please analyze an alternative strategy: Chromium-based Firefox
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(Firefox :: General, enhancement)
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(Reporter: marius.andreiana, Unassigned)
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I've read Mozilla believes that they can contribute a perspective on the market that is more user-centered by owning and building their own engine, not being beholden to corporate interests that are not necessarily in favor of user agency.
Reality check:
- Firefox has decreasing a 4.5% market (March 2020) which means being ignored when 'contributing a perspective'
- Many bugs/enhancements are ignored as Mozilla doesn't have enough engineering resources
- You're being left out from collaborations such as https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2019/10/15/form-controls-microsoft-edge-chromium/
Before closing this as 'heresy', would you please kindly consider doing an internal, non-biased, pros/cons analysis of the two alternative strategies, current and Chromium-based? Where will Mozilla be in 1 year from now with each of them?
With a Chromium-based solution, Mozilla could focus development efforts on
- privacy features
- extensions store
- other user-focused benefits (eg enable extensions in the mobile Chromium build).
- developing additional web standard features, enabling developers to build more powerful webapps instead of Android/iOS native apps for some features (and go through Google&Apple approvals and revenue cut)
- other privacy-oriented services, free and paid (eg email hosting, a Google Apps alternative...). Having just a web browser is no longer enough to keep users, as other services like Google Search, Google Apps, MS Windows prompt users to switch browsers.
I'd prefer to store my data with Firefox Sync instead of Google, while not wasting time on issues already solved in other browsers. For example, I tried to switch to Firefox 75 on Linux today. Chrome passwords import doesn't work on Linux, fonts are bad. Spent 1hr to tweak various font settings suggested by others, then gave up.
I also understand some Mozilla engineers prefer to stick to current code as that's their baby. The alternative means to give it up, but consider adopting & making other babies benefited by more people.
Comment 1•5 years ago
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Please move this to some discussion forum or mailing list.
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