Orgs can do multiple things at the same time.
That’s not the criticism I’m making.
> Orgs can do multiple things at the same time.
Of course they can. But they should also prioritise—allocating money and resources appropriately—and Mozilla has for far too long not prioritised Firefox itself. That’s the issue. If people felt Mozilla were a good steward of Firefox, they wouldn’t mind most of the tangential stuff they do. The issue is that Mozilla has a history of getting distracted with irrelevant side projects that go nowhere and are summarily abandoned (meaning they were a waste) while Firefox doesn’t get as much attention as it could and should.
One sentiment I often see on HN is “I would like to donate to Firefox but Mozilla only lets you donate to the organisation as a whole, and I don’t like the other things they’re doing”. Unlike every other major browser, Firefox is the main product of its parent company. It should be the best at what it’s for, yet far too often I see people saying they use Firefox not because they prefer it but because it’s not from Microsoft/Google/Apple.
In principle this is true. In the concrete case of Firefox, they have proven they focus more on side quests than on making a quality browser.
I lost any hope they'll go for technical excellence instead of virtue signaling and branding after the Brendan Eich disaster. They feel now like a Microsoft, Google, Apple, or any other big corp.
I used Firefox since it was called Firebird and finally gave up and switched to another (non big corp) browser and couldn't be happier.
And at the same time, the dev already paid by Mozilla that could have been fixing the product, was busy updating the source code to update the mascot...
Personally, I do want them to increase their installed user base. I'd rather the Mozilla org spend money on marketing Firefox instead of political activism. If this works even a little bit, then great.
- Total revenue: $653 million
- Revenue from Google 85% ($555 million)
- Total expenses $496 million (Software Development Expenses $260 million)
And even that is optimistic, since it probably includes all the side quests not related to the browser core engine that has bugs and performance issues that are not fixed for years.
AI era is ripe for disruption, and Firefox with it's openness can aim to kill the browser mono-cultures, but it's vision-less ATM.
[1]: https://radar.cloudflare.com/adoption-and-usage#top-browsers...
And it's not like software engineers are spending time on this instead of working on Firefox. That's not a real tradeoff. It's an effort that pays for itself and doesn't take away from Firefox development.
Agreed, but did they need a new mascot to sell merchandise? It’s not like the old logo wasn’t already cool.
> And it's not like software engineers are spending time on this instead of working on Firefox.
But Mozilla is still spending money and resources on it. The issue isn’t this rebranding specifically, but that this is yet another distraction which won’t produce any real result.
> It's an effort that pays for itself
Is it? That’s not a given, and we definitely can’t say either way yet. Considering all of Mozilla’s past efforts, pretty much all of which they abandoned, I’d be very wary of calling this one a success so early on.
The economics of selling branded clothing has been very well understood for 50 years. The markup for slapping a logo on a T-shirt is massive. Plus, it's a form of crowdsourced, word-of-chest advertising.
And Mozilla already has designers on staff. It's unlikely they had to do any extra hiring for this.
> How will my donation be used?
> At Mozilla, our mission is to keep the Internet healthy, open, and accessible for all. The Mozilla Foundation programs are supported by grassroots donations and grants. Our grassroots donations, from supporters like you, are our most flexible source of funding. These funds directly support advocacy campaigns (i.e. asking big tech companies to protect your privacy), research and publications like the Privacy Not Included buyer's guide and Internet Health Report, and covers a portion of our annual MozFest gathering.
(from https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/donate/help/#frequently...)
Do Spreadshirt sales benefit the Foundation (not Firefox), or are they revenue for the Corporation (Firefox)? I've looked around for a minute and can't tell.
> Media resource https://assets.mozilla.net/video/kit/pop-up-800.webm could not be decoded, error: Error Code: NS_ERROR_DOM_MEDIA_FATAL_ERR (0x806e0005)
> Details: auto mozilla::MediaChangeMonitor::CreateDecoderAndInit(MediaRawData *)::(anonymous class)::operator()(const MediaResult &) const: Unable to create decoder
Unfortunate.
(firefox-nightly, Linux.)
> The Firefox brand is getting a refresh and you get the first look. Kit’s our new mascot and your new companion through an internet that’s private, open and actually yours.
Your new companion...
Mozilla does seem poorly run overall but this work is very important.
I would argue that a truly open source, easily embedded browser engine that everyone can use is more important than an independent browser. The only problem with Blink is that it's controlled almost entirely by Google. Otherwise, it's an outstanding piece of tech. It would be just about perfect if the project operated more like Linux. We wouldn't need competing engines if development was democratized. The project itself becomes the source of truth as far as standards are concerned. Each browser distro enables what they need and if something becomes popular it's just a matter of other distros enabling a build flag.
Four percent is a rounding error, and I'm seeing a lot of technical people who no longer prioritize testing on Firefox. I doubt many younger devs have even tried it, and its mobile presence is almost zero.
I put my money where my mouth is, I use Firefox everyday for my regular browsing both on my computer and on Android. It works great. So tired of the FUD.