• thrownawaysz 10 months ago

    Wish we can donate to the development of Firefox and not projects like this.

    And yes I did but stopped last year when it became clear they are spending money on projects I don't care about https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/what-we-fund/

    • PenguinCoder 10 months ago

      Why? Competition and alternatives are good for everyone.

      • vlovich123 10 months ago

        Focus. People donate for the browser but the funds are used for other purposes meaning the browser doesn’t get the attention it should. If you think it’s not a distraction to even distribute funds it is because you have to at least spend time and energy picking between options

        • debugnik 10 months ago

          > People donate for the browser

          Then they're doing it wrong, because exactly zero donations to the Mozilla Foundation go to Firefox, that's a Mozilla Corporation project. To support the browser, purchase their side services instead.

          • tredre3 10 months ago

            > Then they're doing it wrong

            Which was GP's point, people (rightfully imo) assume that donating to Mozilla helps the browser.

            Mozilla is being misleading and is the one who should be criticized, not the person who's donating to them and didn't read the fineprints regarding where the money is going.

            • ranger_danger 10 months ago

              Got a source for that?

              • debugnik 10 months ago

                Take it from this engineer employed at the Foundation for ten years.

                https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39346814

                The Foundation website also states it, but they try to weasel word their way around it: Firefox is not listed as one of their programs but as being maintained by the Corporation, which shares its revenue back to the Foundation (not the other way around).

          • beanjuiceII 10 months ago

            they aren't spending their money on competing

            • PenguinCoder 10 months ago

              Firefox existing, is competition against a world of Chromium.

              • cstrahan 10 months ago

                How is Mozilla funding a private Google Photos alternative “competition against a world of Chromium”?

                Maybe you didn’t follow the thread close enough — the complaint isn’t that funding Firefox is counterproductive, but that shoveling dollars to a non-Firefox product does nothing to help Firefox compete against Chrome/Chromium, which is kinda hard to argue against, no?

        • loa_in_ 10 months ago

          I don't know how it relates to anything else happening in the world but it seems like a good idea. People use Google photos, people look for alternatives.

          • ein0p 10 months ago

            The true alternative to Photos is Immich: https://github.com/immich-app/immich. Anything that someone else hosts is not in any way "private".

            • microsoftedging 10 months ago

              You can self host ente if you want I'm pretty sure

              https://help.ente.io/self-hosting/

              • marcus0x62 10 months ago

                You can, and you can use the Ente-published mobile apps with your self-hosted instance. The setup process is a bit rough, but it absolutely works.

              • windlep 10 months ago

                I self-host Immich and its definitely my favorite web photo system. One thing with Ente that aligns more with Mozilla's approach to data however is end-to-end encryption, which Ente has, but Immich doesn't. So I can see why Mozilla funded this option instead.

                I personally wish that self-hosting was a more reliable and simplified process for the average person such that simpler and more powerful software like Immich was the best choice for all.

                • ein0p 10 months ago

                  Self hosted Immich doesn't need end-to-end encryption, and the lack of it enables a number of very useful server-side features. If your end-to-end encryption has not undergone a security audit, it's as good as if there was no encryption at all.

                  • vishnumohandas 10 months ago

                    Ente's use of cryptography[1] has been externally audited[2].

                    [1]: https://ente.io/architecture

                    [2]: https://ente.io/blog/cryptography-audit

                    • windlep 10 months ago

                      Yes, that was kind of my point. Self-hosted negates the need, but most can't self host.... so that leaves end-to-end encryption the best intermediate step.

                  • prophesi 10 months ago

                    They also have quite the disclaimer :/

                    - The project is under very active development.

                    - Expect bugs and breaking changes.

                    - Do not use the app as the only way to store your photos and videos.

                    - Always follow 3-2-1 backup plan for your precious photos and videos!

                    edit: Though those last two are applicable to any data hosting solution.

                    • ein0p 10 months ago

                      I've been using Immich for over a year. "Maintenance" boils down to weekly docker compose pull and a restart. There's semantic search, deduplication, mapping, face recognition etc etc. I do not miss Google Photos at all, and can recommend Immich without any reservations to anyone with even basic understanding of docker compose.

                  • thunkshift1 10 months ago

                    Nice sentiment but 100k isnt much.

                    • Traubenfuchs 10 months ago

                      I wonder how many people actually use Ente. Looks very niche and non-mainstream to me.

                      • phanimahesh 10 months ago

                        Is there any published guide to self host? There's no mention of it anywhere except an offhanded comment in the Readme.

                      • espoal 10 months ago

                        Isn't Mozilla cash strapped?

                        • homebrewer 10 months ago

                          I don't think they would have raised CEO pay last year if things were really bad financially. Right?

                          https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38795308

                          https://stateof.mozilla.org

                          • Certhas 10 months ago

                            The documents you linked to show that 2022 they have a billion and something in net assets 513 million in cash (up from 378 in 2021). Cash flow from operating activities was 147 million in 2022 and 197 million in 2021.

                            So according to the documents you linked, Mozilla is doing extremely well financially.

                            Also according to your documents, they spend the vast majority of their money on developing Firefox.

                            If they continue to grow alternative revenue streams as they have in the last couple of years, they will be in a position to develop Firefox without Google funding in the intermediate future.

                          • seeknotfind 10 months ago

                            It's only $100k.

                            • mrbluecoat 10 months ago

                              Send me yours and I'll find a way to dispose of it.

                              +1 for anything that helps the creators of Ente Auth succeed!

                              • tredre3 10 months ago

                                > Send me yours and I'll find a way to dispose of it.

                                I'd send you 100k if I had an income of $593M. If we scale to my actual income, however, it's probably a few pennies. Do you still want it?

                              • V__ 10 months ago

                                100k here, 100k there and pretty soon you are talking about real money.

                            • undefined 10 months ago
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                              • XCSme 10 months ago

                                I am pretty happy with self-hosted https://photoprism.app

                                • undefined 10 months ago
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                                  • majorchord 10 months ago

                                    Will they be incentivized to develop features that people don't want now?

                                    • xterminator 10 months ago

                                      From a quick look, only the client is open source. The server software is still privative. Why did Mozilla fund this? There is no shortage of libre software of self-hosted image servers in need of funding.

                                    • snowmanak 10 months ago

                                      ENTE failed on iOS with my initial password verification

                                      • undefined 10 months ago
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                                        • ranger_danger 10 months ago

                                          [flagged]

                                          • echelon 10 months ago

                                            Brave is doing pretty well, and they're building their own search engine and ad blocking which will provide a path to revenue.