The idea behind the parent comment is not that they can't compete, but they are specifically made not to.
Sort of a puppet browser made only for proving the court that the giants are not technically a monopoly, while ranking a bare minimum number of users for them to count.
While that's not entirely unreasonable, I don't think that's the doom of Mozilla.
Puppet or not, their tangled codebase makes it a pita to contribute anything if you're not being paid a salary for it.
Despite having a high expectation for the "free browser", deep down we know that it's the same "Free in theory" software, not unlike Java or Vscode.
Software that's made by a company and once they stop pouring money on corporate development and support the project will become a zombie in no time.
It is completely unreasonable and (willfully) ignores the long, long list of places where Mozilla has fought against the other vendors including (especially) Google on privacy grounds.
It's the sort of thing people say mostly for their own self-satisfaction, without actually thinking about it or trying to figure out the answer. Like: "both parties are the same" or "what have the Romans ever done for us"
Mozilla can do a lot more to fight on privacy grounds. I realize it isn't going to happen since even enabling a lot of the existing privacy features by default is going to break many websites (which, in the minds of most people, would reflect a broken web browser), so they are stuck talking about it while end users have to jump through a bunch of hoops if they want to get the browser as it is advertised.
Yes, I agree completely. You cannot even compare Chrome and Firefox because the sheer privacy violations of Chrome make it not a worthy competitor. The difference is, nobody cares.
Google develops Chrome and Chrome relies entirely on Google's money. Google is the default search engine. They are much, much, MUCH more tightly coupled to Google than Firefox could ever be.
But nobody says anything. And yet, Firefox makes Google the default search engine, and everyone has a think piece on it. Firefox is dead, they say, they're just Google's puppet. Then what is Chrome?
Sort of a puppet browser made only for proving the court that the giants are not technically a monopoly, while ranking a bare minimum number of users for them to count.
While that's not entirely unreasonable, I don't think that's the doom of Mozilla. Puppet or not, their tangled codebase makes it a pita to contribute anything if you're not being paid a salary for it.
Despite having a high expectation for the "free browser", deep down we know that it's the same "Free in theory" software, not unlike Java or Vscode. Software that's made by a company and once they stop pouring money on corporate development and support the project will become a zombie in no time.