Slashdot Mirror
Google and Mozilla: Partners, Not Competitors
Much has been said about the (perceived) rivalry between Chrome and Firefox, but Google engineer Peter Kasting had enough when he read an article trying to discern Google's true motives for signing a new Firefox search deal. Kasting posted to Google+ to clarify what value the company sees in funding a "rival" browser. Quoting:
"People never seem to understand why Google builds Chrome no matter how many times I try to pound it into their heads. It's very simple: the primary goal of Chrome is to make the web advance as much and as quickly as possible. That's it. It's completely irrelevant to this goal whether Chrome actually gains tons of users or whether instead the web advances because the other browser vendors step up their game and produce far better browsers. Either way the web gets better. Job done. The end. So it's very easy to see why Google would be willing to fund Mozilla: Like Google, Mozilla is clearly committed to the betterment of the web, and they're spending their resources to make a great, open-source web browser. Chrome is not all things to all people; Firefox is an important product because it can be a different product with different design decisions and serve different users well."
So it's very easy to see why Google would be willing to fund Mozilla
That is true, but not for the reasons stated. Google is paying Mozilla around $100 million of commissions per year. By the very nature of the deal that relationship is poisoned. Note that Peter is an engineer, and it is very easy to say they want "better web" and stuff like that, but if Google could avoid paying $100 million a year, they would do so. It's better to put that money into their own product, and they really want to do that, but they can't because they would lose users. Google profits from the deal, but at the same time they would want to improve their own market so they don't need to pay anyone else in future.
Nope. Google understands that diversity is good. If there's just Chrome vs. SomethingElse then the company behind SomethingElse might gain advantage by introducing incompatible features. If there's Chrome vs. Firefox vs. Opera vs. IE vs. .... then there is less probability of this happening. And Google really depends on the open Web.
And Google seems to be more than capable of actually competing with other companies rather than locking users into their products.
And $100 mil.? That's just a small change for Google.
yeah, they are really advancing the web by repackaging webkit and they were leaders in the industry when they were pushing gecko. thank god google is pushing web standards with all their browser "innovations" so everyone else can follow the path they are leading.
google is a stupid company that says whatever they think stupid people will believe, including the don't be evil bullshit. i'm sure all the analytics they collect from chrome aren't being used to better monazite advertising and I'm sure the renewed deal with firefox has nothing to do with the same goal -- having searches flow through their search engines.
there is nothing altruistic in any of this, and if you believe Kasting, your lobotomy procedure was a success. congratulations!
diaf google.
Google + Mozilla = Gozilla
Google Chrome Help Forum: Is the new built-in PDF viewer in Chrome more of a headache than a tool for you too?
Peter should explain it to Google shareholders in other words.
I am sure this is what he has in mind:
It's important for Chrome to actually gain tons of users because that potentially creates more search traffic for us, complementing our efforts with Android on the mobile front.
In fact, Chrome's current momentum, which has enabled it to grab more than the initial goal of 10% worldwide usage does not hurt at all.
Someone should tell this engineer that we know what he's thinking.
Wait, what? Where is the diversity between Firefox and Chrome these days? Basically every change since Firefox 4 has been about making Firefox look and behave just like Chrome.
Mozilla has made a lot of stupid moves to achieve this. First, they screwed up Firefox's UI. They dropped the traditional menus, they moved the tab placement, they got rid of the status bar, and they got rid of the protocol from the URL bar. These are all horrible "innovations" that Chrome introduced, and then Mozilla immediately copied.
Then Mozilla went further and tried to imitate Chrome's very frequent release schedule. Any Firefox user knows how bad of an idea this was, given how it prevented extensions from working almost constantly after any update.
In terms of standards, they both target HTML5 these days. HTML5 is the biggest crock of shit we've seen when it comes to web standardization. They introduced a bunch of unnecessary new tags, added in audio and video support without the important step of specifying mandatory codecs, and the funniest part is that this shitty standard isn't expected to be finished until 2022!
There is no diversity any longer. In each and every way, Firefox has become just a half-assed clone of Chrome.
A lot of people are mistaken about Chrome's growing popularity, too. They think that more people are using Chrome because Chrome is doing things right. Well, that's not the reality. What we're actually seeing is all of the other browsers doing it wrong, by trying to copy Chrome, but they're all inferior in one way or another.
Why would anyone want to use Firefox these days (or IE, or Opera, or Safari, all of which are making the same stupid let's-clone-Chrome moves) when it looks just like Chrome, behaves just like Chrome, except it's a lot slower and uses a lot more memory? You might as well just use the real Google Chrome, and have the least-shitty of all of the shitty experiences, even if the UI isn't what you want, it doesn't behave like you want, and the performance and memory usage still aren't very good.
Chrome is a neat hook to snare the influential tech crowd. If Google really believed in maximising the web experience then it would pay more attention to the Opera browser.
All of this is before we get into Google's search monopoly and how its index skews the focus of traffic so other competing search engines have less traction with the web population as a whole.
There are more important fundamental questions about competition and internet search technologies that Google's headline technology drive and public relations are obscuring.
First they laugh at you
Then they fight you
Then they bribe you
Then they win
Wait. What?
Basically what he is saying is that as long as Firefox does what they want (Advance the web, whatever that means) they will keep funding. Once Firefox stops doing that, the money will be gone. That means Google has as least some sort of influence of what is going on. Sure it is their right, but with their own browser, they will be extremely tempted to direct things. e.g. never make any google blocking default part of Firefox.
How would I now know if decisions are made because of what users want or of what google wants?
And not caring about the share of Chrome? Then why do they try to push it so hard that it feels like rape?
Google is a marketing company and they are using marketing wording to sell us a story.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I find it hard to believe anyone really thinks letting Mozilla die would be a benefit to Google. It doesn't take a doctorate in Sociology to know people like choice. If they are limited in choices the more likely the choices become "the greater between" style evil. eg Nutscrape v. Internut Exploder. There were fans on both sides. There were haters of the other side. And more importantly, there were haters of both because there were little alternatives (at the time). What Google wants is not to get any of that hate. Keeping them a player and a partner improves the real game, traffic to Google. How people get there is unimportant.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
The only problem with your theory is that those that are jumping ship to chrome is likely already using Google search.
The real reason that Google pushes chrome is to ensure that they can drive the direction of web standards. In other words, chrome gives them a large say in how the web moves forward.
What people tend to forget is that Google isn't a software company. They are a company that indexes and provides access to information, which currently is funded by ad-sales, but is not limited to this business model. Everything that Google does is towards this goal.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
Nope. Google understands that diversity is good.
You got modded insightful but slashdot just had a story about that very thing, What do we do when the internet mob is wrong?
Extraordinary claims requires extraordinary evidence. Until such time, there is no reason to believe that its about anything other than the money.
If there's Chrome vs. Firefox vs. Opera vs. IE vs. ....
Well you just blew it right there. Google always defaults new services to browser sniffing and disallowing Opera, even though when Opera pretends to be Firefox that things just work. Could that be because of a small market share, and thus no money inventive, so try hard to get Opera users on Chrome? Yeah.
"His name was James Damore."
Take off your tinfoil hat.
What we need is stability, we need less versions (preferrably one per year or even less than that).
http://in-other-news.com/2011/The_problem_with_Firefox_and_how_it_could_be_fixed
Not limited to ad-sales as a business model? What percentage of revenues is Google currently making and projected to make on non-ad revenues?
"No, no, no. Don't tug on that. You never know what it might be attached to."
In
IE(Bing) vs Google
during stiff competition, that will eventually lead to 50/50 assuming they both do extremely well in comparison to each other.
In
IE vs Google vs Firefox (Google interest aligned)
during stiff competition, that eventually leads to 33/33/33 where 2/3 are still within browsers that aligned with Google's Interest.
Not hard to see why they would want the latter rather then the former. Even at the increase of 300m, it's still a relatively small price for Google for this long term benefit.
A web without advertising is the best advancement I can imagine. Get working on that Google!
Don't get me wrong, they want to be the search engine everyone uses, but they don't want the government to declare them a monopoly and come after them. If they had the One True Browser(tm) then that would be far more likely.
Besides, they make all their money on their search engine, or more properly on the ads it can serve up. Everything else is just a way of protecting and growing it. Hence it makes a lot of sense to play nice with FF, and others. They don't care what you use, so long as it talks to Google for its search.
Google would love to have a market where there are lots of competing search engines, they just all suck so everyone uses Google. That way they don't have monopoly issues but get to have all the business.
Someone ought to tell Mozilla this. Judging by their bizarre version numbering system and flawed gui tweaks, they appear to be trying (and completely failing) to compete with Chrome.
Google has nothing to fear from Mozilla. They innovated themselves into global success, and are now irritating their way to total failure.
They seem doomed forever to repeat the exact same failures as Netscape.
Google engineer demonstrates why he's in engineering rather than marketing or sales. Details at 11.
Google is spending $300 million / year to:
- Make sure that users of the popular Firefox browser continue to see Google's search engine, and thus Google's ads by default.
- Make sure that Firefox users continue to NOT see Microsoft's ads by default.
End of story. There's no magnanimity here, no making the world a better place. Just business. For that, $300 million / year sounds like a bargain.
Think about it. How much do you think Google pays Apple to make sure that Google is the default search engine for Mobile Safari? Think that Apple does that for free? Same exact deal with Firefox. But throw in a quaintly deluded engineer's explanation of things.
Search is the starting point of the web. But....opening the browser comes first. If you made most of your money on search, wouldn't you want the only browser of note made by someone not investing in search to be aligned with you? I'd say this is a hedge against lost future ad revenue plain and simple.
I still would like to ask Google why they dont support Opera in their services if they are so concerned for the betterment of the web. Opera has been a prime contributor in the web and browser technologies. I dont doubt Google's motives, but there is this fact, too. I will hate it if a small market share is the only reason behind that.
We'll see a Gogzilla? lol i know but surely i can be allowed one stinker joke for xmas.
I would be careful trying to put words in Peter's mouth. He's likely to show up here.
Like Google, Mozilla is clearly committed to the betterment of the web
mozilla is a foundation to promote software.
google is a COMPANY whose goal i to PROMOTE ITSELF.
stop playing the fool, people. google is not out to help you. they are out to make a profit.
the biggest con is that google created a marketing jingle (sans tune) that goes 'do no evil'. its a lie and most of us knew this from the very start. a company (in america, especially) HAS to be profitable and has to be absent of ethics (well, its not a must-have but it surely helps).
google wants lock-in and they want to serve ads. they are NOT doing things 'to better the internet'. almost everywhere I go (on major websites) when I visit some i/o happens and goes to google. when I order electronic parts, some googleapis site gets triggered! I can't escape google even if I tried, and I have most of their domains blocked.
google is quite quite evil. every one of their plans should be carefully inspected and the real motivations exposed.
yeah yeah, the kids working there get free lunches and shirts. they are bribed to look the other way and they're in their own little bubble, insulated from much of the rest of the world.
google, like the devil, has a great accomplishment: convincing the world that they are not evil. ooooh, shiny websites! they CLEARLY have our interests at heart.
pathetic how we eat up this drivel.
google is the new microsoft. make no mistake who your friends are. google would sell you out as fast as facebook would. neither are your 'friends'.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
A good start then would be to update Google toolbar for the flurry of Firefox releases.
Firefox has one thing that other browsers lack, the ability to easily customize the toolbars and icon buttons. I can "make" Firefox look the way I like it. Chrome has a very clean interface but needs the ability to add new tools or functional buttons to the toolbar.
Instead of becoming part of the 1% and wasting it on champagne baths and golden car fleets.
That means an official status bar extension instead of "Status4Evar", Official MSI and GPO support and don't drop Leopard support while you still support Windows 2000.
Firefox has become a big disappointment in 2011, you better use the money you're getting wisely or give it to another browser project like Opera, Midori or Konqueror.
Reread the parent: "which currently is funded by ad-sales". He's not saying they make much money from non-ad things, he's saying they could go in that direction in future if they think it would be beneficial.
the primary goal of Chrome is to make the web advance as much and as quickly as possible. That's it.
I believe this as much as that Google uses dodgy tax evasion tricks to make the world a better place, or perhaps help the economy...
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
An AC comment in the previous story said very much the same thing: http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2583644&cid=38441032
Is it really that hard to believe that someone has to come up with far fetched ridiculous reasons like anti trust (anti trust with browsers makes no sense, chrome is never going to become a monopoly on the desktop and with growth in mobile it doesn't matter anyway)?
There is nothing underhanded and Google doesn't need to do anything underhanded. Sure there's some marketing speak in Kasting's post. But the bottomline is this does suit google's own business plan, the web's their space, they're not interested in competing with Mac OS and Windows directly. And they can't rely on IE and Safari being the interface to the web, they want to push them in the direction where Google wants to go and where their strength lies. Mozilla does it just fine because open works in Google's favour.
I thought that the reason for Chrome (and Android) was to make us all keep using Google products, in order to see Google ads.
There's also another very simple reason.
Eyeballs.
It's the same reason that Microsoft has advertised on Slashdot. By making the deal with Mozilla they get to be the default search engine on one of the most popular browsers. That is a lot of eyeballs. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if the next contract replaced Google with Microsoft. Ad agencies go where the eyeballs are, does this really surprise anyone?
an altruistic company, whoda thought?
The overwhelming thought that comes to my mind is that this poor engineer has actual bought the company line. All that kool-aid drinking thats so common at giant tech companies actually works on some people. He's a naive young engineer, who truly believes what he is saying. And that means that Management has done their job.
Listen up, kiddo... You think you know [b]why[/b] Google is building Chrome? LOL. What you think the "corporate strategy" is, is actually just the part they tell you to motivate you. Someday, hopefully, you will peek behind the curtain and see whats actually going on (hint- it ain't pretty)
Google and Mozilla
Partners, Not Competitors
Competitors not Partners
And always twirling, twirling towards freedom
Well, since they don't care about users--or usefulness--but only about "technology," perhaps that explains the lack of basic features, like the inability to resume downloads. Perhaps it also explains some of the "over-engineering" going into such basic features. *sigh*
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
Firefox is an important product because it can be a different product with different design decisions and serve different users well.
This is true as far as it goes, but it's moot as long as Firefox continues along its current mad quest to not be a different product with different design decisions.
I have accentuated so many times that competition is not good for anyone. Every competitor, customer and whole world suffers from competition.
Alternatives and teamwork is the only real way to go.
Example now with Google and Mozilla, both support standards together, both develops standards together, they help each other and they share best ideas and results to everyone so they get taken in use. But still all the time, both offers alternative for other product. Customer can choose what works best for them, still having best possible results and without vendor lock-in.
In competition, Google would have cut payroll to Mozilla when they release Chromium, both would have developed totally new own technologies and ideas instead existing standard, they would have extended the standard to work in such way it is incompatible with everyone else, they would do all what is possible to win the competitor.
Prices would go down, but same time there is less jobs, payment are smaller related to work times what are longer. Compability to earlier version could be non-existing as standard and backward compability would be meaningless, no reasons to support or give any ideas to anyone else if it does not give first hand something to itself and allow to push competitors off later (license fees, vendor lock-in etc).
Without competition, there are more jobs, smaller worktimes related to payment (you are paid better and you work less), everyone would have really a change to try out a own idea and present it to others if it would be a better, everyone could share the best ideas and then those are implemented together and everything is made sure that they work together.
Competition is same thing as the war is. There are rules but everyone is ready to blend them. Everyone are scared and every greed and psychopath are welcomed to lead others because they are so good to manipulate others and they don't care if they hurt anyone in the process. Even the Cold war was pure competition. At some point someone must blow to whistle and stop the competition as it comes to situation where every competitor is ready to do anything to win and protect their own profit and own future. Just like in war civilians, in a competition customers are those who suffers most. They get cheap and bad quality products, less jobs, smaller payment and you need to do anything to keep your job and serve your company.
In alternatives, there are moral and ethics what rules that no single company or not even a single country can come and attack against other. It is about whole world, not just those or just human race, but all. It is about world where we live, a single ecosystem. There ain't multiple ecosystems, but just one. If someone disturbs it so it gets unbalanced, there can be a eco-catastrophy what affects everyone less or more in a bad way. And even a small one can set a chain reaction what can show results only in long run.
We have limited resources to build things, from metals to coal and oil and so on. Those are resources what belongs to all, not to single corporation or single country.
Every single person who says competition is good, means same time that war, creed, ignorance, abuse and lying (or leaving truth untold) is better thing than teamwork, alternatives, honor, moral, ethics, caring and truth and those should be avoided.
Even in science, everything need to be tested and validated by thirdparty as well. There is always a demand to do everything together but there always are demand to have multiple alternative researches and developments same time where best long term results are together used and re-tested.
Microsoft competes, Mozilla and Google offers alternativities. Open Source (as GPL and similar) can never block knowledge or single/specific party to gain grip over others. It does not allow anyone to be a creedy and abuse their position.
The entire business model of Google is "Web as a Platform."
Of course they're trying to increase the web and make it better, faster. They're trying to make the web compete with full-fledged Operating Systems. Google doesn't care what browser you use, as long as you're using one that lets them develop their own infrastructure and deploy their own products.
Google has no reason to try and "crush" Firefox. Firefox is irrelevant to them. What they're really after is killing Microsoft, Internet Explorer, and getting their services such as Google Docs, GMail and more into businesses. They don't care about the browser as much as they want to compete in an area where they know they will win. Such an area would be web apps and web infrastructure.
Don't think about this as a browser war as much as a platform war. Microsoft's platform is Windows, Google's is the Web. Google just realizes that if the web was better and more fluent, they'd have a larger market and a bigger piece of that cookie.
That's my 2 cents, at least.
It's better to put that money into their own product, and they really want to do that, but they can't because they would lose users. Google profits from the deal, but at the same time they would want to improve their own market so they don't need to pay anyone else in future.
Please just ponder:
- What is exactly Google's product? i.e.: What exactly are they getting money from?
- What is exactly Google's market? i.e.: Which users do they need to win to earn more money?
Google *is* developping Chrome, yes. But Google *is not* selling Chrome. They do not get money from Chrome. It doesn't matter to them if more or less people are using Chrome, they won't earn money from it.
(Unlike Microsoft which is also earning money from selling an OS+Browser (+a few other application) Bundle)
Google's core business is search algorithms. They gained popularity thanks to clever algorithms which bring to the users the pages that these users want. And now, they earn money by leveraging the same algorithms to bring pages to the users that the authors pages want. *i.e.* relevant/targeted ads.
So whatever gets more people to surf a (standard compliant) web, and thus surf toward google.com is good for Google. No matter if it is an internally developped browser (like Chrome) or if it is a 3rd party developped one.
Google is not in the business in competing with other browser makers (like firefox).
Google is in the bunsiness in competing with Microsoft Bing for getting more users to their own services and thus serve to these users more ads.
The more users using anything else than a locked-in non-standard compliant "Windows + IE + Bing" stack, the better for them.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Yes, Google are producing Chrome because, either directly or indirectly, it advances the web as a platform. The thing is, they're only doing it because the web IS their platform. It's hugely advantageous to their business model that the web is a viable platform for their products in the years to come. What I object to, is Google trying to suggest that the ultimate reason for producing Chrome is anything but commercial. Don't get me wrong, I love Chrome and the impact it's having on the whole browser market, but they're not doing good just to be good.
I remember well what was in the 90s, before open source MySQL and PHP. I remember well that one has to pay thousands for some "architect version", "gold business version" just to get a simple database online.
Even in Chrome becomes better than Firefox I would keep using Firefox. Because as soon as a commercial solution has a monopolistic chance it will use this chance. It is a part of human nature. So we never should be lured by a single perfect piece of a commercial soft.
Google attempts to collect every single search query over a very long period of time. They try to link it to your email address (via Google Mail/Google Apps). They mine your email, which is probably much more personal than FB. Also, they own half of DoubleClick, have lots of ads sprinkled on lots of websites and they have Google Analytics cookies embedded into lots of websites.
FB attempts to perform similar things with their FB buttons, but I am sure Googles coverage is vastly more comprehensive. Most users don't even know how to delete their cookies and browsing history, so they are easy prey for Google.
Google's own statements are telling. One Googler once said "we can predict what you will do tomorrow with high confidence". Do I need to say more ?
They are trying to branch out into Office Apps with Google Docs and into Cloud Hosting with Google Apps. They are quite successful with that, but the search business is still more than 95% of revenue. It could very well be that they drop the non-search businesses in the future, at least if they accumulate more MBAers.
B is really a non-profit, being sustained by donations from A.
A's long-term goal is to drive C out of the market.
I am no game theorist, but common sense tells me that A should dispose of B later rather than sooner, since B is in its pocket anyway. Together, their 66% has a much better chance of taking over the other 33%.
Whereas if A first destroys B by withdrawing funding, then B's userbase is likely to bifurcate and go to A and C, in which case A's 50% would be fighting C's 50%, a much less advantageous situation than the first.
What I should do if I were A:
1. Keep sponsoring B, and together with it drive C out of the market
2. Withdraw funding from B, hopefully destroying it
3. Profit!
You know who A, B and C are.
First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win. -Gandhi
The comment about the Google motive is simple. Google cannot afford to become a monopoly.
BBB (BullSxxx baffles Brains) in that one has to justify why things are done for non profit (ha ha ha)
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
FF's Javascript support has not exactly been high-performance so to support Google Docs. This is clearly about acquiring search traffic via default search engine settings. Google fears all the n00bs using Bing if that was a default search engine on FF.