Will Firefox Lose Google Funding?

SharkLaser writes "Mozilla's future looks uncertain. Last week Chrome overtook Firefox's position as the second most popular browser, the new versioning scheme is alienating some Firefox users, and now the advertising deal between Mozilla and Google, the one that almost fully funds Mozilla's operations, is coming to an end. One of Firefox's key managers, Mike Shaver, also left the company in September. 'In 2010, 84% of Mozilla's $123 million in revenue came directly from Google. That's roughly $100 million in funds that will vanish or be drastically cut if the deal is either not renewed or is renegotiated on terms that are less favorable to Mozilla. When the original three-year partnership deal was signed in 2008, Chrome was still on the drawing boards. Today, it is Google's most prominent software product, and it is rapidly replacing Firefox as the alternative browser on every platform.' Recently Mozilla has been trying to get closer with Microsoft by making a Firefox version that defaults to Bing. If Google is indeed cutting funding from Mozilla or tries to negotiate less favorable terms, it could mean Mozilla's future funding coming from Microsoft and Bing."

Comments

Genius plan

[microbee]

Finally Microsoft found a way to kill Firefox: pay it to use Bing!

Re:Free market for the win

[kiwimate]

I am not an IE fan but If I get your free market logic, IE is winning because it's the better browser

As is Windows on the desktop.

Re:HOSTS = Faster than external DNS (fix inside)

[The Askylist]

Is there a hosts file to block APK spam posts?

Honestly, the idea of a massive hosts file just to do what NoScript does by default seems... silly.

$100M a Year for Firefox?

[Doc Ruby]

Firefox isn't all that great (showing how not that great the competing and mostly inferior browsers are). What does Firefox do in a year that costs $100M? It seems that a company with $5M in revenue could have done what Firefox has done in the past year, and that includes 3 "major version numbers".

If you gave me $100M I could pay a team that not only wrote an HTML4 browser (and HTTP/FTP/whatever protocol) from scratch, but also HTML5, and probably a JVM, too.

Re:Their own fucking fault

[allcar]

Very good swearing. All that swearing must mean that your point is valid.