Ask HN: Would you fund Mozilla to become independent of Google?

The only way I would donate to Mozilla is if the corporation is shuttered and the non-profit is disentangled from it.

Any donations you send to Mozilla today go to the corporation and are not spent on the browser. They are spent on things that have nothing to do with the core mission of the maintaining the browser.

Nobody is allowed to fund Mozilla to maintain the browser, which is the actual question you're asking.

A user like me would be willing to idea of some monthly donation when Mozilla restructures its expenses.

If memory serves right, the biggest slice of expenses were in C-level compensations & shortlived pet projects. The organization has to focus on growing a cadre of good engineers and product teams for their core offerings (just like the ones who rewrote large chunks of Netscape code into a fledgling Firefox ~22y ago).

One can't be expected to donate just to eventually subsidize a penthouse purchase for the CEO or their swanky McLaren.

I would chip in the average Facebook user value for my country if, and only if, Mozilla completely reversed course on ad tech, selling user data, and 'private tracking'. The fact that it acquired Anonym (with its close ties to Facebook) makes it clear that Mozilla would not diversify away from ads, it would just jump from one ad company (Google) to the other (FB).

I would not give a penny to a company that looks to sell me out.

If mozilla was a paid software on steam I would buy it for a one time payment up to $20. I would like to avoid giving my payment details to the browser directly as I see it as a risk of some malware misusing them to take my money.

After a few years (like 4) I would probably consider buying "Mozilla 2" for another one time payment up to $20 if the mozilla I bought becomes "end of life".

I would never buy "mozilla" from a microsoft store or android/apple appstore. I would not give a cent or continue using mozilla if ublock origin becomes not supported. Any kind of forced ads or restriction on adblocking will make me forget mozilla ever was a thing.

I would like to fund a technical Mozilla that exclusively focuses on actual products and community building. I would not want to give my money to the current Mozilla, as I believe the money and endowment they already have would be sufficient or at least give them all the means to do it, if they consequently stripped away everything else.

Mozilla must split their engine and basic browser UI into separate browser, something like Chromium right now, without any "Mozilla" features: no pocket, no AI, no sync, nothing extra that is not necessary to browse the web. This part must forever stay open-source, free, and supported. Only then I'll gladly set up recurring donation. On top of that, they can build a "Mozilla" spin of the browser, with all the bells and whistles they ever wanted: ads, AI, sync, pocket, Mr. Robot promos, etc. This also opens avenue for other companies to build on top of base browser their own improvements, either by using extensions or extension bundles. Even Microsoft might provide their own spin with all Microsoft services and telemetry added.

If mozilla spun off firefox or otherwise reorganised their company to be about making firefox the best web browser possible, so I could trust that my money was going to development of the browser and not random nonsense, I would happily pay £5-10/month.

I would fund Firefox, not Mozilla. I learned from all the recent discussions that money donated to Mozilla do not go to Firefox. It’s as if Mozilla is structured in a way such that Firefox cannot be community supported.

Many people want to donate to Firefox exclusively but you can forget about that. Mozilla will not carve out Firefox because it's the only reason that the mother org gets half a billion of free money from Google.

Carving out Firefox means Mozilla is dissolved as none of their other activities make any money.

I'd fund a browser that has the following:

1. Zero telemetry. I mean ZERO: remove all telemetry code from the codebase. They can ask me about features the old-fashioned way - surveys!

2. Focus on privacy and security. Put these to the top of the list.

3. Stop paying your CEO millions! Not worth it imo!

4. Stop with all the other Mozilla shit! I am interested in a browser (and perhaps an email client... I'll let you work on that too!). No more Pocket, VPN and all that other shite.

5. ZERO, I mean ZERO data capture at all! Nothing. Not a single bit except when someone clicks the link to download Firefox, you can capture their userAgent and whatnot. But the browser, Firefox, should not be capturing a single byte of data from me once installed (except perhaps a periodic version check and you can pass in the version like this: https://firefox.com/update?v=123.568).

6. For sync, allow me to sync an encrypted file to Dropbox, OneDrive, Local drive, Whatever.com. That way my passwords, bookmarks etc. can be sync'd from MY location that I control, not yours!).

7. Have a "Block all shady JS tactics" button. This would include fingerprinting, location and such. Perhaps you could send bogus, random data when it's asked for instead. That'd be fine too.

I think that's it :)

For a browser that did this, and was properly audited to prevent anything shady from creeping in, I'd pay $30 a year for it.

Edit: To clarify - I wouldn't pay the current Mozilla a single penny!

Yes; depending upon what governance and financial/business model they choose. Maybe Firefox to begin with. And of course minus the CXO and their entourage. I think it should go the Thunderbird way or something on those lines.

Survival of Firefox is critical (as of now more than Mozilla) for the open web to remain open.

Why donate to tainted when you could to Ladybird