[aquova]

I see this sentiment a lot, but I never agree with it. Sure, some of their projects seem very odd for them to lead, but given that they are completely reliant on their competitor for cash -- a revenue source that has been threatened several times by anti-trust cases against Google -- they should be looking to branch out. Firefox alone won't pay the bills, so they need to try and find some other revenue source. Plus, Chrome has essentially won. Not necessarily for any engineering reason, at least not these days, but from continued momentum of being the market leader. Sitting around quietly isn't going to get people to switch, they do need to find some way to distinguish themselves apart from Chrome, which again leads to these misc features being thrown out there.

The AI inclusion seems like the same reason everyone else is adding AI, they don't want to be left behind if or when it's viewed as an essential feature.

[probably_wrong]

> Chrome has essentially won. Not necessarily for any engineering reason, at least not these days, but from continued momentum of being the market leader.

Ah, how the young forget... Mozilla became popular precisely due to their willingness to challenge the market leader at the time [1], namely, Internet Explorer. Going against the market leader should be in their DNA. The fight is not lost just because there's a market leader. If anything, Mozilla is currently losing the battle because the leadership doesn't believe they can do it again.

I'm fine with Mozilla diversifying their income, but I'm not fine with Mozilla sacrificing their browser (the part we desperately need the most) in the name of a "Digital Rights Foundation" that, at this rate, will lose their seat at the negotiating table.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#/m...

[tempest_]

They were losing because MS bundled IE with every device. Eventually they MS lost an anti trust case against it and it opened up the market, which is before that graph begins.

Well 30 years later we are back where we started.

Chrome is where it is because it is preloaded on most phones on the planet (the other ecosystem has a different preloaded browser). The other thing is that it was advertised on the most visited page on the internet for 20 years.

Most internet users don't even use desktop/laptops, they use mobile devices and likely have no idea there is any other option than chrome.

[renewiltord]

It wasn’t challenging the market leader that made them successful. It’s because Firefox was precisely a better browser at the time, and their marketing/activism around open web standards was great. There were lots of “challenging” going back then.

But simply challenging isn’t enough. People like to tell this tale where just being an underdog gets you some benefit. But it doesn’t. Firefox was way leaner, opened faster, had extensions, so on.

[rollcat]

> Mozilla is currently losing the battle because the leadership doesn't believe they can do it again.

I do not believe that this is the case. Their #1 revenue source is Google. The moment they start regaining any foothold?

Imagine just collecting that amount from Google as tax, and funding Mozilla publicly.

[abdullahkhalids]

There is no possible way to compete against a competent trillion dollar organization that knows how to build a good browser, and exploits its global monopoly position in search to advertise their browser.

It doesn't matter if Firefox became better. There is simply not enough differentiation potential in the core browser product to win by being better. Its all marketing.

I just wish Mozilla sold some stickers/themes as proxy donations and became largely independent.

[gr4vityWall]

> they should be looking to branch out. Firefox alone won't pay the bills, so they need to try and find some other revenue source

They probably would've achieved enough to sustain Firefox development in perpetuity if they invested most of Google's money in a fund.

[glenstein]

They do exactly that! Their endowment is now $1.2 billion and its year to year growth is one of their strongest non-Google revenue streams.

[pfortuny]

> Plus, Chrome has essentially won. Not necessarily for any engineering reason, at least not these days, but from continued momentum of being the market leader.

s/Chrome/Internet Explorer/g

Nobody has won until the match is over, and history has a very long tail.

[Seattle3503]

> Chrome has essentially won. ... Sitting around quietly isn't going to get people to switch

You hit the nail on the head with this one

[CamouflagedKiwi]

I see the point, but them following the leader on this does not seem like a recipe for success. They aren't going to be as good at AI as OpenAI's browser, and their users are going to be less bought into it. I would have hoped they'd have learned their lesson from things like FirefoxOS but I guess not...

[BearOso]

The amount of money they get from Google is vastly more than it takes to hire a few dozen people full-time to develop a web browser and email program.

People in the organization are trying to use what's left of the name recognition and all that money to benefit their own initiatives.

[pseudalopex]

> The amount of money they get from Google is vastly more than it takes to hire a few dozen people full-time to develop a web browser and email program.

You under estimated the work to develop a web browser. Vivaldi are 60 people.[1] They produce an unstable Chromium fork and email program. They couldn't commit to keep uBlock Origin working.

[1] https://vivaldi.com/team/

[glenstein]

What would you say is the most costly initiative that's siphoning money away from core browser development right now?