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Mozilla lays off 70

(techcrunch.com)
929 points ameshkov | 11 comments | 15 Jan 20 19:48 UTC | HN request time: 0.406s | source | bottom
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strict9 ◴[15 Jan 20 21:06 UTC] No.22058568[source]▶
Not sure of Mozilla’s financial or organizational structure but it seems to be part of a larger trend of de-emphasizing QA departments at software shops large and small over the past 10 or so years.

In many ways test automation tooling has become much easier to use, develop, and manage.

But I suspect the larger driving force is that it’s (arguably) a cost center for an org. The burden of ensuring software quality can be shifted to devs and PMs, though usually with mixed results.

For Mozilla, axing quality and security first is a bad look when those are crucial aspects of a privacy-first company value.

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zelly ◴[15 Jan 20 21:57 UTC] No.22059192[source]▶
If there's anything they need to axe, it's the Gecko team. Just replace it with V8. The whole layout engine too--replace it with Blink. It is inevitable, so might as well get over with it now and save the wasted human effort and $$$.

I tried to use Firefox recently. It leaked 28 GiB of RAM on x86_64 GNU/Linux with no extensions except uBlock Origin. Happened a few times over the month whenever I visited JS-heavy websites. Never had that happen with Chromium, which runs through megs of JS like butter.

Wouldn't it be nice if an experienced browser dev team maintained a privacy-oriented libre version of Chrome (without manifest v3, sync, and all that trash). Or should they keep doing what they've doing and make the best pro-privacy browser that no one ever uses except indirectly through Tor Browser.

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1. fencepost ◴[15 Jan 20 22:20 UTC] No.22059422[source]▶
Could you clarify "recently" a bit more? Clearly it's after the release of uBlock Origin, but I'm pretty sure that there was a big effort to clean up memory use a few years ago.

Maybe it's poor Linux support, I have a distressingly high 4 digit number of tabs open on a Windows box and I don't think I've seen it go past 8gb with multiple weeks of runtime.

Edit: Win10 Pro on a Xeon with 48gb ram available

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2. zelly ◴[15 Jan 20 22:31 UTC] No.22059534[source]▶
Recently meaning 1 month ago
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3. usr1106 ◴[15 Jan 20 22:43 UTC] No.22059638[source]▶
What do you with a 4 digit number of tabs? How can you even find what you are looking for? (Honest question, no attack)

I hardly ever have more than 10 tabs open, and aggressively close everything I am not working with. I also shut down my browser twice a day (2 working locations) and never restore the previous session. I do bookmark some pages, but as a matter of fact I notice that I hardly ever refer to my bookmarks. I don't have the feeling that I am missing out on anything.

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4. fencepost ◴[15 Jan 20 23:13 UTC] No.22059879[source]▶
What do you with a 4 digit number of tabs?

Fail to go back and clear them out, mostly. Most were left open because of something relevant at the time, so I mostly need to spend a little time going through and nuking or nothing. There's been little friction due to leaving them open so it hasn't been a priority.

Pretty much the same thing that leaves some people with tens of thousands of messages in their inboxes (I deal with someone who does that and it makes my teeth itch, so my inbox isn't so bad).

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5. shpeedy ◴[15 Jan 20 23:13 UTC] No.22059882[source]▶
Previously, Firefox was fine on computer with 2GB of memory and hundreds of tabs. Now, 8GB is not enough.
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6. fencepost ◴[15 Jan 20 23:21 UTC] No.22059946[source]▶
If you have a limited number of sites that blow FF memory usage up like that within a limited time (and that you're willing to share in a bug report) then that might be something helpful to report. Failing that, there may be some telemetry available that might be able to identify problem areas, though I'm not sure what details would be.
7. tomrod ◴[15 Jan 20 23:53 UTC] No.22060199[source]▶
You might consider usint Zotero as a bookmark manager. It is originally for bibliographies. I don't think I can ever go back.

It has a fantastic FF extension.

8. bzbarsky ◴[16 Jan 20 06:06 UTC] No.22062060[source]▶
> How can you even find what you are looking for?

Type '%' (no quotes) followed by parts of the URL or title or both in the URL bar. Searches only your open tabs. I can usually find exactly what I want quite quickly.

9. saghm ◴[16 Jan 20 06:12 UTC] No.22062088[source]▶
> I hardly ever have more than 10 tabs open, and aggressively close everything I am not working with.

I must be quite an outlier, because even 10 tabs open at once sounds like a distressingly high number to me.

10. sfink ◴[16 Jan 20 06:12 UTC] No.22062089[source]▶
Have you checked how Chrome does with 8GB now?

Sadly, the sites out there have changed far more than any of the browsers have, and not for the better. They load a ton of crap that does not contribute to the value delivered to the user, but instead contribute value to the site owner and the dozen layers of intermediaries in between user and site owner.

11. usr1106 ◴[16 Jan 20 11:43 UTC] No.22063628{3}[source]▶
Right, my private Gmail inbox has more than 70,000 conversations (no clue how many messages). Using search I typically find quickly what I want.

As a programmer who has spent significant time with performance work, having useless tabs in a browser would hurt me. But that Google has to search through a bit longer list of messages I can accept as the typical wastefulness of computing these days. (I am old enough to have done time-sharing on 4 MB with 11 other students on their VT100)