shoestring budget. It must be easy, that's why there are so many hobby projects that manage it.

givemeethekeys 3y ago

[flagged]

evasb 3y ago
Mitchell Baker was important for Mozilla/Netscape in the past. She was the primary author of Mozilla Public License in 1998 (MPL 2.0 is a very good license). I bet that many of us were just infants when she was at Mozilla. The problem is that many feel that she is not a good leader for Mozilla today, not that she is not a historical figure for Mozilla and the open source community in general.
- givemeethekeys 3y ago
  She's an excellent lawyer. How did she get promoted to head the software company that makes software?

subins2000 3y ago

Wikimedia compensation is far better than what Mozilla is doing, nobody there receives > 1million$ in compensation: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_salaries https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_salarie... while in Mozilla a single person is receiving close to 7million dollars!

dougmwne 3y ago

Wow, nearly 7 million. That’s incredible for a nonprofit CEO. Much, much large orgs have CEOs that get paid 10-15x less. This should be criminal. The taxpayers are being stolen from.

skrebbel 3y ago
Which taxpayers exactly are you referring to?
- anotherhue 3y ago
  Whoever is funding them can claim charitable donations as part of a write-off - I guess that's opportunity cost to the treasury? Mozilla is a tar pit designed to prevent alternative browsers forming. Firefox deserves better.
erulabs 3y ago
Nonprofit does not necessarily mean taxpayer subsidized.
- dougmwne 3y ago
  That’s exactly what a 501(c)(3) is. While nonprofits do not receive actual funding from the US government, unless in the form of grants, there is a revenue cost to the government due to lost tax revenues. We have given these orgs tax exempt status so that they may serve the public good, not the third homes of their executive staff.
SoftTalker 3y ago
The CEO is paying income tax on that, presumably.
- dougmwne 3y ago
  A for-profit corporation would also pay taxes on profits. A 501(c)(3) is a special class of org exempt from taxes due to the benefit it presumably provides to the public.

caycep 3y ago

I guess the question - why can't Mozilla (or at least Firefox) - be like the Linux kernel or the Debian group? They are healthy open source projects, some funding from industry, sure, but they're staying current in the latest tech/comp-sci tech while not beholden to anyone in particular (I hope) Organizational baggage?

sjfjsjdjwvwvc 3y ago
Last time I checked the Linux Foundation had a similar problem, spending 2% on the Kernel development and the rest on the latest tech trends, AI, blockchain, metaverse etc.
- TwentyPosts 3y ago
  Do you have any source for this? This would be quite shocking for me, if true.
  - sjfjsjdjwvwvc 3y ago
    I read it on the same site, didn’t check the actual report to confirm: https://lunduke.locals.com/post/5049241/linux-foundation-now-spends-only-2-of-their-revenue-on-linux https://lunduke.locals.com/post/5049241/linux-foundation-now... Edit: checked it, figures are on page 158. they still spend 7,8 M$ on Linux kernel but it’s 2% of the total spend - to be fair a lot of the total is going to the community and related topics. Still a bit concerning. (I still think both the Linux Foundation and Mozilla are great organisations that should get more support to be clear)
caskstrength 3y ago
I don't know about "Debian group", but absolute majority of kernel developers are full time employees of tech companies. Not sure what would be the incentive for those companies to pay bunch of people to develop privacy-focused browser full-time.

beginning_end 3y ago

1) Sigh 2) Firefox still works great though, I'm a very happy user!

janmo 3y ago

Firefox will make a massive comeback if chromes kicks out Adblocker next year.

sjfjsjdjwvwvc 3y ago
I would love to believe that.. Same as next year will be the year of mass adoption of Linux by consumers. Yet history and trends point in the other direction
- PsylentKnight 3y ago
  The recent Unity-Godot debacle would seem to indicate to me that titans aren't invincible. They can do a lot of harm to themselves when they overestimate how much people want or need their product. Switching from Chrome to Firefox isn't even nearly as difficult as switching from Unity to Godot (or say, from Windows to Linux). For the average user, Chrome and Firefox are functionally identical. If Chrome kicks off Adblocker, Firefox will be obviously better for a lot of people.
  - sjfjsjdjwvwvc 3y ago
    Agreed it’s not a fair comparison. And I would love if Firefox gets more adoption (again)! I have converted a lot of people in my bubble - also in general FF seems a lot more popular in EU than in the US, not sure why…
gnicholas 3y ago
Firefox, Brave, and other browsers will benefit for sure.
jeroenhd 3y ago
I think you mean Edge, Safari, Opera, Brave, Vivaldi, and those fancy new browsers. Firefox has become the Linux of web browsers.

bee_rider 3y ago

If they are prioritizing projects other than Firefox, what are people’s favorite non-Firefox, non-Chrome/Chromium (for obvious reasons) browsers? Firefox makes a lot of noise about their anti-tracking and pro-privacy features. I liked Suckless surf, but missed the granular JavaScript setting of noscript. And, I have no idea, but Privacy Badger must be doing something I guess?

jmyeet 3y ago

This isn't new [1]. There's a real opportunity here. People are increasingly distrustful of, say, Google. I use it because it's still performant, cross-platform and has sync. But , like many, are increasingly leerly abou tGoogle using Chrome's position to, say, attack ad blockers. The ultimate question is how does and should Mozilla fund itself? Well, if the CEO can't lay out a vision and deliver on that then why are they still there? Why is their compensation still increasing despite not performing? Instead we get platitudes about "add on services". Previously it was "VPN services" and now it's "AI services"? It's almost like the future revenue plan is always "<current buzzword> services". [1]: https://calpaterson.com/mozilla.html https://calpaterson.com/mozilla.html

Barrin92 3y ago

I think the narrative provided in the article is actually reasonable. Firefox is practically dead, but even worse with Firefox almost all of Mozilla's income stream is literally just a Google handout. The article states that revenue from services is up from 50 to 70 million. Still only about 10% of what they make from Firefox, but at least that's independent revenue, going up, directly from consumers. Can someone please provide a rational argument, not a kneejerk emotional response why focusing on the source of revenue that is Google independent and growing is not the better way to fulfill their stated mission, that is creating a privacy respecting and open web? People are acting like Ahab and the whale when it comes to Firefox, there's no point in dumping more resources into the thing if's going down anyway and makes you subservient to a tech monopolist.

HackerThemAll 3y ago
If Firefox is dead then we're left with only two options: Google browser or Apple browser. I'm comfortable with none of them. Google has become a de facto monopoly with Microsoft Edge, Opera, Brave, Vivaldi, Chromium et al pretending it hasn't, and the rest of the market is Apple browser, and I'm not an Apple user and never will be. We should keep Firefox at all costs as a true alternative respecting user choices, such as not mandating manifest v3 and allowing users to control web browsing entirely.

wubbert 3y ago

[dead]

yumraj 3y ago

I believe the fault lies at the board. They are the ones who approve compensation for the CEO. The problem is it’s unclear to me how competent/independent the members of the board are. I don’t see any face I recognize, but that obviously means nothing. Do people know if there are any good people on the board? The best option would be for someone to fork Firefox and perhaps get it sponsored by Apache foundation. Then we can write it off. Firefox is my daily browser across multiple platforms, and I worry for its future.

kyleee 3y ago
Who is on the board?
- yumraj 3y ago
  https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/leadership/#boards https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/leadership/#boards

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

juujian 3y ago

Not saying the complaint isn't valid, but I see things trending in the right direction. Firefox is fast, support for add-ons is coming (back) to mobile, and Firefox is as free and open and modifiable as always. If we're talking things that are in managers hands, like features and usability, as opposed to user numbers, then the last year was good.

Osmose 3y ago

Worrying about Mozilla CEO compensation when 1. Mitchell Baker is also chairwoman of the board of the Mozilla Foundation and is a founding member of Mozilla, and receives no stock compensation because there is none to give, 2. Google can definitionally outspend Mozilla on browser development and has used that to cement their market position for over a decade now, and 3. as long as Google is the primary source of Mozilla funding, they can (effectively) kill Firefox at any time, and diversifying revenue / building up a war chest of funds is the only defense against that, just seems silly to me. As a former Mozillian I don't like the choices Mitchell Baker has made (AI and services are poor plays IMO) but the obsession with CEO compensation at Mozilla has always smelled less like a genuine concern for alternatives to Chrome and more like holding a smaller player to an unreasonable standard. A more interesting comparison would compare these numbers to the head of Chrome's compensation, and more specifically Chrome's spending and revenue vs Firefox's.

mort96 3y ago
I think the general critique is: the performance of a CEO should be tied somehow to the performance of the company, yet year after year, the company performs worse while CEO compensation goes up.
- Osmose 3y ago
  Right, but part of my point with #2 and #3 there is that "browser share" is a really poor choice for the performance metric in question to tie compensation to. Browsers just duking it out on features and ease of use is not how the browser market works—Google can and does leverage their dominance in non-browser markets to boost their browser, and Mozilla is not going to raise their browser share against tactics like that if they simply focus really hard on making a better browser. Tying it to a more functional goal like successful diversification of revenue makes much more sense (even if you disagree with how they did it in this particular case).
  - mort96 3y ago
    I think you've more or less hit the nail on the head. Computer/FOSS nerds (like myself) want to see Mozilla do good engineering and also gain browser market share; that's "good performance" to us. Investors want more revenue and better and more diversified revenue streams; that's "good performance" to them.

prakhar897 3y ago

discussed a few months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37015592 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37015592 Moz seems like a controlled opposition at this point.

cvalka 3y ago

Mozilla should be renamed to Rust foundation and deprecate the Gecko browser engine.

1attice 3y ago

This just saying, "Bob's rent skyrockets, while his grocery purchasing plummets." No sht Bob is having a hard time buying groceries. CEOs are important -- not intrinsically, but to survival. Their actions are important. Their decisions are important. Their attention is important. And there's a lot of competition for good ones. If you get a bad one, it's an existential crisis, and the good ones can always go elsewhere for more money. Want to help nonprofits and small corps? Support the passage of laws limiting CEO pay.

LanzVonL 3y ago

The best thing to do at this point is use one of the privacy-enhanced forks, Firefox is desperate for more cash and will sell you, the user, out for a song.

the_third_wave 3y ago

Owncloud was forked to become Nextcloud and seems to have gotten better for it. Openoffice was forked to become Libreoffice and seems to have gotten beter for it. Time to fork Firefox [1] and take over where Baker dropped the ball because she thought the rules of the game could be changed to make it no longer necessary to play to win. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38533785 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38533785

ksec 3y ago

Reposting what I wrote in 2021 [1], still holds true. And here is another unpopular opinion. I dont care if her salary is 3 million or even 30 million. If she had managed to bring Firefox to 60% marketshare and bring down Chrome on Desktop, would you have still complained if she was paid 30 million? The problem is Mozilla is in such a bad shape and she is under performing as a CEO. Unfortunately people dont learn much from history. And history dictate the only way to solve this problem is that Mozilla think of it as a problem. Otherwise its current status at 10% marketshare is enough to sustain the operation. Nothing bad enough is happening, no interest or incentive for changes. Inertia. Let's keep thing this way. So yes, it is counter intuitive. The only way to save Mozilla ( or change Mozill's direction, I guess the word "save" is a hyperbole, at least from Mozilla's perspective. ) isn't trying to get more user to use it. It is actually push people to abandon it. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28961544 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28961544

alberth 3y ago

Source: https://stateof.mozilla.org/ https://stateof.mozilla.org/ Is it normal for Non-Profits to not the include Income Statement in their financials? Because Mozilla doesn’t. https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2022/mozilla-fdn-2022-fs-final-0908.pdf https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2022/mozilla-fdn-202...

endofreach 3y ago

Google is just funding mozilla to avoid the legal headache (browser monopoly), right? For all those being annoyed by the decreasing usage of FF in favor of Chrome: If Mozilla & FF died, couldn't this create better scenarios? Idea: Google might get into legal trouble, maybe even having to lose chrome, opening the market or Chrome / Chromium base for a fresh start?

Baldbvrhunter 3y ago

> Mozilla intends to focus on A.I. -- so we can expect more A.I. investment, and possible A.I. services, in the year ahead. back in March Moziila announced $30m for A.I. services [0] what's weird is that wound business strategy is usually "what are our core strengths?" instead we get > A little over two years ago, Mozilla started an ambitious project: deciding where we should focus our efforts to grow the movement of people committed to building a healthier digital world. We landed on the idea of trustworthy AI. [1] OK, despite my skeptisism what's the plan > Mozilla.ai’s initial focus? Tools that make generative AI safer and more transparent. And, people-centric recommendation systems that don’t misinform or undermine our well-being. We’ll share more on these — and what we’re building — in the coming months. [0] While that's all very nice, who on earth are the customers? Is there a eshop somewhere lamenting "our recommendation system is not people centric" ? [0] https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/introducing-mozilla-ai-investing-in-trustworthy-ai/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/introducing-mozilla-ai-i... [1] https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozillas-vision-for-trustworthy-ai/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozillas-vision-for-trus...

lupusreal 3y ago
> Is there a eshop somewhere lamenting "our recommendation system is not people centric" ? I think they mean content recommendation systems used by social media. Mozilla Foundation likes to larp as a social media startup or something. Their big angle is that existing social media doesn't shut out 'bad people' e.g. people with opinions to the right of wherever the American west coast zeitgeist is this year. They want recommendation engines that only serve 'good people', or which engineer people's opinions to be more 'good'. But of course they don't actually have a social media platform worth a damn for them to impose their own agenda onto, so it'll end up tacked onto a mastadon instance nobody uses, or incorporated into the 'New Page' of Firefox, or maybe turned into a browser extension that tries to block or inject stories on other social media websites. All a huge waste of time and money.
- Baldbvrhunter 3y ago
  Sounds like they have this huge pile of cash and can't think of a way to improve Firefox with it in any way that seems gee whizz enough. They tried hopping on Blockchain train and ended up jumping back off after getting roasted by JWZ [0] "we are reviewing if and how our current policy on crypto donations fits with our climate goals. ... [although] decentralized web technology continues to be an important area for us to explore." I guess AI is gee whizz enough to escape the Planet Burning argument for now. A piece of software - with climate goals. They had a stab at VR with Mozilla Hubs [1] - and copied off Meta by also not including legs in the avatars! Your personal Hub for only $10 a month. Judging by the code commits it is, er, stable [2]. No-one explained how a GPU driven chatroom meets the climate goals! Imagine if they put all that effort into innovating the browser. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/6/22870787/mozilla-pauses-crypto-donations-backlash-jwz https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/6/22870787/mozilla-pauses-cr... [1] https://hubs.mozilla.com/ https://hubs.mozilla.com/ [2] https://github.com/mozilla/hubs/tree/master/src https://github.com/mozilla/hubs/tree/master/src

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

nojvek 3y ago

Most companies die from slow starvation instead of murder. IMO Mozilla is default dead and so is Firefox. With 500M of revenue, ~$7M going to CEO is >1% of revenue being sucked by CEO (not even net profit). From a distant observer, Mitchell is a parasite. The Chromium Hegemony is winning and Safari is barely alive.