From the «browser game is lost?» department:
Title: Mozilla once again confirms it’s all about ads and “AI” now Author: Thom Holwerda
Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2025 00:42:27 +0000
Link: https://www.osnews.com/story/141757/mozilla-once-again-confirms-its-all-about-ads-and-ai-now/
We’ve recognized that Mozilla faces major headwinds in terms of both financial growth and mission impact. While Firefox remains the core of what we do, we also need to take steps to diversify: investing in privacy-respecting advertising to grow new revenue in the near term; developing trustworthy, open source AI to ensure technical and product relevance in the mid term; and creating online fundraising campaigns that will draw a bigger circle of supporters over the long run. Mozilla’s impact and survival depend on us simultaneously strengthening Firefox AND finding new sources of revenue AND manifesting our mission in fresh ways. That is why we’re working hard on all of these fronts.
↫ Mark Surman on the Mozilla blog[1]
None of this is new to anyone reading OSNews. I’ve been quite vocal about Mozilla’s troubles and how it intends to address those troubles, and I’m incredibly worried and concerned about the increasing efforts by Mozilla to push advertising and “AI” to somehow find more revenue streams. I think this is
the wrong direction to take, and will not make up for the seemingly inevitable
loss of the Google search deal – and my biggest fear is that Firefox will get a
lot worse before Mozilla realises advertising and “AI” just aren’t compatible
with their mission and the morals and values of the last few remaining Firefox
users.
I don’t have any answers either, of course. Making a competitive browser is hard, and clearly requires a lot of people and a lot of time. Donations are fickle, nobody will pay for a browser, and relying on corporate sponsoring in other forms than the Google search deal will just mean Firefox will become like
Chrome even faster, with more and more exceptions for “allowed” ads and additional roadblocks for adblockers to try and work around. In essence, I strongly believe that it is impossible to both earn money from online ads and make a good browser. It’s one or the other – not both.
There’s basically no competition in the browser space, and if we lose Firefox,
the only other option is Chrome and its various skins. Not a future I’m looking
forward to.
Links:
[1]: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-leadership-growth-planning-updates/ (link)
On 24.02.2025 03:51 Uhr Retrograde wrote:
Title: Mozilla once again confirms it’s all about ads and “AI” now
Confirms again that my choice of Pale Moon was a good decision.
Title: Mozilla once again confirms it’s all about ads and “AI” now
On Mon, 24 Feb 2025, Marco Moock wrote:
On 24.02.2025 03:51 Uhr Retrograde wrote:
Title: Mozilla once again confirms it’s all about ads and “AI” now >>
Confirms again that my choice of Pale Moon was a good decision.
This is the truth! But it has the weakness of being a fork of FF, so
when FF dies, so will Pale moon. =(
I hope the ladybug browser will really take off! That could be
exactly what we are all looking for!
Ladybug also had the wisdom to not cave in to demands from political activists to turn it into a DEI project. They said that they focus on technology and not on politics. I think this was a very wise move
from them.
On 24.02.2025 11:14 Uhr D wrote:
On Mon, 24 Feb 2025, Marco Moock wrote:
On 24.02.2025 03:51 Uhr Retrograde wrote:
Title: Mozilla once again confirms it’s all about ads and “AI” now >>>>
Confirms again that my choice of Pale Moon was a good decision.
This is the truth! But it has the weakness of being a fork of FF, so
when FF dies, so will Pale moon. =(
It diverged that much that the current FF is almost irrelevant for it.
I hope the ladybug browser will really take off! That could be
exactly what we are all looking for!
I hope too, but I have serious doubt.
Ladybug also had the wisdom to not cave in to demands from political
activists to turn it into a DEI project. They said that they focus on
technology and not on politics. I think this was a very wise move
from them.
A wise choice for every software.
On 24.02.2025 11:14 Uhr D wrote:
On Mon, 24 Feb 2025, Marco Moock wrote:
On 24.02.2025 03:51 Uhr Retrograde wrote:
Title: Mozilla once again confirms it’s all about ads and “AI” now >>
Confirms again that my choice of Pale Moon was a good decision.
This is the truth! But it has the weakness of being a fork of FF, so
when FF dies, so will Pale moon. =(
It diverged that much that the current FF is almost irrelevant for it.
On Mon, 24 Feb 2025, Retrograde wrote:
From the «browser game is lost?» department:
Title: Mozilla once again confirms it’s all about ads and “AI” now
Author: Thom Holwerda
Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2025 00:42:27 +0000
Link:
https://www.osnews.com/story/141757/mozilla-once-again-confirms-its-all-about-ads-and-ai-now/
It is very sad. They should remove the current CEO. Maybe it is time
for me to step in, and drag Mozilla back to basics. Do a browser, fund
it with donations, and that's it. Let's say I take 200k USD per year
for the job, just the savings on CEO salary alone could fund an army
of developers!
Marco Moock <mm+usenet-es@dorfdsl.de> wrote:
On 24.02.2025 11:14 Uhr D wrote:
On Mon, 24 Feb 2025, Marco Moock wrote:
On 24.02.2025 03:51 Uhr Retrograde wrote:
Title: Mozilla once again confirms it’s all about ads and “AI” >> now
Confirms again that my choice of Pale Moon was a good decision.
This is the truth! But it has the weakness of being a fork of FF,
so when FF dies, so will Pale moon. =(
It diverged that much that the current FF is almost irrelevant for
it.
How is Pale Moon funded?
On 24.02.2025 03:51 Uhr Retrograde wrote:
Title: Mozilla once again confirms it???s all about ads and ???AI??? now
Confirms again that my choice of Pale Moon was a good decision.
From the «browser game is lost?» department:
Title: Mozilla once again confirms it’s all about ads and “AI” now Author: Thom Holwerda
Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2025 00:42:27 +0000
Link: https://www.osnews.com/story/141757/mozilla-once-again-confirms-its-all-about-ads-and-ai-now/
We’ve recognized that Mozilla faces major headwinds in terms of both financial growth and mission impact. While Firefox remains the core of what we do, we also need to take steps to diversify: investing in privacy-respecting advertising to grow new revenue in the near term; developing trustworthy, open source AI to ensure technical and product relevance in the mid term; and creating online fundraising campaigns that will draw a bigger circle of supporters over the long run. Mozilla’s impact and survival depend on us simultaneously strengthening Firefox AND finding new sources of revenue AND manifesting our mission in fresh ways. That is why we’re working hard on all of these fronts.
↫ Mark Surman on the Mozilla blog[1]
None of this is new to anyone reading OSNews. I’ve been quite vocal about Mozilla’s troubles and how it intends to address those troubles, and I’m incredibly worried and concerned about the increasing efforts by Mozilla to push advertising and “AI” to somehow find more revenue streams. I think this is
the wrong direction to take, and will not make up for the seemingly inevitable
loss of the Google search deal – and my biggest fear is that Firefox will get a
lot worse before Mozilla realises advertising and “AI” just aren’t compatible
with their mission and the morals and values of the last few remaining Firefox
users.
I don’t have any answers either, of course. Making a competitive browser is hard, and clearly requires a lot of people and a lot of time. Donations are fickle, nobody will pay for a browser, and relying on corporate sponsoring in other forms than the Google search deal will just mean Firefox will become like
Chrome even faster, with more and more exceptions for “allowed” ads and additional roadblocks for adblockers to try and work around. In essence, I strongly believe that it is impossible to both earn money from online ads and make a good browser. It’s one or the other – not both.
There’s basically no competition in the browser space, and if we lose Firefox,
the only other option is Chrome and its various skins. Not a future I’m looking
forward to.
Links:
[1]: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-leadership-growth-planning-updates/ (link)
As Dillo 3.2 supports MathSVG, I don't need any bloated browser at all.
<https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?pid=54845#p54845>
Making a competitive browser isDoes the browser need to be changed much now?
hard, and clearly requires a lot of people and a lot of time. Donations are fickle, nobody will pay for a browser,
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