Firefox Lead Now Working For Google

zmarties writes "In a very low key announcement on his blog, Ben Goodger, lead developer for Firefox, has announce that effective from a couple of weeks ago, he has become a Google employee. In practice his day to day job won't change that much, in that he will still lead Firefox through its forthcoming releases, but with Google paying his wages, we can be sure that new and interesting overlap between the Mozilla Foundation's browsers and Google's services are sure to develop."

Comments

Maybe he was just bitter

[Anonymous Coward]

About all the press coverage Blake Ross has been getting for Firefox... ABC, Wired, the Playgirl spread, etc.

Re:Maybe he was just bitter

[nocomment]

Actually this makes me wonder about this.

This is bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Google are the new MS, forming links with good technology and talent, then manipulating it for their own selfish needs.

Trust me Google are the new evil.

Re:This is bad

[MooseByte]

"Trust me Google are the new evil."

So long as they end up the lesser evil, that's fine with me!

Re:This is bad

[etymxris]

I think you have an overly pessimistic view of human nature. I only do what I desire to do, but does my desire make it selfish? If I desire to help the poor, is that selfish? If it is, then calling something "selfish" is empty.

Even allowing that Google may have a monetary incentive to hire a chief Mozilla developer, I don't see what the problem is. At this point, Google needs an alternative browser to keep Microsoft in check. Supporters of Free Software also desire that IE marketshare should drop, and that more open alternatives (such as FireFox) should take the slack. The interests of a "selfish" corporation and Free Software hippies are aligned.

There's no guarantee that Google won't turn "evil" in the future. But let's judge them on things they have done, rather than what they might do.

Please note that I am not totally pro-Google. I have issues with their acquiescence to censorship of totalitarian regimes. But this action doesn't bother me, and I don't see why it should.

Re:This is bad

[spdt]

The Grandparent, AC, has an extremely valid point. To tell you the truth, and I am a Google fan, this scares me a little. Open source, free, community projects and gigantic, multinational corporations do not mix. I could easily see some corruption of Firefox coming up, conflicts of interest, subliminal or overt advertising, and whatever else that comes with this kind of association.

Sorry, but it just seems very, very messy to me.

Re:This is bad

[etymxris]

Why are you scared? This is free software. If Google tries to subvert the aim of FireFox, users can just fork it and take the development in a different direction. Open software is held together by the community behind it. If you try to act counter to that community, the community, and thus the software, will leave you behind. The worst that happens is that a developer is lost to the interests of a particular corporation and no longer works on the main branch of FireFox. But that seems unlikely to me, as Google knows trying to subvert FireFox to be GoogleFox or whatever would be counterproductive. All they really want, I imagine, is an alternative to IE so that users can choose Google without it being integrated like MSN Search is in IE.

Re:This is bad

[Anonymous Coward]

"I could easily see some corruption of Firefox coming up, conflicts of interest, subliminal or overt advertising, and whatever else that comes with this kind of association."

At which point being an open source project there will be a fork and a non evil version produced.
Ain't having the source code great!

Re:This is bad

[vettemph]

> Trust me Google are the new evil.

But in the mean time I would still like to say:
"Hey Bill, IN YOUR EYE!!!"

Re:This is bad

[Senjutsu]

Google are the new MS, forming links with good technology and talent, then manipulating it for their own selfish needs.

Trust me Google are the new evil.

Really? Which proprietary formats are they attempting to lock people in to at the expense of open and freely-exchangable standards? Which competitors are they attempting to destroy through anti-competitive contract chicanery which keeps them from getting a toe-hold in the market? What long winded EULAs are they using to deny fundamental consumer rights like resale to the consumers who purchase their products? What DRM platforms are the pushing with the ill-concealed intention of locking all competitors out of the x86 hardware platform? What annoying validation systems are they integrating that limit the purchaser to a certain number of hardware upgrades before they get locked out of their own software?

I'm waiting.

Re:This is bad

[TheAwfulTruth]

The scary part is how brainwashed people are to what google is actually doing. Look at the posts in this one article! Google has managed to get so much brain-trust that they can pretty much do anything and the google-droids wil march in line.

The question is, what does google want with Firefox at all? What is it about having to have the head developer on the payroll that they could not get by writing a wrapper for gecko and mshtml?

How can this be good for firefox as opposed to just god for google? There is plenty of room for fear. Wait until you are forced to install firefox just to use google services whether you want to or not... Maybe /you/ like FF tons and don't care, but would it be right to force that on anyone that want's to use the two singly or as seperate entities? The fact the two could very well become inappropriately tied to each other should be cause of worry, at least cause for keeping a watchful eye.

Re:This is bad

[freemacmini]

" Google are the new MS,"

Really? When was the last time they called open source developers communists?

Re:This is bad

[spac3manspiff]

Hey help me out, http://www.google.com/downloads/
do you see anything for linux?

Re:This is bad

[bhiestand]

You know that they may someday become the new evil corporation, but right now they're doing something microsoft never really did. They've actually been innovative, provided an awesome service, and set the standard for how a search engine should work. To top it off their news service beats almost every other news website, and their answers site is damned creative.

People LIKE them. They associate google with good thoughts because it's they provide a service that works well, and doesn't force them to use it. Google, amazon, and ebay may some day have most of the control over the internet, but it's a hell of a lot better than MSN or Yahoo being the ones setting the standards. If they ever turn into a crappy company which fails to offer anything unique, somebody else will hopefully step up to challenge them and start stealing their market share. Personally, I don't give a damn as long as I'm getting the services I need at no price to me. (Though I'd be willing to pay $1/month to turn off advertising on searches)

Re:This is bad

[mattyrobinson69]

Probably because they dont like relying on microsoft, who are quite likely (imho) to create an MSN search bar for IE (if they haven't already), similar to the google search bar in opera and firefox.

If they ensure one full time programmer on firefox, thats a good thing for firefox, which is a good thing for google.

Its kind of like why all those big companies are interested in linux - lessens their reliance on microsoft, its one of those rare "everybody wins" situation (no i dont count the pyramid schemes as an "everybody wins" situation)

Re:This is bad

[Nefarious Wheel]

Google is known for trying to attract the best people, not the best products. I suspect they were hiring the brain, not the browser.

Re:This is bad

[a whoabot]

Firefox is already too intertwined with Google.

To remove Google as the default search engine in the search bar you have to manually delete the files, whereas adding engines is integrated.

And to remove Google as the engine that is used when you use the "Search Web for" context menu option you have change some config file that is not easy to find. I've searched through the Firefox directories(install and profiles) for occurences of "google," and there are many occurences, but I could not find something that looked like it would be it. I can not find information on how to do this from the "Mozilla KnowledgeBase," although I don't deny that it may exist. The help files are of course totally useless.

Why this assumption that no one would use anything but Google for searching? I my opinion Alltheweb is a far superior search engine.

I'm not suggesting this has anything to do with Google pushing for these features. Saying merely what I said.

Re:This is bad

[Anonymous Coward]

I've asked this same question to a few Google employees, and the answer is that its apparently a much larger technical challenge to create a Google toolbar for Linux (as opposed to using ActiveX controls in Windows).

As for the rest, Linux has good programs already that handle those.

Re:This is bad

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Already done, it appears. If you're using a RECENT copy of firefox, look to the right of the go button in the default address bar and navigation toolbar- there you will see a box with a Google icon in it- that ties directly to google (and overwrites your rightmost tab with search results).

Re:This is bad

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Nevermind- just got a reply to my first message- this tie in has apparently been there for quite some time.

Re:This is bad

[pyite]

Open source, free, community projects and gigantic, multinational corporations do not mix.

IBM, anyone? There is a good way and a bad way to mix open source and a big corporation. IBM does it right, Apple does it right. I don't know what you're so worried about.

Re:This is bad

[jonbryce]

What do Google want with Firefox?

They want the default home page to be google. They want the default search engine in the search box to be google.

Quite useful if you don't want MSN search to take away your market share.

I don't think they would force you to install firefox to use Google. That would be a stupid idea from a business point of view. I'm pretty sure they want IE users to use Google as well.

Re:This is bad

[ArbitraryConstant]

Interesting that they're building ties to Firefox, a browser that also provides a developer-friendly framework for extensions. :)

Re:This is bad

[mattyrobinson69]

no, but they do have a linux specific search:

http://www.google.com/linux

I use it all the time, nice of them to create it.

I would imagine they dont want to piss off microsoft too much yet, until firefox gets a reasonable market share - at that point, google are free of microsoft.

Re:This is bad

[bman08]

That's not true. The loki installer is totally happy to install apps into your home folder. You can do the same thing with firefox/moz extensions (hmmm?). The problem is that most linux devs, for security and philisophical reasons, build for multi user systems, and varying levels of permissions and shared libraries.

All that shit is solved real easy with big fat static-linked binaries that you unzip into your home folder.

Re:This is bad

[labratuk]

But then why is his job to continue working on Firefox?

Re:This is bad

[AstroDrabb]

Thanks for your comments Anonymous MS employee.

Seriously, when was the last time Google called Linux or Open Source a "cancer"? When was the last time Google attacked any Open Source? When was the last time Google used _any_ of the tactics that MS has used that got them found to be a monopoly (sadly just a slap on the wrist)?

There is just no comparison between MS and Google as far as being "evil" is concerened.

Re:This is bad

[SiChemist]

Do you see any desktop linux users?

I do. Every morning at work and whenever I look in a mirror.

Re:This is bad

[biglig2]

Because the UI to google is a web browser, so it might be slightly useful to them to have anither person on staff who knows browsers really well.

Re:This is bad

[LoverOfJoy]

Is it possible that he has other job responsibilities that he is under contract not to divulge?

Re:This is bad

[This Is Ridiculous]

A few theories:

1. Google's already somewhat integrated into Firefox (search bar, Firefox Start). As long as that stays the same, it's in their best interest to keep Firefox going.
2. Google runs all of its services over the Web. They don't want Microsoft to run the Web, because then Microsoft will destroy them. Hence, it's in their best interest to keep Firefox going.
3. They really are planning a browser based on Firefox, and they want the Firefox lead around to make sure they don't fuck it up.
4. They're going to rename Firefox to Gbrowser, add twenty links to Google properties, and sell your grandmother into slavery.

Personally, my money's on 1 and 2, and maybe 3.

Re:This is bad

[This Is Ridiculous]

Actually, there's one more:

5. They want his brain, but they know all those geeks who currently love them will turn on them if they steal Goodger away from Firefox.

Actually, that sounds pretty realistic...

Re:This is bad

[OverflowingBitBucket]

Not at the moment. Thanks for reminding me to clean my monitor and get some better lighting into the room.

Re:This is bad

[octaene]

While I don't fully agree with this A.C. poster, I do concur that this isn't really good news. I mean, I love Google and all that -- it's just that I have been counting on the Mozilla/Firefox "brands" to stay above being tied to one specific technology company.

Is this going to mean that Firefox becomes even more Googlefied? Who knows. Personally, even though Firefox comes with Google configured as its default search engine, I like the fact that the choice isn't being crammed down my throat.

Re:This is bad

[Spacejock]

So you'd rather he was snapped up by Microsoft?

Re:This is bad

[TheAwfulTruth]

Uh, they have all that now as of 1.0 and they didn't need to hire someone to get it.

This speaks of something much bigger.

Re:This is bad

[TheAwfulTruth]

It is dead simple to write a single program that uses the various plugin rendering engines such as gecko and mshtml. I've done it. For them to have hired a developer of FF just so he can continue to do his job but under their employ means that they probably want to somehow "embrace and extend" the FF browser into something very google specific.

This is typically the type of thing that gets /.'s panties in a bunch, it's the philosophical whiplash I get from watching so many people fall all over themselves to defend the exact behavior they have jihads against with companies that they don't like that threatens to nearly twist my neck off at times. :)

Re:This is bad

[Myen]

That makes sense...

Considering that Google apparently lets their people spend some percent of their time working on personal projects, and since Goodger's job is Firefox... Would that mean his "play time" would be on something non-Firefox?

Re:This is bad

[tkelechogi]

Evil comes in many forms. I can see some arguing that Google is poising itself to eventually blur the line between corporate services and personal information. GMail rocks; 1 GB is above and beyond what anyone else is offering. Why, though, is Google stressing to never delete anything? Becuase they've got the extra disk space? Why did Google acquire Blogger? Because they wanted to build us a better interface? If we are, in fact, living in the information age, then information is power. And when one entity controls the power, even if it's not Microsoft, it's never a good thing.

Re:This is bad

[IamNotWitchboy]

You can easily change that:
With this...

Re:This is bad

[wooger]

Apple do little for the open source community, and activly harm it by propogating their pointless proprietary codecs for everything.

Look at iTunes - The only way to produce Apple Lossless encoded files, & a complete refusal to support FLAC.

Re:This is bad

[mattyrobinson69]

Sod them, i meant everybody (who is sane and non-evil) wins

Re:This is bad

[Vacindak]

"Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own." - Robert Heinlein Point being, that calling something "selfish" is nearly meaningless in that, everything is ultimately "selfish". But many "selfish" acts are quite noble, because they are done out of love -- they have simply chosen to find happiness in giving others happiness. Strictly speaking, this is "selfish", but that makes it no less noble.

Re:This is bad

[jonbryce]

Well if yahoo was paying the salary of the main developer now, do you think that would continue?

Re:This is bad

[Logicdisorder]

How many home computer that you know come with Linux installed? And the better question is do you think that the standard everyday home user is going to buy a machine with Linux installed? I would say not and the reason they are not becasue they have no idea what is it or what the difference is between that and Windows. And that was more the point I am getting at. Most people in the world today do not use Linux and that is just how it is.

I guess this really comes back to the fact that I do not see Linux on the desktop been a big hit anytime soon. If anything I would get a users to buy a Mac over getting a Linux desktop machine.

Re:This is bad

[CrimsonFrost]

Well of course that could happen, but to my knowledge google has never done anything that forced anyone to do anything. Comparing them to MS is ludicrous, and more exagerated than it likely needs to be. I've read these boards a lot and just recently decided to sign up, and it seems like the common theme in here is "fight change no matter what" It's like a meeting with no purpose or objective. Anyhow I seriously doubt google will ever do anything hostile or forcefully. That's just my opinion though.

Re:This is bad

[Chris Hodges]

Here's another theory.

Firefox is gaining market share in the browser market. Unlike ie, firefox doesn't prefer a rival search engine, so a higher proportion of firefox users (than ie users) will use google. Therefore a growth in firefox's market share is in google's interest. Besides, compared to the income they are getting from advertising to firefox users, this guy will come cheap.

Re:This is bad

[Chris Hodges]

Perhaps if less time was spent hating and more time spent coding then ugly OSS interfaces would be banished. Even as I write my email using Thunderbird I long for Outlook and it's slick "do what I think" interface.

I take it you haven't used outlook 2003 then. Or worse migrated from 98 to 2003. Besides, most people here (myself included) have neither the skill nor the time to code OSS (or at least major OSS like firefox). We can however moan (hate if that's how you want to put it) all day.

I was just thinking...

[Cyn]

... that Firefox was due for another name change.

(yes, I know it's just the lead - laugh.)

Re:I was just thinking...

[Coneasfast]

maybe he can combine the names, and just call it GooFox, can you imagine how cool that would be?

"do you use IE?"
"no, i use goofox!"

Re:I was just thinking...

[thijsa]

What do you mean? Goodger ==> Googler Firefox ==> Firflox?

Re:I was just thinking...

[FrYGuY101]

You may be kidding, but Google registered gbrowser.com/org/net for a reason...

Re:I was just thinking...

[Anonymous Coward]

At least you didn't pick "FireGoo." I think I got a case of that after I hooked up with this one chick at a bar... ;)

Re:I was just thinking...

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean to keep their options open? I'm sure they register a lot of domains, and they'll probably never use most of them.

I do want to see Google and Mozilla working together to make each other stronger (and, frankly, to oppose Microsoft's browser dominance), but we simply don't know yet what Google has in mind.

Re:I was just thinking...

[zangdesign]

FoxGoo would better communicate what I think you were intending.

Plus, it appeals to fox hunters.

Re:I was just thinking...

[rainman_bc]

lol I was thinking FoxGoo would be even worse...

Re:I was just thinking...

[SadButTrue]

those aren't called bars my friend :P

Re:I was just thinking...

[darkmeridian]

And someone already claimed www.gbroswer.com. I love cybersquatters, huh?

Re:I was just thinking...

[MickoZ]

What about GoofIE ;-) Now beside say: "You wasted all your time on the internet today" They will say: "You were GoofIEng all your time on slashdot today" (or beside explore the internet, you will just goof it)

Re:I was just thinking...

[hostyle]

Everyone keep harping on about this and that google are going to release a web browser. I reckon thats wrong, and that they're going to release a file browser similar to windows explorer, but better - with a top-notch search built in to the interface and other cool stuff

Re:I was just thinking...

[CGP314]

FoxGoo sounds much better ;)


-Colin

Re:I was just thinking...

[generationxyu]

Someone else posted this regarding the original story when gbrowser.com was registered:

They should call it a Growser.

"Hey Hank, did you growse that data last night?"
"Yeah, Bill, my growser growsed it up real nice."
"That's some mighty fine growsing, Hank."

I laughed for about 6 weeks.

so open source programming

[sharkfish]

really does pay off!

Re:so open source programming

[DrBlubGut]

No being smart and or good pays off.

I'm...

[Spytap]

I'm not sure how to think about this. To be fair, I use both quite extensively, and I love the Google search toolbar in Firefox, but I can't help wonder about any conflicts of interest that may arise...

I trust both companies...but have learned that in computer technology, trust can only be trusted so far...

Re:I'm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Google is all about gathering personal information now. They will make sure there's nothing in Firefox to impede that information gathering.

If they encounter opposition in the Mozilla framework, they'll fork, and the GoogleBrowser will be born (and Mozilla will die, at least as far as market share goes).

Re:I'm...

[SimplexO]

Without you knowing it, several of the people employed to work on Firefox 1.0 (and have been working for a long time) recieve paychecks with other companies such as Rracle, Red Had, and IBM.

It's like Google is 'sponsoring' a worker for the Mozilla Foundation, like you used to do to raise money when you were a kid.

Re:I'm...

[Finuvir]

The Mozilla Foundation (MoFo) isn't a company; it's a not-for-profit organisation.

Re:I'm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Google is all about gathering personal information now.

Your evidence for this remarkable claim?

Seriously, I don't think Google have ever asked me for any marketable information. Not even when I signed up for GMail. If that's really what they're "all about", they're doing a pretty dire job of it.

Re:I'm...

[Tony-A]

Google is all about gathering personal information now.

Rhw question is whether this personal information is a cheap resource or a valuable resource.

I think my main objection to spam is that it places far too low a valuation on my eyeballs. Insulting, actually.

So..

[byolinux]

Ben's at Google and Dave Hyatt's at Apple - this must be good news.. but will Google release a browser? I doubt it.

Re:So..

[etymxris]

but will Google release a browser?

I don't think Google wants or needs a browser. What they do need though is to keep MS honest. It is incredibly easy for MS to integrate MSN search with their web browser. If MS wants people using IE to also use MSN search, all they have to do is not be so incredibly bad that people look elsewhere. The criterion is a bit different if MS is trying to get FireFox users to use MSN search. Then they actually have to be better than everyone else. Google might not be able to beat MS on the first criterion, but they can certainly beat MS on merit.

So the more FireFox users there are, the more Google users there are. I don't see anything mysterious about this move by Google. It's really in their financial interest, and not just because of the PR.

Re:So..

[cyfer2000]

google may want to establish browser based applications eventually. The gmail, google suggest and blogspot are examples of browser based applications.

Some people may want to say, "Ah... the javascript is so slow!" But if we can run perl on a headless server and handle thousands or even millions of request per day, why can't we run javascript applications on client side efficiently?

But what the advantage? The advantage is easy management and share of data. Instead of store files on different computers, data could be stored on several servers, protected and backuped by professional operators. Users use the data tranparently via the Internet.

Google will run thousands of servers, and sell the computing and storage power on the server side. Also, google will use their search engine to search different "functions" provided by different "application providers", just as they are search "information" provided by different "content providers" now.

As format of document files and vector graphs, xml with the help of CSS and javascript of course.

But there is a problem here. The support of this sort of "high technology" on the browser used by most people is lamed. So to facilitate the adoption of high level technology, google will bring the browser war on again.

After this war, the rich function web application may become easier for web developers, but learning curves will become harder.

If the days of browser based computing come eventually, desktop is not big business anymore, server will become the center again.

Uh-oh... bad news for Google...

[winkydink]

Look what happened to Transmeta after they "sponsored" Linus.

Re:Uh-oh... bad news for Google...

[XpirateX]

The fact that I even know what Transmeta is a testament to its success. It's not their hiring of Linus that caused them to do poorly, but it really did seem to peak interest in the software nerd crowd.

David and Goliath and devouring big companies

[liangzai]

So when will we see the Google web browser?

Free Time

[Daxx_61]

"I remain devoted full-time to the advancement of Firefox, the Mozilla platform and web browsing in general."

Don't Google employees have free time anyway? Or am I thinking of something else?

(Damn, there goes my Karma)

Re:Free Time

[daeg]

Yes, there are numerous articles and such in the past that have mentioned that most Google engineers get 10% of free time to devote to their own projects.

Orkut was born this way, as well as Google Sets and likely numerous other projects.

Re:Free Time

[DetrimentalFiend]

Actually, it's 20% of their time.

Googlefox

[digitalgimpus]

Yea, it's been here on slashdot before, the infamous Google Web Browser, based on Firefox...

bla bla bla.

Ben + Google = Firefox?

For some reason, I think Google will be playing more of a role like SUN, IBM, or RedHat...

rather than try to be an other Netscape.

Sigh........

[Rupy]

Yet another pure thing corrupted by money/power etc.. etc... I guess can't blame the bastid, everyone wants financial security (+ a couple ferraris). I wonder how far exactly they are gonna push it?

Re:Sigh........

[sepluv]

Why does the fact that he is being payed by a company (esp. Google) mean that Ben Goodger (let alone Firefox) has become corrupt?

Are you insinuating that Goodger has become a Badger or a Good^Hgler?...I'll stop now...

(IMO introducing some non-free software into Firefox was a BAD decision but a free-software developer been payed by a company is very common. The wonderful thing about free software is that it is (very) commercially viable, but there is also always a free market.)

Re:Sigh........

[Myen]

Wait, so they have non-free software in Firefox?

(Would like to know more... Or do you mean the branding stuff? If that's the case, then I don't care - I'm using a copy with the free branding stuff anyway)

Re:Sigh........

[sepluv]

AFAIK: all the artwork (both copyright and trademarks), the installer (or some of it anyway), and the talkback program that sends data on crashes back to MF. Maybe other bits. Also, the binaries from MF make you agree to a contract before using them (restricting distribution, &c) so are probably inherently non-free.

I'm considering distributing binaries entirely made from the free source if anyone is interested. I've also filed a Bugzilla bug asking for free binaries @ftp.mozilla.org.

Re:Sigh........

[Myen]

Hmm
(Agree on the artwork / branding)

I thought the installer was due to the 7zip compression / self-extrator (seeing as MoFo seems to have wrote the rest of it), which is now LGPL? Not really clear on this though.

Talkback - I don't care, non-Mozilla.org builds don't get talkback anyway :p Basically the non-official build I'm using doesn't touch that.

If that's it, then I guess I'm safe for now - they're the fluff I don't care about. Hopefully nothing into the core Firefox though...

Intersting random thought: I wonder if they can package Firefox with non-Free extensions (like DOMi is packaged with the installer now)...

(Also, for your bugzilla link - intersting; you might also want to mention not including branding / talkback. I suspect they'll only do releases, if they accept, though.)

Infiltration

[Hyksos]

Wow, Google is everywhere nowadays. I really hope they won't go all "evil corporation" on us.

All this google good news

[mishmash]

With the string of announcements of smart moves over the last few days why is the share price not soaring?

Re:All this google good news

[FrYGuY101]

Because, while it may be good news to geeks, these are news announcements in a business sense. This is operational news which happens to enthrall geeks.

Since Google is first and foremost an Advertisement company, the news which will primarily drive their stock price will revolve around advertisement rates and demand, as well as the customary profit margins, revenues and such.

Re:All this google good news

[PureCreditor]

Investors are not COMPLETE idiots. After the initial hype, people will settle down, and at $200 a share, few other than institutional investors would consider GOOG.

However, with all the hype piled up on Google, and when it's trading at a P/E larger than 100, institutional investors will have a LOT of explaining to do on their proforma on why they invested in GOOG in the first place.

eBay already tanked 18% upon a single quarterly earnings report, and eBay was only trading at maybe P/E of 110.

Re:All this google good news

[wdavies]

People are getting scared of the end of lockup price drop, and lots of shares arent doing well anyways.

Re:All this google good news

[X43B]

"and at $200 a share, few other than institutional investors would consider GOOG." Have you ever invested anything in the stock market? I don't know where you invest but commonly it costs $10~$20 for a single transaction of any stock for the private (non-institutional) investor. I'm sorry, but if you don't have $200 to invest, you shouldn't be buying ANY stock. Put it in a nice CD and collect interest. Let's say you buy 10 shares of $10 stock, with a $10 commision you are down 10% from the start. 10% is the historical return for the stock market for an entire YEAR. Not to mention you are going to have to sell this stock to make any profit (anther $10 fee). If you can't afford to invest $200, you can't afford to lose ANY money and you shouldn't be in the stock market to begin with.

Re:All this google good news

[Moofie]

Wow, if you don't understand why you shouldn't spend $200/share on Google, you really need to not be giving investment advice to, like, anybody.

Hint: The reason to not buy Google is NOT "I don't have $200 for a share!". The reason to not buy Google is "$200 is far more than a 1/N share of Google is worth!" (Where N is the number of shares in the universe).

Re:All this google good news

[X43B]

"Wow, if you don't understand why you shouldn't spend $200/share on Google, you really need to not be giving investment advice to, like, anybody." Wow, you don't know how to read. No where in my post did I mention, recommend, or suggest that one SHOULD buy shares of Google. In fact if you had read my post you would see I merely responded to a comment that said because a given share of stock X is priced at $200, it is only accesible to institutional investestors. This statement is false.

Re:All this google good news

[kchoboter]

Yes, but you can't typically buy only 10 shares of a stock, let alone a single share.

Let's say that Google's minimum share purchase is 50 shares (typical amount), that 50 * 200 = $10,000. Now that's a lot of money, and most individual investors don't have that money to invest.

Re:All this google good news

[X43B]

"you can't typically buy only 10 shares of a stock"

I have bought under 5 shares many times personally. In fact not only was I "allowed" to buy the shares, but I had a guarantee that the transaction would be complete in under 10 seconds. Most ebrokers will make this guarantee.

Please show one shred of evidence that you have to buy "typical" 50 shares.

Re:All this google good news

[kd5ujz]

Investors are not COMPLETE idiots. After the initial hype, people will settle down, and at $200 a share, few other than institutional investors would consider GOOG.

He never said it was out of the range of the average Joe, he said few of them would consider the stock. He pretty much said what you said in your last post. He DID NOT say it was inaccessible.

Re:All this google good news

[X43B]

"Investors are not COMPLETE idiots...at $200 a share, few other than institutional investors"

Ok, so if I'm wrong the only way to interpret the above quote is that instuitional investors ARE COMPLETE idiots while your "average joe" is much more savvy. That isn't helping your case that his argument was coherent.

Either way, the grandparent was saying that I was recommending GOOG, which I NEVER did. I don't know why you responded to that post and never addressed it.

Anyway, I was more responding to the general sentiment on /. that google should do a stock split in order to lower the price. This would have no affct on the VALUE (not price) of the underlying stock.

Re:All this google good news

[oconnorcjo]

I'm sorry, but if you don't have $200 to invest, you shouldn't be buying ANY stock. Put it in a nice CD and collect interest.

I am an investor and I invest in many companies and you are dead wrong. It is not 200 dollars but 20,000 thousand dollars. When one seriously invests in stocks, you buy and sell in lots of 100 so a very small investment in goog would be 20,000 dollars. You can buy what is called an "odd lot" which is less than a 100 shares but that is odd and not really done by "real investores" pluss it costs more since it is unussual and inconvenient.

Re:All this google good news

[mph]

When one seriously invests in stocks, you buy and sell in lots of 100

Have you tried this approach with BRK.A?

Re:All this google good news

[mph]

Yes, but you can't typically buy only 10 shares of a stock, let alone a single share.

Where on earth do you get this idea? I can do just that, for $7, market or limit order.

Re:All this google good news

[kchoboter]

Ok, I'm an idiot.... You are both right.

Serves me right for opening my big mouth.

Re:All this google good news

[claygate]

Possibly because Google is overvalued?

Re:All this google good news

[millwall]

"This is operational news which happens to enthrall geeks."

Your not seeing the big picture.

This is news that potentially could make the Google search engine more attractive, both to geeks and others.

This would lead to more usage and eventually more advertisments. If the financial market would grasp this the stock price would rise, but it doesn't.

Re:All this google good news

[term8or]

Some institutional investors are "complete idiots" in the sense that their investment trust does not try to buy the best shares. They try to match the average growth of an index by buying a weighted number of shares in the index*. Such fund managers would purchase google even if they personally thought that the share was rubbish (and would ditch it when the share loses enough value).
* The theory is that on average it is impossible to beat an efficient market, and so the best way to perform the other investment funds is to reduce the charges associated with choosing shares.

How can Google get more integrated?

[TheShadowHawk]

Well congrats to Ben. All the best at Google. But I do wonder how Firefox could be MORE integrated with Goggle?

I mean.. you start it up.. you have google at the top right, and if you use the default home page, you will link to the google search engine. There are google toolbar plugins available. What else can there be?

Should be interesting to see what they come up with...

Re:How can Google get more integrated?

[Tackhead]

> Well congrats to Ben. All the best at Google. But I do wonder how Firefox could be MORE integrated with Google?
>
>I mean.. you start it up.. you have google at the top right, and if you use the default home page, you will link to the google search engine. There are google toolbar plugins available. What else can there be?

He could tell us we must search in russian?

Re:How can Google get more integrated?

[Coryoth]

How about interesting XUL based interfaes for GMail, Froogle, Orkut etc. A simple browser detect determines if you have Firefox/Mozilla, and if you do it gives you the XUL version... if not you get the same ordinary version you get now.

Entirely possible, and could be very cool if done well, but to be honest I see it as unlikely.

Jedidiah.

Re:How can Google get more integrated?

[Woody77]

That was my thought as well.

I really think it's in both interests to be in a position to work together like that. Gmail is highly interactive html, and XUL is way cool, but is limited to the moz platform.

But gmail's work with dynamic html coupled with working on the browser, they get both perspectives, the server-side of the application provider, and the client-side browser, and with both views, they can lay out the right way to break up the work.

Developing both interfaces at the same time is much better than guessing what the other will need in the future.

Re:How can Google get more integrated?

[ESqVIP]

How about some kind of weird bug that misteriously makes Adblock stop blocking Google AdWords? :-)

(yes, I'm kidding.)

Re:How can Google get more integrated?

[Tufriast]

Well, what do you say to this proposal.
Google drops it's operating system in Fall of 2006.
Let's add up all the factors.
Plan 9 Operating System developer works for Google. Web Browser Project Lead works for Google. Google buys a fuckton of Dark Fiber Optic Cable.
I'd be willing to bet that Google is making a substantial contribution to the Mozilla Foundation as well.
It's not evil, or a corporate voice, but I can see Firefox shipping as the default browser for a fully online OS.
You want to check my facts, go Google for Google OS, and the rest on Slashdot. See what you find out. Firfox won't get more integrated with Google, Firefox will be part of Google soon - if it isn't already. It's hightime for a battle though.

Re:How can Google get more integrated?

[mike.newton]

something like this maybe? http://www.google.com/mozilla/google.xul

(or for the lazy people: something like this maybe?

Re:How can Google get more integrated?

[Coryoth]

To be frank, not really no. That's a nice XUL frontend to Google's main search page (which is to say, a lonely search box), but fails to carry the XUL through to handling the results, which is where it would actually have been useful.

Besides, Google needs to have its basic search keep its simple spare design for easy access from any number of browsers and to maintain the overall simplicity of basic searching.

GMail, on the other hand, has an interface, and it's an interface that coulc benefit from the rich GUI components provided by XUL.

Jedidiah.

Re:How can Google get more integrated?

[caferace]

How about interesting XUL based interfaes for GMail, Froogle, Orkut etc.

There you go. If Ben can make an interface for Orkut that actually allows it to function from an end-user standpoint, hot damn.

Re:How can Google get more integrated?

[Matt Perry]

Is Orkut even a real site? Out of my rather large circle of geek friends, we have yet to meet a single person who actually has a login. We've all assumed that it was just some kind of publicity stunt.

Re:How can Google get more integrated?

[mhlyo]

Am I the only one thinking that maybe Google is going to do more than just rebrand firefox. As great as gmail is, it's only going to get so far w/o a calendar and to-do list. Not to mention no off-line browsing.

What if Google/Mozilla (GooZilla?) is putting together their own Outlook (aka the Mozilla Application Suite). It will work better, load faster, smaller foot print, more secure, etc... and it could be free with text ads built in.

Just a thought...

Re:How can Google get more integrated?

[Woody77]

Not a bad idea. Use XUL as the engine for handling a rich display (either instead of, or in addition to, dyn html).

Giving gmail some more "pim"ish functionallity would definitely be good for it (and me too, as I use gmail).

So google is paying him to work on firefox?

[ZipR]

Interesting. Will firefox become full of sponsored links now?
Perhaps Microsoft will now too sponsor a person to work on firefox.

Re:So google is paying him to work on firefox?

[thijsa]

Well let's hope that Microsoft will first sponsor someone to work on internet explorer...

Re:So google is paying him to work on firefox?

[sepluv]

No, because it is not run by Ben Goodger but a non-profit organisation (Mozilla Foundation) for the public good and if they go bad you can fork it (except for the few proprietary bits of Firefox which don't really add to the functionality).

Re:So google is paying him to work on firefox?

[ArbitraryConstant]

"except for the few proprietary bits of Firefox which don't really add to the functionality"

I assume you are refferring to the name and logo?

(I'm still getting used to the icon Debian uses)

Re:So google is paying him to work on firefox?

[sepluv]

AFAIK: all the artwork (both copyright and trademarks), the installer (or some of it anyway), and the talkback program that sends data on crashes back to MF. Maybe other bits. Also, the binaries from MF make you agree to a contract before using them (saying you can't distribute, &c) so are probably inherently non-free.

I'm considering distributing binaries entirely made from the free source if anyone is interested. I've also filed a Bugzilla bug asking for free binaries @ftp.mozilla.org.

What if it were Microsoft?

[doublem]

I'm sure this story will generate a slew of positive responses about Google supporting the Open Source Community, and how Linux is one of the technologies they rely upon. there will be some concern, but not much.

What I'm wondering, is how would the Slashdot community respond if it were Microsoft doing the hiring, and THEY were promising Ben's day to day tasks wouldn't change much.

How would people react?

What would be the theories of WHY Microsoft would be supporting a Firefox developer?

Let's set aside the arguments about why this is an implausible scenario and the obvious Microsoft bashing and ask, aside from the exceptions above, what would be the reaction to such an announcement?

Re:What if it were Microsoft?

[PylonHead]

Actually, the story seems to have generated a lot of questions and some open distrust.

Don't worry. There is a healthy skepticism of all corporations here, not just MS.

Re:What if it were Microsoft?

[Sentry21]

Microsoft makes the only competing product for Firefox - them hiring him would be absurdly conspicuous. Google, on the other hand, has a competitor in Microsoft, as does Firefox, and if the IE monopoly stays put, then MSN Search as a default in IE may overtake Google in the same way IE as a default in Windows (and, eventually, Mac) overtook Netscape.

If, however, Google can help make Firefox a heavy player (not that it isn't already), and can also provide to Firefox users more and better integration with Google (should they so choose), then Firefox's growing platform will help Google, and Google's will help Firefox.

Re:What if it were Microsoft?

[Hortensia Patel]

This, frankly, is a silly question.

How would people react if Microsoft were the company in question? They'd be far more hostile. Is this inconsistent or hypocritical? Not in the least.

Microsoft are fundamentally hostile to the Web. They are fundamentally hostile to standards. They are fundamentally hostile to cross-platform applications. They are fundamentally hostile to Free Software.

None of these observations applies to Google. So what was your point again?

Re:What if it were Microsoft?

[tom1974]

You're obviously trolling.

For one, Google doesn't compete against firefox, Microsoft does. That alone justifies every conspiracy loony response.

Second, lets not forget that Microsoft was convicted for illegally maintaining its monopoly.

Third, Microsoft has a track record for playing dirty, being untrustworthy and valuing unethical behavior.

Re:What if it were Microsoft?

[retro128]

Microsoft is like the Borg. They assimilate developers, leech what they can from their technology, and then destroy them. I think I could count the number of Microsoft products and technologies that were developed from scratch in-house on my fingers.

Google, on the other hand, has a track record of developing innovative and intelligently executed projects. I'm sure Google has some sort of motive in hiring the lead developer of Firefox, and I think I can safely say that whatever is brewing is going to be cool.

Re:What if it were Microsoft?

[Minute Work]

File this post under how-do-trolls-get-modded-as-interesting.

I think I'll try setting up a message filter that goes something like this:
This story says *, but what would everyone think if Microsoft (play evil villain music) were to say *.

Re:What if it were Microsoft?

[nekoniku]

Well, to the best of my knowledge, Microsoft doesn't have a corporate philosophy published on the Web that says (among other things) "You can make money without doing evil" and "Democracy on the web works."

Re:What if it were Microsoft?

[Dr. Bent]

The reaction would probably be a lot more heated, considering that Microsoft is an illegal monopoly, that was found (by a court of law) to have engaged in anti-competitive practices. Google, on the other hand, has not. That isn't Microsoft bashing, it's a legal fact.

Google and Microsoft are different companies, with different management teams that have different views of how thier companies should be run. It is right and proper that we should treat them differently.

Re:What if it were Microsoft?

[alan_dershowitz]

I have reason to distrust Microsoft hiring an alternative browser developer, because of MS' history in this area. If MS had never tried to destroy Netscape or break Opera support on their web pages, I probably wouldn't worry if MS hired a Firefox developer.

Thus far I have seen no reason to distrust Google with regards to this hiring. I suspect most FOSS programmers have day jobs, so that he got one at Google doesn't bother me.

Re:What if it were Microsoft?

[freemacmini]

People keep coming out with these "what if it was microsoft" posts but I just don't get it.

Microsoft is an avoved enemy of open source. They are waging war financially (giving money to SCO), rhetorically (you are all communists), legally (lobbying governments), by funding "think tanks" like ADTI etc.

It's like saying "I see joe is moving next door to you but what if it was jeffrey dahmer?".

Google is not MS. If MS did that we would all be probably very suspicious of their motives because they have shown over and over again that they are unetical, sleazy, awful people.

I am not concerned that google is hiring a firefox developer, I would be concerned if MS was hiring one. It has nothing to do with idealogy it has everything to with how Ms behaves and has behaved.

Re:What if it were Microsoft?

[_Sprocket_]

Let's set aside the arguments about why this is an implausible scenario and the obvious Microsoft bashing and ask, aside from the exceptions above, what would be the reaction to such an announcement?

Sure. Let's remove all historical context. Let's ignore past actions. Let's ignore published ideologies. Let's take a current event and an imagined event... and try to make judgments while ignoring all existing orientation. Close your eyes, spin around, and point to where you think the Wumpus would be.

What are you? A trade magazine pundit?

The question becomes more interesting when you don't ignore context. What if it was Microsoft doing this, even with all we know about Microsoft? We already know the answer to that. There's already historical precedent. It's called IBM.

Anyone with a sufficiently long enough memory (or ability to do basic online research) will have a healthy distrust for IBM. After all, Microsoft's infamy comes from simply honing the business practices of IBM. Yet there's a fair amount of optimism expressed in this environment for IBM. Why?

Open Source. IBM can't take back what they've already put in (which leads to another conversation on Open Source licensing - but I'll avoid that Jihad). Sure - there is an aspect of the IT industry that seems to view this as a problem and are seeking a solution. The SCO Group seems to be one. None the less, at this point, such "solutions" don't exist.

IBM lost a lot of it's clout with the commoditization of hardware. We're seeing the dawning of the commodity OS. One day, Microsoft committing to support a major Open Source project no strings attached may not seem so strange.

Re:What if it were Microsoft?

[version5]

Are you implying that Slashdot doesn't like Microsoft? Wow, thanks for the insights.

When Microsoft do good things, this is the reaction you get. There are a couple of knee-jerk anti-MS bashers, a majority of pragmatic posts that judge the event on its merits, and then just for balance, a couple of guys like you who like to talk about the handful of mindless anti-MS posts and make equally mindless generalizations.

Re:What if it were Microsoft?

[Bingo Foo]

In Korea, only old people say, "what if it was Microsoft."

Re:What if it were Microsoft?

[strider44]

not to mention that Firefox is Microsoft's main competitor to IE, which gives them every motivation to want to drive it into the ground. This doesn't apply to Google either.

Re:What if it were Microsoft?

[oddfox]

I don't see how you can act like Google has some monopoly-like status on the search engine market through unfair business practices that would be illegal under the various anti-trust laws the USA has. Microsoft was convicted of this, Google has never once been accused of it, AFAIK. Feel free to enlighten me, and what is this "google brain drain" you speak of? Hiring smart people? Since when is that to be frowned upon for that fact alone? It leads to a better service in most scenarios, and has here.

Re:What if it were Microsoft?

[hkmwbz]

"Microsoft makes the only competing product for Firefox"

What's that? The only competing product? I think not.

So THAT's why...

[Anonymous Coward]

...Firefox has google search built-in. Someone needed a job!

Re:So THAT's why...

[boarder8925]

Yeah, and Netscape has had Google search built in for at least a year and a half now.

Re:So THAT's why...

[sepluv]

...Or maybe it was just because 99% of people use Google and it has the best generic search algorithms (not to mention the fact that there are 6 other SEs in Firefox).

What a combo

[Ichtys]

Oh me o my! This will be very interesting indeed. My two favourite pieces of software - all in one! Can it get any better? Yes. Yes it can. But then they would have to come up with a way to make my CPU produce hot chocolate. Which not is an easy programmin task, I tell you.

Re:Google Toolbar for Firefox

[anz2007]

Google toolbar like... https://addons.update.mozilla.org/extensions/morei nfo.php?application=firefox&version=0.9&os=Windows &category=Search%20Tools&numpg=10&id=33

Corruption of FireFox Development?

[reporter]

If Ben Goodger is working for Google, I wonder how long before we see Google-optimizied features in FireFox. Google is now a profitable, public corporation with a stock-ownership structure patterned after Time-Warner. I doubt that Time-Warner would allows its employees, on company time, to work on Sony televisions unless the employees intend to add some specific features to the televisions to somehow enhance the media content from Time-Warner.

Will Google now become the default search engine on FireFox? So, if you enter a faulty URL, then suddenly, the Google web page appears and presents you with alternative Web links?

I prefer that the development team at FireFox be agnostic. Perhaps, now is the time to switch to Gecko. I hear that it is faster and has a tighter interface with Windows. I sure could use the speed for all my visits to picture-laden porn sites.

Re:Corruption of FireFox Development?

[Anonymous Coward]

Will Google now become the default search engine on FireFox? So, if you enter a faulty URL, then suddenly, the Google web page appears and presents you with alternative Web links?

Uh, Google already is the default search engine.

I prefer that the development team at FireFox be agnostic. Perhaps, now is the time to switch to Gecko. I hear that it is faster and has a tighter interface with Windows.

Firefox uses Gecko.

Lots of companies pay people to work on Mozilla, including IBM. It doesn't mean they do things only to benefit their employers.

Re:Corruption of FireFox Development?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Will Google now become the default search engine on FireFox? So, if you enter a faulty URL, then suddenly, the Google web page appears and presents you with alternative Web links?"

It already does that to an extent. If you type in a faulty URL, it goes through Google's "I'm Feeling Lucky".

Re:Corruption of FireFox Development?

[IO ERROR]

Google already IS the default search engine on Firefox!

Re:Corruption of FireFox Development?

[Anonymous Coward]

Err... Gecko is not a browser: it's a part of a browser called a layout engine. Firefox's layout engine? Gecko.

From Wikipedia's layout engine entry:

A web browser's layout engine takes content (HTML, XML, images, etc.) and formatting information (CSS, etc.) and computes a visual representation of the web page, usually for output on either a monitor or a printer.

All web browsers necessarily include some form of layout engine. However, the term "layout engine" only reached popular usage when the Mozilla project designed its web browser's layout engine (Gecko) as a component that was separable from the browser. In other words, the Mozilla layout engine was reusable for web browsers besides Mozilla, and so people began to refer to Gecko as a distinct "layout engine" rather than merely a part of the web browser.

Re:Corruption of FireFox Development?

[KillerDeathRobot]

You mean K-Meleon? That has Google as its default search engine too.

Re:Corruption of FireFox Development?

[tool462]

You are very right to ask "What does Google get out of this relationship?" The answer, in this case, is much more simple and benign. It is a benefit to Google to have a healthy competitor for IE. Especially since MSN's search utility is their primary competitor. MS could just as easily make some IE only enhancements to MSN (i.e., ActiveX controls for context-based searching or something). This is more difficult for Google to do since they remain forced to support IE. They can't add features to Firefox and lock out IE since the vast majority of their market base still uses IE. If and when that changes, a closer look at the Google/Firefox relationship will be warranted. As of right now it's just a way for google to try to maintain a level playing field with MS.

Re:Corruption of FireFox Development?

[EnronHaliburton2004]

Uh, Google already is the default search engine.

But if you enter a faulty URL with Firefox, you don't suddently appear at a Google web page. You get an error.

With IE, you usually end up at a MSN Search Page.

Re:Corruption of FireFox Development?

[diegocgteleline.es]

Google is sponsoring someone. It hasn't bought Netscape.

If he starts being impartial I guess that they won't alow him to develop firefox.

Re:Corruption of FireFox Development?

[itp]

If you enter something in the location bar that is not a web address, Firefox already takes you to the "I'm feeling lucky" result as returned by Google for that result.

Re:Corruption of FireFox Development?

[sepluv]

Please...more conspiracy theorys...

I doubt that Time-Warner would allows its employees, on company time

Well, that is why TW has a bad name and Google is kown as an ethical company. Google actually allow their employees a proportion of their work time to do their own projects. Anyway, the non-profit for-the-public-good MF is in charge of Firefox and it can always be forked if they go bad (except for the negligble proprietary components of Firefox).

So, if you enter a faulty URL, then suddenly, the Google web page appears and presents you with alternative Web links?

ATM if you enter a word or phrase that doesn't look like a URI it searches Google and takes you to the page at the top of the Google results. Personally I think it should ask you the first time whether you want it to do this (just in case it scares people), but, except that, this seems sensible.

Perhaps, now is the time to switch to Gecko.

Gecko is the rendering engine (backend) used by Mozilla, Firefox, Camino, Netscape, Galleon, &c, so, if you use any of those browsers, you already use Gecko.

Re:Corruption of FireFox Development?

[SpecBear]

It's a legitimate concern, and I'd be seriously worried if Firefox weren't under the Mozilla license. There's already been some precedent established for the kind of arrangement you're proposing where a corporate sponsor attempted to twist the Mozilla codebase for its own benefit, and it didn't work out. Remember Netscape Navigator? Know anybody who uses it?

The great thing about free open source software is that the developers can be kept in line with the prospect of competing with their own project. If you take the project in a direction that pisses off enough people, they can swoop in, fork your code, and beat you over the head with it. The very existence of projects like Kmeleon makes the corruption tactic a high risk maneuver.

Re:Corruption of FireFox Development?

[Wizarth]

Your right.

And typing in a bad URL DOES give you Googles "I'm feeling lucky" hit, I often use it when I just cant think of the website, but I know it'll come up number one (like type in apache, no need to remember .com, .org, .net etc ).

Re:Corruption of FireFox Development?

[Rits]

"Lots of companies pay people to work on Mozilla, including IBM. It doesn't mean they do things only to benefit their employers."

But while Firefox is an open source project, it is not a free-for-all. There are only a few persons that decide on the UI design, and IIANM, one person has the final vote: Ben. That's why Firefox is more usable for most people than Mozilla, its UI hasn't been designed by a committee. Which means that Ben has a real power. The possibility of a fork is mostly theoretical. If Ben would manipulate the UI a bit to be even more Google friendly, but it stays usable, no fork will happen. This wouldn't even have to be a conscious choice to thwart other search engines. Of course there will be no secret hidden code that sends your soul to Mountain View.

I'm not saying Ben is or will ever become corrupt. But it does feel a little bit weird that someone with real power in the browser world is paid for by a search engine.

How would you feel if Linus was being paid (exclusively) by AMD? Would optimization for AMD chips get in the Linux kernel a little bit faster than optimizations for Intel chips?

Re:Corruption of FireFox Development?

[mrpuffypants]

Will Google now become the default search engine on FireFox? So, if you enter a faulty URL, then suddenly, the Google web page appears and presents you with alternative Web links?

I'd be OK with that....make it the default (as it is in the search bar right now) and just allow people to change it with config settings at their leisure. works for me.

Re:Corruption of FireFox Development?

[Haeleth]

It already does that to an extent. If you type in a faulty URL, it goes through Google's "I'm Feeling Lucky".

That only happens some of the time. In many cases it displays an error page even if you type in a valid Google search query: for example, try "foo site:google.com", and you'll get a message saying "The URL is not valid and cannot be loaded". (You have to type "keyword:foo site:google.com" to get the expected behaviour.)

Re:Corruption of FireFox Development?

[powerlinekid]

Yeah you go ahead and try Gecko... I bet that gets you far.

Re:Corruption of FireFox Development?

[sepluv]

Not specifically. I was talking about attititudes of the two companies generally. In fact, Google allowing their employees time to play is a good business decision (which results in their employees actually being creative and furthering the progress of humankind as well as Google's bank balance).

You got it wrong....

[LordPhantom]

... it will be Foogle :)

Re:Google Toolbar for Firefox

[hajihill]

I just read that above after posting my last message. and in fact tried to post about it saying something along the lines of:

Ah shit.... Why wasn't I informed...

Oh the karma.

Looks like I'm off to install Firefox.

ad subsidized

[Iscariot_]

So basically, Firefox is now (somewhat) ad subsidized?

Re:Google Toolbar for Firefox

[KillerDeathRobot]

What functionality from the Google toolbar do you not get with the search box in Firefox? Whatever it is, there's probably an extension to handle it.

The ever puzzling Google guys

[Anonymous Cowherd X]

Ben Goodger, lead developer for Firefox, ...

Good-bad-gers? Fire-bad-foxes? I bet Google hired him just so they can use this as a puzzle on their Ph.D. job applicants!

Googopoly.

[GojiN]

And so the (much welcomed) Googopoly begins!

Buy on rumor, sell on news

[winkydink]

Investing 101

Re:Google Toolbar for Firefox

[Nameles]

This is the plug-in you're looking for

It's still kinda buggy, do a clean install and it should be ok.

Google: The info warehouse

[Rheagar]

So from what I gather, google is collecting every scrap of information about everything. This spans from the basic google websearch to google desktop search and eventually google e-mail searching (searching for anonymous content from within their growing gmail database).

When google takes over our web browsers, they will also be able to collect info on more than just what we are searching for -- they will know how we are finding desired content.

Pretty soon google will know everything about everyone. People won't have to bother with the trouble of defining ourselves in the real world anymore -- inspection and introspection of humans can be done through tomorrow's google. I presume it will be utopia.

I am wearing a tinfoil hat right now. What they are doing is perfectly legal. But I still think it is a bit scary.

Re:Google Toolbar for Firefox

[sepluv]

Now if Firefox had a version of the Google toolbar, which up to now it does not, I would switch in a hot minute.

*Troll Alert*

Firefox has always (since 0.1) had a Google Toolbar extension--not that find you need it as its built-in search functionality is so good.

What a great way to influence a project

[wonkavader]

I don't mean to slam Google, but just to go ahead and state the obvious:

What a great way to influence a project: pay for it.

Google will really be able to get any pet idea that they have at least brought up as a part of the project.

This is a very cheap way of touching millions of people. A smart, patient and friendly company should be able to find ways to get their agenda helped, even when their employee is generally remaining "independant".

And free advertising: BGoodger@google.com at the bottom of every communication? Though I suppose it'll be something more like BGoodger@gmail.com

This should be happening much more than it does.

Re:What a great way to influence a project

[rbarreira]

Then he can say... I sold my soul to google and all I got was a lousy GMail account :)

Tongue Twister

[coyotecult]

I can not say "Goodger and Google" ten times fast for the life of me.

Re:Google Toolbar for Firefox

[DeathFlame]

Can someone sell me whatever this guy is smoking? No google toolbar?

It has a search portion, that is fully customizable to other searchs, plus the capability to create your own custom keywords to use in the toolbar instead. (like the built in dict "word" for definition, you can use any keywords for search items, if you choose not to use the search toolbar)

Re:Google Toolbar for Firefox

[Sky-217]

I've been using one for a while now. You can get it here. Your hot minute begins... Now.

Oops

[bdesham]

in a very low key announcement

Not anymore :-)

Re:Google Toolbar for Firefox

[_Sprocket_]

Now if Firefox had a version of the Google toolbar, which up to now it does not, I would switch in a hot minute.

I'm somewhat shocked that someone would say this. I have to admit, I can't help but wonder if I'm being trolled on this. But I'll apply Occam's Razor and assume ignorance over malicious intent.

Firefox has Googlebar and has had it for some time. Now, some have claimed Googlebar doesn't count since it lacks PageRank. Enter PRGooglebar.

Re:Hummm...

[crankyspice]

So this means the Google will get the features it wants and to hell with everyone else, including standards compliance which seems to be taken a back seat these days.

I've never done so before, but this comment prompted me to run the basic main Google page through the w3c validator; the results were suprising. It's such a simple page; why not take the (minimal!) time necessary to code proper HTML?! Yikes. I didn't expect that level of sloppiness.

(Yes, my personal page validates just fine, thanks (though some subpages may not, given the age of a lot of the code, and the multiple generations of sites the content pages have churned through... After I graduate and pass the Bar, maybe I'll have time to go back and fix them...)

I don't get what the problem is

[koniosis]

If it's open source then if someone starts adding company specific stuff, or things that the community don't agree with, can't they just be removed by someone else. Or it can be branched so that all the "Google Crap" that someone might add is a seperate development. Isn't that the whole point of OSS? Besides, Google could just employ anyone to contribute to Firefox, it doesn't have to be the "creator", but I can see why that would be useful to them.

Oh please do no evil...

[marcushnk]

If this isn't a conflict of interest I don't know what is..

I REALLY hope they stick to the "Do no Evil", because with this sort of move, they have the oppertunity to be either very very _good_ or just as easily be very very _evil_.

Then again.. its Open Sourced... so if google try anything even slightly askew, the code will be forked or better yet just plain rejected.

Re:Oh please do no evil...

[Alsee]

if google try anything even slightly askew, the code will be forked or better yet just plain rejected.

And the people at Google have the IQ points to notice that fact as well. The fact that they already knew that when they hired him pretty well excludes most of the "evil" motivations for doing so.

-

Also See..

[sepluv]

the Mozillazine story and commentary, the SEWatch story and the Neowin story.

No mention from Google on this yet.

Google vs Hyatt

[skyman8081]

I guess Dave Hyatt never did pay the $50 to Ben. So he had to leave for Google.

Mozilla Bug #52094 "Hyatt should give ben $50"

Re:Google vs Hyatt

[Agret]

------- Additional Comment #89 From Ben Goodger 2004-11-17 01:15 PST [reply] -------

Wow.

I got hyatt drunk and he gave me fifty bucks, in cash.

After more than four years, I think I can consider this bug fixed.

Re:Google vs Hyatt

[Hobbex]

Well, that's it, I'm not working on Firefox... ever...

------- Additional Comment #91 From Blake Ross 2004-11-17 11:49 PST [reply] -------

Verified, I watched it with my own eyes. But if I recall correctly, it was only $49.

If there are any "hyatt should give ben a lap dance" bugs, those can be resolved
too. What a crazy night it was.

Let them answer themself!

[thijsa]

Well, according to google:
google "evil corporation": 2,010 hits
google "good corporation": 207 hits

They have the odds against! They're doing even worse than M$:
microsoft evil corporation: 840 hits
microsoft good corporation: 297 hits

Re:Let them answer themself!

[sepluv]

Well if the WWW (and land of conspiracy theorist nutters) says that Google are definitely safe and a good corp.

I for one...

[game kid]

...welcome our browser-developing search-engine overlord.

Now Working For Google

oh, wait...

Big deal...

[doormat]

Even though I doubt Ben and google would go "evil" on firefox, if the rest of the community didnt like it, they can go fork. Firefox is under an open license. The community can just pick up and leave Ben or whoever and make their own browser on top of whatever they pull from the source library...

Re:Big deal...

[PornMaster]

Yeah, but just think of how hard it will be to find a name that's not taken already! ;)

Re:Big deal...

[coopaq]

Yeah, but just think of how hard it will be to find a name that's not taken already! ;)

That's easy:

Internet Explorer 7.0!

Re:Big deal...

[Strudleman]

What? Like PornMaster? /me ducks

Did you read the bug?

[Anonymous Coward]

He did pay, and it's now marked as resolved.

./ grammar

[utopianfiat]

Ben Goodger, lead developer for Firefox, has announce that effective from a couple of weeks ago, he has become a Google employee.

no offense to the poster, but: s/has announce/has announced/
Grammar is what sets us apart from the script kiddie.

Re:./ grammar

[mph]

Grammar is what sets us apart from the script kiddie.

ITYM: "Grammar is what set us up the bomb."

Re:./ grammar

[Borderlinebass]

Okay, first up, it's "Grammar is what sets us apart from the script kiddies."

Second, grammar is not what sets "us" (Interesting term to use on a board as big and heterogeneous as Slashdot. You really think that there aren't script kiddies here?) apart from the script kiddies; intelligence, ethics, and skill are what set "us" apart from "them."

Silly grammar nazi.

Re:./ grammar

[utopianfiat]

although I was making a metaphor out of "script kiddie" and turning it into a species of sorts, so the plural is unnecessary. :-P

No.

[diegocgteleline.es]

They're helping to oneof the most succesful OSS projects

I can't see how that can be "evil" in any way

Should have waited

[Ars-Fartsica]

He is getting is options at a ridiculous price that will likely be just a memory for many years to come. My advice - wait until it gets below $100 before even thinking of joining. Look at Yahoo - many employees joined at $150 (and falling) when they could have joined at $8...where would you rather have your options priced??? In the case of Yahoo they would have even made up their lost wages by waiting.

eh?

[diegocgteleline.es]

A link to what?

Desperation breeds bad behavior

[Ars-Fartsica]

Google is still in a bubble, they can afford high ideals. When their stock goes to $40 you might see them doing anything for a buck, although in this case I suspect the open source community would reject Google hooks in the code, or simply fork out if needed to maintain a free option for users ("FreeFox"...i should trademark that!).

Re:Desperation breeds bad behavior

[menkhaura]

Not another name change...

Re:Desperation breeds bad behavior

[sketerpot]

Firebert: not a good browser name.

Come on, it would be cool!

This is bad-For my argument.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Google are the new MS"

They don't have a monopoly on the search market.

"forming links with good technology and talent"

IBM

"then manipulating it for their own selfish needs."

GPL.

"Trust me Google are the new evil."

Trust me. You haven't the foggiest what true evil is.

They just hired a guy, not the Mozilla foundation

[mike.newton]

Sure lots of us associate Firefox with Ben, but just because he's got a job at Google, doesn't mean they hired him so they could 'take over' the browser, or that there's going to be 'overlap.' Many of Mozilla's/Firefox's developers work at other large IT companies (IBM is the first to come to mind) with none of this influence, or speculation of influence.
Presumably, Ben's work on Firefox will be happening in his personal time, and won't have much to do with Google. I would guess they hired him because he's now got a great track record and clearly developed skills in UI design and implementation.

Just got firefox, and the first thing I noticed

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Was the Google Search Box in the upper right hand corner on the installation used here at my state agency.

I'm not sure if it's a recent addition or not- my ability to run Firefox at work postdates Ben's involvement with Google- but it's just the sort of thing that I'd expect from such a combination.

Re:Just got firefox, and the first thing I noticed

[Photon Ghoul]

No, that's been there for quite awhile. It has definitely been in the browser before 1.0 and possibly has been in place since the first preview/alpha releases. Someone else may know the exact moment it appeared.

Re:Just got firefox, and the first thing I noticed

[zvar]

Was the Google Search Box in the upper right hand corner on the installation used here at my state agency.

Actually it's been there since 0.2 of phoenix. (Sorry guys, didn't start with the first release).

Now the home page started somewhere around .9 and 1.0. I'm not sure exactly when.

Put it to the test

[parvin]

Anyone feel like writing and submitting an extension to eliminate Sponsored Links on the Google results page?

Re:Put it to the test

[siliconjunkie]

Done

Re:Hummm...

[Sinus0idal]

Then again, I'm yet to come across a machine or browser which doesn't render google correctly... I guess they do their own checking.

Re:Google Toolbar for Firefox

[jsprat]

I think you mean Hanlon's razor:

"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."

This is a good thing

[fname]

Firefox's lead developer is now a paid employee of Google. Mostly what they want is a better Firefox that can compete with Explorer, and make the web as a whole more standards compliant. This will decrease people's reliance on Windows, and make the web more of a platform. Google is, so far, the best developer on the web platform.

And honestly, if the project starts to suck, either Goodger will leave Google and find another sponsor, or the project will fork, and Google's version won't be the one known as Firefox. That would be bad for Google, and render the whole exercise pointless.

It may be a "conflict of interest," but that doesn't mean it will be bad. Google is an arrogant corporation (not in a bad way), and they think that with a level playing field, they will kick the a** of MS and everybody else. They want Firefox to level the playing field so they can win. The worst possible outcome would be for Firefox to become Google-optimized at the expense of how it works on thee rest of the web; that will hurt Firefox & Google.

Don't worry who's paying the bills; worry about the code he generates, and be happy that he's being paid to work on Firefox, which simply ensures that he'll continue to work on it.

Re:This is a good thing

[mbkennel]

Exactly. Usually the simple answer is right.

Google is planning on writing many web-based applications. Obviously google search and gmail are the first and second ones, with gmail doing a fair amount of client-side processing.

Google wants want them to Not Suck.

Microsoft can Make Them Suck via Internet Explorer. Microsoft is doing the job of making IE suck on its own.

Hence Google wants to make sure Firefox stays healthy and Mr Goodger doesn't get absorbed by the Borg when he wants to get married and has a mortgage payment.

What is Google's business plan?

The same as Marc Andressen's at Netscape, except plus a billion dollars in cash, a stunningly profitable advertising busines, even more PhDs---minus a browser and a Microsoft division dedicating to killing it (so far).

the Google Home Page is replacing the Netscape Home Page. Remember that? How Netscape was going to make money off that after the browser had its air supply sucked out?

the Google API and platforms are going to fight the Windows API and platforms, just as Netscape was going to do.

Re:This is a good thing

[frostman]

I agree with most of what you said, but keep in mind that Google doesn't care about standards compliance per se.

Re:This is a good thing

[Surye]

This is probably due to the fact that they do not know html. ;)

So what?

[fm6]

What I'm wondering, is how would the Slashdot community respond if it were Microsoft doing the hiring, and THEY were promising Ben's day to day tasks wouldn't change much.

People wouldn't believe them. Not because of who they are, but because of their track record. Not a record of honesty!

Besides which, the MS party line has always been that Open Source is a Bad Thing. It's not unreasonable to assume that anything they do with respect to OS is negative.

Re:So what?

[fname]

Good point. It's even sillier to complain about Google in light of the fact that AOL was paying these coders for years while they developed Mozilla, and AOL is certified Evil!

Google Desktop Search

[GraZZ]

Dear Google/Mr. Goodger,

Please, please, PLEASE can we get Google Desktop Search indexing of Firefox history and Thunderbird messages.

Please!

Love Grazz

Re:Google Desktop Search

[Xenna]

Since no-one else seems to be doing it and I can't find the mod-box I'll just mark you:

+5 Insightful

Meant so say, "K-Meleon", not "Gecko".

[reporter]

Sorry. I goofed in my original article. I meant to say "K-Meleon" instead of "Gecko".

Re:Meant so say, "K-Meleon", not "Gecko".

[mrchaotica]

Good thing you corrected yourself -- I thought you meant Seamonkey.

A point that needs to be made

[chadpnet]

It's important for us to note that, in a macroview perspective, Google is contributing to the open source movement. With Googles own interests aside, this is one small step for Google, and one very helpful leap forward in open source. The more funding we can get by large corporations the better. And for all the nay-sayers:

The open source world considers many of its large projects as benevolent dictatorships. It's a democracy only in the sense that cyberspace is infinite so anyone who doesn't like it can move out. -- Alan Cox

Re:Sellout

[rbarreira]

You have already downloaded gecko if you have Firefox :P

Not the End of the World (tm)

[Codeala]

Ben Goodger is "just" the lead developer, not to take anything from his contributions to the Firefox project, but the project will go on even when he work for another employer or "turn evil" as some seems to think.

The open source model is not a dictatorship, especially on a large project like mozilla/firefox, not one single person has complete control over everything.
The news of Mr Goodger change of employer is no more shocking than programmers from different countries/companies contribute code to various open source projects. There is no "hidden agenda" or "conflict of interest".

Anyone that has concern about this, become a developer: http://www.mozilla.org/developer/

Good for some, not for others

[codesurfer]

I'm of two minds about this announcement. Ben has put a large amount of hard work to ensure the success of Firefox, given a great deal to the project. He should be free to parlay that work into any opportunity he wants, and certainly deserves recognition for all he's given to the open source community. Having said all that, I can't help but be a little concerned about the continuing Google acquisition/release binge that has been going on for some time. I'm a little paranoid at best, and can't help but feel there may be some privacy issues arise in the future as Google will be tied into everything associated with the web. Maybe I'm worrying for nothing, but maybe I better stock up on tinfoil hats. Best of luck to Ben, and best of luck (we may need it) to those of us that are dedicated Firefox users (privacy being one of the major reasons for adopting itin the first place).

Re:Good for some, not for others

[Myen]

I doubt privacy would be too much of a concern... At least, I don't think Google would be able to get a serious leg up in this direction.

There are seriously people reading the checkin logs everyday[1], and people who pull sources from CVS and make their own builds (minus official Mozilla branding). They already apply some patches not in the Mozilla.org tree (in an attempt to get stuff to go faster, trading stability). Which should mean that patches to kill privacy problems should stick around.

[1] It's on bonsai.m.o

Now you're in...

[phy_si_kal]

Tell them to use Firefox's history and bookmarks and Thunderbird emails in Google Desktop !

discomforting.

[phaln]

There's something rather discomforting about Google as of late, but I can't quite spot it.

The 20% qustion

[SuperKendall]

I don't know if they will head that way, but he has 20% of his time to do that if he wants to...

That to me is the most interesting thought, what will a developer of Firefox do within google with that 20% of free project time?

One thing I would hope for is some cool uses of XUL for interfaces to online services like GMail.

Re:The 20% qustion

[onzfonz]

Just a clarification, I think there are a lot of people that are like "oh wow, 20% free time to do whatever you want!" Keep in mind that the 20% time has to in some way end up helping google. They have some pretty stringent guidelines on that 20%. But as to the parent, those are definitely things that sound legit for google to let him do.

Re:The 20% qustion

[Rits]

Ben's weblog entry clearly states he'll be working fulltime on Firefox. He'll just be paid by Google often sit at a Google desk while doing so.

proof in the pudding

[willCode4Beer.com]

This is an example of an interesting trend.

Companies are starting to hire people who make a name for themselves while working on open source projects. This makes sense on several levels.

The developer has proven themselves in an environment where capability is obvious, transparent, and peer reviewed. Try getting that out of a resume. They are hiring a known.
The company gets to use that person's *fame*/name as a marketing tool.
The developer is probably more willing to put in the extra hours because they must enjoy coding to spend so much spare time doing it.

This helps the open source movement a well. If new developers get out and try to earn a name, they'll probably start putting more effort if they think their code might get them a good job. They might take the peer review more seriously.

as well, I'll keep dreaming...

Re:proof in the pudding

[Trogre]

"Proof in the pudding"

I think the proverb you were looking for is actually:

The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Now if you'll excuse me I'm off to find that guy who "could care less".

Re:proof in the pudding

[JanneM]

Now if you'll excuse me I'm off to find that guy who "could care less".

Well, if someone posts somewhere about something, saying they could care less, they are factually and linguistically entirely correct. They could care less - and not post at all.

Re:proof in the pudding

[The-Perl-CD-Bookshel]

This is why companies look at student's grades in school. It proves to them that the student is willing to do the work (even if they think it is trivial, don't understand it or don't like the subject).

If "lead Firefox developer" is on your "report card" then its clear that you have a passion for your work.

Re:proof in the pudding

[Bryan_W]

Now if you'll excuse me I'm off to find that guy who "could care less".

I think he's off "having his cake and eating it too"

Re:proof in the pudding

[DeepHurtn!]

When you find him, kick his ass for me.

Re:proof in the pudding

[nagarjun]

This is an example of an interesting trend.

It is dangerous to predict a trend based on isolated, celebrity examples like Linus and Goodger.

It is true that some people who grow up playing sports will get extraordinarily rich. But the vast majority will not make a penny playing sports. Who is to the say the same pattern will not apply to open-source programmers?

Re:proof in the pudding

[RedWizzard]

Now if you'll excuse me I'm off to find that guy who "could care less".

But you've already proven that you are the guy who could care less!

Re:proof in the pudding

[davids-world.com]

The developer has proven themselves in an environment where capability is obvious, transparent, and peer reviewed. Try getting that out of a resume. They are hiring a known. The company gets to use that person's *fame*/name as a marketing tool. The developer is probably more willing to put in the extra hours because they must enjoy coding to spend so much spare time doing it.

Just like when somebody gets hired in science, at least for the more senior positions. Which supports my opinion that Open Source development is, in a way, a reincarnation of the long-established academic process.

Re:proof in the pudding

[whatever3003]

celebrity programming.

This (seemingly) good thing can quickly be turned on its head as the trend is picked up and ran with. Soon, instead of any research being done into the open sourced, peer-reviewed program X, a programmer is hired simply because they belong on the team of some hot OSS program name -- whether their ability is there or not wont matter (the cult of celebrity doesnt require *reasons* - just fame and a name to stick it to) in the rush to market their own product on the strength of another product ... its the same with hollywood movies and their clique of (tired, pathetic, mediocre, awful) actors that get hired for new movies on the strength of their name alone.

Hollywood is stagnant however, and in my opinion, it is much harder for programmers to get celebrity-status as the yardstick of ability is far higher and years of experience more neccessary for getting ahead and achieving fame than a nice ass and a big toothy smile - just my ill-gotten $.02

A new job

[dakryx]

Why can't a guy get a job in the tech sector even though he's working on an oss project and everyone not get on the companies back for hiring him?

Re:A new job

[NaCl]

Why can't a guy get a job in the tech sector even though he's working on an oss project and everyone not get on the companies back for hiring him?

Because there is more to it than the naked eye can see, you would be naive if you see this move from Google as just another hire. Think.

Re:A new job

[dakryx]

Eh, If mozilla was some closed source deal, I would think its more sinister but you act like he will always be the lead and that someone couldn't supplant if he started "acting" up

Firefox

[murdochrjj]

Why doesn't google put firefox on its main search page as a download for a couple of weeks?

'Firefox - The best way to browse the web' or something similar for the masses to digest.

I remember they did something similar with picassa a while back.

Do it now before MSN/IE integration kicks in.

Re:Firefox

[contagious_d]

One of those special event logos like they have for holidays would be real cool too.

don't give up your day job

[lubricated]

With a name like that, it is of little wonder that you don't work for a successful marketing department.

Re:Google Toolbar for Firefox

[sepluv]

Ye, there is. Its called the Google Toolbar extension for Firefox.

Gbrowser

[linuxguy3827]

could this be the start of GBrowser http://www.whois.sc/gbrowser.com/ [whois.com]

Freeing up resources at the Mozilla Foundation

[oboylet]

This also allows the Mozilla Foundation to redirect what they were spending on his salary. They can hire another code monkey or spend it on just about anything. BenG is one of the old-school Mozilla pros and now another young gun can take his place.

This is only good news.

How is that related to Google?

[SuperKendall]

Just how do you get the ads come from Google? I could not find anything that said that... it looks nothing like google ads I have seen before. Also, they have thier own search device that produces more customized ads.

Re:How is that related to Google?

[grazzy]

Copy link location, check it out.

No they couldn't. This is customised ads BY google for this specific page. Thats why they look like that. Check wired.com (for example) for more customised adsense-ads.

Re:How is that related to Google?

[grazzy]

The company in question is sedo.se, they handle a large part of all domainname-trading in northern europe.

Re:Google Toolbar for Firefox

[_Sprocket_]

Hmmm. I suppose you're right. I always thought it was a variation of Occam's Razor in so far as ignorance or stupidity is a much more common (and simple) occurrence than machiavellian action. But hey. What says I can't fall under the same laws?

Thanks. ;)

You mean.....

[jd]

The amazing fact that, in future releases, all links to Altavista, Yahoo search, Lycos, Excite, etc, will amazingly redirect to Google...

Re:Hummm...

[Fallen_Knight]

Google uses the HTML they way they do to save everybyte, notice in their source 1 char var names, its designed to be small and simple to save bandwidth, save 10 bytes from 100,000,000 million hits thats 10,000,000 bytes, ~9-10 gb?

also it always looks right no matter what your useing so its all good.

Google paid to be Firefox's default

[PengoNet]

Firefox have a deal with Google such that they are the default search and on the default home page in Mozilla Firefox.

Re:Hummm...

[Fallen_Knight]

err 1,000,000,000 bytes, and i did the rest of my math wrong to lol

1 000 000 000 bytes = 953.674316 megabytes thanks to google for that calculation:)

And i'm sure proper (readable) HTML would be more then 10 bytes.

So what?

[miked378]

Not to be naive, but... Just because the guy is working for Google doesn't necessarily mean that Google is now in charge of Firefox. There are plenty of examples of software projects that are not company owned, but in which companies support development, since said companies benefit from both a good product and the karma that comes with supporting good software, especially that they don't own. Furthermore, I doubt too many of us are paid to cruise slashdot, or write the programs we write -- we should wish him the best of luck, and congratulate him on finding somebody to pay him for what he's already doing well!

Re:Hummm...

[crankyspice]

Why take the time and effort to make a site standard compliant when in the end it would probabaly use more bandwidth for google

You're talking a handful of bytes, at most. Things like making sure your 'id' tags conform with proper naming conventions (e.g., starting with a letter, rather than a number), and wrapping quotes around attributes' values, don't (or, shouldn't) break browsers, don't incur overhead, and are (gasp) standards compliant.

I'll point out that only on the 'Web is this type of sloppiness anticipated and handled gracefully; try the same level of lack of attention to syntactic detail in, say, Java, Perl, C/C++, etc., and you'd be in for a rude awakening.

What makes W3C standards anyway?

Are you serious? Ever here of Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of this here world wide web?

Remember, the 'web isn't just MSIE and Firefox; my cellphone has to render Google these days, as does my PDA, as does . . . When sites are coded to standards, it makes it very easy for programmers to accomodate those sites. When sites disregard the standards, browsers have to become exponentially larger and more complicated, to address the myriad ways in which code is non-standardized. Standards adherence streamlines things for *everyone*; lack of standards compliance may work today but may break nastily tomorrow.

Having a standard document from which both parties are working (browesr builder and site programmer) means both are on the same page, literally. It's not "one way to make the internet more uniform," it's the only way in which the Internet will work the way it's designed to. If everyone didn't accomodate at least HTTP/0.9, you wouldn't be web surfing today; if every modern browser didn't support HTTP/1.1 no one could get cheap shared-server web hosting (and/or we'd have a serious shortage of IP addresses) . . . You use standards every day. Bringing HTML into compliance with basic standards is a no-brainer, and it's inexcusable (IMHO) for a company as large and prominent as Google to ignore them.

Not good

[roman_mir]

if that happens Bush can declare a war on Google (sponsored by MS of-course,) since (as I am sure, you are all aware of,) napalm is a weapon of mass destruction.... well, it can be.

Where?

[kerrle]

Please explain to me where the conflict of interest lies. I'm having trouble finding it.

[OT] Re:Uh-oh... bad news for Google...

[tomstdenis]

[long offtopic post]

Transmeta despite their hype NEVER had a product that was significantly better than what we have today.

A AMD XP-M [2400+] in low power mode takes a whopping 9W or so of power. Gives 4 hours of battery power [in a compaq presario 2180CA with the LCD brightness down and wifi in power saving mode] and is FASTER than a Transmeta at full power.

Oh sure I could get 5-6 hours out of a transmeta but builds will take longer, apps will load/run slower, etc...That and you pay a premium for the laptop [at the time I bought my laptop the only retail transmetas sold for $500 more].

I don't know exact specs for the AMD K8 but if the mobile is anything like my 3200+ NewCastle it's even better than the mobile AMD XP-M [e.g. more processing more and less actual power consumption]. And given that you can get a K8 laptop for slightly more than what my XP-M cost in 2003 there isn't much incentive to buy a transmeta...

Transmeta would have had a place say in the late 90s and early 00s when laptops really guzzled batteries. Now that we have cpus like the Pentium M, XP-M and K8 the need for "slow but low power" cpus in laptops is really non existant.

Another point that soured Transmeta is that the CPU is not the only power user. My laptop in low power mode consumes roughly 16.83W of power [at ~16V and 1052mAh]. The cpu consumes about 9W of that or 53%. The rest is the chipset, wifi, memory and more importantly the hard disk and backlighting.

The LCD at full brightness adds roughly 3.2W to the consumption, the hard disk at full load consumes another 5W, the cdrom probably takes about the same. Then you have the wifi while transmitting, etc...

So the actual load of the cpu when working which generally while editing text is a fair amount of idle time contributes just over half the power used.

If you want to prolong the battery life you want to also reduce the consumption of the rest. For instance, by extrapolation if the rest of the laptop [minus the cpu] was halved in consumption would lead to roughly 808mAh consuption [up to 5h 12m from 4h].

By comparison halving the cpu consumption lowers the overall consumption to 770mAh and a running time of around 5h 27m.

So really all the cpu savings that Transmeta offers [and I'm just guestimating they have 4.5W cpus] gets you an additional 15 minutes of battery life.

That's why Transmeta can't push their cpus.

All of this is extrapolations based on my 2180CA presario laptop... from Q4 of 2003.

Tom

Re:This is bad, youre worse

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. I'm so hip that I wear Angelina Jolie's pubes around my neck like I'm the Dalai Llama.

Err...

[rbarreira]

I find it kind of funny that people worry so much about Google invading peoples privacy, but don't worry about things like trusted computing being silently pushed towards us, which is already happening...

Re:Google isnt god.

[oberondarksoul]

A 'View Page Info' in Firefox reveals no links go through Google. Browsing the page's source shows no Google-related links either. Sorry, but Google have had absolutely nothing to do with these adverts.

Re:Google isnt god.

[grazzy]

You need to learn how to use a browser:
http://muzikworld.net/search/redirect.ph p?sid=9b66 ba916b56f4f384a9&id=4252926&t=017320&forward=http% 3A%2F%2Fpagead2.googlesyndication.com%2Fpagead%2Fi clk%3Fsa%3Dl%26amp%3Bai%3DBZGGFlJP1QeaVK4KCSeCe6dE BnfK9CKX21pQBwI23AdCGAxABGAEg3fz3ASgKQMAVSMc5qgEJZ GF0aW5nX3VzsgEEbnVsbMgBAdoBGGh0dHA6Ly9udWxsLy0xNTU zMDc1MzIyZA%26amp%3Bnum%3D1%26amp%3Badurl%3Dhttp%3 A%2F%2Fus.rd.yahoo.com%2Flaunch%2Foffsite%2Fgoogle %2Fgeneral%2F%2Ahttp%3A%2F%2Flaunch.yahoo.com%26am p%3Bclient%3Dca-sedo_xml&pos=1&r=0.03&surl=launch. yahoo.com

They would save bandwith instead

[La Gris]

That's just plenty wrong:

Let's try it with the following page:
http://www.google.com/search?q=w3c

Remove the 756 byte embed style junk and put it in an external css file every cache will keep from eating bandwith.

Do the same with the crap embeded <script> and load it from a static file.

Replace all the <table> junks with proper
<ol><li></li>..</ol>

Delete all these useless <font> tags.

I am sure they will save much bandwith instead.

This changes nothing.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is only a conspiracy theory if you believe that Ben is a different person than he really is. Speaking as an AC, I am confident that the Firefox project will not be corrupted/damaged by the Google relationship, partly because bonsai makes it _really_ hard to check something in sneaky-like, and partly because there's a whole whack of people who would back bad things out if they were really bad. (I am one of those people.) To be honest, I trust Google more than I trust the Mozilla Foundation to guide Firefox in the right direction. The public halo hung on MoFo is out of step with the real role they played in making Firefox what it is. For the first time in the Mozilla project's history, it was actually volunteers grinding in the trenches to make the release happen the way it did. From testers to triagers to unpaid hackers, there was a vast amount of effort that went into making things work. Sure, there were some paid hackers/QA besides Ben who pitched in for a few months, but the reality is, their contribution is dwarfed by the outside world.

Google already hosts the Firefox start page

[slagdogg]

The default start page for Firefox is already hosted by Google. Clearly they have enough interest in the browser to add a page to their site. All roads point to GBrowser.

http://www.google.com/firefox

Re:Hummm...

[odaen]

The fact that the main internet browser out there doesn't support this standard isn't going to make it work the way its designed to. Quite frankly I think that google would be unable to change its front page to be W3C compliant anyway, it's one thing a site never working for a particular browser, but its a different thing for a web-page to cease working on a particular browser.

You use standards every day. Bringing HTML into compliance with basic standards is a no-brainer, and it's inexcusable (IMHO) for a company as large and prominent as Google to ignore them.

I'm sure that other sites like eBay, Microsoft, Ikea, MFI and McDonalds and Yahoo also are inexcusable for not following W3 standards.

I should stop

[flibuste]

Slashdot has once again attracted my attention enough to have me lose 1mn of my precious life.

Honestly, list off those who really care about such an outstanding story.

this reminds me of the ebay grilled cheese

[chris@stderr.org]

for this guys salery, office, moving, etc you're looking at what $250, $300k? ever seen how far $300k goes when it comes to world wide markeeting? not very

its like the company that bought the grilled cheese off ebay - think they could have come up with a cheaper way to get their name out? ...maybe, but its tough

Ben leaves for Google, Hyatt left for Apple

[mrklin]

So David Hyatt left Firefox for Apple in July of last year to help build Safari for Apple.

So it is safe to say that Ben Goodger left Firefox for google in January of this year to help build (insert name of Google browser) for Google?

I do not know enough about Firefox's developement process but how much (or little) has Hyatt being contributing since July 2004?

Re:Ben leaves for Google, Hyatt left for Apple

[mu_wtfo]

Hyatt has been working for Apple since before there was a Firefox, before there was a Firebird, and nearly before there was a Phoenix.
He was hired in July, 2002, right around the time the very first test builds of Phoenix were making the rounds. He was, as I recall, one of the main people behind a project called "mozilla/browser" (or m/b for short), which was kind of a spiritual predecessor to what is now Firefox.

And if you want to see what he's contributed since, take a look around http://tinderbox.mozilla.org. (I'm not linking to all of his chekins out of respect for the server)

Great, let's see what Google has to say about this

[psykocrime]

http://news.google.com/news?q=ben+goodger&btnG=Sea rch+News

sucks to be you

[GunFodder]

I guess you and the other ten people that use Alltheweb are shit out of luck. Almost everyone else likes Google. Personally I think it sucks that Firefox doesn't come with Googlebar pre-installed.

Firefox users can block Google's ads

[Everyman]

A CSS file can be used in Firefox to block Google's ads. Complete instructions are here at the bottom of the page. Google approves if you do this. After all, their toolbar blocks pop-ups. And Firefox has great cookie control. If you don't want to block Google's cookie because you use Gmail or other services that require it, you can turn that 2038 cookie into a session cookie. That way Google gives you a new unique ID with every session, instead of one ID that lasts until 2038.

Re:Firefox users can block Google's ads

[a24061]

I'm an enthusiastic user of the Adblock extension, but I don't object at all to Google's ads. They are unobtrusive and textual and do not obstruct reading the information on the screen (as opposed to the ones in many on-line newspapers that occupy a big block in the middle of the text).

I've even found them useful when looking for a supplier for a specific product.

Re:Firefox users can block Google's ads

[aug24]

But honestly, why would you block Google ads? They're unintrusive and result in money going to the 'don't be evil' people, thus setting a good example to all the other moronic flash-abusing ad-gits (whom we all block immediately - wankers)!

The 2038 cookie info on the other hand, is a jolly good point.

Justin.

Re:Firefox users can block Google's ads

[jesser]

A CSS file can be used in Firefox to block Google's ads.

The same user style sheet can be used in any browser that supports CSS2 and CSS3 selectors and supports user style sheets. IE has better UI for user style sheets than Firefox, but it does not support the selectors (IIRC).

Google approves if you do this. After all, their toolbar blocks pop-ups.

That's a huge leap. Pop-ups demand users' attention, force users to respond, remain if you close the window that created them, and can disguise their origin using the "pop-under" technique. Animated banner ads, which Google's toolbar does not block, only do one of those things (demand users' attention). Google's text ads don't do any of those things.

If you don't want to block Google's cookie because you use Gmail or other services that require it, you can turn that 2038 cookie into a session cookie.

A better way to prevent Google from using its cookies to track you is to change the ID part of the cookie to a string of zeros. That lets you keep your Google preferences, such as the number of results per page.

FoxyG....

[LoverOfJoy]

...because it has more sex appeal.

I, for one, welcome the Data Overlord

[Dark Coder]

It only takes two pieces of information about you to make a profile.

It may not be the profile you're thinking about but it surely is enough to peddle that über-information superdatabase to other poor info-starved marketers who will pay a pretty pence for a vector-data about you.

I'll leave it to you to guess what Google can do to muster up an amazing workups about your profile.

Now the harder part is keeping it away from those "giant sucking sound."

Confused

[EGaming]

Do I cheer? Or Cry?
*Uses Fire Fox and dances on IE's grave*

Too bad...

[This Is Ridiculous]

I was hoping Slashdot would snatch him up so we could get that sidebar-stretches-across-the-page bug nailed to the wall.

Re:Too bad...

[Myen]

1. It has been nailed to the wall; the fix was just too big for Firefox 1.0 (it will be in 1.1)
2. AFAIK, Goodger's mostly on the frontend stuff - not layout. Which means he probably won't be as good at fixing that bug as some other people.

And in a related news story....

[TheOneBiscuit]

Jesus has quit his job as the son of god, and is now working for google as well.

Re:This is bad, youre worse

[acebone]

good one !

About the config

[PromANJ]

Type about:config in the url to bring up the config then in the filter field type search. That will list the relevant config settings I think. I had trouble finding any good explaination for all the settings in the config. I wish they had made an little info button or alt hover text text for each setting.

Re:About the config

[Tim C]

Expecting users to use about:config to configure even the more advanced aspects of their browser's behaviour is assinine.

I'm a programmer with nearly 6 years experience of working in the web, and I cannot work out how to change the behaviour of Firefox's cache. I can find the setting, but it's an int; how do I know how to switch between, say, "always check" and "check automatically"? Sure, I could google, but why should I have to?

Re:About the config

[phorm]

Ditto here for rerouting bookmark file settings, etc. We need some type of proper wrapper on the about:config settings. Right now the best comparison I can come up with is running "regedit" - not a user friendly experience.

googlology and firefox

[anivararavind]

Google always produce consumer mindsets in Internet users. this is the same move like google scholar to prevet Oaister. It minimise the slogan of firefox "Rediscover the WEB" to rediscover the web through Google.

As Opensource movement removed the "Freedom" concept from the GNU movement, by the term "OPen standards"
Firefox is changing now as a project to Provide "Open standards web browser".

BULSHIT... our Expectations............

Gecko Google

[adeydas]

So what's next, a Gecko Growser (Google browser you know).

Conflict of interest

[gmknobl]

I see a possible conflict of interest, here. I think he needs to maintain a rigorous separation between any interests that google may profess and what is good for firefox to maintain it as essentially, an open source project.

Google is for profit, firefox isn't, even though both offer use of their product for free.

I think the legal term might be a "chinese wall" to separate work on one from work on another.

Ha! Ha!

[gtkuhn]

Sorry, links to Bugzilla from Slashdot are disabled.

Reserved judgement...

[Kaldaien]

Hopefully Google will be more stable/functional than Mozilla -> Firefox :)

Re:Obligatory response

[Jim_Callahan]

#No Google ad may harm a human, or, through inaction, allow a human to come to harm.

#A google ad must obey the instructions given to it by a human, so long as this does not violate the first law.

#A google ad must strive to maintain its own existence, so long as this does not violate the first two laws.

Mozilla Googlebar?

[MilenCent]

Maybe this mean we'll *finally* get an "official" Mozilla/Firefox Googlebar, complete with Pagerank measurer? It's not like the unofficial one is lacking in features (other than Pagerank), but it's always annoyed me that all Google is willing to support with the official bar is IE.

Someone else also mentioned Google Desktop Search, which will search through your IE cache in its scan of your hard drive but ignores Firefox's. Google has a bit of catching up to do to support Firefox as well as it does IE with extra features....

It hink you missed my point...

[Senjutsu]

Google isn't trying to lock people in. Google isn't trying to crush the competition through anti-competitive actions.

Yes, they may eventually put that data to bad uses, but as long as the above to facts are true, people will be free to switch to any alternative that isn't without putting themselves at a sevre disadvantage when it comes to exchange information with people who still uses Google's services.

That's completely unlike Microsoft, the company to whom the OP's troll compared Google.

not very responsible...

[jjn1056]

Quote:

but with Google paying his wages, we can be sure that new and interesting overlap between the Mozilla Foundation's browsers and Google's services are sure to develop.

I don't think it's very responsible to say (without some sort of proof) that a person can't put a wall between her/his paying job and personal interests. I would be more inclined to grant more integrity, unless some clear example of impropriety emerges. We should all just be happy, this guy has got a job most of us would probably like to have. I am sure most of the negative posts are hidden envy :)

What's the problem

[mattthateeguy]

Oh No! Not another evil tech company! Wait a minutes, we are not talking about microsoft are we, we are talking about GOOGLE. We are safe, google is safe, and firefox is safe. Nothing else to talk about ppl.

Perhaps Orkut will work in Firefox, then

[hta]

That would be a relief. Currently I have to start up IE to get Orkut to work properly - which means I rarely visit Orkut these days.

Wait no longer...

[harikiri]

I'm reminded of the line from the movie Antitrust:

"You want to know the best way to manipulate someone? Don't try."

Google has us all fooled!!

Re:This is bad, youre worse

[j.bellone]

*ding* Round two.

One more paid mozilla developer

[Ezza]

If Google is now paying his salary, then mozilla can use what they were paying him to pay someone new.

So there will now be one more full time paid person working on Mozilla.

Good.

Re:Hummm...

[Just Some Guy]

also it always looks right no matter what your useing so its all good.

Put down the Dreamweaver and step the hell away from the webdav server.

Do you really believe that, or are you just acting stupid to get a laugh on Slashdot? No, it's not "all good" to write crap code that just manages to parse in most browsers. That's the exact reason why pages don't render uniformly today: IE and Mozilla had to make so many allowances for broken HTML that the rendering of a given piece of non-compliant code is a crapshoot.

That's also why people who complain that Slashdot doesn't "look right" in Mozilla get shouted down. Slashcode's HTML doesn't validate so there's no deterministic answer to what "looks right" means. We're basically in the current situation because so many webmasters put up half-assed code that IE and Mozilla had to accept whatever was thrown at them.

Fortunately, XHTML is very cut-and-dried: either a page is valid, or it's not a page. I look forward to they day when "good enough" isn't, and things really will look like they're supposed to on non-IE browsers.

hypocrite

[Thorak]

"...has announce that effective from a couple of weeks ago, he has become a Google employee."
yeah, they wouldn't have raised the bucks for a NYT ad if they had told the fanboys right away...
is it just me, or does this smell?

Was originally planned as a merger...

[roofingfelt]

...but then they realized thet 'GoodgerGoogle' sounded too much like an 80s band.

Re:Google Toolbar for Firefox

[KillerDeathRobot]

How on earth did I get modded troll???