this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2024
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[–] Vipsu@lemmy.world 92 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Lemmy support would be much more fitting for Mozilla. They could add plugin or lemmy integration to their browser that could show discussions from subscribed communities matching the current url.

Effectively acting as a "comment section" but for any page. One would only need lemmy account to comment on youtube videos, news articles, blogs etc.

[–] mke@programming.dev 39 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I didn't want to rain on your parade, but:

  • Firefox has hundreds of millions of users.
  • Lemmy has less than half a million total users, and YTD MAU peaked at 52k.

Even putting aside technical details, I fail to see how "Lemmy integration in the browser" could be a good product strategy. A plugin/extension can also be developed by independent developers, which seems much more fitting for the size of the target demographic. Maybe I'm missing something.

Yeah, something like 50k users is a drop in the bucket. It's a nice size for a community, but not big enough to warrant a browser feature.

[–] Vipsu@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Well since they were/are hosting Mastodon instance they do seem to have some interest in the fediverse. They do also have official plugins.

Personally I feel something like this could be the next step for social link aggregation and discussion platforms. Being able to share and discuss on about videos and articles without having to register to dozens or more pages while also having some control over the people you interract with through instances, subscribed communities etc.

Source media would also be unable to control what can or cannot be discussed. Many youtube videos and news articles for example may block all comments. It would be up to community on how to moderate discussion.

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[–] SendMePhotos@lemmy.world 20 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Wow that might actually be amazing. A comment section for every page?

[–] SteveTech@programming.dev 13 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I swear Lemmy comments for YouTube had a feature that let you open it for any page, but it seems the GitHub and Firefox page been deleted.

Edit: Looks like I've still got a fork: https://github.com/Steve-Tech/Reddit-Comments-for-YouTube (it says Reddit, but works for Lemmy too)

[–] postmateDumbass@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Think of all the tracking data!

[–] SendMePhotos@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] postmateDumbass@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

Im on your side, just need a way to protect the users.

Putting a frame under every url you browse to needs to be done right™️

[–] Clbull@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago (5 children)

Gab tried to pull the same thing with their Dissenter plugin. It was such a bad idea that Mozilla and Google banded together to remove the extensions from their stores for ToS violations.

Now imagine what a nightmare it would be to moderate the ability to comment on anything online with actual standards and decency.

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[–] tabular@lemmy.world 84 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I didn't use it but the lack of an explanation is a frustrating response. Give feedback to the feedback??

[–] Virkkunen@fedia.io 53 points 2 months ago (1 children)

They're a small indie company and they need the server power to run the AI in Firefox

[–] Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I don't think Firefox has any AI that they need to run for you. The language thing (if that counts) is local thing.

[–] Virkkunen@fedia.io 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It was a joke about how it seems they're putting most, if not all, efforts into their AI

[–] Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 3 points 2 months ago

Oh, okay. I just know about the translating thing and the sidebar

[–] ZephyrXero@lemmy.world 45 points 2 months ago (5 children)

Sigh, so is Mozilla just like Google now? Can't trust any services to stick around?

[–] almar_quigley@lemmy.world 71 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It’s a mastodon server. I don’t want them spending money on that anyways. They should be focusing on the browser, not social media infrastructure.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Exactly. They should be dropping anything that isn't revenue positive or isn't furthering the goals of browser. Rust is a great project because it's being used directly in the browser. Mastodon isn't, because it has no relationship to their browser efforts. I'm on the fence about the VPN, but if it's revenue positive, it should probably stick around, and it sort of benefits the browser as well.

[–] progandy@feddit.org 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The VPN is really not much more than white labelled mullvad + the browser extension with separate VPN servers per container.

Right, and if it's not profitable, it should be scrapped, but if it pays for itself, I see no harm in keeping it.

[–] HeerlijkeDrop@thebrainbin.org 4 points 2 months ago

Always has been

[–] vk6flab@lemmy.radio 2 points 2 months ago

It is again beginning to feel rather dysfunctional..

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[–] 1984 45 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Good. Stop fucking around, focus on the browser. If they can make it provide value that Google can't, they are succeeding. Google cant compete in privacy.

[–] YtA4QCam2A9j7EfTgHrH@infosec.pub 18 points 2 months ago (2 children)

They are dropping it to focus on the important shit. Forcing bullshit genai stuff into their browser and working on adtech.

[–] Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 18 points 2 months ago

Forcing bullshit genai stuff into their browser

It's an opt-in feature that just opens whatever AI service you picked, their website in a sidebar. You can even use your own local AI if you want to. Or not use it at all. But the AI isn't actually in your browser any more than it is in your browser when you open their website in a tab.

If the translation thing counts as AI then that's actually a really cool and more private use of it compared to querying a server. It can do the translation completely locally. Works pretty well too in my experience, though it does think for a moment when you tell it to translate.

[–] douglasg14b@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

Got to love ignorant hot tapes based on article headings.

[–] xenoclast@lemmy.world 33 points 2 months ago

Until they change CEOs again. I wonder what it'd be like to not have corporate parasites everywhere

[–] superkret@feddit.org 27 points 2 months ago (2 children)

They're still on Xitter, though.

[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 54 points 2 months ago

I mean, maintaining an instance is a larger job than having a twitter account. I don't think they're all that comparable.

[–] mke@programming.dev 12 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Yes, I think that's natural. A large segment of their market is still there. Throwing away years of work when the accounts cost relatively little to maintain would be wasteful. I don't see how their presence there is relevant to this discussion.

[–] superkret@feddit.org 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] mke@programming.dev 7 points 2 months ago

Sorta. Only as a discussion starter, if you wanted. I was unsure how to frame my thoughts without being rude, but it seems I ended up being confusing instead. I'll edit my comment to try again, please try to read it in its intended spirit.

[–] JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee 17 points 2 months ago

Do they at least have an account on someone else's instance then? If they do, it's fine for them to not have to spend resources on maintaining their own.

[–] meliante@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

You either die the hero

[–] apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

Oh no! Anyway…

[–] testtchncs@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

what else does Mozilla have? matrix ? @ChatGPT@lemmings.world

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