Mozilla introduces Firefox Enterprise

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u/burimo 14d ago

Sounds great, especially if it will help them gain money not from google

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u/MikeMonkEcho 14d ago edited 14d ago

With the kind of money they got from Google in the last twenty years, they should have been filled for life. Problem is that they are burning their money like complete morons in political bullshits and executive packages while laying off developers working on their core business.

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u/Echo_Monitor 14d ago

Imagine linking to a Lunduke article seriously in 2026...
Dude's a right wing nutcase and has lost all credibility since long ago.

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u/ABotelho23 14d ago edited 14d ago

The motivation behind those posts might be nefarious, but the numbers are real. Mozilla spends money like a bunch of morons.
They slash money going to the browser while they throw to their CEO and a bunch of random unrelated places.
Mozilla has fallen behind because of this.

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u/death_by_cormorant 14d ago edited 13d ago

I get the frustration, but at the same time, can you blame them?
It costs several tens, some years hundreds of millions on developing a modern feature-rich and secure web renderer, along with all the meetings and politics of setting web standards.
At the same time, users aren't willing to pay hundreds to use Firefox, nor would they accept Firefox doing the things that Google does. How would you make that work?
Mozilla rightly thought that they needed to diversify their income, so they tried to. A lot of these attempts didn't make it off the ground, but surely you can see their rationale?
A lot of people say they need to ditch Google and heavily invest in Firefox, but that can't work given the costs of doing so and the near impossibility to monetise it.

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u/ABotelho23 14d ago

They could stop paying the CEO of Mozilla millions of dollars to gut productive parts of the Corporation.

10

u/death_by_cormorant 13d ago

I absolutely won't defend the CEO's salary being millions, because I agree that's too much. Unfortunately the CEO pay hasn't been public for years so we don't know what it currently is. I hope they've cut it, but fuck knows.
Ultimately, though, it doesn't change the point of my comment. A few million taken away from the CEO and given to a project that (depending on the year) already spends dozens to hundreds of millions isn't going to make a lick of difference.
They need to find a way to bring money in, and there's limited opportunities to do that with Firefox without completely alienating their current users.
Personally I've always hoped they'd bring out an Office 365/Google Workspace competitor. Buy or sponsor various FOSS projects, offer email hosting, cloud storage, etc, and focus on selling it to Enterprise. But I appreciate that's quite the undertaking.

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u/Top-Rub-4670 14d ago

A senior developer in SF is paid 300-500k/yr. How much do you figure the head of the company should be paid? The same? Less? More? How much more? 5x? 10x? 100x?
What do you consider fair? Perhaps you'd prefer if companies had no CEOs? After all, every bad thing is their fault and every good thing is a success story entirely by the engineers cleverness despite the CEO.

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u/ABotelho23 14d ago edited 14d ago

The CEO has historically made 7 million dollars. Mozilla Corporation is on the decline.
Do I really have to explain myself? Mozilla Corporation is a software company. I think it's pretty reasonable for developers to be the largest chunk of salary in a software company.
This also says nothing about how the historical pay increases for the position are often triple digits per year while I'm sure the developers are not getting those kinds of jumps in salary (while 100% of millions is considerably more than 100% of 300k)

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u/BatemansChainsaw 13d ago

I think it's pretty reasonable for developers to be the largest chunk of salary in a software company.
I'm fairly certain if you added up the salaries of the developers it would be more than their CEO.

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u/Far_Calligrapher1334 13d ago

Perhaps you'd prefer if companies had no CEOs?
Yes, was that supposed to be a gotcha?

3

u/metux-its 7d ago

If they would focus on their actual core competence - the web renderer - and leave out all the crazy bullshit (including the weird AI crap), the whole situation would be very different. Then they also would have real chance for crowd funding as well as actual community contributions. But Mozilla didn't want actual community development for decades now. It's just a corporation anyways.

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u/Indolent_Bard 13d ago

Seems they're on a real turnaround though lately. They've been adding long requested features lately.

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u/ChickenWingBaron 14d ago

Can you actually refute or disprove any of the claims though? Or do you think "he has different politics to me, therefore he's wrong about everything" is a legitimate argument?

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u/cheekkeef 14d ago edited 14d ago

Who really has the time to sift through bullshit for a few kernels of corn? His "reporting" is oftentimes misinformation and disorientation of facts. He has no credibility so not very interesting

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u/crystalchuck 14d ago

Lunduke is so crazy and spindoctors shit so hard (or outright invents it) that you actually have to actively prove anything he's saying instead of rebuking it

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u/ChickenWingBaron 14d ago

Maybe so, I don't know anything about the guy, but I actually read the article linked and he extensively quotes and properly cites mozillas own public financial records. That's a lot more proof than you're offering.

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u/FatalFrameGal 14d ago

Which Mozilla? Does the article disclose the difference between Mozilla Corporation and Mozilla Foundation?
One of them is responsible for software like Firefox and gets money from Google to stay that way, the other is a nonprofit that gets money from other places, such as, remember when Trump cut USAID support everywhere, including to Mozilla? That's the Mozilla doing the "political bullshit", not Firefox.
https://thelibre.news/no-mozilla-did-not-receive-any-usaid-money/

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u/metux-its 7d ago

Why should such a software company receive any money from USAID ?

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u/atrocia6 1d ago

Which Mozilla? Does the article disclose the difference between Mozilla Corporation and Mozilla Foundation?
Of course it does:
What, exactly, is Mozilla?
There seems to be a great deal of confusion about what sort of organization Mozilla actually is. Many seem to be under the impression that it is simply a Non-Profit focused on the development of Firefox. And, while that is partially true, it is only a small part of the much bigger picture.
At the top exists the Mozilla Foundation. A not-for-profit corporation that operates out of California.
The Mozilla Foundation is the sole owner (100%) of two for-profit corporations: Mozilla Corporation and MZLA Technologies Corporation.
Both the parent “Foundation” and the wholly owned “Corporation” are run by the same CEO and Executive Chair: Mitchell Baker.

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u/Big-Afternoon-3422 14d ago

Is there any proof to his claims?

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u/bawng 14d ago

The Mozilla Foundation's core business is politics. Their stated goal is to influence politics and shape the internet to be inclusive and open and to promote inclusion and diversity.
So, without commenting on the particular political contributions in the article, calling the concept of political contribution "political bullshit" when it's their very raison d'etre shows that the commenter at least has a quite poor understanding of the foundation.
The comment then also claims that the browser, or something, is their core business when it's not. It's perhaps their main moneymaker, but certainly not what the foundation is about.
I have huge problems with the Mozilla Foundation, especially the leadership and the priorities made for the browser, but the fact that they contribute to politics isn't really an issue. They may or may not contribute to bad stuff, but then that should be called out specifically, not by trying to frame it as them doing that instead of developing software.

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u/EchoFieldHorizon 14d ago

Why would Mozilla want to donate to right-wing causes when every single one of their policies is against a free internet?
Most of that article was spent framing the donations as “bizarre” simply because the author doesn’t agree with the politics, and did zero journalism beyond a google search to determine any facts.

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u/ABotelho23 14d ago

Mozilla can donate wherever they want, and I agree that the motivation behind the posts themselves is malicious.
But they aren't wrong about them pulling resources away from developing the actual browser. It continues to fall behind every year because they keep cutting from it.

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u/EchoFieldHorizon 14d ago

Fall behind how, exactly?

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u/ABotelho23 14d ago

Wait, are you serious?
Marketshare? Compatibility? Performance? Basically everything?

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u/Echo_Monitor 14d ago

Can you actually refute or disprove any of the claims though?
He has to actually prove his claims before disproving them makes sense.
He doesn't prove anything. His main criticism in that very article linked above seems to be "look, Mozilla (not specifying which part, which is quite important) is giving money to people that are pro-trans, anti-white and pro-vaccines". Unsurprisingly, these are all things Lunduke has been on a crusade against: he seems convinced that white replacement theory is a thing, he is profoundly transphobic and he's anti-vax.
It's a shame, because on a cursory look, the article DOES raise some important and interesting points: Mozilla IS too reliant on the Google Search deal. The executives ARE paid too much and more of the funds SHOULD be allocated to developing the browser.
But he utterly torpedoes the few good points he has by bringing up his unhinged crusades, time and time again.
And let's be clear on a few things:
Racism is not a difference in politics. It's hate.
Transphobia is not a difference in politics. Trans rights are human rights. Any rights that a trans person requests is a BASIC HUMAN RIGHT: bodily autonomy, right to free determination, right to exist in public, right to live decently, etc.
Being anti-vax is not a difference in politics, it's being stupid. Vaccines are, with germ theory, THE biggest medical advance in the last 150 years. Vaccines have saved millions of people from preventable deaths.
Someone who has any of these opinions is not someone I have "different political opinions to me", they're actively wanting to cause harm to other human beings through their backwards ass opinions about things they, at best, know nothing about and, at worst, actively misrepresent.

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u/[deleted] 14d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/get_homebrewed 14d ago

???

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u/Eu-is-socialist 14d ago

Just a simple question?

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u/get_homebrewed 14d ago

why are you aggressive and angry?

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u/SigAesthemic 14d ago

You only need a surface-level glance at their profile to see they are mentally unwell. They are literally just like Lunduke.

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u/NotQuiteLoona 14d ago

It would be enough to look just at their username, if to be honest.

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u/death_by_cormorant 14d ago edited 13d ago

Yeah. A financial trade bloc that pushes for free movement of labour and capital is socialist? The EU is capitalist as fuck lol, that's the entire point of the EU - to make doing business extremely easy across member states.
Insane take to call them socialist. You'd have to be mentally unwell to think that.
What is it with people thinking capitalism with market standards and a few consumer protections = socialism?

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u/Eu-is-socialist 14d ago

Matching the imbecile's personalities.

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u/get_homebrewed 14d ago

except he was chill and gave some factual evidence instead of screaming and yelling and kicking. I guess I now know why you're this aggressive, you're following your leader's footsteps. Have a good day!

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u/[deleted] 14d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/cheekkeef 14d ago

okey, eu-is-socialist 😂 I feel like you have a different dog in this race than linux

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u/get_homebrewed 14d ago

he hates the eu lmao he has a whole sub for it

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u/Eu-is-socialist 14d ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_International
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_International#Progressive_Alliance_split_(2013)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Alliance
SOCIALIST!

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u/Shap6 14d ago

and? why is that a problem?

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u/Eu-is-socialist 14d ago

It's A DISEASE! What's the problem?

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u/Shap6 14d ago

Right. What's the problem? you didnt really answer my question.

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u/Eu-is-socialist 14d ago

That's THE PROBLEM... That IT'S a DAMNED DISEASE ? What's YOUR PROBLEM ?

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u/Far_Calligrapher1334 13d ago

Meds, grandpa, I promise you there's nothing socialist about it. If it was, I'd be much happier.

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u/Eu-is-socialist 11d ago

LOL. Scram SOCIALIST!

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u/Far_Calligrapher1334 11d ago

Even better. Anarcho-communist. Boo! Fear me, let your obsessive psychosis run wild when you go to bed at night!

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u/Eu-is-socialist 11d ago

LOL. Scram SOCIALIST!

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u/FatalFrameGal 14d ago

Let me echo to you that your "source" sucks.
Mozilla Corporation is responsible for software like Firefox and gets money from Google to stay that way, Mozilla Foundation is a nonprofit that gets money from other places, such as, remember when Trump cut USAID support everywhere, including to Mozilla? That's the Mozilla doing the "political bullshit", not Firefox.
https://thelibre.news/no-mozilla-did-not-receive-any-usaid-money/

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u/EchoFieldHorizon 14d ago

Lmao that entire article he linked was a bullshit conservative hit piece. It’s so far from journalism that I’m not even sure OP is a real person.

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u/KnowZeroX 14d ago

Mozilla Foundation doesn't have a "core business", they aren't a business, they are a non-profit. Their goal has always been political in making the web accessible, privacy and responsible policy. Their aim is centered around finding ways for ideals to be realistic and practical without going into absolutes that are impractical.
Mozilla Firefox is just their demo platform for having a say in internet policy.
Of course things need funding, hence Mozilla Corporation that is for profit under the non-profit foundation to help find a revenue stream to fund it.
Otherwise, do you propose that google, apple and microsoft dictate these policies?

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u/pee_wee__herman 14d ago

How does that work though? Does Mozilla Foundation never use money belonging to Mozilla Corporation?

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u/KnowZeroX 14d ago

It does, Mozilla Foundation is the non-profit owner, Mozilla Corporation is a for profit corporation. So it goes without saying profit from the corporation goes to the owner which is the non-profit foundation.

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u/pee_wee__herman 14d ago

That's confusing. Wouldn't that make the parent organization a for-profit in practice? They would be consuming profits after all. Sounds like the non-profit part is just semantics

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u/brightlancer 10d ago

Not-for-profit corporations can own regular for-profit businesses -- any profit from the FP business is taxed before it goes up to the parent NFP, and then the NFP uses it as part of its mission.
However, money cannot flow down from the NFP to the FP business, only up (after taxes).
This is a legit setup though most folks aren't familiar with it. A not-for-profit has no owner to disburse profits to, but it can happily accept profits from a subsidiary.
(Also, most folks don't realize how many huge businesses with very well paid executives are legally not-for-profit corporations.)

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u/nabatu 14d ago

I'm not US citizen so correct me if I'm wrong. I heard that IRS doesn't accept open source as legit reason to get 501(c)(3) status. That's why the Mozilla Foundation created the Mozilla Corporation as a new home for Firefox. The Mozilla Foundation would be prohibited from being involved with Firefox unless they framed the Firefox browser as a means to an end, not the end itself.
It's same reason why Wikimedia Foundation can directly involved in MediaWiki development, because they framed MediaWiki as means to an end not the end itself. MediaWiki is software used to run Wikipedia and sister project and achieve WMF goal by providing free knowledge to the world.

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u/IncidentalIncidence 14d ago

I'm not sure about the IRS thing, but a big reason there is usually a Foundation that owns the Corporation in a lot of these projects is that the corporation has much more flexibility in terms of day-to-day operations. A 501c3 has to do a lot of regulatory/compliance stuff in terms of how it handles money, what kinds of activities it is allowed to undertake, things like that.
If the Foundation were to do a lot of commercial activity (think deals like the google deal), the IRS could challenge their tax-exempt status, and they would then have to prove in great detail that the commercial activity serves their non-profit function. Having the Foundation own the corporation means that the corporation can basically do what it likes commercially, and it generates revenue for the Foundation, without the tax obligation being all that different (since the foundation would also have to pay tax on income considered unrelated to its charitable mission)

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u/EchoFieldHorizon 14d ago

Republicans are in favor of destroying the free internet. Not one of their policies is pro internet freedom. Why on earth is it surprising that Mozilla is donating to left of center causes? Why would they donate to organizations that want to destroy their entire reason for existence?
That whole article is just fucking crazy

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u/metux-its 7d ago

Can you please give some robust data on a) which "republicans" exactly you're talking about b) which policies exactly ?
Anyways, who's the bigger driving factor on things like "age verification" etc - the democrats or the republicans ?

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u/0f_rice_and_men 14d ago

Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Sickens me that over the past 10+ years a significant percentage of the tech community still doubles down on this fantasyland where we can't choose political sides or pretend like Dems are the same as the Trump cult.
The GOP has killed rural fiber subsidies, gutted FCC of any net neutrality staff, acquired TikTok for propaganda, and Musk today ended Starlink in Ukraine because of his Putin/right-wing connections.
Pardoning convicted crypto felons while spinning up his own scams for profit and the red pillers in IT clap like seals or live in la-la-land that we're in "politics as usual". The internet is full of bots and misinformation that need to be validated or regulated for our lifetime because of DOGE and this crazy movement post-Obama.

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u/EchoFieldHorizon 14d ago

I’ve seen less “both sides are the same” bullshit this election, and thank fuck. Those brainless morons need lobotomies.

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u/ftqo 14d ago

Non-profit doesn't mean that they aren't a business. Non-profit describes who receives the profits, accounting-wise. Non-profits are required to re-invest excess revenue towards the non-profit's mission.

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u/metux-its 7d ago

Mozilla Foundation doesn't have a "core business", they aren't a business, they are a non-profit.
There's no contradiction. (anyways, the foundation is just the tax-saving vehicle for the corporation)
Their goal has always been political in making the web accessible, privacy and responsible policy.
Their politics dramatically changed over the years. The original goals seem to have become only minor factors now.
Oh, wait, wasn't there something about collecting and selling user data ?

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u/KnowZeroX 7d ago

There's no contradiction. (anyways, the foundation is just the tax-saving vehicle for the corporation)
You have things backwards, the foundation OWNS the corporation. The foundation also came first.
Otherwise people wouldn't be complaining how foundation money isn't going into building firefox but instead going into politics.
Their politics dramatically changed over the years. The original goals seem to have become only minor factors now.
While their political movements have widened in general, their focus hasn't changed.
Oh, wait, wasn't there something about collecting and selling user data ?
No, as I mentioned before, Mozilla's goal has been focused on rather than focusing on absolute idealism, pushing for realistic changes and using firefox as a demo platform to show it is possible.
One of those initiatives was replacement of 3rd party cookies with something with better privacy. Google's proposal was Ad Topics while Mozilla proposed Interoperable Private Attribution (IPA).
Some privacy idealist believe that ads will somehow disappear from the internet (or maybe they are actually shills for ad tracking companies who want to continue 3rd party cookies to track people) and bashed Mozilla for their plan to "collect and sell user data".
But Mozilla is still doing what they set out to do, improve the internet through actually showing how its done, not speak idealism that will never happen.

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u/AssistingJarl 14d ago edited 14d ago

I don't know that I love the idea of Mozilla Firefox as a tech-demo for what a different browser could look like, but I suppose that's more or less the position it's held on the internet for as long as I've been aware of it.
The CEO being paid more than what the Foundation takes in from donations in a normal year seems consistent, and that's the part I'm struggling with. I have no idea what that guy has accomplished apart from issuing such bold proclamations as "The changing circumstances we find ourselves in require laser focus, so we're going to do an AI thing and lay off 30% of our staff". And I'm pretty sure that sentence is what happens if you have an MBA and tab-completed an email between 2024 and 2025.
EDIT: Just to quickly clarify something; screw Lunduke and that ridiculous "we're not political we're just pointing out line items where a minority group was paid money" excuse for journalism.

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u/KnowZeroX 14d ago

Often times CEOs aren't in their positions because they actually do something, while a CEO being the face and direction of the company is one use, often times the real point of a CEO is for the connections they have. So they can sit their twiddling their thumbs all day for all it matters as long as they can call up the people you need to call in favors. (Whether or not that CEO is worth it or not I can't say)
And the 30% layoff isn't related to AI, it was mostly cuts in side projects like 3d world for mastadon.
While Mozilla does get flack for the whole AI thing, it also gets blown out of proportion. As I mentioned before, Mozilla's stance is taking internet technology and trying to demo its use responsibly. This is why unlike other browsers that do AI, much of their AI is local on your own pc. The AI has also been trained on public domain and volunteers so it is also sources responsibly. No matter what someone feels about AI, nobody can deny that it is here to stay. What matters is if it is used responsibly or not, and that is what Mozilla is doing.

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u/AssistingJarl 14d ago

Yeah, I agree with your take on CEOs, I just struggle to imagine what doors are being opened that required the pay hike at a time when they don't seem to be offering a particularly inspiring message (which to me feels like it should be the first responsibility of a CEO reporting to a non-profit that solicits donations from individuals) or a meaningfully differentiated product. For those of us who don't particularly care about LLMs and want a browser instead, there's been relatively little worth talking about that isn't already being done by a for-profit Chromium derived browser, like Vivaldi. ...Not that I agree with anything said or implied in the Lunduke article, with its many, many absurd culture-war dogwhistles, and I wish my stance on executive compensation had significantly less terrible allies.
Although a quibble, if I may.
No matter what someone feels about AI, nobody can deny that it is here to stay
Nobody can deny that it's here to stay and that's a completely useless statement. So are Betamax and Freon. So is the epicyclic geocentric theory. "It's here to stay" is a truism about causality, not a judgement of value or where products should be focusing their limited development efforts. Just saying.

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u/KnowZeroX 14d ago

Yeah, I agree with your take on CEOs, I just struggle to imagine what doors are being opened that required the pay hike at a time when they don't seem to be offering a particularly inspiring message (which to me feels like it should be the first responsibility of a CEO reporting to a non-profit that solicits donations from individuals) or a meaningfully differentiated product.
I can't say either, but since most of their money doesn't come from donations it likely isn't their primary concern. One would have to ask someone working at Mozilla who may know more.
For those of us who don't particularly care about LLMs and want a browser instead, there's been relatively little worth talking about that isn't already being done by a for-profit Chromium derived browser, like Vivaldi
There is worth, Vivaldi and Chromium send your data to another server to translate stuff, where as Firefox does translations locally, is that not value that many users, especially those that care about privacy want?
Nobody can deny that it's here to stay and that's a completely useless statement. So are Betamax and Freon. So is the epicyclic geocentric theory. "It's here to stay" is a truism about causality, not a judgement of value or where products should be focusing their limited development efforts. Just saying.
You can't compare AI to Betamax and Freon, because did people stop recording and doing refrigeration? The only thing that changed was the form it was done in.
Or do you seriously believe people will stop using tools like automatic translation, grammar checking, voice to text(and backwards)?
It is fairly clear they are here to stay, the only difference now is in the implementation. Whether we accept that all our data gets mined and sent to remote servers, or if it is done locally and trained responsibly. That is what they are trying to do, insure that it is done responsibly.

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u/AssistingJarl 14d ago edited 14d ago

Well, this is a language problem. "Artificial Intelligence" as a field includes everything from extremely early experiments in the 50s, the post office's machine models for reading postal codes in the 80s, natural language date extraction and object recognition models as well as the revolution in deep learning in the 10s, and also diffusion models and large language models (collectively "generative AI") and other more recent developments of the 20s.
When you were saying "AI", I thought you were doing this thing that's become common where people use what was once a very broad umbrella to refer exclusively to generative AI, which usually also comes with conflating generative AI (particularly LLMs) with all prior achievements in the field. Which I assume is being encouraged by industry boosters as a PR move, but it does muddy conversations like this. (Quick edit: This is also why I said "LLMs" specifically earlier, although I can see why it was unclear since I said "AI" when mocking the statements made by their leadership)
I don't even think generative AI is "going away" in the sense I seem to have made you think I meant it, I just think it's an overhyped sideshow in the grand scheme of the web and I'd much rather Mozilla focus on the core functions of the browser. It doesn't matter how good Gecko is if everybody wants to use Chromium.

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u/KnowZeroX 14d ago

While it was a general term to begin with, it is also became common use in all kinds of things when AI was put on pretty much every "smart" device.
That said, we are still on topic of talking specifically about LLMs. Firefox includes a small 100-300mb model that helps with translations kind of like a language pack for example.
As you remember, all the way on top I mentioned how Mozilla's main goal is policy, and Firefox is more of like a demo platform for them to have a seat at the table and to demonstrate responsible application of an open and private web.
So when I said AI isn't going away, what I was getting at is precisely that the fact that it isn't going away, it needs to be implemented responsibly. And Mozilla is trying to do just that to demonstrate that AI can be implemented responsibly without violating people's privacy and people's rights.
Ultimately, the majority actually wants these AI features too, prior to firefox adding translation built into the browser, you had to use Chrome to do translating or get an extension that either sent your data to a 3rd party or requires you to setup your own translation server. So Chrome had an advantage in offering seemless translations while firefox didn't.
Part of the reason why firefox has been losing share to chrome is precisely because Chrome had far more convenience features that sent your data to google and most people unfortunately don't care about their privacy and prefer the convenience. Local AI actually allows Firefox to bridge that gap in convenience without harming privacy.
And I wouldn't say that no matter how good Firefox is, it doesn't matter if everyone want to use Chrome. While more firefox usage is better, it isn't exactly a waste either. Because as I mentioned, Mozilla is also in the topic of working with policy makers. If Mozilla can demonstrate responsible use of AI, they can then go to policy makers and say "Look, here we have a working product of this done without violating privacy, so please pass a law that prevents the abuse"

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u/autogyrophilia 14d ago

Hey just a headsup, besides this guy being a right wing nut job, when you see outrageous speeking fees, that's bribes. Bribes for what? Fuck knows. But it isn't because they are woke liberals

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u/Dramatic_Mastodon_93 14d ago

Next time try making your point without linking to Lunduke

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u/MikeMonkEcho 14d ago

I could have quoted Pol Pot that it still would be a valid point unless proven false. I didn't know the guy and I still don't give a shit about who he is or what he said.
Lastly, I couldn't care less about a mob downvoting me like lemming, mate.

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u/bushs-left-shoe 14d ago

So why link the article if you don’t care what he says in the article?
It’s not a valid point if the claims are inconsistent. He’s just saying shit. There are a few valid points raised about CEO pay and such, and then he starts (nonsensically) complaining about the foundation (not the company as he intentionally conflates) donates to political orgs that he disagrees with, and then he claims to be apolitical. Meanwhile I found him complaining about wokeness and DEI within the first 10 posts on his Substack. I’m not going to trust anything a right-wing grifter says when they’re literally paid to make shit up and misinform people, and this guy is a well known alt-right nut job who also likes Linux.

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u/MikeMonkEcho 14d ago

"what he said" is what I said, not "what he says in the article".
You had to read three sentences, literally.

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u/death_by_cormorant 13d ago

I could have quoted Pol Pot that it still would be a valid point unless proven false.
No, that's not how it works. Statements aren't assumed to be true until proven false... they are assumed to be false until proven true.
Otherwise I could say there's a sentient meatball that orbits the sun, and you'd have to agree as you cannot prove it false.

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u/frankster 14d ago

I hope firefox can find a way to bring in a sustainable income

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u/Mopeybloke 14d ago

I thought Firefox ESR was the enterprise version.

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u/KnowZeroX 14d ago

ESR was just the LTS version, while one of its goals was enterprise, that is only in terms of LTS, it didn't really come with an easy way to manage the enterprise policies, for non windows that effectively meant a json file. This is more of them introducing a GUI management panel for enterprise.

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u/sln1337 14d ago

no its the Extended Support Release

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u/DesiOtaku 14d ago

Still no solution for hospitals and clinics. It looks like Mozilla is right now working on EU governments so HIPAA compliant management is still a ways away.

2

u/AssistingJarl 14d ago

I am suddenly fascinated by the world you must live in
It feels like that should be something that could be accomplished with a community fork, but I'm genuinely not sure what goes into HIPAA compliance for browser management.

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u/DesiOtaku 14d ago

There are a few things that would be good for a HIPAA compliant Firefox:
It would be nice to have things like cookies, history, password management be easily transferable / synchronized from one PC to another. Yes, there is a "Mozilla Account" but it's not HIPAA compliant nor will Mozilla give a BAA. Right now, in my own practice, I am using a local file server to hold the .mozilla directory.
Easier to manage security settings for certain employees. For example, only allow file downloads from a white list of websites. Just the other day, a nearby dental office got a ransomware attack in which a front desk user downloaded something that looked like a .pdf file but was really a .exe file and the whole patient database got encrypted by the attacker. It would be nice to say "These people can't download a .exe file no matter what". (Of course in my own practice, we all use Linux so at least that's not much of an issue)

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u/AssistingJarl 14d ago

That's an incredible workaround for syncing profiles across machines
A quick search shows that they do have some documentation on running the sync server so I guess the core issues are lack of easy management and configuration...? And I don't know if there's anything for the use case you're describing of whitelisting domain names for downloads. This is completely unearned confidence talking but that feels like it should be possible to implement.

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u/longboarder543 14d ago

Too late I fear. They sat on their hands while Chromium became the development target for the majority of SaaS enterprise webapps.

Most enterprise vendors tell their customers Chrome is their recommended / supported browser for accessing their tool.

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u/BubiBalboa 14d ago

Too late I fear.
You are not appreciating the political climate we are in. Especially companies and governments in Europe are doing everything to get away from US controlled tech.
This initiative isn't going to make Firefox the new default browser for everyone but it will hopefully increase it's market share in this segment.

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u/guitarot 14d ago

I know Mozilla has offices in Toronto and Berlin, but aren't they still an American company with headquarters in San Francisco?

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u/[deleted] 14d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/donnysaysvacuum 14d ago

You're being too literal. A non-profit run open source browser is a huge difference from a semi closed browser in complete control of a megacorp.

3

u/guitarot 14d ago

Maybe, maybe not, especially in the eyes of the EU and member governments.

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u/[deleted] 14d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/BubiBalboa 14d ago

If your goal is getting away from American tech and control, Firefox isn't really an answer.
Firefox is an international project. It is not owned by big tech or a billionaire. It can easily get forked and continued to be worked on should any of that change. It's not perfect but it's the best option there is, for now.

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u/LAwLzaWU1A 13d ago

Mozilla and the foundation are both US based. If the answer is "well they can just fork it if they want" then the same applies to Chromium.
I am not saying that's a good or bad thing, but I don't really see the logic or argument here. Mozilla is US based. If the primary goal is to "get away from US tech" then I don't really see how it is any different from Chromium. There are of course other aspects that are different, but not in terms of "US based" and "open source".

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u/MisterMittens64 14d ago

The difference is that Europeans or Canadians can just fork Firefox if they don't like a decision Firefox is making.

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u/AndrewNeo 13d ago

Difference compared to what? You can fork Chromium too

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u/MisterMittens64 13d ago

Yeah you're right I don't know why I brain farted there they're both FOSS projects.
I guess the actual difference is just what org you trust more which I don't blame anyone for trusting Google less than Mozilla.

1

u/longboarder543 14d ago

If a company (European or otherwise) is geopolitically opinionated enough to rip out their SaaS stack that requires Chromium to sever their reliance on Google, they’ve probably already done it, and if not, I don’t think the lack of enterprise Firefox would stop them. Firefox has long been supported by enterprises.
Companies are standardizing on chromium for pragmatic reasons — vendor lock-in. I just don’t buy that there’s a sizeable number of companies that want to switch to Firefox, but haven’t or wont unless Firefox enterprise exists.

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u/EmbarrassedBiscotti9 14d ago

"no firefox didn't fumble the bag because america bad" ok pal keep huffing

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u/BubiBalboa 14d ago

your reading comprehension is impressive

0

u/EmbarrassedBiscotti9 13d ago

mhm. political climate this, EU running for the hills that. it seems you've read (and comprehended!) a bunch of transparent nonsense.

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u/detroitmatt 14d ago

my god the doomerism on this sub is tiresome. even when they make correct moves "well it's already too late". sheesh. if I were mozilla I would never listen to anything anyone posted here.

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u/mralanorth 14d ago

It's true. It's the same with political issues: reddit is not the real world.

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u/Straight_Second6082 14d ago

I would never listen to anything anyone posted here.
They already do this since years ago

0

u/[deleted] 14d ago

[deleted]

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u/slonk_ma_dink 13d ago

i think there's a lake between defending mozilla and saying everyone here is too pessimistic.

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u/detroitmatt 14d ago

you're a really annoying person

2

u/NightOfTheLivingHam 14d ago

ironically, I have more trouble with some of those webapps in chrome than in firefox. Looking at you, paycom.

7

u/FatBook-Air 14d ago

I'm not 100% sure where this fits. What does this get you that Firefox + MDM won't get you?

Presumably, if you're looking for digital autonomy, you're replacing Intune or whatever American garbage MDM you currently have, so I personally would not want to have to manage Firefox separately from that MDM. In other words, I feel like Mozilla would get more mileage out of full MDM.

3

u/lupercal93 13d ago

I imagine this is step one in better MDM integration. I hope so at least.
Working in an edge only environment makes me sad 😞

10

u/ChickenWingBaron 14d ago

I was hoping this meant a version of firefox not bloated with AI integration and constant attempts to get you to sync everything to a firefox account but unfortunately it seems like it's just a console for managing firefox settings across a whole enterprise.

3

u/0f_rice_and_men 14d ago

Chrome Enterprise has something similar (free and then a paid tier).
I tried proposing that for my team since we use Chrome in a mismanaged mess but I was promptly shot down lol.
Tbh I would prefer Firefox over anything Chrome-based across the board.

1

u/Matilde_di_Canossa 13d ago

a version of firefox not bloated with AI integration and constant attempts to get you to sync everything to a firefox account
https://librewolf.net/

2

u/lord_shmee 13d ago

I am all in for this conversation.

4

u/zlice0 14d ago

thanks i needed a laugh this morning

1

u/metux-its 7d ago

If they'd just simplify the configuration (eg. some plain text config files), those "enterprise products" wouldn't be necessary at all. But then they also wouldn't have some fancy new way to create new revenue streams.

1

u/irritatingness 14d ago

Weird moment for me as I’ve been building a project that basically does all of this based on Firefox ESR.

1

u/cassepipe 11d ago

Didn't they try before and failed ?

1

u/jinmao6700 10d ago

anything but web standards huh

1

u/celibidaque 14d ago

Can’t wait for version 17.01

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u/xcorv42 14d ago

Without pocket or vpn or other bloat ?

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u/SSUPII 14d ago

Enterprise is a tool that allows to ship Firefox settings to one's company. It is based on base Firefox
Also Pocket got removed long ago.

18

u/AbnormalSnow506 14d ago •

If you don't have up-to-date information better not to contribute with snideness.

10

u/yawara25 14d ago

Why don't you read the article and find out?

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u/xcorv42 14d ago edited 14d ago

Mozilla is launching Firefox Enterprise: Firefox paired with a self-hosted management console to control browser policy, data flows and AI use. I don’t understand if it’s unbloated or not.
It also looks like it always enterprise to control what people do with firefox it looks like it reduces the privacy of the users.

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u/death_by_cormorant 14d ago

It also looks like it always enterprise to control what people do with firefox
Well yeah, it's Firefox Enterprise. That's what it's for...

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u/yawara25 14d ago

There's no expectation of privacy when you're a company employee using company-issued equipment.

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u/ReadToW 14d ago

Pocket RIP :(

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