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Firefox is fine. The people running it are not

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  • For clarity, Mozilla isn't one thing. There's Mozilla Corporation (profit) and the Mozilla Foundation (nonprofit). Firefox is a product of Mozilla Corporation. And yes, the need to make a profit is a bug not a feature.

    and it’s incredibly shit that you can’t donate to firefox… people donate to mozilla assuming they’re donating to firefox but none of the donations go towards firefox development

    i emailed them about this a while ago… i can’t remember exactly what i said, but basically that i didn’t want to donate to adtech and ai slop but wanted to support firefox development… this is their reply

    Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback with us. We genuinely value hearing from our supporters, as your insights help us understand what matters most to the Mozilla community.

    It’s important to note that the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation are two separate entities within the Mozilla umbrella - Mozilla Corporation is responsible for developing and maintaining Firefox and other software products, and they are continuously working on improving the user experience, including addressing compatibility issues and promoting the browser to a wider audience.

    The Mozilla Foundation, on the other hand, focuses on broader internet health and advocacy work. Our mission is to ensure the internet remains open and accessible for everyone, and this includes issues related to privacy, digital rights, and equity. To confirm, the survey that you had received was from the Mozilla Foundation.

    With that being said, Firefox is funded by revenue generated through the product rather than donations. At the moment, there is no way for supporters to make a donation that will be designated to the development of Firefox. Have no fear, things are looking good for Firefox's future and they plan to be around a long time, supporting folks with the most secure browser experience! Continuing to use Firefox, and recommending it to others, is the best way to support this project.

    We truly appreciate your concerns about Firefox and their top priorities - We on the Mozilla Foundation strongly believe that issues such as privacy, online safety, and data security are connected to the products and services we all use every day. The work we do in these areas complements Mozilla Corporation’s focus on building better, more secure software like Firefox, and w encourage you to participate in our survey!

    If you would like to input some of your thoughts and ideas into our Ideas discussion forum regarding Firefox and other Mozilla products, please visit: https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/idb-p/ideas

    We thank you again for reaching out to our Mozilla Foundation Donor Care team, and please let us know if we can support your further!

    All the best,

    <redacted their name>
    Donor Care Team

    Mozilla Foundation https://foundation.mozilla.org/

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    So what do we do ? Go to Chromium & expand it's monopoly ?

    FF forks like LibreWolf, IronFox, WaterFox etc...
    have to become their own thing via Servo, at least until we get LadyBird.

    There's Seamonkey as well; which is an entire suite of apps bundled with a browser (Email, RSS, IRC etc..)

  • I just moved back to ff in November, because of ubo. I have to move again? Where to?

    Did you read the article? It says Firefox is the best choice you have, and all of the criticism is directed at the organization's leadership.

  • I can't keep browser hopping. I want to stay with firefox. Please don't get worse!

    The article says you should stick with Firefox. If you have time, I'd recommend reading the entire article!

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    Sadly I am running into more and more things that don't work on firefox. Stuff like medical record portals, financial websites for my companies retirement plan. Stuff I have little choice about. And most fail silently. They don't say it is the browser. I don't know how they are doing it, but google is winning the fight.

  • Under semantic versioning everything after vista has been in essence a new version of vista.

    okay but using that logic everything running linux kernel v5 is the same… fedora, ubuntu, rhel are in essence just a reskin of slackware

    an OS is not semantically versioned as a whole because an OS is more than just the kernel

    I mean they are all literally the same operating system yah! They all use the same kernel APIs.

    The logical conclusion is that from an operating system they are all basicly the same.

    The main difference is the user space. The package management and defaults.

    Look at Debian GNU/kFreeBSD it’s a whole different operating system with the Debian user space. It’s cool stuff and really highlights the difference between operating system and user space.

  • I mean they are all literally the same operating system yah! They all use the same kernel APIs.

    The logical conclusion is that from an operating system they are all basicly the same.

    The main difference is the user space. The package management and defaults.

    Look at Debian GNU/kFreeBSD it’s a whole different operating system with the Debian user space. It’s cool stuff and really highlights the difference between operating system and user space.

    an operating system is far more than just the kernel

    there are few people who would say that android is the same operating system as ubuntu

  • an operating system is far more than just the kernel

    there are few people who would say that android is the same operating system as ubuntu

    But it literally is the same. The only difference is the user space. Debian GNU/kFreeBSD shows this. Different operating system same user space.

    Take a look at Wikipedia for more info.

    An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
    Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also include accounting software for cost allocation of processor time, mass storage, peripherals, and other resources.

  • Companies should be allowed to make a profit, you need that to cover bad years, invest in the future of the company, etc. A company without profit (unless it is a non-profit) will not survive.

    And what share of the profit should go right in executives pockets? How many employees should be laid off to increase this profit? Is 6 million $/yr enough for a CEO to feed their fucking family?

  • Sadly I am running into more and more things that don't work on firefox. Stuff like medical record portals, financial websites for my companies retirement plan. Stuff I have little choice about. And most fail silently. They don't say it is the browser. I don't know how they are doing it, but google is winning the fight.

    When I asked a couple of developers who work on websites/webapps with a lot of moving parts, they said it was easiest to just test for chrome, since that's what most people use.

    It's turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

  • But it literally is the same. The only difference is the user space. Debian GNU/kFreeBSD shows this. Different operating system same user space.

    Take a look at Wikipedia for more info.

    An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
    Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also include accounting software for cost allocation of processor time, mass storage, peripherals, and other resources.

    an operating system is comprised of the kernel, as well as system libraries and system utilities… user space is irrelevant to the classification of what is and isn’t an operating system: the concept of user space doesn’t even exist in some operating systems

    the concept of a kernel isn’t even useful to define operating systems… look at things like ROS for example

  • So what do we do ? Go to Chromium & expand it's monopoly ?

    FF forks like LibreWolf, IronFox, WaterFox etc...
    have to become their own thing via Servo, at least until we get LadyBird.

    There's Seamonkey as well; which is an entire suite of apps bundled with a browser (Email, RSS, IRC etc..)

    I used basilisk for a short while. Very minimal browser, indeed.

    But it's chromium, so you do you. I personally favour anything that doesn't bloat me. Early on I used opera back on a j2me device, there was also a browser with a nice data saving feature, I had access to all cricket news and cricket sport teams because it was heaviliy featured there, there was a squirrel as a logo but it's all I remember.

    Edit it was ucbrowser

  • I don't understand how you can't.

    In a business setting, it's called "professionalism", and in a personal setting it's called being a nice person. Most of my family is against gay marriage and don't believe in gender fluidity, yet when my sister in law said her child is non-binary and would like to be referred to with they/then, they complied. Why? Believing those things doesn't mean you hate LGBT people, it just means you disagree about policy. They love my sister in law and her kids, so they'll do what they can to help them feel comfortable around them and want to participate in family gatherings.

    I personally believe strongly that marriage should be available to all consenting adults, but I also believe gay marriage goes against God's plan. Why? I believe everyone has the right to make their own choices and whether that's acceptable to God isn't my business. Maybe I'm misreading things, IDK, but my personal religious beliefs only guide my personal decisions and I believe I am supposed to love everyone regardless of their lifestyle. Whether someone else is sinning isn't really my business, nor should it impact my love for them. And maybe they're not sinning, again, IDK, it's not my business.

    I support same sex marriage (my church doesn't) because I believe in freedom of choice, and that policy merely increases options for others and doesn't decrease mine. Likewise for most LGBT policies, like bathroom use or gender change on IDs, you do you. We had an LGBT candidate at work (pretty obviously trans), and I was happily surprised that wasn't an issue for my very conservative coworker during the interview (they're an observant Muslim with conservative social views), and I went out of my way to make sure we both corrected for any subconscious bias we might have.

    I don't know Brendan Eich, maybe he's actually a terrible person, idk. What I do know is he had a long career at Mozilla (nearly 20 years), and there were no public complaints about him until he was chosen as CEO. From all accounts, people were only mad about his $1k donation to prop 8, not about his conduct at work or anything of that nature. The board even asked him to stay in another capacity, but he left because he loved Mozilla and obviously he wasn't able to be an effective leader if his presence encouraged people to recommend against using Firefox and other Mozilla products.

    To me, it's a crazy overreaction, he donated a pretty modest amount one time, six years prior, and had no complaints during his position as CTO. He absolutely got brigaded because someone decided to dig up donation records. If they didn't, he probably would've been a successful CEO and refocused on the tech, instead of whatever nonsense the follow-up CEOs have been doing.

    I disagree with Eich's political views, but also think he was the best person for the CEO role. He seemed like a competent professional, and he was certainly technically competent given his long technical career at Mozilla.

    I also believe gay marriage goes against God’s plan

    I support same sex marriage (my church doesn’t) because I believe in freedom of choice

    I applaud you for supporting same-sex marriage, but - apologies if this sounds like I'm picking on you, I'm really not - this is like someone who claims to be a young-earth creationist but agrees that radiocarbon dating is accurate. I don't understand how these mutually-exclusive thoughts can happily coexist in your mind. I wish we could discuss this over a drink because I'm very intrigued by whatever epistemic process led you there.

  • When I asked a couple of developers who work on websites/webapps with a lot of moving parts, they said it was easiest to just test for chrome, since that's what most people use.

    It's turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

    It's so damn stupid. If your site works meaningfully differently in Firefox vs Chromium, you're already doing something very, very wrong.

  • an operating system is comprised of the kernel, as well as system libraries and system utilities… user space is irrelevant to the classification of what is and isn’t an operating system: the concept of user space doesn’t even exist in some operating systems

    the concept of a kernel isn’t even useful to define operating systems… look at things like ROS for example

    If you define it that way you are right. Yah. But the common understanding is a bit different than yours.

    Really great read.

    I urge you to take a look at https://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/ It’s the exact same utilities and everything but a completely different kernel. It really highlights the difference here. How would your definition account for this?

    Would Debian GNU/kFreeBSD be 50% Linux, 50% FreeBSD under your definition even though it has no Linux code? It has all the system libraries and system utilities that you associate with Linux.

  • If you define it that way you are right. Yah. But the common understanding is a bit different than yours.

    Really great read.

    I urge you to take a look at https://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/ It’s the exact same utilities and everything but a completely different kernel. It really highlights the difference here. How would your definition account for this?

    Would Debian GNU/kFreeBSD be 50% Linux, 50% FreeBSD under your definition even though it has no Linux code? It has all the system libraries and system utilities that you associate with Linux.

    But the common understanding is a bit different than yours.

    the common understanding is that android is a different operating system to ubuntu, and macos is a different operating system to openbsd

    Would Debian GNU/kFreeBSD be 50% Linux, 50% FreeBSD under your definition even though it has no Linux code?

    it is what it is: a completely different thing… BSD system tools with a linux kernel

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    Firefox still hasn't fixed Bug 1938998 despite me reporting it multiple times. There's a reason why Firefox is almost non existent on mobile. I've been using the internet for 26 years, and have used Mozilla based browsers since 2001, I want them to survive to the next era of the internet, but they are struggling to keep up. Opera and Edge already gave up their engines, Webkit and Blink are basically the same engine with different standards enabled, and Firefox is under 2% on some days on Statcounter. I feel that soon AI based browsers using their own AI-engine will probably take over the internet soon anyway.

  • Did you read the article? It says Firefox is the best choice you have, and all of the criticism is directed at the organization's leadership.

    … leadership impacts the product. Ff might be the best choice rn, but leadership will fuck it up.

  • But the common understanding is a bit different than yours.

    the common understanding is that android is a different operating system to ubuntu, and macos is a different operating system to openbsd

    Would Debian GNU/kFreeBSD be 50% Linux, 50% FreeBSD under your definition even though it has no Linux code?

    it is what it is: a completely different thing… BSD system tools with a linux kernel

    You’re gunna do you and use your own definitions and I respect that. But the first line from the page is

    Debian GNU/kFreeBSD is a port that consists of GNU userland using the GNU C library on top of FreeBSD's kernel, coupled with the regular Debian package set.

    It is literally GNU userland using the GNU C library on top of FreeBSD's kernel, coupled with the regular Debian package set

    You can say Debian GNU/kFreeBSD is BSD system tools with a Linux kernel but you would be evidently and clearly wrong.

    Anyways. I wish you well. Best of luck.

  • You’re gunna do you and use your own definitions and I respect that. But the first line from the page is

    Debian GNU/kFreeBSD is a port that consists of GNU userland using the GNU C library on top of FreeBSD's kernel, coupled with the regular Debian package set.

    It is literally GNU userland using the GNU C library on top of FreeBSD's kernel, coupled with the regular Debian package set

    You can say Debian GNU/kFreeBSD is BSD system tools with a Linux kernel but you would be evidently and clearly wrong.

    Anyways. I wish you well. Best of luck.

    okay, sorry i got the kernel and system tools mixed up in my head after reading it. that proves nothing other than the fact that you’re looking for a gotcha rather than a serious discussion

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    What I'm speaking about is that it should be impossible to do some things. If it's possible, they will be done, and there's nothing you can do about it. To solve the problem of twiddled social media (and moderation used to assert dominance) we need a decentralized system of 90s Web reimagined, and Fediverse doesn't deliver it - if Facebook and Reddit are feudal states, then Fediverse is a confederation of smaller feudal entities. A post, a person, a community, a reaction and a change (by moderator or by the user) should be global entities (with global identifiers, so that the object by id of #0000001a2b3c4d6e7f890 would be the same object today or 10 years later on every server storing it) replicated over a network of servers similarly to Usenet (and to an IRC network, but in an IRC network servers are trusted, so it's not a good example for a global system). Really bad posts (or those by persons with history of posting such) should be banned on server level by everyone. The rest should be moderated by moderator reactions\changes of certain type. Ideally, for pooling of resources and resilience, servers would be separated by types into storage nodes (I think the name says it, FTP servers can do the job, but no need to be limited by it), index nodes (scraping many storage nodes, giving out results in structured format fit for any user representation, say, as a sequence of posts in one community, or like a list of communities found by tag, or ... , and possibly being connected into one DHT for Kademlia-like search, since no single index node will have everything), and (like in torrents?) tracker nodes for these and for identities, I think torrent-like announce-retrieve service is enough - to return a list of storage nodes storing, say, a specified partition (subspace of identifiers of objects, to make looking for something at least possibly efficient), or return a list of index nodes, or return a bunch of certificates and keys for an identity (should be somehow cryptographically connected to the global identifier of a person). So when a storage node comes online, it announces itself to a bunch of such trackers, similarly with index nodes, similarly with a user. One can also have a NOSTR-like service for real-time notifications by users. This way you'd have a global untrusted pooled infrastructure, allowing to replace many platforms. With common data, identities, services. Objects in storage and index services can be, say, in a format including a set of tags and then the body. So a specific application needing to show only data related to it would just search on index services and display only objects with tags of, say, "holo_ns:talk.bullshit.starwars" and "holo_t:post", like a sequence of posts with ability to comment, or maybe it would search objects with tags "holo_name:My 1999-like Star Wars holopage" and "holo_t:page" and display the links like search results in Google, and then clicking on that you'd see something presented like a webpage, except links would lead to global identifiers (or tag expressions interpreted by the particular application, who knows). (An index service may return, say, an array of objects, each with identifier, tags, list of locations on storage nodes where it's found or even bittorrent magnet links, and a free description possibly ; then the user application can unify responses of a few such services to avoid repetitions, maybe sort them, represent them as needed, so on.) The user applications for that common infrastructure can be different at the same time. Some like Facebook, some like ICQ, some like a web browser, some like a newsreader. (Star Wars is not a random reference, my whole habit of imagining tech stuff is from trying to imagine a science fiction world of the future, so yeah, this may seem like passive dreaming and it is.)
  • Biotech uses fermentation to produce milk proteins without cows

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    Alpro Not Milk comes pretty close for me, oat drink.
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    A real mystery indeed.
  • The Decline of Usability: Revisited | datagubbe.se

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    I blame the idea of the 00s and 10s that there should be some "Zen" in computer UIs and that "Zen" is doing things wrong with the arrogant tone of "you don't understand it". Associated with Steve Jobs, but TBH Google as well. And also another idea of "you dummy talking about ergonomics can't be smarter than this big respectable corporation popping out stylish unusable bullshit". So - pretense of wisdom and taste, under which crowd fashion is masked, almost aggressive preference for authority over people actually having maybe some wisdom and taste due to being interested in that, blind trust into whatever tech authority you chose for yourself, because, if you remember, in the 00s it was still perceived as if all people working in anything connected to computers were as cool as aerospace engineers or naval engineers, some kind of elite, including those making user applications, objective flaw (or upside) of the old normal UIs - they are boring, that's why UIs in video games and in fashionable chat applications (like ICQ and Skype), not talking about video and audio players, were non-standard like always, I think the solution would be in per-application theming, not in breaking paradigms, again, like with ICQ and old Skype and video games, I prefer it when boredom is thought with different applications having different icons and colors, but the UI paradigm remains the same, I think there was a themed IE called LOTR browser which I used (ok, not really, I used Opera) to complement ICQ, QuickTime player and BitComet, all mentioned had standard paradigm and non-standard look.
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    theoretically software support This. And it's not only due to drivers and much more due to them not having insourced software development and their outsourced developers not using Fairphones as their daily drivers.
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    Law enforcement officer
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