<i>As Firefox turns 20, Mozilla ponders how to restore it to its former glory</i><p>Invite the C-Levels here to HN. People have been discussing browser issues as long as they have existed. Those in power just need to take the feedback seriously and people here would need to do their part to summarize the serious issues, maybe even prioritize and risk - benefit - reward rank them. It would be on the HN crowd to exclude the personal preference issues and only focusing on things that keep Firefox from being the most popular browser. A consensus of the top 12 issues so to speak. Rinse and repeat once a year. List the serious issues in a Poll [0] for votes, excluding things that can be changed using addons. When the poll completes email all the executives or do a zoom call <i>ideally coordinated by someone that works there and is a member of this site</i>.<p>[0] - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll">https://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll</a> [requires 200 karma]
Overreliance on Google = bad ending.<p>They would have to de-google, and be forced to cut most of their staff. This is largely considered intolerable. Google won this one. The way I see it, there are 3 possible futures for the web, in order of likeliness:<p>a.) The current status quo could remain, and Firefox will hover around 3-5% marketshare, maybe boosting up to 10% or 15% when people realize they need ublock origin to tolerate using the internet.<p>b.) The U.S. could break up Google via antitrust law, which would force Mozilla to either find another (likely just as bad if not worse) sponsor, or, less likely, tighten their belt and "restore their former glory".<p>c.) Ladybird brings about a new browser revolution. Awesome, "safe" codebase from the ground up with compatibility, stability and efficiency with modern technologies deprecates everything else. Swift becomes widespread and well loved.
Nothing needs to be done. It is amazing already ...<p>with some small additions<p>previous extensions like wxDownloadfast have stopped working.<p>Can you do something for native extensions like good old times? I miss them.
Dev tools:<p>Familiarity and muscle memory for the layout of the chrome dev tools is what keeps me using Chrome during the day.<p>That and Chrome profiles!<p>I do happily switch to another browser for actual web browsing things.
Become a non-profit. If GNOME can alienate all of its users yet still be the de facto default desktop Mozilla can figure out how to do whatever everyone else is doing abd just do it.