They fired the inventor of Javascript as their CEO. They hired some grifter as their CEO who just keeps giving themselves more money. They keep throwing money at vanity side hustles. They purposefully confuse the Mozilla foundation with the browser, and have increasingly made the foundation redirect their funds to C level salaries and their own personal political passion projects that are not aligned with the Mozilla Firefox project. If there were actually focusing on being the best browser and web privacy, it would be good. But they aren't.
At least part of the Mozilla antagonism on HN comes from highly motivated culture war participants. The Brendan Eich situation was a seminal event, but the underlying reasons for it are why the grudge endures.
If Mozilla were consistently making good decisions in the years since then, nobody would be wasting their time with "What if Eich were still in charge?" The only reason anybody still talks about that ousting is because they have other more current grievances with Mozilla.
Also, the reason HN has so many people ready to gripe about Firefox is because HN still has a large number of people using Firefox. I never complain about technical or policy decisions from Chrome or Safari because I don't use those browsers! The only reason I have complaints about Mozilla is because I actually use Firefox.
I used to give money to Mozilla foundation, even when I didnt have much. Then I learned none of it goes to firefox. I think if Eich was still in charge there would be more focus on Servo, Rust, etc. making a better browser and less on selling AI and channeling money to absurd NGO causes.
Eich's own company, Brave, is pushing AI plenty hard: the Brave browser promotes a "smart AI assistant" called Leo. That's much more AI integration than I see in Firefox.
I don't speak for everybody but personally I like applications experimenting with ways of using new technology instead of taking some sort of political stand against AI. Firefox's translation extension is based on such technology I believe, and works well enough, I like it. Going further, like Brave is doing, also seems interesting. I think people who get upset about ineptly implemented AI features are being a bit unreasonable. It's new technology so people still have to. figure out what does or doesn't work. Mozilla using funds to develop new browser features is something I want more of, not less.
Experiment if you want. But leave it at that until it's polished. I shouldn't have alpha features forced on me as a default.That's the primary problem with this AI push. Google keeps trying to push "AI mode" in my face, Microsoft tries to stamp Copillot on my main Taskbar.
At least when Rider asked me about it, I say "no" once and that's the end of it.Cool, no hard feelings. You're $15 a month is earned.
If there's anything that the Steam and Apple cult has taught me, it's that people will forgive a LOT as long as they feel like they are being appealed to. Both companies had their fair share of culture war issues, but it's water off a ducks' back as long as they respond fast, offer a basic apology, and then continue to push out exciting features.
Mozilla has had 13 years to do that post Eich and they just don't. Every step forward has an asterisk to it if you dig a little.
