changelinx
eevee"i'm mad at firefox, so instead i'm going to give google incrementally more power over the web"
ok. consider: not doing that
EndlessMason@eevee
Please stop being right without giving me somebody to shout at
Please stop being right without giving me somebody to shout at
@EndlessMason oh please do shout all you like https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/bd-p/discussions
@eevee
Lmao the top two on the week wrapped are "pls no more ai" already
Lmao the top two on the week wrapped are "pls no more ai" already
Xoa Gray
Cybarbie@eevee How? You know full well that Mozilla got pwned by Google years ago, which is why they are doing what they are doing. They only keep it around to avoid anti-trust issues.
woe2you
Keith@eevee consider instead trying LibreWolf, Midori or one of the numerous other alternative browsers.
🍞
zivi@eevee people who choose the atrocious to avoid the bad are annoying
though if you mean this like, “noooo don’t switch from firefox to [considerably less enshittified chromium based alternative]”, uh, eh, i think escaping mozilla’s bullfuckery is worth it even then
librewolf ftw tho, we need more support for librewolf so librewolf can start doing more with itself
ekstromenator@eevee Google is about manage all settings to share a minimum of information. As little as possible.
Elle🍓
Wolf480pl@eevee
Mozilla would like to fuck over ita users, however, it doesn't know if they're resolved.
If the users are resolved, they will retaliate by switching to Chrome, which will hurt the users, but it will hurt Mozilla more, so Mozilla would like to avoid this.
If the users are not resolved, they will keep using Firefox, which means Mozilla can fuck over its users at no cost.
Help Mozilla decide whether to fuck over ita users or not.
Anthropy@wolf480pl what about firefox forks? same signal, less chromification of the internet
@anthropy I haven't looked into how good these are. I've heard that the ones in the past didn't have the best track record wrt security patches, but idk maybe you can sandbox the browser to mitigate that, or maybe the newer ones are better at that.
But yeah, they'd be a better move if available.
@wolf480pl Pale Moon has been called out for this kind of stuff in the past, but Waterfox (fork of Firefox ESR) seems pretty decent (because they don't really change much besides removing bloat and weirdness), and Zen browser and Floorp and LibreWolf are also okay (mostly default config changes and therefore fairly up to date, without the bloat)
also see this thread I made a few days ago: https://mastodon.derg.nz/@anthropy/115734945877820056
@anthropy
although now that I think of it...
They're not causing Mozilla to lose influence over the web standards. Especially because these forks follow upstream Firefox changes. So they're not as strong of a signal.
They still might be a good choice though.
@wolf480pl I'd argue that's a good thing, I'd rather Firefox-derivates than over-represented Chromium derivatives and leave it up to Google to be the benevolent dictator there tbqh, and the signal is the same strength because actual users are switching away still
@wolf480pl hard disagree, it's about their sacrifice not yours
@anthropy
It's both, but suppose it's only about how much Mozilla suffers.
How does Mozilla suffer when you switch to a soft-fork?
@wolf480pl I thought it was about the signal? shooting yourself in the foot may be a strong signal but if suffering was a degree by which to measure success we'd all be dead by now
@anthropy
It's not suffering alone. I don't understand it well enough to be able to explain, but here's an example:
1. US president says he will invade Greenland
Yeah, whatever, talk is cheap. Not a credible threat.
2. US president says he will invade Venezuela, and moves a bunch of warships there.
Moving the ships is costly - it takes a lot of time, and now they can't be doing other thngs elsewhere.
That's a more credible threat.
@anthropy
A deer grows large antlers to signal strength.
Growing large antlers is a sacrifice - they're heavy, get caught on things, and consume nutrients that could've been spent on more muscles.
But that's what makes large antlers a good signal.
If large antlers were cheap to grow, every deer would do that, and having large antlers wouldn't mean anything.
@wolf480pl .. I think the main factor you're describing there is military force and facing existential threats as means of convincing, not so much the 'effort' ..
but while I think personal suffering CAN be convincing (e.g hunger striking), I'd argue that here it compares more to something like "batteries are bad so I'll get the dirtiest diesel and suffer the consequences of global warming and polluted air, that'll teach them!" tbh 😅
@wolf480pl like, my main point (what I also started out with) is that we need to be careful with chromification, because as much as I think Google has lots of well intending engineers, they also have a lot of purely greed-driven shareholders.
In that sense I get that you're saying "but we should give a stronger signal", but then if suffering equates to signal strength, use something like Servo or even Lynx, as a means of hunger striking
@anthropy
well
A strike (not even hunger strike) hurts both workers (they don't get paid) and the employer (no work gets done) and also the society at large (less goods are being produced, so fewer people can have their needs met).
Yet it may be necessary to convince the employer that the workers' demands cannot be ignored.
I think the power dynamics in case of Firefox are similar to those in a strike.
@wolf480pl well again, I think there's a balance, I think switching to a soft fork is plenty signal, as there are plenty reasons to switch away from Chrome too after their manifest v3 shenanigans
and maybe the timing of my second post was unfortunate but i want to re-emphasize that if you want to go the hunger striking route, you should use neither Chrome nor Firefox forks, despite the degraded experience, because Chrome is comfort food
@anthropy
If a significant (from Mozilla's perpsective) number of people switched to Lynx or Servo, I think that could make Mozilla afraid, yes.
But I think getting a bunch of people to switch for a day, all on the same day, to any non-Gecko browser, even if it's Chrome, could be just as effective and easier to pull off.
@anthropy
I still don't see why Mozilla should be afraid of people switching to a Firefox soft-fork though.
I still don't see why Mozilla should be afraid of people switching to a Firefox soft-fork though.
@anthropy
Also, I agree that giving Goolge more power over the internet is a bad thing.
But it's also bad for Mozilla.
@wolf480pl idk, I get that sentiment, but to me that just sounds like undoing all the progress of putting pressure on google to not be an asshole when it comes to the open web.
In that sense it also feels weird because Chrome is also full of AI, so if you're trying to give an anti-AI signal then switching to a Chromium derivative or a Gecko derivative has little difference, and it also again undoes the progress of making the web more open IMHO
amd
Jacob Christian Munch-Andersen@eevee Using Firefox is like voting on the Democrats. It is not going to solve the issue, but what else are you going to do?
@eevee "consider not doing that" should be aimed at Mozilla here. "Mozilla can shit on my head as long as its not google" approach would get us nowhere. It's their decision(s) that are giving more power to Google. Maybe co they are living of Google mainly?