I wish Mozilla would include a default content blocker to block Google's attempts to steal Firefox users. But then I also wish Windows blocked automated Google Chrome installs that steal default browser included as bundleware with free antivirus apps, Java, etc. I'm tired of walking a parent through uninstalling Google Chrome (that they have no idea how it was installed) and getting Firefox set as their default browser again.
I hate to be negative, but that will never happen with the current leadership at Mozilla.
They are simply no longer willing to disrupt the status quo, even to help their users. They are far more motivated to be "popular", and have a big "audience", and a respected "brand", than about sticking up for their users. The fact that they even think about software development in terms of "building an audience(?)" shows that they are way off course. The most important software we use that is actively developed is made by people who are primarily concerned with making good software, not with this pseudo public relations cargo cult corporate speak.
Hint: Go back and look at what Firefox used to be like 10 years ago, and notice the difference in culture.
The fact is, if Mozilla took a proactive stand against Google Apple and Microsoft, that would greatly increase their popularity.
The old Firefox was "irresponsible" by including a popup blocker by default, and upset a lot of people. Firefox also refused to support any of Microsoft's early web DRM. People said that not supporting DRM would lock users out of content, but it actually probably contributed to the death of those systems.
Google has been slowly clamping down on user freedoms. Just one example, Google removed the option to save html5 video[1] (I'm sure users were begging for that "feature"). I would honestly not be surprised if the UX clowns at Mozilla remove that function from Firefox as well.
How long until they remove the "view source" option because being able to view source is confusing to people who have never used a browser and it is used less than 1% of the time or some other flimsy justification?
There have been people within Mozilla who just want to abandon their own code and simply release a re-branded Chromium. Because they only care about their precious brand and keeping the donations coming, and they are truly terrible stewards of the software they have inherited. Besides, once they stop actually developing their own software, they will have lots of money leftover to give themselves bonuses and throw expensive galas.
Disclosure: I work for Mozilla on Firefox. I can say, without hesitation, that we definitely give a damn about protecting the user and protecting the health of the web.
Do more to show it then. Firefox has consistently been clamping down on user freedom and aping Chrome as closely as possible, instead of actually focusing on doing the right thing. Google is not the health of the web. Helping Google is contributing to the largest walled-garden that exists.
> Firefox has consistently been clamping down on user freedom
Can you give an example? While I personally don't agree with everything Mozilla has done in the last couple of years (like the native pocket integration for example) I do not agree with that statement.
That's a recent part of it. Pocket integration, removal of about:config entries, moving to WebExtensions so that the user has less control over their browser both in terms of appearance and function, changing the appearance in a way the user has little way of altering to a more functional display, now removing Bookmark Descriptions, using random non-user-audited data transmitted from random Firefox installs to determine the focus and goals of the browser, etc.
The issue claimed by the parent is not just restricting user freedom, but not doing the right thing. Your points:
Pocket integration: not the right thing, at least not the way they rolled it out in Germany, but not a restriction on user freedom.
Removal of about:config entries: This changes in response to changes to the engine, and restrictions can make sense if they avoid mainstream users from being confused about their setup so they find it difficult to find help. The developers edition usually has a bit more flexibility here, for advanced users.
Move to WebExtensions: This massively increases evolvability of Firefox, which I expect will result in better security, better performance, and less interference between extensions.
Changing appearance: I guess things like this are a side-effect of moving to WebExtensions. Maybe they will be supported again as the API evolves.
Mozilla says[1] about the Developer Edition that it "replaces the old Aurora channel" (so it's like a rolling-release alpha version) and has "tools that aren't yet ready for production". I don't think advanced users should be expected to run an alpha-quality, experimental, non-production version as their day-to-day browser just to get their configurability back.
Setting the defaults to values that don't confuse mainstream users is fine. Removing the corresponding settings from the settings dialog or other easily-accessible UI ... maybe. But removing them even from "about:config"? That used to be the place explicitly for advanced settings for advanced users, settings that were too scary for the UI. These settings need to be somewhere. (What if mainstream users discover the Developer Edition? Mozilla will have to make a Secret Developer Edition to make sure only the real advanced users can find it!)
Also, where in that Bugzilla thread are bookmark descriptions mentioned as being an attack vector? I can't find anything about it.
> Also, where in that Bugzilla thread are bookmark descriptions mentioned as being an attack vector? I can't find anything about it.
I was wondering the same thing. The only relevant item I could find is in bug 1402890 [0] linked in the very last comment. It says:
> Websites dictating what goes in a user's bookmark without any way to change that would be a terrible idea. Doubly so if it's secretly stored without even being viewable.
To me that seems like a valid privacy concern, but it should be solvable without discarding the entire feature. The "it's too hard to maintain this, let's just drop it, some volunteer will implement this again if it's needed (yeah, it won't integrate with our own UI like the current solution does, so what)" mindset in both those bugs just reeks of CADT [1].
The removal of the description field in the bookmarks in the most recent version would be another example of how little they care about us users sometimes.
I read the issue where it was discussed and a few suggestions to handle it in a way that didn't break bookmarks for people who used the description feature were pretty much ignored by the developers. The only reason I could infer from the detractors is that it was inconvenient to implement. As a long time supporter of Firefox the way they disregard us users shown in that thread altered my opinion of Mozilla significantly.
> Helping Google is contributing to the largest walled-garden that exists.
They can't outright come out and take an adversarial position against google -- they rely on them for hundreds of millions of dollars. Mozilla would not exist if Google did not pay them to be their default search. Donations account for 5% of their revenue, maybe.
I disagree. Cutting away from, and taking an adversarial stance toward, Google is probably the only thing that would keep Firefox relevant in the future. If Mozilla Corp didn't exist as-is, I believe that Firefox, SeaMonkey, Thunderbird, and other related programs would honestly be stronger and have more market share among users who are not the lowest common denominator, because they would be supported by a strong community making democratic decisions, not clamped down by whatever choices some marketing suit makes about a "brand" which is now almost meaningless.
Pale Moon is proof enough of that - the platform is viable, and people care about it. If Firefox were to discard the wrongheaded choices, I'm pretty sure sure that the PM community would fold back in. Rather than saying, "oh maybe there's a reason Mozilla Corp's not using the money for real advertising", users would still be going out like we did in the early '00s and building word-of-mouth to support a product worth supporting.
Corporations do not exist to "play nice". They exist to overtake, consume, and ultimately to destroy. Google has almost fully overtaken the Web for corp backers. Mozilla needs to develop the guts to take it back for the users.
I am sorry but this is HN idealism in full display yet again. People here time and time again vastly overestimate how little of a shit people give about their browser history, or that some company is showing them ads based on their profile, or that Google is building a walled garden (The richest company in the world is a massive walled garden). especially if you give them alternative: paying for things. The only thing keeping Firefox afloat is Google money. That's the only way they can continue to do anything. If Google stopped paying Firefox, they would cease to function. On the flipside, if Firefox took Google money for just one more year, that would equal 50 times the amount of yearly donations they receive.
"Pale Moon? What???" -- 99% of the world. It has 0.06% marketshare.
If you have a way for Firefox to make money without corporate support I am all ears, but fundamental idealism isn't going to solve anything for Firefox, it will just cause Mozilla to go extinct. I'd rather have them around than not.
because they would be supported by a strong community making democratic decisions
And close enough to zero top-tier developer hours as to make no odds, so the "democratic decisions" would make no actual difference to an app that would be suddenly dead in the water.
Yeah, I would love to see a fierce, wholly independent Mozilla both doing the technical ass-kicking it's been doing, and with a much freer hand in user advocacy. But if Mozilla's income were to be cut off, everyone would suffer: they would suddenly have zero momentum with which to continue either their technical excellence or their existing, worthwhile advocacy efforts.
I've never heard of Pale Moon until now, but if Google is so evil, and Mozilla is evil for using Google too, I can't help but notice Pale Moon still run Google Ads on their site. Just seems a bit hypocritical, especially with "We use responsible ad services to keep your visit to our websites a
safe and uninterrupted one." on there.
Not convinced, as following the links in GP leads to some sub par (as in the end user experience) home grown solutions.
Further, we are not exactly talking rocket surgery here, this is an extension anyone can install with a few clicks and as many can attest this is some serious bang for the buck all across the board (performance, privacy, security). Not to mention in the meantime they had the resources to auto install addons like Looking Glass
I believe you, and honestly with the latest improvements with Quantum I can see why.
I _am_ curious about the motivation behind Firefox Focus though. I use vanilla Firefox on Android and really enjoy it.. what was the motivation for using a Webkit base for Focus? Seems like the stripped down, privacy focused experience would have worked fine based on Firefox proper?
Firefox Focus first launched on iOS, where Apple's WebKit is the only web engine permitted. Focus on Android followed a similar approach using Android's WebView so the Focus team could focus ;) on the app's user experience and privacy features instead of the web engine.
However, Focus (on Android) is now moving to "GeckoView", Firefox for Android's Gecko engine repackaged into a WebView-like component. GeckoView will be available for app developers (Mozilla or others) to build new browsers. Watch Mozilla's Hacks blog for news coming soon! :)
Here are instructions for test driving Focus+GeckoView now:
> I _am_ curious about the motivation behind Firefox Focus though. I use vanilla Firefox on Android and really enjoy it.. what was the motivation for using a Webkit base for Focus? Seems like the stripped down, privacy focused experience would have worked fine based on Firefox proper?
I'm pretty sure the answer is quite simple, which is that the Gecko embedding story has been diabolical for a long time (i.e., it's hard to put Gecko in a new product), whereas the majority of WebKit ports and Chromium (through its Embedding Framework, or to a somewhat lesser extent its Content API) are designed to be easily embedded in new applications.
AIUI, the fact this led to this ridiculous situation is part of the reason for the renewed interest in embedding Gecko (and the emergence of GeckoView).
Firefox Focus developer here. Recent improvements in Geckoview (the componentized version of Gecko) mean that it will be much easier to integrate into your own browser projects. We have a whole suite of Android components being developed just for building browser-like software.
The work to make GeckoView offer a full set of functionality in Focus should also help other apps.
Also, don't forget that when Focus was released, Firefox on Android was very very slow. Despite myself being a fan of Firefox, I was using Chrome on Android for purely practical reasons. When Focus appeared, I switched to it, and then at some point to Firefox proper when it's performance became acceptable again.
I guess for many users Focus (despite not using Gecko) could've paved road to Firefox.
It dates from back when Mozilla seemed to be losing quickly, and actually rebranding Chrome (with their own changes) might have made sense. I'm glad they didn't, of course.
I have no reason believe he, or anybody else at Mozilla, currently thinks that way.
Gecko these days is pretty good, but that's only half of the story unfortunately. This is a web runtime with no successful product to power anymore. Firefox Desktop is still declining despite the Quantum work, and on Mobile Mozilla products are not registering on any chart.
Ironically, the only successfully growing Gecko-based product is KaiOS (see http://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/mobile/india) but the current MoCo+MoFo leadership killed the upstream support a while ago to focus on Desktop. Maybe they will see the light...
Not the parent, but Firefox Quantum while an advancement in some ways, also killed XUL Extensions and Mozilla moved Firefox entirely to WebExtensions without the APIs to fully support existing popular add-ons. NoScript for example is a shell of what it once was, every vim keybinding extension was pretty much cutoff, TabMix Plus discontinued development since many of its popular features weren't possible with the WebExtensions API and there still isn't a great tree-style tab extension.
Most likely the parent used one or more of these, as they were some of the extensions you could point to that Firefox had but Chrome never really did, and without them Firefox arguably doesn't have the same appeal.
There's still plenty of reasons to use Firefox over Chrome, but there are also plenty of users bitter about the loss of their previously working extensions.
> killed XUL Extensions and Mozilla moved Firefox entirely to WebExtensions without the APIs to fully support existing popular add-ons
this. I was never a tree view tab convert, but definitely miss noscript and vim bindings, plus things like the selenium UI.
XUL sucked in many ways, I tried writing extensions with it and I have no illusions there. But coming up with a reasonable upgrade strategy for a huge swath of popular extensions was something that should have been done before deprecating it. Rather mozilla basically told people that if webextensions didn't do what they need now, then just hope for the best sometime in the future, and in the meantime too bad, your extensions are gone.
But honestly this wasn't the only thing, just the most recent. It's the general attitude of willingness to ignore the actual use cases of their actual users for some theoretical appeal to a mass market of "average users" that they've yet to convert. I felt much the same way after the Aurelius release broke a bunch of ui, and any number of other breaking changes over the last few years.
This being HN, I'm operating under the assumption that most readers are developers.
I'd suggest that you read my colleague's comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15696184 to understand just how much friction the legacy addon ecosystem was creating. It just wasn't sustainable.
You won't find me arguing against Mozilla's decision to drop XUL extensions, I'm just stating a fact, that it was one of the primary differentiating factors between Firefox and its competition, for better because of the varied high quality extensions that you simply would not find anywhere else and obviously for worse.
Mozilla was also committed to a good browser experience that looked and felt like something that was not Chrome or Safari. Then Australis happened. And Mozilla was committed to XUL. Then WebExtensions happened. Mozilla is committed to Gecko today. Tomorrow, Blink/Chromium will happen.
I'd suggest that you read my colleague's comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15696184 to understand just how much friction the legacy addon ecosystem was creating. It just wasn't sustainable.
As a user of some of those "legacy" addons, I sincerely don't care about the upstream friction. I care that Mozilla has tried to cut my user experience off at the ankles more than once. The burden of having a thriving community & ecosystem is the responsibility of stewardship over that ecosystem. Mozilla has abrogated that implicit stewardship responsibility toward their community.
> I'm tired of walking a parent through uninstalling Google Chrome
That's why I installed Linux Mint on my parent's computer, it runs Firefox, Skype and Google Earth just fine, can download photos from camera, copy DVDs and that's basically all. No shitty antiviruses they can download and I can SSH to the machine to check what's going on. Nothing, if you're interested.
They have a new (and awful) linux build, so if you depend on it for anything I can recommend ghetto-skype, which is like the official linux build but actually works (it's a chromium wrapper around the web skype, with themes, which is exactly what the official one is these days, except the official one is terribly buggy).
Really I do not understand why Skype hasn't imploded yet with the number of awful builds they keep putting out for various operating systems. Surely the opportunity is there for someone with a good implementation of video and audio calling, cross-platform, to step in and take over.
I was looking at Google, but I no longer have any idea what the heck their strategy on Hangouts, Meet, Allo, Duo and whatever else they're producing these days is.
There is exactly one feature that keeps people on skype - it has a wide installed base and recognition and all the alternatives are fragmented. There's lots of good alternatives, they all suck because there's too many of them and the user base of each one is too small. a decade ago I would have said the solution to this is federation but it obviously didn't turn out that way.
> I'm tired of walking a parent through uninstalling Google Chrome (that they have no idea how it was installed)
Don't forget the bit where Chrome rams its fucking updater down your throat at every occasion and any way to disable it is only temporary.
And Chromium manages to be even worse at least on OSX: it apparently decides that being quit is unacceptable and relaunches itself hidden in the background.
Just to show how absurd such practice is - if Mozilla wanted to do the same, they should intercept requests for Google.com and Bing.com, advising users to use Mozilla's search engine instead. I doubt Google would keep paying them if they did that though.
Which is the real problem with Mozilla being dependent on money from Google. Google can do whatever they want against Firefox, but Mozilla is very limited in its response because they can't risk upsetting Google too much.
Hasn't Windows 10 essentially solved that problem by not letting any application change the default browser setting, instead only letting them open the correct settings panel? Or is there now a way around that?
It helps to some extent. But then again, Windows itself keeps changing my default media player and image viewer back to the Microsoft defaults, so I don't trust those settings to be as immutable as I would like them to be.
> Windows itself keeps changing my default media player and image viewer back to the Microsoft defaults
Same here, and it's maddening. That kind of bullshit, along with OneDrive ads in the freaking file browser, and now the subject of this article, have pushed me completely off of Windows.
Now that Steam Play exists and works with every Windows-only game I've thrown at it, I have absolutely nothing holding me to Windows on my gaming PC and workstations at home. I still have to deal with WSE 2016 and Windows 7 Pro at work, but that decision is not up to me and even if it were, we'd still have to stay with Windows for some of our software. The owner would absolutely love to make us a Mac house all the way but she understands why we can't make that move.
Yes, I've seen this on Windows 10 Pro since 1803. Hilariously, it fails to open PDF's on an SMB share, says the file can't be found while listing its path. And the Microsoft Store is still so shady that I don't trust installing anything from a non-recognized vendor, so I ended up going to Adobe's web site to get Acrobat Reader which can open PDFs whether local or on that same SMB share.
It's because "Feature Updates" are actually in-place OS upgrades. They're essentially reinstalling Windows and migrating applications and settings, but also choosing to not migrate some of them.
Perhaps you would - but somebody else's form filling just stopped working. Hey, no big deal: MS knows better than the user "where do you want to go today."
The design is slightly evil in that any unauthorized change of the registry keys doesn't just fail but instead invalidates a hash and makes windows revert to the default.
I don't know exactly how it's implemented, and feel free to tell us, but wongarsu is absolutely correct about the behavior. For a while, whenever I hit the button in firefox to change default browser, suddenly my default browser was edge. Not the old setting, not the attempted new setting. It was very clearly not designed with 'protection' in mind.
There's a hash of the registry key stored "securely" somewhere. Only the API the control panel default apps UI uses changes this registry key and updates the hash. When the application key is called to run and doesn't match the hash it's reset to the value from "C:\Windows\System32\OEMDefaultAssociations.xml"
What sorts of locks/permissions does this file have?
Maybe you could make a tool that lets you make changes, schedules a modification of this file on next restart, and after the restart it propagates the changes in the registry too.
Yes, "please reboot to apply your new mouse position^W^W^Wfile association changes", yay, but that'd work.
Which is bizarre if you consider that the original purpose of the registry (which appeared in Windows 3.1, I believe) was only to store file associations.
Looks like the beginning of another cat-and-mouse game... and if I'm reading that correctly, even if I open up regedit myself and edit the association like I am used to doing, if I don't update the hash appropriately it will make it turn to default? WTF.
The fact that his utility received AV false positives is also extremely disturbing --- what more effective a way of forcing your choices on others than to label all workarounds these others find as being malware? AV is like the ultimate in censorship.
Try working in an enterprise. I click links from emails to Jira/Confluence/Sharepoint all the time from Outlook. Do I want to use any of these tools? No, but I and tens of thousands of other employees have to on a daily basis in my workplace.
Mozilla probably have that info so readily available that it's not worth publishing it on Wikipedia as well, like on a postage stamp under a filing cabinet in a basement in their gran's next-door neighbour's house ...
Perhaps Moz Corp haven't heard of Wikipedia and so couldn't keep that page updated.
The Mozilla Foundation, being a charity, publishes their financial data on a fixed schedule. If they put the last released data on Wikipedia, something forbidden by Wikipedia for them to do, it would show most of their money coming from Yahoo.
When we are in the land of wishes, I rather wish, that OpenSource OS and software would be standard where the user controls fully what he wants and gets.
It would be so lovely, if Microsoft would include a default malware and advertisement filter into the browser. They are not relying on injecting malware into the web pages, so they actually can do it! User's experience without malware and advertisements will be better, this will create healthy competition in user experience, other browsers will have to follow.
Microsoft doesn't have to make tthe best browser, the inertia of having a "good" browser that is the default and hard to change away from gets many of their customers to use Edge until someone or something prompts them to switch.
