[lxgr]

There simply isn't a way to implement this on Firefox as it is. It's lacking the necessary API for end-to-end encryption: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27432001

Yes, many pages support only Chrome for no good reason at all, but in this instance, the ball is 100% with Mozilla.

[Jiocus]

What necessary E2E API does Chrome provide?

[spankalee]

WebRTC Insertable Streams: https://www.chromestatus.com/feature/6321945865879552

[acqq]

The state of it in Firefox:

"Opened Apr 2020"

https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/330

Then in October added "Insertable streams is worth prototyping"

Also: "I will remind people that this isn't the place for advocating for what gets implemented in Firefox. This is something that the media team needs to work out."

then "closed 26 Oct 2020"

But, hey, it's June 2021, you just got a new UI redesign which nobody wanted (I guess, except the managers who invented it), and which uses up more vertical space. (Hint: about:config browser.proton.enabled false helps at the moment).

Even the iOS version of Firefox got an UI redesign. One has to care for the priorities! The color of the shed is always the biggest impact a manager can bring!

[cyanydeez]

firefox has serious performance issues, i had to switch to chromium.

i really want to support firefox in my development but their tooling is just not presented in a rational footprint. when i inspect a vue proxy object, i dont want to see all the setters and getters.

they are losing mind share because neight to user facing components normthe dev facing have a well considered presentation or pefformancd

[slver]

After Chrome's RAM guzzling architecture and Firefox' Rust rewrite promises, reading this is so disappointing.

[cyanydeez]

more ram is s one time investment while poor feature presentation and buggy implementations are difuse issues.

if i can solve a slow experience with another stick of memory, thats of a lesser probldm

[extra88]

Do you really think the people who implemented UI changes are the same people who could implement an end-to-end encryption API?

[slver]

Do you think people who implement ui changes are paid with same money as those who implement encryption api?

[acqq]

The most money are paid to the same managers in both cases. The total company expenses in the same period mostly aren't dependent on the nature of the changes implemented. The managers just make their managerial decisions what to set as the goals.

And apparently the board thumbs that up. That's the scope of the problem: "look we make the UI changes" is the "color of the shed" easy to understand illusion of "something" being done.

[extra88]

Money is fungible, employees are not. Whether others at Mozilla may be tasked with implementing this API or Mozilla (or someone else) contracts Igalia to do it, the employees responsible for and qualified to work on UI are still going to get paid and will still have other work to do.

[sam_goody]

Actually, Apple has many developers on this team, and Firefox is an open source project.

If we could create an feeling that companies that claim to be developer friendly make sure that FF is also compatible, it would be a huge win for all involved.

[mook]

Firefox is an open source project, but pushing large changes upstream is difficult (and this is true of pretty much any project). Even if Apple had the patches, Mozilla might not take them.

[olyjohn]

Maybe they could... I dunno... work with Mozilla and see if they were interested in taking the changes?

It's not like they have to build this whole thing out, then hope and pray that Mozilla accepts the changes.

[015a]

While at first glance it would be strange to expect Apple to make these changes; I don't feel its unreasonable from any perspective. Apple should hold a long-term interest in keeping the web diverse; Safari will never reasonably hold a majority/plurality marketshare, so their second highest priority from a revenue/ux perspective should be "sticking to the standards" and helping toward ensuring web developers don't take on a "Chrome and nothing else" stance.

Granted, its also understandable that Apple officially working on Firefox would be "article on The Verge" level of news and even an armchair commentator would be able to connect the dots from what they're working on to predicting Facetime was coming to web. Though, isn't that what Jobs originally promised? Open source protocol and such?

At the end of the day, I'm sick and tired of the prevailing hyper-endstage-capitalist excuse of "they won't make a billion dollars from doing this, so not only will they not do it, but they SHOULDN'T". Its everywhere on HN, and its actual brain worms. Corporate decisions shouldn't only be analyzed through this lens; there's a far broader humanistic lens that codifies a higher standard that we absolutely can reasonably hold all companies to; not from a legal sense (HackerNews isn't a court and your votes are not a jury decision, some armchair commentators need to be reminded), not even from a general population public relations sense; but from a viewpoint that Ethics is not a democracy, there are some ethical positions that won't make money, aren't required by law, and aren't even popular, but are nonetheless crucially important to avoiding a Blade Runner-eque corpo-cyberpunk future (or, with some very legitimate issues, species extinction or at least achieving and maintaining a high standard of living for most of our species).

The sibling argument of Firefox's CEO making a ton of money being reprehensible is... I mean, jeeze, they make awesome software, open source, freedom respecting, privacy respecting, and manage to pay their leadership & employees well? Isn't that the dream? That should be the goal; not be derided. There's a middleground between hyper-endstage-brain-worm-capitalism and "all software is developed by starving monks in a monastery". I understand its hard to believe this, because it isn't an extreme; its easy to let gravity drag your ethical viewpoint to an extreme on the left or right in this age of outrageous social media, but neither extreme on any ethical dimension is conductive to a positive future for humanity.

[EveYoung]

Doesn't Safari has the biggest marketshare on mobile (at least in the US)? So I don't think any major site could simply ignore that.

[015a]

A significant number of websites ignore Safari on mobile; not because its Safari, but because its mobile. Not necessarily with a big banner that says "Please use a desktop", but rather a half-assed layout.

Within the US, Safari and Chrome mobile have roughly equivalent marketshare, recently with an edge to Safari. Globally, Chrome mobile is significantly larger than Safari mobile.

None of that actually matters though; Firefox, Safari, and Edge all deploy advanced analytics blocking features which distort their marketshare. In many instances, these blockers self-report their browser as Chrome, as a "blend in with the crowd" strategy.

[acqq]

When it was reasonable for Apple to do so, Apple distributed Safari for Windows. I don't remember now anymore exactly, it could have been even before Chrome on Windows existed? "Apple's Steve Jobs first announced Windows PC support in Safari 3.0 at Macworld Expo in 2007."

"Google Chrome first release: 2008-09-02." "We've used components from Apple's WebKit and Mozilla's Firefox, among others" (1)

If there's ever a reason for Apple to be more involved in a Windows browser, that's still an option.

But implementing some functionality in a third browser on Windows... why should they? The two which already have the feature are already by the competing companies.

1) https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/fresh-take-on-browse...

[paulcarroty]

> and Firefox is an open source project

check Mozilla CEO salary and stop finding excuses in open source.

[kerng]

What correlation does CEO salary and open source have?

Maybe the comment thinks about "not for profit" org - but even then it seems normal to pay people a competitive salary.

[iakov]

There is an interesting inverse correlation of Mozilla CEO salary and amount of users Firefox has.

I think it's normal to pay competitive salary too, but the salary should reflect one's impact on the company. Looking at the current state of Firefox, I can't imagine why their CEO is compensated as they are.

[atatatat]

> There is an interesting inverse correlation of Mozilla CEO salary and amount of users Firefox has.

The amt of politics required to be dealt with == big compensation.

[9dev]

Firefox isn’t, and never was, Mozilla’s revenue source.

[orestarod]

What is their revenue source? And what is the reason cash flows from that revenue source if not Firefox? If Firefox did not exist, Mozilla would have no reason to be considered by anyone about anything.

[olliej]

What? The primary revenue source of Mozilla is Firefox due to the search engine revenue they get

[burnte]

The salary of their CEO has absolutely no bearing on it being open source. None. Look at Tim Apple's salary, and yet Darwin, Webkit, CUPS, and other projects are open source.