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Mozilla's 3 Big Bets To Keep the Web Open
GMGruman writes "Savio Rodrigues writes that Google's latest agreement with Mozilla will ironically fund three new areas of competition between Google and Mozilla — areas that users and open source advocates should cheer on as they will make the Web both better and more open. The alternative, he says, is more control by the likes of Google, Facebook, and Apple."
No, it's the fact that Apple has a damn-near monopoly on mobile purchases, which are done in their walled garden. This is a big area of user activity, and will become a much bigger area of economic activity. Apple, through iTunes, matters to the Internet. In a bad way, unfortunately.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
It's also in Google's interest because it keeps part of the anti-monopoly cries off their back.
dickbag move dude. dickbag move.
Quite the opposite, actually. It's often been argued that a major reason for Google's purchase and development of Android was to safeguard Google's search empire. Except from an ad-revenue-generating sense (and possibly also a kick-Apple-up-the-arse sense :) Google doesn't care whether you're using Android or not. What's of primary importance is that you're using their search tools to generate them income through advertising. Android is simply a very good means to protect that ad revenue castle.
A boot-to-Gecko OS that promotes Google search is a much better option (as far as Google is concerned) than a boot-to-Gecko OS that promotes Bing or somebody else. I'm sure they'd much rather Android stayed dominant, but it doesn't hurt them to have allies in their camp rather than enemies outside the gates.
> they make general internet usage--and by extension
> ALL Google sites--work better.
That's where they started.
Now they are specifically trying to make Google sites work particularly well with Chrome (and in some cases only with WebKit), even if that has to happen at the expense of other browsers. They are also trying to make Chrome work particularly well with their own sites, even if that comes at the expense of other sites, of course.
> Microsoft thought it could control the web to lock
> people into proprietary software.
And Google thinks they can lock users into their websites and their app store, and if it takes switching them to their browser first, that just means they should try to stealth-install that browser on as many computers as possible.