Mozilla Laying Off Around A Quarter Of Their Employees

[treba]

Mozilla is one of the worst offenders in restricting freedom of speech and opinion.

No it's not. <- Equally valid opinion. Do you have any facts to support your claim?

[paupav]

Huh? Apparently I don't exist. I use Firefox on both my Android phone and my Windows PC. Hell, our entire University uses Firefox as the default browser system wide.

EDIT: Also, why is everybody dancing on Firefox's grave? Do you really want Google to have a near-monopoly on browsers? Without Firefox, that's what you have. A monoculture is bad for everyone, except perhaps Google stockholders.

we are just laughing because we've got used to companies dying because they've been mismanaged. And with firefox downfall was pretty obvious when Google released Chrome. They tried creating phone OS for some reason and other useless projects while their browser was neglected. Lets not even talk about Outreachy.

[Danny3]

WebAssembly is even more restricted that regular JS, which is sandboxed. Doesn't make any sense to block it whatsoever.
If you disable random browser features without necessarily knowing what they are and what they do, that doesn't yet mean those features are broken by design.

More restricted, really ?

Let's take web mining case for example, it's not that bad for your computer as it doesn't install /uninstall or delete files, it does pretty much nothing wrong, except that it takes a part of the processing power and consumes more of your electricity.
I think most web miners are written in javascript and since javascript source code is readable by the browser, it can be quickly identified as mining or not.
Since WebAssembly give better performance, the developers of web miners will most likely switch to it.
Now, how can a web browser identify a miner when it downloads just a binary blob and cannot see its source code ?
By CPU or GPU utilization ? That's clearly not a good idea.
So, good, for sandboxing, but it will not stop people taking advantage of using your computer through the web browser for something else that you thought of.

If WebAssembly doesn't require the code to come open as HTML / CSS / Javascript that the browser and users can analyze it, I think it will be broken by design.

I don't care so much about sandboxing as I care about privacy, security and not having my computer taken advantage of.

I'm sure that there are many bad users and companies that want to run unknown code to me on my computer as simple as visiting a page, but I don't.

[CommunityMember]

Mozilla needs to switch from a company that desperately tries to make money from a web browser ....

Mozilla has made much of their recent money (around $400M/yr) from search revenue (Google, Yahoo, Google again) and some distribution partnerships, both of which have declined in recent time. Arguably, enhancing privacy and disabling tracking (all good things in the abstract), meant that one could not reliably perform certain attribution of purchases, resulted in Mozilla shooting themselves in their own foot regarding a revenue stream. One will note that the CEO's statement mention the need for revenue, although I suspect that their VPN service will not be the savior they are wishing for.

[vladpetric]

Huh? Apparently I don't exist. I use Firefox on both my Android phone and my Windows PC. Hell, our entire University uses Firefox as the default browser system wide.

EDIT: Also, why is everybody dancing on Firefox's grave? Do you really want Google to have a near-monopoly on browsers? Without Firefox, that's what you have. A monoculture is bad for everyone, except perhaps Google stockholders.

Quickly, check if you're actually human! E.g., do you pass the Turing test?

[Mez']

So, we are holding our breath waiting for fixes on their Firefox Android browser that they broke with the 'big change' 2 months ago.

What did they break? Version 68 absolutely sucked but the latest version 78 completely destroys Chrome to the point I don't even use it for backup.
It's fast loading pages compared to 68 neverending loading, and I can finally use arrows to navigate in my written text to correct a mistake or add something I missed without breaking spaces and punctuation. Beats the digit positioning every time.

It's now on par with the desktop browser, leagues ahead of Chrome (for me) in terms of usability and features on the mobile front as well.

[krOoze]

If WebAssembly doesn't require the code to come open as HTML / CSS / Javascript that the browser and users can analyze it, I think it will be broken by design.

If you are able to analyze 10000 lines of minified JS, then I think you will be fine with WebAssembly.

Quickly, check if you're actually human! E.g., do you pass the Turing test?

Dammit, where's a captcha when I really need one!

[vladpetric]

The way I see it: WebAssembly - invented for browsers, great for cryptocurrency ... Am I wrong?

[Mez']

The management in the Mozilla Foundation have no one else but themselves to blame for the situation they are at right now. The problem is the Covid19? Are you kiding me? That thing was a god send for internet related businesses.

It might be for businesses depending on products or services for their revenues, I wouldn't be so sure though when it comes to businesses living through donations. I believe people are more inclined to redirect the money they would normally donate to more important/urgent/survival causes or just to maintain their lifestyle than to IT-related stuff. And it makes sense.

[crystall]

Rust is (mostly) community driven these days. There are (were?) a handful of Mozilla employees working on it, but even if Mozilla disappeared into a puff of smoke Rust would continue because it has achieved sufficient mind-share.

There's actually quite a few people working full time on Rust at Mozilla. That being said the project has a strong community so its survival is guaranteed.