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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: 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.
Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
(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