I don't think I'll stop using Firefox anytime soon.
Yes, their management are fucking idiots and it's annoying that I'll have to disable new AI features whenever they release them..
But the alternative is to use something Chromium-based, which would make Google's domination of web technology absolute - and Google is 100x more evil than Mozilla ever could be.
I hope this fucking bubble pops before Mozilla fucks up Firefox so badly that it becomes completely unusable
My fiddling with other browsers is basically checking out lifeboats. Unfortunately, yeah, the situation is pretty dire.
Oh fuck. Even Opera has swallowed the Kool Aid.
Opera's been a zombie for years.
@Doomed_Daniel I feel "stop using it" is a pretty individual response to a broad collective problem. There's many way to deal with this without ditching Firefox.
For instance, Firefox could be State funded by multiple States around the world, as a sovereign tool against Big Tech.
@burgervege
it could be, but is this an actionable advice?
What can we - me and you - do to make that happen?
@Doomed_Daniel If Mozilla gets worse, those will quickly get better. Until then your approach is completely reasonable.
I would recommend tho making sure automatic updates are blocked so you have the chance to prepare for any new malicious functionality before it's turned on without your knowledge.
@dalias @Doomed_Daniel technically speaking packaging Firefox that way is against the Firefox license lol
Mozilla tried to sue Debian over it ages ago, that's how we got Iceweasel, then they realized it's stupid and Iceweasel got abandoned, but the license was never changed and they can always do a stupid
@Doomed_Daniel To be fair, there are many Firefox forks that have the AI features removed/disabled.
@librewolf is one, @Waterfox is another.
no, the alternative is one of a dozen of firefox forks like librewolf, zen, etc...
@FrankauLux @Doomed_Daniel And if Mozilla crashes and burns, what happens to those forks, I wonder?
Zen is maintained by 9 people in the main team, 100 contributors listed on their about page's contributor graph from GH. 100 people is not enough, especially because they don't have the budget of a company.
Zen has 1574 members on Patreon, 439 of which are paid members (doesn't disclose how much they earn) and 744 supporters on Ko-Fi, 17 members have an €8 membership, the rest are probably one-time donors or have hidden their contribution/membership level
LibreWolf is maintained by 7 people (core contributors), 3 people on codeberg for librewolf/source repo had the most commits, additions and deletions in the range of hundreds of commits and thousands to tens of thousands of lines modified. The fourth committer's contributions are 28 commits, 99 additions and 54 removals.
@FrankauLux @Doomed_Daniel LibreWolf doesn't accept any donations, so everyone involved is working for free. No one will work for free to maintain Gecko or Firefox, that's for sure.
Without Mozilla to maintain Gecko and Firefox itself, these forks will lag behind in security and feature updates, and will ultimately shut down.
It's the sad reality that browsers are massive undertakings that have to handle an overwhelming amount of backwards compatibility and stability, along with ensuring their JS engines are continuously updated and maintained, because new exploits show up frequently.
Servo earns $6433/month (as per their latest blog post), and Open Collective estimates their annual budget to be $76,010.
A non-profit org (https://www.techpolicy.press) estimates that Google spends at least $1-2B/year on Chrome, Chromium, and the web platform. Firefox in comparison spent at most $396M in 2022, with another $29M as the operational expenses for Mozilla Foundation.
Browsers are horrifyingly expensive 🥲
@alextecplayz @FrankauLux @Doomed_Daniel we should find a way to make the fsf's creed true one day: public software that's critical for everyone in the world should be made free and funded by countries.
Certain western countries could donate 100k€ or 200k€ each per year to a nonprofit org that creates a public browser (let's start with firefox), countries people vote for features, priority is given to BC policy, cross compatibility and stability.
I know, it's end-of-the-year-utopia but still..
Firefox is close to crashing and burning, but it'll take long enough that there is hope Servo or Ladybird will be more viable replacements by then. (even though ladybird leadership aren't exactly trustworthy, it's still an open project with good tech).
Also, if you ask me, "Firefox spends X million dollars" isn't necessarily a fair measure of how much it costs to maintain a secure browser, we know that Mozilla is managed inefficiently and an alternative might not be so impossibly costly.
@ct Yeah, Firefox has some holes in the hull and is taking on water, but it's not yet starting to sink, it can be fixed with some care and initiative.
As for the spending, maybe it's not a fair measure, but browsers are still costly, a couple tens of thousands of dollars probably doesn't cover paying everyone in a 100-person dev team. We'll see how it goes, but I wouldn't be surprised if Servo's budget starts to balloon as they hire more engineers.
@Doomed_Daniel yeah, my position continues to be, yes, Mozilla is run by incompetent people who don't actually want to make a browser (made evident by all the ridiculous detours into every fad that comes along, including obviously stupid ones), but that's all. The alternatives are ruthlessly efficient at stripping me of privacy and autonomy. That they make a slightly better browser by some metrics is completely irrelevant, given that fact.
The removal of the privacy pledge raises concerns...
I think we desperately need a hard fork of firefox by a non-evil organisation.
It's crazy how there are only two browsers and both of them are shit.
It's quite the modern dilemma, isn't it? To find oneself in a position where one must actively 'disable new AI features' from a browser whose management you disparage, all to prevent what's seen as a far greater digital evil.
It's a rather dramatic calculus for simply browsing the web, I must say. I do wonder, do you ever feel that your commitment is less about choosing a preferred tool and more about maintaining a constant, low-level rebellion?
@Doomed_Daniel yup, my feelings as well.
@Doomed_Daniel Claims circulated the other day that a global AI off switch is being added to Firefox that will cover all current and future AI features. Hopefully this is actually true.
Not that this fixes everything but it does help. And even I have to admit that AI hype bubble is extremely large...
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