TL;DR: Mozilla’s translation bot on Support Mozilla (that is currently overwriting user contributions is based on the closed source, copyright infringing LLM, Google Gemini. This is in spite of Mozilla claiming that they are at the forefront of open source AI, and belies their exhortations to choose to build open source AI and data sets. Although Mozilla has experience in attracting open contributions for data sets in projects like Common Voice, Mozilla is using a closed data set to overwrite open contributions. Since (paid) Gemini queries do not train the model, Mozillians can expect to correct errors every time the bot automatically updates an article.
For me the requirements in a browser are:
- Works without many issues
- Has extensions (or built-in features) that do what NoScript, Ublock Origin, Dark Reader, CanvasBlocker, and Redirector do on LibreWolf
- Relatively secure
- Open source and free from corporate evil
- Not annoying in any major ways
When the required extensions get made for Falkon, I’m probably switching
When they are in late beta or ready for use, I will try Servo-based browsers and Ladybird
currently I use LibreWolf
I won’t use regular Vanilla FF. I do like Zen tho!
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Sigh. At this rate I can see a day where I end up switching to WebKitGTK’s MiniBrowser as my main rather than having it as a “secret” backup.
Do we have a web browser that uses Servo engine yet?
Most website do not run on servo
Not even remotely close yet unfortunately.
Google puts up a major chunk of the funding Mozzia gets in a year. If you don’t want them being the default choice in search or having your queries fed to their bots then start putting up the money to make their support no longer required.
What’s the amount they get donated or funded? So we know how much to raise yearly.
Something around $500M and $600M yearly. And it’s around 90% of all Mozilla revenue
That’s a lot of donations!
Voting with your wallet doesn’t work when you are the product. They don’t care about your money when google’s will dwarf any amount individuals could hope to raise, even collectively. Nothing prevents them from just taking both your money and google’s and changing absolutely nothing.
start putting up the money to make their support no longer required
There’s no way individual donations from ordinary people could match Google’s. They’re also likely to be less reliable.
Mozilla doesn’t even ask for donations from users a whole lot, and the money they receive mostly doesn’t go into development of the browser:
These funds directly support advocacy campaigns (i.e. asking big tech companies to protect your privacy), research and publications like the *Privacy Not Included buyer’s guide and Internet Health Report, and covers a portion of our annual MozFest gathering.
https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/donate/help/#frequently-asked-questions
Not really conductive as long as most funds are siphoned by the C-suite ranks. Get rid of the C-fat first, maybe even turn Mozilla into a co-op, then have the People fund it.
It’s too late to give (life) support. Web browsers are a dying ecosystem as it’s too complex to create competition. Why not abandon them and instead support software that does a seperatable part of what modern browsers do?
HTML is old and weird and its browsers have a bad ecosystem. The way to go would be to ignore xkcd 927 and make a new standard and a pilot browser for it. The hard part would be getting people to use it.
I don’t necessarily disagree on the complexity point, but I don’t think breaking up the functionality of a web browser fixes the issue.
Web browsers are one of those basic tools everyone who uses a computer relies upon. Breaking that up would not only lead to user frustration, I think it’d introduce brand new territories bad actors like Google could monopolize. Now that unified “web browsers” exist it’s incredibly difficult to ask users to stop using them. It turns from “download this program” to “download these four or five separate programs and follow this guide to learn how to daisy chain them together into a browser equivalent.”. That’s a reasonable ask for some people. Hell, it’s a reasonable ask for me frankly. But your average user isn’t going to have the time nor the patience to attempt to make that solution work.
Lets all go back to Gopher.
I am 100% ready to replace my browser with a blend of Usenet/RSS subscriptions, maybe sprinkle some Gemini (not the G*gle AI) atop of it. Fuck it, I might even get a library card for shits and giggles.
Man I collect library cards. At this point I’m a member of three different library systems. No joke, libraries are amazing and one of the best resources we’ve got left in this country. Go get a card man!
Their support isn’t required though, it’s desired.
Mozilla have millions of $, they are actively investing in various money making schemes (sorry, financial investment vehicles) well outwith the original scope of Mozilla.
They take the money because they want the money, they could refuse it any time they want. But they won’t, because they don’t want to. They’re not a poor FOSS project with an independent developer that needs donations to survive, stop treating them like they are.
Mozilla has created some brilliant software, but they’re leaving their original mission behind, burning goodwill with many people around the world, and setting themselves up to be shunned by the open source community the second a viable alternative pops up.
I just hope the alternative doesn’t take too long to materialize
I didn’t hear anything bad about Servo.org
Everyone is invited to help the NetSurf project.
I thought Mozilla lost the google funding in the monopoly ruling?
Looks like it’d still a thing
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/09/google-antitrust-ruling-firefox-search-deal
The first ( without the ) is making me go crazy haha
God I’m happy to not be the only one. I read the thing the times trying to figure out where it was closing it
#Error
contrast with vivaldi explicitly taking a no ai stand in the browser.
But also not open source.
True. Still, afaik, they haven’t done anything shady.
They also haven’t written a browser. It’s an apples and oranges comparison. There are plenty of Firefox derivatives that don’t have all the bloat that Mozilla, et cetera, is putting into there. That’s not the point. The point is how controlled they are by one of their competitors, namely Google.
There are only three main browser makers. Chrome by Google Firefox by Mozilla and WebKit/Safari now maintained by Apple but derived from Linux’s K desktop environment web engine. There are a lot of wrappers written around these, but at the end of the day, there’s still just the three.
The one real interesting bright spot though that I’m looking forward to is servo. Originally started by Mozilla, but now completely free of them. It’s not yet in a daily driver’s state, but it’s looking to be quite interesting.
Out of curiosity, how are Konqueror and Falkon relates to the big three?
Their websites say they use KHTML or KDEWebkit (Konqueror) or QtWebEngine (falkon). Are these downstream adaptations of apple-WebKit?
Judging by the QtWebEngine page, it doesn’t explicitly say it, but I think it is based on chromium.
Konqueror is a bit harder to figure out. Maybe QtWebKit. Is this also Chromium?
Apple’s WebKit (WebCore+JavaScriptCore) was originally a fork of KHTML/KJS. They shared at the beginning but not very well. They eventually opened up their source and made changes that were more friendly to other developers. A lot of browsers and embedded renderers use WebKit, now, besides Safari and KDE based ones.
Google forked WebCore for Chromium. I don’t think they share a codebase, anymore. Edge, Opera and many embedded renderers use Chromium.
Anyway, I just think it’s interesting that most every browser out there is descended from KHTML.
Yes, they are both WebKit, though largely irrelevant. Personally, I’m a daily KDE user. I did install falkon out of Curiosity for a short while. But neither it or konqueror are generally in any distributions base install. Including KDE neon.
They are usable, so long as you don’t use any sort of add-ons.
Falkon is based on Qt web. So it is also WebKit.
Correction Falkon and Qt web engine are indeed chromium. Konqueror alone then would be WebKit
QtWebEngine is Chromium, not Apple WebKit
Ah you are correct. Thanks for the correction. I may have read otherwise, somewhere, but who knows that may have been an AI-tinted site. It’s been a hot minute since I last messed with programming using QT. I could have sworn it was webkit but the facts are the facts.
Which is entirely not the point.
Some of it is.
Open source is like being pregnant - you either are are you aren’t. Vivaldi isn’t.
This is wrong. There wouldn’t be as many open source license if it was as clear cut.
There are many open source licenses. Being closed source isn’t one of them.
What i’m saying is, there are many interpretations of open source.
So, neither is Linux?
Depends on the distro and whether you want your wireless card to work or not
Wanna show me the free version of Vivaldi?
Here you go. Like Linux, where “everything but drivers” is open source, everything but the UI is open source.
So what is that, a build of Chromium with no Vivaldi features? What is the point exactly? I can download Chromium by itself already. I’ll even get edit history, unlike the big tarball that Vivaldi gives me.
Mozilla is over.
The money from Google was surely what killed their browser. I’m not saying there was a behind the scenes deal. They just got lazy and spent Google’s money in stupid ways instead of improving their product so that they could gain a real userbase.
Imagine if they spent that money towards just the browser (not possible, but imagine anyways), we could be in a very different place where Chrome doesn’t have 99% (or whatever it is) market share.
Firefox is a good browser, but where could they have been today if it was prioritised over paying the CEO millions for nothing? They have recently been sorta catching up, i’ve seen a lot of updates that actually include features I use, but I think it’s too late.
Time for one of the new built from the ground up browsers to shine when complete. I still stand by Firefox and recommend it, but as soon as their is an open competitor that is production ready, I’m outta here.
They have undoubtly done amazing things for the web, but their idiocy is astounding sometimes and I don’t wanna stay on a sinking ship. I’d rather use a new browser that helps keep the web secure, safe a pleasant for us all without annoyances or dumb beurocracy.
The rot has set in. There’s no getting it out, now.
The rot has set in in 2017.
You may have misunderstood me: when I said “the rot has set in” I was referring to the end point. “The rot has set“ would refer to the beginning point.
It is a confusing way of speaking (which I only employed for style), and our collective confusion is a great example of why we don’t speak this way anymore. Lol.
I see. Not a native speaker here, but working on it! Sorry.
Rather than coming to a common understanding, you decided, instead, to insult me.
And how do you think I should respond to that?
How in the world did you read an insult in that?
I’m sorry for your troubles. Best wishes!
you decided, instead, to insult me.
???
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It’s funny seeing the sudden surge of “copyright is awesome!” On the Internet now that it’s become a useful talking point to bludgeon the hated Abominable Intelligence with.
Have any actual court cases established that Gemini is violating copyright, BTW? The major cases I’ve seen so far have been coming down on the “training AI is fair use” side of things, any copyright issues have largely been ancillary to that.
Copyright isn’t awesome, it is useful. The whole basis of open source is built on the concept of copyright (copyleft), so alignment with copyright isn’t “sudden”, it is fundamental.
Copyrights is mostly used by big companies to fuck with the competition so they can keep a strangle hold on the consumers.
It’s a deeply flawed system not in any way to our advantage. Actually having copyright laws strengthened so they apply to AI training would instantly kill the open source scene and make certain only a handful of companies can afford to put out models.
Copyleft is built as a protection against big companies and how unfair the playing field is because of copyright laws. It’s like saying crime is a good thing because without it, we wouldn’t have a police force.
Not disagreeing with you - just saying that the legal underpinnings of open source are the copyright regime.
I’m disagreeing with the positive spin you are trying to put on it. We have cops because of crime. Having cops is a good thing (mostly) but we wouldn’t need them if there was no crime.
Well Anthropic chose to settle their piracy lawsuit out of court which probably indicates that they thought there was a reasonable chance they could have lost the case. No legally binding precedents set yet though afaik.
Why is this being downvoted so heavily?
Oh no! Better delete that woke tranny Firefox and install Brave™ the Crypto AI browser.
Am I doing Lemmy right?
No, that’s reddit. Here we’re all just depressed as we watch all the good things fall apart.
Firefox Fanboys still: LEST IT NOT CHROME!
