This is the second layoff at Mozilla this year, the first affecting dozens of staff on the side of the organization that builds the popular Firefox browser.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/46655413

The Mozilla Foundation, the non-profit arm of the Firefox browser maker Mozilla, has laid off 30% of its employees as the organization says it faces a “relentless onslaught of change.”

    • T156@lemmy.worldEnglish
      531·
      11 days ago

      If Mozilla does become defunct, it does raise the question of whether Chrome would be considered a Google monopoly, and therefore subject to antitrust legislation.

      I can’t imagine any governments would look kindly upon internet access being guarded behind a single company’s product.

      • corsicanguppy@lemmy.caEnglish
        361·
        10 days ago

        I can’t imagine any governments would look kindly upon internet access being guarded behind a single company’s product.

        laughs in 2001

      • douglasg14b@lemmy.worldEnglish
        21·
        10 days ago

        Google should be subject to antitrust legislation regardless.

        Their position as a monopoly is what enables this.

      • ravhall@discuss.onlineEnglish
        114·
        10 days ago

        There is a new browser based on WebKit (safari), called Orion that looks promising. However, it’s only on macOS and iOS at this point. Hopefully Linux and Android will be a consideration at some point.

        • dan@upvote.auEnglish
          8·
          10 days ago

          There’s also a new browser based on Firefox/Gecko called Zen. There’s way too many browsers based on Webkit or Blink.

            • L_Acacia@lemmy.oneEnglish
              2·
              10 days ago

              zen integrates every upstream change a few hours after release, it is built as a set of patch on top of firefox just to make that easy

        • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
          102·
          10 days ago

          Chrome’s engine was originally forked from WebKit. That makes them too similar (even years later) for WebKit to count as a real alternative.

          • ravhall@discuss.onlineEnglish
            93·
            10 days ago

            The point is to leave a google controlled ecosystem… which means it counts as a valid alternative. What would you suggest besides chromium and gecko?

              • ravhall@discuss.onlineEnglish
                31·
                10 days ago

                Haha. So I really do wish that all websites had a text version, or like markdown. Can you imagine how damn speedy things would be? Every website would have the same layout. As much as I appreciate good web design, there’s a lot of bad UI choices out there.

          • bamboo@lemm.eeEnglish
            21·
            10 days ago

            I strongly disagree with this. In practice, supporting chrome does not imply supporting safari and vice versa. In particular, Safari is much, much slower about adopting new web technologies. Google basically implements support for anything they can think up, Apple waits for it become a ratified standard and then implements it only if they want to. Their JavaScript implementations are also completely different.

      • WldFyre@lemm.eeEnglish
        3·
        10 days ago

        Splitting Chrome from Google wouldn’t make Chrome not a monopoly, though, right?

        • T156@lemmy.worldEnglish
          5·
          10 days ago

          The split might leave a monopoly still, if it’s the only major browser.

          • ChapulinColorado@lemmy.worldEnglish
            9·
            10 days ago

            It would be a lot easier to compete with though, since Google couldn’t treat it as a loss leader that still bring them in search revenue by default.

      • drathvedro@lemm.eeEnglish
        1·
        10 days ago

        They could try to employ some kind of Apple defense, like, you wouldn’t hit Apple for having monopoly on iOS. As long as it’s not the only solution on the market. And for web, most of time, you could access the same resources and get similar experience by downloading… the apps… wait, they have a monopoly on that, too. Well, they are completely screwed in that case.

      • dubyakay@lemmy.caEnglish
        29·
        11 days ago

        Let’s just separate GOOG from Chrome / Chromium and Google Search completely. So that the direction of the most used browser, most used search engine and the biggest advertiser don’t circle jerk each other.

      • Gemini24601@lemmy.worldEnglish
        15·
        10 days ago

        Also, Ladybird is looking very promising, so in a few years we should have a true fourth browser engine.

      • ravhall@discuss.onlineEnglish
        3·
        10 days ago

        That’s good. Are you happy with the built-in privacy, or do you find extensions are needed?

        I’d still argue it’s chromium.

        • grysbok@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
          1·
          9 days ago

          I’m happy with the built-in privacy, muchly because I’m using it on a work computer so I have no expectation of real privacy anyway.

          And fair.

  • PetteriPano@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2551·
    11 days ago

    Gee, I can’t imagine why they chose to drop this bomb today.

    It’s like they wanted it to be drowned in other news.

  • linearchaos@lemmy.worldEnglish
    110·
    11 days ago

    I suspect their financial position has changed. Perhaps Google’s being found as a monopoly has made them decide not to help fund Mozilla’s efforts as substantially.

    Ashley Boyd lead the advocacy team, here’s the kind of stuff they were doing:

    https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-welcomes-ashley-boyd-vp-of-advocacy/

    In fall of 2016, Mozilla fought for common-sense copyright reform in the EU, creating public education media that engaged over one million citizens and sending hundreds of rebellious selfies to EU Parliament. Earlier in 2016, Mozilla launched a public education campaign around encryption and emerged as a staunch ally of Apple in the company’s clash with the FBI. Mozilla has also fought for mass surveillance reform, net neutrality and data retention reform.

    https://techcrunch.com/2024/11/05/mozilla-foundation-lays-off-30-staff-drops-advocacy-division/

    “The Mozilla Foundation is reorganizing teams to increase agility and impact as we accelerate our work to ensure a more open and equitable technical future for us all. That unfortunately means ending some of the work we have historically pursued and eliminating associated roles to bring more focus going forward,” read the statement shared with TechCrunch.

    Reading between the lines, I’d keep an eye on them collecting your data and consider one of the privacy-focused forks.

    • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.worldEnglish
      12·
      10 days ago

      Unfortunately I don’t think there’s much Mozilla can do other than cut costs with it seeming like the Google funding will be getting severely hampered.

      They can’t get money from thin air.

  • Reygle@lemmy.worldEnglish
    26·
    10 days ago

    All of my favorite browsers are forks of Firefox. Lately it’s been Zen browser. Watching Firefox smoulder and collapse over the years has been truly painful and makes me fear a chromium future in hell.

    • Nino477@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      10 days ago

      Same. In the late 2000s or so my father knew ot so much about computers so some family friend set it up and he installed Firefox. I ve been using Firefox my whole life since. I tried switching to ungoogled chromeium, Brave and cromite on mobile but just can’t. Like Firefox and its forks are in my muscle memory. It’s over. I won’t be able to use the internet anymore. Bye guys 👋

  • Marthirial@lemmy.worldEnglish
    213·
    11 days ago

    Their question is: how much would you pay for not using a Chromium based browser?

    People switching to the browser and zapping all ads, demanding open source and vitriol for any kind of monetization. How can they survive? They would have to become a subsidized utility, which not even the Internet as a whole has achieved.

    • dan@upvote.auEnglish
      5·
      10 days ago

      I wouldn’t mind paying money for a good browser. I paid for Opera back in the day, and browsers are significantly more complex (and cost several orders of magnitude more to develop) now compared to back then.

    • 0x0@programming.devEnglish
      1·
      10 days ago

      There was a poll a while back on mastodon and the majority answered they’d be ok with 5$/year to support Firefox.

      • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        10 days ago

        The kind of people you find on Mastodon following Firefox news are not the same as the average person. They are a bubble.

        A few thousand people paying $5 per year is not enough to replace hundreds of millions.

        • 0x0@programming.devEnglish
          1·
          10 days ago

          A few thousand people paying $5 per year is not enough to replace hundreds of millions.

          …people or dollars? ‘Cos i don’t think “hundreds of millions” of people are chippin’ in, it’s Google that’s financing “hundreds of millions” of dollars…

          But yeah, that target audience is a bubble, normies don’t care.

          • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            10 days ago

            Dollars.

            Google is giving hundreds of millions because they fear regulators getting involved.

            A handful of people who follow Mozilla on Mastodon saying they’re willing to pay up to a meagre $5 per year won’t do anything.

    • panicnow@lemmy.worldEnglish
      13·
      10 days ago

      I get not wanting to use a google, microsoft or crypto laden browser, but I would be willing to use a well supported browser that used chromium as the page rendering engine. It seems to be extremely difficult to get another engine to be competitive in the marketplace. Maybe the resources would be better spent putting the chromium engine inside a different container. I’m sure there would be drawbacks, but I think there would be compatibility benefits too.

      • 0x0@programming.devEnglish
        11·
        10 days ago

        used chromium as the page rendering engine.

        I believe WebKit is Chromium’s rendering engine, as is Gecko for Firefox.

        Opera used to have their own but now they’re just rebranded Chromium.

    • FaceDeer@fedia.io
      202·
      11 days ago

      Not necessarily. If they’re low on cash then cutting unnecessary costs is not unreasonable. What is Mozilla’s core goal? Perhaps the “advocacy” and “global programs” divisions weren’t all that relevant to it, and so their funding is better put elsewhere.

      • Virkkunen@fedia.io
        31·
        10 days ago

        Let’s wait and see how this funding won’t be talked about ever again and later on the CEO coincidentally gets yet another raise

    • dan@upvote.auEnglish
      8·
      10 days ago

      They’re likely preparing for their funding from Google to be cut. Having a lot of money in the bank doesn’t matter if your income is lower than expenses, since you’ll run out of money eventually.

        • dan@upvote.auEnglish
          5·
          10 days ago

          They get around $500 million per year from Google, so $1 billion is just two years worth of that. 86% of Mozilla’s revenue comes from that Google deal.

    • GreenKnight23@lemmy.worldEnglish
      92·
      10 days ago

      well you see. all the cool kids are laying off staff and Mozilla wants to hang out at their pool next summer.

  • anticurrent@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    131·
    10 days ago

    Mozilla keeps digging Firefox’s grave, and seeing how other opensource projects like Gimp struggle to even keep up with their own release schedule and very slow development rate. I fear we will be left with only chrome to use.