[HN Gopher] Mozilla's latest quagmire
___________________________________________________________________
Mozilla's latest quagmire
Author : nivethan
Score : 25 points
Date : 2025-12-01 21:44 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (rubenerd.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (rubenerd.com)
| bitpush wrote:
| > It might be hard to believe for my younger readers, but Mozilla
| took on Internet Explorer that was just as entrenched as Chrome
| is now, and they kicked proverbial posterior! They did because
| they offered a better browser that respected the people who used
| it, and gave them agency in their browsing experience.
|
| That is revisionist history. Firefox succeeded because MS was
| sitting on their hands with IE, and it was stagnating. Firefox
| didnt do the opposite of what IE - you could argue Mozilla was
| doing what MS should have been.
|
| It wasnt about "respecting users", or "agency" but simply
| implemented standards properly.
|
| And that's going to be a hard problem with Chrome because you're
| up against a browser that is moving very, _very_ , fast.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| Firefox was seriously a better browser, not just "implements
| standards better". It ran faster, it had tabs (wow!) and at one
| point it got Firebug which let you have a console INSIDE the
| browser that showed information you could print with
| `console.log`, I kid you not.
|
| It was a better browser through and through, maybe because MS
| slept on IE or maybe not, but in the end it isn't revisionist
| to say they beat MS's proverbial posterior because the browser
| was better.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Firebug was a big reason for webdevs to adopt firefox in the
| first place. Part of what made chrome succeed is it came out
| with a pretty robust set of webdev tools right from the get-
| go.
|
| But also, google spent a mountain of money advertising
| chrome.
| evilduck wrote:
| Chrome borrowed their webdev tools from Webkit, who
| borrowed them from KHTML. Chrome launched with dev tools,
| but they didn't develop their own distinct version of them
| for many years after launching the browser.
| ghurtado wrote:
| > Part of what made chrome succeed is it came out with a
| pretty robust set of webdev tools right from the get-go.
|
| I think this factor isn't given enough weight in the shift
| to Firefox.
|
| At that time, the largest pain point in web development was
| (by a long shot) browser compatibility.
|
| When developers fell in love with Firefox, they started
| pushing business requirements away from IE and towards the
| browser that didn't feel like it was their enemy. Alongside
| with this there was also massive shift to start taking web
| standards seriously, which is another area where IE dropped
| the ball spectacularly
|
| It took a few years, but eventually pointy haired managers
| got sick of our whining and gave in.
| cogman10 wrote:
| We, no joke, ultimately were able to drop our support for
| IE6->8 because of the youtube "we are dropping support
| for IE" banner. We spun it to our bosses as "If google is
| doing this, we should be able to."
| cogman10 wrote:
| I'd also point out that IE won the title from Netscape in the
| first place, which was the basis for the Mozilla software set
| (that later spun off into firefox).
|
| Mozilla didn't "take on" IE. Mozilla reclaimed their lost
| browser position. IE kicked the proverbial posterior of
| Netscape which both Netscape and Mozilla struggled to reclaim
| right up until the release of Firefox.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| Didn't Mozilla reclaim its title after Microsoft stopped its
| s monopolistic and anti-competitive activities? Or do I have
| the timing wrong?
| biglyburrito wrote:
| lol, please tell me at what point in time Microsoft stopped
| its monopolistic and anti-competitive activities.
| ghurtado wrote:
| They never did stop, but there was a time when they had
| to slow down right after being found guilty in a pretty
| big anti trust case in 2001.
|
| The case was specifically about IE integration in
| Windows, so it definitely had an impact.
|
| I think this is probably what the comment was thinking
| about.
| cogman10 wrote:
| That was maybe a factor in the EU. In the US, MS never
| really stopped their anti-competitive activities. IE has
| been distributed as the default browser for windows in the
| US since forever.
|
| MS presented the choice for a browser from 2009->2011.
|
| IDK that MS has ever actually fixed the situation since
| their last fine in 2013.
|
| IIRC, firefox really started taking off around Firefox 3,
| which was first released in 2006. Looks like they
| officially beat IE in 2010. That does seem to line up with
| MS's implementation of the browser choice screen.
| IshKebab wrote:
| > the majority who don't use "AI"
|
| Citation definitely needed. ChatGPT has almost a _billion_ users.
|
| I do agree with the main point that this should be easy to turn
| off, but let's not pretend that everyone hates AI as much as the
| average HN nerd.
|
| Also, you could argue that Firefox's only remaining users _are_
| the average HN nerd and therefore it shouldn 't pursue AI, but
| that's exactly the problem.
| Bratmon wrote:
| Yeah, that claim killed all credibility of the author for me. I
| firmly believe that if making your point requires you to invent
| some statistics that clearly don't pass the smell test, it's
| time to accept that your point may be wrong.
| raincole wrote:
| People who hate AI enough to affect their choice of browser are
| definitely the minority.
|
| However, realistically Firefox is a niche browser now and will
| stay so. So niche that appealing to the minority becomes a
| valid strategy again.
| jrjfjgkrj wrote:
| I use Firefox as my main browser.
|
| when the AI tab/sidebar appeared, I just closed it. that's it.
| and it never appeared again. I didn't need to change any special
| setting.
|
| maybe there was another dialog or two which asked me to enable AI
| something which I answered No and dont remember.
|
| this article is written in bad faith, Firefox is not pushing AI
| at every opportunity like Edge for example
| arjie wrote:
| Mozilla has the classic problem of a non-profit that achieved its
| aims. I was around back in the day and my friends and I were avid
| evangelists of Firefox - a few cogs in the wheel of the marketing
| installing Firefox on school machines and getting all the elderly
| people to use it and so on. There were user groups and student
| ambassador programs and so on. It was an incredible marketing
| effort combined with an effort to bring standards and compliance
| to them into the mainstream. And it worked because they added
| features at a rate that IE simply did not match.
|
| The extension ecosystem, tabs, plugins, and notably whatever
| effort they did behind the scenes to ensure that companies that
| did streaming video etc. would work with their browser all played
| out really well.
|
| I think the ultimate problem is that Mozilla's mission of a
| standards-compliant web with open-source browsers everywhere
| ultimately did get achieved. The era of "Works with IE6" badges
| has ended and the top browsers run on open-source engines.
| Despite our enthusiasm at the time for it, I think the truth is
| that Firefox was probably just a vehicle for this, much bigger,
| achievement.
|
| Now that it's been achieved, Mozilla is in the fortunate place
| where Firefox only needs to exist as a backstop against Chrome
| sliding into high-proprietary world while providing the utility
| to Google that they get to say they're not a monopoly on web
| technologies.
|
| Mozilla's search for a new mission isn't some sign of someone
| losing their way. It's just what happens to the Hero of Legend
| after he defeats the Big Bad. There's a post-denouement period.
| Sam Gamgee gets to go become Mayor of the Shire, which is all
| very convenient, but a non-profit like Mozilla would much rather
| find a similar enough mission that they can apply their vast
| resources to. That involves the same mechanics as product
| development, and they're facing the same primary thing: repeated
| failure.
|
| That's just life.
| hd4 wrote:
| It's advisable to use a prefs.js for this sort of thing
|
| https://kb.mozillazine.org/Prefs.js_file
| hekkle wrote:
| Putting the flags in Firefox just seems logical not "Hostile
| Design". Yes, there could be an easier way to turn it off, such
| as a menu item, but the flags need to be there first before the
| menu entry can exist.
|
| The author claims to be an "IaaS engineer", surely, he can figure
| out how to write a firefox plugin, that can do what he wants, and
| use that to help non-technical users, and if it becomes popular
| enough will probably effect the change he wishes to see.
| tapoxi wrote:
| Why can't the menu entry be created alongside the flags? Surely
| if it's too complicated, then creating a plugin would also be
| too complicated for someone who doesn't work at Mozilla and
| doesn't know the codebase?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-12-01 23:00 UTC)