I’ve been contacted by someone close to the #Mozilla story. They’ll gather some more info and we’ll record an interview to shed light on how this came to be, and what’s being done to try and improve things at Mozilla from the inside.
Stay tuned!
@thelinuxEXP maybe it is time to test some options
@Steensc @thelinuxEXP *There are no options. * Everything is either a soft fork or Chromium or a soft fork of Firefox or not ready for daily driving ( Ladybird, Epiphany).
@vartak @thelinuxEXP i fear you right. I hope somebody will prove me wrong
@vartak @Steensc @thelinuxEXP I agree with you, we have no "real" choice. Sad.
@vartak @Steensc @thelinuxEXP Yep. And that's why I think just ditching Mozilla is not a good option. We need further solutions. Maybe this wave of news was the catalyst the community needed to rally together around something, be it a community project new browser or just integrating further Firefox development with community effort, or something else entirely
@odnankenobi @Steensc @thelinuxEXP In its current state, Blink is more modern and advanced than Gecko. A hard fork of Blink with Firefox UI sanitizer would be a dream come true.
ArmUkraine@thelinuxEXP Good news. We really need them to be part of the fight against the Google machine.
@thelinuxEXP I have your latest video on my list to watch later tonight, from the title alone I think I can figure out why they contacted you. VERY interested in this topic!
@thelinuxEXP Someone have a long arm 
@jean_dupont Oh they reached out, I didn’t do anything!
@thelinuxEXP Mozilla’s communication around this has been horrendous. I hope they can clear things up about specifically why these changes were needed and what they mean. To be honest, though, I don’t think they’re particularly trustworthy at this point. Their interests stopped aligning with mine as soon as they decided to purchase a targeted advertising company.
@thelinuxEXP interested to see the POV
@thelinuxEXP Looking forward to it. The world is crazier than ever. With all the developments in the news many of us feel lost and easily triggered by whatever might invite more issues to one's privacy.
@thelinuxEXP ugly or uglier?
@thelinuxEXP ask them please what they are willing to do to remain the default browser in most linux distros.
@thelinuxEXP I would love to know why they decided to go the "selling user data" route to increase revenue. I think if they offered something like Proton (privacy-respecting webmail, cloud storage, etc), diehard Firefox users would be happy to pay for it. It's like they don't even know who their customers are.
@thelinuxEXP
This is the sort of scoop that the most respected journalists in their beat get.
@thelinuxEXP I actually wonder why they are trying this shady solutions, try to sell relay and other stuff. Why don't they cry out loud: "we need money to stay sustainable. Please donate us or become constant sponsor, here's the link". However, for that to work they will need to cut salaries for their top management, so I guess that's why.
@thelinuxEXP Very glad you will do further research and expand on the topic! I was about to comment further on this, but I'll wait for what's coming next for now.
I'm still not convinced that simply ditching Firefox and using a fork is the way to go, and I'm eager to see what else the community will bring forward on this issue
@odnankenobi Well, I’m not doing further research, I’ve seen all I need to see in the past 10 years or so since Mozilla started doing whatever the hell they think they’re doing. My mind is made up, and I’m not giving a Mozilla build of Firefox another chance for the foreseeable future.
What I’ll do is let someone working close to me/ for Mozilla explain why they think this is happening :)
@thelinuxEXP Can you also ask this Mozilla person if Mozilla is even aware that they've broken the camel's back and most likely killed Mozilla/Firefox?
That the users are fed up with these incompetent, overpaid board of directors who can only fill their pockets with money but can't get ANYTHING else done? Is that possible? Thank you very much!
@thelinuxEXP @odnankenobi, I think the @igalia people have good viewpoint what is going on under the hood: https://floss.social/@igalia/114116378843598885
Worthwhile to listen into it, IMHO.
@thelinuxEXP I have already migrated from Firefox to Librewolf in 2024
@thelinuxEXP Oh shit, I'm tuned!
@thelinuxEXP Meanwhile I'm going to test Zen on Mint LMDE.
@thelinuxEXP Deleted my account earlier anyway. Realised I don’t really use any of its features, given that the only one I really used was password syncing which I now use vaultwarden & proton pass for
Looking forward to the meeting.
Also, @thelinuxEXP thoughts on Ladybird and Gnome browsers?
@thelinuxEXP
"Remove the excessive salaries!"
Is what will be forgotten if Mozilla can gas light the public around what they said.
@thelinuxEXP can't wait to see it when I'm not on holiday haha
@thelinuxEXP Not believing their excuses until they offer users a simple menu to choose their default search engine. #zenbrowser offers it except that it preselects Google.
@opensourceopenmind @thelinuxEXP Is that satire? Have you never visited Settings / Preferences? 
@MsDropbear42 @thelinuxEXP Defaults matter. Offering users a choice matters rather than making horrible privacy choices for them. Most users just use software as is instead of tweaking settings.
@opensourceopenmind @thelinuxEXP It is rhetorically fraudulent to argue Point A, but then when someone refutes your statement on said Point A, to then introduce Point B in one's riposte. Good grief, basic high school debate stuff.
You originally said
Not believing their excuses until they offer users a simple menu to choose their default search engine
I debunked that immediately, by pointing out this is exactly what is already available
You responded without any acknowledgement of your error, with a distracting Point B on defaults. Far out. Yes ofc sane defaults matter, but nobody is going to agree on what they should be, so frankly any defaults Mozilla chose would be criticised by someone. A far more valid criticism would be if they provided NO way, or at least no easy way, for users to alter defaults to something they prefer. As i pointed out, Mozilla do indeed provide an easy way.
As for your
Most users just use software as is instead of tweaking settings
i simply roll my eyes. If users choose to be so disengaged & incurious as to never inspect & tweak readily available settings, they forfeit ALL right to later moan, whinge, & whine.
@MsDropbear42 @thelinuxEXP I meant on first run, not going into settings afterwards.
@thelinuxEXP servo needs to step up lol.
@thelinuxEXP an interview would be one of the best things that could happen these days, Mozilla is just about to lose a lot, and to save themselves, one of theirs must calm down some consumers
@thelinuxEXP a PM perspective on this move:
The conscious user is the actual owner of the product. The user must be educated to reconize his or her needs in this way he or she can control the development of the product itself.
@thelinuxEXP if the situation can be sorted it would be great as Firefox really is the only realistic alternative to the Chrome Empire. It's not really a healthy situation today, with only 2 browser engine choices and one of them is economically reliant on the other.
@thelinuxEXP And so you did a video about and put it behind a paywall? on Patroncast, or what? 
@Hieronymus No, it will be recorded tomorrow and published on the channel either tomorrow or Wednesday.
@thelinuxEXP This will be interesting; for the moment, I've deleted FF from laptop, phone.
I don't want a Chromium monopoly, either, but Brave seems to offer a better promise of privacy than FF.
I'm considering other options, too, but need to research (Opera, Vivaldi, some newer browsers that I saw mentioned by Fireship's YT channel).
My favorite FF feature was the containers; that will be hard to replicate 
@thelinuxEXP I used to admire morzilla for providing Firefox and thunderbird but after those event I might ditch Firefox but I really don't want to