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Ubuntu Moves To Yahoo For Default Firefox Search
An anonymous reader writes "Starting in Ubuntu's Lucid Lynx release, Firefox's default search engine will be switched from Google to Yahoo. The switch was made after Canonical 'negotiated a revenue sharing deal with Yahoo.' Google will still be available as a choice. Since Yahoo search is now powered by Microsoft's Bing, this would seem to mean that Microsoft will be paying people for using Ubuntu."
Seems like a decent way for MS to track Ubuntu's growth.
And if one uses Bing Cashback, one is being paid by Microsoft to use Ubuntu and giving them money to shop online using it, perhaps to buy a Linux-friendly netbook and the cycle continues.
Actually, in neither case is Microsoft actually paying anything.
With Bing Cashback, what users are paid are covered by affiliate commissions send to Microsoft from the participating sites.
With paying Ubuntu, Yahoo/Microsoft is actually paying Ubuntu a share from ad clicks.
In both cases Microsoft isn't losing anything. Actually, they're generating more revenue.
All they're doing is changing the system defaults - your user profile will remain exactly. It gives them the potential for a positive cash flow and the only cost is that people who need their Google will have to add 2 seconds to their system set-up process. I'm tempted to go Yahoo anyway due to their better privacy policies, and if doing so helps Canonical then that's pretty tempting. It's good to see a couple of underdogs team up like this, even if Yahoo is semi-backed by MS.
"Chrome" has long been the term for the browser's UI...the toolbars, status bars, and such that surround the content.
Google calling its browser "Chrome(tm)" would be like calling an operating system "Windows(tm)."
Dear Friends; Please do not take this for a junk letter. Bill Gates sharing his fortune. If you ignore this, You will repent later. Microsoft and Google are now the largest Internet companies and in an effort to make sure that Bing remains the most widely used internet search engine, Microsoft and Ubuntu are running an e-mail beta test.
When you forward this e-mail to friends, Microsoft can and will track it (If you are a Ubuntu user) For a two weeks time period.
For every person that you forward this e-mail to, Microsoft will pay you $245.00 For every person that you sent it to that forwards it on, Microsoft will pay you $243.00 and for every third person that receives it, You will be paid $241.00. Within two weeks, Microsoft will contact you for your address and then send you a check.
I thought this was a scam myself, But two weeks after receiving this e-mail and forwarding it on. Microsoft contacted me for my address and withindays, I receive a check for $24,800.00. You need to respond before the beta testing is over. If anyone can affoard this, Bill gates is the man.
It's all marketing expense to him. Please forward this to as many people as possible. You are bound to get at least $10,000.00. We're not going to help them out with their e-mail beta test without getting a little something for our time. My brother's girlfriend got in on this a few months ago. When i went to visit him for the Baylor/UT game. She showed me her check. It was for the sum of $4,324.44 and was stamped "Paid in full"
...
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
In both cases Microsoft isn't losing anything. Actually, they're generating more revenue.
My company pays me to do a job. That job, hopefully, earns my company money. Generally more money than they're paying me.
So, they're generating more revenue... But they're still paying me.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
Or you could make *two clicks* and change it back. This is a significant opportunity for Canonical to become profitable and could potentially see a minor, insignificant revenue increase for MS. If they were dealing directly with MS you could argue they're asking to be screwed, but with Bing/Windows on the one side and Google/Chrome OS/Android on the other Yahoo appears to be the least self-sabotaging search engine at the moment. Particularly with Chrome OS, Google is looking to make the desktop ecosystem on which Canonical depends an irrelevant commodity in the face of a closed, in-the-cloud system.
If you'd rather use Google then take the two clicks to change it, but don't act as if you're making an ethical stance against corporatism. Google's end goal is you being locked into their webapps, just as MS' end goal is you being locked into their OS and apps.
Have you considered Gubuntu? It's a flavor of Ubuntu that aims at the more Google oriented crowd by changing the default search engine to Google.
o hai
Not quite. It was actually more like this:
You know, just so we're clear.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Yet despite all of this: the ordained replacement didn't improve upon any of these alleged failings.
Sure... replace it with something better, not something inferior.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
OHNOES, an anonymous coward on slashdot is going to "stop using Ubuntu" and "stop recommending it to family, friends, employer, etc." Looks like Ubuntu is done for.
Just when I was starting to believe that 2010 was the year of the Linux desktop, too. :(
As of yet, none.
https://ixquick.com/eng/protect-privacy.html
European Privacy Seal: On July 14th 2008 Ixquick received the first European Privacy Seal from European Data Protection Supervisor Mr. Peter Hustinx. The Seal officially confirms the privacy promises we make to our users. It makes Ixquick the first and only EU-approved search engine. Both EU Commissioner Viviane Reding and Dr.Thilo Weichert, German Privacy Commissioner complemented Ixquick on its privacy achievements.
Certified Secure, a leading Certification Authority, has certified Ixquick's Privacy procedures. The CS Privacy Certificate has been awarded after an extensive audit.
Ixquick has been registered with the Dutch Data Protection Authority (CBP) under number M 1346973. This Authority supervises the fair and lawful use and security of your personal data, to ensure your privacy today and in the future.
Funny, but for anyone who wants to really understand the issue, it's much more nuanced and more sensible than that.
Mozilla told Debian that Debian could not distributed modified versions of Firefox with the Mozilla trademarked names and images. Debian developers habitually patch upstream software in various ways to make it fit into the Debian system better, to fix bugs, etc. One solution would have been for Debian to ship only the exact versions released by Mozilla. Another solution would have been for Debian to get Mozilla to approve each modified version that Debian wanted to release. A pain, but doable.
However, the discussion highlighted another, deeper problem: If Debian can't modify FF and redistribute the result without infringing on Mozilla's trademarks, that means neither can anyone else. Under Debian's Free Software guidelines, it must be possible for users of Debian to modify and redistribute software at will, [i]without[/i] needing to acquire any additional permissions, or else the software is non-free. That meant that FF is non-free software.
That's not a huge problem; Debian distributes lots of non-free software. So a solution to the problem might have been to get Mozilla's permission to distribute the modifications, and then put FF in the non-free repository. Per the Debian Social Contract, however, non-free software cannot be essential to the operation of the system. So FF couldn't be the default browser on the system.
But Debian [i]wanted[/i] FF to be the default browser, and so did Mozilla. It's a fine browser, perhaps even the best around, free, non-free or proprietary. And Debian really didn't have another good option -- Seamonkey is in the same boat, Dillo sucked, Konqueror is tied to KDE, etc.
Debian's other option, obviously, was to simply ignore their own rules, and ship non-free software as a core system component. That would have been a huge compromise to their principles, and would have opened up all sorts of questions about why *other* non-free software couldn't be in the base system as well. Big can of worms there.
So, what Debian did was to recognize that it was only the trademarked names and artwork which were non-free. The code was under the MPL, which is a Free Software license. Their best option, then, was to distributed the code without the trademarks. Iceweasel, Icedove, etc. are Free Software, per Debian's guidelines, but they have all the functionality of the Mozilla products, and are fully compatible with them.
It wasn't a perfect solution, but it was the best available.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.