this post was submitted on 08 May 2025
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it would be really nice if US v Chrome were to force google to quit it. in terms of Firefox/Mozilla, it would likely be a net positive as it would force then to rethink what they so.
Mozilla does tons of superfluous crap. And I do mean crap. Mozilla should refocus on specifically making Firefox a good browser instead of all the other junk.
While I do agree that their focus should absolutely be on the browser, I do actually really like that they offer a paid Wireguard-based VPN with endpoints in dozens of countries. I think that makes sense for them, given their mission and everything, and actually gives them a revenue source.
Last I checked, mozilla VPN is just mullvad.
That doesn't really discount the argument. Not a lot of investment for a decent return. Why is that bad?
Im just wondering what benefit is it to people that they get mozilla VPN and not one of the other ones?
Probably the main benefit would be funding Mozilla, so we aren't all total serfs in Google's fiefdom
Also integration with Firefox (or like this) can be pretty neat. Though I hear Mullvad has its own Firefox fork now, probably with the same idea.
Mullvad Browser? It's basically Tor Browser without the Tor, meant to be used with a VPN instead. It has integration with Mullvad VPN by default, but that add-on can be removed, and the browser doesn't need Mullvad VPN in order to function. Since the browser is based on Firefox, someone might want to fund Firefox development by using it with Mozilla VPN instead.
Yep, that's the one!
If Mozilla loses the Google revenue, it'll have to do more other stuff if it's to have any hope of being able to subsidise Firefox development though.
Can't say I'm deep in this space, but I think there's a lot of sentiment towards going more lean with operations and aiming for direct donation toward Firefox development (which I don't believe is presently an option) which seemingly, if Mozilla narrowed to their core (Firefox, MDN), the community would likely show heavy support. I have my doubts it would fully cover the bill in a sustainable way, but I at least think that's one of the main sentiments.
They spend so much superflous money on crap like AI and random advocacy groups. Mozilla makes a lot more money then people tend to think they do.
Feel free to share how much money they spend on random advocacy. I believe the Google deal nets a couple of hundred million - it sounds like you're saying that if Mozilla scraps the AI and advocacy, that should recoup that money? Because otherwise losing the money is still going to require finding other sources of income to fund Firefox.
well for one, disclosed in their 2021 they spent 300'000 on an advocacy group called MCKENSIE MACK GROUP and 375'000 to new venture fund. Neither of which have anything to do with free internet technologies. And much more has been left rather hard to find.
In their annual report for 2024 they also show weird spending https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2024/mozilla-fdn-2023-fs-final-short-1209.pdf https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2024/b200-mozilla-foundation-form-990-public-disclosure-ty23.pdf
Page 7 (PDF page 8) lists the funding that executives have gotten, quite a lot for a "non profit" Page 10 (PDF page 11) is also relevant.
Where it gets really interesting is after PDF page 35
300'000 for european AI fund, 100'000 on an interactive tool for exploring broadband inequalities, 50'000 for Carbon footprint, 50'000 for another pollution related project, 50'000 for studing the impact of nuclear reactors in africa and a bunch more of these, while in some cases meaningful, completely unrelated projects from mozilla which used to be about internet and other digital rights stuff (which has changed in recent years)
I don't think it would recoup the money that is spent, I don't even think it needs to. Yes, a majority of their income comes from google, but they still make a lot of money, mozilla's search income is 85 percent according to https://www.theverge.com/news/660548/firefox-google-search-revenue-share-doj-antitrust-remedies
If firefox were to focus on just firefox and thunderbird, and sure other things that do directly make them money, then they would still have plenty of funding left over for developers to work on mentioned projects
From those projects, which ones are out of scope for the Mozilla Manifesto?
The African nuclear reactors might need more explaining, but the rest seem to be right on the goals:
I don't believe things like AI fund are things that should be in mozilla's scope, at least back when I was religiously donating to mozilla, their manifesto didn't even exist when I was, but even their old one is something more in line with what I agree with. Mozilla has changed a LOT over the years, and the return to old mozilla is what I, and many others want.
I was going to say that AI has a lot of implications in the online world that Mozilla was supposed to promote... but maybe you're right, the AI genie is out of the bottle and there is little left to do about it. Its impact will be whatever it will be, no matter what people want to say about it.
Not sure which "old Mozilla" you want, the 1998 one? the 2005 one? the 2015 one? It has changed a lot indeed, but kind of has been Google's anti-anti-thrust shield for 20+ years.
for AI, a lot of what mozilla is doing is kinda... meh, llamafile is maybe useful. But mostly, the only really neat thing that is relevant to mozilla is webgpu local AI stuff which chromium has better support for anyways atm lol.
Been with firefox since it was seamonkey, and been donating regularly until around baker. Mozilla has had it's up and downs throughout then for sure. but lately, it's just been downs.
Sorry, you're saying that if 85 percent of funding disappears (hundreds of millions), and "weird spending" (including the venture fund, which usually make money) to the tune of 0.3 million (let's make that 2 million, assuming they have several such projects) is cut, then that would be able to sustain Firefox? Because that math doesn't add up for me.
Google pays mozilla iirc around 400m a year, loosing 85% of that yeah, that sucks, sure. but yeah, there is enough to sustain firefox and thunderbird and some other things. If not, something is dreadfully wrong.
The numbers you have quoted so far don't make a dent in the 400M though - we haven't even reached 1% yet. How much do you think Mozilla is spending on Firefox? How much of that is "extra" per your back of the envelope math?
Appologies, I am not a tax auditor, I don't have enough spare time to go comb through mozilla's finances to list out every single expense mozilla has. If mozilla can't make do on that funding, they maybe they deserve to shut it's doors for good afterall.
Sorry, you aren't a tax auditor, but you are out here making claims. Try defending them?
I did. If you don't agree fine, ok. Keep letting mozilla wasting everyones money creating a subpar browser.
You are saying there is all of this wasted money, but as soon as you are asked for evidence, it is all "I'm not a tax auditor". Defend your claims!
I don't think there's anyone on planet earth who can build a browser at a budget of, say, 2 million USD annually. See also: Ladybird and Servo not being anywhere near ready.
good thing there would be a lot more then 2m usd left.
Servo and Ladybird are progressing at an extremely rapid speed, using them as an example isn't a good one IMO.
Well, let me know when you're using either for your regular browsing. If that's in my lifetime, I'll happily admit they were a bad example (and be a lot more comforted about the state of the web).
Servo recently had a blog update where they dropped some amazing news, gmail and google chat now works, so while it's not what you were wanting, it is some good news :D
They are both worse than Gecko, a platform you wish to die.
ofc they are, I already explained my reasoning for my comments.
What would be the proper advocacy groups? Would you've ever heard of Mozilla without some advocacy group?
One's that are actually directly related to mozilla's mission statement, polution and studies on nuclear reactors in africa, not related.
Is there more information about that nuclear reactor?
Pollution related to computing and coding, seem relevant to the mission statement.
Do you have numbers behind these assertions? How much money is spent on "crap"?
Some of them are, copy and pasted from another comment,
300’000 for european AI fund, 100’000 on an interactive tool for exploring broadband inequalities, 50’000 for Carbon footprint, 50’000 for another pollution related project, 50’000 for studing the impact of nuclear reactors in africa
and much more here https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2024/b200-mozilla-foundation-form-990-public-disclosure-ty23.pdf
This you?
Yes. Mozilla has let firefox rot. Firefox can't even do tasks like render gradients properly (examples of such issue https://play.tailwindcss.com/9hekptcy9b https://codepen.io/art-solopov/pen/VYwwdBK. and refuse to implement stuff like webusb despite the fact that it can be done in privacy friendly ways.
I don't think firefox is a lost cause, but I do think mozilla is a lost cause. I have little hope that mozilla will right the ship, but sometimes things happen that do give me hope.
I do think gecko is quite frankly a bad platform, there is indeed a reason why so many things use blink/chromium as a base and not gecko, is it possible to make gecko into a suitable alternative? sure, but mozilla hasn't gotten even remotely close.
I see this sentiment sometimes, but just like with the US Federal government, everyone thinks that what everyone else is working on is superfluous.
It's easy to say generally "there's all this wasted money".
Yeah? Where?
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2024/
I really am curious. I'm not a fan of AI, so I would agree that those seem superfluous -- but at the same time, the AI based image summarizer actually sounds cool - and good for accessibility. The translation service is VERY useful, and it is amazing that it runs locally.
So yeah, I'm curious. What is junk?
off the top of my head,
and there were other serfvices that I can't remember right now. And then there is all the money they redirect everywhere else for advocacy and other stuff that I don't care at all about. If I donate to mozilla, I want to donate to firefox, not some random junk projects.
Pocket and VPN make money, that would be like firing IRS auditors in the name of efficiency.
I agree that general purpose AI isn't really all that interesting, since I don't think it is going to drive involvement or investment. I also imagine that it doesn't really cost that much - they don't have any real products behind it, and they all seem clearly experimental.
I guess I understand your aversion to contributing to "junk projects", but if they are junk projects, there isn't likely to be a ton of investment. Harder to shift the bottom line.
Last I checked pocket and VPN didn't make that much, I was... somewhat? mistaken however, page 6 is relevant https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2024/mozilla-fdn-2023-fs-final-short-1209.pdf and indeed pocket + VPN are might actually be a significant amount of funding here, it's hard to tell from just this since it's lumped in with advertising.
Didn't think anyone would subscribe to Pocket - a good proportion of the links require external subscriptions.
Sorry, but am not going down that route. Unless you're telling me all the links to externals become free.
IIRC I tried a free trial of Premium but still had to subscribe to Medium etc. That put me right off. I might just as well subscribe to Medium and forget about Pocket.
What would "selling Chrome" even entail? The vast majority of Chrome's source code is free and open source software, i.e. it has no owners. Does the US government want Google's developers of the Chromium codebase to work on another company's payroll instead? Do they want Google to be prohibited from distributing a browser based on the Chromium codebase? Have they given any of this any thought at all?
Probably. The point is that google can't have any direct control of the browser as there's a conflict of interest between google's ad and other business and how web is developing. Take manifest v3 for example. Blocking content blockers directly benefits google's ad-business. Also removing support for third party cookies etc benefits google's ad-business while hampering others.