Mozilla CEO Wants Business To Pick Up the Pace (theregister.com) 55
Mozilla closed out 2023 with a report that dodges its flatlining browser market share and Mozilla.social beta in favor of calls for a faster pace from its highly paid CEO. From a report: According to the company's filings, Mitchell Baker's compensation went from $5,591,406 in 2021 to $6,903,089 in 2022. It's quite the jump considering that revenues declined from $527,585,000 to $510,389,000 in the same period. Despite the executive payout, Firefox continues to trail Google and even Microsoft in desktop browser market share. While it has not suffered any catastrophic losses, neither has it made any significant gains.
Baker, however, would very much like to speed things up and says in the State of Mozilla report: "The pace is not enough, the impact is not enough." Unsurprisingly for a technology company, the report is heavy on AI going mainstream where Mozilla reckons it can make an impact in the technology, particularly with regard to open source developers and privacy. Mozilla's adventures in AI? The organization says it has 15 engineers working on open source large language models and is working on use cases in the healthcare space. Moez Draief, managing director of Mozilla.ai, said: "There's a lot of structured data work in that industry that will feed the language models; we don't have to invent it."
Baker, however, would very much like to speed things up and says in the State of Mozilla report: "The pace is not enough, the impact is not enough." Unsurprisingly for a technology company, the report is heavy on AI going mainstream where Mozilla reckons it can make an impact in the technology, particularly with regard to open source developers and privacy. Mozilla's adventures in AI? The organization says it has 15 engineers working on open source large language models and is working on use cases in the healthcare space. Moez Draief, managing director of Mozilla.ai, said: "There's a lot of structured data work in that industry that will feed the language models; we don't have to invent it."
So what? Screw your AI BS (Score:5, Insightful)
AI is neato but I don't need it in my browser.
What I need in my Browser is for it to work well and provide me functionality.
Bring back the functionality lost in the switch from the old extensions interface (not the interface, just the functionality) and we can talk about supporting your AI bullshit.
Re:So what? Screw your AI BS (Score:4, Insightful)
They can stuff all the AI they want into it, as long as this doesn't weigh down the browser and consumes more resources (not bloody likely) and keeps ads at bay (not much more likely either)...
In other words, maybe try to concentrate on something the user of your browser actually wants, like keeping tracking at bay, kicking social media trackers out and scrubbing ads, and you might see your browser pick up users.
Re: So what? Screw your AI BS (Score:3)
This isn't practical to do at the browser level. It never was. This is always going to be a cat and mouse game that the more nimble side will always win. Look at what fecebook did when Mozilla stripped out the tracking tags for example.
That kind of thing is best left in the realm of extensions. Mozilla is already doing what they should be doing. Things like container tabs for example.
Re: So what? Screw your AI BS (Score:4, Insightful)
Frankly, I don't really care whether the browser does it itself or whether some plugin to the browser does it. What matters is that I don't get to see any fucking ads and that the profiling asshats can go pound sand.
Re: So what? Screw your AI BS (Score:2)
You probably want librewolf then.
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Anyway, this is just deflection. I presume he's in trouble since I've witnessed this dance before.
Woke vampire (Score:3)
Stop begging for donations to an income multimillionaire.
Hey Mozilla! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why don't you just listen to your shrinking loyal user base and, you know, stop making your browser harder to use? You could start by restoring the incredible shrinking scrollbars with their disappearing steppers; then maybe you could add some colour back to make controls more intuitive than the black-and-white nonsense you've embraced. Then you could stop forcing us to have search capability somewhere in the URL bar whether we want it or not.
Speaking of stuff we don't want: once I got past the huge number of pro-Pocket DDG results from Mozilla links, the vast majority of hits were about turning off / uninstalling Pocket. Take the hint - nobody wants it. Instead, spend the effort and developer time to bring back our ability to easily make the browser more comfortable for day-to-day use. Your users are telling you repeatedly what you need to do to keep them happy and loyal - you just need to listen.
TFS refers to "flatlining browser market share". It's important to remember and keep top-of-mind that it's only flatlining after a long drop over the past decade or more. Chasing after LLM rainbows and relevance in "the healthcare space" represent pie, or more probably pie-in-the-sky. You'd be better off making the meat and potatoes more palatable before trying to concoct fantastical desserts. But I know you won't do that, because you're not listening to the people who made the early Firefox successful. I hope you enjoy your slow spiral down into security. Rest assured that your many loyal users are NOT enjoying that spiral.
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> Then you could stop forcing us to have search capability somewhere in the URL bar whether we want it or not.
Not disagreeing with your point, but hopefully making your firefox a bit more you-friendly:
https://support.mozilla.org/en... [mozilla.org]
https://support.mozilla.org/en... [mozilla.org]
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firefox 120 here. All those configs work for me -- the omnibar doesn't search the web.
If you're talking about the search engine icons in the omnibar results, the best I know is this:
https://support.mozilla.org/en... [mozilla.org]
I'd keep history and tabs enabled though.
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Thanks again for your efforts. I may be missing something when I use those configs, but I suspect the problem is that I didn't express my desires clearly.
With the configs you linked, it seems I can choose to search from within the URL bar, or I can search from a dedicated search bar which shortens the URL bar unacceptably, or I can search from a box on the New Tab page.
Sadly, for me the correct answer is "none of the above". I want my URL entry field as long as possible because I do a lot of editing of URL'
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Why don't you just listen to your shrinking loyal user base and, you know, stop making your browser harder to use?
Where exactly do you think this guy's multimillion dollar salary comes from? It is obvious what is going on here. Firefox has been compromised.
Is her compensation in cash? (Score:5, Interesting)
Most criticism of executive pay is overblown and mixed with a misunderstanding of the stock market. But in this case I don't understand it. Why is a corporation paying 1% of *revenue* to its CEO?
Usually with these stories it's misreporting around granted stock options that ended up being unusually valuable, or an owner-CEO who gets richer because the company he owns grew. But Mozilla is not a public company with stock and low-cost options to grant; are they really taking >1% out of their revenue (not even free cash flow, !! total revenue !!) to pay their CEO?
Non-profits have long been known to be a grift where money can be sheltered from taxes and then used for fundraising parties and salaries to friends, but I'm surprised to see it happening at a non-profit as publicly visible as Mozilla.
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Indeed. The only thing that makes sense. This CEO seems to not be merely completely incompetent, it seems her aim is to make mozilla as bad as possible without killing it.
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Sounds like she's angling for a job at Harvard that just opened up.
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Naa, too white! Also a lawyer, so probably not that prone to stupid public statements. A pity.
I wish them luck (Score:1)
I'll never advocate for them again. They lost me with a whole series of missteps over the past 15 years. I don't know who they thought they were, but what they are now is dead to me. It's really too bad.
As your user base is saying (Score:2, Insightful)
In addition to what others said, how about focusing on real security instead of crap Fortune 500 Companies what to see, like:
1. prevent sites from accessing cookies and cache that other sites create.
2. Remove all the so-called crap that mozilla thinks gives me security. Like DNSOverHTTPS, let my OS decide what to do with DNS and other security settings.
3. Get rid of all Capthas. In fact completely block Cloudflare and sites like that. I know I can do that, but then I will not be able to see many sites.
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Mozilla doesn't have sufficient market share to get away with things like blocking Cloudflare. Apple does.
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2. Remove all the so-called crap that mozilla thinks gives me security. Like DNSOverHTTPS, let my OS decide what to do with DNS and other security settings.
Respectfully, fuck no. This is an option. Don't want it, don't use it. It's right there for you to ignore. Some of us trust Mozilla and the ability for the app to decide what it wants to do more than the OS and whatever is pushed to it by a potentially untrusted source.
3. Get rid of all Capthas. In fact completely block Cloudflare and sites like that.
So break the internet by blocking 1/3rd of it? Is that your idea of a good user experience in a browser? You realise that this is not remotely in Mozilla's control right?
4. Allow access to ftp sites, now it is disabled by default.
Speaking of crap no one needs, get an FTP client if you want to use FTP.
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Sorry, but I feel that http should be allowed. Perhaps it should come with a warning border, but it should be allowed. Lots of folks don't have business use for their web site so they can't afford the stuff to get https working. But simple html (without javascript) shouldn't require https.
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Lots of folks don't have business use for their web site so they can't afford the stuff to get https working.
That excuse is no longer valid. The cheapest nastiest hosting providers now provide Lets Encrypt certificates. Virtually every Linux distribution can enable lets encrypt certificates with automatic renewal by running one tool in the command line. HTTPS-Only is not enforced on direct IP level connections meaning it doesn't apply in the one scenario where free and easy SSL certificates are not available.
And finally, and I can't stress this enough, IT IS UP TO YOU. YOU AND YOU ALONE. Firefox doesn't force HTTP
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prevent sites from accessing cookies and cache that other sites create.
Why wasn't this made a thing all the way back in the 90s?
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They already did (1). Firefox keeps every site sandboxed. Cookies, cache, everything. No cross access.
The others are dumb, sorry.
We need a new "Phoenix" (Score:2)
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Phoenix 0.8, here. Fast, smooth, uncomplicated. It was the literal definition of the difference between night and day when compared to IE.
But, as you said, the bloat crept in. Also, similar to Microsoft, Mozilla kept removing useful items or moving them about and making it more difficult to find, let alone configure. Whereas now their page for security is maybe a dozen items or so, in the past you had a multitude of configurable options, not the leas
Do Mozilla's mission matter any longer? (Score:5, Interesting)
Firefox is an unrecognized a cornerstone to an open internet. So long as Firefox exists, there is a fully open source JavaScript engine, HTML engine, and web browser. This is important for the health of the internet. But does Firefox market share really matter? Is Firefox's existence merely enough?
Here is why it matters: Once Firefox's market share drops below a certain value, nobody tests on it. Once everyone just tests on Chrome + Safari, then whatever WebKit + V8 do becomes the internet. And since Chrome == Google, Google becomes the internet. You almost can't visit a web site any more without a popup prompting you to login to Google -- even if the site doesn't even require a login in the first place! There is an entire generation growing up with the mindset that Chrome and Google are the internet, just like Microsoft tried to do with Internet Explorer + Windows many aeons ago. This is a hidden risk.
So why are people leaving Firefox for Chrome? Is Chrome better than Firefox? Not really. Certainly not enough to justify the vast difference in usage. But what the Mozilla foundation needs to recognize is that *BROWSERS HAVE BECOME A COMMODITY*. Because the standards compliance is pretty good right now, it almost doesn't matter what browser you are using and people just don't care. So how to get more Firefox market share? We know that adding unnecessary features merely alienates the core community you have. Instead, give it the best debugger and network tools. Make Seamonkey the go-to JavaScript engine for games and servers. Make Gecko and Seamonkey the default place for developers looking to make PWAs. Make sure the standards committees are working with Firefox first. These aren't flashy things that make Firefox suddenly exciting - but you can't make a commodity exciting. Instead, protect the internet by embedding an open-source standards-compliant browser into everything.
Re:Do Mozilla's mission matter any longer? (Score:5, Interesting)
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The best way to control a company or a small country is to buy the CEO/President, in the shades.
Firefox was on top in the past. It got trojan horsed.
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Yes, very obviously so.
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Firefox has very little value as an open source project. The code is nasty, difficult to even build, and separating out components for use elsewhere is a nightmare.
The reason nobody except Moz staff contributes to Firefox and Thunderbird is that the barrier to entry is huge.
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Firefox has very little value as an open source project. The code is nasty, difficult to even build, and separating out components for use elsewhere is a nightmare.
How much refactoring and cleanup do you think could have been done with the $20M they spent buying Pocket, which statistically nobody wants? Like, by contracting it from someone competent? There are multiple firms which do nothing but.
This is what is wrong with Mozilla today. They want more whiz-bang, and continually neglect fundamentals which underpin and enable the whiz-bang. It's top-heavy bullshit that will ultimately lead to failure.
Grant Funded Research (Score:2)
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They make pretty much all of their money from having Google as the default search engine in most countries, and a bit more from having different default search engines in some countries.
tip (Score:3)
I have a very simple business tip for her: make a product people want to use. And, because I am generous, a second one: don't piss off your existing user base.
Technical Debt (Score:5, Insightful)
Mozilla is always futzing with easy changes that nobody wants because the hard changes are hard.
A good place to look would be to search for Bugzilla bugs that are 22 years old and still open with hard stuff to do.
What did Electrolysis take, 15 years, because it wasn't easy? Meanwhile Chrome took its market share because of not doing it.
How about getting rid of the Mork database in Mozilla products finally?
Is it hard? Yes.
Is it shiny? Nope.
Is it necessary? Yup.
How about getting the UI fully out of the main thread? OH, NOT EASY!
There are plenty of reasons people don't use Mozilla software by default and much of it has to do with the need to put on the big boy pants and do several releases with no visible changes. They might need to trade two engineers who can't do the hard stuff for one who can and leave him alone to fix things.
And to do that they may need to rehire some of the engineers who left because they had DaNgErOuS reality-based ideas about how the world works, unrelated to the MoFo mission.
But only if they want to survive as an organization. Some would say they would rather DIE out than let some of those (nice) guys back on. Plus Pat, she was nice too.
But if you are planning to scuttle the ship, your Nonprofit directors really ought to (legally) know that.
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Need....to....be......seen.
Self...worth...falling..need...validation...any...will...do....hhhhhuh.
Opens one eye
I'm dying you insensitive clod!
Only priority should be more users (Score:2)
Firefox is nearing irrelevance given its "marketshare" - it's in the low single digits, between Edge and Opera. Not great. See: https://gs.statcounter.com/bro... [statcounter.com]
More and more websites are simply just Chrome compatible, and everything else can screw off. This isn't going to change unless Firefox returns to the double digits.
Nice work if you can get it (Score:3)
Earn seven million a year for brainstorms like buying Pocket.
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Earn seven million a year for brainstorms like buying Pocket.
That decision has increased Mozilla's revenue by 15% and been one of the few financially sound decisions they made. It takes balls to mock them while they cash in an additional $60million every year.
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how does pocket, one of the most the most hated "features", bring in money?
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wait, so there is some soft of buy subscriptions to pocket? is that how it makes money?
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Have they disclosed how much they paid for Pocket? Without knowing that, it's premature at best to say it was a sound decision (financially - it's also worth considering the "annoy your user base" aspect IMO).
Plus, that's assuming your 15% income increase statement is accurate. Mozilla appears to lump "subscription and advertising revenues" together in their financial statements, which they state are from VPN subscriptions, advertisements they include in emails to Pocket users, and Pocket Premium subscripti
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Yes, they have told us. It cost US$20M.
That $20M could have bought a lot of code refactoring.
Instead they spent it on advertising and collection of PII.
What does that tell you about them, their goals, and whether they are compatible with ours?
google pay (Score:2)
Google CEO salary: $2M/yr. Of course he does get stock options. Maybe Mitch needs Mozilla stock options?
Personally (Score:2)
I prefer Old El Paso.
more bloat (Score:2)
Poor Blockchain and Metaverse (Score:1)
I think Mozilla should ad support for crypto, NFTs, and the Metaverse along with its proposed AI support.
Give old fads a place to call home so they don't turn bitter in their old age.