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Mozilla Revenue Jump Fuels Its Firefox Overhaul Plan (cnet.com)
Well, now we know what paid for all those programmers cranking out the overhauled Firefox Quantum browser: a major infusion of new money. From a report: Mozilla, the nonprofit behind the open-source web browser, saw its 2016 revenue increase 24 percent to an all-time high of $520 million, it said Friday. Expenses grew too, but not as much, from $361 million to $337 million, so the organization's war chest is significantly bigger now. Mozilla, which now has about 1,200 employees, releases prior-year financial results in conjunction with tax filings. Most of Mozilla's money comes from partnerships with search engines like Google, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Baidu and Yandex. When you search through Firefox's address bar, those search engines show search ads alongside results and share a portion of the revenue to Mozilla. Mozilla in 2014 signed a major five-year deal with Yahoo to be the default search engine in the US, but canceled it only three years in and moved back to Google instead in November. Mozilla's mission -- to keep the internet open and a place where you aren't in the thrall of tech giants -- may seem abstract. But Mozilla succeeded in breaking the lock Microsoft's Internet Explorer had on the web a decade ago, and now it's fighting the same battle again against Google's Chrome.
I didn't know that $361 million was less than $337 million...
Mozilla has 1,200 employees!!! What projects are all these people working on? Because I can't imagine even 600 of them working on Firefox.
How does that work, exactly?
This is laughable. Mozilla didn't break IE's hegemony by ditching XUL to adopt ActiveX.
"Most of Mozilla's money comes from partnerships with search engines like Google, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Baidu and Yandex. When you search through Firefox's address bar, those search engines show search ads alongside results and share a portion of the revenue to Mozilla."
So if I intend to search through DuckDuckGo, Mozilla is secretly passing my search query to Google?
Because of all the TV ads for FireFox?
I have open home page on start-up, yet it apologizes it couldn't open the last open pages when loaded. Windows and Linux Mint every time.
This hasn't changed through the updates.
They can afford to make an XUL version of Firefox for people who want to use real extensions officially. and not having to use forks like Waterfox and Pale Moon.
What does Mozilla make $520 million with 1,200 employees on? The data they collect from browser bug reports?
It's fast. And more importantly it's not made by Google. Because right now Google seems like it's becoming a problem.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
I have been using Quantum since beta and have been endlessly happy with it. I no longer have Chrome installed at all. So, with all this new money, moment, and initialize, I was thinking what about a Thunderbird overhaul. Then I realized, for my purposes it is perfect which is why have been using it for years and years, occasional experimenting with something else.
But people have different usage requirements. If the readers here could change anything about Thunderbird, what would it be?
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
... which explains why their developers don't seem to notice all the memory leaks.
I routinely get firefox.exe growing to1-2 GB memory usage.
When Mozilla execs claim that they are taking on Google, that is supposed to be the punchline to a bad joke.
Mozilla once again receives almost all of its revenue from Google search royalties. Mozilla cannot survive without Google. To think Mozilla will somehow take down Google is a DELUSION.
On mobile it already is WAY better than Firefox. On desktop it still has some bugs (it is in beta), but will eventually overtake Firefox.
Brave has a viable business plan. Mozilla is still stuck on search to generate all its income.
"Most of Mozilla's money comes from partnerships with search engines like Google...".
So they get a lot of money from Google - probably the lion's share. And Google gets most of their money from advertising.
"(A)nd now it's fighting the same battle again against Google's Chrome".
So how long is Google, (an advertising company whose browser is a core part of its advertising strategy), going to keep funding a company whose stated aim is to "keep the internet open and a place where you aren't in the thrall of tech giants"?
I've never really understood Google's support of Mozilla. Might it be that Google expects a company with both a growing war chest and a shrinking user base to implode more rapidly when funding is suddenly withdrawn? If not that or something like it, then the reasons for Google's support are a mystery to me. Can anyone here explain it?
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
[...] And more importantly it's not made by Google. Because right now Google seems like it's becoming a problem.
Not "becoming"... Google is already a problem...
Google's original motto "Don't be evil" changed to "Do the right thing" - and if anyone thinks that the meanings are similar, i ask why they change it?
...But Mozilla succeeded in breaking the lock Microsoft's Internet Explorer had on the web a decade ago, and now it's fighting the same battle again against Google's Chrome....
The way not to take on Chrome is to become a total clone of it and, at the same time, destroy all the functionality that extensions had provided.
That is truly astounding. Are they, I don't know, just shoveling the money mostly out the windows?
- FF still sucks, despite the speed being better now
- Thunderbird, they are not even working on anymore AFAIK
- Are they doing anything else that would justify their existence?
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Who cares. Browser speed was never an issue and is becoming even less so.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
After installing an outgoing firewall on my laptop I was amazed to see that Firefox was continuously sending updates about the wifi networks I was connected to to a maps.google.com/something address.
I was quite dissapointed, and switched to Waterfox for a while.
Chrome is, of course, much worse. But still. I would love to see a fast browser that really takes privacy seriously. You'd think that limiting tracking might speed up the browser as well.
It actually has always been an issue. Just in different ways. Back when Microsoft had infamously embedded IE into Windows 98. It meant the application took less time to load, because much of the components were loaded during boot time.
Firefox was at the time quick to load and was light on system usage, and rendered stuff fast and followed the standards well and was secure.
Chrome came out after Firefox kept on adding stuff to it slowing it down, so it was the light and fast browser.
It seems the trend is the small and fast browser wins, then the browser maker puts so much junk on it, it slows it down for an other company to make a new one stripped down to what people want.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Google's original motto "Don't be evil" changed to "Do the right thing"
To be fair to them both are traditional Blue State Millennial disingenuousness. Is it more evil to censor? Or to allow 'fascism'? Who defines 'fascism'? I.e. it's almost like 'don't be evil' is something idiots think is a moral code but which is actually completely meaningless. Same with 'do the right thing'. Who decides what's 'the right thing'? Google's pronouncements on morality are meaningless, and in the long run Google will, like any other American megacorp, do things which help their tribe in American politics and which hurt the other side. Regardless of morality.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
The Internet is broken until DANE TLSA is fully implemented. You might as well just hand out your passwords and credit card numbers in plain text to everyone so you stop believing the security theater.
That's my reaction, also.
The article is poorly edited: "Expenses grew too, but not as much, from $361 million to $337 million...". The numbers should be reversed. When the editing is that sloppy, can we depend on other information being accurate?
Also, the article does not tell the full story. For example: "Mozilla in 2014 signed a major five-year deal with Yahoo to be the default search engine in the US, but canceled it only three years in and moved back to Google instead in November."
During that 3 years, Mozilla was dominated by Microsoft. Microsoft paid Yahoo to use Microsoft's Bing search. Yahoo paid Mozilla Foundation to make Firefox browser use "Yahoo Search", which was actually Microsoft Bing search.
A repost of part of a previous comment:
The browser situation is very, very ugly. Firefox is now, basically, owned by Microsoft, who is apparently trying to destroy it. In the past, Google paid Mozilla Foundation $300 million each year (December 22, 2011) to make Google search the default search engine in Firefox. Google apparently didn't cause problems in the design of Firefox, even though it paid a shocking amount.
Now, I understand, Mozilla Foundation gets most of its money from Microsoft: Microsoft pays Yahoo. Yahoo pays Mozilla Foundation to make "Yahoo search" (actually mostly Microsoft Bing search) (April 16, 2015) the default search engine in Firefox.
The Thunderbird and SeaMonkey Composer GUIs have been damaged in several ways, apparently deliberately. For example, file saves in the newer versions of both ask for a new file name, and don't suggest the last one chosen. The damage was reported several months ago, but has not been fixed.
Mozilla Foundation said it will no longer improve the Thunderbird email client. Is that because Microsoft wants more customers for Microsoft products like Outlook? Is that another example of Microsoft's Embrace, Extend, Extinguish? People who feel forced away from Thunderbird may choose Microsoft software to replace it. Is that something Microsoft is trying to accomplish?
We are seeing technology companies that are shockingly badly managed. Why is that happening? Are we experiencing a general social breakdown?
One small but indicative example: On the Mozilla Foundation Download Firefox in your language web page the 32-bit and 64-bit versions have the same file name!
Mozilla Foundation could be far better at communicating with users. Basically, however, Mozilla Foundation does what big corporations want, apparently. Now that Google is paying Microsoft huge amounts again, will the Firefox browser continue to improve in some ways, but continue to be degraded in others, as in losing important add-ons?
A long time ago, I tried the Google Chrome browser. It installed 3 system services. Google had more control over my computer than me as a limited user!!
In my view, the 3 years of Microsoft paying Mozilla Foundation were 3 years of destructiveness in numerous ways.
Should a United Nations agency demand that browsers not be abusive? That is a world-class goal.
One AC comment about Microsoft: Microsoft's a blight, stuffing ballots, poisoning standardization processes, bribing decision makers, spying on users and using their market power to sell inferior products. Your typical big-corp sociopathic behaviour.
One of the many, many stories about poor management
just how complex a browser is. Having written an addon I've got a taste for the craziness involved. It's frankly absurd just what it takes. To be fair, browsers are practically operating systems these days. And then you add all the community people. I couldn't have written my plugin without all the help they gave me.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
"Mozilla succeeded in breaking the lock Microsoft's Internet Explorer had on the web a decade ago, and now it's fighting the same battle again against Google's Chrome."
Mozilla succeeded against Internet Explorer by offering a completely different browsing experience...tabs and a lot of really interesting ways to customize the browser.
So what is Firefox now? It's dull, soulless Chrome with some dull, soulless tweaks. If I want to go down that road, I'll opt for better security/privacy and start spending more time browsing with Epic, or perhaps Brave.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
I work remotely, and ever since the update Firefox has been unusable on most of our internal apps (not written in-house, Jenkins and our issue tracker system). Something to do with certain js and/or animated status graphics (Jenkins for instance with pipelines has a candystripe-style throbber in the job stat page). On a hunch, I installed Vivaldi (Chrome-based) and it works fine.
So this supposed 'upgrade' forced me off Firefox. I am not going to debug their browser for them.
Moderated down by people who, I'm guessing, don't much disagree, but who want to hide what people and the media are saying.
So you feel that your theory that Microsoft was secretly running Mozilla is not in the least undermined by Mozilla exiting the Yahoo deal and no longer receiving money (indirectly) from Microsoft?
It is such a pain in the neck to have to move the screen from side to side for every single line of text to read an article how could this have been left like this so long I hope this is a useful suggestions if anyone relevant reads it
It seems the trend is the small and fast browser wins, then the browser maker puts so much junk on it, it slows it down for an other company to make a new one stripped down to what people want.
To be fair, a good deal of the junk they're putting on is directly in support of the underlying technology the browsers are implementing on the first place. I'm sure the CSS engine alone is a breathtaking sight to behold.
Imagine the kinds of abhorrent rites and dark symbologies the decadent wizards of Microsoft used to bring some semblance of sanity to IE while keeping "Quirks Mode" locked up in a box with a special hole for it to excrete "Compatible Output". A part of me wants to see the full source code for something like IE, even though I know it will probably drive me mad.
It kind of seems like a symptom of mature web browsers, to wrestle ponderously with whatever technical debts they've managed to accrue while trying to add features to vie for market share for a product which the vast majority of its users knows next nothing about.
We don't know why Mozilla Foundation has changed from accepting money from Microsoft to accepting money from Google. We are, apparently, not allowed to know. One possibility is that Google is willing to pay more. Another possibility is that there was a breakdown in the relationship between the very poorly managed Yahoo and Microsoft. (Although poorly managed, one reason Yahoo has money is that Yahoo is part owner of Alibaba. See, for example, Why worthless CEOs laugh all the way to the bank. May 20, 2017)
During the time the money from Microsoft dominated Mozilla Foundation's income, Mozilla Foundation released a version of Firefox that removed the ability to use most add-ons. Add-ons are the reason people prefer Firefox. We aren't allowed to kinow why Mozilla Foundation makes its decisions.
During the time that Microsoft dominated, Mozilla Foundation changed the Firefox user interface in a way that had a negative influence on acceptance of Firefox.
During the time that Microsoft dominated, Microsoft tried other ways to dominate: Mozilla and Google accuse Microsoft of unfair browser competition (May 10, 2012)
That is, in fact, what happened, according to news reports at links I gave.
Other people who have commented and I feel uncomfortable with the fact that we aren't allowed to know how Mozilla Foundation spends its money.
The world needs a browser that is not controlled in a hidden way. At one time, I thought we had that. When Google was paying $300,000,000 per year to Mozilla Foundation, to make Google search the default Firefox search engine. it appeared that Google was not negatively influencing the development of Firefox. Of course, we don't know what actually happened.
"The reasons for this decision are well documented..."
That is a common mistake. Mozilla Foundation "documented" the changes in a way only people who were both technically knowledgeable and had time to give attention to that particular technology subject would understand.
You are satisfied with what was communicated. That is good, but not what is needed. Overall, the public needs to understand all the issues concerning browsers. In fact, the issues are largely hidden.
You said, "Your moderation was well deserved."
My comment to which you are replying was not moderated down. My parent comment was moderated down.
My parent comment contains what I consider to be EXTREMELY important issues. Internet browsers are now an important, necessary part of human culture. We need to understand if there are unacceptable influences. For example, years ago, Microsoft's Internet Explorer version 6 did not implement world-wide standards. IE6 caused a huge number of problems because those with no technical knowledge would use it, not realizing the difficulties for web site developers.