775
Mozilla says Apple’s new browser rules are “as painful as possible” for Firefox (www.theverge.com)
submitted 2 years ago* by to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
128 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Mozilla is unhappy because the use of browser engines other than WebKit will be restricted to the EU, forcing them to develop two different apps.

For an independent browser like Firefox, managing two browsers is not easy, so it can be forgiven that this could be seen as almost harassment.

Also, the fact that the use of browser engines other than WebKit is limited to iOS means that the use of WebKit is still forced on iPadOS, which also increases the effort for Mozilla.

Source: https://iphonewired.com/news/746093/

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 40 points 2 years ago (6 children)

So hear me out. What if we took $6.9M out of the CEO bonus and dropped the Mozilla AI project?
Maybe that would be enough to hire a maintainer or two for Firefox iOS port?
Maybe that could work?
I don't know, just an idea. Crazy.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 12 child comments
    •
  • [–] 16 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I don't know what you coul have against mozilla ai?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [+] 0 points 2 years ago (1 child)
    [deleted]
  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Mozilla: ignores years of customer complaints and requests

    Are these customers donating, or purchasing mozilla products or services so that mozilla doesn't have to rely on google's donations?

    Mozilla: creates new product nobody asked for

    https://github.com/Mozilla-Ocho

    Nearly 10k and 400 stars on those respective repos.

    A way to run a large language model on any operating system, in any OS, in a simple, local, and privacy respecting manner?

    For linux we have docker, but Windows users were starving for a good way to do this, and even on linux, removing the step of configuring docker (or other container runtimes) to work with nvidia, is nice.

    And it's still FOSS stuff they aren't being paid for, currently. But there are plenty of ways to monetize this.

    Here's an easy one: tie in the the vpn service they have to allow you to access the web ui of the computer running the llamafile remotely. Configure something like end to end encryption or or nat traversal (so not even mozilla can sniff the traffic), and you end up with a private LLM you can access remotely.

    With this, maybe they can afford some actual development on firefox, without having to rely on google money.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [+] 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)
    [deleted]
  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Because much of mozilla's funding is from a deal with google, that's why.

    US$300 million annually. Approximately 90% of Mozilla's royalties revenue for 2014 was derived from this contract

    From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation

    A lot of money, but not enough to actually to actually do a lot. They keep cutting features their "customers" like. Why?

    Because development is expensive.

    Google props mozilla up to pretend they don't have a monopoly on the internet. Just enough money to barely keep up, not enough to truly stay competitive.

    Mozilla wants to not rely on google money, so they are trying to expand their products. AI is overhyped, but still useful, and something worth investing in.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Mozilla has a budget of around 200 mil for software development, so the 7 mil are probably not enough. Not defending the high pay though.

    Also, AI Integration into browsers could very well be a deciding factor for mainstream users when choosing a browser. So having some expertise around e.g. running LLMs privacy preserving on client hardware for page summarisation could pay off. Llamafile for example, is something cool coming from the Mozilla AI stuff.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    page summarisation

    I see a future where the journalist gives the LLM two sentences and asks it to spit out a 2000 word article out of that.

    The user then asks the LLM to Tl;Dr the article down to the two core sentences.

    Same probably for business email. Jane goes "send an email to Joe saying no." The LLM goes "dear joe.. we appreciate.... your valuable conteibution.. unfortunately at this time... cannot consider... looking forward... thanks for .... whatever". Joe then clicks the "summarise" button and gets "Jane says no".

    Amazing how far we've come.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Firefox is the only browser with local website translation. Literally the extension is the only app on Android that does that.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    i used to think that, but I cringe at myself. I'm not sure what other managers there are being paid, and in the CEO's defence, she was at Mozilla since the beginning, even through their bad times, pre-firefox days, and through their chrome days.

    That being said, if its 6.9m dollars though, that is getting a bit high..

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent