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OKCupid encourages users to stop using Firefox

Dating site OKCupid to Firefox users: Try a different browser. 

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Mozilla
Mozilla Firefox browser.
  • By Matthew Shaer Correspondent

Dating site OKCupid is encouraging users to access its platform through Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, or Safari – anything but Mozilla's Firefox. 

In a strongly-worded message, which appears if you sign on to OKCupid using Firefox, the OKCupid team says the action is a protest against Brendan Eich, Mozilla's chief exec. Mr. Eich, the creator of the Javascript language – and a new appointee to the CEO position – had donated in 2008 to the Proposition 8 campaign, an effort to ban same-sex marriage in California. Prop 8 was originally passed, and then ruled unconstitutional. 

OKCupid says Eich's views are not consistent with the site's values. 

"If individuals like Mr. Eich had their way, then roughly 8 percent of the relationships we've worked so hard to bring about would be illegal," the message reads. "Equality for gay relationships is personally important to many of us here at OkCupid. But it's professionally important to the entire company. OkCupid is for creating love. Those who seek to deny love and instead enforce misery, shame, and frustration are our enemies, and we wish them nothing but failure." 

As Ars Technica notes, Eich's ascension to CEO at Mozilla – he was previously CTO – has also caused dissension among the ranks of Mozilla developers.

Meanwhile, three members of the Mozilla board have resigned, apparently in protest. Eich, for his part, has pledged to work with "LGBT communities and allies." In addition, he stressed his commitment to inclusiveness at Mozilla. 

"I know some will be skeptical about this, and that words alone will not change anything. I can only ask for your support to have the time to 'show, not tell'; and in the meantime express my sorrow at having caused pain," Eich wrote on his personal blog. 

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