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TechRepublic: Mozilla 'Is Desperately Needed to Save the Web' (techrepublic.com)
"I can't remember the last time I cared about Mozilla," writes Matt Asay at TechRepublic. "I also can't remember a time when we needed it more."
An anonymous reader quotes TechRepublic:
Mozilla's Firefox is almost a rounding error in desktop market share, and nonexistent in mobile browser market share. It offers a few other services, like Pocket, but largely gets ignored... This is a mistake. Our world is increasingly mediated by the internet, and that internet has just a few gatekeepers, collecting tolls as we browse. As Python guru Matt Harrison put it, "Vendors control the default browser which 99.9% of people use." Those vendors are happy to sell us access to information. Nothing about it is free. You are most definitely the product.
On mobile, where the majority of the world's content is now consumed, Google and Facebook own eight of the top 10 apps, with apps devouring 87% of our time spent on smartphones and tablets, according to new comScore data. For that remaining 13% of time spent on the mobile web, Google and Apple offer the two dominant browsers... the majority of our time online is now mediated by just a few megacorporations, and for the most part their top incentive is to borrow our privacy just long enough to target an ad at us. Then there's Mozilla, an organization whose mantra is "Internet for people, not profit." That feels like a necessary voice to add to today's internet oligopoly, but it's not one we're hearing... We clearly need an organization standing up for web freedom, as expecting Google to do that is like asking the fox to guard the henhouse. Google does many great things, but its clear incentive is to sell ads. We are Google's product, as the saying goes.
The article applauds the Mozilla-sponsored Rust programming language as promising, "but not to save the web from the all-consuming embrace of Facebook and Google, especially as they wall off the experience in apps... "If I sound like I don't know what to propose Mozilla should do, it's because I don't. I simply feel strongly that the role Mozilla played in the early browser wars needs to be resurrected to save the web today."
On mobile, where the majority of the world's content is now consumed, Google and Facebook own eight of the top 10 apps, with apps devouring 87% of our time spent on smartphones and tablets, according to new comScore data. For that remaining 13% of time spent on the mobile web, Google and Apple offer the two dominant browsers... the majority of our time online is now mediated by just a few megacorporations, and for the most part their top incentive is to borrow our privacy just long enough to target an ad at us. Then there's Mozilla, an organization whose mantra is "Internet for people, not profit." That feels like a necessary voice to add to today's internet oligopoly, but it's not one we're hearing... We clearly need an organization standing up for web freedom, as expecting Google to do that is like asking the fox to guard the henhouse. Google does many great things, but its clear incentive is to sell ads. We are Google's product, as the saying goes.
The article applauds the Mozilla-sponsored Rust programming language as promising, "but not to save the web from the all-consuming embrace of Facebook and Google, especially as they wall off the experience in apps... "If I sound like I don't know what to propose Mozilla should do, it's because I don't. I simply feel strongly that the role Mozilla played in the early browser wars needs to be resurrected to save the web today."
... except Mozilla.
Every release they make the browser worse. Their mantra is "just like Chrome, except slower and with more bugs." No wonder people switch to Chrome.
Firefox is supposed to be the browser that people use because they care - they want to customize, they want features, they want control. But with every release this slips a little farther away. Things constantly stop working, and it gets harder and harder for the extension makers to keep up.
Oddly, Android is the one place where Firefox is still actually better than Chrome - because it's got a real ad blocker. Sure, it's slow and crashes all the time, but it's a worthwhile tradeoff.
But at least there's Pocket! Oh yay.
Mozilla is too busy trying to be an inferior version of Google as evidenced in their attempts to convert Firefox into an inferior version of Chrome.
Mozilla lost its philosophy and soul during that period when it was subsidized by Google, and that's when everything started turning to shit for the company.
As far as wasting money on diversity programs and social justice instead of improving its products, well the latest financial report that emphasizes ruin talks for itself.
Forget about Mozilla, it's time to give some of the Firefox forks some support and attention. Mozilla has been corrupted by Google and its philosophy.
The entire browser is going to be hidden under one giant hamburger button. No menus, no URL bar, no scroll bars, hell no rendering window. Just one giant hamburger button that crashes the browser when you click it.
You heard it here first, folks.
...specifically since January 8, 2008, working to be as irrelevant, feckless, and misguided as they are now. The only positive and notable thing they've done for the web in that time is Let's Encrypt.
Two versions of Firefox from now, they will jettison what made their browser great: the extensions. Mozilla needs a radical change in direction to save itself.
Microsoft was punished because of the way it abused it's position and power in the market place. Linux is *chosen* by companies because of it's qualities (technical and otherwise), Linus doesn't go around twisting companies' arms.
I really don't see who you would punish and how.
why not aim for a secure browser audience...
Ditch SSL Certificate authorities unless users trusted them and verify the DNS responses (DNSsec) present that information to the user
we need to stage a coup against Mozilla
Seems like a lot of effort.
Wouldn't be simpler to make your own browser? You can show everyone how it should be done and, because your browser is so good, you'll quickly gain the majority of browser market share. You'll rake in hundreds of millions of dollars in search engine deals. All other browser makers will fear you. Also, chicks will dig you.
So why not do that?
Mozilla reminds me of people who profess a desire for world peace, but then get into petty feuds with their neighbors. They can't seem put what they advocate into practice on a small scale, which tends to undermine confidence in their capacity to advocate and execute their larger mission.
Mozilla has one project that really matters, and they employ a lot of people. Why Firefox isn't hands-down the world's best browser is beyond me.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Instead when you use a word like "guys", you get blocked. I'm just stupified by the bullying behavior of Mozilla's employees: https://mzl.la/2gu5521
Lol, that thread is freaking great. A contributor asked about the status on a two year old feature request and makes the mistake of using "guys" when referring to a collective group and get three responses about his use of "gendered language" and his responses marked as abusive and off-topic. And the icing on the cake is that guys is considered non-gendered by both Mirriam-Webster and Oxforddictionaries. As for the feature request itself, still in an unknown status. Honestly if that is how they react to every perceived slight, I can see why Firefox is struggling.
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the (supposed) good of its victims may be the most oppressive