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Google's Shadow Over Firefox
eldavojohn writes "The Mozilla Foundation's chief executive now earns roughly half a million in pay and benefits. With $70 million in assets, the Foundation gave out less than $300,000 in grants to open source projects in 2006. And in 2006 85% of their $66 million in revenue came from Google. When these figures first came to light, people worried whether Firefox was becoming a pawn in Google's cold war with Microsoft. The Foundation addressed these fears and largely laid them to rest; but now the worry is that, even though it's clear that the community's code is what makes Firefox successful, Mozilla may be becoming dangerously reliant on Google's cash."
That's because adblocking is built into Opera, doofus.
Opera doesn't need add-ons to do everything useful. For some reason they figured they might as well integrate them.
Although if the Firefox code base remains open, and as long as extensions can be written, there is nothing to stop anyone from creating ad-blocking extensions, after all it is something that many people seem to like, moreover if there is (however unlikely it may be) a concerted effort to prevent ad-blocking technology within Firefox there is always the option of creating a fork with those countermeasures removed.
Don't get me wrong, I don't like the idea that the Mozilla Foundation *appears* to be dependent on Google's advertising revenue, and I can see how that *could* impact decision making, but I dont see a whole lot of alternative funding streams, nor a threat that could not be overcome, that is after all why we like open standards and open code, no one person or group truly has 100% control and it is nearly impossible to take something that is free and open and turn it into something proprietary and closed..
Mitchell (Mozilla's "chief lizard wrangler") wrote a fairly large blog post, not only about the numbers as published, but also saying some things on the directions Mozilla is moving.
Far more interesting reading than the fluff news.com article, let alone the random FUD spouting by the submitter.
First, the Firefox CPU bug you've been complaining about (Firefox consumers lots of CPU after the computer wakes up from standby or hibernate) was fixed in Firefox 2.0.0.8. If you're still having any problems with the latest release of Firefox, let developers know by filing a proper bug report, including steps to reproduce the problem.
Second, there is no sign of any "memory gobbling bug" that I can see, just a few little leaks here and there and some memory fragmentation. If you're still having any problems with the latest release of Firefox, let developers know by filing a proper bug report, including steps to reproduce the problem.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
You are modded flamebait, but I'm not sure I disagree. The GP says that nothing in Opera blocks Google ads, but all you need to do is add *.googlesyndication.com/* to the blocker and they're gone for good. If anything, it's the GP who's wrong..
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
According to the financial statement, Mozilla spent $11,775,516 on "software development" in 2006. I'm guessing that mostly means salaries and benefits for employees who work on Gecko and Firefox. So the bulk of Mozilla's spending is on developing (specific) open-source software.
I don't know what the "less than $300,000" thing refers to. Maybe it refers to monetary grants to other open-source projects, or maybe it refers to things like buying laptops for volunteers so they can contribute more effectively.
The shareholder is always right.
They spent around $19 million in 2006. Some big chunk of that was paying people to work on Firefox. The $300,000 was money given to *outside* projects.
It's really hard to say if the CEOs pay was worth it. Really, really hard. If the foundation knew it wasn't, I bet they would find a different CEO. Apparently, they have less than perfect information yet still find the arrangement acceptable.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
If you use IMap with gmail, you're still handing your data over to google.
Or use firefox and get the filterset-g extension, and it takes care of everything for you, including automatic updates to the ad server list. Blocks ads, flash or not. And doesn't block the flash that you want.
From Adblock Plus FAQs:
In short, the Filterset.G extension duplicates functionality already in the Adblock Plus extension, it's slow, and it's harder to use. The filter subscriptions supplied by Adblock Plus are the recommended alternative.
We built the search feature into Mozilla in 1999. Google has been an option in that feature since its inception. That was 5 years before there was any revenue associated with it. We made Google the default in 2002 or 2003 to replace the silly "Netscape" default which was simply a Netscape branded Google. This was years before there was any revenue associated with it.
We made these decisions because it was the right thing for users, not because it was a revenue opportunity. If we ever have to decide between doing what's right for users and a revenue opportunity, we'll put the users first every time. The nice thing about the current situation is that it's both the right thing for users and a revenue opportunity.
And this is just about the "defaults" in Firefox. If you don't like Google, switch it to Yahoo. If you don't like Yahoo, you can add any one of more than 13,000 additional search services to the Firefox search toolbar with just a click or two at http://mycroft.mozdev.org/
- A