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Re:Firefox on the Brink? by beanjuiceII on Tuesday December 05, 2023 @04:00PM (#38536833)
I work in govt tech, we already internally do not care about FF support at all and only really look to chrome based browsers (chrome edge mostly) and safari. Many people don't even know what it is anymore, seems like time killed this browser too. Mozilla spending too much time/money and other crap over the years
Re:Firefox on the Brink? by riversflow on Tuesday December 05, 2023 @04:16PM (#38537000)
What does a government site need that you can't do on firefox? Honestly this is disenfranchising, you should consider the ethics of what you are proscribing for the populace. I should have a right to choose a browser that respects my privacy from a PC.
Re:Firefox on the Brink? by insanitybit on Tuesday December 05, 2023 @04:39PM (#38537290)
It's clearly not about what is needed, it's about what is tested. And spending resources on a browser that appears to have 2% of the market is not going to be a high priority.
Re:Firefox on the Brink? by Chabsff on Tuesday December 05, 2023 @04:48PM (#38537397)
Exactly. There are a plethora of browsers out there, and no one can be expected to test against all of them. As long as we go for a "government conforming to industry" mentality, then the cutoff has to be somewhere, and if Firefox doesn't make that cutoff, then that's all there is to it.

No browser deserves special treatment here. And this is as true for Firefox as it is for Lynx.

Re:Firefox on the Brink? by riversflow on Tuesday December 05, 2023 @05:18PM (#38537707)
> No browser deserves special treatment here.

Completely disagree. Privacy is a 4th ammendment right, so the government has a duty to support privacy first browsers. How am I "secure in my ... papers and effects" if I must use a privacy destroying browser to interact with the Government? If anything, chrome support is what should be questionable.

Re:Firefox on the Brink? by insanitybit on Tuesday December 05, 2023 @07:27PM (#38538908)
Maybe you can make this argument - that the government should support technologies that emphasize privacy. That could possibly lead to some funding. Creating a policy to support a single vendor, however, is something that I think would be a bit odd for the government. Government spending is supposed to be devoid of bias where possible - you can't just give a contract to someone you like or think is cool, you need to show that it's in the taxpayer's interest (ie: they are cheaper, usually).

To say "we are going to support a browser with 2% market share because we like it more" would therefor be a really big deal. I think a far better avenue would be for the government to provide funding for privacy technologies directly, in an effort to increase their marketshare, and thereby making support of those technologies trivial to justify without any potential issues of bias.

The thing is, the government already does this. The majority of TOR's funding comes from the USG, for example. I'd suggest that maybe the government could fund Mozilla's non profit, to a degree.

This is all based on a premise that Mozilla is worthy of that funding. Is Mozilla really the privacy champion that it touts itself as? Would funding be contingent on anything else? If the government is so determined to prioritize privacy, why not Brave? Or some other entity? Or a new entity?

Re:Firefox on the Brink? by gafage on Tuesday December 05, 2023 @05:26PM (#38537778)
That's the mother of all reaches.
Re:Firefox on the Brink? by riversflow on Tuesday December 05, 2023 @05:52PM (#38538072)
How?
Re:Firefox on the Brink? by hedora on Tuesday December 05, 2023 @09:35PM (#38539880)
The supreme court ruled there is no right to privacy in the same ruling that overturned roe v wade.
Re:Firefox on the Brink? by andsoitis on Wednesday December 06, 2023 @12:49AM (#38540831)
> The supreme court ruled there is no right to privacy in the same ruling that overturned roe v wade.

My understanding is that the consequence is denial of the right to privacy is limited to women while they are pregnant. Not a categorical denial of the right to privacy.

Re:Firefox on the Brink? by insanitybit on Wednesday December 06, 2023 @03:16AM (#38541581)
I don't think that's true. They just ruled that the constitutional right to privacy is not sufficient for the Roe v Wade ruling.
Re:Firefox on the Brink? by hedora on Wednesday December 06, 2023 @01:40PM (#38547856)
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/roe-...

> The final decision was little changed from the leaked draft. Writing for the five-justice majority (with Chief Justice Roberts concurring only in the judgment), Justice Samuel Alito argued that the right to privacy is not specifically guaranteed anywhere in the Constitution. When unenumerated liberty rights exist — the right to raise your child as you see fit, for example — those rights must be “deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and tradition.” Reviewing the history of abortion restrictions in the early United States, Alito concluded that the right to abortion is not.

> The opinion ignited a firestorm of controversy. Predictably so: Dobbs is arguably the first case to formally rescind a fundamental constitutional right. The opinion also failed to explain how its logic would not also result in the overturning of Griswold’s right to contraception or a series of other cases that rely on the same logic as Roe. These include Lawrence v. Texas (2003), which invalidated laws criminalizing same-sex intimate sexual conduct, and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), which recognized the right to marriage for same-sex couples.

Re:Firefox on the Brink? by insanitybit on Wednesday December 06, 2023 @02:07PM (#38548160)
Thank you.
Re:Firefox on the Brink? by eecc on Tuesday December 05, 2023 @05:30PM (#38537820)
Well, that’s what you get when you’re a Public Service. There’s an idiot living on the top of a mountain that needs some basic infrastructure? You got to get your truck out and build that supply line. You won’t do it? Then the government that granted you that Public Service status has renounced sovereignty on that part of the country
Re:Firefox on the Brink? by femiagbabiaka on Tuesday December 05, 2023 @05:32PM (#38537847)
Exactly, what a weird train of thought from government workers. Seems like the mission has been lost
Re:Firefox on the Brink? by Silhouette on Tuesday December 05, 2023 @05:14PM (#38537684)
A long time ago we had something called "standards" that were intended to solve this problem. The idea was that developers of different browsers would get together in a neutral forum and agree common ground that everyone would support. That way developers could reliably build upon that common ground and expect their products to operate correctly in any browser. It was an excellent idea that heralded the success of the modern WWW.

Naturally this enforced competition wasn't in Google's interests as its browser became dominant and it adopted the infamous Microsoft strategy to deal with the threat. Apparently we're fast approaching the extinguish phase.

The correct solution to this is for influential public bodies not to insist upon supporting any specific browser or browsers but instead to once again support open web standards and therefore free access to their information and services for all.

This is almost certainly in their own interests anyway. Google has a nasty habit of suddenly killing off its non-standardised extensions. Relying on functionality that other browsers don't necessarily support as well seems unwise.

Re:Firefox on the Brink? by ideamotor on Tuesday December 05, 2023 @06:15PM (#38538277)
This, but for so many issues. Innovation is being stifled by platform monopolies. Standards can too but right now that’s not the primary cause. It’s a balance.
Re:Firefox on the Brink? by IshKebab on Tuesday December 05, 2023 @05:37PM (#38537888)
Nonsense. Only completely trivial standards work without testing actually implementations against each other.

How do you think WiFi devices work together? Is it because WiFi is a standard? Not really - it's because WiFi vendors all test their chips against other WiFi chips on the market.

Re:Firefox on the Brink? by Silhouette on Tuesday December 05, 2023 @06:51PM (#38538609)
I've been the person doing that testing. Checking interoperability with a range of other devices is one way you can look for problems but when it comes to signing things off the standard is the final word. Do you know what happens to the devices that don't comply with statutory radio transmission standards? They don't get sold.

Typically the cost of fixing the problem and going through the whole certification process again from the start is significant. There are some direct financial costs but mostly the damage is increased time to market. That's a great incentive for the maker to get their act together and comply with the standards like everyone else as quickly as possible. If you screw up too many times your product might be obsolete before you're ever allowed to sell it.

Re:Firefox on the Brink? by IshKebab on Wednesday December 06, 2023 @01:33AM (#38541016)
> statutory radio transmission standards

Not the kind of standards we are talking about.

Re:Firefox on the Brink? by Silhouette on Thursday December 07, 2023 @08:58PM (#38564475)
WiFi was your own example.
Re:Firefox on the Brink? by lproven on Thursday December 07, 2023 @04:09AM (#38554426)
> There are a plethora of browsers out there

Three is not a plethora.

Blink engine, Webkit engine, Gecko engine. Three.

Re:Firefox on the Brink? by flagrant_taco on Tuesday December 05, 2023 @10:38PM (#38540235)
"appears to have 2%" is doing a lot of work he. If the earlier comments are accurate, the government stats are based on Google Analytics data that is specifically blocked or obscured by Firefox.

That 2% kind be breached, but the data doesn't accurately represent usage if Firefix is blocking GA in any meaningful numbers.

Re:Firefox on the Brink? by insanitybit on Wednesday December 06, 2023 @03:15AM (#38541579)
Yeah I used the word "appears" exactly to emphasize that the appearance is sufficient. The government is working with the data they have.
Re:Firefox on the Brink? by riversflow on Wednesday December 06, 2023 @03:06PM (#38548810)
The government shouldn’t work based on data, but on virtue. That’s the whole point of a constitution, common law, etc.
Re:Firefox on the Brink? by insanitybit on Wednesday December 06, 2023 @03:19PM (#38548934)
Easier said than done. That introduces the chance for bias and nepotism. The data driven approach is intended to avoid that.
Re:Firefox on the Brink? by flagrant_taco on Wednesday December 06, 2023 @05:51PM (#38550583)
The data should be accurate though. Any data-driven decisions can easily miss the original intentions if they're made with bogus information.

Looking at browser usage data from GA when Firefox specifically blocks it quite often is useless.

Re:Firefox on the Brink? by insanitybit on Wednesday December 06, 2023 @09:35PM (#38552141)
What's your proposal? Because taking an approach that isn't data driven means it needs to be a replacement, and you need to convince people that it's worth the risk of nepotism and bias.
Re:Firefox on the Brink? by int_19h on Thursday December 07, 2023 @01:02PM (#38559564)
For starters, how about not using a proprietary service from one of the biggest tech oligopolies which has strong economic incentives to misuse any data that passes through it? If government needs accurate tracking numbers to base its decisions on, it should roll its own tracking for those numbers.
Re:Firefox on the Brink? by insanitybit on Friday December 08, 2023 @07:52PM (#38577063)
Not a great proposal, frankly.
Re:Firefox on the Brink? by flagrant_taco on Sunday December 10, 2023 @01:03AM (#38589524)
My proposal was simply that data-driven decisions should be made based on accurate data.

Nepotism and bias aren't the alternative here. If you require that decisions are driven by data and you don't have access to accurate data, you should default to doing nothing. If anything, nepotism and bias sneak in when decisions are made despite the fact that no accurate data is avaliable.

Re:Firefox on the Brink? by pabs3 on Friday December 08, 2023 @04:04AM (#38566868)
Just use progressive enhancement instead, so the site works in all browsers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_enhancement

Re:Firefox on the Brink? by beanjuiceII on Friday December 08, 2023 @10:50AM (#38570415)
so govt should spend tax payer money to support a browser by the numbers no one uses? for "virtue" ? going to have a hard time convincing people of that one
Re:Firefox on the Brink? by bitec0de on Saturday December 09, 2023 @08:23AM (#38581742)
it would be at least a little virtuous to seek accurate figures before making decisions
Re:Firefox on the Brink? by hammyhavoc on Wednesday December 06, 2023 @08:35PM (#38551793)
... there's plenty of privacy-respecting Chromium-derivative browsers...
Re:Firefox on the Brink? by traviswt on Tuesday December 05, 2023 @04:15PM (#38536985)
> Mozilla spending too much time/money and other crap over the years

It seems like a pretty bit conflict of interest when the #1 money source for Firefox comes from Firefox's only real competitor.

Re:Firefox on the Brink? by sitzkrieg on Tuesday December 05, 2023 @05:00PM (#38537532)
yea things have seriously gone downhill since chrome took off in 2010
Re:Firefox on the Brink? by itronitron on Tuesday December 05, 2023 @05:22PM (#38537742)
Last I checked gov tech is larger than just one person commenting on HN.
Re:Firefox on the Brink? by smegger001 on Tuesday December 05, 2023 @07:26PM (#38538903)
The problem Firefox has as far as I can tell is that the people in charge of the Mozilla organization would rather it be a social justice philanthropic foundation than a web browser and mail client maker and thus neglect their main product. And those they do have working on Firefox seem to want to remove features and play with UI.
Re:Firefox on the Brink? by wolpoli on Tuesday December 05, 2023 @08:42PM (#38539511)
For whatever the reason, Firefox does seem to enjoy playing with colors of the season more than trying to figure out where to take their rendering engine.
Re:Firefox on the Brink? by smegger001 on Tuesday December 05, 2023 @09:46PM (#38539957)
The thing that gets me about Mozilla is they were doing thing with xulrunner years ago that WebKit is being used for now with electron apps. But Mozilla didn't develop it. There were crossplatform apps being built with gecko.
Re:Firefox on the Brink? by wolpoli on Thursday December 07, 2023 @05:32AM (#38554937)
I recall that Xulrunner, similar to the Firefox UI back in the day, hesitates just a little bit before responding to events. Perhaps xulrunner was too early in relations to computer performance back in the day, or they simply made a technical error when designing Gecko.
Re:Firefox on the Brink? by orbital223 on Tuesday December 05, 2023 @09:22PM (#38539799)
> and thus neglect their main product

Neglect would be a step up. It feels like they are actively trying to antagonize existing users.

Re:Firefox on the Brink? by shiroiuma on Wednesday December 06, 2023 @01:38AM (#38541045)
>And those they do have working on Firefox seem to want to remove features and play with UI.

This seems to be all that most software developers can do these days.

Re:Firefox on the Brink? by djvdq on Wednesday December 06, 2023 @12:36AM (#38540773)
US gov't supporting monopoly instead of fighting it? I'm not surprised.