undefined | Better HN

0 pointsfranga20002y ago0 comments

> What makes you think they're not doing that now and Mozilla's existence even matters in this case? Funny enough, they're only keeping Mozilla alive to avoid any antitrust cases.

Firefox developers are still in the standards organisations and their position on new proposals does have some weight on the way they're written. Google is funding Mozilla for good PR, it's not like they're in any real danger from antitrust legislation. I say take the money if they're offering and do as much good for the web as you can until it runs out. It's not like you're sacrificing anything for it, it's basically free money.

> If Google all of a sudden stops funding Mozilla, do you think that they're going to continue development of the browser?

I don't know, but even if they immediately drop Firefox when that happens, we still have it until then. If Firefox disappears now, we're fucked. But who knows what might change until then - maybe someone figures out a business model for browsers, or some other tech or policy makes it easier to compete. When/if that happens, starting from a near-monopoly is way better than a complete monopoly.

> Literally Brave

What was that about ethics again? Also, it's just a closely following Chromium fork, so they don't really have a say in how Blink develops.

0 comments

NayamAmarshe2y ago

> What was that about ethics again?

We should not be talking about ethics if we're talking about Mozilla either. From shameless extension backdoors to not blocking trackers from Google on purpose, it's all over the place when it comes to ethics and privacy. At least Brave directly challenges Big Tech by making bolder decisions to block them instead of being afraid like Firefox, enabling trackers and not providing any privacy against Google.

What Brave has done with respect to privacy features, Firefox couldn't even do it in decades:

https://privacytests.org

https://brave.com/privacy-updates/

I do understand that Brave is a chromium fork and that they depend on Chromium for patches but this is still a FOSS browser that is independently funded and has better statistical chances of survival than Firefox. Brave's MAU is very good, almost doubling every year since its first release. On top of that, they're the only existing company that challenges Big Tech search engine monopoly by actually providing a great privacy focused search engine that is also independently indexed.

Firefox is a series of unfulfilled promises and failures. An untapped potential ruined by management.

Kbelicius2y ago

> We should not be talking about ethics if we're talking about Mozilla either. From shameless extension backdoors to not blocking trackers from Google on purpose, it's all over the place when it comes to ethics and privacy. At least Brave directly challenges Big Tech by making bolder decisions to block them instead of being afraid like Firefox, enabling trackers and not providing any privacy against Google.

You mean the Brave that collected rewards revenue for websites that weren't enrolled in their program? Or the brave that literally changed the url that the users typed in the url bar?

Also, do you have any source for Mozilla not blocking googles trackers? AFAIK they do, and did, block their trackers thou they had to do it differently for google analytics as to not break some webpages. Because of that you did not see those being blocked in the UI but they were blocked.

> What Brave has done with respect to privacy features, Firefox couldn't even do it in decades:

Well, unlike Brave, Mozilla is making a whole browser.

> I do understand that Brave is a chromium fork and that they depend on Chromium for patches but this is still a FOSS browser that is independently funded

You asked earlier how long would Mozilla exist if google cut their founding. How long do you think would Brave exist if google decided to go closed source with chrome?

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse