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Why Firefox's Future Lies In Google's Hands

Posted by Soulskill on from the a-fox-in-hand-is-worth-two-in-the-bush dept.

Barence writes "Firefox has just turned five, and it now accounts for 25% of the global market, according to figures from Net Applications. Its success has forced rivals to raise their game, and the past two years have seen Microsoft, Apple, and Opera close the features gap significantly. Google is the default homepage when Firefox first opens, and the default search engine when users type something into the 'awesome bar.' The deal, which runs until 2011, was worth $66 million to Mozilla in 2007, accounting for 88% of the foundation's revenues that year (the last year for which it had published accounts). But now that Google is a competitor as well as a partner, is it really wise for Mozilla to be so dependent on Google?"

13 of 346 comments (clear)

  1. Lone Wolf by sopssa · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Mozilla is actually alone in this. Even Opera (while also getting revenue from Google) does lots of its business with other devices like Wii, Mobile Phones, and other non-pc devices. Hell, I was visiting a hotel which had one of those tv's with hotel interfaces. One day it suddenly booted itself for update and when booting up, there was Opera logo on the start.

    So only Mozilla is dependent on others.

    1. Re:Lone Wolf by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      most of the Firefox community is under 20 years old

      Holy assumption Batman. Citation please.

    2. Re:Lone Wolf by sznupi · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Opera is the number one browser (overall, ahead of IE) in Ukraine (and supposedly Belarus, though it's hard to get reliable stats about that country...), in Q2 2010 it should be no.1 in Russia. Also, in a lot of countries of Central Europe, in all those new EU members, it has quite respectable share of between 5 and 10%. In some of them even Opera Mini (j2me) is ahead of Safari.

      I guess it's also about many people from those areas not visiting webpages generating stats at which you look.

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
    3. Re:Lone Wolf by BrokenHalo · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Holy assumption Batman. Citation please.

      Indeed. Many Firefox users are old Mozilla users. In fact I used to maintain a build of Mozilla as a browser-only program (i.e. without the mail and html authoring stuff) for several years including the period when Firefox was still known as Phoenix. It took some time before I became satisfied that Firefox offered a useful (or usable) alternative.

    4. Re:Lone Wolf by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I am one of the people around 20 years old, and I have not grown up with Firefox. I actually dont know any one who has.

      People who today are 15-20, at least in Sweden, grew up with Netscape Navigator on computers in school and IE 5 at home, and most certainly did not start using the internet around 2004. Dont know about the rest of the world, but IT has actually been used in schools here in Sweden since the late nineties.

      Still, most people find Firefox easy to use, and customizable to an extent that I have not found Opera and other browsers.

    5. Re:Lone Wolf by dwiget001 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I beg to differ. I turned 48 last year, worked in the computer software field since 1987.

      "Most of" the people I associate with, 30s and 40s, use Firefox.

      Myself, I was using Mosaic, from the "Internet in a Box" days, circa 1994. Prior to that, from 1987 to 1994, my online connectivity was through CompuServe.

      Not long after that, roughly 1995, I started using Netscape. I continued using it until about version 4.7, at which time I tried out Opera. I still found Netscape 4.7 to be more then sufficient for what I needed at the time. I continued using Netscape up until Firefox ("Phoenix" at the time, beta), and have used it as my browser ever since.

      I only use IE when stupid fricken sites "require" or "recommend" it. But, thankfully, those sites are becoming fewer and fewer, to the benefit of us all.

      As an aside: I tried Netscape versions after 4.7, but always went back to 4.7. When 6 came out, I was appalled at the bloat and slowness. So much so, that in 2002, I was at Internet World, visited the AOL booth, talked to one of their so-called techs about 6.0. His solution was to give me a copy of 7. I tried it, and promptly threw it in the circular file, piece of crap. I always have had top-of-the-line systems at home, due to the nature of my day job, so the system resources were never the problem with Netscape > 4.7, it was just that Netscape > 4.7, were pieces of crap.

  2. Choices? Really? by stokessd · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Seriously, who should be the default search provider, payments or not? If I've got a choice, I'm heading to google, not because of some sort of "I love google" sort of thing, but because they have the best search. If firefox defaults to "Bing!" or "aunt martha's internet search and lemon pies", it won't matter as long as I can set it to Google.

    It's the ability to choose that I want to protect, not what the default is.

    It would be annoying if they switched to a different default, because that would be one more customization step every time I install Firefox.

    Sheldon

  3. Privacy, and conflicts of interest by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm always worried that Firefox is making privacy too low a focus. Many of the privacy features I'd like would to see in Firefox would reduce the amount of data Google and other search engines gather about my WWW habits.

    For as long as the Mozilla Foundation is financially dependent on Google, I presume that the Mozilla Foundation is betraying its users privacy in return for Google's money.

    Being free software usually prevents projects from betraying their users, but this is a bizare case where those controls haven't worked.

    (I know I can solve *my* problem by installing various plugins or changing browsers, but I'm not just looking for a quick fix for me, I'd like the privacy of my family and friends to be protected too.)

  4. Or.. by Thyamine · · Score: 2, Interesting

    They can use that to help push them to be better. They need the money more than they can worry about Google being a competitor. I will say that I used Firefox for many years, but when Chrome came out for OS X I switched. It's faster, and cleaner (cleaner being my relative term for how it 'feels'). I still use Firefox for web development and testing because of the addons, but Firefox has grown sluggish lately. As many have said before, they need to strip it back down, and let a lot of their extras be added in by the users if they really want it. I'm doing without several of my preferred plugins (AdBlock especially) just because Chrome is that much snappier feeling.

    --
    I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
  5. Defaults by zlogic · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I think that if Google doesn't sponsor Mozilla, they'll probably switch to Bing. Firefox has a large marketshare, if we add IE to the mix (which already has Bing as the default choice), something like 90% of the browser market will be using Bing. Of couse, some people will revert to Google. But Bing is good enough for most search queries, and a lot of users won't care.

    Some versions of Firefox already stopped using Google - for example the official Russian version uses Yandex because in CIS countries it's more popular than Google. The Chinese version could migrate to Baidu etc.

  6. What is Google paying for ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    They are paying for advertisement revenue caused by the default settings in Firefox. Until Chrome is a serious competitor, Google will pay Mozilla just for not including Adblock directly into the browser.

  7. Re:Wise or not, what choice do they really have? by geek · · Score: 2, Interesting

    How productive must the executives be to justify the salaries? Seeing as it was them who negotiated the 66 million to begin with I would say there were quite productive indeed.

    I'll never understand people like you that constantly whine about other peoples salaries. 1) it isn't any of your business how much they make, 2) if they didn't deserve it the board wouldn't be giving it, 3) if they grab more than they earn the company dies and the code base is free so no real loss.

    Honestly, are people like you so petty that you must constantly whine that you don't make as much as someone else? Be happy they are making money, they will continue to do so and we'll all benefit as a result. If you really must insist on this socialist idea of spreading the wealth then by all means, move to Cuba and see how productive they are there.

  8. Re:Wise or not, what choice do they really have? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    When organizations ask for public donations, executive salaries become an issue of public concern. Donors deserve to know how their money is being spent, and they may be hesitant to continue their donations if the money is poorly manged.

    As you mentioned, the Mozilla CEO salary would be justified if he negotiated the $66mil agreement. The public has a right to debate whether this was money well spent. It's not about jealousy--it's about efficiency.