- Removing browser features (tab groups) by factoring them out into extensions, then

- Breaking the extension API such that such extensions are no longer possible, then

- Say you'll add new extension APIs to allow such features but actually don't implement anything for several years (https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebExtensions/TabHiding / https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1332447)

- Separately, break all extensions on the mobile version of firefox and then decree that the only extensions allowed on mobile must be specifically whitelisted by Mozilla

https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2020/09/29/expanded-extensio...

That was done after much screaming, and there are no plans to ever bring that out of Nightly.

(I'm not saying that is part of the deal but I don't know what more Google could realistically hope for...)

Again, not something I actually believe, but the presented position is at least internally consistent/valid.

And the elephant in the room is the tiny and ever-shrinking user base. Not only do they fail to confront this single, existentially threatening fact, but they don't even bring it up.

It's like the titanic captain listing all the features which will keep you comfortable for the second half of the voyage.

The world would be better if firefox could succeed, but it's increasingly difficult to even imagine what this would look like, or how it could come to pass.

That concerns me on a technical level; Mozilla-the-organisation now has control over the tiles on the default New Tab page which people are accustomed to using as bookmarks.

It's feasible that a bad actor could use that vector to replace valid URLs with nefarious ones as part of targeted phishing.

The Mullvad (VPN) thing is completely optional and you have to opt in by paying money. You are not required to use a VPN. I'm not sure why anyone is even remotely upset by this at all. What's the issue? Honestly, I don't understand.

Both these companies have good track records. I'm not sure what the issue is here. #2 seems to be my only concern.

Source? The last financial release detailed 2018, one year after Mozilla's highest revenue year. Additionally, their CEO resigned and I doubt Baker got a raise at all, certainly not for more than Chris Beard's salary.

The data is only as recent as 2018, indeed, but I don't have any reason to suspect that they've corrected course. It's an especially bad look when they're also laying off large swaths of their staff.

Also, that huge spike on the chart was roughly $4.5 million of the over $100 million in increased revenue.

... after spending years saying that the relationship with Google regarding search royalties was a serendipitous one that involved getting paid for a decision that was the right thing for users whether money was changing hands or not, and that the default search engine spot wasn't actually for sell.

That lie is not unlike their carefully crafted PR statements that were intended to mislead people about the financial arrangement regarding the Pocket partnership. Those efforts turned out to be so successful that they hoodwinked many of Mozilla Corporation's own employees—who interpreted the statements to mean that there was no financial incentive, just as it was intended to be interpreted by the general public. Then those employees began showing up on places like HN and started saying explicitly that there was no money changing hands, even though that's not what the PR statements ever said and reality actually differed.

What? The default search engine is unambiguously for sale, that's what Google (and other companies depending on your country) are buying. And it was the right decision to sell it to the highest bidder to fund development, when Yahoo bid more than Google they sold it to Yahoo.

I genuinely have no idea what point you are trying to make.

The point, as already stated, is that people who were official mouthpieces for Mozilla said for years that the default search engine simply wasn't up for sale to just whomever would pay for it. That it pointed to Google because Google's search engine was the best search engine for Firefox's users. Just like Google was the default search engine before Mozilla ever signed a deal. Just like Wikipedia was added to the searchbar without anyone paying to make it happen. That any royalties were icing on the cake. (See "serendipitous" in the previous comment). What's hard to understand about this or the earlier comment?

This is untrue. They openly stated they sold it to Google in 2008, and in 2011 a bidding war between Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo saw the price triple from 100 million to 300 million.[1]

Maybe at some point following a contract they had a generic "Google was the best choice" PR statement, but they've never hid that it was up for sale to whoever wanted it or that it made up most of their budget.

And even if they did say the royalties were icing on the cake, what would be wrong with then changing their policy to generate as much money for development as possible?

http://allthingsd.com/20111222/google-will-pay-mozilla-almos...

The staff. The staff, who were subsequently fired.

While I won't claim the leadership has been truly outstanding, I think the extreme criticism of their salary is unwarranted.

The only bad thing about the layoffs is that Mozilla leadership was shitty enough to do it during the middle of a pandemic. At this point though, keep it coming. It's been a bittersweet experience watching the tide turn against Mozilla over the last year, as the popular perception of it has only just now begun to align with how unworthy of an organization it has been for years already.

On the up side, it remembers where you were and returns there when it wakes up again. Still less bad than Chrome.

When it pops up two (count 'em, 2) dialog boxes announcing it has crashed and would you like to have it re-started, that seems pretty unambiguous. It happens about every day, lately, often when I click the "new tab" button.

If Firefox need to cut costs to survive, this is part of keeping Firefox working for us.

> - Sending all of your browsing history to Cloudflare

Are you referring to DNS over HTTPS? That's not all my browsing history, though it is still more than I want going to CloudFlare.

See also:

>Investing in a 400% increase in leadership salaries and bonuses during record-low market share