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Why Google Needs Firefox

Posted by Soulskill on from the why-can't-i-quit-you dept.

MrSeb writes "Almost the entirety of Mozilla's income — 97% of $104 million — arrives in the form of royalties from the Firefox search box, and the lion's share (86%, $85 million) of those royalties are paid by the default search engine: Google. In November 2011, however, Mozilla's contract with Google will expire. Will Google renew it? A better question to ask, though, is whether Mozilla wants Google as its primary search engine."

4 of 182 comments (clear)

  1. Re:No money no development by BBird · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Mozilla is not a competitor. Google does not sell browsers, it sells ads, and mozilla is one more channel.

  2. Re:It's symbiotic by amnesia_tc · · Score: 5, Insightful

    but to simply have an independent entity that develops standards and pushes the envelope.

    You mean Opera?

  3. Article overlooks the stupidly obvious by GrumpySteen · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "It is speculated, mostly by tech pundits, that considering the sheer amount of effort that itâ(TM)s putting into shoving Chrome down our throats, it would not be in Googleâ(TM)s best interests to re-sign with Mozilla."

    Most of Google's revenue comes from advertising, not Chrome. To ensure that revenue, they need to remain the number one search engine. To that end, it is in Google's best interest to remain the default search engine on Firefox as long as Firefox has any significant market share, regardless of Chrome's market share.

  4. Re:Who cares, honestly by Skuto · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If we're at the point where the internet is "whatever Webkit renders", we've done something wrong.