Notices tagged with mozilla
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LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw48a1)'s status on Thursday, 22-Dec-2022 20:42:51 UTC LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} Also, #Vivaldi now has its own #Mastodon instance. I think #Brave Browser had an unofficial instance at one time, and #Mozilla intends to open theirs early in 2023.
I'm still not "there" yet, but I am doing some #PHP stuff. Maybe I'll be able to help make !GNUsocial and #Friendica competitive candidates for $ORGANIZATION deploying their own #Fediverse presence. -
LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw48a1)'s status on Tuesday, 20-Dec-2022 23:19:53 UTC LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-launch-fediverse-instance-social-media-alternative/ [blog mozilla org]
#Mozilla is standing up a Mastodon instance and joining the #Fediverse -
LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw48a1)'s status on Monday, 13-Jun-2022 03:09:44 UTC LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} #Google #Chrome and all other browsers based on #Chromium will get some changes to their extensions API which will reduce the ability of ad-blocking extensions. #Mozilla #Firefox is rejecting that part of the change, so Firefox and other browsers based on their code will retain superior ad-blocking capabilities. -
LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw48a1)'s status on Thursday, 17-Feb-2022 00:48:48 UTC LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} A lot of us are concerned about #Firefox, about #Thunderbird, and about #Mozilla itself. The trouble is, most of the seeds of Moz's current affliction were planted early on, when the #Google search deal was first signed.
They received an unimaginable amount of money, and being good people, they decided to pour it into becoming the Web's advocate and (later on) the Web's privacy advocate.
They built a large organization, with some very high salaries at the top, based on the revenue they received from a single customer. And then that customer launched its own browser, #Chrome, in part because Firefox was going slower than Google desired because so many resources were going into other projects and because Google's plans were not always aligned with what Mozilla believed was best for the Web.
It was always an unsustainable situation, and when things changed due to cooperation being replaced with coopetition, they started a panicked grasping for other revenue sources.
Now, they've cut actual developers, which makes it even more difficult to keep up with Chrome / #Chromium (and the many browsers derived from it). And because they need to find other revenue sources, they keep looking for ad deals ... which runs crosswise with its core users, who want to block ads.
So, yeah, I don't see a way out that leaves them as anything other than a niche product produced by a small team of mostly volunteers.
I do think _personalization_ as a differentiator is going to flop, if they're thinking about color schemes and superhero logos. A big chunk of what people did with XUL (the former technology, and what made it so customizable) was produce ad blockers, script blockers, embedded-media blockers, pop-up blockers, cookie and tracking blockers, proxy tools, and web development tools (webdev toolbars, xml toolbars, json tools, css and xsl tools, sqlite tools). I just don't think that the ability to make your browser look like the Spiderman t-shirt you bought last week is going to win over a lot of people who are using Chrome/Chomium/Edge/Opera/Vivaldi/Brave/Iron.
Now, maybe if they make it the most secure and private browser right out of the box, with ad blocking, script blocking, and so on, plus make it faster than the Chromium family while consuming less RAM and crashing less often, then adding the ability to dress the browser up as Dora the Explorer will total enough advantages to make a difference. -
LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw48a1)'s status on Wednesday, 16-Feb-2022 23:23:30 UTC LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} https://www.wired.com/story/firefox-mozilla-2022/
Yeah, a lot of us are concerned about #Firefox, and about #Mozilla in general. -
LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw48a1)'s status on Sunday, 09-May-2021 03:56:36 UTC LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} Also: #Chromium based browser #Brave disables #Google’s #FLoC https://brave.com/why-brave-disable-floc/ [brave com]
https://nu.federati.net/url/281049 [www theverge com] notes that #Mozilla #Firefox currently has no plans to implement #FLoC and that #DuckDuckGo is already working to block FLoC.
#Microsoft #Edge and #Apple #Safari issued somewhat evasive answers, but it is expected that Apple will be 100% no on FLoC. -
LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw48a1)'s status on Saturday, 21-Nov-2020 21:27:05 UTC LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} https://nitro.horse/@andreas/105249830532698872
"Sponsored sites" in the #Firefox 83 URL bar? No, #Mozilla, just no. -
LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw48a1)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Nov-2020 17:06:00 UTC LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} We wondered how #Mozilla’s layoffs would affect #Servo, the next-gen browser engine code for #Firefox. Answer: the Linux Foundation is taking over Servo development https://phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-Foundation-Servo [phoronix com] -
LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw48a1)'s status on Saturday, 31-Oct-2020 16:24:33 UTC LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} From August.
#Mozilla and #Google renew $400M search deal for three years. https://www.zdnet.com/article/sources-mozilla-extends-its-google-search-deal/ [www zdnet com] -
LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw48a1)'s status on Thursday, 24-Sep-2020 01:51:13 UTC LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} http://calpaterson.com/mozilla.html
Starts with a comparison of #Firefox market share and the pay of #Mozilla's top executive
I did not search for it, but around the time they laid off 1/4 of their workforce, I thought I saw something about some pay reductions for their top management.
https://www.jwz.org/blog/2020/09/this-is-a-pretty-dire-assessment-of-mozilla/
My personal assessment is this: as the browser started picking up share, they also picked up a patron (Google) that seemed to provide unlimited funding. It was during this period that all the "privacy NGO" ideas started, because they had more than enough money for their main projects and decided they'd spend the rest "doing good".
I can't fault them for that. But I do think that Mozilla's current state is pretty closely related to having "grown up" with unlimited money to spend on tangentially related projects.
At some point, Google decided that their interests were better served with an owned-and-controlled browser, and the rest is history.
There's always the hope that Mozilla will open up more Firefox and #Thunderbird development to non-paid programmers and start asking its users to optionally contribute financially. This could help, but there still needs to be a soul-searching that asks whether they are a group that develops a browser and a mail client or some sort of generic web and privacy advocacy group that just happens to develop those applications.
Those are two different roads, and with a much more constrained income stream, they can't be both at once any more. -
LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw48a1)'s status on Thursday, 24-Sep-2020 01:27:38 UTC LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} Just reading an article about #Mozilla's out-of-control administration costs and see some grumbles about #Wikimedia / #Wikipedia there also. http://calpaterson.com/mozilla.html -
LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw48a1)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Aug-2020 04:21:42 UTC LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} The thought occurs to me that with #Mozilla laying off about 1/4 of its workforce, they may not be able to keep https://ssl-config-mozilla.org/ updated. That would be a tragedy. -
LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw48a1)'s status on Thursday, 20-Aug-2020 20:59:45 UTC LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} Why #Mozilla removed #XUL add-ons from #Firefox https://yoric.github.io/post/why-did-mozilla-remove-xul-addons/ -
LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw48a1)'s status on Tuesday, 11-Aug-2020 20:43:43 UTC LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} When I write these things, I’m not trying to condemn #Mozilla. Once their primary funder also became their primary competitor, the handwriting was on the wall.
Unless a new fiscal beneficiary suddenly appears or one of these money-making products catches on, their future is bleak. Probably the last hope is to make Firefox code understandable enough that the user community can take over maintenance and keep the browser going. -
LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw48a1)'s status on Tuesday, 11-Aug-2020 20:40:20 UTC LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} The decisions that #Mozilla made in their search for more money have not made things better, either. They integrated #Pocket into Firefox and eventually purchased Pocket, but privacy-aware people have always considered Pocket and similar software to be dangerous. Thus, “use Firefox, the privacy-oriented browser” becomes “avoid Firefox unless you turn off their data-collection and Pocket” ... and its refusal to integrate ad-blocking leads to Brave and similar browsers’ ability to brag about their integrated ad-blocking, despite their own privacy flaws. (They did recently turn on enhanced tracking-blocking, but they’re behind the Apple and some others on this.) -
LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw48a1)'s status on Tuesday, 11-Aug-2020 20:39:35 UTC LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} I think I’ve written this before, but back in their heyday, #Mozilla was flying high, driven by the funds coming from its search deal with #Google. When the GOOG started to cut back and then launched a competing browser, Moz panicked (rightly) because all the high-sounding promises they made were predicated on this huge level of funding that went away.
Now that #Firefox holds a small sliver of its former market share, and nearly all of its competitors build upon Google’s code (which forked from Apple’s code, which itself was forked from KDE’s code), the going is rough and getting rougher. -
LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw48a1)'s status on Tuesday, 11-Aug-2020 20:30:20 UTC LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} Looks like #Mozilla is in some trouble. Laid off 1/4 of its workforce—250 people—and is going to focus on revenue-generating projects. https://nu.federati.net/url/273858 [www theverge com] -
LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw48a1)'s status on Wednesday, 29-Jan-2020 21:17:48 UTC LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} @geniusmusing@nu.federati.net I guess one more possible funding source is creating customized mail clients atop the FOSS version of #Thunderbird, but after the way they failed with #Eudora, I doubt anyone would trust #Mozilla to invest the resources to make such a thing viable. -
ClaudioM (claudiom)'s status on Sunday, 08-Sep-2019 20:12:32 UTC ClaudioM #Firefox will encrypt web domain name requests by default. #dnsoverhttps #mozilla
https://www.engadget.com/2019/09/07/firefox-dns-over-https-by-default/?guccounter=1
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LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw48a1)'s status on Friday, 06-Sep-2019 16:13:27 UTC LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} @kai @brandon I heard that #Mozilla bought #Pocket after they built it into #Firefox.