3mo ago

As Firefox turns 20, Mozilla ponders how to restore it to its former glory | TechCrunch

techcrunch.com As Firefox turns 20, Mozilla ponders how to restore it to its former glory | TechCrunch

Exactly 20 years ago, Mozilla started shipping version 1.0 of its Firefox browser. At the time, you could download it or buy a CD-ROM with a guidebook

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3mo ago

As Firefox turns 20, Mozilla ponders how to restore it to its former glory | TechCrunch

techcrunch.com /2024/11/09/as-firefox-turns-20-mozilla-ponders-how-to-restore-it-to-its-former-glory/

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16 comments

AI and Pocket. Remove those and include Ublock by default and more people will use it.
If users have to disable 5 annoyances before even starting to consider moving over is really annoying. Most people will just go back to chrome
- Nah, while the annoyances are there they are generally unobtrusive and most users wouldn't notice they've even there.
  The real block to Firefox is out of Mozilla's hands. Google pushes Chrome aggressively via their search engine - users get prompted to download and use Chrome. This is monopolistoc behaviour and the only way to tackle it is anti trust action. Microsoft is doing the same with Edge and it's slowly growing market share as a result.
  Sadly stopping that is not likely to happen. Maybe if Musk encourages Trump to continue the US case against Google, and/or the EU decides to wake up and regard browsers as important again.
  All Mozilla can do is try and keep Firefox development going and keep the The organisation financially stable.

Doesn't half (or more?) of the discussion revolve around the fact that Firefox isn't shipped with any product? We have known for literal decades that most folks will not change what the OS ships with. This was part of the Microsoft monopoly issue, yes? Now we have it with them again, and Google. Apple is a little more complicated I guess.
Firefox works fine, bit of isn't part of any major package, and not all websites test for it. I don't know what Mozilla can do to overcome this.
- Apple is simpler - they just say "fuck you" to any other browser at all.
  Any "different" browser on iOS is just a shell.
  Hopefully we'll see that change with the new EU regs.

Former glory??
I’ve never used anything but, tweaked to perfection, wherever possible. It’s glorious AF.
- Firefox was the most used browser at one point before Google headhunted Mozilla devs to work on Chrome.
  
  IE and Chrome (and iOS Safari, I guess) are monopoly browsers. The natural enemy of private and good.
  
  Not true, Firefox never overtook Internet Explorer.

They could improve Firefox on Android.
Currently, Opera browser has the best UI in my opinion, especially on large screens. Firefox does finally have tabs, but no permanent desktop mode, which should be really fucking simple to implement. Just a toggle to change the default value. Changing UserAgent gives fucked up scaling.
- Long term user of Firefox on Android. It just works for me.
  But I'm still waiting for better middle button mouse handle - #1587995.

How? Debloat. Remove the AI bullshit. Remove the sponsored crap, remove Pocket, hell make the Firefox Sync stuff something you need to install separately as an add-on. Give us a no nonsense, just works, lean and mean web browser.
Problem is that that doesn’t make any money. So they won’t.

Obviously they need to bring the CD back
- Huh, computer magazines with CDs included. Inside the best compilation of software, few exclusive demos.

Have they thought of putting in a crypto wallet? Or just forcibly enshittifying every aspect of it with AI?

Honest feedback: run Chromium tabs in 100% degoogled mode. Make that a “compatibility” feature and focus on making these sandboxed tabs completely indistinguishable from real Chrome (or as close as possible) to websites.

I’m sure the answer starts with a conference on various social justice topics at lavish hotel. /s

16 comments