Interview: Firefox's chief on why he hopes a redesign will help win users from Chrome
arstechnica.com
Mozilla's Ajit Varma explains why a redesign suits the fight for the open web.

Mozilla once again notices that, in spite of the lavish salaries they heap upon their techbro executives, Firefox’s userbase continues to dwindle. Could this be because they don’t operate a monolithic surveillance advertising racket? Or maybe it’s because the corners in the UI aren’t round enough.

https://www.firefox.com/en-US/whatsnew/157/

Choice quote from that interview, which was important enough to get a big box in the release notes too:

We are bringing back compact mode as well

We removed it for absolutely no goddamn fucking reason, despite numerous objections, and now we’re bringing it back! This is called ‘listening’, you see. We are very dependable can definitely be relied upon to provide a stable browser that you won’t have to worry about.

Somehow those executives just can’t work out that unless you can advertise Firefox in all of the search engines and youtubes and gmails and docs and drives and whatever the fuck and preinstall it on all the phones, the Chrome users will not come. “Ooh shiny” is the least of anyone’s concerns.

    • cristian64@reddthat.comEnglish
      61·
      2 days ago

      Well, to me this is yet another redesign; still no support for WebUSB. I worry and rant because I care, as I don’t ever want to use a Chromium-based browser. So, Firefox should really put focus (as well as focus in blog announcements) on the true important aspects of the web.

      • klankin@piefed.caEnglish
        3·
        2 days ago

        I think thats an intentional choice, because the security and privacy over the current implementation (which is designed around chrome fingerprinting as always)

        • rhamph@awful.systemsOPEnglish
          12·
          2 days ago

          Moaning about missing features from a nonprofit, and volunteer project doesn’t look good.

          Mozilla Corporation, whose CEO was paid six million dollars last year, and 6.9 million in 2022, is a nonprofit volunteer project?

          • Soyweiser@awful.systemsEnglish
            6·
            2 days ago

            Of course the CEO gets paid that, if they don’t do that they run the risk of running a profit, gotta get rid of the money somehow. /s

        • flowerysong@awful.systemsEnglish
          62·
          2 days ago

          I’m sure they don’t make silly decisions for no reason.

          Ah, I see you’ve never used Firefox or paid attention to any of the decisions that Mozilla’s leadership makes.

            • self@awful.systemsEnglish
              4·
              2 days ago

              it’s rich to fill this thread with exhausting fandom for mozilla of all corporations when you’ve only been a daily Firefox user since 2018 (cute)