Ian Bicking has confirmed that Mozilla has quietly shut down Mozilla Labs.
This development raises some interesting questions about the future of Mozilla and their products:
With Firefox's usage declining, with Firefox on Android seeing limited uptake, with Firefox not being available on iOS, with Thunderbird stagnating, with SeaMonkey remaining as irrelevant as ever, with Firefox OS suffering from poor reviews and little adoption, and now with a reduction in innovation due to the closure of Mozilla Labs, does Mozilla have any hope of remaining relevant as time goes on?
Will Mozilla be able to reignite the spark that originally allowed them to create products like Firefox and Thunderbird that were, at one time, wildly popular and innovative?
Is Mozilla still capable of innovating without Mozilla Labs, or will they slowly fade into irrelevance as the last remaining users of their products move on to other offerings from competitors?
(Score: 1) by kaszz on Saturday September 20 2014, @01:17PM
Google (Chrome) eliminating the competition? And that listen organization laughing all the way to the data storage?
"Don't be evil unless there's a profit to be made or data to catch" - updated! :P
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @01:23PM
How is Google eliminating Mozilla when it's pretty much only Google that's keeping Mozilla financially viable?
Google is throwing millions upon millions of dollars at Mozilla each year, yet Mozilla keeps squandering it on stupid shit like Firefox OS while at the same time alienating the few remaining Firefox and Thunderbird users who still remain.
It's mind-boggling to think that Google is somehow at fault here. They're doing more to enable competition than anyone else is.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday September 20 2014, @02:07PM
By reduction of finances?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Horse With Stripes on Saturday September 20 2014, @02:16PM
If Mozilla's primary (or is it only now?) benefactor is Google then Mozilla should be doing more to get more financial support/sponsorship from other large companies. Mozilla needs to ask itself if "trying to compete directly with Google's Android hurt, or is hurting, our financial support from Google?"
Mozilla can't be, and shouldn't try to be, the whole enchilada. Not if they can't self finance. I realize they are selling advertising spots on the blank/new tab pages. Based on their weasel words they are intending to, or already are, selling user data. Neither of those solutions benefit the user, and both will drive away those who chose Firefox for FOSS or privacy reasons.
I don't pretend to know what Mozilla's business model should be, but trying to compete with your benefactors and driving away the very users whose information you plan to sell isn't it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @03:07PM
If Mozilla's primary (or is it only now?) benefactor is Google then Mozilla should be doing more to get more financial support/sponsorship from other large companies.
They are. [thenextweb.com]
People are not happy about it.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @06:41PM
People are not happy because it's yet another really goddamn stupid idea from Mozilla.
Come on, some of the most popular Firefox extensions exist solely to block ads and tracking. How the hell could Mozilla possibly think that it would be a good idea to add in advertisements like that, when so many Firefox users obviously hate ads to begin with?
If Mozilla had straight-out asked me for money, and provided me some guarantees about how it would be used, I would gladly have considered contributing. I would have considered contributing to efforts to undo Australis, and to restore the Firefox 3.5-era UI. I would have considered contributing if they killed off Firefox OS, so the money wouldn't be wasted on that stupidity. But, no, they just go ahead and do one of the stupidest things they could possibly do. I'm done with them now.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by zafiro17 on Saturday September 20 2014, @09:13PM
I totally agree with the AC above. Was 'sponsored tiles' one of the genius ideas that came out of Mozilla's now-defunct lab? Or did they just rip it off of Opera (another browser in the throes of a change in management intent on destroying the few remaining users of my favorite browser)? Because sponsored tiles is a terrible idea. If they charged $20 for each major release, and listened to what users wanted, maybe they'd have some money. It wouldn't support the huge, bloated bureaucracy they've developed, but some of those extras would have to be sloughed off, and Mozilla would have to go back to being a small, technically-led project again. Not a bad thing - getting away from that culture is half of what led them to this.
I don't mind paying for software - I've bought lots of programs that were useful to me or that I wanted to support. But Mozilla is doing its best to piss me/us off. I'm glad they closed the Labs: it's not clear anything useful was coming out of it. Their recent 'innovations' have mostly worsened a product I liked.
Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis - Jack Handey
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday September 21 2014, @04:27AM
Mozilla made it big with FireFox only because Firefox was a faster and safer alternative to Internet Exploder. Seems they forgot their most important lesson, one which allowed them to rise to dominance in the first place. Kinda like Ubuntu.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @02:15PM
> If they charged $20 for each major release, and listened to what users wanted, maybe they'd have some money
Because that worked out sooo well for all those other browsers that tried to charge money up front.
Much more likely they would lose marketshare 10x faster than they have been and become a niche browser with barely even one percent of the users. And being a niche browser would make it impossible for them to fullfill their core mission of promoting openness on the web because without the clout of a being a big browser nobody else would listen to them. I don't want to see a world where Apple, Microsoft and Google are the only ones who have a say in how the web should work.
> I don't mind paying for software
Get your head out of your ass. You are not even close to the common case. Not. Even. Close.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @01:41PM
When I look back on this whole situation, I find it kind of unbelievable. Mozilla has thrown so much away, and for what? Nothing!
Firefox used to be wildly popular. It had over a third of the browser market at one time. People loved it! It made their lives better. I remember going to meetups where it would dominate the conversation, even eclipsing whatever the actual meetup topic was.
But then it's like Mozilla collectively went absolutely stupid!
This goes beyond the mistakes that will inevitably be made when developing cutting-edge software. It has been one bad release after another, for years on end now. And the whole time we've heard Firefox users screaming, "No! Please don't make that change!" time and time again.
But does Mozilla listen? No! They ignore these users, make the bad changes, and the user experience suffers.
Of course, the users won't put up with this. They've got other options now. In many ways the other options are significantly better than Firefox is these days. Chrome is faster, lighter, just as extensible and just as capable, even if it has a bad UI. Opera is essentially the same as Chrome. Even IE is better than Firefox in many ways, unbelievably!
Now Firefox is becoming a footnote in the history of the web. I keep hearing reports that Firefox is under 10% of the market now, especially after the rise in mobile, where Firefox has almost no presence. The stats I've seen, from Wikimedia and other sources, back up these claims.
This won't end well for Firefox, I'm afraid to say. And without Firefox, Mozilla really is nothing. They don't have other products that lots of people use. Any company or organization with products that people don't use really has no say about anything at all.
The submission mentions "irrelevance". I think that's an apt term for what's beginning to happen to Mozilla today, and will surely continue to happen unless they make some serious changes to try to win back the Firefox users they've so ruthlessly driven away and treated like feces.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @02:03PM
Mozilla is a great example of what happens when developers try to appeal to everyone, they get bogged down with all the bullshit and die a slow death.
It doesn't help that they have a bunch of egotistical fucktards doing stupid shit to the UI against the wishes of everyone, but even the guys doing engine work are getting dragged into the endless autism loop and its painful to watch, focusing solely on micro-optimization instead of fixing real bugs is such a waste of everyone's time, I think that the problems all started when the real talent behind Mozilla just said fuck it and left because they were sick of the politics, all that remains is a shadow of its former self with no real leadership anymore, they need to take a good look at themselves and set achievable goals, none of this reaction based decision making that they are prone to having, but real leadership would provide a big help, IMO.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kaszz on Saturday September 20 2014, @02:10PM
So what are the free and good alternatives to FireFox these days?
(I don't count Chrome, Opera or IE to those)
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @02:14PM
Pale Moon is about the best one that I've seen.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Kunasou on Saturday September 20 2014, @06:33PM
Pale Moon has almost everything I missed from Firefox, like the old interface but it still lacks the javascript menu (it allowed to disable options like right click blocking). Even though it still way better than Australis Firefox.
(Score: 2) by chromas on Saturday September 20 2014, @02:21PM
There are a few forks of Firefox, like Pale Moon and
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @02:28PM
pale moon et all is NOT a fork, its merely a recompile with some extra PGO steps added to make it run a bit better (SSE2 vs non-SSE2).
(Score: 2) by chromas on Saturday September 20 2014, @11:10PM
Would mod you up if I could. Pale Moon also doesn't have the weird tiled menu and stuff that confuse my little brain.
(Score: 2) by KritonK on Monday September 22 2014, @08:51AM
Actually, starting from version 25, which is currently in beta, Pale Moon will be a fork. [palemoon.org]
(Score: 3, Funny) by kaszz on Saturday September 20 2014, @03:00PM
And?
Sounds like a "cliffhanger" ;)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @03:59PM
... and the browser you're not supposed to talk about? ;-)
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday September 21 2014, @01:01AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Interesting) by mtrycz on Saturday September 20 2014, @02:26PM
None.
Chromium is open source, but I've never heard of anyone who's done an audit on Google's code (neither of Firefox's to be fair). Aviator, the recent "security conscious" browser didn't even release its code. Breach, as far a cool it might become, is based on chromium.
I don't get the people saying firefox is slow/slower than others. OTOH I'd compare the Firefox UI changes much equivalent to Microsoft's Metro: nobody liked it, they arrogantly pushed it onto people nonetheless. Dicks.
If anyone has an viable option, I'm listening.
In capitalist America, ads view YOU!
(Score: 2) by Teckla on Sunday September 21 2014, @12:27PM
I don't get the people saying firefox is slow/slower than others.
It's the user interface.
I use Firefox at work and Chrome at home (for various reasons). The Firefox UI frequently goes (Not Responding).
My guess is they need to concentrate on upgrading Firefox to a multi-process model, like Chrome.
(Score: 2) by Teckla on Sunday September 21 2014, @12:24PM
So what are the free and good alternatives to FireFox these days?
Chromium
(Score: 1) by knarf on Monday September 22 2014, @11:11PM
Well, I recently 'went back' to using Seamonkey, the one-time 'Mozilla suite' which was derided for being overly fat and frilly and sparked the development of Firefox as a lean and mean alternative. How things have changed in the intervening years... Seamonkey is what Mozilla was, a rather complete 'browser suite' including an editor, a mail user agent, an irc client and a kitchen sink. It is also quite a bit leaner than Firefox and runs fine on the Pentium-M class machines which we use around here (can't beat a T42p with 1600x1200 IPS screen...). I also ditched Adblock, leaving the ad-blocking to my router and a combination of Noscript and RequestPolicy. The makes it possible to run the browser with dozens of tabs open as well as the mail client using less than 500 MB. While I do keep Firefox around for the Inspector and such, it is no longer my daily browser.
I alsu have Chromium installed. It still falls short in terms of rendering quality, it also hogs memory. Gecko might be a twisty maze of C++ member functions, all alike, but it *does* work.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @02:17PM
A shame, isn't it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @06:35PM
Very much so. I'm not a religious person, but each night I pray to God or whomever may be listening that Opera wises up some day soon and releases as much Opera 12 code as they can under the BSD or MIT licenses. At least then there will be some hope for it to live on. It is a real shame that such a regal piece of software has been relegated to the shitheap of history. Even today, well over a year since it was abandoned, Opera 12 still offers a better experience than Firefox and Chrome.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @06:55PM
Exactly true. I still use Opera 12.17 and I don't think I'll ever change it because nothing else offers the functionality I want. Otter finally implemented the mouse-click Back/Forward navigation (hold left and click right to go forward, hold right and click left to go back), but its still kinda slow and buggy so its not at a level yet where it can be used as a replacement.
(Score: 1) by GoodBuddy on Sunday September 21 2014, @04:58AM
I don't really care about navigation buttons. What I really care about is the NoScript plugin. Does any browser have that kind of functionality other than Firefox? I'm talking about javascript on/off functionality for individual javascripts, not on/off for the whole page.
(Score: 2) by etherscythe on Monday September 22 2014, @04:51PM
NotScripts plugin for Chrome-based browsers does more or less the same thing (by domain)
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @03:05PM
I still use Firefox both on Windows and Linux, so I don't have big problems with it
I'm avoiding Chrome because I don't trust Google on privacy issues; they have a big enough dossier on my activities as it is.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Sunday September 21 2014, @10:53AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 5, Informative) by quixote on Saturday September 20 2014, @03:25PM
Yes, indeed! It blows mine too. I've been using Firefox since the earliest days, when it was called Firebird. I had that attitude xkcd made such good fun of once in a strip where people are upset over Firefox ("Wait. It's only a browser.")
And then along came Australis and my eyes bugged out. Hello? If I wanted Chrome's braindead interface I'd be using Chrome. (Well, I'd be using Chromium.)
So I switched over to Iceweasel, which worked for about a year since they're behind FF in versions. A couple of days ago, an update pushed that from v. 24 to v. 31 and -- poof! -- same asinine Chrome-style BS I've been trying to avoid since forever.
Now I switched to Pale Moon [palemoon.org] and so far so good. I just copied my entire Iceweasel profile (under ~/.mozilla/firefox/whatever.default to ~/.moonchild\ productions/pale\ moon/pale-moon's-whatever.default (having first backed up the original installed profile). Everything just worked. All my bookmarks and extensions and greasemonkey scripts and stylish stuff all worked as if nothing had ever happened.
The only problem was I couldn't edit any of the sylish css files. Turns out for some reason that ability is turned off. Get into about:config, change the value for "extensions.stylish.editor" from 0 to 1, and that works too.
At least for now, I'd recommend Pale Moon as an alternative.
As for the death of my beloved Firefox ... I don't know if this is somehow the GOOG's fault or not. But I do find it interesting that the trouble seems to have started pretty much when they started funding Mozilla.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @03:50PM
I don't know if this is somehow the GOOG's fault or not. But I do find it interesting that the trouble seems to have started pretty much when they started funding Mozilla.
Mozilla's primary source of funding has been Google since at least 2005 when the Mozilla Corporation was created.
(Score: 1) by quixote on Sunday September 21 2014, @03:13AM
Interesting. I remember several hundred million going to Mozilla a few years ago (four?) and that's what I was thinking of. I guess part of me wants to believe it's the corrupting corporate influence, rather than ego BS curdling yet another open source project. :S
I guess we need an open source project on how to prevent egos from blowing up open source projects?
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Sunday September 21 2014, @11:42AM
The only problem for Pale Moon is that if Firefox dies so does Pale Moon. They need Mozilla to keep developing the rendering engine to remain current with HTML and JavaScript heavy sites, as well as for bug fixes.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @12:06PM
That's why the best outcome is for Mozilla to smarten up, and restore Firefox's UI to the Firefox 3.5 UI. Then Pale Moon becomes irrelevant, because the problems it fixes no longer exist. Anyone using Pale Moon can go back to using Firefox, Firefox's usage numbers stop dropping, and it may just become relevant again.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @06:50PM
That's a real shame - Firefox Mobile is the only mobile browser that supports Extensions. There's no mobile support for NoScript, but it runs AdBlock+ and Ghostery.
(Score: 2) by etherscythe on Monday September 22 2014, @04:55PM
Pale Moon has a functional beta for mobile. I switched because, for some reason, Firefox decided I'm not smart enough to decide whether Flash performance is good enough on my Nexus 7, and arbitrarily disabled it. No about:config setting I've found lets me work around it. What the hell, Mozilla?
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
(Score: 2) by doublerot13 on Saturday September 20 2014, @02:42PM
Ironically, the best way to kill a non-profit is with money. Mozilla has become, apparently, completely lost on its mission for the sake of cushier offices and more pay and more developers working on making Firefox as much like Chrome as possible. As a result their have been many casualties along the way[Thunderbird,Sunbird,*bird's AND Firefox!] including the idea that Firefox should be different from all the rest[fast,flexible, secure and open].
(Score: 3, Insightful) by opinionated_science on Saturday September 20 2014, @02:58PM
I you look at the projects they closed down, they are incredibly useful. For example, emscripten actually works - well for the one application I tried it with (cross-compiler to scripts), it amazes me this is not important.
I must agree however, that focus is important especially for non-profits, as there is no "consumer" to reign them in...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by tftp on Saturday September 20 2014, @05:36PM
The Firefox team lost me as a customer when they hounded out their CEO for a lawful political contribution done long ago. I do not want to support a company of bigots who have no tolerance for other ways of thinking. (In part, that approach is also visible in their later products, as they do what they want, and not what the customers are begging them to do.)
I have IE, Chrome and PaleMoon now on Windows, used for different purpose. On Linux I replace FF with Opera. All, except IE, are loaded with adblockers and script blockers. IE is only for the Intranet; some of my video cameras have ActiveX plugins, for example.
As, reportedly, FF is on a march into irrelevance, it was a good time to switch to PaleMoon. It inherits most of FF code; has a simple, conservative interface; does not pester me with weekly updates; and it works. Most importantly, it accepts all the privacy extensions that I need. PM is my primary browser.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @06:28PM
That whole ouster episode really disgusted me, too. For all of the screaming about "tolerance" and "acceptance" that those people do, they sure don't tolerate or accept anyone who has a viewpoint that differs from theirs.
There has been far too much tyranny coming out of Mozilla lately. The CEO incident is a good example, but so is forcing all of these stupid changes on us Firefox users, especially after we've made it clear we don't like them and don't want them.
Australis is one of the worst things to have happened to any open source project ever. Never before have the users been treated like total and utter shit. Never before have such vocally despised changes been forced on so many.
I'm done with Firefox, too. There are better choices available now, and so I use them now. I have no need for Mozilla, because they treat me like I am a turd. I AM NOT A TURD!
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @07:07PM
Well yeah, you're a HOMOPHOBIC TURD
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @07:36PM
I've read and reread that comment you replied to, and I see no reference to homosexuals, homosexuality, homosexuals engaging in marriage, or anything of the sort.
The only thing I see outrage against is the intolerance and bigotry that the former CEO was forced to endure from hypocrites such as yourself.
You preach tolerance, but you refuse to practice it yourself. You preach acceptance, but you refuse to practice it yourself. That, my young one, is hypocrisy.
(Score: 0, Troll) by chris.alex.thomas on Saturday September 20 2014, @10:47PM
tolerance isn't a relativistic term, it's an absolute one, you have zero tolerance at one end and full tolerance at the other.
I tolerate homosexuality, you appear to not tolerate it, that means I'm more tolerant than you
I preach acceptance of being able to give homosexuals the same rights that everybody has
You preach the opposite, but you're crying because I don't tolerate or accept your bigoted views?
No, I'm sorry sunshine, you're a fucking turd, a scumbag, a boil on the testicle of humanity, go fuck yourself with a spade, nobody gives a fuck what you think anymore, please die in a fire or something, our species is better off without you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @01:02AM
Can anyone tell me why that rather awful comment is "2, Informative"? The last line is particularly immature. While he should be able to express himself in such a manner if he so chooses, I think it reflects badly on this site when lousy comments like that are modded up.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by chris.alex.thomas on Sunday September 21 2014, @10:30AM
it's modded up because we're sick of this shit, it's 2014, the 21st god dammed century and people are still crying over who sleeps with who, whether a woman has full control over her own vagina, has the right to vote and whether she should wear a dress which provokes a man to rape her.....
thats why it's modded up, because people agree and it's about time we stopped tolerating idiots who hold views more akin to the 19th century and just get with the program already......
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @12:49PM
My, my, my! Why so negative all of the time? Why so angry?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @07:21PM
Wanting to use the law to oppress people who are different is not a valid viewpoint. There's a difference between not tolerating somebody because they have a differing opinion and not tolerating somebody due to their discrimination over people with differing skin color/sexual preferences; stop acting like they're the same. The guy's a bigot, which wouldn't be a big deal, but using his wealth to try to get laws changed to enshrine his discriminatory complexes makes him a danger to everyone (except his fellow bigots).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @07:39PM
If you truly are tolerant, then you'll support those who support marriage as being defined as only between a man and a woman, even if you disagree with that position.
If you don't support Brendan Eich, then you aren't being tolerant, which inherently makes you intolerant. That, in turn, makes you a bigot.
You can't have it both ways. The only way you can yourself be tolerant is if you tolerate Brendan Eich. Anything less makes you an intolerant bigot.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @08:06PM
Yep, Homosexual Turd! Res ipsa loquitur.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @08:17PM
So the GP and the others present reasonable arguments that are logically sound, and you choose to respond with childish name-calling? And we're supposed to take you seriously? Sorry, I have to side with the people presenting the sound arguments, rather than the ones just throwing around insults.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @08:57PM
Sorry, sorry!!! My bad! I meant HOMOPHOBIC Turd.
(Score: 0, Troll) by chris.alex.thomas on Saturday September 20 2014, @10:51PM
nobody gives a fuck what you think, because most people here are not homophobes, so you're views are being ignored because they are invalid.
your argument is also invalid, tolerance is not a relativistic term, it's an absolute one, you're closed to 0, I'm closer to 1, therefore I'm more tolerant than you are.
I'm not tolerating your bullshit though, I'm going to keep not tolerating it until you and your bigoted friends either are forced to live on an island and die of typhoid or something equally nasty, or you merely die off out of old age and we don't have to deal with your bullshit anymore.
I hope I was clear on the points I illustrated.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @11:08PM
You were not clear. Your comment is riddled with spelling mistakes and obvious grammatical errors. You clearly misunderstand the terms "relativistic" and "absolute". You use the word "bullshit" far too often. But most importantly, your thoughts do not flow. They jump from here to there, peppered with rage and uncontrolled emotion that masks any logical thought that you may be capable of. Sorry, you did not clearly illustrate whatever points you were trying to make. Your comment was nearly incomprehensible.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Tork on Saturday September 20 2014, @10:45PM
If you truly are tolerant, then you'll support those who support marriage as being defined as only between a man and a woman, even if you disagree with that position.
So just to be clear: You're saying the truly tolerant person is the person that's against gay marriage. Right?
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @11:05PM
Try reading the quoted comment again. Then read yours. It should be obvious how they differ.
Yours should say, "You're saying the truly tolerant person is the person that tolerates the person that's against gay marriage. Right?". And the response would be, of course, "Right."
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday September 20 2014, @11:43PM
Try reading the quoted comment again. Then read yours. It should be obvious how they differ.
No, it isn't.
Yours should say, "You're saying the truly tolerant person is the person that tolerates the person that's against gay marriage. Right?". And the response would be, of course, "Right."
That isn't what I'm asking. I'll rephrase: Are you saying that the less-bigoted person here is the person who is against gay-marriage? I'm just asking because this whole attempt at word-smithing a group of people into hypocrisy seems more like a distraction than any sort of real criticism. They feel that gays should have rights and are consistent in that approach, but somehow defending them against bigots is somehow reprehensible, and I really don't understand that line of thought. It's like saying soldiers shouldn't be sent in to fight ISIS because that'd make em terr'ists!
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @01:05AM
Well, try reading it once more. The difference really should be obvious.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Sunday September 21 2014, @02:15AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @12:15PM
I don't have to do anything to accomplish that. Your inability to distinguish between two very different sentences is doing it for me. Try reading them yet again.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Sunday September 21 2014, @04:41PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 22 2014, @03:24PM
Yes, it was. It was answered with this comment. [soylentnews.org]
However if you are unable to interpret that response and need it spelled out for you then the answer is no, the person who is against gay marriage isn't the truly tolerant person. But the person who tolerates those whose views they think are wrong or even obscene is the truly tolerant person. Whether or not these views should be tolerated is a different question.
Re-reading the discussion I see where the confusion comes from, the other AC (I'm not the same AC you were previously discussing this with) said, "If you don't support Brendan Eich, then you aren't being tolerant," where I believe he meant, "If you don't support Brendan Eich's right to state his views, then you aren't being tolerant,"
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday September 22 2014, @04:03PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @09:23PM
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tftp on Sunday September 21 2014, @01:21AM
They feel that gays should have rights and are consistent in that approach, but somehow defending them against bigots is somehow reprehensible, and I really don't understand that line of thought.
It's very simple. One has a right to defend themselves against imminent actions that are directed against them. However one has no right to "defend" themselves from a lawful political process that may in the future turn out against their interests. You cannot shoot a boy because you fear that he will grow up, become a thug, and steal your precious.
Let's say there is a presidential election ahead. You want to vote for A, and your neighbor told you that he is voting for B. Would it be kosher for you to set fire to his house on the voting day, so that he won't vote? Obviously, not - because his political position is part of his freedom, just as your opinion is for you.
Now, let's look at another scenario. You wanted A, but B won - and you learned that your coworker voted for B. Would it be ethical and otherwise proper to accuse B of some heinous wrongdoing to get him fired? After all, probably this coworker agrees with many of B's ideas that you find repulsive. Again, no - you may not do that because political opinions, and voting, should be free. Otherwise how will we know who among A and B is more liked? You can shoot everyone who wants to vote for B, but that won't be democracy then, will it? This is what's happening in Zimbabwe, when remaining white farmers are killed by marauding thugs even though the law is on side of farmers.
Again, you are free to protect itself, but only against a specific, imminent threat. As I said before, you may not shoot a neighbor's son out of fear that 20 years later he will rape your newborn daughter. We have to ask, did Brendan Eich ever oppress anyone, be it gay or anti-gay, black or white, natural born or an immigrant, for their way of life? If he did, one can agree that he'd be a dangerous executive at the wheel of a company. But... what if he didn't? Is it then ethical to force him out just because he harbors ideas that you find despicable? Don't you think that persecuting people for their thinking is a little bit Orwellian?
Or, let's turn the table. You come for an interview. Would you want your prospective employer to judge you for your inner, private opinions that don't affect anyone at work? Say, you are a programmer; you dislike impressionism and like cubism. I hate you for that art preference (I indeed like impressionists.) Will I be justified in shredding your resume for just that reason alone? If you say "no" to that, as you should, then why Brendan Eich should be sent packing for his opinions that affect nobody at work? As I recall, he did not make his political preferences known - it was dug out and published by some dating web site employees. That looks like vengeance to me.
What I truly don't understand in this whole discussion on SN is how easily many can claim that firing "a bigot" is company's right. They do not understand that they themselves become bigots in the process. Some say that "it's different" - but it is not. You cannot kill for peace. Some fighters against bigotry went all the way to the end, then farther - and flipped the sign; they have fought the dragon, won, and became the dragon. A tolerant person will never attack his opponent over an opinion. He will simply say "sorry, I have a different opinion, here is why; if you still stick to your preference, see you at the polls." This is not what Mozilla people told to Eich.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @03:18AM
(Score: 2) by tftp on Sunday September 21 2014, @04:35AM
If I can be fired for my actions that go against the company's interests, he can, too
In what way his contribution back in 2008 went against Mozilla Corp.'s interests in 2014? Does Mozilla's corporate charter have an article about supporting or not supporting traditional or non-traditional marriage?
Or, perhaps, in their paperwork they stick to, you know, making software? If so, they have no say about employees' political and personal activity.
We should not exaggerate the power that an employer has over an employee. Usually employer's control extends only to work duties. For example, one could expect a priest to not fornicate in church. (They do regardless.) You can drink on weekends as long as you come to work sober. Employees still do get fired sometimes for such things... and courts immediately restore them, with back pay and all. Mozilla Corp. should count their blessings that Brendan Eich hasn't sued them into oblivion. He would have prevailed in court. But he, "an intolerant bigot," tolerated (forgave) his tormentors.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @04:58AM
In what way his contribution back in 2008 went against Mozilla Corp.'s interests in 2014? Does Mozilla's corporate charter have an article about supporting or not supporting traditional or non-traditional marriage?
Irrelevant on both counts. Prop 8 wasn't repealed until 2013. Also, it was his employees that first raised the concern.
Or, perhaps, in their paperwork they stick to, you know, making software? If so, they have no say about employees' political and personal activity.
He made a donation large enough that it had to be disclosed for transparency reasons. By doing so he indicated that he felt strong enough about the matter to put his own money into it, thus raising the concern that he will act against a segment of his employees. He was within his rights to make the donation, they were in their right to express dissatisfaction with it.
We should not exaggerate the power that an employer has over an employee. Usually employer's control extends only to work duties.
If we were talking about him voting against gay marriage, you'd have a point. He has a right to privacy with what he votes on. But that is not even in the ballpark of what we're talking about. He used his financial resources to withhold the rights of some of his employees. He used his money to project his opinion, others did the same, but for some reason they're in the wrong for it. You're free to say what you want, everybody else is, too. Yes, it actually is better that way.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tftp on Sunday September 21 2014, @05:55AM
He used his financial resources to withhold the rights of some of his employees.
This is a very dangerous path to take. All voting affects legal landscape, and new laws (or discontinued existing laws) affect someone, including employees of your company. Does it mean that no employee of any company is allowed to participate in legislative activities? That would be news to many.
You say that voting is sacred, but financing the vote isn't. Is there any law, or any moral norm that serves as a source for that opinion? Financing the campaign only means that you buy a milk crate for someone to stand and speak to the crowd. What kind of democracy would that be if you are free to speak, but not free to be heard?
Finally, you say that he was willing to withhold the rights of some of his employees. He wasn't even the boss back then. But that's not important. The important fact is that these rights are created - or destroyed - by adopting laws. If the law says that you cannot do that, you have no right to do that. You can say that it's sophistry. However let's say the law is about freedom to kill people that you don't like, and the new law says that you may not kill. Would the people complain that their right to kill had been taken away from them? No. They no longer have such right because the society doesn't see it as a good idea. The society as a whole has the sole right to decide what is and what is not allowed. You can be sure that there are always people that are impacted by such decisions; some will be among employees of your company. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. It is foolish to lash at one out of millions who decided that your freedom to do $something should not be allowed. It is undemocratic, just as it is undemocratic to punish people for voting for a wrong person. US corporations are not permitted to dictate to the people what to think, how to vote, who to associate with and what political agendas to support. What was done to Brendan Eich is more fitting to North Korea. In a democracy you cannot attack a person who advocates for a law that impacts you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @09:09AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @02:44AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @07:39PM
is a bunch of egotists and bigots or else they wouldn't think they knew better than their 'customer' base and do basically the OPPOSITE of what their customers asked for 10 years running! Honestly does anyone remember when Phoenix was an independent project to shave the fat off the mozilla browser suite? It was faster than shit, but didn't have extensions, had issues with plugins, etc. It also had quite a few less memory leaks at the time because many of them were in the xul UI for the browser rather than the rendering engine itself. Then it got rolled in as an 'official' mozilla project and we watched it slide downhill, from 0.5 to 3.x, finally cumulating in the 4.x releases which lead to the present day. Hell, the only reason most people jumped to 4 was due to HTML5 support. If the HTML5 version of gecko had been backported to the 3.6 UI, most people probably would've ignored the 'later' releases and the current UI mess could've been avoided.
Sadly that didn't come to pass and here we have the results of the catastrophe that is the Mozilla Foundation.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @09:41PM
If this guy had donated to the KKK instead of an anti-gay group, would you still be screaming about tolerance and acceptance? Would all those people mad that the CEO got ousted still support the guy? Bigotry should not be supported, or rewarded. You guys are off on this one.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @11:11PM
Well, that would depend on whether or not one proclaims to be tolerant. If one does, then one would have to tolerate his behavior, even if one were to disagree with it. That's what tolerance is all about. One can't be tolerant if one engages in any sort of intolerance, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem. Even the smallest bit of intolerance makes a person fully intolerant. Either you're tolerant, or you are intolerant. There is inherently no middle ground. It's an either-or situation.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Sunday September 21 2014, @05:04AM
Either you're tolerant, or you are intolerant. There is inherently no middle ground. It's an either-or situation.
Okay, so according to you, one can be against gay rights, and another can be for gay rights... except that'd be bad because they'd be in conflict with the guys that are against gay rights, and that's way worse, so it's better that just the bigots get their say unchallenged so gays don't have rights but at least there aren't worse people out there defending them.
You'll pardon me for not understanding the "either-or-situation" bit.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @10:39PM
The Firefox team lost me as a customer when they hounded out their CEO for a lawful political contribution done long ago.
He made the contribution in the name of the Mozilla foundation and it was his own employees that raised the issue about it.
I do not want to support a company of bigots who have no tolerance for other ways of thinking.
That isn't what they did, though. It wasn't his beliefs that got him in trouble, it was his actions. You should think about what your stance really is here, you would not be singing the same tune if you were on the other side of the fence.
(Score: 3, Informative) by TheRaven on Sunday September 21 2014, @10:57AM
No he didn't. He made it privately and in the belief that it would be anonymous. Then the donor list (which includes employer information for auditing purposes) was leaked.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @12:26PM
Somebody loses his or her job because he or she expresses pro-homosexual sentiment? IT'S AN ATROCIOUS CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY!
Somebody loses his or her job because he or she expresses anti-homosexual sentiment? IT'S A GLORIOUSLY GOOD SHOW OF TOLERANCE AND EQUALITY!
It really is disgusting that they think it's okay for somebody to lose his or her job merely for expressing an opinion about something relating to homosexuality.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @04:43PM
(Score: 3, Insightful) by chris.alex.thomas on Saturday September 20 2014, @10:41PM
you've got it the wrong way around, hounding bigots because they are bigoted, does not make you a bigot, there are some views which are better than others, not all views are equal.
equal rights for marriage is a better view than declaring gay marriage an abomination, you can't call me bigoted because I refuse to accept that you're a homophobe and won't accept your views when you're using those views to harass and intimidate people who are doing nothing wrong.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by tftp on Saturday September 20 2014, @11:05PM
there are some views which are better than others
Great news! Could you please publish the complete list of allowed political positions in this country? (Of course, in this democracy one is free to hold a different view, but then he will be fired, shamed, and otherwise destroyed.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @03:30AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @12:21PM
No, he does believe in such things. You are the one who does not.
Equality means that one can express pro-homosexual sentiment as freely and without repercussion as somebody can express anti-homosexual sentiment. Harming people who express anti-homosexual ideas by, say, taking away their jobs is blatant inequality. It's just as bad as forcing somebody from his or her job because he or she is homosexual.
It works the same way for freedom.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @04:46PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @08:42AM
Make sure the list includes any potential FUTURE positions that may change.
You wouldn't want to make a donation to a cause that might someday become unfashionable, would you?
Orwell had it right, except he thought it would be the RIGHT wingers that were the authoritarian jackbooted double-speakers.
(Score: 1) by chris.alex.thomas on Sunday September 21 2014, @10:26AM
the list is quiet easy, but I'm shocked that I have to tell you how it works.
1) anything that expands the rights of people to live peacefully and in the way that they desire
2) with regard to (1) it only supports the expansion of rights, never the contraction, therefore any expansion of rights which causes the contraction of other peoples rights, it not in the list.
Example:
1a) The ability to marry who the hell you want
1b) The refusal to accept gay marriage
==
1a) is acceptable because it expands the rights of people to live how they want and does not cause the contraction of rights given to other people
1b) is not acceptable because it expands the rights of people who wish to contract the rights given to other people falling foul of rule (2)
==
It's really not that hard, but I'm shocked that in the 21st century, this STILL has to be explained.......
(Score: 2) by tftp on Sunday September 21 2014, @05:27PM
Your list means that you will support expansion of rights of some pedophile to have sex with your baby. This example proves that you need to think again what is and is not allowed, and why. Hint: human rights are not the goal; survival of the humankind is.
You can also see that your list only expands rights, but has no mechanisms for taking some rights away that were given in error. In the end everyone will have *all* the rights. A stranger in the street will have a right to stick a knife into you, and you will have a right to shoot him before he comes close enough. I believe we have a name for such a society...
If, however, you do not advocate for anarchy, then your political system should have a mechanism by which some rights can be taken away, once they prove to be unwisely given. Humankind is not flawless, and democratic decisions are not error-free. There ought to be a method to correct those errors. So far you are of opinion that such method should not exist, and a right, once given, shall stay no matter how good or how bad it is for the society.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday September 22 2014, @01:26PM
That would violate the rights of the child, and therefore fails his second rule.
Only if you live in some weird parallel universe which has no concept of a right to life or safety...otherwise you're again violating his second rule.
Of course, there is one flaw in his rules, which is that you need a consistent set of rights as a starting point for further expansion. I'm not sure there's any current definition that's fully consistent, although the original founding documents of the US might work -- just not their current interpretations.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 22 2014, @11:39PM
That would violate the rights of the child, and therefore fails his second rule.
I guess a baby is clearly incapable of giving consent, but what if it was an older, but still pre-pubescent child that for some reason consented to having sex with a paedophile? Would that still be a violation of the child's rights? If so, why?
Of course there are reasons why it shouldn't be allowed, but I don't see how they fit into rules that chris.alex.thomas proposed.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Monday September 22 2014, @02:51AM
Typical evidence that you haven't thought this out. So why does 1b) the refusal to "accept" same sex marriage violate rule 2)? Your acceptance of someone's same sex marriage is not required in order for the marriage to occur. Even recognition by the state is not required in order for a same sex marriage to occur. For example, I attended a same sex marriage (Unitarian Church BTW) in the US state of North Carolina in 1998 or 1999 (I forget the year). The marriage wasn't recognized by the state, but it happened anyway and the ceremony was legal to conduct.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday September 22 2014, @01:30PM
Ignoring whether or not the issue at hand was a full ban or just "refusal to accept", the state refusing the recognize it IS a rights violation, as it is blatantly discriminatory. There are many legal benefits that come with state recognition of a marriage, and by refusing to recognize same-sex marriage they're saying that only heterosexual couples are entitled to those benefits.
Of course, if we abolished state recognition of marriage and the associated benefits entirely, that would solve that issue. Not sure why they have any business being involved these days anyway...
(Score: 2) by khallow on Tuesday September 23 2014, @02:45AM
We can't ignore that. The phrase was "refusal to accept gay marriage" not "full ban on gay marriage". That's a huge difference. chris.alex.thomas claims that we don't have a right to think or say certain things, not use the force of law to ban certain things or prevent certain rights from being exercised.
Of course, if we abolished state recognition of marriage and the associated benefits entirely, that would solve that issue. Not sure why they have any business being involved these days anyway...
I agree.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday September 23 2014, @12:01PM
Right, there's certainly a difference, I was just saying that that distinction didn't really apply to the point I was making -- whether or not one has a legal right to say something (and I'd agree, you have a legal right to say *anything*), the question at hand doesn't involve legal action. You have a right to say anything you want, but I have a right to stop doing business with you because of it.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Wednesday September 24 2014, @03:26AM
That's not necessarily true in employment. For example, the Eich case involved legally protected political donations. It was actually against California law [vtzlawblog.com] to force him out, even using the "voluntary resignation" fig leaf. And in federal employment, there are several protected classes for which you can't discriminate (such as sexual status or religion). A case exists for religious discrimination against Eich here.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday September 22 2014, @01:23PM
If I can be arrested for being a nudest, why can't someone be fired for supporting oppression?
I'm all for free speech -- I'd even say we don't take it far enough in this country -- but that does not mean speech completely free of consequences, and it CERTAINLY does not mean *actions* free of consequence. First of all, money is not speech. The Supreme Court can say what they want, but it's not. It's a transaction. If money is speech, so is selling someone an ounce of cocaine. That's absurd. Furthermore, free speech applies to *government* restriction only. He shouldn't be put in prison for those beliefs. But if someone is being an asshole, the rest of society has a right -- a duty even -- to call them out on it. You have every right to be an ass, but you can't force me to help you do it.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @11:17PM
I have to admit, while I defend your right to express ideas such as this, I do find them all quite scary.
Here we have you rationalizing the hatred, bigotry and intolerance that you engage in during your quest to suggest that such things are unacceptable. It's so obviously hypocritical that it's hilarious, but it isn't hilarious because you're serious.
You would, in all seriousness, go out of your way to absolutely crush freedom in your weird attempt to somehow increase it. It's so blatantly contradictory, and so blatantly self-defeating, yet you seem incapable of noticing this.
You are basically saying, "Bigotry is bad, but it's okay for me to engage in it." or "Intolerance is bad, unless it's something I don't like." It's all so absurd.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Sunday September 21 2014, @04:11AM
You are basically saying, "Bigotry is bad, but it's okay for me to engage in it." or "Intolerance is bad, unless it's something I don't like." It's all so absurd.
"I want people to have equal rights" is absurd?
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by khallow on Sunday September 21 2014, @08:21AM
Who said that? Instead, what we have is:
'
As the original poster stated, some views are better than others. And as a result, it is just fine to hound bigots.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Sunday September 21 2014, @09:05AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by khallow on Sunday September 21 2014, @11:24AM
You asked a leading question for a statement no one made or disputed.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Sunday September 21 2014, @04:50PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by khallow on Monday September 22 2014, @02:38AM
You put the following in quotes: "I want people to have equal rights" Who said that? As I noted, nobody in the thread has made that statement. So you started your contribution to this thread with false pretenses, claiming that someone somewhere merely stated an uncontroversial statement.
In context, you're accusing an Anonymous Coward of stating the above quote was absurd. But what he actually wrote was:
So to summarize, you wrote a leading question based on a straw man. Now, you're indignant that somehow my accurate summary of your actions is "not true" and I "know it", belittling it as "word-smithing". Well, maybe you should have written something other than what you wrote and treat other posters' arguments fairly and without that grostesque misrepresentation. Then this "word-smithing" wouldn't be such a problem.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday September 22 2014, @03:19AM
You put the following in quotes: "I want people to have equal rights" Who said that?
The people he was mis-describing.
Well, maybe you should have written something other than what you wrote and treat other posters' arguments fairly and without that grostesque misrepresentation.
He mis-characterized the view and I corrected him and you knew that's what I was doing.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by khallow on Monday September 22 2014, @04:52AM
Maybe you ought to go back to that post and actually argue that rather than play silly rhetorical games? Please include your reasoning too for why you think that description was inaccurate. We don't automagically know what you are thinking.
Right, "corrected". We still don't know what was supposed to be inaccurate about the AC's characterization, especially given what chris.alex.thomas actually wrote. And I still don't know what in the world you are thinking. For example, you could just be disingenuously trolling away. Or you could have genuine psychological problems that cripple your understanding of others' viewpoints. Maybe more than one thing applies. I can't say.
But your continued insistence on knowing better than me what I think and believe is getting rather bizarre.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday September 22 2014, @05:33AM
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by meisterister on Saturday September 20 2014, @04:32PM
Alright, so for the most part we're left with the following browser choices:
1. Chrome
2. Firefox (Trying so hard to be chrome that it's pointless to use firefox rather than the real thing)
3. Opera (using Chrome's rendering engine)
4. Safari (Meh.)
5. IE (Blech)
For the most part people are stuck between choosing between two rendering engines. Would someone please start a new web browser project or something so that so we have true choice rather than this dichotomy between Google's Browser and the Browser Funded By Google?
(May or may not have been) Posted from my K6-2, Athlon XP, or Pentium I/II/III.
(Score: 2) by tonyPick on Saturday September 20 2014, @05:20PM
I guess there's the Konqueror, and the rekonq branch. Both have current stable releases, and Konqueror is about as retro as you can get... (Disclaimer - I don't use them for anything major, I just know they're active projects).
(Although now that the latest QtWebKit has moved over using Chrome's rendering engine (Blink) then rekonq may fall into your Google-like list. http://blog.qt.digia.com/blog/2013/09/12/introducing-the-qt-webengine/ [digia.com])
(Score: 2, Informative) by Username on Saturday September 20 2014, @06:40PM
Presto is still 100% HTML5 compatible.
(Score: 2) by meisterister on Saturday September 20 2014, @07:05PM
That is true, but since it s last release was in 2012, how long will it be before the internet leaves it behind? It's a shame that Opera ditched their own rendering engine.
(May or may not have been) Posted from my K6-2, Athlon XP, or Pentium I/II/III.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @07:09PM
And 100% proprietary...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @07:54PM
I don't like to have to say this, but I do prefer using a proprietary browser with a usable UI over using an open source browser with a fucking unusable UI any day.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @08:43PM
There is Midori, though it's also using webkit.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by drgibbon on Saturday September 20 2014, @06:19PM
"ZOMG, Firefox is borked!" is news to me. I've been using it for years (with Chromium as a backup if some site requires the abominations of Flash). It gives me no problems, works on all the sites I use, has hands-down the best plugins available (e.g. wake me up when [insert other browser] has Adblock+Ghostery [with scripts], NoScript, RequestPolicy, BetteryPrivacy, etc etc). I want a browser that works, and gives me some measure of control over the cesspool much of the web has become these days. That's Firefox, and in my eyes there are currently zero contenders (yes there are Firefox derivatives that I'm sure are good too). I couldn't care less if Chrome renders pages 4.73% faster, has a new super-optimised Javascript engine every fortnight, etc etc. Sure, Firefox could make improvements, but it's still the best in terms of what it can actually do, and I'm surprised so many geeks are agitated by the fact that it now resembles Chrome. Yeah, it looks like Chrome. Yup, don't care. It's web browser, it works, and it gives you more control than anything else. End of story.
Certified Soylent Fresh!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @06:29PM
It is OK if you don't care about Firefox stripping out and hiding formerly easily accessible and useful features of UI.
Many others do. A lot. Especially because it is functionality that was used so frequently.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by pnkwarhall on Saturday September 20 2014, @06:56PM
I'm curious and asking for someone to give a couple of serious examples of UI changes that broke their workflow.
Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @07:48PM
1. The real menu bar that was shown by default. It was well organized and consistent with other applications. Now all we have is the shitty, poorly designed hamburger menu. It's terribly less efficient to use.
2. The real status bar that was shown by default. It used to instantly show useful information, such as where hyperlinks point, without having to wait 5 seconds for the goddamn popup thing at the bottom to finally show up.
3. The ability to easily disable JavaScript from the Preferences dialog, without having to jump through about:config hoops. I like to disable JavaScript because it's a security flaw, and it's generally unnecessary.
4. The real toolbar. Now all we have is a jumble of different sized buttons with inconsistent placement and incomprehensible icons.
5. Moving the URL bar and the icons into each tab. Since they're common elements, shared across tabs, they should obviously be outside the tabs. They're easier to work with that way.
Sorry, you only asked for a couple of examples, but I couldn't help myself and listed 2.5 times that. My apologies!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @08:11PM
None of those problems exist for me.
The ones that could not be changed with firefox's own preferences were easily changed with the Classic Theme Restorer Add-on.
Although I never saw anything even remotely like a five-second delay on the URL pop-up, it has always been faster than the time it takes my eyeballs to track to the bottom of the window.
All in all it was a one-time minor inconvenience to get things set up pretty much how they had been before. That's an entirely acceptable price for continuing to get the latest version of the software.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @08:15PM
It doesn't matter if these problems don't exist for you. They are problems for the GP, however, which makes them bugs. And bugs aren't fixed with extensions. Bugs are fixed by fixing the actual problem. That means restoring the menbar, the toolbar, the statusbar, the ability to disable JS easily, and putting the tabs below again.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @10:47PM
> They are problems for the GP, however, which makes them bugs.
That is a ridiculous leap of logic. By that logic basically everything in life is a bug.
You guys are really making mountains of molehills. If these half-assed whines are the worst of what's wrong with firefox then there isn't anything to worry about.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @09:11PM
I've restored as much of that as I can easily do with extensions but that's hardly the point.
Have you ever tried to help someone with a computer over the phone? This is typically someone that isnt all that technical and doesnt know to change defaults or install extensions. She's probably someones grandma and she's probably running windows. So every other program on her system, except the browser, has as consistent UI that you can explain quickly and get her to see an use. There is a titlebar, it has three widgets on the right, one on the left, the title of the program in between. Below that you have the utility menus, file, edit, view, etc. This is a system simple enough she learned it 10 years ago and has relied on it since. And it still works well for her in other programs. But suddenly the browser is insane and she is lost and cannot find anything or even tell you what program she is in.
Perhaps if there was some great advantage to the chain you could rationally say 'screw granny' and move on but really? What great advantage? You're just making it more confusing for everyone. The more technically advanced users resent you for it, while the less advanced ones are confused by it at best.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @09:43PM
It's hilarious to hear the Chrome and Firefox developers claim that their changes have "simplified" the UIs for "average" users, yet like you correctly point out, this just isn't the case. Chrome and Firefox truly are harder to use now, for both non-advanced and advanced users alike.
(Score: 1) by GoodBuddy on Sunday September 21 2014, @05:26AM
I'm using version 32.0 of Firefox and none of what you list is a problem for me.
1. my menu bar seems pretty standard (File, Edit, View, History, Bookmarks, Tools, Help) Everything seems to be where you would expect it.
2. You are right, there is no status bar, but the only thing I used a status bar for was to display link URLs. When you hover a link, URLs pop up at the bottom where the status bar was located by default.
3. NoScript plugin. The easiest and most complete javascript control on any browser I've seen so far and the number one reason I use Firefox.
4. My tool bar is seems fine, but I admit, about the only button I use "Home". The icons seem to match what I see on mobile devices. I understand them with no problems.
5. Your complaint is moot. Each tab has the URL bar in the exact same spot, so when you switch tabs it doesn't move, so you get the exact same functionality as if it were shared across tabs. Besides, the URL is not a common element, it is unique to each web page.
TDLR: your complaints about Firefox seem to be trivial or not present in Firefox v32.0.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @12:28PM
The problems are still there. You've just masked them in various ways, using extensions or at some point in the past wasting time and effort to re-enable the display of the menu bar.
Masking bugs like that is basically you applying the bug fixes manually, rather than Mozilla fixing the bugs centrally.
The problems exist, they cause a lot of us a lot of problems, and it just doesn't need to be that way.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday September 22 2014, @01:58PM
So...I'm not the guy you're replying to, but "wasting time and effort to re-enable the display of the menu bar"? What? I've been using Firefox since it was Firebird, currently running it on an Arch system where I do full system update once or twice a week (ie, I'm not still on FF 3.5, I'm on 32 or something) and I've got a menu bar and I've never had to do anything to enable it. It's just there, same as it always has been. Did they dump it in Windows to match that Ribbon crap or something?
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Sunday September 21 2014, @11:40AM
It broke a couple of extensions I use, and the authors have long since abandoned them. The extension API is not very robust.
The reason people are leaving in droves is that the changes to the UI make them think that since it's just an imitation of Chrome they might as well use the real thing. Most people only use AdBlock which is available for Chrome, or extensions that make the Firefox UI like it used to be, so there is no big loss and a nice performance bump for them.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 1) by pnkwarhall on Sunday September 21 2014, @01:25PM
The reason people are leaving in droves is that the changes to the UI make them think that since it's just an imitation of Chrome they might as well use the real thing.
I just don't understand how the UI is that important to a browser. It's not something that most people interact with on a regular basis, in comparison to the actual page contained in the browser. The back button? The Address bar? Besides those two elements, the majority of my time is spent **on the page** - clicking links, writing in text boxes ;) , scrolling up and down...
I purposefully framed my question in the context of "workflow". One responder, in his list of 3/5 nonsense points, named the removal of the JavaScript enable functionality to about:config. That seems like it could mess up someone's workflow, if they use it regularly... for a couple of days. (And please don't get me started on his complaint that the function buttons/icons were "part of the tab" now...)
While I totally agree with the unnecessaryness of constant major UI changes, **these** are the specific bitches and moans? I spend the majority of my day in the browser, and have adapted by learning to use an extensive list of hotkeys (actually I use Pentadactyl) in order to avoid using the RSI-inducing mouse as much as I can. Yeah, the stupid hamburger menu threw me off for a day or too, and I liked the old FF/"File" menu better. But I know that people are just blowing hot air when people are flipping out over mostly cosmetic, non-functional changes.
In best /. car analogy form, it's like in the 80s when car manufactures took the "fins" off the back of the car, and a bunch of car nerds started whining about what a horrible decision it was because it "really messed with the aerodynamics of my drag racer". I'd agree that there are a collection of problems with Mozilla and Firefox these days -- the UI seems like the absolute very least of them.
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(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Sunday September 21 2014, @01:53PM
For me it was when CookieButton broke. Subsequently it started working again, as long as I override the extension version check. They broke the right-click lasso selection extension I was using for a while as well. It's an API issue; extensions don't ever seem to break for me in Chrome.
The new download display is shitty too, I prefer the old window. I could google how to get it back I suppose, I'm sure there is a way. It just seems like over the years I have spent a lot of time fighting Mozilla, including writing my own extension to change the order tabs open in to facilitate my use of forums and bulk sifting through posts. It worked fine once, until they changed it back around V4 or something.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 1) by pnkwarhall on Sunday September 21 2014, @02:03PM
When I say "bigger problems with Mozilla/FF than UI changes", I'm talking about stuff like constant updates breaking extensions. When you have a browser that seems like it's basically kept afloat by more technical users who have demands for their browser experience that are satisfied by 3rd-party developers (and even spend time building their own tools/hacks), you think the FF team would have more respect for that ecosystem...
Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @06:32PM
You may not care, but the rest of us do. We don't want a browser UI made for idiots. We push our browsers hard, and we need the functionality readily available to us. We don't need it buried under poorly designed hamburger menus. Firefox used to work for us, before they brought over Chrome's UI idiocy. Now it does not work for us.
(Score: 1) by drgibbon on Saturday September 20 2014, @07:20PM
As I said, what exactly is wrong with it? "We push our browsers hard" and "I don't want a UI made for idiots" doesn't really convey all that much to me. Almost everything on the menus seems to have a keyboard shortcut. What is it that you can't do?
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @07:51PM
See, I don't use just one browser. I don't use just one application. I'll use ten or more different ones on a daily basis. There are only so many goddamn keyboard shortcuts that I can realistically learn and remember. I need application functionality to be consistently organized and easily accessible. A menu bar with the traditional menus does this very well. The dumbed down Chrome and Firefox UIs, which lack such things or take some effort to re-enable them, obviously interfere with this.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by drgibbon on Saturday September 20 2014, @08:16PM
Right, but that sounds like you have a UI problem that is much bigger than Firefox. There must be some program that lets you streamline your workflow (e.g. override keyboard shortcuts in apps to make sensible defaults across the board). Incidentally your problem is actually solved on Mac OS X since every application has a traditional menubar (and you can assign custom keyboard shortcuts through the OS by default). And doesn't Ubuntu have this too? Anyways, good luck, but I think you're a bit hard blaming Firefox because it doesn't integrate well with the 9 other browsers that you use daily.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @08:21PM
No, the other apps (and they're not all browsers!) that I use are generally consistent. They have menus, and I can find the same or similar functionality in the same place across those apps. Firefox and Chrome are the ones that stand out like a sore thumb, so the problem is with them. They're the ones that are inefficient to use, compared to the other apps with UIs that aren't dumbed down.
(Score: 1) by drgibbon on Saturday September 20 2014, @08:30PM
Ok, but I still say the problem is not in the program, but in your mouse :D Take care.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @12:39PM
When Firefox and Chrome are the only problems exhibiting these issues, then the problems are solely with them. Blaming the user doesn't change the fact that Firefox and Chrome are broken in this case.
(Score: 1) by drgibbon on Sunday September 21 2014, @04:14PM
Naw, I meant muscle up and start using keyboard shortcuts :P
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @09:01PM
No. Users shouldn't adapt to broken software. Broken software should be fixed so it works for users. Keyboard shortcuts aren't a solution to the problem of a bad UI. They are a symptom of it. The solution is to fix the UI so that keyboard shortcuts aren't necessary.
(Score: 1) by drgibbon on Monday September 22 2014, @01:19AM
Haha ok, but I'm telling you, keyboard shortcuts will whip your mouse into shape almost every time ;)
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(Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Saturday September 20 2014, @08:26PM
...We don't want a browser UI made for idiots. We push our browsers hard....
As I said, what exactly is wrong with it?
...There are only so many goddamn keyboard shortcuts that I can realistically learn and remember...
lol, I do not wish to comment on Firefox or the number of applications I can remember how to use, but that shit is pretty funny!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @11:04PM
press alt
(Score: 1) by GoodBuddy on Sunday September 21 2014, @05:36AM
What? Did they change functionality for ctrl-C, ctrl-V, ctrl-O, ctrl-P in Firefox?
Seriously, what shortcuts are you talking about? Specific examples or I'm calling bullshit.
(Score: 2) by Darth Turbogeek on Saturday September 20 2014, @11:17PM
What is it that you can't do?
Use Australis wwithout wishing death on the persons responsible for it.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Saturday September 20 2014, @07:01PM
"Will Mozilla be able to reignite the spark that originally allowed them to create products like Firefox and Thunderbird that were, at one time, wildly popular and innovative? "
Firefox was hardly all that innovative. The practice of periodically going through and removing all the cruft and the wierd hacks that made some sort of sense at some time but none at all now, stripping your program down to basics, and slapping a new face on it is just the digital version of a process with many millenia of prior art, applied to all sorts of tools, to boats, housing, and so on. Firefox did not come from some 'spark' from some wonderful 'designer' working for Mozilla, it came from *listening to the complaints* of people that were constantly asking why, even though all we really wanted was gecko and a minimal UI, we had to download and run this huge 'suite' with so much extra stuff we never used. And yes, listening to complaints, not getting your back up that someone would *dare* to complain about getting the result of all your hard work for free but actually opening your mind and listening to them and taking them as valid and thinking about them; THAT is what made Firefox so popular way back when.
And that, not some vacuous buzzword like 'innovation,' is what seems to have been lost somewhere along the way.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Saturday September 20 2014, @07:36PM
>wake me up when [insert other browser] has Adblock+Ghostery [with scripts], NoScript, RequestPolicy, BetteryPrivacy, etc etc
Chromium does, and not only does it have all of those plugins, it has all of them in ONE plugin called HTTP Switchboard, with better fine-grained control (for example, can RequestPolicy filter cross site requests based on request type (images, css, javascript, plugins, frames), with a single click?).
Woken up yet?
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @07:57PM
Don't forget that Chromium feels a lot faster than Firefox, too. It has a UI that's quick and responsive.
(Score: 1) by drgibbon on Saturday September 20 2014, @08:28PM
<sarcasm>Yes! Don't forget it! I can't bear to use that old slow bloaty Mozilla Firefox! Opening a tab is like watching paint dry!</sarcasm> My goodness, it takes.. well ok, it doesn't take very long at all on any browser ;)
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @08:48PM
I still use an older laptop from time to time. I've got both Mozilla and Chrome installed on there, and the difference between the two is very noticeable. Opening a new tab in Firefox takes 3 to 5 seconds. Doing the same in Chrome takes much less than a second. I thought that was kind of weird, since Chrome uses separate processes and all that, while Firefox doesn't. Yet the difference is very obvious, and Chrome is a lot faster than Firefox is. Maybe it isn't as obvious on a faster computer, but it's very obvious on slower ones.
(Score: 1) by drgibbon on Saturday September 20 2014, @10:37PM
I know that Chrome/Chromium's interface feels faster [youtube.com]. If you're on a 486 and it really takes 5 seconds to open a tab, yeah sure, use whatever works. But on most people's computers, most of the time, there's hardly any difference.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @05:41AM
Cool, we'll all decide our browser choices based on the performance on your old laptop.
Sounds like a practical use case.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @12:33PM
You're obviously missing the point.
This fellow is proving that Firefox actually is slower than Chrome.
If on an older system it takes 5 seconds for Firefox to do something that takes Chrome 1 second, then it means on a faster computer it still takes Firefox 500 ms to do something that Chrome can do it 100 ms.
Just because it all happens faster on a modern computer, perhaps even fast enough that Firefox's slowness isn't immediately obvious, doesn't mean that Firefox is as fast as Chrome. It means that Firefox is still 5x slower than Chrome. On mobile devices like laptops and phones, this results in more battery usage. So it's still a serious problem.
(Score: 2) by Teckla on Sunday September 21 2014, @12:37PM
<sarcasm>Yes! Don't forget it! I can't bear to use that old slow bloaty Mozilla Firefox! Opening a tab is like watching paint dry! My goodness, it takes.. well ok, it doesn't take very long at all on any browser ;)
I use Firefox at work and Chrome at home (for various reasons). That is, I use both browsers heavily.
And I can assure you that Firefox regularly goes out to lunch, UI-wise (Not Responding). Firefox has UI issues, and I'm not talking about look and feel.
My guess is they need to prioritize moving to a multi-process model, like Chrome, so that the UI is never, ever unresponsive.
(Score: 1) by drgibbon on Sunday September 21 2014, @04:20PM
Yeah fair enough, I guess it doesn't work well for some people, but honestly I've had zero problems with Firefox's UI. That's on Mac, Windows, Linux; everything. Then again, I disable all plug-ins, don't install Flash, and although I do run a few add-ons (about 20) I have nothing weird that alters the UI.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @09:05PM
So you're clearly not a browser power user. Yeah, if you use only the smallest, most minimal functionality it offers then you are less likely to run into the sorts of problems that power users run into all of the time. That doesn't mean that the problems aren't there. They are, and they're very severe with Firefox these days.
(Score: 1) by drgibbon on Monday September 22 2014, @01:20AM
What is this "power user" you speak of? ;)
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(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday September 22 2014, @02:10PM
Funny. I just switched from Chrome to Firefox at work because Chrome has gotten into the habit of crashing any time I visit a site other than Soylent or Gmail. Literally anything. Click a link from my email? Crashed. Click a link to RTFA? Crashed. Click a Google search result? Crashed. Worst part is, it opens back up, restores the tabs...and immediately crashes again! Googled the symptoms and found a bunch of posts from people who never got it fixed.
Firefox's UI may be marginally less responsive but at least it works. Plus I find Chrome ironically sucks down more RAM on this system (and it's only got 2GB -- not much to spare!)
At home I use both though -- Chrome mostly for development, because my boss uses Safari so Chrome matches that better, plus the built-in debuggers are a bit nicer. Firefox I use for my daily browsing though. Much more stable, I often leave tabs open for weeks or months at a time, and I lose them far less often with Firefox. I really ought to just start using bookmarks though... :)
(Score: 1) by drgibbon on Saturday September 20 2014, @08:11PM
Nice add-on thanks, I'll add that one to my Chromium (i.e. my backup browser with Flash), but still I'm only roused for a brief moment ;) I don't really have much interest in supporting Chrome or Chromium. Chrome pushes people ever closer to a Google world, and while Chromium is better, it's still like the bastard-stepchild; it can be difficult for normal people to update, find builds etc (yes there's a Mac build with auto-update, yes there might be other stuff floating around, but Firefox is easier than Chromium on all platforms). Chromium is not seriously supported. I see no compelling reason not to use Firefox (or some Gecko-based derivative).
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(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Monday September 22 2014, @04:28AM
Doesn't chromium require an account just to install even free plugins? Nah... I'll rather stick with Firefox...
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(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Monday September 22 2014, @05:49PM
Where do you get this level of misinformation?
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(Score: 1) by Username on Saturday September 20 2014, @06:42PM
Fire all the management unless they are/were developers.
Problem solved.
(Score: 1) by Crypthulhu on Sunday September 21 2014, @12:18PM
I see SeaMonkey listed as irrelevant in the summary, and a lot of people moaning about Firefox in the comments. I have been using Mozilla since the Mozilla browser days, and ever since Firefox has gone on its chromeward spiral I have been using SeaMonkey more and more. I can't be alone in this right guys?
SeaMonkey negates almost all of the issues people bring up with current FF. If you want a classic looking FF browser just go use SeaMonkey. It still uses the original Mozilla type layout. The built in email, IRC, FTP, html editor, etc are all quite decent although I only use the browser, email, and IRC myself.
Another thing I REALLY love about SeaMonkey is the addon compatibility with FF. I run noscript/ABP/ghostery/firebug which are my main addons for FF as well. You can even get your favorite themes for it as well without having to put up with the new shittier FF look.
I only use Firefox for basic consumption of the net, and SeaMonkey for anything more serious such as web-dev work or heavy research.
Come on guys there is NO reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
*NORK*
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @09:10PM
I tried using SeaMonkey, but I couldn't install Ghostery. It said it was not compatible. Maybe I could fight with it, but it's much easier just to use Chrome, where it works fine.
And we want to be using a lightweight browser with a UI like that of Firefox 2 or Firefox 3. We don't want to be using a large, bloated browser with the UI of Netscape Communicator 4.7.