If you haven't used Firefox in years then you probably don't have the most recent version so duh your addons were no longer compatible and the browser was clunky. Just saying.

Gosh, I wonder why web software and add ons you haven't run in years would perform poorly.

I wonder how many Google employees are investors

This is stupid. Mr. Eich has every right to his wretched beliefs, which by the way were mainstream 20 years ago, and every right to dispose of his own money however he sees fit. As long as he doesn't discriminate against gay employees or anything directly horrible like that, Firefox shouldn't be considered an anti-gay browser just because its CEO is anti-gay.

@4 - Publicly shaming people with beliefs that are detrimental to a considerable swath of humanity is an effective and righteous form of social change. CEOs have a lot of power, Mozilla Firefox shouldn't be giving money & a platform to someone who is interested in doing harm to other people.

He can believe what he wants, and he can put is money where his mouth is, but that doesn't mean we have to accept him as the CEO of one of the best web browsers out there. Removal from the position of CEO is just punishment for engaging in damaging actions (giving money to anti-gay legislation, groups, etc.).

I love Firefox's adblocker so much, I can live with the CEO being a dick.

What treacle @4 said.

Certainly Eich has every right to his opinions and beliefs.

And I have every right to call him out on his repugnant beliefs, and to use software that doesn't support repugnant people like Eich, and to make my opinion and browser choice public.

That's how this whole free speech thing works.

I say judge him by his current actions, not by a political donation that he made SIX YEARS ago. And to clear up any potential for misunderstanding: I am gay and married to my husband so please don't be foolish and call me a homophobe about this. (a response I encountered on another site) And no, I don't work for Mozilla. (another response I encountered elsewhere)

Brenden Eich isn't just the CEO of Firefox, he's the inventor of Javascript which is a primary way to make websites dynamic and is probably a big part of OKC's website. OKC isn't going to rearchitect their entire stack, but they feel like telling their users not to use a browser that was invented before Eich became CEO of Mozilla? If this hurts anyone, it's just the Mozilla employees that are unfairly paying the price for their CEO supporting a now-unpopular cause.

And lets also not forget that Prop 8 received slightly over 50% support when it was on the ballot. If we combed through the list of donors, we'd probably find a lot of people who's software we use. If we could reverse the secret ballot, we'd probably find more than a couple OKC employees given how many people work there.

I'm all for gay marriage and taking principled stands. But I also recognize that if I swear to never do business with people that disagree with me, I'm going to be living in a cave by myself.

@10 please learn what free speech means.

@1,

I switched from Firefox to Chrome a few years ago because I was sick of how clunky it was. Maybe it was my fault for not updating my add-ons enough, but then I don't see the usefulness of a browser that's so complicated. If I did, I'd still be using IE.

Firefox with ABP runs perfectly for me, but after reading this I think I'll give Chrome another shot.

The current page of Slog includes 17 component scripts coded in the evil Mr. Eich's evil Javascript. (The comment dialog includes only 9 ... and the Preview/Edit/Post dialog only 5.)

I don't understand the brouhaha completely, but developers at Mozilla are asking him to step down. The noise comes from within the company first. I would assume there's a bit more to it than one political donation. There appears to be a lot of turmoil at the company which is coming to a head in this.

I don't think Firefox has had a technological lead for a long time and their marketshare is dwindling. That is perhaps the real crux of the issue.

@14 JavaScript is pretty well entrenched at this point.

@6, @13, There's an adblock for Chrome too

I use Firefox on multiple platforms and it works as well as any other browser. On Windows 8.1 I prefer IE11, but use Firefox for websites that don't work correctly with IE11.

@5 thats not righteous social change, thats mob rule, go read @9 and think for a bit.

@4: When there is so much competition among browser providers, there's no reason to settle for even the slightest hint of bigotry.

No browser that I know of is made by good guys. I can't even remember the outrage that made me switch from Chrome to Firefox a few months ago, but it felt pretty outrageous at the time. The different browsers are like deck chairs on the Titanic.

If these sort of actions become popular sites will banning countries based on the country's leadership. Purity ball.

I switched to Chrome for my 'normal' web use years ago, but due to some particularly useful add-ons I still use Firefox when trawling for porn. Frequently some pretty damn gay porn. I feel like that's the best response to this guy.

@21 It was probably the whole NSA thing of it being easier to spy on you if you use Chrome or IE

It was a thousand bucks of personal (not corporate) funds, eight years ago. Their corporate policies are not discriminatory. The political landscape has changed drastically in the intervening years. This is not a thing.

George W. Bush has a conviction for DUII, from decades ago. I am Judgy McJudgerson on shit like that. But he's also been sober for decades, and it was only the once. Of all the things to hold against GWB, that one doesn't make the list.

I have a hard time understanding this burning crosses thing. Don't American Christians hate and hunt down the people who publicly destroy the very symbol of their faith ?

I'm in favor of giving him a chance. He has the right to spend his personal money donating to causes he believes in, whether or not I think they might be horrible. I think the political and personal beliefs of many CEOs (not to mention everyday people) would horrify at least some significant section of the public. What concerns me is whether or not he uses these beliefs to reshape Mozilla--or uses Mozilla money to further fund these beliefs. And that seems unlikely, given his employees' fervent beliefs.

Correction: He's Mozilla's Chief Technology Officer not the Chief Executive Officer. Big difference. I don't like the guy, but I think everyone is entitled to their beliefs even if they are wrong.