Mozilla has been a dumpster fire for quite a while now.

Mozilla has been going downhill very fast since Brendan Eich was removed as CEO. There was some controversy at the time and it made sense why he was removed, but it seems clear now that Mozilla took the wrong choice in removing him as it seems he was keeping the ship on course. Now it is floundering from numerous sides.

I think Mozilla should look into getting him back before they all end up losing their jobs.

I would have said the same thing until they integrated the W3C Encrypted Media Extensions. It's clear they lost their way some time ago.

Why? They allowed proprietary extensions (e.g. Flash) from the start. I don't like it, but I don't see how it represents a loss of their way. Mozilla was never GNU.

Big difference between an extension and being integrated into the browser. It's directly analogous to the difference between your OS being closed source and your OS being able to run closed source programs. The former is a liability; the latter is an ability that you grant to users to use the system the way they want.

The CDM modules are not integrated with the browser. The browser only has an (open source) sandbox to run them.

I don't like EME either, but not implementing it would've killed any chance of regaining users: "Oh look, Firefox Quantum looks awesome, I should try it. ... Never mind, it doesn't play Netflix". Implemeting it, but disabling it by default was a good choice. People will have to consciously click "I accept DRM" to use it, which might get them to read more about what it is and ultimately raise awareness about how terrible it is.

Yea, but they lost me today. EME annoyed me, and I took note of it, but I didn't leave over it. But now I feel like Looking Glass is the straw that broke the camel's back.

The world doesn't need another browser that sacrifices principles for market share. Chrome, IE, and Safari are perfectly good browsers for that. What I wanted was a browser (and software in general) that promotes security, privacy, open standards, and open source. You can accuse me of misinterpreting the situation, but that's what I thought Firefox was 10 years ago. It's not what Firefox is today. It's turned into just another organization that's optimizing for the continuation of the organization over it's own founding principles.

I was concerned for a minute. Then I remembered that this is the browser vendor that constantly spouts it's privacy bonafides yet on a monthly basis "partners" with companies like Pocket to install unwanted addons and functionality and has Google Analytics on their settings pages.

Firefox bought Pocket. And they had negotiated with Google to remove tracking on that page. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14753546

The acquisition was two years after the integration. The referenced comment says nothing about tracking being removed, only referencing a "special deal" whatever that means.

You are trying to muddy the waters here. Even if I were to accept your (wrong) explanations, they still don't jive with the image Mozilla is trying to project.

Mozilla went through a year long legal discussion with GA before we would ever implement it on our websites. GA had to provide how and what they stored and we would only sign a contract with them if they allowed Mozilla to opt-out of Google using the data for mining and 3rd parties. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=697436#c14 https://bug697436.bmoattachments.org/attachment.cgi?id=73207...

That's novel, going to so much effort to use a tracking service while proclaiming you are not tracking!

Sounds like taking a shower without getting wet. I see you silently dropped the Pocket thing, then?

Staying bitter for two years is one thing, but it took me a few minutes to refresh actual details about what happened. The initial integration raised privacy concerns but mainly by being unclear. Since then things have steadily improved, like Pocket updating their privacy policy. https://venturebeat.com/2015/06/09/mozilla-responds-to-firef... There was a long discussion on the Mozilla Governance board that clarified a lot of things, including the legal department affirming that users were not automatically bound by Pocket's ToS. https://lwn.net/Articles/650869/ And eventually they bought Pocket. So while Mozilla isn't perfect, privacy is a real priority for them, and when they do mess up, they put a lot of time and effort into mitigation.

I don't think there is a basis for discussion here if you can't acknowledge that the mere installation of 3rd party addons & use of GA is a breach of trust.