From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On 2025-02-24, Marco Moock <mm+usenet-es@dorfdsl.de> wrote:

On 24.02.2025 03:51 Uhr Retrograde wrote:

Title: Mozilla once again confirms it???s all about ads and ???AI??? now

Confirms again that my choice of Pale Moon was a good decision.

Quick question: do you know if I switch to palemoon will it pick up and
use my existing profiles etc?
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From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On 2025-02-24, Retrograde <fungus@amongus.com.invalid> wrote:

From the «browser game is lost?» department:
Title: Mozilla once again confirms it’s all about ads and “AI” now Author: Thom Holwerda
Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2025 00:42:27 +0000
Link: https://www.osnews.com/story/141757/mozilla-once-again-confirms-its-all-about-ads-and-ai-now/

We’ve recognized that Mozilla faces major headwinds in terms of both financial growth and mission impact. While Firefox remains the core of what we do, we also need to take steps to diversify: investing in privacy-respecting advertising to grow new revenue in the near term; developing trustworthy, open source AI to ensure technical and product relevance in the mid term; and creating online fundraising campaigns that will draw a bigger circle of supporters over the long run. Mozilla’s impact and survival depend on us simultaneously strengthening Firefox AND finding new sources of revenue AND manifesting our mission in fresh ways. That is why we’re working hard on all of these fronts.
↫ Mark Surman on the Mozilla blog[1]

None of this is new to anyone reading OSNews. I’ve been quite vocal about Mozilla’s troubles and how it intends to address those troubles, and I’m incredibly worried and concerned about the increasing efforts by Mozilla to push advertising and “AI” to somehow find more revenue streams. I think this is
the wrong direction to take, and will not make up for the seemingly inevitable
loss of the Google search deal – and my biggest fear is that Firefox will get a
lot worse before Mozilla realises advertising and “AI” just aren’t compatible
with their mission and the morals and values of the last few remaining Firefox
users.

I don’t have any answers either, of course. Making a competitive browser is hard, and clearly requires a lot of people and a lot of time. Donations are fickle, nobody will pay for a browser, and relying on corporate sponsoring in other forms than the Google search deal will just mean Firefox will become like
Chrome even faster, with more and more exceptions for “allowed” ads and additional roadblocks for adblockers to try and work around. In essence, I strongly believe that it is impossible to both earn money from online ads and make a good browser. It’s one or the other – not both.

There’s basically no competition in the browser space, and if we lose Firefox,
the only other option is Chrome and its various skins. Not a future I’m looking
forward to.

Links:
[1]: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-leadership-growth-planning-updates/ (link)

As Dillo 3.2 supports MathSVG, I don't need any bloated browser at all.
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From Newsgroup: comp.misc

anthk <anthk@openbsd.home> wrote:

As Dillo 3.2 supports MathSVG, I don't need any bloated browser at all.

\o/ _____( Yayyyyy Dillo! )

Dillo reliably makes me smile.

The other browser I currently keep an eye on is Chawan. Guess why!

Hint: It's not only about SVG. I just tried MathSVG today, but this
cutie has some other hidden qualities too:

<https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?pid=54845#p54845>
--
Fact checking died. Now we can call Trump smart without fearing
consequences?
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From Newsgroup: comp.misc

yeti <yeti@tilde.institute> wrote:

<https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?pid=54845#p54845>

Upsi....!

<https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?pid=54846#p54846>
--
I do not bite, I just want to play.
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From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On 24/02/2025 03:51, Retrograde wrote:

Making a competitive browser is
hard, and clearly requires a lot of people and a lot of time. Donations are fickle, nobody will pay for a browser,

Does the browser need to be changed much now?

Service providers need to provide apps, so:

(1) they do not need to give cookie popups
(2) they can certify and take responsibility for compatibility with
their server-side interfaces, because the users can't (not even by commissioning their interaction devices with strong warranties).

So they could pay for whatever and the firefox developers don't need to
care. The rest of us only need good-old web (if only the informative
content still existed or could be found).

The big problem is providing for sandboxed installation at real-world locations, so I can get the app direct at a bank location without
involving a 3rd party distributor who may control my activities or
shoe-horn themselves into a stronger position against me and my
preferred service providers.

Really, I want to go back to the 1990s game console interaction concept
using a wallet-sized card like a cartridge. Computing declarative UI instructions and network messages in a credit-card format could be done
in the 1990s. small message encryption can be done now, surely? Let me
slot my bank card into my interaction device and get the bank app
on-screen without it having meaningful control or access to the device
and have my banking secure against all but infiltration of the
interaction device.

Aren't we even reaching the point where the card has the touchscreen and
needs only a battery and radio to be pressed against it so it can be the
whole app? If it's not a really important app, or it's just another
calendar and ticket buying app they can just become plugins to a well-generalised app anyway.

The full turing-complete app is a huge problem, amazon is presenting
one-click buying for £2000 purchases as an up-sell on £0.00 product
pages in a web-format where buttons jump around the screen as pages load
and dangling USB cables click all over your screen while you sip your
tea so something's got to give to take browsers back away from the
trading coal-face.

--
Tristan Wibberley
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