Apparently the dump doesn’t include media, though there’s ongoing discussion within wikimedia about changing that. It also seems likely to me that AI scrapers don’t care about externalizing costs onto others if it might mean a competitive advantage (e.g. most recent data, not having to spend time and resources developing dedicated ingestion systems for specific sites).

I want to stress this: it’s not that “tech bros” are just stupid—even though a lot of them are revoltingly unappreciative of the giants whose sholders they stand on—it’s that they don’t care.

No one who uses Mozilla software wants more cloud shit or online services from Mozilla.

I don’t think that’s unanimous. I’d like to use Firefox Relay, myself, and I’m willing to give thundermail a chance.

Used to think I’d go full Proton eventually, but leaning more towards a diverse set of service providers, nowadays. It’s also my hope that these services allow Mozilla to depend less on companies like Google, and more on the users they ought to serve, which would be healthier for the org and better for users.

Yes, sort of. Thundermail addresses, apparently, or bring your own. From the linked article you’re commenting on:

Users can send and receive email using new Thundermail accounts they sign up for. The service will also allow using your own custom domain (e.g. your.name@yourdomain.com).

I should donate again. As someone who still depends on gmail, I keep forgetting how annoying it was to get ads every time I refreshed my inbox, before I switched to their app. Glad things seem to be working out.

If they’re user funded, their incentives are fundamentally different from Google’s. Even thinking as a business, it makes no sense to enshittify the way Google does. It’s a different choice, even if it’s not the choice you wanted.

They said it will be opt-in and are trying to make it local-first. Their provider(?) apparently allows fallback to nvidia cloud compute when the hardware can’t handle it.

I’m not using AI to write my fucking emails, regardless. Just wanted to let people know.

p.s. Sorry, I’m dumb, skipped over quote in parent comment. Point is, there’s more to the service than optional AI bullshit, and you shouldn’t have to disable it.

Might be nicer if they just didn’t care.

Check the comment section for the video version of this article by Niccolò, or the comment section of the post on r/browsers, or the replies whenever these issues are mentioned on Twitter, and so on, and you’ll find a bunch of brave people saying stuff like:

you unintentionally just made me like brave over firefox. now i can switch to a chromium based browser and not even feel bad about it

Yes i am installing Brave after this advertisment!

Thanks to this video I deleted Brave then redownloaded it

These were taken directly from the video. They’re on the mild side. Throw in also some “stop inserting politics (other than mine) into tech” comments, and a few homophobes not even trying to hide it. Rather than not caring, many of them like it a lot, especially the right-wing politics.

I don’t think every Brave user is a cunt, but fucking hell, are loud cunts seemingly attracted to Brave.

To folks bothered by this: know that the lead developer of Ladybird is a big fan of Brendan Eich.

I think there was a similar idea in the USA with the COPIED Act, but I haven’t heard about it since.

Can’t believe I forgot about it, already starred and waiting to see where it goes. Thanks.

I think the biggest difference is the fact Google owns the majority of the web browser market share, but there’s more to the cases than “big company owns big browser,” it actually has to do with Google’s search engine deals (e.g. with Apple and Mozilla) and Google’s ad business stifling the industry.

Oh, it absolutely is, sorry if it felt like I was challenging that. It’s just a reminder to temper our hopes.

Sadly, Servo more or less halted when Mozilla laid off people in 2020. It only really started back up in 2023 when they secured new external funding. That said, I don’t think Servo intends to be a fully-fledged Browser like Ladybird. While LB intends to be a car, Servo plans to be a great engine, but only that.

…on the other hand, Ladybird’s lead dev seems like trouble. So maybe I’d rather wait for a Servo-based browser instead.

DOJ probably isn’t able to guarantee chrome & potentially android are taken over by totally ethical, stable companies/NPOs who will keep the projects open source

This doesn’t seem like their job. This is antitrust, as long as the result isn’t monopolistic, that’s it, no?

The monkey giggles. Mozilla completely pivots to adtech & AI.

P.S. for the record, I continue using a Firefox fork and don’t plan on stopping. Criticism where it’s due, but I still think they’re the best option.

:( sorry to hear that. Out of curiosity, what app/UI are you using?

Not sure what I expected. For the equally curious with no foresight:

It’s just a lousy, metaphorical title. The real Firefox killer already exists, and its name is Chrome. I didn’t mean to imply something about your expectations for Ladybird, my bad.

Honestly, if it was actually economically viable and made all bullshit go away, I’d happily pay for a browser.

I don’t think Mozilla could switch to that model without significant restructuring the likes of which they’ve little inventive to go for.

Mozilla seemingly can’t help shooting themselves in the foot, but I refuse to use Ladybird given its leadership.

…Also, although this is minor, LB effectively doesn’t exist, so of course it’s unblemished—it hasn’t had time to fuck up yet. Even the prettiest, sweetest organizations screw up in various ways. I see no reason to believe LB will be different in the real world, outside of announcements and fundraisers. Let them launch first, give them a year or two (Mozilla’s been at this for decades…) before deciding whether they’re fit to be Firefox Killer.

That said, I’d love to be proven wrong. Even if only to have something I could point at, show to Mozilla, and say “Look. That could’ve been you. Where did things go wrong, and what will you do about it?”

I remain skeptical of using solely LLMs for this, but it might be relevant: DARPA is looking into their usage for C to Rust translation. See the TRACTOR program.