Mozilla lays off 60 people, wants to build AI into Firefox

EinatYahav@lemmy.today to Technology@lemmy.world – 546 points –
Mozilla lays off 60 people, wants to build AI into Firefox
arstechnica.com
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Things to add to your product when you want to look hip and trendy, but dont have any real ideas how to make your product better:

  • 1990s: visitor counter
  • 1995: Popups
  • 2000s: flash intros
  • 2005: stock photography
  • 2010: local weather widget
  • 2015: share to social media widgets
  • 2020: fullsize 4k background stock videos
  • 2024: AI assistant

1995: animated gifs, , guest books, site rings!

I'm not sure if you remember, but site rings were what you used instead of Google. They were useful.

And I've seen some guest books with lots of people at some point in my childhood, but about half a year after that everybody firmly chose in favor of hierarchical boards.

And I don't share that hate for , it served the purpose of showing you a long line in a small space, implicitly saying that it's secondary temporary information, a bit like on TV.

And what's wrong with animated GIFs, animation is nice.

I miss guest books tbh

They would be abused by spam bots in an instant, even before you could write your own "welcome to my guestbook" post.

So you've never had one of those bot blocking capcha things?

visitor counter

I actually liked those.

flash intros

These could be used to create right atmosphere.

local weather widget

Back then I hated those, but maybe showing local weather on desktop is not such a bad thing.

share to social media widgets

Hate. Hate. Hate.

It really grinds my gears. Why does my bank insist on installing an app to approve transactions, and why does that app have a huge background video playing every time i open it? It really should consist of an MFA code generator.

And yet Microsoft added a weather (and bullshit) widget to windows in like 2020

I suppose many people were already using a third-party Aero widget for weather forecast since Windows 7.

I know I did.