There a nice Mozilla Manifesto explaining the Mozilla mission and their values [1].
Apparently, it's difficult to find a stable, independent, and effective revenue model for an open-source browser that is completely free as a product, should not contain shady ads or product promotions, does not sell user data, and always puts the user first.
This is especially difficult because there are other free browsers with a similar mission that don't need to incur the cost of developing their own web engine.
Get money from donors. Wikipedia shows how that can be done. Or get money from the EU.
Mozilla is a strawman for google that they can claim there exists another browser that is not chrome because of antitrust laws. And now that Microsoft forcefeeds win11 user with Edge it will not take long and google doesnt need firefox anymore.
For sure I would give a donation to firefox if they would build a decent browser which listens to the user but not as they do now.
It's a bit of a generic complaint, but quite apt for the subject matter. Mission creep kills projects, and that's true across a broad range of activities.
More specifically in the case of software, egos kill projects, and expanding the scope of your project to include broader economic or social causes usually does the same.
This is correlated to a huge change in nerd culture - pseudonymity was much more common and encouraged, with people's real-life identities or views not really taken into account. ("on the internet, nobody knows you're a dog")
Social media happened, and now most people use their real-world identities and carry their real-life worldview into the internet.
This had a huge negative effect on internet toxicity and interpersonal trust, and Eich is a good example of that - auxiliary things being dredged up about someone, used as a cudgel against them for their real or perceived transgressions.
The end result is that effective project management has become a rare breed and we see all these colossal failures like Firefox...
Firefox's main problem is Firefox users. Seriously, there's nothing but griping about it but it's pretty much the only browser holding back the rendering engine monopoly (intentionally excluding WebKit).
I think it's fair to criticize Firefox's user base, but I'm not sure their criticisms amount to very much. ie, if Firefox had a totally pliant user base it seems like Mozilla still would have driven it into the ground.
> it's pretty much the only browser holding back the rendering engine monopoly
Maybe that's why they're complaining. Maybe they don't want Firefox spending it's time working itself into oblivion.
Of course the Mozilla Foundation isn't bound in any way to listen to them so it's going to happen anyway, but Firefox's users are upset for good reasons.
I can't really defend Mozilla's priorities or business model myself, but I do agree that Firefox users create this massive pessimistic cloud overtop of firefox. From what little I know, the Firefox MPL license isn't restrictive at all, other than forcing you to not re-license existing MPL code. Another corporate sponsor could take on the torch, pay a bunch of ex or current mozilla devs/contributers, and make EarthTurtle or WindBird or something. Not just stripping things out of Firefox, but working on the browser engine/js engine/etc, starting from Firefox today and diverging.
Users tend to talk about mozilla like it's holding firefox hostage or something, but really the main gripe they have is building and maintaining browsers is beyond the scope of an individual. THEY couldn't fork firefox, but it's not impossible for someone with resources and connections to MAKE an entity that does. It just... hasn't happened again. Mozilla is a pretty insane freak-of-nature in the business world, and there's honest frustration about that which grows into "Firefox is doomed".
Straightforwardly, nobody with the resources to build and maintain a browser could ever be trusted to do so, as they get those resources from somewhere, and it's going to be somewhere unacceptable (ads, trackers, Google, taxes, selling the browser or addons/features as a product, hostile nation states).
These things are far too complex and expensive to be produced as they should and as most FOSS is: for free, by a group of individuals who could fit around a breakfast table and don't answer to anyone but each other.
I disable everything that is of no direct benefit to me. It's shocking that so many companies don't make the case for the benefits of their systems at the on / off decision point. If you can't outline a positive benefit to the end user what does that say about your product?
On the other hand, maybe it was a mistake for the industry to start leaning so hard on telemetry. While it can provide useful insights in some cases, telemetry is best positioned as secondary or even tertiary in the decision-making process, because it doesn’t tell anywhere close the whole story and requires a great deal of error-prone interpretation to act upon.
To be frank, I find that use of analytics as the primary determiner to be incredibly intellectually lazy. They’re being used as a stand-in for deep, holistic thought in product design, user research, 1:1 interviews with users, etc when they shouldn’t be, and it’s making software as a whole much crappier than it needs to be.
I just wanted to note that Firefox reached out to me as a user and requested a video call to discuss how I used one of their features.
I declined, but later they reintegrated their request with a servey, which I did accept.
These requests were presented through a dialog box attached to an extension (which many Firefox features are, internally, built-in extensions.)
I really want Firefox to succeed. Please enhance our security, privacy, ensure a performant browser AND I also like the project that Mozilla undertakes (rip send) hope to see more in the future.
I'm aware. How is that a move against the Firefox userbase? It seems fairly neutral. If you don't like the default engine, change it. I set mine to Duckduckgo.
Were this 10 years ago, I'd say nothing. Today, google is turning into one of the worst at using user data against the users. From pushing ads disguised as search results to mining user data for adverts across platforms.
Making google the default search engine opts non-savvy users into using a bad actor for their searches.
No, I'm just stating why using google as the default engine is user hostile.
> What's your complaint?
Mostly that it's a user hostile move. Is it bad enough to make me personally switch? No. Part of why I use firefox is because I don't like the idea of consolidation for browsers into one renderer.
Organizations can make decisions I don't like and I'll still use their products. I'm allowed to identify those as issues. Mozilla hasn't done something that'd make me boycott their products.
The community today is the result of 10+ years of disappointment. Some are long enough following Firefox to remember what has been lost, and some have grown and cultivated their grudges over a long time. And people know, there will never be a golden age of Mozilla again, from this point on it's just survival. For many, it's probably just a relationship of necessary evil they have to swallow.
Okay... are you saying there are no problems with Firefox? And if not, are how do you propose that users get these problems fixed without talking about them?
This feels to me like the scenes from the movie Don't Look Up where anyone actually pointing out what's happening gets told to calm down and be less aggressive.
If people saying what's wrong plainly and clearly is "vitriol" to you, then you have a problem with criticism.
Yeah. I see this in every thread. Business types that aren't used to how normal human beings communicate see the human firefox users writing and they can never address the points. Instead they always get hung up on the tone and debate over the irrelevant tone becomes the primary/top thread in HN FF posts.
What is this fad on HN right now? All these people are coming out to criticize Firefox (Mozilla really, not Firefox itself) for their bumbling about the past few years, and now there's a backlash to it, like "these entitled users, oh my goodness" as though holding software companies to a standard is somehow a bad thing?
It's incredible the whining about AI when you can simply turn it off.
The speed comparisons make no sense either. Chrome is slightly faster so you should give up your ability to block all ads and let Google abuse you in myriad ways while supporting a virtual monopoly? FFS.
Firefox is simply a better browser, hands down. It's a better design and more user friendly than Chrome. I only regret being on Chrome for so long.
As long as it can be turned off, I will remain a user. I've been a user of this lineage of browser since Netscape. I've got its features baked into muscle memory. But I have no interest in the overhead nor the distractions of AI integration. I guess it remains to be seen how feverently the new CEO wants to alienate the existing userbase.
You can turn ever single one of their complaints off. It's ridiculous whining that doesn't get to the core of the problem: No one is out spreading Firefox like they used to be, it just can't compete with platform owners on that front.
Firefox gets 90% of its funding from Google, putting Google effectively in control of Mozilla.
Ideally, Firefox would be financially supported by its users, like Wikipedia. But that requires ads nagging users to donate, preferably on a subscription plan.
Most of Firefox's users block ads, and they refuse to pay Mozilla a dime under any circumstances. Their users are freeloaders, providing no value to Firefox's other users or to Mozilla.
It would be nice if Mozilla could ignore the freeloaders and simply nag for donations anyway, but if the freeloaders leave and Mozilla tries to serve its donor users, they'll lose all of their Google funding and die.
Firefox is really in a sad state. The politics, ideology is getting worse and the tech is still bad. Kind of crazy that they waste everyones battery and cpu https://b.43z.one/2025-02-12/
- when the browser is not in the visible workspace, chromium's cpu usage actually goes to 0 whilst firefox's usually oscilates around 5%
- every new window costs 30mb of ram for chromium and 100mb for firefox
- this one is weird, but when lightly using firefox while overall ram usage spilled well into swap, often after some time terminal emulator process will get swapped-out as if firefox eventually touched memory used by every tab sitting in the background
That's a fascinating bit of sleuthing! 1.5 watts is a substantial amount of energy when you're in the 4 to 5 watt overall usage range. You're not crazy and nitpicking.
I have never been as happy with Firefox as I am in 2025. Yet… Sometimes my fellow FF users seems to be making a worse advertisement than the ”you should rewrite this application in Rust” does for Rust, and those people have by sheer annoyance effectively made me never pick up Rust because I do not want to be associated with them.
It's open source, use a fork if you don't like the company.
If you think the product is good keep using it - why on earth would you give up one of your most important pieces of software on your machine because you don't like the company that runs the main repo?
What is the next best alternative to throw support behind? I did a very shallow search and the forks of Firefox I found don't appear to be actively maintained.
I use it daily on mobile and desktop and... this never happens (maybe once a year at most?)? The only thing that breaks pages is the adblocker and things work again when refreshing.
Yes, in fact just today trying to use Dollar General's website to "clip a coupon". I scanned the QR code, found the coupon, tapped on it. I got a blank box (white box on gray background IIRC) in Firefox Focus, but a login screen on Vanadium.
And yesterday, same with a local club's website. Didn't even work in Firefox for Android, but worked in Vanadium. I got the website's custom loading sprinner, so that loaded and worked, but whatever was supposed to change the screen when everything else loaded, did not work.
> But the final bit in this post is really where I'm at: I have no idea where to go from here.
That's a good question. Mozilla has something like a half-billion dollars of assets, which is more than twice what the Linux Foundation reports. Does maintaining a web browser cost more than twice as much as maintaining an operating system? Hopefully not, but maybe it's time we find out.
full disclosure: one of the devs is a friend of mine
if for some reason you want to use webkit on desktop (linux), there's always gnome web, but in my experience it can't handle anything beyond very basic browsing (for example, a youtube video will cause it to crash)
The post lists a number of ad-tech moves Mozilla has made in recent years, the ever increasing upper management salaries, and the insistence on trying to make Firefox preprocess everything you see on the web instead of showing you the web itself (AI).
I personally agree with these complaints. I think most people who intentionaly install Firefox agree with them. Despite all it's attempts otherwise, Firefox was and still is mostly used by "power users" and we're pretty much the only ones left that intentionally install the browser. Mozilla being the only working alternative to Alphabet domainance over the web doesn't change the validity of these issues. The real issue here is that Mozilla wants to be HUGE instead of just being a browser for humans.
I'd been a Firefox user since K-meleon (with a gap decade when Opera was actually a real browser and innovating). But for me the breaking point wasn't all this ad-tech stuff or the signalling of AI. It was when Mozilla showed they no longer cared about their core userbase and wanted to chase after demographics that didn't care about browsers at all; when they made the security theater Add-ons signing portal in version 37 and made it so one could not edit or install such things without Mozilla's central and continued approval (also, baking in 3 year expiring add-on certs making FF trial-ware). These days, for me, it's just a fallback for my bank. I use a Firefox fork for my main browsers which is much more Firefox than Firefox.
I had to stop using firefox because it just wouldn't display youtube videos. disabling adblocking, hardware acceleration, updates, etc. etc. didn't help at all
I have no sense of what they stand for
That plus seeming to chase every hype wave (Crypto, now AI) I just don’t get why I should care about them.
There a nice Mozilla Manifesto explaining the Mozilla mission and their values [1].
Apparently, it's difficult to find a stable, independent, and effective revenue model for an open-source browser that is completely free as a product, should not contain shady ads or product promotions, does not sell user data, and always puts the user first.
This is especially difficult because there are other free browsers with a similar mission that don't need to incur the cost of developing their own web engine.
[1]: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/
Mozilla is a strawman for google that they can claim there exists another browser that is not chrome because of antitrust laws. And now that Microsoft forcefeeds win11 user with Edge it will not take long and google doesnt need firefox anymore.
For sure I would give a donation to firefox if they would build a decent browser which listens to the user but not as they do now.
just my 2 ct
Nobody stood up for Brendan. Nobody is going to stand up for you.
More specifically in the case of software, egos kill projects, and expanding the scope of your project to include broader economic or social causes usually does the same.
This is correlated to a huge change in nerd culture - pseudonymity was much more common and encouraged, with people's real-life identities or views not really taken into account. ("on the internet, nobody knows you're a dog")
Social media happened, and now most people use their real-world identities and carry their real-life worldview into the internet.
This had a huge negative effect on internet toxicity and interpersonal trust, and Eich is a good example of that - auxiliary things being dredged up about someone, used as a cudgel against them for their real or perceived transgressions.
The end result is that effective project management has become a rare breed and we see all these colossal failures like Firefox...
Maybe that's why they're complaining. Maybe they don't want Firefox spending it's time working itself into oblivion.
Of course the Mozilla Foundation isn't bound in any way to listen to them so it's going to happen anyway, but Firefox's users are upset for good reasons.
Users tend to talk about mozilla like it's holding firefox hostage or something, but really the main gripe they have is building and maintaining browsers is beyond the scope of an individual. THEY couldn't fork firefox, but it's not impossible for someone with resources and connections to MAKE an entity that does. It just... hasn't happened again. Mozilla is a pretty insane freak-of-nature in the business world, and there's honest frustration about that which grows into "Firefox is doomed".
These things are far too complex and expensive to be produced as they should and as most FOSS is: for free, by a group of individuals who could fit around a breakfast table and don't answer to anyone but each other.
(Guiltily raises hand. Although lately I've noticed a ping option, so I left that enabled.)
To be frank, I find that use of analytics as the primary determiner to be incredibly intellectually lazy. They’re being used as a stand-in for deep, holistic thought in product design, user research, 1:1 interviews with users, etc when they shouldn’t be, and it’s making software as a whole much crappier than it needs to be.
I declined, but later they reintegrated their request with a servey, which I did accept.
These requests were presented through a dialog box attached to an extension (which many Firefox features are, internally, built-in extensions.)
I really want Firefox to succeed. Please enhance our security, privacy, ensure a performant browser AND I also like the project that Mozilla undertakes (rip send) hope to see more in the future.
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/12/mozilla_doj_google_se...
Were this 10 years ago, I'd say nothing. Today, google is turning into one of the worst at using user data against the users. From pushing ads disguised as search results to mining user data for adverts across platforms.
Making google the default search engine opts non-savvy users into using a bad actor for their searches.
No, I'm just stating why using google as the default engine is user hostile.
> What's your complaint?
Mostly that it's a user hostile move. Is it bad enough to make me personally switch? No. Part of why I use firefox is because I don't like the idea of consolidation for browsers into one renderer.
Organizations can make decisions I don't like and I'll still use their products. I'm allowed to identify those as issues. Mozilla hasn't done something that'd make me boycott their products.
> Do you pay for Firefox?
Yes, I donate to the Mozilla foundation.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46318389
If people saying what's wrong plainly and clearly is "vitriol" to you, then you have a problem with criticism.
I think some feel they are being held to extremely high standards.
As someone who's avoided the drama, and is a power user, Firefox has been great to me, and continues to be so.
The speed comparisons make no sense either. Chrome is slightly faster so you should give up your ability to block all ads and let Google abuse you in myriad ways while supporting a virtual monopoly? FFS.
Firefox is simply a better browser, hands down. It's a better design and more user friendly than Chrome. I only regret being on Chrome for so long.
Firefox gets 90% of its funding from Google, putting Google effectively in control of Mozilla.
Ideally, Firefox would be financially supported by its users, like Wikipedia. But that requires ads nagging users to donate, preferably on a subscription plan.
Most of Firefox's users block ads, and they refuse to pay Mozilla a dime under any circumstances. Their users are freeloaders, providing no value to Firefox's other users or to Mozilla.
It would be nice if Mozilla could ignore the freeloaders and simply nag for donations anyway, but if the freeloaders leave and Mozilla tries to serve its donor users, they'll lose all of their Google funding and die.
Am I the one who is crazy and nitpicking here?
- when the browser is not in the visible workspace, chromium's cpu usage actually goes to 0 whilst firefox's usually oscilates around 5%
- every new window costs 30mb of ram for chromium and 100mb for firefox
- this one is weird, but when lightly using firefox while overall ram usage spilled well into swap, often after some time terminal emulator process will get swapped-out as if firefox eventually touched memory used by every tab sitting in the background
If you think the product is good keep using it - why on earth would you give up one of your most important pieces of software on your machine because you don't like the company that runs the main repo?
https://www.waterfox.com/
https://librewolf.net/
https://floorp.app/
And yesterday, same with a local club's website. Didn't even work in Firefox for Android, but worked in Vanadium. I got the website's custom loading sprinner, so that loaded and worked, but whatever was supposed to change the screen when everything else loaded, did not work.
Discussions:
Mozilla appoints new CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46288491
Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46299934
No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla's Next Chapter
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46295268
Make Me CEO of Mozilla
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46303809
But the final bit in this post is really where I'm at: I have no idea where to go from here.
Currently on mobile I use Orion--it's the only mobile browser I've found where setting up AdBlocking is reasonably easy. Maybe I'll try it on Desktop.
But this doesn't really address the issue of there being only one rendering engine out there because it uses WebKit.
That's a good question. Mozilla has something like a half-billion dollars of assets, which is more than twice what the Linux Foundation reports. Does maintaining a web browser cost more than twice as much as maintaining an operating system? Hopefully not, but maybe it's time we find out.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ublock-origin-lite/id674534269...
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wipr-2/id1662217862
on android I use firefox with the regular ublock origin extension
https://helium.computer
full disclosure: one of the devs is a friend of mine
if for some reason you want to use webkit on desktop (linux), there's always gnome web, but in my experience it can't handle anything beyond very basic browsing (for example, a youtube video will cause it to crash)
I personally agree with these complaints. I think most people who intentionaly install Firefox agree with them. Despite all it's attempts otherwise, Firefox was and still is mostly used by "power users" and we're pretty much the only ones left that intentionally install the browser. Mozilla being the only working alternative to Alphabet domainance over the web doesn't change the validity of these issues. The real issue here is that Mozilla wants to be HUGE instead of just being a browser for humans.
I'd been a Firefox user since K-meleon (with a gap decade when Opera was actually a real browser and innovating). But for me the breaking point wasn't all this ad-tech stuff or the signalling of AI. It was when Mozilla showed they no longer cared about their core userbase and wanted to chase after demographics that didn't care about browsers at all; when they made the security theater Add-ons signing portal in version 37 and made it so one could not edit or install such things without Mozilla's central and continued approval (also, baking in 3 year expiring add-on certs making FF trial-ware). These days, for me, it's just a fallback for my bank. I use a Firefox fork for my main browsers which is much more Firefox than Firefox.