I really wish Mozilla would focus relentlessly on a privacy-first, performant browser across major platforms. Nothing else. I don’t want extensions (attack vector), vpns, fancy bookmarking services that are deprecated later on etc. I want to browse the web safely and privately and preserve battery life - nothing more.
I wouldn't want a browser without extensions. Ad blocking in particular.
To me, ad blocking belongs in extensions. The job of a web browser is to show web pages as intended according to the standards. It includes all the ads, tracking, etc... the page has put in. If you want to block stuff or deviate from the standards in any way, that's what extensions are for.
And extension like ad blocking are an arms race, websites will deploy countermeasures to make them less effective and to which extensions can respond. Again I dont want the core browser to participate in an arms race. Keeping it free of vulnerabilities is already hard enough not to fight against standard behavior.
Extensions are the primary threat to your security today. Nothing else comes close. Organizations are not basically competent if they are not restricting or blocking extensions, and you should not have more than one to three very trusted extensions in your browser. I'd argue the case for eliminating them in favor of in house code is significant.
As a reminder: Extensions execute with post-decryption access to the websites you view, and they update to new code silently and without asking for permission. HTTPS might as well not bother existing if you have extensions you do not have incredible trust in.
I would argue that building in extension-like features inside the browser is worse. In both cases, that's extra code, with security implications, but in case of extensions, you can choose not to have it.
Now, that's a question of whether you trust those who write the browser more than those who write the extension.
And by the way, the argument you have is the same that justifies the much hated "manifestV3", which makes extensions less powerful for security reasons. But it also limits the blocking capabilities of browsers to a simple, less effective blacklist. That Firefox still supports the old "insecure" way is a big selling point over Chrome.
If I couldn't use the ublock origin extension with Firefox, I'd leave for another browser. I consider it essential for privacy reasons as well as for adblocking, and I can't imagine it hurts battery life compared to all the ads and other crap it blocks.
Firefox's VPN service also has its privacy-related uses (yes, I'm aware of the limitations), but I think it mostly serves as a possible source of non-google revenue for Mozilla.
Extensions were why Firefox was so popular among those considered 'abnormal.' Chrome just copied the idea. VPNs, Pocket, and sync services are all great features; it's their implementation and execution that is so poor.
All Mozilla (and Firefox) needs is to be run by developers, not the fucking MBAs.
> focus relentlessly on a privacy-first, performant browser across major platforms. Nothing else. [...] to browse the web safely and privately and preserve battery life - nothing more.
"Nothing more," you say.
The chief focus should be Privacy... Privacy and Performance... Our two chief focuses should be Privacy and Performance... and Cross-Platform Executables with Functional Parity... Our three chief focuses should be Privacy, Performance, Cross-Platform Executables with Functional Parity, and Safety on the Web... Our four chief focuses should be Privacy, Performance, Cross-Platform Executables with Functional Parity, Safety on the Web, and ruthless Efficiency in Preserving Battery Life... Our five... no... Amongst our chief focuses... Amongst our non-trivial chief focuses that users think are easy... are such elements as Privacy, Safety on the Web, Cross-Platform Executables with Functional Parity... I'll come in again.
How do you expect Mozilla to make enough money from just Firefox to survive if Google ever decides to stop paying them for being the default search engine?
Charge me. I’ll pay. I’m not going to donate to the org right now as I don’t use Firefox as it uses (noticeably) too much battery on my MacBook compared to safari and chrome.
Notably, also, it's not currently possible to donate to Firefox; you can only give Mozilla money to use on unrelated projects. As a Firefox user, the inability to pay for the thing I actually want is grating.
