Mozilla Looks To Its Next Chapter (techcrunch.com) 111
Mozilla today released its annual "State of Mozilla" report and for the most part, the news here is positive. From a report: Mozilla Corporation, the for-profit side of the overall Mozilla organization, generated $585 million from its search partnerships, subscriptions and ad revenue in 2021 -- up 25% from the year before. And while Mozilla continues to mostly rely on its search partnerships, revenue from its new products like the Mozilla VPN, Mozilla Developer Network (MDN) Plus, Pocket and others now accounts for $57 million of its revenue, up 125% compared to the previous year. For the most part, that's driven by ads on the New Tab in Firefox and in Pocket, but the security products now also have an annual revenue of $4 million.
With the launch of this year's report, the Mozilla leadership team is also taking some time to look ahead, because in many ways, this is an inflection point for Mozilla. When Mozilla was founded, the internet was essentially the web and the browser was the way to access it. Since then, the way we experience the internet has changed dramatically and while the browser is still one of the most important tools around, it's not the only one. With that, Mozilla, too, has to change. Its Firefox browser has gone from dominating the space to being something of a niche product, but the organization's mission ("to ensure the internet is a global public resource, open and accessible to all") is just as important today -- and maybe more so -- as it was almost 25 years ago when Mozilla was founded.
With the launch of this year's report, the Mozilla leadership team is also taking some time to look ahead, because in many ways, this is an inflection point for Mozilla. When Mozilla was founded, the internet was essentially the web and the browser was the way to access it. Since then, the way we experience the internet has changed dramatically and while the browser is still one of the most important tools around, it's not the only one. With that, Mozilla, too, has to change. Its Firefox browser has gone from dominating the space to being something of a niche product, but the organization's mission ("to ensure the internet is a global public resource, open and accessible to all") is just as important today -- and maybe more so -- as it was almost 25 years ago when Mozilla was founded.
You can also donate (Score:5, Informative)
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If you're like me and disable these partnerships like search, sponsored links and Pocket, you can donate directly to Mozilla: https://donate.mozilla.org/en-... [mozilla.org]
Why? Donating a bunch of money is what led to their spending $20M on Pocket, which is a data-gathering operation. I'll donate when Pocket, Sponsored Links, and all the other shit that doesn't belong in the browser is an extension I can disable, not until. They clearly don't need my money, because they are uninterested in delivering the uncrufted browser I want.
Re:You can also donate (Score:4, Informative)
You can turn off all the nuisances in settings->home and settings->privacy. To completely disable pocket, use about:config.
I'm sorry that's too much work for you. But, I guess if you refuse to do that, Mozilla can count on that sweet ad revenue in lieu of your donation. (Well, I suppose you could use googleware instead, but that's unlikely to improve your experience.)
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I guess if you refuse to do that, Mozilla can count on that sweet ad revenue in lieu of your donation.
94% of Mozilla's $441M yearly income (at least, that's what they pulled down in 2022) comes from corporations. We can never, ever compete with that. They are the customers. We are insects. They ignore what we ask for. There is absolutely no sense in giving them money as a user.
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Why?
You don't have to, but don't complain when the web reduces to chromium derived browsers with less good privacy protections only.
I'll donate when Pocket, Sponsored Links, and all the other shit that doesn't belong in the browser is an extension I can disable, not until.
about:config extensions.pocket.enabled=false
settings, search for "sponsored", uncheck "shortcuts" and "recommended by pocket"
You're welcome by the way. So, how much are you donating and when, out of interest?
If you REALLY hate dormant co
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Cool story bro.
So being able to disable them isn't enough for you? You have to be able to disable them in a very particular way. Right-o. Don't you have something less insane to be unfathomably angry about? You can literally have firefox with the stuff you don't want disabled or a tracking fork with it not even compiled in.
I'm not really sure why those two options bring on the red mist of table-flipping rage. I don't really have the energy for that kind of nerd rage dick waving any more.
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I'm not that angry at them,
Well, you sounded pretty angry at them in your first post.
Fuck that all day. I will not however give them any money,
lol I mean I know. It was obvious you had no intention even if you said you would should it be possible to disable pocket and sponsored links. Turns out you can disable them (you have now teleported the goalposts to a different continent), but I didn't expect you'd actually donate.
It was hyperbole on my part.
Firefox lets you disable what you want disabled. Most peo
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Firefox lets you disable what you want disabled.
I have disabled it, and twice Mozilla has re-enabled it after an update, along with several other things I set in about:config that they have reverted over the years. Notably, they reliably revert the config setting to suppress the new version page, which is just another way to collect data on you without your permission.
Naturally, I disabled Pocket again each time. However, it doesn't belong in there at all. It's just more shit to go wrong, which increases the installed footprint of the browser, and also t
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Firefox lets you disable what you want disabled.
I have disabled it, and twice Mozilla has re-enabled it after an update, along with several other things I set in about:config that they have reverted over the years. Notably, they reliably revert the config setting to suppress the new version page, which is just another way to collect data on you without your permission.
I know this doesn't address your complaint, but in case you (or others) don't know you can put your settings in a file named "user.js" in your FF profile folder and they will override the settings in the "prefs.js" (about:config) file. For example:
user_pref("extensions.pocket.enabled", false);
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At least it's a strategy, right? I should just never use about:config, and always use user.js. Thanks, I didn't realize it was the arbiter, but I should have since it makes sense. Then again, lots of things don't :)
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I use "user.js" for things I want to permanently configure and leave "prefs.js" for things I may want to change (usually temporarily) via "about:config" or the various preferences panels. I'll note a few things. Apparently, or at least at some point, the user.js file needs/ed to start with a comment line and it seems to stop processing if it encounters an error (usually syntax), so I put the following at the start / end of my user.js file so I can check (debug) if it got loaded properly via "about:config
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In addition, I'll also note that the "user.js" file can (usually) be readily copied to other profiles/systems where doing that with the "prefs.js" can be problematic as it often (usually) contains settings that may be profile/system specific.
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>"I have disabled it, and twice Mozilla has re-enabled it after an update, along with several other things I set in about:config that they have reverted over the years."
Under Linux, I have disabled pocket in about:config and it survived literally dozens and dozens and dozens of updates. Has never turned back on. But Mozilla *has* reverted a few non-important settings I made. And I think they did that because they improved or changed the way the settings worked- it wasn't done out of spite.
Yes, you can
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That's really pretty low for a company with these kinds of numbers . . .
Room for Improvement (Score:5, Interesting)
I think cubes would be a great feature to implement.
Qubes, the OS, isolates different parts of web browsing. So, when you open a browser to log in to your bank account, it's sandboxed from the browser you are accessing social media with, or your email. It's not incognito, it's a regular browser but with a completely separate filesystem and process space. That way, if a trojan worms it's way into your browser (usually through social media) it can't XSS it's way into anything else more important you might be doing.
Microsoft kinda-sorta does this with isolated browsing in Edge, using Hyper-V. Qubes manages the different sessions as groups, though, so all your financial/banking links open in that browser, all your social media links open in another. Then, there's a temporary junk session for opening new/untested/unknown links.
It would probably be a major undertaking, but security is one of the biggest issues when using the web these days, and constantly patching zero-days isn't the way to fix it.
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What you are asking for is something the browser can never safely provide. This addon gives the best imitation of it that you can reasonably expect:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-... [mozilla.org]
Otherwise, just start a new browser, it will be in its own memory space. That already provides the functionality you want. Start each one with its own profile, and configure it with its own appearance settings so you can tell them apart.
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I had thought I remembered something about this being done in Firefox and had to look it up. It looks like there's been a project underway to have site isolation split sites into separate process spaces. Seems Firefox 95 has it enabled by default. It does claim sandboxing of various parts of the browser from system resources, but I suspect it's not as robust as a fully enforced window into file systems and such. I don't know enough about the architecture to say.
There's also the Multi-Account Containers add-
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Good to hear (Score:1)
Firefox is my only browser, mainly because the bookmarks work great, password integration tools, awesome YT ad filters and download tools, etc. I can't really think of anything negative to say about it.
OTOH, I won't use chrome or edge. I don't like or trust either in the least.
Re: Good to hear (Score:3)
I use Firefox exclusively as well and I have plenty of negative things to say about it. Where to begin... I'll save the major issues for last. Firstly the ads everywhere, pocket, sync, homepage, search. You can disable all of them.... For now. Still rankles. Secondly, sync itself, why can't we have this service available in a way that allows me to keep it local/run my own service? Default to DNS over http to break my entire local network DNS. And this is all ignoring the structural issues and indec
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Firstly the ads everywhere, pocket, sync, homepage, search. You can disable all of them.... For now.
Your negative thing to say about them is paranoia? Yes you can disable them. There is no sign of this ever changing.
Secondly, sync itself, why can't we have this service available in a way that allows me to keep it local/run my own service?
https://homegrowntechie.com/se... [homegrowntechie.com]
It took you longer to write out your whinge than to type "firefox sync self hosted" into google.
Default to DNS over http to break my entir
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I do sincerely appreciate those two pointers you gave me. Thanks!
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Well, you're welcome, even though I was dickish about it.
Ads (Score:2)
I still miss Gopherspace (Score:4, Insightful)
XUL and Windows 7 support. (Score:2)
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> bring back xul support
WebASM is probably fine for a XUL-like front-end. It would be nice to have rich streaming web interfaces. Native would be even better but maybe that's downstream.
I spoke with some people at Apple about this back in '98. It was a bit early.
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Why are you hating on 68k Macs?!
My Quadra 800 needs a modern browser that can fit inside of 16MB of RAM and runs on a 30 year old operating system!!
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>"With all the extra money they can afford to bring back xul support"
That probably isn't going to happen because (my understanding) is that it was just not compatible with multi-threading and some security concerns. And much of their excuse is because it causes all kinds of bugs and issues. But they *DO* need to expose more UI controls to extensions in WebExtensions API. They promised they would, and it hasn't really happened. Extensions still cannot move tabs to bottom, and can't change the style of
Yet another extensions API change? (Score:5, Informative)
.
How many add-ons will be lost with this change?
Re:Yet another extensions API change? (Score:5, Informative)
Zero. Mozilla has already said that it will keep supporting Manifest V2.
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For how long? They're dropping whole operating systems people are still using for one reason or another, and in some cases it's because they have to. Now they will have to use an outdated browser in addition to an outdated OS. They dropped Javascript support for PowerPC a long time ago, even though there are bunches of such machines still functioning, and still plenty quick by even modern standards. It's safer to assume they'll drop it while people are still using it than the opposite.
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Do they have an official support policy? If not, then I don't trust them and I don't care.
Yes, I'm too lazy to check myself. I use a Firefox fork these days.
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Good. Now fix Android Extensions (Score:3)
Now, after YEARS OF WAITING, let US decide which Android extensions WE want to install on OUR OWN PHONES without jumping through your pathetic hoops.
FFS.
Slashdot browswer when? (Score:2)
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>"Because minus the lack of the ability to make a Download Statusbar like Chomre for Firefox and the lack of ability to remove the menu button, Waterfox now has a whole Look & Feel section to fix a lot of the more glaring issues with Firefox."
The problem with Waterfox [Current] is that it will lag behind on security and performance, using an older engine. It might have more problems with some of sites, at well. I have sites already break when using an older Quantum, so it has to be worse for Waterf
Re:Slashdot browswer when? (Score:5, Informative)
Firefox is a clusterfuck. Just building it is hard. That's why there's so few forks.
And instead of unfucking it, they keep dumping stuff into it, rearranging the interface every few months... exactly the opposite of what's being asked for.
Firefox's only core user base is nerds, and they are ignoring what we actually ask for. The only reason anyone but us nerds uses it is because we install it, so they are utterly dependent on us... but give zero fucks what we want.
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Why not APK?
Seriously.... (Score:5, Interesting)
$585M ... _seriously_. What in the heck do they do with all that money? This is a serious question because I have no idea how they can burn through that amount of capital.
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Hrm, 750 employees @ $250K is $187.5M.
Obviously office space and hardware and server space are expensive. But that's a big gap.
Good question. The Foundation's financials are probably public.
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Mozilla Had More Money When they Were Respectable (Score:3)
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Ah, Scrapbook ... I remember that. We old! Liked it, too.
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I still miss Scrapbook. Nothing has replaced it, and Mozilla did everything they could to prevent it from being made, so they can promote their Pocket service?
Yes. I am still pissed off about that constantly. Aardvark and Scrapbook+ together made for an ideal archival solution, or at least the capture half. They broke it, then instead of fixing it like users were asking for, they spent $20M of donation money on Pocket and integrated it instead of making it an extension like it should be.
As a consequence, I refuse to donate, but they don't need my money do they? They get all their need in large donations from organizations that they listen to instead of the users.
Reflection point? (Score:2)
With the launch of this year's report, the Mozilla leadership team is also taking some time to look ahead, because in many ways, this is an inflection point for Mozilla.
Seems like there's an article every six months for the past 15 years about how Mozilla is at an inflection point.
I like all my data (Score:5, Interesting)
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not going to google. Thanks Mozilla! The only thing I want from you is a better grouped tabs function.
AND STOP FUCKING AROUND WITH THE UI
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Since I upgraded my phone, Firefox for Android became usable. The bug that broke it on other devices is still there, but apparently at some certain screen size it fixes itself.
So for me I just hope they keep developing Firefox for Android and make some UI improvements. Tab groups like Chrome has would be really nice. Mostly though it's already a great experience for most sites, especially with DarkReader installed. I've nearly got enough CSS hacks in uBlock to make Slashdot usable too.
What's Firefox's marketshare nowadays? (Score:2)
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Most of the changes I really hated over the years had some reason behind them. They trimmed down about:config a lot because all those preferences were supposedly causing memory issues. They switched to the much more restrictive Chrome extension model because they were tired of wasting effort debugging problems that arose from bad extensions messing with the chrome.They dropped support for older OSes because that was the trade-off required to move to more efficient/safer OS-native threading and sandboxing in
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>"What happened to cause the decline? Maybe developers making changes because they cuold, and not because the customer base asked for those changes?"
The majority of the downfall was that Mozilla was caught in a bind with the old extensions model and had to fight to get the engine up to spec for multithreading and better performance. They did that, and it is every bit as fast, and perhaps more efficient in many ways to Chrom*, and has been for many years now. However during that period, they lost some p
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They completely miss their purpose (Score:3)
The purpose of Mozilla is to develop their browser. They have enough money to do so and they could easily afford to do so just by donations alone.
The reason why so few people donate is that Mozilla deviates from their purpose. To make matters worse they have highly paid management structures which actively work against the reason this company exists.
However the problem lies somewhat deeper. The web is now so bloated it needs huge companies just to keep up with it. It used to be a managable task to write a browser. Now only the largest software companies can do so. Even Microsoft stopped developing their own browser engine. We are moving towards an oligopoly where arguably the most important piece of software is controlled by very few large entities not really interested in Free (as in Speech) software.
This is a sign that the web as we know it is dying. Companies like Google, Facebook and Co aim to replace it with something more like you had in commercial online services of the 1990s.
Mozilla cost reduction (Score:2)
Continual degredation (Score:1)
I'm fairly indifferent to the collection of my data -- if somebody thinks they're going to sell me something based on whatever info they glean from my web activity they're wasting their money -- which is a good thing. What I DO hate is that one by one the extensions that I've loved for many years are eliminated and that I have to use Chrome (which I hate) to deal with more and more websites that simply don't work with Firefox.
user.js (Score:2)
Copy user.js from https://github.com/arkenfox/us... [github.com] in your firefox default folder in about:profiles
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Yet they remain a vital part as they're the maker of the only usable browser left.
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Yet they remain a vital part as they're the maker of the only usable browser left.
Define "usable"? I have FF and several other browsers for testing, and it's not faster or more stable than Chrome, Edge, or Opera. While it's not a bad browser overall, it does tend to have more problems with some sites than the others.
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Look at their engines, though. Deep down they're all the same thing. Mozilla's Gecko is the only real competition against Webkit / Blink.
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>"it does tend to have more problems with some sites than the others."
Only problems due to sites not following actual standards and instead coding TO CHROM*. And that is the problem, which is not Firefox's fault.
Users need to voice their complaints LOUDLY to sites that do not work properly with Firefox. I certainly do, as both a user AND as a professional who controls purse strings and will not buy into any SAAS that doesn't work with Firefox. If we don't, the battle will be lost and Google will comple
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Only problems due to sites not following actual standards and instead coding TO CHROM*. And that is the problem, which is not Firefox's fault.
I'd say the actual problem is that we don't really have web standards anymore. We used to, but then we let them be hijacked by giant corporations like Google and turned into a big scratchpad for graphomaniacs, feature-hoarders, and ad-sellers.
Re: RIP (Score:1)
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Go ahead and look up browser usage statistics, and then re-read what you just wrote.
It would appear that literally billions of people disagree.
Re: RIP (Score:1)
I've been using firefox since phoenix and before. I actually thought phoenix was the end product before the recommitment.
For the last time (Score:3, Informative)
As for firing the guy, he opposed same sex marriage in 2014. If he did the same for interracial marriage you'd be keeping quiet about it. This isn't a "political view". He holds extremely bigoted views and it's completely understandable Mozilla did not want to associate with him. Society has moved on from 1946 [1946themovie.com].
Also, I would love to own a
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Re:For the last time (Score:4, Insightful)
This isn't a "political view"
Well, it is but so is Naziism. I'm not really sure why people think that an opinion that someone attempts to have enforced with the force of law (a.k.a. a political opinion) is somehow better than just having a regular old shitty opinion.
He holds extremely bigoted views and it's completely understandable Mozilla did not want to associate with him.
Mozilla the org didn't do much of anything: they employees were going to leave in droves. He caused that which means he was harming the org he was CEO of. He had to resign to minimise his own fuckup. Not clear what he expected of Mozilla management? Chain Eich to the desk, whole shovelling money forcibly into his pants while watching half their engineers leave?
So what the OP is ACTUALLY saying is he doesn't want to use a browser written by an org where employees would rather quit than be managed by someone who paid cash to harm them. That's a non political opinion, I suppose, but it is an astoundingly stupid one.
Not wanting to associate with Nazis (Score:2)
The employees didn't go anywhere. Had they insisted on keeping a bigot on staff then it's likely that they would have though. Times have changed, and bigotry directed to people based on sexual orientation is no longer acceptable. Just like how, 30 years ago, times changed and bigotry directed at black people wasn't acceptable.
Nobody's forcing OP to use
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Not wanting to associate with Nazis doesn't make you a Nazi. Not wanting to associate with Bigots doens't make you a Bigot.
I agree on both counts.
You're argument boils down to "I know you are but what am I?".
u wot m8? Seriously, what on earth are you talking about?
My argument is that incredibly shitty, bigoted opinion can be political opinions, but sticking "political" in front of the word "opinion" isn't the sort of magical amulet of protection that many here appear to believe. If anything it's worse, bec
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In other news, the United States Senate is considering the Respect for Marriage Act [congress.gov] literally right now, after having 62 senators (including 12 GOP senators) vote to debate the already-passed House legislation that would repeal DOMA and replace it with:
No person acting under color of State law may deny—
“(1) full faith and credit to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other State pertaining to a marriage between 2 individuals, on the basis of the sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin of those individuals; or
“(2) a right or claim arising from such a marriage on the basis that such marriage would not be recognized under the law of that State on the basis of the sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin of those individuals.
There's a very good chance that marriage equality becomes statutory law in the next week or two.
Re: For the last time (Score:2)
Re: For the last time (Score:1, Insightful)
Same sex marriage and interracial marriage aren't equivalent. The latter is between men and women, as marriage has been for thousands of years across cultures, and today remains so for practically all marriages. Right or wrong, the arguments for these two different claims are not the same.
Also, Obama as recent as six years prior opposed gay marriage as something to be enshrined in law. Hillary Clinton only came out in full support a year in 2013.
His views were offensive due to political reasons, not because
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His views were offensive due to political reasons, not because they were comparable to support for anti-miscegenation. That would be objectively terrible because it suggests blacks are something other than human.
Denying people what's considered a human right for straight people because they're gay is objectively terrible because it suggests gays are something other than human. HTH, HAND.
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>"Denying people what's considered a human right for straight people because they're gay is objectively terrible because it suggests gays are something other than human."
That is kind of a stretch, especially when civil unions could be made to have essentially the same powers. Many people objected to gay marriage based on it not being child-producing or from some religious standpoint, not because they believe homosexuals were bad or not-human.
Why isn't marriage allowed between three people? Are those pe
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Why isn't marriage allowed between three people?
Fine with me. My actual solution is to get government the fuck out of it as much as possible, so they can be involved if someone is mistreated or there's a custody battle or something, but otherwise don't need to be involved. But ironically, I want them to provide health care, so that we don't have to care who is whose spouse in order to determine how much to bill them.
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>"Fine with me. My actual solution is to get government the fuck out of it as much as possible"
Yep And that view should be extended to as many other things as possible as well. And those things that it must do should be done on as close of a local-level as possible.
>"But ironically, I want them to provide health care, so that we don't have to care who is whose spouse in order to determine how much to bill them."
Think about it a little more. Why should it matter? Health care plans should not care i
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Think about it a little more.
Be a little more patronizing, please. I almost took you seriously.
Why should it matter? Health care plans should not care if you are married or not, nor should your employer.
They care because people get insurance for their spouse from their work, and they don't want to give you any but they are forced to. Are you new?
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>"They care because people get insurance for their spouse from their work, and they don't want to give you any but they are forced to. Are you new?"
I am far from "new".
And every company I have worked for has offered group health insurance AND contributed some to it. LONG before laws were creating forcing companies to do anything with insurance.
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every company I have worked for has offered group health insurance AND contributed some to it. LONG before laws were creating forcing companies to do anything with insurance.
Tell us more about you, we can't wait.
Re: For the last time (Score:2)
>Denying people what's considered a human right for straight people because they're gay is objectively terrible because it suggests gays are something other than human. HTH, HAND.
It's about categories. While it'd be a human rights issue to deny a parent access to their child, is it a human rights issue to deny a stranger access to a child? It's not their fault they're not the parent of this child.
It's a civil rights issue, not human rights. It's a matter of law. Whatever we'd call it, it is not marriage.
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Not really. Any gay man is perfectly entitled to marry a lesbian woman, and to my knowledge there is no law that would stop them. Equivalently, a straight man would be forbidden from marrying another straight man in some US states.
It isn't the being gay that causes the legal issues, its the same-sex aspect.
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Of course they made them unusable, because a large fraction of extensions were already stable, and their developers did not want to redo their work from scratch for no pay. Hence, they were not rewritten.
Also, I wouldn't care if he opposed interracial marriage either. I disagree on both, but an opposite opinion is not a disqualifier.
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Re:For the last time (Score:5, Insightful)
No you canâ(TM)t. You canâ(TM)t even make a custom status bar any more. I can no longer have a status bar for e.g. FoxClocks. It can make a kind of floating element but it has to obscure part of the web page display. The functionality is just plain gone. Pretty much all extensions that modified the browser UI are no longer possible. Your extensions may still work, but there were many extensions that real people used that are not possible in the new framework.
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And you're complaint isn't with Mozilla it's with Google and Apple who set that standard
That said I looked up fox clocks and it looks like it's got a status bar with the timers at the bottom just like you want. You can create toolbars at the bottom of the screen using add-ons and extensions. You just can't get a static status bar anymore. At least not as far as I can tell. But Fox clocks achieves the same th
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I wrote extensions and yes we were. There were a bunch of hoops you had to jump through but you absolutely could get the same functionality.
Oh yeah? How do you write the web page as displayed to the filesystem? Why were there several extensions that did that before, and zero now?
Because they don't know C (Score:2)
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if you wanna do that you do it in C, then you can do practically anything. Like I said, hoops.
In an extension? Because my understanding is that they denied extensions access to the API required for that.
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>"In an extension? Because my understanding is that they denied extensions access to the API required for that."
You are correct. He is wrong. You MUST use the API to do anything with the UI. Mozilla promised they would open up more of the UI to extensions through the API and (as far as I am aware) they still have not done so. You can still do a hell of a lot in extensions, though, just not many things that change the UI.
I don't think it is an earth-shattering issue, but I understand their security an
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This is just plainly false.
There used to be an amazing extension for old Firefox, called Vimperator (later forked as Pentadactyl). It added vim-like keyboard controls that allowed doing almost everything without a mouse. The user experience was almost perfect - it was smooth, responsive, and most importantly worked (almost) everywhere and all the time. It made web browsing almost tolerable for a terminal user like myself.
Both projects died with XUL. Now there is a replacement called Tridactyl, but it's a pa
Re:RIP (Score:4, Insightful)
Once, by throwing out a top guy because of his political views,
They did no such thing. Stop telling this lie.
The top guy decided to pay a bunch of money to try and harm his workforce and their friends and family. Turns out that wasn't a popular move. To prevent a mass exodus of employees, which would have harmed Mozilla a great deal, he had to do his duty to the corporation and resign, because as CEO his duty is to the company.
Mozilla didn't fire him. He shat the bed big time and the only move left compatible with his job was to resign. The entire thing beginning to end was his fault.