Mozilla Announces Layoffs, Renews Focus on Firefox
Mozilla Announces Layoffs, Renews Focus on Firefox
Mozilla, makers of the Firefox web browser, is the latest tech company to announce layoffs. The non-profit says it is scaling back development on a number
Having a separate, open source JavaScript engine is in everyone’s interests even if they don’t know what they’d lose without the Mozilla Foundation and Firefox. I’m a web developer and Mozilla has protected the open web for all of us and if people understood what they’ve done, they’d all donate.
Google and Microsoft cannot and should not control standards. Mozilla is the conscience of the industry. Support it or you won’t know what you lost.
I was donating until I got an email telling me to donate more signed by their CEO or something who earns a couple hundred thousand a year.
Mind, I wasn't opted into communcation like that. Only updates and news this was neither. If their new CEO cleans house and refocuses as they said they will, I will consider renewing my donations again.
She earned 7 million and then asked for 3.5 million in donations iirc.
Support it or you won’t know what you lost.
Note that the best way to support it is to actually use its products, Firefox in particular. That's what gives Mozilla the ability to influence the direction of the web and web standards.
They actually have money in the bank, they just aren't profitable on their own in any way, and rely on search partnerships for yearly funds. I think they are just being responsible here and cutting people who aren't working on relevant projects going forward.
I’m not saying they are the right size. Just that if we lose Mozilla and Firefox, it’ll be almost as bad as losing Wikimedia for certain things. We need to protect the open web.
The problem is that the vast majority of end users prefer apps over websites. They have no clue whatsoever that 99% of all apps are essentially just wrapped websites.
Since Mozilla has been unable to find a viable business model (No, relying on Google handouts is not a viable business model) I fear that there is only one possible future and a free web is not part of it.
This is the only realistic answer. Corporations have effectively decided that the future of the web is closed source proprietary javascript bloatware apps that are all functional skinner boxes. Many people, especially young people, have no clue how to use an actual computer. It's "click the bubble to make it pop and give us your mom's credit card number to unlock super premium bubbles." That's the future of the internet. But probably worse.
@mindlight @ShittyBeatlesFCPres When they took away SSB's (aka PWA) in Firefox 86 and utterly refused to reconsider, that was the end for me. Idiots
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Mozilla (the foundation) is still involved with Firefox, so chance that your donation won't go toward maintaining the engine. https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/what-we-do/
Mozilla (the company) manages Firefox and doesn't seem to accept donation. They do accept manpower contribution: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Contribute
Yeah, employing this many employees, the donations would not cover it and you can hardly guarantee a stable job position. It might take just one scandal (whether it's true or not) for everyone to stop donating.
The Mozilla Foundation uses donation money rather for political activism and they've also often distributed money to important open-source projects which are too small to collect donations.
They get 500M every year from Google and keep focusing on random bullshit instead of Firefox. Plus, the money you donate in no way is guaranteed to go to Firefox.
There's no way I'm donating money to an org like that. I use Firefox because it's the only alternative, but honestly, I hope Mozilla dies and is reborn as a Firefox non-profit. One singular focus: browsers. Only then will I donate.
But Google won't let them die. They need an excuse should they ever be accused of web domination. "What do you mean domination? We give half a billion a year to at least one competitor out there. What else are we supposed to do?".
In a memo sent to employees Mozilla says it wants to bring “trustworthy AI into Firefox”. To help it do this sooner it’s merging its Pocket, content, and AI/Ml teams.
Yeah, I'm not sure this is the "renewed focus" we're looking for, chief
Hmm. Yeah might be a big mistake if they add more bloat.
Absolutely. I suppose the AI stuff could be disabled in config but it would still be more dead weight to download with every update, like Pocket and the other shit they built into the browser.
Despite Firefox’s declining marketshare on desktop the browser is in use health. It’s fast and feature enough to hold its own against its rivals
Huh?
"is in good health"? I was looking for autocorrect typos but can't figure out anything likely, unless they're not using querty.
Yeah that's badly written, but Firefox is actually gaining de desktop marketshare now!
(According to gs.statcounter.com)
The problem with stats like these are that Firefox users (and the browser's defaults) block a lot of the scripts and images used for tracking.
Cloudflare's stats show higher Firefox usage (4.737% for 2023 Q3), although that's still less than even Edge. My own logs show more still, although my visitors are more technical than usual.
"trustworthy AI"
Why? Why can't we have even a single decent browser? Servo is my last hope.
I'd never heard of Servo before this, but judging from the website it's nowhere near a GUI offering. The work they're doing on the engine looks solid (to me as not-a-developer) but it's a telltale sign that there are no UI screenshots on their landing page. So, not an alternative to Firefox yet.
Because, as pointed in the page, Servo is being developed as a(n embeddable) Rendering Engine, not as a full blown end user Browser.
Its alternatives are not Chrome, Safari or Firefox, but Webkit, Blink and GeckoThere's an example GUI called Servoshell, but it is more of a testing ground and example on how to embed the engine in an app than a serious alternative to anything currently in the market.
Already this kind of work is difficult and daunting. Adding to it a full GUI would make it completely impossible for the current size and financial backing Servo has.
Big words aside it just means that Servo wants to be only one of the parts that compose a real browser: the one that takes HTML, Javascript, WASM and translates them into the things you see on your monitor. All the user facing functionality are left to the devs of the app that embed it.
Obviously not. Building a modern browser engine from scratch is an immense undertaking, so it's definitely possible that it will never be usable as a replacement for every day webbrowsing. But for now I won't give up hope :)
I want them to make an untrustworthy AI so that I can post funny conversations online for internet clout.
Would probably be more useful.
Yes, focus on your main thing. It's the thing that makes you matter. I want your browser to stay competitive.
The actual news is "renews focus on AI bullshit".
I want an API to control firefox with ny own text gen open source AI. Locally and offline.
In a memo sent to employees Mozilla says it wants to bring “trustworthy AI into Firefox”. To help it do this sooner it’s merging its Pocket, content, and AI/Ml teams.
That's pretty concerning. It could go either way but I assume they are going to try to shove more sponsored content in an effort to further monetize Firefox in spite of getting hundreds of millions of dollars a year in donations. Maybe I'm just cynical about Mozilla though.
Yes, the change of focus is good news overall but there’s still reasons to be concerned about Mozilla. It’s good that they are moving focus back to Firefox from struggling ancillary projects.
But what they want to do with that additional focus could be a problem. Another round of gimmicks with some newer buzzwords isn’t likely to help Firefox.
And this only just after they enabled a whole raft of add-ons in their mobile browser that have already stripped away so much shit from my daily browsing experience.
I switched last year when Google entered their new phase of ad tracker evil and I bet I wasn't the only one. Feels to me like Firefox fucked with the money and they're being brought to heel.
Cool, I'm liking this new Mozilla already! ...NOT!!!
Why? Isn't it good that Mozilla is focusing on Firefox instead of a host of random shit?
In a memo sent to employees Mozilla says it wants to bring “trustworthy AI into Firefox”. To help it do this sooner it’s merging its Pocket, content, and AI/Ml teams.
Eww.
I’ll need to switch browsers soon. I do not want AI crap.
Edit - There is also the reduction in their privacy services (VPN, Relay etc.). This could be the start of a trend in that direction too. Only time will tell.
Worry not. I'm sure Tor Browseeu and lots of other Firefox derivatives will simply strip out the AI bits
Yeah, thankfully.
When they say ai, I think they mean stuff like the tra elation feature in Firefox, not those stupid obnoxious ai sidebars
Use librewolf
That’s some serious spin there in the title.
I use exclusively Firefox, though as Fennec from f-droid on Android and yet I hate and turn off every stupid thing they've added to the browser. Fuck Pocket with your AI dick Mozilla, just leave me a toggle in about:config to turn it off or I'll find a fork that has none of that shit.
I donate to Signal but would never give money to Mozilla with their priorities. Where's saving a page as pdf on mobile, you fucking cowards? Pocket is not something I'd use and it's not a replacement. You added an elephant-sized regression to promote your shit.
Where’s saving a page as pdf on mobile
Menu -> Print -> Save as PDF
ALSO: Menu -> Share Icon -> Save PDF
One method is built-in, the other uses the system's PDF saver. You have the choice on which to use.
Damn, when did they add the print function in android. I remember when you couldn't print a year ago.
I found it, it was added at the end of last year Firefox for Android ver 118. I can finally disable chrome on android.
I donate to Signal but would never give money to Mozilla with their priorities.
Meanwhile signal is prioritising becoming the western crypto WeChat
Fuck Pocket with your AI dick Mozilla, just leave me a toggle in about:config to turn it off or I'll find a fork that has none of that shit.
I think you might enjoy Librewolf
I think the big thing is for them to get company to actually make money.
They finally woke up
I hope to be optimistic too but I'd hold on to the cheers for a bit still personally