[martinald]

Deary me. There is literally not one mention of any concrete product development or launch that I can see in that post.

This reinforces my view that Mozilla doesn't really see itself as an actual product company. It seems to see itself as some sort of quasi NGO focussed on the internet. Which is sort of fine, but I feel they would influence much more of the web with better more popular products rather than policy discussions.

Firefox is so unpopular these days it seems that I am genuinely surprised when I see someone using it. it's sort of like when Firefox first came out and you'd spot someone else using it, but in reverse.

[XorNot]

What's weirder is Firefox should be rising in popularity. The world in general has been getting more interested in privacy and data breaches and it's the only modern unaffiliated browser that doesn't have an advertising and telemetry motivation.

[elcritch]

The newer Firefox quantum has become my goto browser since it was released. Slower than Chrome but less memory hungry. Unfortunately anytime I hear about Firefox it's often "Firefox removes features" or worse "Firefox disables feature for your good". I literally couldn't log into some old wifi router at an airbnb because Firefox refused to let me visit a non-standard port, with no way to override it. It's not adtech surveillance big brother, it's patronizing we know better big brother.

[xemdetia]

That's interesting because I feel it's the opposite. Chrome ends up being the one that I have the most trouble with when it comes to usage nannying without providing overrides and removing features without thought. I don't think I've heard of a feature that was in core Firefox that was removed since quantum. Do you have a good example?

[elcritch]

On Android at least: https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/09/03/firefox-update-face...

[Retric]

Does this no longer work? http://kb.mozillazine.org/Network.security.ports.banned.over...

[avhon1]

It works, but it's a pain to have do it, and to remember how to do it (especially when you don't yet have internet, because you can't log into the wifi!)

[antman]

Maybe they should all those features it under patronizing.*.Network.security.ports.banned.override? Looking forward for patronizing.disable.old.addons=false patronizing.copypaste.shenanigans=false

[elcritch]

Not sure, though perhaps I should rephrase to "obvious method" to disable. I tried one config setting and gave up and just used Safari.

[zamadatix]

Pocket comes enabled by default and they do plenty of telemetry. It's 10,000x better than Chrome's use of the 2 but it's not nonexistent.

[thiht]

Can we just finally let it go with Pocket? Who cares? Just disable it if you care.

[teleforce]

Personally I'm longing for a new browser with focus on safety, security and privacy. Hopefully it will be written in Rust language or any other language with similar capability.

[craftinator]

Brave was good until they really started pushing their ad/cryptocurrency stuff. It's still okay in technical terms (they subvert a lot of telemetry, have good performance), but it just FEELS icky now.

[CodeGlitch]

Brave user here. You can turn all the crypto stuff off and ignore it. If that's the way Brave is funded then I really don't mind them pursing that route. It's better than depending on Google at least.

[majewsky]

If there is a feature that you can opt of out, but which they rely on for funding, how can you be sure that the opt-out will stick around?

[craftinator]

Fair enough. I still use brave, I think my personal bias just makes me want to run from anything that uses the word "crypto" in a context outside of cryptographic security.

[Nextgrid]

I call BS on Mozilla's commitment to privacy until uBlock Origin (or equivalent) is built into Firefox.

Nowadays running a browser without an ad blocker is as irresponsible as running a Windows XP machine without antivirus nor firewall a decade ago.

Any browser that doesn't implement countermeasures that have been proven to be effective and are available free of charge under a permissive license should be considered defective or having ulterior motives.

[sciurus]

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enhanced-tracking-prote... has been built-in for nearly two years, and new privacy-protecting features are frequently being added.

(Disclosure: I work for Mozilla but not on this)

[Nextgrid]

This is nowhere near enough though, and it used to be even worse. Basic spyware such as Google Analytics could be blocked by uBlock for ages and yet it's only recently that the built-in Firefox solution started blocking it (by replacing it with a neutered shim).

Furthermore, considering uBlock Origin and the underlying filter lists are available under a permissive license, what's the point behind developing & maintaining your own (inferior) implementation?

[lolrepeatlol]

You have to realize Mozilla does not have the marketshare to do this. Most of the web relies on ads, and since uBlock Origin blocks them, there would be no incentive for those sites to support Firefox.

Even if you just blocked trackers (as does ETP Strict Mode), many ads get blocked because those ads bundle tracking code within them. This, again, would cause there to be little to no incentive for most website owners to support Firefox.

What Mozilla is currently doing makes sense. They are being lax on the standard setting so that websites can still make ad revenue and have an incentive to support the browser.

If Firefox had a lot more marketshare, it might have been possible that this could slide.

[apostacy]

I would assert that the exact opposite is true. Taking a strong stand in favor of users would increase their market share.

Over a decade ago, one of the best things that Firefox did to compete against IE6 was to include a built in popup blocker that was on by default. Exactly the same criticisms were made.

It was called irresponsible and disruptive, since so much revenue came from popups, and horrible flash-based full screen pop-under ads. But I am glad that Firefox didn't let the pleas of the established market prevent them from siding with users.

[Nextgrid]

Outside of media heavy applications such as video conferencing software, do websites explicitly do specific things to “support” Firefox beyond complying with the specs?

> many ads get blocked because those ads bundle tracking code within them

uBlock filter lists can provide fallback shims that would be loaded in place of ad scripts to deal with this exact problem. The shim implements a neutered version of the original script so that all the surrounding (non-malicious) code can continue to run without errors.

[INTPenis]

So which browser do you prefer?

[Nextgrid]

I run Safari & Firefox.

FF is still the "least bad" choice but I'm still not happy that I have to fix it by installing an add-on where that add-on (or at least the core parts of it such as filter lists) are licensed in a way that would allow the browser to have this fix out of the box.

[zamadatix]

I think your view on Mozilla is what both the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation have considered their view since day one. It's a bit odd to read it with expectation it was ever something else to be honest.

[martinald]

I see what you mean, but my point was more that it's fine to do that when you have majority browser marketshare, but it's time to focus on the products a bit more (that pay for everything!) a bit more when everything is faltering.

[0xy]

Mozilla is an activist group at this point, why else would they be writing blog posts egging on de-platforming and adding politically charged news suggestions to the new tab page?

Firefox is merely a cow to be milked to fund the social agenda of the CEO.

[paulryanrogers]

Product companies can't solve everything. I appreciate that they're trying different things. Netscape trying open source sowed the seeds that produced Firefox.

That said a browser is such a large undertaking, becoming the modern day operating system. It would be nice if they made clear their commitment to carrying it forward.

[phnofive]

I was curious - just going by the same blog, there’s really not much to talk about (continued improvements to block tracking, an Android refresh, PiP support, VPN), but the tone suggests that delivering particular features is beside the point.

[sfink]

Sorry, you're complaining that a year's retrospective post by the CEO doesn't include announcement of product development plans or launches? I would think that... unwise. Unless you're trying to create a cult of personality around your CEO.

She'd either be undercutting her own marketing department, or tying her personal popularity to products/projects. Neither would be a very good idea.

[avhon1]

It doesn't have to be an announcement of something new. It'd be great if the reflections included any improvements to Firefox that happened over the year.