Okay hear me out. What if we all chipped in 5 bucks to @firefox? How many people would it take to fund it well enough so they don’t have to do layoffs? I get it, the FOSS community wants the “F” part but we all should contribute some for good infrastructure. And the idea that search engine payments from Google is what keeps Firefox afloat should worry us all. We need browser engine diversity if the web is going to stay open and not littered with walled gardens any more than it already is.
The thing is they don’t need a one-off donation, they need a stable revenue stream. Can’t plan for the future if the financials are uncertain or bleak…
What if the community funded a living trust that accepted all donations in perpetuity and had set payouts regularly scheduled to Firefox (or other FOSS/privacy projects)?
They don’t need any money because they had a good browser once upon a time and made it so bloated and tracking and garbage that people quit using it.
It’s less bloated than the alternatives, and the tracking is opt in for the most part?
Browsers need to stay up to date with the features people need. If they kept it as the original “good browser”, it would have been ditched even harder
That was true when Chrome dropped, but that was years and many major ersions ago. FireFox is a different beast now. It can be annoying in ways, but it’s insanely customizable if googling tweaks doesn’t scare you.
I agree with this: Firefox claims to be privacy-focused, but if you truly need privacy, you have to use a fork like Librewolf. Chrome is a better choice as it supports PWAs and you can also use Vivaldi, which is more customizable and secure than Firefox.