Mozilla needs to spend money more responsibly: that is, not to third parties at all.
I’ve been hoping for a photo project like that—I use a photo storage service that’s e2e but it’s a pain to look through the photos
Ente and Immich are both projects like that, they're both trying to be drop-in replacements for Google Photos. Immich requires you to self-host, and Ente makes it an option that doesn't make it look too daunting.
The pricing is weird: Immich (like other FUTO sponsored projects) has a WinRAR-style license that requires you to pay them for hosting an instance, but only once, and you can technically ignore it. Ente, meanwhile, allows you to use their apps with third-party instances without charging for the privilege.
I would definitely recommend checking out either. I held out for a long time, because I thought image hosting might not be useful (and because deleting local photos is still a bit of a crapshoot, both backup-wise and functionality-wise) but it turns out to be pretty nifty.
Ente has been pretty great so far. I have recently become a parent and don't want to feed profile information on my child to Google, Meta, etc. So we don't post to social media. We have been sharing pictures with the family through ente like we used to do with Google photos and iPhotos. It works pretty well. There are two things I wish they would fix/add.
-
Notifications sent to album members are inconsistent. Family members do not know when new photos are added.
-
No photo commenting or liking. Gives no indication if photos are being viewed or not. Would love to hear love from fam.
Otherwise, a great foundation.
-
...aren't they like at risk of disappearing since their google search deal is being called into question?
Of the $65 million Mozilla has earmarked for AI and VC (mostly AI VC, of course), this grant is practically a drop in the bucket.
But you're right, I support Mozilla giving money to good projects over bad projects, but I'd also prefer if they figured out their post Google finances.
