[nomilk]

Assuming the bans are at Russia's request, what's the worst Russia could do if Mozilla refused to comply?

Russia could block mozilla.org (in which case 1000s of clones would likely emerge). Mozilla is a not for profit. Why not simply ignore such requests..

[BugsJustFindMe]

> what's the worst Russia could do if Mozilla refused to comply?

The worst? Probably murder.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Russian_assassinatio...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspicious_deaths_of_Russian...

[rurban]

You're probably mixing that up with jumping out of the window.

[ginvok]

More likely one shooting oneself in the back, assisted by a Russian agent.

[bradknowles]

Nah. Polonium BBs being injected into your calf. They’re so much more fun.

/s

[mensetmanusman]

You can’t prove murder. Mozilla employees simply enjoy swimming while duct taped to lawn chairs.

[FpUser]

I absolutely hate what Putin and his goons are doing to Ukraine and Russia.

Having said that the list contains many names of people who would be hunted and killed by any government. Imagine Apache starting revolt, murdering civilians, keeping / trading slaves, cutting heads etc. etc. Whoever the author of the article is - they did a shitty job.

This list is a big disservice to true victims of Putin, like Navalny and the likes.

[defrost]

    The Apache tribes fought the invading Spanish and Mexican peoples for centuries.

   The first Apache raids on Sonora appear to have taken place during the late 17th century. In 19th-century confrontations during the American Indian Wars, the U.S. Army found the Apache to be fierce warriors and skillful strategists.

OK, I'm imagining people defending their homelands against invaders.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache

[FpUser]

I am talking about now. In the end Indians were conquered with all the consequences. If they wake up now and start the war for independence it will be exactly the same situation as with Chechnya with exactly the same results.

[avmich]

> it will be exactly the same situation as with Chechnya with exactly the same results

Chechnya was pacified with regular significant money transfers to the strongman at the head. Indians, hmm...

[tcmart14]

This would be just speculation, and I could be way off base. This would also be assuming that Mozilla is looking out for the best interest of users, which may or may not be the case.

We saw that when companies like McDonalds could no longer operate in Russia, Russia essentially took the McDonalds and created a knock-off. If Russia decided to ban Firefox, they may just fire up a knock off and sell it to the populace as Mozilla is an evil American corporation so they have created RuskieFox and all that national pride stuff. Would tech saavy people trust the Russian knock off? My guess is the tech saavy people won't and will find ways to get firefox from Mozilla. But the non-tech saavy? Probably not. From this, if we assume Mozilla is doing what it can to protect users (which may or may not be the case), it would be better to comply but Russians get official builds of Firefox than being banned and the Russian government replacing Firefox with their own build.

[itvision]

There's already a Yandex browser, there's no need for a Firefox knock-off.

> Would tech saavy people trust the Russian knock off?

No one with a single brain cell uses the Yandex web browser. It's akin to giving the Russian authorities full access to your entire web presence.

> But the non-tech saavy?

For those Firefox has never existed. Most people in Russia use: Yandex web browser, Opera or Google Chrome.

> From this, if we assume Mozilla is doing what it can to protect users (which may or may not be the case), it would be better to comply but Russians get official builds of Firefox than being banned and the Russian government replacing Firefox with their own build.

Mozilla loses nothing from not complying but gains reputation and trust of not sharing the bed with Putin.

[WhyNotHugo]

> No one with a single brain cell uses the Yandex web browser. It's akin to giving the Russian authorities full access to your entire web presence.

In Russian Hacker News, someone is saying the exact same thing about Google Chrome.

[arp242]

> Why not simply ignore such requests.

Because no one is helped by that, least of all Russian people wanting to use Firefox. It seems fairly obvious that "all of Firefox is not available in Russia" is worse than "two extensions are not available in Russia".

[patrakov]

It is not "all of Firefox is not available in Russia," as there will be unofficial mirrors, torrents, etc. But I hear you, it's indeed better to have two extensions available from unofficial sources only than the whole ecosystem.