Slashdot Mirror
Why Google Needs Firefox
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."
For $85 million — or whatever Mozilla decides to charge, because it could charge almost anything — Bing could bolster its global share to 10, 15, or maybe 20%.
What absolute nonsense. Bing is already the default search engine on IE and only a fraction of IE users are using Bing. To assume that all Firefox users would meekly follow Mozilla's direction to use Bing is absurd.
I agree with the basic premise in the article about the advantage of using MS, but only for a short term gain. the folks in Redmond would make a good short term partner but lack the basic scruples to avoid turning around and biting Firefox hard once it is to their advantage. The folks at Firefox will go down that road at their own peril. Too many people have cut deals with MS only to eventually regret it. History matters.
Hey, if by this time you haven't realized that articles starring with the word "why" on the title are very poor and read them with care or just ignore them, you need to keep "learning slashdot".
Seriously? I doubt that somehow many would feel that strongly to switch browsers rather than to change a setting. I know I wouldn't. I like Firefox as my browser, I like Google as my search engine, heck I like Windows Vista 64-bit (ewww) as my OS.
Your average, no-knowledge-of-IT user is on IE or Safari. Those are the ones that will let their computer dictate the way they use it. BTW, not saying that savyy users aren't using IE/Safari by choice.
If most Firefox users saw "bing" as the default search; there would be a ton bing searches "Change Firefox default search" and the vast majority would be back on Google within a short little while. People are creatures of habit; a search engine may be enough of game changer that people may not just follow blindly like sheep/lemmings.
Wearing pants should always be optional.
Cant speak for other users, but I get immensely annoyed when I see search results from other engines (e.g. at work). I immediately ignore the results and type in google.com into the browser.
It just doesn't feel right anymore.
Mozilla is not a competitor. Google does not sell browsers, it sells ads, and mozilla is one more channel.
Why wouldn't it be MS? Have you read the article? It makes a pretty good case for why it would be Microsoft.
I read the article but I didn't see it make any case at all. There seemed to be a vague implication that Microsoft might think that even though users of Internet Explorer (still the browser with the largest market share) overwhelmingly use Google rather than its default of Bing, that users of Firefox would blindly use whatever the default is and that therefore Microsoft would shovel money at Firefox to get that default status. But there was no explanation at all of why Firefox users wouldn't just keep using Google, just as internet Explorer users do.
I saw a link, but can't find it where a user recommended a search engine similiar to Google's but is not prone to SEO, fake reviews, and other sleezy techniques that make Google less efficient than 10 years ago. Anyone know the name of it?
10 years ago you could find anything with Google without people trying to sell you crap and it was always accurate. Remember those days?
Anyway, a browser is free but advertisement is where it can make some money and I think Mozilla should hook up with that search engine or another small one that uses advanced analysis rather than keywords to find results, but is not prone to the man things that ruin Google. It would give them a black eye for sure and could generate serious revenue.
http://saveie6.com/
but to simply have an independent entity that develops standards and pushes the envelope.
You mean Opera?
Cutting off funding could be the best thing for Firefox. They would have to get rid of all the UI designers and tech evangelists who are slowly destroying Firefox. It would go back to being community driven with a focus on producing a really good app instead of playing buzzword bingo and copying Chrome.
Fingers crossed.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
the last couple of years the search engine department has been getting sloppy, allowing content farms looking for click through revenue spamming the hell out of the search hierarchy. it is high time google update and refine their search engine filters because lately the crap i have to wade through to find what i am looking for is getting deep...
oh, and i like both firefox and seamonkey so i will be willing to abandon google before i abandon mozilla's firefox and the open source community developed seamonkey
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
"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.
Normal, rational view: "Sign them up NOW. This product is a gold mine and it doesn't cost us anything. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go swim in all of our money." Corporate Board-Room view: "Mozilla accounts for most of our profits. That means they are taking internet share away from OUR browser. Cut these guys off at the knees!" Gosh, I'm vexed as to which way Google will go. Yep, that's a puzzler. /sarcasm
Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
The reason they undermined Netscape was that they wanted to control web standards. They won the battle, but lost the war - they are no longer in a position to dictate proprietary extensions to the web through control of the browser. A page that only works in IE is no longer an option for developers.
(A page that only works on Windows, however, is still an option in a few contexts, and MS struggle to keep it that way).
I wouldn't bet on Ballmer's stupidity overriding his business sense.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
If we're at the point where the internet is "whatever Webkit renders", we've done something wrong.
The purpose of Chrome isn't to make money or even to be the most popular browser
The purpose of a business is to turn a profit. Without profit, a business starts dying. Everything, including odd-ball projects and products, is geared towards supporting the business model of turning a profit.
To think otherwise is embarrassingly naive.
Without Chrome javascript would still be slow
Jeez, Google's advertising campaigns sure do work. JavaScript performance wars were pretty hot years before Chrome appeared.
Given that this whole discussion is predicated on the assumption that Google is about to turn on Mozilla, MS can't be any worse.
But no decent equivalent to NoScript, which is arguably more important for privacy concerns. It is mind-boggling the number of useless third party javascript that exists on most pages.
Even if you just take Google into account, they have their finger in a huge percentage of sites either through hosted javascript libraries (jquery especially), ads, analytics, maps, etc.
It is sort of ridiculous.
But it's nowhere near as effective as the Firefox version. Last I checked, the Chrome version couldn't block those annoying ads that play at the start of some video clips, whereas with Firefox I didn't even know such things existed.
It's a positive development. Personally, I'd be more than happy to see Microsoft sponsor Mozilla. And while I'm sure it'd be a shock to many on Slashdot, I suspect the only thing blocking it is Google's wallet.
That's a mis-understanding of how Mozilla works. We don't sell our search to the highest bidder. We want to provide the best possible experience for our users while making the Web a safer, more competitive, and healthier place to live and do work.
In Russia, for example, Google is an also-ran and so Firefox ships Yandex as the default search service. This is not because Yandex outbid Google -- there was never a bidding opportunity, but because Mozilla believes that Yandex is the best choice today for Firefox users in Russia.
Bing is an increasingly good search service in the US and as a result of their improvements, we added Bing to Firefox 4's built-in list of search services. We didn't do that because Microsoft outbid other people on that list. We did it because Bing is a useful search service for many US users. It turns out that Bing is not doing as well in the rest of the world, so where it's not useful to our users, we don't included Bing.
- A