I still fondly remeber the days of Firefox 2.5. IMO the best browser ever. It feels like Mozilla is trying to shove more shit down my throat with every update.
I'm by no means trying to defend Microsoft here. I installed Win10 yesterday, and they replaced my FF default with Microsoft Edge (which is arguably better than IE, but still not something I'd use voluntarily).
Why can't Mozilla ship their bloat as default-addons so I can at least easily remove all code associated with them. Revisiting about:config after every update gets really annoying. At this point the only thing mozilla has going for them is that all alternatives are worse.
Most of those things also came with the caveat that the person posting was not involved, so if you have a link to someone authoritatively saying this, I'd like to read it.
edit: courtesy of zz1: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Go_Faster
Why would you (or anyone) downvote me for criticising things like integrating a social API[0] into the browser?
If you feel like downvoting opinions you don't like, by all means go ahead, I'm just not sure if that's the way to have a meaningful discussion. Pocket never bothered me because, honestly, I never saw it. But yes I dislike it's integration. Still no reason to reduce this to the "Pocket indicent" I never realized was a thing until I've read about it.
I still use Firefox.
[0] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Projects/So...
Otherwise, what's the point of the criticism? Just to make yourself feel good?
Basically they trampled on everything for which Mozilla stood.
In those circumstances merely reacting to backlash is insufficient. Heads should have rolled and assurances been given that they would alway uphold their principles regardless of 'brand benefit' or 'user acquisition'.
Was anyone demoted, reassigned or dismissed? No, just some PR lacquer slapped over the issue.
Not that that changes the fact that pocket is stuck there right now, and we have no easy way to remove it.
> Basically they trampled on everything for which Mozilla stood.
What on Earth are you talking about? It's a few kB of code that provided a feature that users were asking for. If you don't want to use it, don't.
I agree that downvotes are not conducive to a discussion.
> Why can't Mozilla ship their bloat
If you mean pocket/hello/etc, none of that actually loads unless you click the button. The only "bloat" is taking up a few extra kB of disk space and a few seconds of your time clearing out the toolbar. Yes, it was a mistake. Yes, they should be add-ons. But many users like and want the features, and it's a balancing act between the minimalists and the feature-users.
I fall on the minimalist side, and I removed those toolbar items immediately. But I'm not angry at Mozilla for trying to provide what many of their users said they wanted.
It is extremely easy to switch web browser. It is not easy to switch OS. On a Windows machine, if you are savvy enough, you can install Linux, but otherwise, you need to buy a Mac in order to avoid Windows. And you need to learn a lot in order to drop Windows (easy for us here on HN, hard for 99% of people).
It's fine if you dislike some of Mozilla's decisions with Firefox. People have complained and in fact Mozilla has changed some decisions following that criticism. But the situation is just not comparable to Microsoft with Windows.
For that reason, I don't see a point to diverting the conversation. The topic here is Windows 10.
So what? That doesn't mean they are obliged to comply with whatever you think is "the right thing"®.
I'm gonna highlight another another big difference that you seemed to overlook.
Microsoft is a company, their mission is to generate profits for their shareholders and they are the owners of Windows 10, because they developed it. Mozilla is a non-profit corporation whose main product, Firefox, is software that has been developed and tested (to a big extent) by people who do not get paid a single cent, because they have faith in the project and the overall mission that Mozilla attempts to portrait.
Now, I really want to understand your side, please explain, how come what Microsoft did with Windows was wrong but what Mozilla did with Firefox was ok?
Edit: Downvotes, but no arguments, as expected.
I am not convinced that what Microsoft did was wrong, or that it wasn't wrong.
I am just sad to see people try to divert the conversation from the topic of Microsoft and Windows 10.
Yes they are. Those who own one or another monopoly-type chokepoints are required to do the right thing in the sense of not abusing their monopolies. ISP are required to connect you to the real internet rather than a walled-garden simulation, Airline are required to not to hold their passengers ransom for more at intermediate point in travel, Healthcare companies are required to provide real health care etc.
This is USA where private property rights are supposedly important despite government's attempts in other direction.
No nothing should be required of these organisations. But their products serve humanity. They SHOULD have a sense of moral obligation to do the right thing. As should we the people have the responsibility to hold private monopolies to high standards so as that they help most people (not just shareholders).
If they reached the same percentage numbers on mobile that Microsoft has on desktop, yes they would be.
Also, Microsoft has much more of a history of deliberately doing this to people, and so the suspicion is higher with Microsoft. Mozilla might get the benefit of the doubt; Microsoft does not.
With Chrome at least, you used be be able to set it to your default browser when is asked on first launch, with only a click or two.
Now that API is deprecated and removed, and users have to click 11 times through the settings to set the default browser. Much worse. And this is after it sneakily sets Edge as the default browser when upgrading, with only a small blue on blue "customize" link to a unlabeled setting to opt out.
I don't know if it's harder or easier to move to a different browser in Windows 10. I presume it's about the same, but it may be harder. I don't think that alters my point whatsoever.
My complaint is that Microsoft is making it difficult for users to do what the users want, if that's different from what Microsoft wants them to do. My position is that it's significantly worse when the OS does that to you than when an application - any application - does that, because it's much harder to switch OS than to switch an application. (If you're a large business, your ERP or, worse, database, may be the exception to this, but those aren't really the topic of this thread.)
How to Change Your Default Browser in Windows 10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEUekKqLJ-E
However, the benefit for the user is that there's a consistent process and all the defaults are in one place.
Outside of the "power users" group, I seem to remember that not a single user succeeded.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
Microsoft could as well ban Firefox on their OS if they want to. Reality is that with Google Chrome, Mozilla has become completely irrelevant and will eventually die out.
They can innovate but they chose to fire their CEO over some petty reasons and they are building some phone which has not seen light of the day for years.
Windows is bigger does not mean they have any obligation to give space to others. Does Apple let you install YouPorn App on your iphone ? Does Google let you replace default search with Bing if you want ?
Both Android and iOS are immensely successful and both are on tight leash of Apple and Google. The reality is that, that tight leash has made user experience much much better. My father likes to surf net on his Android phone because his laptop is full of Ask and Conduit toolbars and he has no idea how they go there.
The world of Internet is now enough complex that it pays to let one company keep everything on tight leash and Microsoft's move in that direction makes a lot of sense.
Why yes, they do. If you want, you can even replace Google Now with Firefox search (using Yahoo by default, unless you change it).
We are making changes. I hope that the community will see the changes soon. Now, as usual, not everybody will be happy. Part of it is that we're a relatively small team trying to fight giants. Part of it is that yes, we will keep experimenting, and that means making mistakes. And part of it is because Firefox lives in the world of https://xkcd.com/1172/, which exacerbates the previous two points.
But still, I hope that most people will appreciate the stuff we're working on – and I'm not just talking of code.
Caveat: Again, I'm speaking only for myself.
EDIT: The donation page fooled me. After putting in a credit card, there is a step called 'personal.' It is not. It is the billing address for the card. I put in personal info and was rejected. I put in billing address and it went through. (Company card)
The rule for us little guys applies to big guys too: Re-inventing UI makes it harder for your customer, at least initially. Please don't do it unless there is a very good reason.
Stop copying Chrome! Because of your actions i am using now Vivaldi! But... If you ever decide to support power users again with something which does NOT require add-on installation and includes more advanced UI customization, i MAY be perhaps reconsidering my decision.
But not one single minute earlier!
Btw. I even know some professionals who are running PC shops who have abandoned Firefox and are refusing to install it on client's computers! Because of Australis, because of Pocket, Chat, Social Media, DRM, handling of the Brendan Eich case!
Please.... bring at least back the option to combine address bar and tabs! or an optional add-on bar.
But most important, stop copying Chrome and stop only serving the simple users. Because in the end it has been the advertising and support of Power users which did push you to the heights during Firefox versions 20-24! This group earns to get back a certain respect from you, and right now you are constantly asskicking that user group for no real sense making reason!
Time to abandon your recent minimalist and design centered way of thinking and time to go back to your roots... to a more customizable and unique experience which you served the user base in the past.
Mozilla right now is on a very terrible road. If you do not want it to become even more terrible, you really have to go back a big part of the way!
You mean besides that time Firefox reverted everyone's search engine to Yahoo?
(I'm on Mozilla's side in this discussion, but that particular move was terrible, even if not too consequential, in my opinion.)
The above experience is on the developer edition of firefox, as I haven't tried it on the normal stable release.
It's pretty normal for a program installer to set itself to handle files.
OS shouldn't set your browser.
Let me lay out the analogy more explicitly. I install Firefox, and specifically choose for it not to be my default. I later download an updated version and choose default settings in the installation. Firefox then sets itself as the default browser; it overwrites my previous choice in favor of the default.
I install Windows. I specifically don't set explorer as the default. I install an updated version of Windows and choose default settings. Windows overrides my previous choice.
Firefox will only change things if you specifically get a Firefox installer, where it thinking that's your intent is understandable.
First, copying Chrome's UI.
Second, forcing Brendan Eich out.
These days Mozilla comes across as a bunch of whiners and activists rather than a technology company. Maybe Rust will be successful but I don't want to be part of an ecosystem where straight talking and free thought is banned. Do you want to submit a pull request and be told not to use gendered pronouns or avoid using certain words because it makes people feel unsafe? That's the kind of world Mozilla occupies.
Is that really true? Can you give an example of that?
> avoid using certain words because it makes people feel
> unsafe
> Early on, Prop 8’s supporters decided to focus their campaign primarily on children, stoking parents’ fears about gay people brainwashing their kids with pro-gay messages or, implicitly, turning their children gay.
> Another notorious commercial shows an earnest school administrator fretting that a “new health curriculum” that mentions gay marriage will “mess up” children with reference to “gay attraction.”
> In perhaps the most insulting ad, two gay fathers are quizzed about marriage and reproduction by their daughter; the takeaway, of course, is that this faux-family is twisting the mind and morals of their child with perverse ideas about marriage and love.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2014/04/04/brendan_eich_s...
(Also it appears I got the donation amount wrong, it was $1,000, not $10,000.)
And of course Mozilla did not fire me because of anything like your bigoted imputation of "hate". Such noise amounted to a non-issue.
Being in an echo chamber is not good for one's hearing. Step outside and listen.
A non-issue? Literally every article I can find about the resignation is backed by a discussion about Eich's anti-gay stance. The position at CEO lasted roughly a week before the resignation. OKCupid put up a big anti-Mozilla notice as a result of the appointment; I have a hard time describing that as "good relations." Unless you're willing to put forward some new insider information, it's really hard to believe that such noise was not a factor, if not THE factor, in the resignation.
Why did Eich resign after a week if not for the outrage at his anti-gay stance?
> your bigoted imputation of "hate"
Lol
You're doing it again: equating pro-traditional-marriage with anti-gay with hate. The last bogus inference is the one that I called a non-issue.
This is why you saw such a violent reaction to your being placed as CEO. The fact that you didn't last a week means that you and the Mozilla board are so blind to the harm that your positions inflict on your own employees and their friends and family that the appointment itself was taken as an insult, and this is ignoring your continued refusal to see the harm that you are doing. And I say this as a huge Mozilla fan (see my comments elsewhere in this thread).
You made it clear that you will use a position of power, in this case money, to put down and insult those who work under you. Why should anyone have to put up with that? Mozilla employees are lucky to live in a time and industry when they could express their disapproval and have it acted upon in a positive way. I feel for others who are in less fortunate positions.
http://discussingmarriage.org/
Those are the "best" and least bigoted arguments that the "con-" side can muster.
You're still in that echo chamber. I can get some sounds in, but they're distorted and attenuated. Here's one loud clue: marriage as a legally regulated institution has nothing to do with "love", or (contra Kennedy for the majority) "self expression". If that were all that's involved in marriage, it should not be subject to state coercion at all.
I'll leave it at that, and thank rmxt for dropping a link.
Remember, CA had its equivalent version of statutory marriage, called civil unions in other jurisdictions and called Domestic Partner law in CA.
Mark Leno among others said D.P. law was good enough, both when it passed and as amended. I agreed eventually, and stood firm. Fat lot of good that did me.
Members of the LGBT community are about 150% as likely as heteros to smoke. http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/campaign/tips/groups/lgbt.html
Without access to marriage and the rights it brings, children of same-sex couples had to go through legal ordeals, facing orphanage, if their biological parent dies despite another (now single) parent being available.
Other marriage benefits, especially hospital visitation and rights after a partner's death, weren't conferred to partners as they weren't legally recognized.
Civil unions were obviously at best a stepping stone. "Separate but equal" does not have a good history in this country.
You've heard these arguments before,
> Fat lot of good that did me.
so tell us. How have you been harmed by gay marriage's legalization?
In what way does your objection to your employees' having rights not disqualify you from the CEO position?
I agree on empirical suicide risks for people outside various norms. Prop 8 and marriage as regulated by law had ~zero to do with that. Canada and The Netherlands provide a decade+ data showing how little correlation. Look into it before spouting off to me.
Other marriage benefits, indeed all the ones also granted by the state of California to Domestic Partners, are not material. There are non-sexual relationships among long-term (grand-) mother/daughter and friendship-based dyads who deserved those positive rights. Shame on the majority in past decades for yoking these to marriage, but they also do not argue in the least for redefining marriage from its heteronormative (cis- or trans-, note well) basis.
You like to argue post-hoc about "a stepping stone", but that's not forthright. At the time, from Mark Leno et al., there was no such talk. It was a bait and switch as @JVLast wrote (http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/you-will-be-assimilat...).
How am I harmed? The pretext for my leaving Mozilla was the outrage/status-display campaign, even if that can't possibly explain all the facts. In your view, I was harmed, and justly so -- but people disagree on justice, so in general, by your own rubriks, I was harmed.
(In case you are unaware, google CA 1101-1102 statutes. These were based on case law starting from "Gay Law Students v. Pacific Telephone & Telegraph".)
Beyond me, you already have telegraphed that it's un-PC, and possibly punishable by the full (lethal) force of the state, for someone like a creative/discretionary small business owner (baker, florist, printer, etc.) to demur from your point of view. And you've said it's hateful for parents to want to protect their children from propaganda.
Go on, prove me wrong: do you think there should be no legal sanction against bakers, florists, printers, restaurants, private schools, small businesses, and parents? Note the case law on side of printers, e.g., who need not be compelled to print materials to which they object. Note well this protects LGBT-owned print-shops.
Wait, what? You lost your job because of your homophobia. I demonstrated how homosexual individuals were harmed by lacking the right to marry. I asked how you were harmed by SSM becoming legal.
Beyond that, your cropped reply chopped everything I wrote about bakers, florists, printers, schools, parents. Respond to that, if you can.
I miss the Internet around year 2000.
Personally I worry that mere attaching some empty labels to an argument is reason enough justify censoring it.
Or, in popular comic form: https://xkcd.com/1357/
I doubt Brendan intended for you to stop using Mozilla Firefox to avenge his resignation, which he did voluntarily against the wishes of the board.
In fact, I suspect Brendan voluntarily resigned in order to LIMIT the damage he was causing to Mozilla's reputation and user base, which he cares about.
So I'd guess he's probably not happy about social injustice warriors boycotting Mozilla on his behalf.
Again, I encourage you to seek clarity instead of spreading misinformation: Why don't you ask him?
> In employment law, constructive dismissal, also called constructive discharge or constructive termination, occurs when an employee resigns as a result of the employer creating a hostile work environment. Since the resignation was not truly voluntary, it is in effect a termination.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9535977
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9536210
If you can't provide any proof of your accusation that Brendan Eich and the Mozilla board are liars when they said "It was Brendan’s idea to resign", then I think it's safe to dismiss you as just another angry Social Injustice Warrior.
So tell us your evidence supporting your accusation that this is a lie:
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-resignat...
Q: Was Brendan Eich asked to resign by the Board?
A: No. It was Brendan’s idea to resign, and in fact, once he submitted his resignation, Board members tried to get Brendan to stay at Mozilla in another C-level role.
What's your evidence? Have you asked them yourself? What did they say? Have any of them made any statements that support your accusations that they lied, or are you just making up those accusations yourself, or parroting someone else's accusations that Brendan Eich and the Mozilla board are liars? Who said that?
Hey Brendan Eich: this guy "notsony" just called you and the Mozilla board liars, and claimed that Mozilla forced you out by "creating a hostile work environment" -- care to chime in to support or deny his accusation?
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-resignat...
Q: Was Brendan Eich asked to resign by the Board?
A: No. It was Brendan’s idea to resign, and in fact, once he submitted his resignation, Board members tried to get Brendan to stay at Mozilla in another C-level role.
I did not realize until quite a long time after the invisible install, and only then because a very subtly UI element appeared. I was overcome with rage:
I download all updates by hand then neatly archive them on a server:
Installers/Windows/
Installers/Windows/Security_Updates
Installers/Windows/Security_Updates/Win2k
Installers/Windows/Security_Updates/WinXP
Installers/Windows/Service_Packs
...
Installers/Mac_OS_X/
Installers/Mac_OS_X/TenFourFox
I downloaded all her patches at Starbucks until Apple stopped issuing them. Now I have multiple offsite backups of thousands of installers and patches for many different platforms - even BeOS DR8!
My most-serious gripe with Firefox's unwanted, uh, "upgrade" is that I required for solid hours of struggle to figure out where the UI for a business-critical Add-On was.
It turns out that Mozilla "deprecated" what I regard as the "status bar". Silly Wabbit! Usability Testing is for kids!
It's actually called the Add-On Bar. Once I manger to turn that fact up under some cobblestone, I quickly found a thread in which many, many Add-Onmusers also desperately struggled but a Mozilla employee set them straight. Much like AT&T with the cell signal they eliminated from my neighborhood one fine July night in 2010:
We Don't Care.
We Don't Have To.
We're The Phone Company.
When we first saw the Firefox upgrade experience that strips users of their choice by effectively overriding existing user preferences for the search engine and other apps, and forces the integration of Pocket and Sync, we reached out to your team to discuss this issue. Unfortunately, it didn’t result in any meaningful progress, hence this letter.
We appreciate that it’s still technically possible to preserve people’s previous settings and defaults, but the design of the whole upgrade experience and the default settings APIs have been changed to make this less obvious and more difficult. It now takes more than twice the number of mouse clicks, scrolling through content and some technical sophistication for people to reassert the choices they had previously made in earlier versions of Firefox. It’s confusing, hard to navigate and easy to get lost.
Sometimes we see great progress, where consumer products respect individuals and their choices. However, with the launch of Firefox 38.0.5 we are deeply disappointed to see Mozilla take such a dramatic step backwards.
These changes are unsettling because there are millions of users who love Firefox and who are having their choices ignored, and because of the increased complexity put into everyone’s way if and when they choose to make a choice different than what Mozilla prefers.
We strongly urge you to reconsider your business tactic here and again respect people’s right to choice and control of their online experience by making it easier, more obvious and intuitive for people to maintain the choices they have already made through the upgrade experience. It should be easier for people to assert new choices and preferences, not just for other Mozilla products, through the default settings APIs and user interfaces.
Please give your users the choice and control they deserve in Firefox.