[yoavm]

I love threads about Mozilla. New CEO says he's not going to remove adblockers, people suspect him for planning to remove adblockers. Mozilla says they'll add a killswitch for all AI features (so that the tiny but vocal anti-AI minority will be happy), and people blame them for not having it as an enable-switch.

Whatever they do, they simply cannot win. I'm personally starting to suspect the main issue with Mozilla is its users.

[wtallis]

Mozilla has a recurring problem with being unable to provide the simple, obvious right answer.

When they re-wrote Firefox for Android, they were unable to give the simple, obvious answer to the effect of "yes, we understand extensions are a core feature of our browser and we plan to fully support extensions on Fenix and won't consider it done until we do". Instead, they talked about whitelisting a handful of extensions, and took three years from shipping Fenix as stable before they had a broad open extension ecosystem up and running again.

Earlier this year Mozilla couldn't provide the simple, obvious response of "we will never sell your personal information". Instead, they tried to make excuses about not agreeing with California's definition of "selling personal information".

A few days ago, we find out that their new CEO can't clearly and emphatically say "we would never take money to break ad blockers, because that goes against everything we stand for".

Now, they seemingly can't even realize that having a "kill switch" calls into doubt whether they actually know what "opt-in" means.

Even when they're trying to do the right thing, they're strangely afraid to commit to doing the right thing when it comes to specifics. They won't say "never" even when it should be easy.

[umanwizard]

> simple, obvious answer to the effect of "yes, we understand extensions are a core feature of our browser and we plan to fully support extensions on Fenix and won't consider it done until we do". Instead, they talked about whitelisting a handful of extensions, and took three years from shipping Fenix as stable before they had a broad open extension ecosystem up and running again.

That answer is not as obvious to me as you claim it is. I don't use any browser extensions except 1password, which I would have no reason to use on a phone (at least assuming Android has builtin password manager functionality like iOS does).

I think you overestimate what fraction of people care about extensions.

[smlavine]

I use Firefox on Android perhaps entirely because it supports uBlock Origin and my other extensions.

I would guess that of people that would ever go out of their way to use a non-Chrome browser on Android, the fraction who care about extensions is pretty significant.

[seltzered_]

On a different tack, I feel like I went out of my way to use Firefox (and Firefox Focus) on iOS and was thankful they had them during a time where everything had to use the safari renderer. IIRC Firefox Focus even had an ad-block extension that worked on safari

[thisislife2]

Firefox / Focus (like all browsers on ios) actually uses the "Safari renderer" (WebKit) because Apple doesn't allow any other browser engine on ios.

[seltzered_]

Historically yes, but in some areas like the EU there have been some regulation changes in 2024 where theoretically there could be alternate browser engines on iOS but in practice it hasn't happened yet. See https://open-web-advocacy.org/blog/apples-browser-engine-ban...

[umanwizard]

I would agree that it's probably significant. But it's probably not so high that a non-extensions-enabled Firefox for Android wouldn't be useful.

[JoeBOFH]

I am speaking from only my personal experience, but I would say the vast majority of Firefox users are using Firefox to avoid Chrome and Chrome likes. That being said I would say they are then more likely and inclined to also utilize extensions.

[homebrewer]

According to Mozilla's own stats, most Firefox users do not have any extensions at all:

> Has Add-on shows the percentage of Firefox Desktop clients with user-installed add-ons.

> December 8, 2025

> 45.4%

https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/usage-behavior

Note that language packs are counted as extensions.

Some have disabled telemetry, of course, but how many? Here we can only rely on our own observations, and of all Firefox users I know, it's zero.

(I keep it enabled because I want my voice to be counted — people who have never lived in an autocracy tend to have peculiar views on this.)

[wkat4242]

I think the correlation of people using extensions and people disabling telemetry is pretty high. I do both myself. Even a decent password manager requires one (though not on android because it has an API for that). On android I do use others obviously.

[glenstein]

Always appreciate people citing real data! I honestly would not have been able to guess one way or the other but unfortunately most comments are kind of hip firing in random directions that are impossible to keep track of, so it helps to keep these discussions grounded.

[Aardwolf]

But what if you weigh this by usage time? The firefoxes without extensions might be hardly ever used

[johnnyanmac]

I you can’t take the time to install a new tool. You don’t need it. And I think that’s a great mindset to have with not just software, but when approaching life.

I keep lean and only look for an extension or install amd app when it’s clear what problem I have and want to solve.

[wtallis]

Why do you use 1password on non-phone devices?

[ToucanLoucan]

> Even when they're trying to do the right thing, they're strangely afraid to commit to doing the right thing when it comes to specifics. They won't say "never" even when it should be easy.

Honestly, and it's hard for me to say this: I've come around. I still use and love Firefox, but emotionally I'm detaching from it, because fundamentally: all the other FOSS I use is an actual, factual, open source project. And Firefox the browser is FOSS, but Firefox the corporation isn't, and the problem is the corporation seems to be in charge, not the project, which means all their priorities are to make money and drive donations, not what's best for the user necessarily. It means all their communications are written in Corporatese, with vague waffling about everything they're asked and non-committal statements because the next quarter might demand they about-face, as they've done numerous times.

I love the browser. I increasingly find myself disillusioned with the business entity that rides on it's back, and frankly wish it would sod off. Take the money they're getting, and give it to the people actually building the product. Defaulting AI features to off costs Firefox absolutely nothing and they still won't do it, because of this irrational FOMO that has gripped the entirety of the executive class in charge of seemingly every business on earth. It's pathetic, and it lacks vision.

[johnnyanmac]

I can put up with a lot of friction and cruft as long as the foundations are solid amd I feel a product is moving in the right direction. I moved off chrome when it became crystal clear that Chrome was not even pretending to compete on User experience anymore, even in it is still the best browser in some regards.

I hate that I feel to be having déjà vu here. My needs are simple and I’m surrounded by software wanting to inflate itself more and more. And being hostile about it, to boot.

[ToucanLoucan]

110% on all counts.

[yjftsjthsd-h]

> New CEO says he's not going to remove adblockers, people suspect him for planning to remove adblockers.

New CEO says they've run the numbers and decided to not kill adblockers, leading to people asking why exactly they were running those numbers (if it was an actual ideological commitment, the numbers wouldn't matter).

> Mozilla says they'll add a killswitch for all AI features (so that the tiny but vocal anti-AI minority will be happy), and people blame them for not having it as an enable-switch.

Yes, opt-in vs opt-out is kinda an important distinction. And you're assuming that opposition is a "tiny but vocal", which - especially among people bothering to use firefox - seems unfounded. Which brings use neatly to,

> Whatever they do, they simply cannot win. I'm personally starting to suspect the main issue with Mozilla is its users.

Well, yes. If you build a userbase out of power users and folks who care about privacy and control... then you have a userbase of power users and folks who care about privacy and control. If Mozilla said up front that they were only interested in money and don't care about users, then fair enough, but don't go trumpeting how you fight for the user and then act surprised when the user holds you to that.

[glenstein]

The creator of VLC has publicly noted dollar amounts they could raise if they either sold or compromised VLC, but it came and went without controversy. OBS Studio, 7-Zip, Notepad++, and Nextcloud have all published offers they've received and declined, or quoted per-install payment figures. In fact, it's practically a rite of passage for open source projects to talk about the value of their work in terms of what they could monetize but choose not to.

Communicating about what you're knowingly rejecting is a point of pride, not a confession. But since there's no such thing as an OBS, or Nextcloud, or VLC Derangement syndrome, nobody grabs the pitchforks in those cases.

[ahartmetz]

There is a difference between "FYI, we're rejecting a ton of money for us, that's how serious we are about not selling out" and "We ran the numbers, and on balance, taking these 30% more money doesn't seem like the right thing to do because it would be against our stated mission statement".

The second one doesn't sound like real conviction.

[glenstein]

Thank you for directly addressing my point! I disagree but I respect your prioritization of of substance. I agree that notionally there's a difference but (1) they never said they "ran the numbers", (2) there are other good reasons for having access to that data that don't involve selling out, and (3) this all hinges on squinting and interpreting and projecting, and splitting the difference on linguistic interpretation is about as weak as circumstantial evidence can possibly get.

Real argument: "they said they're doing "privacy preserving" ads, look at this post where they announce it". Real argument "they say they're putting AI in the browser, I don't like that. Here's the statement!" Real argument: " they purchased Anonym and are dabbling in adtech, here's the news article announcing the acquisition!"

Not real argument: "They said they didn't want to take money to kill ad blockers but if you squint maybe it kinda implies they considered it, at least if you don't consider other reasons they might be aware of that figure." At best it's like 0.001% circumstantial evidence that has to be reconciled with their history of opposing the Manifest changes. If reading tea leaves matters so much, then certainly their more explicit statements need to matter too.

The thing that's unfortunate here is I would like to think this goes without saying, but ordinary standards of charitable interpretation are so far in the rear view mirror that I don't know that people comfortable making these accusations would even recognize charitable interpretation as a shared value. Not in the sense of bending over backwards to apologize or make excuses, but in the ordinary Daniel Dennett sense of a built-in best practice to minimize one's own biases.

[wkat4242]

> At best it's like 0.001% circumstantial evidence that has to be reconciled with their history of opposing the Manifest changes. If reading tea leaves matters so much, then certainly their more explicit statements need to matter too.

Their history is less relevant now because it's a fresh CEO that came up with this statement on his first day. New leaders often means a change in direction and this is a worrying sign. Also the number he quoted is far too explicit. Doing something like that would instantly move Firefox to be the absolute worst browser possible considering even advertising- and tracking-loaded crap like Chrome and Edge don't go that far.

Clearly they have been running the numbers and clearly he feels fine talking about it which is a pretty strong departure of previous values.

Of course I'd not continue using Firefox in this case, and I'm sure it would get widely forked. I found it pretty shocking.

The other examples don't reassure me one bit because they're not the same teams and in many cases they were simply external pushes like offers that were rejected. Here it's a different team that already has been changing direction for the worse recently (e.g. PPA, purchasing Anonym), and came up with this without external pressure. There's also plenty of situations where FOSS projects did go full evil.

Anyway I don't really have any better options than firefox and I'm sure that it would get heavily forked if they started siding with the advertisers, but it is worrying to me especially coming from a new leader on his very first day. Not only because it's about ads. Just because it removes user freedom of choice completely if they were to enforce this.

[yjftsjthsd-h]

> The creator of VLC has publicly noted dollar amounts they could raise if they either sold or compromised VLC, but it came and went without controversy. OBS Studio, 7-Zip, Notepad++, and Nextcloud have all published offers they've received and declined, or quoted per-install payment figures. In fact, it's practically a rite of passage for open source projects to talk about the value of their work in terms of what they could monetize but choose not to.

In all of those examples, the devs note that people have reached out to them, unprompted, to try and get them to sell out. That's materially different from a company proactively looking into the payoffs of selling out. The only question is whether the latter is what's happening; I'm having trouble tracking down the actual thing that was said (I think in an interview?).

[wtallis]

Please stop calling people deranged for expecting Mozilla to do the right thing without dissembling. Having your previous such comment flagged and killed should have been sufficient reminder to you that you're behaving inappropriately for this forum.

[glenstein]

Take a look at Graham's hiearchy and see if you can move up the ladder from tone policing. Were any of my examples: VLC, 7-Zip, Nextcloud incorrect? Let me know and I'll thank you your good faith effort to be responsive to substance.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Graham%27s_Hierarchy...

[yjftsjthsd-h]

Alright, I looked at the hierarchy; I believe that

> But since there's no such thing as an OBS, or Nextcloud, or VLC Derangement syndrome, nobody grabs the pitchforks in those cases.

qualifies as name-calling.

[someNameIG]

> Well, yes. If you build a userbase out of power users and folks who care about privacy and control...

Is that their core user base, or just the vocal user base online? Only 5-10% of their user base have UBO installed (FF has almost 200 million users, extension store reports ~10 million UBO installs).

Firefox isn't LibreWolf, it's user base are just average people, not much different than that of Chrome, Safari, or Edge.

[yjftsjthsd-h]

I don't know how to rigorously verify who their actual users are on the ground, but it seems like that's at least nominally their target; https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/ says,

> Firefox: Get the gold standard for browsing with speed, privacy and control.

I hadn't actually seen that when I wrote "power users and folks who care about privacy and control", but that's even mostly the same words, let alone intent.

[Barrin92]

>If you build a userbase out of power users

But they've never done this. There is a very vocal group of Firefox power users but the browser has always targeted a general audience, marginalization by Chrome over the years not withstanding.

If you have any ambition to regain some of that market share listening to the average vocal Hackernews or Reddit commenter, who is not the median user, even just among the current ~150 million users is not a good idea.

[eps]

Amen.

[ivanmontillam]

I am fine with it being a disable-button, as long it's persistent once set.

What I honestly fear is that while AI-features are disabled, popups inviting me to enable them again. That, or them auto-enabling them on every update like sometimes has happened with `browser.ml.enable` flag on `about:config`.

[Krssst]

They don't do that for any feature, no reason they'd do it for AI.

[ivanmontillam]

New CEO could change that.

[anticensor]

Firefox is open source, people can simply fork an unbranded build out of it.

[bpt3]

Mozilla has lost the trust of its users by making decisions that their userbase doesn't approve of repeatedly, and then partially walking them back after the backlash.

That's not the fault of their users, at least not directly. If you want to argue that Firefox users are stifling innovation or trying to steer the product in a direction that would threaten the future viability of Firefox/Mozilla, I would be open to hearing that argument out even though I don't think that's the issue.

Mozilla is the equivalent of a petrostate in the tech sector. They have a bunch of revenue coming in that they didn't really earn, and they have no idea what to do with it to improve their current condition. To me, that's the core issue.

[wkat4242]

> New CEO says he's not going to remove adblockers, people suspect him for planning to remove adblockers

It's because he has obviously been thinking about it. That $150M number didn't just come out of nowhere. Someone at Mozilla modelled this. The resulting analysis made it into the CEO's mind so far he even mentioned it without being asked.

This is something that's unthinkable to most of the Mozilla users. That's why it's so shocking.

It's like your son making dinner conversation like "hey I was thinking, if I would sell drugs at school I'd make at least 500$ a week! But don't worry I'm not going to do that!".

[lenerdenator]

When you have a position in the project called "CEO" and that person has the ability to hand down edicts of what he or she sees the project as being, that's when you get into trouble, especially in free software. We've seen this way of developing software co-opted by major companies who have turned otherwise good projects - Chromium and AOSP immediately come to mind - into vendor lock-in and spyware by some suit who has been told he needs to create value.

The thing they can do to win is to start acting like they maintain a free/libre open-source software project. It should be completely fine for Mozilla to make a grand total of $0.00 off of Firefox.

Think of Linux (specifically the kernel) or Python. Sure there's a person whose opinion holds more weight than everyone else's (at least for the kernel), but they typically focus on delivering general guidance to a group of people who are free to create features on their own and present those to leadership. If it's quality and fits what the general purpose of the project is, it gets merged into the trunk, and released with everything else.

That needs to be how Mozilla handles Firefox at this point. If some working group of contributors wants to start an implementation of GenAI in Firefox, let them do so and let the community hash it out. If the community doesn't feel the need to create it, well, then Firefox won't have it... and that's fine.

So many of these free software projects try to do too much and change what the core output of the project is in the process, and they lose sight of what the project is.

[ramesh31]

>Whatever they do, they simply cannot win. I'm personally starting to suspect the main issue with Mozilla is its users.

A lot of people remember the Mozilla of old, and are just completely depressed at the state of where it has ended up over the last 10 years. They were once a non-profit founded to promote the web and put users first. Now it's just this weird zombie company monetizing the work and good will of a prior generation of engineers that cared about that mission.

[jamesgill]

He didn't say he wasn't going to remove ad blockers; he said "I don't want to". No commitment or position, just a preference.

[som]

Yep no doubt FF users cut from a slightly different cloth than those who choose GAMS browsers.

But as an old-school Firefox user, with a slieu of mobile extensions installed and a healthy cynicism about our swan dive into the dark sea of AI ... I have no problem at all with the statements from Mozilla. Outsiders can argue all day about intent, it's the actions that count.

[WhyOhWhyQ]

Sounds like robust criticism is having an effect. Why would you not be happy with the situation?

[yoavm]

I am happy with the situation. Firefox still allows me to customize my userChrome, remove features I don't like and it even has vertical tabs. It supports uBlock origin, runs great in Android. It's a really good browser. I don't think there's a problem with complaining; What I find unfair is the reaction when Mozilla finally does the right thing.

[johnnyanmac]

Trust takes a lifetime to build, and a moment to break. Those “moments” are becoming more of streams of time these days.

How many times does a scorpion need to sting the frog for the frog to be justified in being wary of “ I definitely won’t sting you this time!”

[yoavm]

Except Firefox is a better browser now than it ever was.

[superkuh]

This seems like a cultural mismatch more than anything. Mozilla makes software that human people use and human people use normal language rather than avoiding the non-profitable aggravation associated with emotive language that a company employee might be used to.

Look at the point that op made instead of the tone: the AI feature should be opt-in not opt-out.

That's a good point. Let's talk about that. It seems like it's a simple thing to do to show good faith that this won't be a normal corporate AI push.

[yoavm]

It's not a good point. One year from now, every browser is going to be an "AI browser". If Firefox will make it harder to use features that are expected of every browser, it will lose. This is akin to saying that JavaScript should be opt-in. If you want to disable these things, you're clearly a power user, and you should at least be comfortable with clicking "Edit" and then "Settings".

[jm4]

The anti-AI people think they are in the majority. They could be, but I suspect that's not the case. I would be surprised if many in the anti-AI crowd could even point to the specific features of the devices and software they use daily that fall under the "AI" umbrella. Meanwhile, regular people are increasingly turning to chatbots instead of search engines. It seems clear we are at peak hype, but this stuff is here to stay.

[nhinck3]

Have they come out and said what personal data they are selling yet? They were awfully guarded about what they were selling and to who.

I guess we shouldn't worry though, just some random law thought that what they were doing was "selling personal data" but we shouldn't think that it was. No further explanation required.

[gldrk]

It’s easy to bash Mozilla because it is failing. Their usage share is a statistical error, and most of it comes from being shipped with Ubuntu. Firefox badly needs a value proposition beyond not being Chromium-based.

[ekr____]

> Their usage share is a statistical error, and most of it comes from being shipped with Ubuntu.

This is not true, and is easily verifiable for yourself.

https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/hardware

The vast majority of Firefox usage is on Windows.

[gldrk]

I am surprised. Does that imply most GNU/Linux users go out of their way to install Chromium actually? Ubuntu and Firefox have a similar market share.

[homebrewer]

No idea about most Linux users, but here's what little we know for sure:

Arch pkgstats (opt-in): ~64% FF, ~41% Chromium, ~17% Chrome

https://pkgstats.archlinux.de/fun/Browsers/current

Debian popcon (opt-in): 2.2% Firefox, ~10.3% Chromium

https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=firefox

https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=chromium

Flathub installs: 10kk Firefox, 10kk Chrome, 1.8kk Chromium

https://flathub.org/en/apps/org.mozilla.firefox

https://flathub.org/en/apps/com.google.Chrome

https://flathub.org/en/apps/org.chromium.Chromium

snapcraft statistics isn't public, afaik.

[adrianmalacoda]

The usual package for Firefox on Debian is `firefox-esr`. 44.18%.

https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=firefox-esr

The `firefox` package is only in `unstable` and thus installing it requires jumping through hoops.

[yoavm]

I agree, but there's nothing more frustrating than another niche user group imagining that the reason for this failure is Mozilla lacking to address their obscure requests, while Mozilla's real goal is to create a browser for everyone. The truth is that this goal is borderline impossible, and all these double standards (can't count the times I've heard "I'm tired of Firefox, moving to Chrome!") surely aren't helping.

[ep103]

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I think you're right, and I think the reason for it is because Google has historically had an extremely effective astroturf marketing team for Chrome

[cons0le]

Just saving this comment here for the future, so when he does it in 2 years I can come back and rub it in

[nkrisc]

The fact they need to add an “AI kill switch” is the problem.

[dismalaf]

Because they're already reneged on past promises. Trust is gone.

[reidrac]

so that the tiny but vocal anti-AI minority will be happy

[citation needed]

[yoavm]

Citation for what really? That the anti-AI movement is a minority? Just ask around you "have you used AI today?" and I'm pretty sure you'll see what I mean. I don't have a horse in this game and I'm not an AI fan, but the numbers speak for themselves so much that the mere question is odd.

[gldrk]

The anti-AI ‘movement’ is a minority like all partisans are a minority. You shouldn’t be comparing them to passive consumers but to enthusiasts who actively demand ‘AI’ in their browser/Paint/Notepad.

[yoavm]

True, and a reasonable PM will ignore both the anti-AI and the AI-in-everything groups.

[johnnyanmac]

We don't really have reasonable PM's though. Or rather, they are being paid to be unreasonable. They are ignoring everyone because the CEO 5 levels uo wants it.

And then others wonder why customers are frustrated.

[lawtalkinghuman]

> the numbers speak for themselves

What numbers? Have Mozilla published any numbers showing their AI experiments have been warmly received by users?

[dsr_]

... because Mozilla doesn't pay any attention to them?