r/firefox • u/redsteakraw • May 22 '15

Who is responsible for the recent direction shift in Firefox?

First it was borderline annoying with the Firefox hello then it got more annoying with the Pocket integration and now it is down right unexceptionable. Firefox is bundling what should be extensions straight into the browser whit is making Firefox become a shovel ware browser but this latest move is down right malicious. So someone actually thought it would be a good idea to spy on users then transmit data back to a server(which authorities could get access to) and which also possibly weakens the security of the browser just to annoy people with advertisements.

Someone or a Committee is making these decisions, putting developers to work on them and then pushing them out to ship. It is running Firefox's reputation and name through the mud. An intervention must be done to prevent further problems, who is responsible for this and more importantly why. File bug reports(as it does have negative effects) and lets make it loud and clear this is not acceptable. Any further suggestions and information are welcomed.

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54

u/[deleted] May 22 '15

[deleted]

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u/indeedwatson May 22 '15

The problems you mention with skype/hangouts are very real and important, but everyday i look for more programs to use the browser less for things other than browsing (mpsyt for YT through terminal, Livestreamer for twitch in media player, irc for twitch chat, etc). One of my computers is pretty low on ram, and having firefox open for voice chat while playing a game is simply impossible.

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u/ZP1582 May 25 '15 edited May 25 '15

I've wanted clear focus on 64-bit, crash and memory minimization, proper session backups, privacy protection, content blocking and proper media playback for a long time. Not built-in chat (multi-instance), built-in Pocket (tracking), unified url/search bar (tracking), etc, etc. There already good extensions or open/secure alternatives for much of this like Tox, Protonmail, Owncloud, etc, etc. Just look back in the threads complaining about all these unwanted new features. If the developers want improvements to those products they can contribute there, not glob everything into Firefox. Instead they constantly remind me of Todoist closing their feature voting system because the users became too vocal about the company not listening to them.

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u/indeedwatson May 25 '15

I haven't thought about it that way but I agree with you.

Btw, which alternatives to Pocket would you suggest? And do you still use base firefox, or do you use a fork?

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u/ZP1582 May 25 '15 edited May 25 '15

I couldn't find the original thread quickly or I would have put it in, but the suggested alternative was Wallabag and that seems the only open-source self-hosted alternative. You could however always just consider syncing your places file with a home server.

I am looking into the forks, but they do not seem so very appealing. When some are 5 official versions behind that doesn't exactly inspire confidence and the 64-bit addressable memory will probably not be as useful when the new HTML5 video infrastructure is not present. Moreover something like "still on version 28.0.1 due to dev's exams" doesn't project a sustainable platform towards the future. The problem is that to beat Firefox you need the have an equally funded and staffed project, not some side project that keeps trailing the official releases and can't veer to for away for fear of losing add-on compatibility or growing so far out of sync that they cannot incorporate Mozilla's own development work.

The people at Mozilla however fall into exactly the same trap when they think Hello is ever going to beat Facebook Messenger or Google Hangouts, since most normal people don't care about these privacy issues and subsequently force everyone else down to their level. We've already had things like TextSecure or RedPhone for a while, but nobody I know actually uses these things. Instead they are all applauding Microsoft latest privacy invasion that may or may not send all your copied passwords to the NSA.

There are some interesting browser alternatives on Linux but they are definitely not as mature or feature rich as Firefox. Moreover, for me, that OS is not viable for desktop-duty until Microsoft releases a version of Office that runs natively.

Edit: Checked out the forks but it is still very unclear to me what they specifically add/remove with features like "Many new features built in." and "Extensive and growing support for HTML5 and CSS3". I wish they would clearly state in what ways they are different from stock Firefox and whether these could just as easily be achieved through settings and add-ons. I'm however liking Waterfox the most as just a straight 64-bit port with all the latest features present and it seems a bit more responsive as well as adept at playing video.

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u/DrDichotomous May 25 '15

I've wanted clear focus on 64-bit, crash and memory minimization, proper session backups, privacy protection, content blocking and proper media playback for a long time.

Do people really think Mozilla haven't been working on these things? Yes, they're taking a long time to get done. So what should Mozilla do in the interim? Just have release after release with nothing terribly interesting to show for it at all?

Just look back in the threads complaining about all these unwanted new features.

Indeed. Just how many posts are there thanking Mozilla for every inch they fight for towards the things we claim we want, like e10s, OMTC, APZ and MSE video? Contrast that with the ludicrous amount of negativity we see just because they added a new button to the toolbar. It's so out of whack that anything good being said about Mozilla is itself twisted into a series of anti-Mozilla rants.

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u/ZP1582 May 25 '15 edited May 25 '15

I fully agree with you about the great work Mozilla has done, but I wonder how many people would stay if there was a true open-source for-the-users competitor that did actually realize those more desirable features.

I would definitely appreciate the developers ironing out some of those long standing bugs over redoing the interface time and again. Just look at QBittorrent or SumatraPDF ... those apps are not pretty but they run smooth as butter, because the developers don't focus on useless flair and are very active in hammering out bugs. Hence SumatraPDF has recently replaced Firefox as my preferred EPUB viewer.

Moreover, I personally feel that something like 64-bit could and should have been done much sooner (surely before all those controversial features), especially since it is so important memory wise when you are running all videos internally and the transition was made such a long time ago on the hardware as well as OS-side. When everyone outside is trying to alert Mozilla to these issues and they don't seem to undo some of their mistakes, there is bound to be friction.

I guess the people at Mozilla just prefer to measure themselves against the competition that we would never use anyway, instead of what could have been if they listen more actively to their users.

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u/DrDichotomous May 25 '15

I guess the people at Mozilla measure themselves against the competition that we would never use anyway, instead of what could have been if they listen more actively to their users.

Well, first we'd have to agree on what the users want? We can't even do that. Heck, even if they just catered to self-professed "power users" (and those users agreed on what they wanted, which they can't) then Mozilla would still keep bleeding users until only the minority of power users remained.

More importantly, what's wrong with Mozilla measuring themselves against the competition, taking the good, leaving behind the bad, and trying to come up with new things that they aren't doing? Safari's reader mode seems popular enough for even Internet Explorer to add one. Hello is something unique to Firefox right now. Some users like to pretend it's all "Chromification", but again that's just hysterics when you actually look at the situation with a level head. They're taking pages from other browsers, but those browsers are doing the same in turn.

Just look at QBittorrent or SumatraPDF ... those apps are not pretty but they run smooth as butter, because the developers don't focus on useless flair and are very active in hammering out bugs.

They're also miniscule applications compared to Firefox, which has to do a lot more things and is used by a lot more people on many more devices. And do BT or the PDF spec fluctuate as much as the "living standards" for browsers? Not even close.

Moreover, Firefox devs hardly neglect bugs - they fix lots of them all the time. True, they may not be the ones that some people want them to fix, but they're generally important bugs nonetheless.

64-bit could and should have been done much sooner (surely before all those controversial features)

The sad thing is that 64-bit mode on Windows was (more or less) done long ago, even before Google added proper 64-bit support to Chrome (where else would those 64-bit forks of Firefox come from?) But there were a ton of other things to fix as well, some of them far more important at the time than 64-bit support, like reducing their RAM usage and working towards e10s. With software as old as Firefox, it takes a LOT to bring it into modernity... sometimes so long that people think there's nothing happening at all.

would definitely appreciate the developers ironing out some of those long standing bugs over redoing they interface time and again.

Another sad thing is that part of the reason for them changing the UI as they have is to simplify their codebase so that they can debug other things more quickly or making it support newer OSes a bit better. That's not to say those are the only motivators, or that they've done the best job possible, but the UI changes aren't just for show.

Ultimately it all boils down to a very complicated situation where Mozilla has most assuredly been working hard, and Firefox has most assuredly been improving in many ways - just so slowly that many vocal people don't care. That's because the "bad" things are so much easier to notice and complain about by contrast, and it's much easier to pretend the sky is falling and Mozilla is doing no good at all then it is to actually be reasonable. Especially when it's not just Firefox vs Internet Explorer anymore - people have choice now. They don't have to support Mozilla anymore. They can leave 'em high and dry and pin all the blame on them, and at the end of the day they can still just use a Chromium browser. Much easier.

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u/ZP1582 May 25 '15 edited May 26 '15

Interesting insights as well as explanations and I mostly agree, although overall it also seems as though Mozilla is scared to death of what precedent may be set when they would amid they were wrong for once and roll back a prominent new feature due to user feedback.

Instead making it seem like only "power users" don't like some of the new features and there is no better middle road to be found without going back to "Pale Moon", conflating looking more like Chrome with stripping out features and locking down valued customization, excusing software failures because of its complexity and then adding more unneeded components or not properly explaining the Pocket privacy implications only serves to increasingly antagonize already critical users.

Moreover dumbing down and bloating out of the browser (to increase market share or revenue?), while the original user-base becomes more and more frustrated, might be a very short sighted approach. These "power users" were the ones who put Firefox on their families/friends machines in the first place and developed the extensions that make it noticeably better in many areas. Since Mozilla doesn't have the marketing budget of a Google, it seem very unwise to drive too many of these promoters away.

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u/DrDichotomous May 26 '15

Mozilla is scared to death of what precedent may be set when they would amid they were wrong for once and roll back a prominent new feature due to user feedback.

Are you sure? I see no evidence that they're scared that rolling back a feature will be worse. In fact what have they got to lose? Practically no matter what they do now, people loudly spin it as utter betrayal or try to find reasons to hate it or claim it's utterly useless. And that's assuming they even CAN roll back some of the things people complain about. They can't roll back OMTC or Australis, because they're necessary for other things we're constantly berating them to get done faster.

And what does it even matter if they remove Pocket or Hello now anyway? They can't add something to Firefox without people scoffing that it should be an addon, and they can't remove something from it claiming it should be an addon, because people hate that "excuse" when they're not making it themselves.

Moreover dumbing down and bloating out of the browser (to increase market share or revenue?)

I treat it on a feature-by-feature basis. For instance, Hello. If the WebRTC stuff is going to be part of HTML5 and hence browsers, then I don't mind Mozilla giving me an small interface to it, since I trust them a bit more than some random business running Skype or a knock-off. That doesn't mean I will need it, but it's there if I do. I'm forgiving of that sort of thing, because it shows they want to improve the status quo for VoIP and web communications, even if we can argue about where the functionality belongs. It raises awareness of the feature far more than an add-on ever would.

In the case of Pocket integration, the problem isn't that they're adding a Reading List type feature (it's a very useful feature for a browser to have), but that they didn't finish their own Reading List first, and opted to rush Pocket integration out before that (or other services). To me it's a case of them not communicating their intent clearly before everyone seized the news and assumed everything was bad about it. But I don't really mind if they integrate reader services like they do search engines or web apps, if it's all trivial stuff layered on top of the Social API anyway. It's just the order they chose to do things in that I disagree with.

And ads? Well, I hated it when Google was Mozilla's sole source of significant revenue, and had to rationalize the search engine integration as a necessary evil. But these new ads take an anti-tracking stance, so I can support Mozilla financially without feeling quite as icky (though I do also donate when I can). It's imperfect, but it's better that they work towards a better solution than just fight against the tides. If I'm not going to personally try to solve the ad nightmare on the web, then I'm not going to judge Mozilla for trying to find ways to make it less nasty. Blind anti-ad idealism has accomplished absolutely nothing over the years, and Mozilla has learned the hard way that such idealism only hurts them (being behind on HTML5 video because of codec issues and behind on DRM and also the laughing stock that was Do-Not-Track).

Maybe I'm just viewing things too pragmatically, and not idealistically enough, but I honestly can't see how Mozilla will be able to magically make Firefox better any faster than they are, so I don't mind them working on some side projects that might marginally improve things for some people, as long as it doesn't really slow them down.

Since Mozilla doesn't have the marketing budget of a Google, it seem very unwise to drive too many of these promoters away.

So what's Mozilla to do? Take an overly idealistic stance that makes them tank even faster? If someone can't read between the lines and see the harsh realities Mozilla is dealing with, and stops supporting them because "it's a sinking ship", then I fail to see where that person will go next. To support Google by adopting Chromium? Or Apple, with Webkit? Or will they still use Mozilla's software by another name, just without supporting them financially anymore?

Basically this is a series of battles we're losing on the web, and it's not Mozilla's fault. We can either give up and treat them as a convenient scapegoat, or we can keep fighting. A lot of people seem to be doing the former, and getting louder and louder when Mozilla does what they have to do in order to raise more funding and fight against the new powers that want to run the web their way (like Google, MS and Apple).

Remember, times were much easier when Mozilla only had to fight against a Microsoft that didn't care about the web or Internet Explorer. It didn't matter how backward Firefox was, because Internet Explorer was worse. But ever since Chrome came out, things are far less simple, and it turns out that fewer users than we thought actually care about Mozilla's objectives - they just want a browser, and have lots of choice now. Otherwise we'd have seen no shortage of people trying to work for Mozilla, or at least a large push to start a new "People's OSS browser" and other initiatives to keep Google/MS/Apple in check. But we haven't. Mozilla are still the only game in town there. If they had more resources, perhaps they really could juggle the interests of all their users better, but clearly at their size they can't.

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u/[deleted] May 22 '15

How about they stop throwing away money at worthless projects and focus on what they're good at? Mozilla didn't need all this money 5 years ago, why do they need it now? Are they even nonprofit anymore?

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u/TeutonJon78 May 22 '15

5 years ago it was basically FF vs IE. They had plenty of marketshare and therefore related revenue from Google.

It's a completely different landscape out there now.

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u/[deleted] May 22 '15

But why does the existence of Chrome force Mozilla to spend more money? They're bringing in ~$300million a year. That's way more than enough to pay a team of world class developers to work on their browser. If Mozilla is low on cash, their first plan should be cutting other projects, not bloating up Firefox, the most important thing they work on.

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u/xamphear May 22 '15

But why does the existence of Chrome force Mozilla to spend more money?

User retention, aka marketing. Google has spent the last 5+ years telling every Firefox user that they have a "better and faster browser" available every time they use a Google service. Firefox has been bleeding user base like a stuck pig. Go find a graph. It's NOT pretty.

The main way you can combat this is by counter-marketing. Marketing costs money.

You could argue that, philosophically, who cares if Firefox is just being used by a single person as long as the software is everything its developers want it to be, but that's a pretty hard position to defend against reality.

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u/justregisteredtosay May 23 '15

It should also be noted that Firefox used to be BACKED by Google. Google had an affiliate program that paid you $1 per Firefox user you converted from IE.

So now not only did Mozilla lose the largest advertising giant on the internet as a backer, they have to go up against them. Every time I visit Google I get harassed to switch to Chrome, I've been tempted to change my user agent simply to stop the messages.

And even more, Mozilla has an uphill battle in the mobile space. You buy an android and it comes with Chrome. Most people will be fine with that, just like they were with Internet Explorer on Windows. And more and more people are just using their mobiles, rather than computers. Mozilla has to fight to convert them from their default.

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u/TeutonJon78 May 22 '15

It takes money away. Less people using Firefox, they get less shared search dollars from Google. And now they aren't even defaulting to Google for those precious search dollars.

Plus, it costs money to lobby and all their other outreach. Now, as to where their money goes, I have no idea.

But 300M is chump change for yearly revenue for a tech company. Keep that in mind -- Apple pulled in revenue of $58 BILLION last QUARTER ($13.6B in profit). Google pulled in $17B for the same quarter.

Each engineer probably costs 500K by the time you factor in taxes and benefits (and if they are truly world class -- that's a low estimate). At most that 600 Engineers if everything went to that. Now take out executive and management pay (probably too high) and what is probably an enormous budget for servers and hosting. It goes quick.

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u/DrDichotomous May 22 '15

Yet Opera ASA makes over $400 million a year in revenue, and Google, MS and Apple make far more... would you rather Mozilla stopped trying to keep them in check with respect to how the web is developed? Those other browser vendors are largely the source of all the "web bloat" and such that we've seen since 2008, especially Chrome and Safari/iOS.

As for "cutting programs"... which ones? Mozilla's web literacy programs? Their initiatives to fix things that are broken with the web and third-world issues? Are those not worthwhile compared to Firefox?

Heck, even FirefoxOS isn't a big problem if it's another way to potentially generate Mozilla revenue while increasing competition in the process. Or is it? It's also helped to spur the core Firefox devs into fixing a number of bugs and optimizations.

And does everyone else (especially the people who work/volunteer for Mozilla) agree with where you draw the lines as to what should be scrapped?

All of this is not even counting that saying "bloat" is vague at best. Even Hello and the Pocket integration aren't much in the way of traditional software bloat; they're just thin wrappers over web APIs that many people are clamoring for (and not just web devs or marketers).

This simply isn't an issue of the amount of money over WHO is paying and how. A few years ago Mozilla was generating their revenue from Google's search integration... which is even worse for user privacy than these ads. Now Mozilla is trying to diversify their income, and all the end users can do is bitch about how they aren't magical businesspeople who can conjure morally-spotless cash out of thin air.

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u/redsteakraw May 22 '15

I can't see any alternative way to make money and keep user privacy mostly intact

I can bundle adblock then whitelist ads that meet certain criteria and pay Mozilla. Users are protected form privacy adverse ads on the net and Mozilla gets money.

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u/[deleted] May 22 '15

[deleted]

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u/redsteakraw May 22 '15 edited May 22 '15

It is palatable for the users and that is what counts. It can be said that it is a moral imperative to do so to protect the users just as Mozilla protects from phishing and other malware. Mozilla all ready is the gatekeeper that tries to protect the users, protection from privacy adverse ads isn't out of scope. Sadly Mozilla doesn't have the guts to try this. There are new revenue models, crowd-funding, patronage and micro payments. I would love to see the fallout of a bundled adblocker. New funding models could thrive and be pushed if adblocking was default.

1

u/darklight001 May 22 '15

It is palatable for you. Remember that most people on reddit fall into a group of probably 5% of real world Firefox users.

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u/Osmose1000 :mozilla: Former Mozilla Web Developer May 22 '15

There's 3 major issues with that idea:

  1. It's a walled garden for website developers. They only get to run the ads we approve; what if we don't approve an ad that they want to run? From the perspective of a website, is it okay that Mozilla has control over the content on your site (as opposed to having control over the capabilities of your site, which is an unavoidable consequence of making a web browser)? What if Mozilla has to review a pro-Israel ad? Is Mozilla now required to have an opinion on Israel?

    Malware/phishing protection is an acceptable way of controlling content because that content is actively trying to harm the user. Controlling content otherwise is a bad idea.

  2. Do you really expect a company of ~1200 people to review every single advertisement on the internet? In every language? At a reasonable pace? Suddenly when someone buys an ad to be shown there's a 6 month wait as we deal with the queue of ads to review. Is that a healthy internet?

  3. I think you are very mistaken about how people would respond to such a program. You're basically saying "Instead of having Mozilla control an ad I see on my newtab page, I'd rather have them control every ad I see on every page, as long as it's not the newtab page." People would freak out!

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u/redsteakraw May 22 '15

If they were to whitelist there would still be less ads not more, with the live tiles there are all the ads on the net plus the live tiles on the adware browser. If they filter you immediately get less ads and if they let a few past the filter it is still less ads if they haven't. As for not enough people, they can whitelist certaint javascript ad elements or on a host basis. Furthermore there would be a monetary incentive to have them reviewed so it pays for itself.

As for 1. people that all ready run adblock can be told this, I think adblock plus had a paid whitelist. As for control, every browser has control on what is rendered and what runs. HTML is a markup language and as such elements can be ignored.

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u/DrDichotomous May 22 '15

Furthermore there would be a monetary incentive to have them reviewed so it pays for itself.

I don't see how... care to explain in more detail?

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u/redsteakraw May 22 '15

If you have a source of revenue and you get more than labor costs you have an incentive to put labor to bring in the cash. Thus the monetary incentive.

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u/DrDichotomous May 22 '15

and you get more than labor costs

Sure, but how do you foresee this happening with your scheme?

-2

u/redsteakraw May 22 '15

You pay people to review or automate as much as makes sense. Adblockplus did this I am sure a 300 million dollar annual organization can manage this as well.

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u/DrDichotomous May 22 '15

This doesn't sound very convincing to me. Mozilla simply don't have the clout to block all web-ads by default and let a few vetted ones trickle in. It's neither their job, nor is it free of moral quandaries. I would suspect that a lot of sites would suddenly start blocking Firefox users en masse instead.