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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."
Given the situation Bing is in, even a 1% search share increase for a $100 million cost is nothing. Firefox has 500 million users and maybe 20% of them won't change the default from Bing.
This space for rent.
That and those Mozilla People should stop screwing up and hiding their mistakes in ever increasing version numbers.
Firefox group. If you want to beat Chrome... Stop making your product to look and function more like it does. You are only making your product a cheap ripoff of the other product.
Netscape was a dominate browser, IE was a cheap rip off (one of those crappy software that comes free with the OS)
Then IE made their browser faster and lighter with a UI that wasn't trying to copy Netscapes look and feel.
Then Firefox had started to dominate because it was faster and lighter with a UI that wasn't trying to copy IE look and feels.
No chrome came out that was faster and lighter and a UI that didn't look like Firefox.
Now Firefox is remaking their product to look and feel more like chrome. Why, should I stick with Firefox if I can get a real chrome like UI from Chrome.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
While Google, as Firefox's sugar daddy and major technical competitor, could put the hurt on FF, I just don't see the logic behind their doing so:
FF still has a pretty significant chunk of marketshare, so being the default search engine is still valuable; plus they are likely a convenient PR antidote to Google's ongoing issues with venturing into being-accused-of-monopoly-abuse territory: they are an independent 3rd party, developing a competing product with competitive marketshare(Hey FCC, look at that, see that robust competition?); but(unlike say Microsoft) they have neither a search product worthy of note or a non HTML5/JS development environment worthy of note(I've seen a few XUL-based tech demos; but that ranks well behind Silverlight, much less Win32, as anything resembling a threat...)
They just seem more valuable alive than dead, to Google. Unlike some of the other competitors, even a sudden surge of unmitigated dominance, with the Gecko slaughtering all before it, would pretty much just require Google to switch from webkit to Gecko and feel absolutely no pain in the areas where it actually makes money. As it is, they have the convenient property of being 'independent and competitive'; but also sharing basically all of Google's goals for web-based applications and the general advancement of web stuff not tied to a specific platform. Why mess with such a convenient 3rd party?
For the very reason that Google wouldn't want to give Bing any sort of leg up on their own search engine. I think Mozilla could come out ahead if there happens to be any backroom bidding wars to keep that 3rd place browser out of the other big guy's hands.
How has this changed? Seriously, clean installs of Phoenix 1.0 and Firefox 11.0 are largely equivalent in terms of UI being presented (browser, bookmarks, history, tabs.) What "cruft" has been added that wasn't removed in the initial split from Seamonkey?
Problem there, though. This happened before. IE4 was clearly better than Netscape. Once Netscape became irrelevant, IE stopped improving.
Lack of competition is a bad thing.
Yes.
Microsoft really didn't get what it wanted out of Internet Explorer. The point of the browser was was to dominate the market so they could push their own standards. To make browsing the World Wide Web a windows only thing, in order to Push Active X and other technologies that tied people to windows. It didn't happen.
1. Active X security model was flawed on day 1. I remember hearing about Active X and going ARE YOU INSANE! Microsoft overestimated the self restraint the average user will have with their computer. An Alert Box saying are you sure Means they will almost always click Yes. Java Applets are far more secure because they didn't allow writing to the Clients PC drives. Or really direct access to most of their hardware. This created a new set of security problems for Microsoft where any good IT person would stop that Technology from being deployed. Thus web developers will not depend on this technology as it will be blocked and there would need to be instructions and headaches to try to get the user to enable it.
2. Flash: Small, Light, Secure and Visually Appealing (at least compared to JavaApplets or Active X) and worked on different browsers and OS's and Hardware Platforms.It seemed more like a Toy Plugin then a real threat to Microsoft so they let it slip until it was too late.
3. Javascript: In order to get market share with IE they had to embrace Javascript. That allowed developers to put put code if IE do this otherwise follow the standards. So more and more websites were cross browser compatible.
4. Safari: Microsoft dropping IE for Mac and Apple pushing Safari was a big mistake. Web Developers (many used macs) made sure their code worked on their macs first then fixed it for IE. For a business case it is hard to say you will be dropping all your mac clients. As 3% of them were Macs at the time. So if you got 3 million hits. That is 30,000 complaints.
5. Apache: Unix/Linux server based web server running most of the web sites, as Windows Servers were not big enough for enterprise level serving. So most web shops had Linux/Unix boxes around and many of them used it for workstations. So IE was the second option.
6. Windows Long Horn/and Vista. IE releases are more or less tied with the OS Releases IE 6 for XP, IE 7 for Vista IE 8 for Windows 7 IE 9 for Windows 8. Yes they are not directly tied but there is a coralation between release time of the browser and the OS. Microsoft was stupid to integrate the OS with the Browser so. As Microsoft lingered in trying to get Vista out then having Vista being a failure. IE 6 stayed around for Far too long. Thus allowing Firefox and other browsers to get a good foot hold as people are eager to get a browser that meets the needs of their faster computers with faster internet connection and want to do the cool new things well.
So IE lost their foot hold in controlling the standard. So Microsoft Bing has to gain from getting Firefox support by default. That means more traffic to their site. IE is more or less a free as in beer product so they are not making money off of it. And they lost the standards war so they cannot use their huge market share to leverage their own products that IE was suppose to enhance.
Now Google produced chrome as a browser that will run their standard compliment services faster and better then the other browsers. So they are giving away chrome as to push their own services. And they are keeping competitive with their competitors to make sure they have the best experience without pissing off the other browsers as they are welcomed to use their services too and should get a good experience as well, but having their own dominate browser allows them to raise the bar on what they can do faster then having to wait for the other browsers to support it.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Thanks, this article does contribute to the conversation. Here is an excerpt:
Back in 2010, one of Mozilla’s noisiest bigwigs, Asa Dotzler, famously renounced Google because of its poor privacy policy, and started using Bing instead. At the time this wasn’t a big deal, but Dotzler is now the Director of Firefox Desktop — and when November rolls around, it’s safe to assume that he might vote for Bing to replace Google as the default search engine.
As for me, I am very loyal to the idea of open source, and therefore to Firefox. Firefox has changed the web as we know it in proportions that we will become more aware of if it disappears or becomes irrelevant. Mark my words.
On the other hand, I have received the news of Firefox leaning toward Bing as a betrayal of the worst kind. This Asa Dotzler in my view should be invited to quit Firefox in short order. He is damaging the company's goodwill and reputation to an extent that is currently under-appreciated, whatever the tactic is behind this move, pressuring Google or whatever. This is just ugly and if Firefox continues with that line, my loyalty will vanish in an instant.
Because Google's revenue comes from web ads.
That's right, people are actually trumpeting the use of a browser made by a company with a financial interest in snooping your data and delivering web ads. Slashdot has gone 180 degrees.