Firefox Maker Mozilla Is Cutting 60 Jobs After Naming New CEO 106
Less than a week after naming Laura Chambers as interim CEO, Firefox's maker Mozilla said it is cutting about 60 jobs, or 5% of its workforce. The cuts are primarily in the product development organization. Bloomberg reports: "We're scaling back investment in some product areas in order to focus on areas that we feel have the greatest chance of success," Mozilla said in a statement. "We intend to re-prioritize resources against products like Firefox Mobile, where there's a significant opportunity to grow and establish a better model for the industry."
Mozilla last cut a significant number of jobs four years ago at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. The not-for-profit company, which competes with Alphabet Inc.'s Google Chrome, Apple Inc.'s Safari and Microsoft Corp.'s Edge, has been grappling with sliding market share of its Firefox web browser in recent years. So far in 2024, the tech sector has cut 32,000 jobs.
Mozilla last cut a significant number of jobs four years ago at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. The not-for-profit company, which competes with Alphabet Inc.'s Google Chrome, Apple Inc.'s Safari and Microsoft Corp.'s Edge, has been grappling with sliding market share of its Firefox web browser in recent years. So far in 2024, the tech sector has cut 32,000 jobs.
Re:How far they've fallen (Score:5, Funny)
wanted marriage to remain between a man and a woman.
Brendan Eich [wikipedia.org] did things much worse than that: He created JavaScript.
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Donating a small amount out of a large income and savings isn't anything to fuss about.
He donates his own money in an attempt to hurt (among others) his employees, their friends and family. Tell me, what is the threshold below which you shouldn't care if someone's trying to harm you?
Remember back at that time the ban on gay marriage passed by a sizable margin IN CALIFORNIA!
It was also struck down. Turns out having a majority vote to oppress a minority is bad and if there are reasonably laws in place it won'
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It wasn't stripping rights when they didn't have the right to marriage to begin with at the time.
Overstepping management being put into place is far too uncommon and they do more harm in other areas too; however, the solution of fueling political schemes with this stuff is manipulative and not beneficial long term. All over management is stealing wages and doing massive harm to society and being rewarded; let them be against birth control, but pass laws and / or go on strike etc.
Office politics can be extr
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It wasn't stripping rights when they didn't have the right to marriage to begin with at the time.
Firstly this is not true. Prop 8 was specifically a ban and gay marriages had taken place before it.
Secondly: so? Continuing oppression of a minority because you've always done it is not any kind of justification.
Office politics can be extremely nasty
Not as nasty as real politics. Eich lost his job, he got another. His victims lost the right to marry.
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> Anyone who opposes gay marriage enough to donate money to political causes is definitely having some gay thoughts.
So they knowingly forced a closeted gay man out of this company instead of helping him? Sounds tolerant.
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Technically he wasn't fired, but he was forced to resign and leave the company.
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Ah yes, minorities. The new scapegoat. Yes totally the reason for Firefox having 3% of the browser market. I’m not even joking about 3% either.
Re:How far they've fallen (Score:5, Insightful)
Their market share has absolutely nothing to do with politics. Neither is it an issue with the UI or any of the imaginary issues you see repeated here.
Their loss in market share is due to anti-competitive practices by Google and Microsoft. It's not any more complicated that that. Google bundled Chrome with countless popular applications and somewhat deceptively pushed their browser on their other services, leading many non-technical users think they need to install Chrome if they "use Google". Microsoft very aggressively pushes Edge with endless calls to set it as your default browser. Just clicking 'next' while trying to get through the bullshit after an update will change it. They also open all links from the start menu in Edge, as well as those lock screen landmine links, completely ignoring your default browser.
Firefox is a great browser and is absolutely essential to the health of the web. IE6 was bad enough that users actively sought out a better browser. If we don't want to see a repeat of that, which we will if we lose Firefox, then its up to technical people to push it ourselves. (Most users are barely aware that web browsers exist, despite using one every day.) When you have the opportunity, recommend Firefox to friends and family. Show them that they can watch Youtube without ads on their phone with Firefox and uBlock Origin. Tell them about how much better it is for their privacy. Install it when you help your neighbor setup their new computer. That's how Firefox gained market share in the past and it's how it will recover market share in the future.
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</marquee>
You dropped this.
And I'll have you know - the marquee and blink tags were the foundation of my HTML childhood and I wouldn't trade them for anything.
Re:How far they've fallen (Score:4, Informative)
Mozilla deserves some of the blame. Firefox desktop has managed to remain decent, but lacking a good mobile offering is an issue for a lot of people.
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What's wrong with mobile firefox? I use it almost exclusively and it's pretty good.
But also, you know, this is hardly their fault either. They cannot offer anything other than a Safari reskin on Apple, and on Google, they have nothing which can counter the massive preinstall based of Chrome.
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I have been testing Firefox for Android for years. For years it was a battery killer, and then they managed to improve that to the point where it was usable but still heavier than Chrome. In the last couple of weeks it is back to killing my battery again.
This is on a Pixel, so vanilla Android.
The UI needs some improvements too, particularly tab management. Again, Chrome handles it a lot better. Rendering for some sites is really poor as well - I need a load of custom CSS in uBlock to make Slashdot usable, w
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I've used Firefox Beta on Android as my daily browser for a long time. Most of your points aren't wrong. It does use more battery than any other apps I use (though, that's a very small list), and it does break on a small number of websites (though that's probably more because of shitty mobile versions of sites), but I don't agree that the UI is worse than Chrome's (I dislike Chrome's tab layout).
However for me the value is worth the price of admission. I have better privacy and can use an ad-blocker and
Politics (Score:3, Informative)
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But when Mozilla started alienating its users
You mean they made a minor change that you personally didn't like?
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Sigh... The whole point of the new extension system was to stop breaking extensions.
Also, that was 12 years ago. They kept legacy extensions going for six years afterward. Tab Mix Plus killed itself.
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Those anti-competitive practices were in play since the beginning, and Mozilla eventually rose to 50% market share. Then, Mozilla lost it, despite regularly taking in and spending hundreds of millions a year.
I've heard the same argument over and over for the demise of Netscape. If people actually tried to use the garbage that was Netscape 6, they'd understand that Microsoft didn't kill Netscape, they killed themselves.
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You're trying to rewrite history. Firefox rose to prominence in the days of IE6. There was no Google Chrome and Microsoft was just coming off that whole anti-trust thing.
If you think the strongly anti-competitive practices from Microsoft and Google had no effect on Firefox, you're completely delusional.
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You're saying people didn't want to work for a homophobe/racist (most if not all homophobes are racists too let's face it) so the CEO had to resign? What does that have to do with DEI?
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Not agreeing with you doesn't make someone a homophobe or a racist. WTF is wrong with you? It has to be 100% your way, all the way, all the time, or the other person is unworthy of life and should be cast out and be unemployable.
Go look in the mirror you, you're exactly the same as a homophobe, you can't stand people that don't think like you do and have no tolerance for it.
Anyone who was so offended by what he did that they couldnt' work with him probably wasn't worth having on board anyway, they would b
Re:How far they've fallen (Score:5, Insightful)
Not agreeing with you doesn't make someone a homophobe[...]
It does when I think gay people should have equal rights under the law, and, say Eich, wants them to not.
It has to be 100% your way, all the way, all the time
Yes, that's how it is meant to be with rights. You get rights 100% of your rights all the time.
Eich didn't bring this belief to the office
Yeah he did. You either have rights or you do not. If they have rights stripped away they have them stripped away at home, in the supermarket, on the road and at work. That's how the law works.
THAT would be a reason to oust him.
And they did!
But he didn't.
He did though.
There is no evidence that he did,
Remind me which bit of prop 8 allows same sex marriage at work?
Its okay for you to enforce your beliefs on others, but its not ok for them to just have their own belief and not force it on you.
Precisely. Eich wanted to use the law, i.e. the power of state sanctioned violence to enforce his beliefs on his employees (and also other people) via Prop 8. His employees on the other hand simply had beliefs that they would act on themselves alone with no force at all i.e. "I won't work for Eich". There was no compulsion for Eich to do anything.
Sounds like you just agreed with me 100%.
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Wanting to deny rights to gay people is homophobia. He's afraid of homosexuality. Why else would he care if they got married? He's the one "enforcing his belief on others." Unlike a gay person or a minority, he's making a concious choice to deny marriage rights to people (which presumably includes some of his employees). If your boss came up to you and told you you can't marry someone .. would you be OK with that?
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... a homophobe who paid money to try and strip legal rights from his employees.
It's amazing how butthurt the usual suspects are about the employees all using their free speech to say "he goes or I go". It's only supposed to be used for arseholes to try and hurt minorities. It's not fair if the little people collectively use their free speech.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Oh, yeah. This one too: https://xkcd.com/1357/ [xkcd.com]
Re:How far they've fallen (Score:5, Insightful)
I still remember when they fired their founder and CEO because 10 years prior he was found to have donated a whopping $1,000 to an organization that wanted marriage to remain between a man and a woman.
In other words Brendan Eich paid $1000 to cause harm and deny legal rights to a significant number of employees and their friends and family.
It turns out that if you pay money to use the force of law to oppress people, they are often not very happy about it. The employees used their freeze peach to say "he goes or I go". Eich being the CEO had a legal duty to operate in the best interests of the company so he resigned rather than completely destroy it.
He paid money to hurt his employees. He fucked up. The entire thing is on him.
Also don't lie. He didn't want marriage to "remain" between a man and a woman, because it already wasn't. He wanted to strip rights from gay people.
Re: How far they've fallen (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh spare us your oppression victimhood BS
Why does it piss you off if victims (and their friends) of oppression you wish to foist on them complain about it? Since you want to oppress them surely this would be music to your ears hearing in detail about the rights you wanted stripped away and how it's causing the harm.
Surely you'd be pleased to hear about the harm you wish to cause? Why are people who want to harm others often so squeamish about it?
I dont believe gay marriage
It does not require you to believe in it. It exists in many places regardless of your belief. It is a real thing, after all. Or are you saying you don't believe gay people should have the same rights that you do?
And while youre[sic] at it go look up the defintion[sic] of oppression cupcake.
I had a look as you suggested, but I could find nothing about oppression cupcakes, only vanilla and chocolate.
Re: How far they've fallen (Score:4, Insightful)
Not giving some people the benefit of some legal nicety is not "oppression"
If one group have more rights than another then the group with less rights is being oppressed.
it doesn't cause any harm whatsoever
It doesn't harm people because in your mind gap people don't count as people. In the real world marriage comes with a bunch of rights and protections which are being denied to gay people. That is causing harm.
Not for marraige no.
Rights: only for people approved of by religious leaders.
You are stating firmly held (and kinda crappy) opinions as facts. Whereas actually really you just want to hurt gay people for reasons you won't admit to, while pretending that somehow denying them rights afforded to straight people is harmless.
What I don't understand is why you think "homophobe" is a bad word. You're clearly homophobic, so why just not own that?
Nor should they be allowed to adopt kids unless there's no alternative since the kids unbringing is more important than the desire of some gays or lesbians
Why not?
So why don't you go ponder that while you wipe the shit off your dick.
Dude, why are you obsessed with my penis and where I put it? I ought to be flattered, but really I'm not. And trust me you are NOT my type.
Re: How far they've fallen (Score:2)
Oppression means human rights you had have been removed. You cant be oppressed if you weren't given rights you never had to start with plus marriage is not a human right as there are a number of circumstances it can be refused. Perhaps non catholic kids are being "oppressed" because they are not allowed to go to a catholic school?
Moron.
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Denying rights to gay couples that straight ones have is oppression.
You're only argument is that we've always oppressed gay people so it's just that we continue to do so.
You clearly dislike gay people and want to deny then the same rights and protections add straight people. I don't really care why, I am curious about why your to squeamish about it and want to pretend that you're not.
Are you religious? It's usually the good botherers who seem to have a bee in their bonnet about gay people, because some old
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Why don't you go look up whats happening in places like Iran or Saudi or Myanmar or what happened in WW2 to see what real oppression is. But of course like everything on the woke agenda, exaggeration is de rigeur because otherwise you people wouldn't have anything to shout and bang your drum about.
And no I don't dislike gays, I couldn't care less one way or the other and no I'm not religious. Not everyone who disagrees with the gay agenda is some right wing religious nut but I doubt you'd know about that in
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Why don't you go look up whats happening in places like Iran or Saudi or Myanmar or what happened in WW2
Your argument is that you're not as bad as Hitler?! This is not the devastating counterpoint you think it is.
If your defense of your personal crusade against gays is that you're not as bad as a bunch of genocidal maniacs then that is still pretty bad. How about gay people have the same rights as straight people? Any reasonable country should be striving to do well by its citizens not be slightly less bad
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tl;dr
Marraige should be between a man and woman IMO. If you don't agree then fine but don't pretend not having it is somehow oppression , it just makes you sound like another pathetic whiner looking for victimhood.
And newsflash: someone disagreeing with your opinions is not "hatred" cupcake whatever hyperbolic BS makes you feel better about yourself. I don't hate, I just don't care which probably scares people like you even more - nothing to rail against.
Now fuck off and go shout at the pigeons, you have no
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Yes you're a homophobic bigot. I understand that.
Don't pretend that denying rights based on sexual orientation isn't discriminatory (I.e. Oppression) just because you spend way too much time thinking about my dick and that makes you uncomfortable.
There is no rational reason to deny gay people the rights and protections of marriage.
If my opinion is that gay should not be discriminated against and you disagree then your opinion is hatred. You hate gay men in particular and want to hurt them by denying them eq
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Btw, get that hangup about your penis sorted with a shrink. I simply used a metaphor to wind you up - worked nicely, thanks! - but clearly you define yourself by it and what you do with it. Congrats on proving that empty vessels like you make the most noise.
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Viol8 said:
So why don't you go ponder that while you wipe the shit off your dick.
So I ask again, why are you obsessed with my dick?
I simply used a metaphor to wind you up
1. It's not a metaphor.
2. You're projecting more than an iMax. I'm neither wound up not have a hangup. I do wonder though why someone who hates gay men while claiming vociferously he doesn't care actually cares enough about my penis and supposed sexual habits to comment on it.
I suspect that once you are honest and give the underlying reason
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This is hilarious , keep going , I've got some popcorn! :o)
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Eh you got boring. I guess you ran out of homophobic positions to hold and just won't own you comments on my dick.
I didn't think you would.
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Your dick is your hangup mate, I'd speak to someone about it.
Spotted any kangaroos in your hole yet? You must need a new spade by now! :)
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Do you deny making this comment:
So why don't you go ponder that while you wipe the shit off your dick.
You're the one who brought up my dick not me. You might have it on your mind or something. I find that a little weird to be honest.
Re: How far they've fallen (Score:2)
Was to wind you up. Worked better than I ever expected :)
Have the last word loser (which I wont read - popcorn has run out) but it'll mollify your fragile ego no doubt.
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heheh the man doth protest too much.
We both know it wasn't a windup, it's you spending time thinking about my dick.
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Not giving some people the benefit of some legal nicety is not "oppression" and it doesn't cause any harm whatsoever except in the minds of delicate little flowers like you.
So you think Marriage has zero value? That's an interesting perspective (that I suspect is complete BS invented just for this argument).
And if so, why not let gay people marry?
"Or are you saying you don't believe gay people should have the same rights that you do?"
Not for marraige no. Nor should they be allowed to adopt kids unless there's no alternative since the kids unbringing is more important than the desire of some gays or lesbians.
There's more kids than adoptive parents so we've already hit your conditional.
And there's no evidence that gay people make worse parents. And if you're going based on parental quality you'll probably lose a lot of prospective parents before you start filtering out the gays.
So why don't you go ponder that while you wipe the shit off your dick.
And a little bit of straight bigotry just to make sure no one
Re: How far they've fallen (Score:3)
Kids need a mum and a dad. They dont always get them but deliberately denying them one or the other is child abuse.
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Kids need a mum and a dad. They dont always get them but deliberately denying them one or the other is child abuse.
Ok, so you have a child and there's three options:
1) Foster system until they're 18.
2) A single heterosexual.
3) A gay couple.
What do you choose?
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What is "Marry another heterosexual with a kid so that BOTH kids will have a mum and dad?"
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Alex, I'll take false choices for $200.
What is "Marry another heterosexual with a kid so that BOTH kids will have a mum and dad?"
Wow.... I'm honestly kind of stunned that you think that's even a retort.
You know, what, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, you somehow convince every single heterosexual who wants to adopt to also marry someone after.
There's still more kids then heterosexuals willing to adopt.
So
1) Foster system until they're 18.
or
2) A gay couple.
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Foster system. At least they'll get a normal nuclear family even if only temporary.
Next.
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Foster system. At least they'll get a normal nuclear family even if only temporary.
Next.
I wonder how many foster kids and adults who lived through the foster system would share your priorities.
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Why do so many homophobes have to call gay men cupcakes? The implication that you are a snack they only get to enjoy on special occasions or when their wife isn't looking feels like there may be something else going on with these people.
Someone's getting a bonus next year! (Score:4, Funny)
Nice job Laura!
BRING BACK NETSCAPE (Score:1)
And Eudora mail, that was truly the golden age of the Internet. In fact, bring back dialup, Windows 3.1, and Trumpet Winsock. GOOD OLD DAys
ALEXA ORDER MORE METAMUCIL
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https://www.seamonkey-project.... [seamonkey-project.org] for Netscape suite type using old Gecko web engine, Thunderbird's old engine, etc. Dialup? I can do that with slow DSL, crappy cellular, etc. No thanks to Windows 3 and WinSock.
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Bring back PDP-10, TENEX and ArpaNET!
So! (Score:2)
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Yup, beat me to it. Wanna bet the "5% of its workforce [...] primarily in the product development organization" are Firefox desktop developers? Because why focus on the one thing you have that doesn't suck when you can go chasing all sorts of pointless wank that no-one wants?
Having said that, if they're firing Firefox UI developers that would be win overall. Is Asa Dotzler being let go?
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In fairness, the article quote says "We intend to re-prioritize resources against products like Firefox Mobile" ("Against" is a strange wording but I think what was meant was "toward").
The two most important projects Mozilla has are Firefox Desktop and Firefox Mobile. Firefox Desktop is in very good shape. Not so much with Firefox Mobile, so it is unlikely they terminated people from either of those.
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"Firefox Desktop is in very good shape?"
Then why does the number of Firefox users drop steadily (not marketshare, but absolute numbers) over the past 5 years according to Mozilla itself?
https://data.firefox.com/dashb... [firefox.com]
True, it is possible Firefox product performance, features and codebase are all in very good shape. And that the usage drop is due to extraneous factors. However, quality and uptake are generally correlated.
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>"Then why does the number of Firefox users drop steadily"
Marketing
Compatibility (Score:2)
Re: Compatibility (Score:1)
Most often, these "incompatibilities" go away when you install a User Agent modification add-on and have Firefox identify as Chrome. For the same reason, the makers of the Vivaldi browser decided to always pretend being Chrome now -- the targeted handicapping was getting too bad. Of course, this severely restricts the ability to measure market share.
Some websites actually don't work -- because they
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Mental slip. This is another CEO in the pocket of Google bent on keeping them on top and away from anti-trust.
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I don't have any problems with Firefox Mobile. Whatever issues you have or had, were they really worth giving up uBlock Origin?
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I have been on Firefox Android Nightly for years. It's a rollercoaster... Sometimes it's almost great, other times (like right now) it kills my battery.
The main issue, the one they can never seem to fix, is that it just doesn't render pages well in many cases. Non-mobile pages are hit and miss, compared to how Chrome for Android nearly always produces something readable.
That and the Firefox UI on Android is, putting it kindly, awkward. Tab management is particularly painful.
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Absolutely not. Which is why I have it installed on all my Android devices.
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I read that as a concession that they'd lost the browser wars and Safari/Edge were good enough, with Chrome being the other option.
I may still have my Firefox OS phone in a box somewhere. Forget gimmicks, the priority for mobile should be keeping that PWA dream alive as a first class citizen on iOS and Android. And show some love for small screen Linux as per the Pinephone...
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Good enough for what? Those things aren't useful to me at all. If I switch from FireFox it's likely to be to Falkon.
Firefox Maker Mozilla (Score:2)
Firefox Maker Mozilla, thanks to specify it! News for nerds!
Fire the product team?? Is Laura stupid? (Score:1)
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As an AC, I have specific complaints.
Firefox used to be the browser that made the Internet less annoying.
There was a time you could easily stop the automatic loading of images, you could force GIFs to only loop once or even not at all.
There was a time when videos didn't automatically load and certainly didn't automatically play.
There was a time if you didn't like having the tab bar visible with just one tab open, it wasn't visible.
There was a time users had control over plugins updating, now they go back to
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I use Pocket. It's a nice way to store things away for later, without cluttering your bookmarks or keeping to many tabs open.
Also, it gets past the paywall on some websites and saves the whole page for reading.
I don't understand why people bow to the corporate overlords instead of using an open source browser, that while not perfect, is very decent and gets the job done.
Funny how... (Score:3)
... they never think of laying off the management team and the board members.
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I'm back to Firefox (Score:3)
Gave up on mobile a few years ago when they ruined it by getting rid of plugins. I'm back now. Gave up on desktop a few years ago when it had massive compatibility issues. I'm back now. Both work well. Don't miss chrome at all.
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Just came to say "me too" - the Mobile was in bad shape for a while. However, after you were able to start using extensions again in the Mobile beta - I have absolutely no complaints.
Considering the Firefox Mobile is the *only* browser where you can basically install any extensions you like, that would seem to be quite a differentiator against other offerings...
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There are chrome browsers on android with plugins. Kiwi for one. There are others.
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Yes. Kiwi, for instance, runs pretty much every desktop plugin, albeit with some weird interface issues sometimes. Firefox has most of those back anyway, so if you care about privacy, just use regular firefox on android. That's what I'm doing.
Opportunity? (Score:2)
Instead of focusing on improving a product where they have 3.3% market share (Firefox Desktop) they instead focus on a product where their market share is so abysmal they are lumped in with "Other" at 1% in the statistics?
Female in charge but not for long (Score:2)
beans (Score:2)
Bean counter takes over, whaddaya expect?
tab mix plus (Score:1)
https://github.com/onemen/TabM... [github.com]
It also took quite a bit of custom css to get the current firefox looking the way firefox 56 looked.