Almost all the links in my front homepage are sponsored now. What's next, a few ads in the bookmark bar? How about when I enter a URL, I then have to type "McDonald's" before I can actually navigate there?
this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2025
291 points (75.3% liked)
Firefox
18325 readers
726 users here now
A place to discuss the news and latest developments on the open-source browser Firefox
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Mozilla already has Scrooge McDuck amounts of money. It doesn’t need any more to maintain a browser and an email client.
From jwz, who founded Mozilla & Firefox:
.
no. they don't.
the google money that they rely too heavily on, may not always be there. they need more diverse funding. these paid placements, which can be turned off, are one way to do that.
turn off and delete the sponsored stuff at install, never see 'em again. it's not like they're microsoft or something, constantly turning that kind of shit back on with every-other-update.
https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/06/mozilla-is-an-advertising-company-now/#comment-249969
It's a real shame what's happened to Mozilla. Maybe Trump will add browser software to the list of sanctions on China and we'll end up with a Deepfox in a year or two.
And it will be running on Deepin also
While this analysis is somewhat convincing, let's not forget that for now Firefox is all we have. Important not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
In my ideal scenario, Mozilla becomes like the Wikimedia Foundation. Which has somehow also accumulated "Scrooge McDuck amounts" of cash but seems to be on a firmer footing and better managed.
Serving Wikipedia is a different order of magnitude vs building a web browser
Okay but you mean which is harder?? Both projects rely on a bunch of salaried professionals supervising an army of volunteers. Firefox is a web browser, i.e. notoriously the space shuttle of software. But the Wikipedia is doing some surprisingly innovative and cutting-edge stuff with its own codebase too, as I understand it. Whichever is costlier, I'm not sure we're talking about an order of magnitude of difference.
I'm not an expert on either codebase but I believe the main driver of complexity with developing a browser engine is the sheer number of standards and how fast they change and multiply. Wikipedia has to update articles and maintain the server backend, which is no small task with such a global and comprehensive website, but Firefox has to do similar things on top of vastly more complex code with much more churn. There's a reason Mozilla developed Rust as well.
Firstly, updating the articles is the one thing Wikipedia doesn't do, the army of unpaid volunteers does that.
But as for "just maintaining the backend", the Wikimedia Foundation does far more than that. It created and maintains and constantly iterates a huge pile of ever-complexifying frontend code - the wiki itself, discussion software, media tools etc - not just for Wikipedia but for a whole bunch of peer sites. Much of it is pretty cutting-edge, it's used daily by many thousands of editors and there's also the accessibility requirement. I know from personal experience that there's nothing harder than front-end when you have to tick the accessibility box. No doubt Firefox's technical challenge is greater but really the difference is not night and day.
It's amazing what you can pull off with free labour and CIA funding. I also find it funny how that donation banner still shows up every year when they've already accumulated so much capital.