Interview: Firefox's chief on why he hopes a redesign will help win users from Chrome
arstechnica.com
Mozilla's Ajit Varma explains why a redesign suits the fight for the open web.

Mozilla once again notices that, in spite of the lavish salaries they heap upon their techbro executives, Firefox’s userbase continues to dwindle. Could this be because they don’t operate a monolithic surveillance advertising racket? Or maybe it’s because the corners in the UI aren’t round enough.

https://www.firefox.com/en-US/whatsnew/157/

Choice quote from that interview, which was important enough to get a big box in the release notes too:

We are bringing back compact mode as well

We removed it for absolutely no goddamn fucking reason, despite numerous objections, and now we’re bringing it back! This is called ‘listening’, you see. We are very dependable can definitely be relied upon to provide a stable browser that you won’t have to worry about.

Somehow those executives just can’t work out that unless you can advertise Firefox in all of the search engines and youtubes and gmails and docs and drives and whatever the fuck and preinstall it on all the phones, the Chrome users will not come. “Ooh shiny” is the least of anyone’s concerns.

  • Victor@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 days ago

    Making a browser is hard. Moaning about missing features from a nonprofit, and volunteer project doesn’t look good.

    I imagine it’s also a matter of attracting “regular” users as well, not just techies who want WebUSB. 😅 Chicken and egg situation. More users, more sponsors(?), more features and clean UI, and more users.

    I think that if they had all the resources in the world they would make your favorite feature request happen, too. I’m sure they don’t make silly decisions for no reason. There’s always a rationale, but it might not be the best one in your subjective opinion.

    • flowerysong@awful.systemsEnglish
      0·
      2 days ago

      I’m sure they don’t make silly decisions for no reason.

      Ah, I see you’ve never used Firefox or paid attention to any of the decisions that Mozilla’s leadership makes.

      • Victor@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        2 days ago

        Cute.

        I’ve been using it without issue since 2018, and before that, since the Firebird days all up until the release date of Chrome. So the majority of my life.

        Anything else you want to add to the conversation other than this… nothing?

        • self@awful.systemsEnglish
          0·
          2 days ago

          it’s rich to fill this thread with exhausting fandom for mozilla of all corporations when you’ve only been a daily Firefox user since 2018 (cute)

    • rhamph@awful.systemsOPEnglish
      0·
      2 days ago

      Moaning about missing features from a nonprofit, and volunteer project doesn’t look good.

      Mozilla Corporation, whose CEO was paid six million dollars last year, and 6.9 million in 2022, is a nonprofit volunteer project?

      • Victor@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        2 days ago

        The Foundation is.

        But regarding the Corporation:

        The Mozilla Foundation will ultimately control the activities of the Mozilla Corporation and will retain its 100 percent ownership of the new subsidiary. Any profits made by the Mozilla Corporation will be invested back into the Mozilla project. There will be no shareholders, no stock options will be issued and no dividends will be paid. The Mozilla Corporation will not be floating on the stock market and it will be impossible for any company to take over or buy a stake in the subsidiary.

        That wasn’t really the butt of the point either way.

        They don’t have funds like the Chromium project. If you want features so badly, let’s rally some investment funding from the people? It’s a browser for the people. 🤷‍♂️

      • Soyweiser@awful.systemsEnglish
        0·
        2 days ago

        Of course the CEO gets paid that, if they don’t do that they run the risk of running a profit, gotta get rid of the money somehow. /s