6 ms·

There is a very loud part of HN that strongly dislikes mozilla/firefox. It's disproportionate imo, I don't understand why they're singled out so often.

Levitz 11mo ago
Speaking for myself, it's really irritating to support a chrome alternative precisely because it's a chrome alternative and have it constantly shoot itself in the foot. It sucks that I can't even attempt to convince someone to use it beyond "it's not Google", and data privacy. The vast majority of users won't ever give a damn about either of those by themselves.
- pessimizer 11mo ago
  A dozen years ago I was installing it on every computer I touched for more than a few minutes. Now I can't recommend it to anyone convincingly, especially because what I have to do to it to keep it as usable as it is for me (and what people see when they see me using it) is nothing that I could expect anyone normal to put up with. I honestly don't even want to use it at all without Debian standing between me and them. But the sad part is all the hassle I go through gets it to about 80% of where it was a dozen years ago. A lot less crashy, though, I'll have to give them that - although everything is less crashy now. But they haven't destroyed the browser. That's in a way even sadder: they decide every day to wake up and be bad, when any day they could decide to be better. Instead they've entered the modern massive predatory nonprofit space. Which usually is a vehicle for insiders to get rich off government grants, but Firefox have chosen the even eviller alternative of running interference for google as a product. Any day they could choose to center the user and the health of the internet again. Every day they choose not to. They're just a valve that keeps paranoid and aware techies from going berserk and seriously competing against chrome, and that keeps antitrust away from google (not that there's anything for big business to to fear with horrible Obama judges like Amit Mehta on the bench.) It's their only serious source of income.
  - skopje 11mo ago
    >> because what I have to do to it to keep it as usable I find this confusing. Why is Firefox so much effort? Install it + badger + adnauseum. Done. Why so hard for you? I am not a power user, is that why I don't see the effort?
    - hulitu 10mo ago
      > I find this confusing. Why is Firefox so much effort? The new UI sucks (titlebar highjacking, tiny scrollbar), phones to Google by default (safe browsing), a lot of bad defaults. > Install it + badger + adnauseum So you need to install other stuff to make it usable. /s
      - skopje 10mo ago
        Oh I see what you mean. I think of that as "one time setup" that any software needs, and not a bellyache.
LunaSea 11mo ago
Gobbling up hundreds of millions of dollars to finance non-core missions and fat director bonuses while you sack the Servo development team might be a cause.
- jamespo 11mo ago
  They generated that money.
  - LunaSea 11mo ago
    They didn't, Google gave them most of that money and the community a bit as well.
  - behringer 11mo ago
    Haha thats a good one.
  - pessimizer 11mo ago
    The ads from a search engine that bought Doubleclick generated that money.
    - jamespo 10mo ago
      Yes, they pass a fraction down to other companies that generate traffic for them, it's a little known model.
      - LunaSea 10mo ago
        No, they don't. Firefox represents essentially $0 of revenue for Google because their market share is tiny and rate of adblock usage is high. The only reason Google gives money to Mozilla is because they don't want to get sued for monopoly.
        jamespo 10mo ago
        Source for this conjecture?
rwmj 11mo ago
You have to separate the browser (I'm using it to type this), and the Mozilla corporation / C-suite. The C-suite at Mozilla took the Google firehose of money, spent most of it on their own salaries, followed by idiotic vanity projects, and spent least of all on the browser itself. Never mind building a warchest or anything responsible like that. It's quite rational to dislike what Mozilla managers are doing, while supporting Firefox as a browser and the developers and volunteers who make that happen.
N_Lens 11mo ago
Maybe because HN folk are more familiar with Mozilla leadership fuckups and "less than ideal" decisions?
ecshafer 11mo ago
They fired the inventor of Javascript as their CEO. They hired some grifter as their CEO who just keeps giving themselves more money. They keep throwing money at vanity side hustles. They purposefully confuse the Mozilla foundation with the browser, and have increasingly made the foundation redirect their funds to C level salaries and their own personal political passion projects that are not aligned with the Mozilla Firefox project. If there were actually focusing on being the best browser and web privacy, it would be good. But they aren't.
- rectang 11mo ago
  At least part of the Mozilla antagonism on HN comes from highly motivated culture war participants. The Brendan Eich situation was a seminal event, but the underlying reasons for it are why the grudge endures.
  - mvdtnz 11mo ago
    Not true.
  - mikkupikku 11mo ago
    If Mozilla were consistently making good decisions in the years since then, nobody would be wasting their time with "What if Eich were still in charge?" The only reason anybody still talks about that ousting is because they have other more current grievances with Mozilla. Also, the reason HN has so many people ready to gripe about Firefox is because HN still has a large number of people using Firefox. I never complain about technical or policy decisions from Chrome or Safari because I don't use those browsers! The only reason I have complaints about Mozilla is because I actually use Firefox.
    - ecshafer 11mo ago
      I used to give money to Mozilla foundation, even when I didnt have much. Then I learned none of it goes to firefox. I think if Eich was still in charge there would be more focus on Servo, Rust, etc. making a better browser and less on selling AI and channeling money to absurd NGO causes.
Mr_Bees69 11mo ago
Bc mozilla kills more products than google.
joseda-hg 11mo ago
This feels like asking why do English people have strong opinions on soccer compared to the US? If there ever was a comunity I'd expect to have strong opinions on Mozilla/Firefox, it's HackerNews
- neilv 11mo ago
  Agreed, though I think that spectator-sports-fandom (if that's what you meant) analogy also has emotional team-identification connotations that don't apply to the majority of HN strong opinions about browsers. (But apply more to, say, Emacs vs. Vim, or tabs vs. spaces.) I think lot of the HN browsers strong opinions more akin to "Why do historians have strong opinions on geopolitical intrigue X" or "Why do doctors have strong opinions on the effectiveness of pharmaceutical Y". Strong opinions, because they are experts who care for important objective reasons.
estimator7292 11mo ago
I don't think it's disproportionate at all. Nerds very badly want a viable alternative to Chrome and "Chrome with s paintjob". The only alternative is Firefox, but Mozilla has been a pretty shitty company and very bad stewards of an open web. People are mad at Mozilla and Firefox because they're squandering resources on PR and "optics", shoveling in ads and AI crap instead of focusing development efforts on making Firefox actually competitive. People are mad because Mozilla wants us to think they're a good company who will bring back a fair and open web, but their actions say they're just a profit motivated company who is content to put in the minimum viable resources into Firefox without investing in a real competitor to Chrome. Mozilla is just gobbling up google money and is content to let google and chrome continue operating a near monopoly with a browser and internet that are actively bad for and hostile towards users.
- burnermore 11mo ago
  I definitely couldn't have told this better. This sums it all up.
- rurp 11mo ago
  Yes, this exactly. Firefox became the one good avenue for preventing a Google monopoly over the web and Mozilla just completely fumbled the opportunity again and again. This isn't about one or two screwups, it's been a decade or more of the same problems. It sucks. I absolutely don't want Google to have total control over the web and still want Firefox to succeed, but at this point it's clear they have failed. I still use Firefox, but much less than I used to and I stopped recommending it to non-techies a while back when they broke a bunch of functionality on mobile.
  - ryandrake 11mo ago
    The only thing Mozilla seems to do is pay their leadership a fortune so that they can kick own-goals over and over.
    - delfinom 11mo ago
      Yep, their CEO and other leadership are stereotypical deadweight that holds layoffs annually to increase their salaries and bonuses. Absolute trash.
School-Cotton 11mo ago
For what it's worth, Firefox is the only browser I've ever used that shows me ads by default in the blank tab page.
dimal 11mo ago
Betrayal has that effect. They're supposed to be the good side. They abandoned that, and now they're just like any other unsuccessful tech company, desperately clinging to relevance while discarding all the ideals that made some of us support them.
- Seattle3503 11mo ago
  How would you run Firefox? How would you challenge Google and keep the web open?
  - nativeit 10mo ago
    I missed the part where the parent commenter applied for the job.
  - dimal 10mo ago
    Ok, I'll bite. Off the top of my head: Fire 80% of the C-level employees (make them justify their positions, DOGE-style); investigate and publicize the internal decision-making processes that lead to Mozilla becoming a de facto subsidiary of Google; do a full auditing of the financials and determine how much money the organization really needs to fund browser development (Servo and Ladybird seem to be getting shit done with a lot less money than Mozilla. How is that possible?); do an auditing of all non-browser related initiatives (stuff like MDN is worthwhile, but what other BS is sucking up money and time?); talk to the existing development staff about what's working and what's not and what opportunities exist that an outsider wouldn't know about. I would listen to the developers. Developers are often an underutilized business resource. This would give me a basis to start thinking about revenue. Once it's clear what fat can be cut (and I think the cuts would be huge), then it'd be clearer exactly what revenue model might work. At this point, it's worth going for broke. Mozilla is effectively dead, so there's nothing to lose. If it fails, that's still better than the status quo.
  - johnnyanmac 10mo ago
    It's a bit futile with the current structure. But if you really gave me the keys, I'd make sure we cut out Firefox to the properly nonprofit side of Mozilla. And then I'd probably have to fire a lot of people. Anything that isn't laser focused on improving the browser is slashed. No vpn services, no privacy services. It's a browser, with docs to maintain to keep a browser running. There's still too many problems to solve to branch out to more. Monetization definitely isn't easy. It'd be a mix of donations, fundraising, and corporate deals that align with the mission. With a very lean team it should be sustainable, though. The goal is to become an objectively better experience than any other browser, and there's still a lot of jank to work on to achieve that.
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
LaGrange 11mo ago
...because a lot of us like Firefox and hate seeing it slowly die?
Seattle3503 11mo ago
The tenor of criticism Firefox/Moz gets is akin to the purity testing that happens in some ideological space.
- detaro 11mo ago
  Not wrong, but that comes with promoting yourself on ideology grounds. If you want support because you are the plucky underdog community project that cares about people and are running ad campaigns how you are not evil big tech, then don't be surprised if people hold you to it. Mozilla is in this weird space where it wants to be both the good little guys and a proper Silicon Valley tech company, and those don't necessarily mix well.

Levitz 11mo ago

Speaking for myself, it's really irritating to support a chrome alternative precisely because it's a chrome alternative and have it constantly shoot itself in the foot. It sucks that I can't even attempt to convince someone to use it beyond "it's not Google", and data privacy. The vast majority of users won't ever give a damn about either of those by themselves.

pessimizer 11mo ago
A dozen years ago I was installing it on every computer I touched for more than a few minutes. Now I can't recommend it to anyone convincingly, especially because what I have to do to it to keep it as usable as it is for me (and what people see when they see me using it) is nothing that I could expect anyone normal to put up with. I honestly don't even want to use it at all without Debian standing between me and them. But the sad part is all the hassle I go through gets it to about 80% of where it was a dozen years ago. A lot less crashy, though, I'll have to give them that - although everything is less crashy now. But they haven't destroyed the browser. That's in a way even sadder: they decide every day to wake up and be bad, when any day they could decide to be better. Instead they've entered the modern massive predatory nonprofit space. Which usually is a vehicle for insiders to get rich off government grants, but Firefox have chosen the even eviller alternative of running interference for google as a product. Any day they could choose to center the user and the health of the internet again. Every day they choose not to. They're just a valve that keeps paranoid and aware techies from going berserk and seriously competing against chrome, and that keeps antitrust away from google (not that there's anything for big business to to fear with horrible Obama judges like Amit Mehta on the bench.) It's their only serious source of income.
- skopje 11mo ago
  >> because what I have to do to it to keep it as usable I find this confusing. Why is Firefox so much effort? Install it + badger + adnauseum. Done. Why so hard for you? I am not a power user, is that why I don't see the effort?
  - hulitu 10mo ago
    > I find this confusing. Why is Firefox so much effort? The new UI sucks (titlebar highjacking, tiny scrollbar), phones to Google by default (safe browsing), a lot of bad defaults. > Install it + badger + adnauseum So you need to install other stuff to make it usable. /s
    - skopje 10mo ago
      Oh I see what you mean. I think of that as "one time setup" that any software needs, and not a bellyache.

LunaSea 11mo ago

Gobbling up hundreds of millions of dollars to finance non-core missions and fat director bonuses while you sack the Servo development team might be a cause.

jamespo 11mo ago
They generated that money.
- LunaSea 11mo ago
  They didn't, Google gave them most of that money and the community a bit as well.
- behringer 11mo ago
  Haha thats a good one.
- pessimizer 11mo ago
  The ads from a search engine that bought Doubleclick generated that money.
  - jamespo 10mo ago
    Yes, they pass a fraction down to other companies that generate traffic for them, it's a little known model.
    - LunaSea 10mo ago
      No, they don't. Firefox represents essentially $0 of revenue for Google because their market share is tiny and rate of adblock usage is high. The only reason Google gives money to Mozilla is because they don't want to get sued for monopoly.
      - jamespo 10mo ago
        Source for this conjecture?

rwmj 11mo ago

You have to separate the browser (I'm using it to type this), and the Mozilla corporation / C-suite. The C-suite at Mozilla took the Google firehose of money, spent most of it on their own salaries, followed by idiotic vanity projects, and spent least of all on the browser itself. Never mind building a warchest or anything responsible like that. It's quite rational to dislike what Mozilla managers are doing, while supporting Firefox as a browser and the developers and volunteers who make that happen.

N_Lens 11mo ago

Maybe because HN folk are more familiar with Mozilla leadership fuckups and "less than ideal" decisions?

ecshafer 11mo ago

They fired the inventor of Javascript as their CEO. They hired some grifter as their CEO who just keeps giving themselves more money. They keep throwing money at vanity side hustles. They purposefully confuse the Mozilla foundation with the browser, and have increasingly made the foundation redirect their funds to C level salaries and their own personal political passion projects that are not aligned with the Mozilla Firefox project. If there were actually focusing on being the best browser and web privacy, it would be good. But they aren't.

rectang 11mo ago
At least part of the Mozilla antagonism on HN comes from highly motivated culture war participants. The Brendan Eich situation was a seminal event, but the underlying reasons for it are why the grudge endures.
- mvdtnz 11mo ago
  Not true.
- mikkupikku 11mo ago
  If Mozilla were consistently making good decisions in the years since then, nobody would be wasting their time with "What if Eich were still in charge?" The only reason anybody still talks about that ousting is because they have other more current grievances with Mozilla. Also, the reason HN has so many people ready to gripe about Firefox is because HN still has a large number of people using Firefox. I never complain about technical or policy decisions from Chrome or Safari because I don't use those browsers! The only reason I have complaints about Mozilla is because I actually use Firefox.
  - ecshafer 11mo ago
    I used to give money to Mozilla foundation, even when I didnt have much. Then I learned none of it goes to firefox. I think if Eich was still in charge there would be more focus on Servo, Rust, etc. making a better browser and less on selling AI and channeling money to absurd NGO causes.

Mr_Bees69 11mo ago

Bc mozilla kills more products than google.

joseda-hg 11mo ago

This feels like asking why do English people have strong opinions on soccer compared to the US? If there ever was a comunity I'd expect to have strong opinions on Mozilla/Firefox, it's HackerNews

neilv 11mo ago
Agreed, though I think that spectator-sports-fandom (if that's what you meant) analogy also has emotional team-identification connotations that don't apply to the majority of HN strong opinions about browsers. (But apply more to, say, Emacs vs. Vim, or tabs vs. spaces.) I think lot of the HN browsers strong opinions more akin to "Why do historians have strong opinions on geopolitical intrigue X" or "Why do doctors have strong opinions on the effectiveness of pharmaceutical Y". Strong opinions, because they are experts who care for important objective reasons.

estimator7292 11mo ago

I don't think it's disproportionate at all. Nerds very badly want a viable alternative to Chrome and "Chrome with s paintjob". The only alternative is Firefox, but Mozilla has been a pretty shitty company and very bad stewards of an open web. People are mad at Mozilla and Firefox because they're squandering resources on PR and "optics", shoveling in ads and AI crap instead of focusing development efforts on making Firefox actually competitive. People are mad because Mozilla wants us to think they're a good company who will bring back a fair and open web, but their actions say they're just a profit motivated company who is content to put in the minimum viable resources into Firefox without investing in a real competitor to Chrome. Mozilla is just gobbling up google money and is content to let google and chrome continue operating a near monopoly with a browser and internet that are actively bad for and hostile towards users.

burnermore 11mo ago
I definitely couldn't have told this better. This sums it all up.
rurp 11mo ago
Yes, this exactly. Firefox became the one good avenue for preventing a Google monopoly over the web and Mozilla just completely fumbled the opportunity again and again. This isn't about one or two screwups, it's been a decade or more of the same problems. It sucks. I absolutely don't want Google to have total control over the web and still want Firefox to succeed, but at this point it's clear they have failed. I still use Firefox, but much less than I used to and I stopped recommending it to non-techies a while back when they broke a bunch of functionality on mobile.
- ryandrake 11mo ago
  The only thing Mozilla seems to do is pay their leadership a fortune so that they can kick own-goals over and over.
  - delfinom 11mo ago
    Yep, their CEO and other leadership are stereotypical deadweight that holds layoffs annually to increase their salaries and bonuses. Absolute trash.

School-Cotton 11mo ago

For what it's worth, Firefox is the only browser I've ever used that shows me ads by default in the blank tab page.

dimal 11mo ago

Betrayal has that effect. They're supposed to be the good side. They abandoned that, and now they're just like any other unsuccessful tech company, desperately clinging to relevance while discarding all the ideals that made some of us support them.

Seattle3503 11mo ago
How would you run Firefox? How would you challenge Google and keep the web open?
- nativeit 10mo ago
  I missed the part where the parent commenter applied for the job.
- dimal 10mo ago
  Ok, I'll bite. Off the top of my head: Fire 80% of the C-level employees (make them justify their positions, DOGE-style); investigate and publicize the internal decision-making processes that lead to Mozilla becoming a de facto subsidiary of Google; do a full auditing of the financials and determine how much money the organization really needs to fund browser development (Servo and Ladybird seem to be getting shit done with a lot less money than Mozilla. How is that possible?); do an auditing of all non-browser related initiatives (stuff like MDN is worthwhile, but what other BS is sucking up money and time?); talk to the existing development staff about what's working and what's not and what opportunities exist that an outsider wouldn't know about. I would listen to the developers. Developers are often an underutilized business resource. This would give me a basis to start thinking about revenue. Once it's clear what fat can be cut (and I think the cuts would be huge), then it'd be clearer exactly what revenue model might work. At this point, it's worth going for broke. Mozilla is effectively dead, so there's nothing to lose. If it fails, that's still better than the status quo.
- johnnyanmac 10mo ago
  It's a bit futile with the current structure. But if you really gave me the keys, I'd make sure we cut out Firefox to the properly nonprofit side of Mozilla. And then I'd probably have to fire a lot of people. Anything that isn't laser focused on improving the browser is slashed. No vpn services, no privacy services. It's a browser, with docs to maintain to keep a browser running. There's still too many problems to solve to branch out to more. Monetization definitely isn't easy. It'd be a mix of donations, fundraising, and corporate deals that align with the mission. With a very lean team it should be sustainable, though. The goal is to become an objectively better experience than any other browser, and there's still a lot of jank to work on to achieve that.

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

LaGrange 11mo ago

...because a lot of us like Firefox and hate seeing it slowly die?

Seattle3503 11mo ago

The tenor of criticism Firefox/Moz gets is akin to the purity testing that happens in some ideological space.

detaro 11mo ago
Not wrong, but that comes with promoting yourself on ideology grounds. If you want support because you are the plucky underdog community project that cares about people and are running ad campaigns how you are not evil big tech, then don't be surprised if people hold you to it. Mozilla is in this weird space where it wants to be both the good little guys and a proper Silicon Valley tech company, and those don't necessarily mix well.