Pudgy Penguins

Does this mean Firefox will become an agentic browser?

Actual question!

If so, just... Please, don't! Take a hint from this article. The Mozilla Corporation needs money to pay for its expenses, we all get that, but aren't there any other options? I find that unlikely.

Less unlikely, from what I've been seeing online, is a hard fork. Your user base feels more and more disenfranchised from the project, and this trend-chasing just accentuates the problem.

You want to chase new users at any cost, but you don't have any guarantees of new users. Your user base, however, the ones that have been sticking with you every step of the way, has been showing it's displeasement with the course Mozilla Corp is taking, and they may jump ship.

And I'm not even touching on the fact that, according to the Fediverse post, this may be opt-out and not opt-in. If you argue what opt-in is, it is not opt-in. So much for trustworthiness...

I'm so disappointed with this. But, honestly, it's not like it was unexpected. Remember that removal?

Look, I'm not saying AI is bad. There are use cases for it.

And I'm not saying integrating some sort of AI in Firefox is also a bad thing in itself. A small local model, with a dataset built from data with permissive licenses (e.g., Creative Commons) and also licensed with one, that creates summaries and is opt-in, whether via an add-on or built-in, can be useful to some people. Different people, different needs.

However, given all that's been happening on the corporate side of Mozilla, the users are very much skeptical and with reason.

#Firefox #OpenSource

He says he could begin to block ad blockers in Firefox and estimates that’d bring in another $150 million, but he doesn’t want to do that. It feels off-mission.

It may be just me, but I read this as “I don't want to 😜 😜 but I'll kill AdBlockers in Firefox for buckerinos 😂”. This disappoints and saddens me a lot, and I hope I'm wrong. I've been using Firefox before it was called that. Heck, I even used the Mozilla Application Suite back in the day. It was its commitment to open standards and the open web, and its powerful add-on system, that attracted me to its software.

Honestly, that's what's been keeping me. I think that's also what's been keeping their loyal base of users with the project, the geeks and nerds that care about privacy. It's the same group of people who helped it get very popular at one point.

Killing one of its advantages over the Chromium engine, being able to have a fucking adblocker that's actually useful, and that nowadays is a fucking security feature due to malvertising, will be another nail in the coffin, IMHO. The core community will feel disenfranchised, and this may have negative consequences for the project. You know why? Because these are some of the people that the normies turn to when they want tech advice.

For fuck sake, for-profit side of Mozilla, get a damn grip!

Update, since this is getting traction on Reddit

I'm not against Mozilla making money. Like a regular citizen needs to make money, companies and even nonprofits need it too. That's the world we live in, whether we like it or not.

What bothers me is how the new CEO mentions something that he could do but doesn't want to. If he doesn't want to, why say it? It has the potential to cause bad PR, and it has.

Of course, I know I may not be interpreting this correctly.

Right now, I'm on the fence. His statement leads me to believe that the option is still very much on the table; otherwise, he wouldn't mention it.

#Mozilla #Firefox #AdBlocker #OpenSource #FOSS

All this nonsense they've been doing for a few years now is indicative of this type of infestation:

• AI plans;
• buying an Ad company;
• removing info about not selling users' data;
• applying Terms of Service to their distributed Firefox binaries;
• continued Firefox usage decline;
• massive bonuses and/or pay increases for executives;
• all those failed projects, too many to list;
• etc, etc, etc...

It feels like Mozilla is walking back on promises made. What the actual fuck, Mozilla Foundation?

#Mozilla #MozillaFoundation #Firefox #TechBro #FOSS #OpenSource

Screenshot by DR333AD, released under the CC-BY-SA-4.0 License

I just stumbled on an article titled “In 2024, please switch to Firefox”, which offers three compelling reasons for you to switch to Firefox. Being a Firefox user since it was called Phoenix or Firebird (I don't recall which one was the first one I used), I can say it's a terrific browser.

Don't worry. You can import your bookmarks, history, and passwords from your current browser into Firefox.

#Firefox #Browsers