[yelloworangefog]

I'm sorry, but cloud based speech recognition in itself would already be a red flag, even if Mozilla was doing it in-house. Outsourcing it to Google though? I feel like a company as ostensibly privacy-focused as Mozilla should really know better by now...

[GaryNumanVevo]

They’re building their own open voice platform. Google speech to text is presumably for testing.

> Note: In the future, we expect to enable Mozilla’s own technology for Speech-to-Text which enables us to stop using Google’s Speech-to-Text engine.

edit: s/texting/testing

[posguy]

Mozilla DeepSpeech is rapidly maturing, but it needs thousands of hours of validated audio data to train each language. Its a feat that with only 2000 hours of audio they can achieve a 5.97% word error rate.

Baidu had 5000 hours of audio data to train their DeepSpeech and DeepSpeech 2 models, meanwhile Google, Microsoft & IBM have people constantly giving them fresh audio to train and validate their models with.

Firefox Voice data should help rapidly expand the Common Voice audio corpus beyond the 1492hrs it currently contains: https://commonvoice.mozilla.org/en/datasets

[krick]

Yeah, Mozilla is not what it used to be. I guess it's just wishful thinking that makes it so easy to forget.

[summitsummit]

hoping they are able to continue their efforts and be more respectful. they are the only company that i am fully lenient with to "allow analytics" in hopes that they are able to improve and compete with the more nefarious competitors.

[Karunamon]

Mozilla and "respectful to their users" are not two sentences that belong in the same ballpark on the same planet in the same galaxy in the same galactic group. Anytime there's a choice between two options, one giving users more control and one stripping it away, they choose the latter.

It's the same kind of utter disdain I see in the GNOME design.

[Traubenfuchs]

All of this with a dying browser. Closest competitor over market share: "Samsung Internet"

- https://www.cnet.com/news/mozilla-backpedals-after-mr-robot-...

- https://venturebeat.com/2015/06/09/mozilla-responds-to-firef...

- https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/09/08/firefox-a...

[lawl]

They just pushed an update on android on me that disabled all addons except uBO because they don't support them yet, a few hours ago.

That was the last straw that broke the camels back for me, after using FF since 1.0. Just rm -rf'd my firefox profile on my desktop a few minutes ago.

I've defended them for a long time even if I didn't agree with everything they did, but they're so completely off the rails, enough is enough. Blink mono-culture it is then.

[Causality1]

The writing's been on the wall for a while now. I call it "The Mozilla Shuffle". Power features start out built into the menu. Then they get pushed to settings. Then they go to a key in about:config. Then you have to make the key yourself. Then they start ignoring the key but there's an extension that puts support back. Then the functionality which runs the extension gets disabled but if you're really determined you can work some magic with userChrome to get it back. Then you have to make keys in about:config to make it take the changes in userChrome. Finally, it's disabled entirely with no way to get back.

But hey, at least these days I get the benefit of having to use two completely separate methods to tell Pocket to get the hell out of my browser.

[setzer22]

Wow, that's extremely accurate! Disabling the tab bar has also went this exact route (when you use a tiling wm with tabs, some people like to disable browser and terminal tabs as it's redundant)

I managed to do it with a combination of two extensions, some about:config flags and userChrome.css some years ago, but it may already be broken by now.

Mozilla keeps trying to get to the mainstream market while ignoring its dedicated users... The only times I got people to switch over to firefox was because things like ublock support on android. Nobody I've talked to has ever been interested in their side products (Pocket, that file transfer thing...), and something tells me this new voice engine is going to go the same route.

OTOH it's nice Mozilla is working on improving their voice dataset (which powers the DeepSpeech model, iirc). And again kind of sad they use Google Cloud while they could have their own version...

[jsmith99]

Disabling the tab bar is pretty easy. I use tree style tabs and they supply a couple of lines of css to paste into userChrome. You can even live debug userChrome using Inspector. The userChrome format did change about a year ago though.

[pbhjpbhj]

They're paid something stupid like 100s of Millions of $USD to direct users to Google, and I understand the CEO was paid by Google (>$1M) though I've not seen good corroboration of that. Bias towards Google is not surprising.

[Causality1]

Frankly it started going downhill when they jumped headfirst into the version number dick-measuring contest with Chrome. They care about pulling in new users, not keeping old ones. Anything to make a news headline and generate clicks and downloads. Some asshat feature one percent of their users will try one time and then never touch again. Disembowling their feature set to make a benchmark run five percent faster so they can make a graph with the biggest bar. Moral grandstanding about Google so a couple tech sites give them a mention.

It makes me so angry. Firefox was the chosen one. It slew the evil giant IE. Then Mr.moneybags Chrome came around and scared Mozilla so shitless they completely forgot why people chose them over IE in the first place. Their solution to every problem is "be more like Chrome while being less like Google".

Newsflash, Mozilla: you really suck at that. Maybe try something else.

[sildur]

> It makes me so angry. Firefox was the chosen one. It slew the evil giant IE. Then Mr.moneybags Chrome came around and scared Mozilla so shitless they completely forgot why people chose them over IE in the first place. Their solution to every problem is "be more like Chrome while being less like Google".

I totally agree. I feel so powerless watching them fail like that... Google annihilated firefox. Moral lesson here: free software can be destroyed. Not by openly fighting it, like Microsoft, but by rotting it from the core, like Google.

[cpeterso]

The new Firefox for Android (aka "Fenix") supports extensions that just uBlock Origin. It supports the following at this time, with more coming soon:

  uBlock Origin
  Dark Reader
  HTTPS Everywhere
  Privacy Badger
  NoScript Security Suite
  Decentraleyes
  Search by Image
  YouTube High Definition
  Privacy Possum

https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/07/28/mozillas-next-gen-f...

[fuzxi]

That's frankly a pathetic list when you consider not only the sum total of available extensions, but the list of Recommended Extensions alone. There's a Github issue for this with one particularly interesting reply: [1]

>Let it be put this way. I have extensions which I can already test while tethered using web-ext. They work. I know they work. But for some reason, Mozilla seems adamantly opposed to letting me test these extensions while not tethered to my computer.

That's from an extension developer who's struggling to test his own extensions.

Based on liuche's comments in that issue, the Fenix team's current stance seems to be, "The latest version disables some of the WebExtension APIs and adds some new ones which may break some extensions, so we're manually testing and approving every extension by ourselves, starting with the Recommended list. Sideloading unapproved extensions will probably never be allowed because of security and performance implications, except maybe on Nightly release."

I'm sure you can guess how well that's going to work out, given that only nine extensions are currently approved after 2+ months.

[1] https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/11308#issueco...

[ptx]

> Sideloading unapproved extensions will probably never be allowed because of security and performance implications

Very wise. They should apply those same principles to the Rust project - the code I write might very well have issues with security and performance, so it would be better if the compiler submitted it to Mozilla and awaited their approval before allowing me (or potentially not allowing me) to produce an executable.

[joecool1029]

>They just pushed an update on android on me that disabled all addons except uBO because they don't support them yet, a few hours ago.

It's worse than you thought. You just got the new Fenix browser they've been working on for some time, it's currently on staged rollout to stable channel. Old stable was Fennec and it's getting killed off. I know this because I've sat in their Matrix dev channel until today. I'm not sure what their priorities are, but it seems to not be focused on user.

While this submission was posted I spent the time filing a report to Mozilla because I brought up 3 specific concerns about this browser and wasn't sure where to file them (Bugzilla, Github issues, or now Jira?). Their Fenix Matrix channel responded by censoring my two messages in full and banning me for 'conspiracy theories'. So much for openness and inclusion. I was gonna save it up for a blog post but screw it, lets do HN, it's in your interest sphere:

First issue: I've been having occasional crashes with Fenix, this was why I was in their channel as I was hoping to get to the bottom of it. I installed it as Firefox Preview and they quietly updated to Nightly. This is sorta expected and fine I guess for beta quality software. The issue is I had all the data reporting stuff turned off. Browser starts crashing, sends a report to Mozilla (shows up briefly in android status bar, disappears). I don't know what it contains and this was highly concerning to me, so I listed this as a first issue as I don't want to be bitten for leaking client data every time the browser crashes. Where, why, and how are these being sent. Was it because I was now on Nightly channel and not Preview? I don't know how else to classify this other than user hostile behavior, in the same range of hostility as installing sponsored experiments without notification.

Second issue: One of the crashes happened while downloading. Every time I reopened the browser it'd re-initiate the download and crash again. Fenix doesn't have a working download manager other than to tell it to initially download. Sucks for you if you need to pause or view what was downloaded, there's no controls implemented. I expressed that this is likely to be a denial-of-service vector as I had to wipe the app's data to even use it again. It's also risky to users on metered service if it's continually pulling data attempting to re-initiate.

Third issue: for between 5 years (for Fenix) and 7 years (for Fennic) users have open bugs requesting pdfjs integration with mobile. Ability to inline pdf's in the browser has been a safari mobile feature since at least iOS 4 and possibly before, to the best of my knowledge it's always been a feature of Chrome. Desktop's pdfjs just got a promotion to first-class citizen last release. Someone wrote an extension to make the mobile browsers use it. Can't do that on Fenix anymore though, not because of a compatibility issue but rather because Mozilla won't allow outside addons anymore in Fenix without their blessing even if it's to use a product they've developed. Only way to override is build the browser yourself. Again, user hostile. If they don't want to add their own product, let us use an extension that adds it for us.

Finally regarding culture: I've been a part of IRC communities for a better part of a quarter century. I've also done HN for a few years now. I've gotten heated a few times in different communities, and been kicked or asked to leave. Forums I've had to remove content that was maybe a bit hotheaded. My interaction with Mozilla was literally the first time I've ever been censored and removed without a single word given in rebuttal. One of the things I love about HN is moderation knows when to step in and mods like Dan treat you like a human when those times occur. I can casually gripe some times about HN's preferences on topics, but the site works overall pretty well. The message I got from Mozilla is 'bot removed'. Here's their guidelines, they don't follow them (but I do, to be transparent I have this issue in their pipeline): https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/part...

To contrast, I've had to issue bugs to Chromium for browser issues and got nothing but decent things to say about their dev community there: You go to crbug.com and file an issue. I've had brief convos with some of their devs in Freenode IRC over some of the more buggy roll-outs (Aura was pretty crashy in the early days) and I guess the only thing you could say is they aren't very chatty. I'm concerned of course about Chrome eating the world but that's how it is. At least I understand Google's motivations. I don't understand Mozilla's anymore, they survive on Google money and are facing a continual bleed of users. Stuff like my first issue above is pretty major from user trust/legal liability standpoint and I don't appreciate being labeled a conspiracy theorist and censored for bringing up the behavior.

[adito]

That's first time I heard that, not to mean that I didn't believe you, but what's the exact text you sent that is made them censor and banned you?

[joecool1029]

Screenshot of the text I sent: https://ibb.co/X5LB4qp

[nl8ghddbnw]

Issue 1: "Some fields, such as "URL" and "Email Address", are privacy-sensitive and are only visible to users with minidump access."[1] - So yes, you should not send crash reports when you are dealing with sensitive data.

Issue 2: That is unfortunate and should be fixed.

Issue 3: The issue for Fenix is not 5 years old, it is now one year old, see [2].

Regarding your ban:

- "I will not apologize for being spicy about these things"

- "It is a fact that you've made it intentionally difficult to use your own product to replicate functionality present in most browsers"

-> See the Mozilla Participation Guidelines - "Be respectful in all interactions and communications, especially when debating the merits of different options." [3] I guess you could have phrased things differently. I will not judge if this is "enough" to ban you, but I do also not know what you were posting before this specific comment, you mention additional comments.

Sources:

[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Projects/Cr...

[2] https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/4337

[3] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/part...

[jasonlotito]

I mean, that’s the last text you sent. There was clearly other text you sent that was baseless speculation. There was history there you’ve not shown. Pretending as if this is the only text that mattered is dishonest.

I can see why they “banned” if you can’t even be honest to third parties.

[shock]

Kiwi Browser on Android supports Chrome extensions. After pushing the Firefox update that disabled my extensions, some of which I use when I buy groceries for recipes (Tap Translate), I am abandoning Mozilla too :(

Makes me sad after using Firefox for as long as I can remember, recommending it to people constantly and insisting that companies I worked at test in Firefox too, but I no longer trust Mozilla to do what's best for me.

[michaelmrose]

I'm guessing you are using the beta or nightly channel. Am I correct?

[lawl]

No, stable. Oh, and they decided about:config is off-limits too for stable users.

[michaelmrose]

I have both installed on this phone and that does not appear to be the case

[lawl]

Then you probably haven't been updated yet on stable. You can check r/firefox and everyone else there reports the same thing.

[rbflx]

Maybe they're only rolling it out for some users. I got it too and it was updated through some kind of internal update manager, not through the app store. Deleted my browsing history as well.

[sp332]

Nightly has been this way for quite a while now.

[michaelmrose]

Nightly for android is in the middle of some internal changes. Full add-on compatibility with post quantum add-ons will presumably return.

[kyawzazaw]

So what do you use now?

[shock]

Not OP, but Kiwi Browser supports Chrome extensions.

[rapnie]

What browser are you going to use now? Any tips?

[lawl]

Switched over to Brave, as they have extensions on mobile cooking with POC videos on twitter. Hopefully they can accelerate it a bit. I think the HN crowd doesn't like brave though, idk, I do. IMO a lot of shit they get flak for are people not actually understanding. Like no, they don't replace ads on websites without their consent, or at least that's what they say.

[tialaramex]

So, because Firefox on your phone doesn't have X, you deleted it everywhere and installed a browser that... also doesn't have X?

FWIW This is one of the symmetries when we have to do policy shifts like TLS 1.0 deprecation. Even though every major browser will implement the policy and has announced that, some fraction of users will feel "betrayed" and switch from one browser implementing the policy to another browser also implementing the policy.

It's worse if you have defectors (e.g. back when Microsoft had Internet Explorer you could rely on IE being last to actually implement even if it had previously announced a timeline right in the middle of the ballpark, customers would push back and somewhere a Microsoft exec decides that hey, making a customer happy is more important than security) but it happens even for a more or less simultaneous policy change.

Guaranteed some CAs will lose customers over Apple's 398 day certificate expiry policy, even though it affects every CA equally at the same moment.

[lawl]

> So, because Firefox on your phone doesn't have X, you deleted it everywhere and installed a browser that... also doesn't have X?

No, because Firefox on my phone has removed X, I'm switchting to a browser that's getting X, and where the time-line isn't "we dunno lul". Maybe Brave doesn't hit their timeline, but Mozilla doesn't have one and I have no idea when my stuff will start working again. Until Brave Mobile has extension support I've downgraded my FF on mobile to the EOL version.

But as I said, it was the last straw that broke the camels back, I do not consider Mozilla to be trustworthy anymore, and this was just the latest in a series of issues.

I don't see how this is in any way similar to TLS 1.0 deprecation, because sites should have upgraded. There's nothing extension authors could have done. This is fully Mozilla dropping the ball (once again).

[neop1x]

I feel it the same way. If they had FOSS speech to text available, then why not. But oterwise, why? For me, this voice thing is totally useless. Instead of adding it or developing new STT, they could have spend time on other innovative things. I am a big fan of Mozilla and daily user, I am still very thankful for more open and privacy friendly ecosystem it offers but implementing voice on top of Google and presenting it as a big feature looks strange to me.

[0xy]

The company that greenlit Cliqz integration surprises you when they spit on the privacy of their users?