this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2024
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I just saw a post complaining about the Mozilla layoffs.

I wanted to point out that the vast majority of their income (over 85% in 2022) is from having Google as the default search engine - Ironically, the anti monopoly lawsuit against Google will end this.

Expect things to get worse.

Please don't assume it was just a cruel choice.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You can't for a number of reasons. As other people have said this catastrophically underestimates the complexity of maintaining a code base for a browser.

they’re often 3–5 years behind other browsers in implementing new web standards

I don't even think that's remotely true. My understanding is that it's on the order of a few months to a year, and it relates to things that are negligible to the average end user. They are edge case things like experimental 3d rendering. The most significant one I can think of is Webp, but they resisted adoption for principled reasons relating to Google's control over that format and aggressive pushing of it, which is a good thing not a bad thing, and an important example of how rushing to adopt new standards it's not necessarily just a sign of browser health but also an anti-competitive practice intentionally pushed by companies that have money to throw around for that purpose.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago

I don't even think that's remotely true.

I've seen two cases that actually directly impacted my ability to use Firefox. I can only presume there are many more. Those being supporting the column-span CSS property (available since 2010 in other browsers with vendor prefix, and early 2016 without, while being late 2019 for FF) and supporting iPad OS's multi-window functionality (introduced mid 2019, Firefox has had it for just a handful of months now). I have first hand experience telling me very directly that this is true.

There's also been a lot of talk about Firefox's lack of support for PWAs. I've not experienced that myself to be able to comment more than to say I've noted others have complaints.