• XLE@piefed.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    159
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    9 hours ago

    Mozilla has released so many self-described AI features in the past few years, but this is the only one that has:

    • been requested by the community
    • received broad critical acclaim

    I hope Mozilla learns their lesson. I doubt they will, but I hope.

    • 4am@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      3 hours ago

      I think they’re desperate to make money since they’re losing userbass AND Google is probably not happy that most users change the default search engine away from them.

      Does anyone really think the current administration is going to break up Google? Lina Khan almost did it but like most of the rest of this timeline we just didn’t quite get there

      • douglasg14b@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 hour ago

        Yeah it’s a catch 22.

        They either fail to get a big enough use base because their core users are not enough and they fail from a lack of funding.

        Or they try to follow trends to increase their appeal and user base, and annoy their core users.

        Most users don’t realize that Mozilla is doing what Google is doing with Chrome with an engineering team 1/4 the size of the chrome team. And that the grand majority of their costs are engineering related.

        Browsers are expensive, and Mozilla needs to find revenue streams to pay for it.

    • doug@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      69
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      8 hours ago

      sadly I’ll likely support them through any shitty decisions they make as they are the only viable non-chromium alternative these days.

      I get they’re chasing the buck and trying to stay relevant, but uhhhh… if they could be less Steve Buscemi-teen about it, that’d be great.

      • douglasg14b@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        1 hour ago

        Yeah ofc they are chasing the buck.

        It’s either they find alternatives revenue streams or we no longer have Firefox as a viable alternative anymore.

        Browsers development is crazy engineering heavy, and thus, expensive.

        It’s a shitty situation all around.

        • pipe01@programming.dev
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 hour ago

          If everyone switched from firefox to waterfox, Mozilla would kill firefox which would in turn will waterfox

        • halcyoncmdr@piefed.social
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          edit-2
          3 hours ago

          Last time I tried Waterfox some sites like Twitch that actively block usage on old browsers, refused to work because the latest Waterfox release was based on a Firefox like 20+ builds behind.

          Firefox was on like version 142 and the latest Waterfox download was based on build 128.

          • XLE@piefed.social
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            edit-2
            2 hours ago

            Waterfox right now is built on ESR 148, which is on par with the latest Firefox release! ESR releases will lag several versions behind, but that’s normal (even on Mozilla’s side), and I’d be kind of shocked if it was such a big gap

            Edit: there was a big gap. 128 to 140 was the right jump, but Waterfox non-betas took a little less than two months to implement the change after Mozilla released it.

      • stoy@lemmy.zip
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        40
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        8 hours ago

        I strongly believe that the EU should fund Mozilla, or a fork of Firefox.

        Gecko is the only viable competitor to Blink/WebKit, and it is needed

      • XLE@piefed.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        26
        ·
        8 hours ago

        This is probably common knowledge to you and many others, but it bears repeating: You cannot donate to fund the development of Mozilla Firefox.

        Google can, unfortunately.

        • The_Decryptor@aussie.zone
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          10
          ·
          4 hours ago

          The ladybird devs are currently in the process of switching language again from Swift to Rust, using LLMs.

          • t3rminus@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            3 hours ago

            Yup. Don’t use or support Ladybird, especially since it’s made by anti-inclusivity “keep your ‘political’ gender-neutral pronouns out of our READMEs” nerdbros.

            On the other hand, Servo is coming along nicely.

    • Ricky Rigatoni@piefed.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      24
      ·
      8 hours ago

      Problem is Mozilla needs money and shoving AI features into shit is how you get investors these past few years.