Mozilla described the plan to destroy Firefox in detail

[CharmCityCrab]

Anyone know what Mozilla's gameplan is now for desktop? What is it that they think they can sell users on that's unique to it when they have finished implementing what they want to implement?

That's a serious question. One would think they must have a marketing scenario in mind. The only thing that's obvious based on what their product is going to be is saying that Chrome, Edge, and Safari are owned by giant companies that have operating systems and ad networks, and Chrome is "independent" and implied to be more likely to be looking out for users and making the best possible browser instead of the best possible conponent of a larger ecosystem, but in practice Firefox still datamines and everything else. What's the killer feature in their development roadmap that would make someone use Firefox over their competitors that they could sell people on?

A lot of their work is done out in the open. Has anyone asked them this?

I'm genuinely curious. I'm sure they have an answer. Maybe not (Okay, probably not) a *good* answer, but they've got to have a stretegy of some sort, one would think, even if it's one that won't work. Unless they are truly throwing up their hands and just trying to do a slow graceful wind down and let some more employees hit retirement age before the company isn't a company.

[PhilK]

Anyway, after that, Firefox started losing the second part of their audience, the one that wasn't served by Chrome, because when people see one browser being a very poor slow out of date imitation of another, usually they throw up their hands and go with the project that's ahead on the two projects' now common goals.

I think Firefox on desktop is pretty much done. It'll gradually bleed marketshare until it can no longer sustain work on the scale it needs to do its own code from top to bottom. Then it'll adopt Webkit/Blink with a Firefox skin. Then they'll sell to AOL and their old homepage will become a web portal. Wait, was that a little too literally the dying days of Netscape?

I think they seem to be working the privacy angle now - not something Google will ever likely want to compete with anyone on. (Last year Mozilla made an investment in a German privacy-focused search engine, and this year that company bought Ghostery. They are also now crowing about anti-tracking tech as seen in the preliminary promo pages for their new version posted ITT.)

Now, what I do see is a window for Firefox on Android. It has add-ons and ad-blockers, whereas Chrome for Android doesn't. Mozilla might consider putting a hige advertising campaign behind that. You might get some mobile share, which is where the action is, and some of those people will even switch to or back to Firefox on desktop so they can sync their browser histories and such with their newly adopted mobile browser. However, that only works until the point where Google allows ad-ons and ad-blockers on Chrome for Android to stop this hypothetical Firefox for Android growth. But at least that'd be some growth for Firefox, buying them time to figure something else out.

Google will never offer a browser with their name on it that blocks ads. Mark my words.

So FF does have a small window of opportunity on Android due to that, and their existing extension ecosystem, but that window could close fast with new players or products that so thoroughly outperform it in basic ways that they cannot maintain user loyalty anyway. (FF is already somewhat of an albatross on Android, among other things using up resources even when its UI is closed. And it's been taking forever to load SSL pages lately for me, tho I suppose one of my extensions could have a hand in that.)

[JustOff]

Next week Mozilla is going to shut down Aurora channel: Nightly 55, Aurora 54, Beta 53 -> (April 18) -> Nightly 55, Beta 54.

[wyMnNHXB]

Next week Mozilla is going to shut down Aurora channel: Nightly 55, Aurora 54, Beta 53 -> (April 18) -> Nightly 55, Beta 54.

Looks like even developers hate the idea of cutting extensions in 57, so they try to delay that moment

[LimboSlam]

Here is the council members plan of SeaMonkey's path: https://blog.seamonkey-project.org/2017 ... key-union/.

Personally, I believe they could do better if they wanted better; the word "contradicting" comes to mind when I read their blog post. Sadly, they are settling for whatever Mozilla settles for, "or if a fork gains ground and is able to keep up with current web standards, as well as all of the changes Mozilla is making."

In other words, "...we are not planning to support any abandoned stuff like classic extensions and NPAPI plugins on our own...once they are gone, they are gone...small team and do not have the resources to fork, or switch over to one of them as the basis for SeaMonkey because they are not up to par with web standards....."

[gracious1]

Here is the council members plan of SeaMonkey's path: https://blog.seamonkey-project.org/2017 ... key-union/.

Sadly, they are settling for whatever Mozilla settles for, "or if a fork gains ground and is able to keep up with current web standards, as well as all of the changes Mozilla is making."

In other words, "...we are not planning to support any abandoned stuff like classic extensions and NPAPI plugins on our own...once they are gone, they are gone...small team and do not have the resources to fork or switch over to one of them as the basis for SeaMonkey because they are not up to par with web standards....."

I don't really quite understand. SeaMonkey is its own thing, isn't it? I mean, if it is to be exactly like Firefox, why have SeaMonkey? Classic extensions and NPAPI plugins are the only reason I even have SeaMonkey installed.

What exactly is the point of SeaMonkey?

[LimboSlam]

What exactly is the point of SeaMonkey?

Exactly! Think Of SeaMonkey as another Vivaldi.. Or as an unmaintained browser if they decide not to follow Mozilla's path of destruction towards a Chrome alike browser.

[gproze5858]

I read this thread. It answered a lot of my questions. Took some time reading. I may have missed an answer or two.

Will this change effect palemoon in anyway?

Also, Will this make Debian mad? They just started to use Firefox again instead of ice-weasel. Debian believes in totally open source.

I read somewhere Firefox 57 may eliminate multiple users. If they mean multiple profiles, then I will definitely will have to switch to using Palemoon more. I use multiple Firefox profiles for banking it makes that real easy.

Will this effect the midori browser or any other Linux base browser?

Thank you for your answers.



Note to Moderators. I was a member here a long time ago. I forget my original email & user name. So, I created another account my apologize if you see the same IP address (Which does vary on occasion).

[PhilK]

What exactly is the point of SeaMonkey?

Exactly! Think Of SeaMonkey as another Vivaldi.. Or as an unmaintained browser if they decide not to follow Mozilla's path of destruction towards a Chrome alike browser.

There are quite a number of distinctions between Vivaldi and Chrome/Chromium, to the degree that I have never been even slightly interested in installing any variant of Chrome/Chromium until Vivaldi came along.

The main impetus behind Seamonkey was simply to preserve the integration of browser, email client and WYSIWYG HTML editor in one single application that classic Netscape Communicator and Mozilla Suite applications used to provide. That makes it quite a different kettle of fish compared to Firefox. (Which provides only one of those 3 functionalities)

[Moonchild]

Sadly, they are settling for whatever Mozilla settles for, "or if a fork gains ground and is able to keep up with current web standards, as well as all of the changes Mozilla is making."

They will never be able to get what they want -- a fork, by definition, will never be making "all of the changes Mozilla is making", because then it wouldn't be a fork.
The SeaMonkey Council obviously only wants to continue without change.

[Tomaso]

Here is the council members plan of SeaMonkey's path: https://blog.seamonkey-project.org/2017 ... key-union/

Basically, it doesn't sound like they have any plan. :(

[Sajadi]

Well, guess that means more or less that once xul is done and the ESR time span Seamonkey will be using is over, we have one more "Mozilla FireChrEdge" with just a different name and branding

[lyceus]

Will this change effect palemoon in anyway?

Pardon if your message got a bit forgotten. I can answer this question:

1. Pale Moon will be developed as usual, with Goanna as its core render engine. Getting patches, updates and whatnots. But...

2. When Firefox implodes, we may see several people coming here to get a browser that doesn't break their add-ons, extensions and plugins. This will put a bit of heat in the development and support. Did you remember v25 and the hype when Pale Moon removed some Firefox strings and settings? Expect something alike in that time, when updates may not cover all the stuff that people demand and will flow slowly to release when sorted.

My suggestion is that if you want to use Pale Moon in your Linux systems, start to do it now. As you will have a window for iron all the kinks that may surface and have a smoother transition.

[gproze5858]

Will this change effect palemoon in anyway?

Pardon if your message got a bit forgotten. I can answer this question:

1. Pale Moon will be developed as usual, with Goanna as its core render engine. Getting patches, updates and whatnots. But...

2. When Firefox implodes, we may see several people coming here to get a browser that doesn't break their add-ons, extensions and plugins. This will put a bit of heat in the development and support. Did you remember v25 and the hype when Pale Moon removed some Firefox strings and settings? Expect something alike in that time, when updates may not cover all the stuff that people demand and will flow slowly to release when sorted.

My suggestion is that if you want to use Pale Moon in your Linux systems, start to do it now. As you will have a window for iron all the kinks that may surface and have a smoother transition.

I just hope financial institutions will support Palemoon. I notice Moonchild has to put in Firefox or other compatible user agent for certain websites to function correctly in Palemoon. I always liked the multiple profile feature of Firefox & Palemoon.

Is it possible to copy the firefox profiles in Linux to Palemoon?

Just a note, I dual boot between Windows 7 sp1 & Linux mint.

I am going to be using Palemoon more. I may eventually get rid of Firefox in windows 7 sp1.

[PhilK]

Is it possible to copy the firefox profiles in Linux to Palemoon?

I wouldn't assume you can just do a simple copy of a Firefox profile and assume everything is compatible, and that would depend on which version of Firefox as well. However some data is compatible and most of the important things that are not can be easily enough imported.

[Falna]

I wouldn't assume you can just do a simple copy of a Firefox profile and assume everything is compatible

But these may help:

FEBE https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/febe/ enables you to backup and restore extensions (including into a new profile).
This version works: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefo ... 3.1-signed

OPIE https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/opie/ enables you to backup and restore (many, but not all) preferences.
This version works: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefo ... 2.1-signed

[PhilK]

I wouldn't assume you can just do a simple copy of a Firefox profile and assume everything is compatible

But these may help:

FEBE https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/febe/ enables you to backup and restore extensions (including into a new profile).
This version works: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefo ... 3.1-signed

OPIE https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/opie/ enables you to backup and restore (many, but not all) preferences.
This version works: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefo ... 2.1-signed

FWIW: I have found FEBE to be seriously buggy when used with Pale Moon 27.x. When attempting to import data, I have had freezes/deadlocks, as well as data missing after the import. So I no longer trust it for that reason. (I don't know if the issue is a basic PM compatibility issue, or the fact that we cannot use the latest version of FEBE because of FF version compatibility written into their manifest.)

OPIE has worked OK for me for packaging add-ons, but it doesn't save the add-on data which is a bigger issue for me than the add-on itself. Seems mostly useful for saving some time adding a pre-determined group of addons to a new install.

FEBE also has a "full profile" backup feature, which basically makes a complete copy of the profile folder, which works fine. But that's not difficult to do manually.

So at this point I mostly use FEBE as a way of scheduling regular full-profile backups and maintaining a defined number of historical copies of those backups

[Lootyhoof]

Off-topic:
Re: FEBE et al, for what it's worth the developer has recently stated that they would support "Fx clones and forks that still support XPCOM and XUL", including Pale Moon, once Firefox 57 is out.

[back2themoon]

FWIW: I have found FEBE to be seriously buggy when used with Pale Moon 27.x. When attempting to import data, I have had freezes/deadlocks, as well as data missing after the import. So I no longer trust it for that reason. (I don't know if the issue is a basic PM compatibility issue, or the fact that we cannot use the latest version of FEBE because of FF version compatibility written into their manifest.)

Never had issues with FEBE, it works great and it is trustworthy. You must not use the current latest version, but the Pale Moon compatible one (8.3.1 for now). Check this post by the author - he will continue to support Pale Moon with FEBE 10, later this year, while dropping Firefox support (due to WebExtensions inefficiency).

[JustOff]

Mozilla has disabled all add-ons that does not compatible with Electrolysis in Nightly 55. This can be reversed using hidden preference for now, but the end is coming.

Off-topic:
Please stay on-topic.