Can confirm. I run Firefox and am most definitely not fine.
The best time to fire the entire board of directors and executive management was 15 years ago. The second best time is now.
IMHO they’re purposely driving Mozilla into the ground for Google. Google just needs Firefox to prevent Chrome from being separated from Google, it doesn’t need Firefox to be a good browser.
When they advocated for Google in the search antitrust case, that was powerful evidence of how captured the board has become. They care more about their fat paychecks
Devil’s advocate:
Mozilla needs a fat paycheck or the whole show stops, we all lose and are forced to use a chrome-based browser. Firefox is the only real alternative and thanks to their work we have, in no particular order:
- Floorp (floorp.app)
- GNU IceCat (icecatbrowser.org)
- LibreWolf (librewolf.net)
- Zen Browser (zen-browser.app)
- Mullvad (mullvad.net)
- Tor Browser (torproject.org)
That doesn’t mean Mozilla hasn’t made bad decisions, they absolutely have. But to claim they should stop receiving nearly half a billion dollars every year from their competitor makes zero sense, especially considering developing a web browser is about as difficult as it gets. You’d be destroying the only alternative and helping Google mop the floor with the pieces that remain.
I get what you’re saying, but it’s suspicious how averse they are to other revenue sources. They allowed their subscription offerings to wither away over the years (I should know, I was a big enough sucker to stick with them as they let them rot with no new features), and do not take donations for their browser. They were also sitting on a billion in assets in 2023, so I’m not clear where the money has been going other than executive pay. Meanwhile, Thunderbird was given more autonomy and is thriving with record donation revenue. In fact, several projects that suffered under Mozilla found a second wind as soon as Mozilla gave up management, like Rust, Servo, Firefox OS (now KaiOS). Mozilla really should be totally reconstituted. Something is deeply wrong in the organization
Everything this article says it’s true. Google needs to be forced to stop giving money to Mozilla. It’s driven the org into the ground. When the decision supposed to be made? October? I hope Google loses and Mozilla wakes the fuck up.
Such an interesting topic. I’ll be surprised if Mozilla does more with less, though. They’ll probably just go the same route as Alphabet. Straight to the data brokers.
They’re already going that direction. Mozilla needs a change of heart, not just a change of income
Classic parasites at the top grifting
Mozilla needs a plank, and then to be a co-op.
