7 ms·

Firefox Premium Coming This Fall

48 points by dschuetz 7y ago

OJFord 7y ago
TFA doesn't seem to expand on the opening claim that it's 'potentially disturbing'. I think it could be great - better funded by 'power users' than by tracking and ads.
- Xylakant 7y ago
  A paid Firefox version would be great. Companies often have less of a problem buying software than donating to another entity, so adding features that are primarily of interest to companies might be a good way to earn money.
- lmorchard 7y ago
  Reads like FUD. From everything I've seen, "Firefox Premium" is not a thing as such. I can't read German, so maybe Chris Beard revealed something different in the interview from what he's been saying in other public meetings - but I doubt it. There are plans to launch paid subscription services & products in a Firefox brand family. Some of services may even be independent from the browser and be separate standalone apps & products. Some of the services may even - gasp - work in a non-Firefox browser. Think of things like Firefox Send, Firefox Monitor, Firefox Lockbox, a system-wide VPN, an in-browser secure proxy. Specific plans are still in progress, but I don't think any of them are literally "you pay for browser now"
  - OJFord 7y ago
    Fwiw, I wasn't assuming that 'pay for browser' (optionally) meant any more than, if I'm signed in, I get Lock~box~wise et al. - or 'unlocked' access beyond 100 passwords or something. I just think if you don't make payment look like it's about a specific product, that people will be more willing and likely to pseudo-donate by subscribing before they hit whatever such limits.
jddj 7y ago
Depending on the price point, I can imagine myself paying some non-zero amount monthly just for the peace of mind of supporting the existence of a Mozilla browser. Although there isn't much information, I can't see myself really wanting/using any of the premium features personally, though. Unless they can reliably replace Dropbox or my password manager. Also, I feel they'd likely be making a mistake by putting any useful future core browser features which emerge behind a paywall (and that's going to be a constant temptation).
dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago
That's great news! Can't wait to vote for FF with my wallet.
- jonah 7y ago
  You can support FF with your wallet now! ;) https://donate.mozilla.org/ https://donate.mozilla.org/
  - unilynx 7y ago
    That doesnt actually go to Firefox the browser. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10648693 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10648693
  - dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago
    Somehow that's not the same thing. I don't always agree with what Mozilla is doing. But I want to support Firefox the browser, especially now, when privacy-wise the division gets more and more pronounced, with Google and Microsoft on one side, and Apple and Mozilla on the other.
hardwaresofton 7y ago
Found this tidbit interesting: > We have repeatedly commented on Mozilla's precarious funding situation. According to Beard's answer in the interview 90% of the organization's income comes from search - i.e the royalties received from companies like Google and Yandex for including their search engines in Firefox. From our report on its 2017 balance sheet, the latest year for which it has published its accounts, Royalties amounted to $539,168,000 of total revenue of $562,279,000, which is around 96%. Anything to lessen that reality is probably a step in the right direction. In agreement with others, can't wait to vote for FF with my wallet (even though I might not use any of the features).
- PostOnce 7y ago
  I predict almost no sales. Imagine trying to make a dent in $500M selling a browser you can also largely download for free, with arguably better (to the average consumer) competing browsers, which are also free. Mozilla keeps building stuff nobody wants and employing a thousand or more people to affect that pointless effort. What Mozilla needs is not a new, paid product; what Mozilla needs is new management that understands what the point of Mozilla is.
  - hardwaresofton 7y ago
    The idea isn't to sell a browser you can download for free, it's to sell value added services that they can cheaply produce/maintain to those who want to purchase it. I might agree that Mozilla might need some new management, but this seems like a good move not a bad one so...
- tannhaeuser 7y ago
  I've been using FF forever (never bought into the idea of using a browser from an ad company, or from the party running the web; checks and balances and all), and have recommended it many times here and elsewhere. But what's disturbing with only Chrome and FF left and Google financing both, is that this self-referential, self-sustaining situation can't develop the web into directions not benefitting the powers that be at this point. Imagine a political situation where you have only two parties to choose, with this binary choice having a qualitative rather than merely quantitative effect on democracy ;) It's most disturbing that those responsible for developing web standards are financially dependent on Google as well, and are thus incapable to drive material change, or even see a problem with the ever-expanding complexity of browsers.
derin 7y ago
When you consider the costs associated with running, say, a proper VPN or cloud storage solution it doesn't seem unreasonable to offer a paid plan. Supporting Firefox and getting some perks normally associated with other paid services sounds like a win-win to me.
rullopat 7y ago
Looking at all the shady VPN services that can potentially be worse than connecting without VPN, I would for sure put my trust much more in a Firefox VPN than any other.
Lazare 7y ago
This seems like a pretty good idea; hopefully the execution will be up to scratch. I'm not adverse to paying for a performant, privacy respecting browser.
davidhyde 7y ago
I’d be ok with paying for a Firefox licence but I would not be ok with having to be logged in to a Firefox account to achieve that goal. Being logged into anything makes it too easy to be tracked online and although I trust Mozilla more than any other company it gives me piece of mind to browse without the potential to be tracked through this medium. Unfortunately, purchasing an unlock key is not much better either. It ties your browser to personally identifiable information you submit when you pay.
- Jonnax 7y ago
  Well if you want to pay just to support them, you can subscribe/buy. And then not sign into the browser that you use to browse the internet.
- weinzierl 7y ago
  This is a very good point. Payment should be as anonymous as realistically possible. As for the unlock key: I think this solution would be OK for me as long as the keys are transferable. We could buy the keys in bulk an resell them at conferences for cash.
daxterspeed 7y ago
I suppose this is slightly off-topic, but what security does a VPN actually offer when connecting to a https site? Surely browsers should show a NOT SECURE warning if connecting to a https site while on an unsecured wifi was actually insecure?
- 0-_-0 7y ago
  Isn't the problem there a MITM attack? In my experience Firefox does detect MITM attacks though.
- Xylakant 7y ago
  Currently, the WIFI can still observe what sites you’re visiting (SNI still happens in plaintext) and, depending on the circumstances attempt a downgrade attack. Many people first try http and the destination then redirects, a lot of sites still don’t prevent that. For some folks you might even leverage something like the Sony rootkit. Once the connection is established, you’re fairly good, but until then quite a few things can go off the rails.
- iamnothere 7y ago
  It prevents your ISP, roommate, spouse, or employer from learning what domains you are visiting. It should also protect against the creative HTTPS downgrade attacks that sometimes show up.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
weinzierl 7y ago
I'd be happy to pay for Firefox, but I have a few points that are important to me. They are probably not very realistic but here they are anyway: 1. I want my money to go into Firefox development and nowhere else. I certainly don't want my money spent on their content business, even if it is used as a leverage to generate more money for Firefox development. I'm torn about Rust development because I certainly would love to see Rust flourish, but if we allow the money go into personally preferred projects it becomes hard to draw the line. 2. I want a Firefox with absolutely no strings attached. - No Pocket, not even a trace of it - No experiments, labs or whatever they call it (see Mr. Robot for an example) - No network connections to third party hosts as long I haven't explicitly opted in. - Safe search off by default - No predefined search engines - No predefined start page 3. I want Mozilla (as a whole and not only the Firefox branch) to be more carefully with the selection of their businesses partners. I'm am not aiming at their co-operations with Google, Yandex and the like, which are OK for me. At least as long as my points from above are respected. Specifically I'm OK if the free version of Firefox continues to be sponsored mainly by Google. I'm not OK with business deals of the kind they had with Cliqz for example.
- wodenokoto 7y ago
  You want a pro version that doesn’t use Mozilla services and money is not spend on infrastructure or dependent software or application research because that is not “Firefox development”. I think anyone would be just fine not having you as a customer.
  - weinzierl 7y ago
    Paying for development infrastructure and research to bring Firefox forward is Firefox development. I'm not interested in their services, all I care for is the browser. As a customer I think it is well in my right to just pay for what I use. At the very least it is not impolite to ask for that.
    - Xylakant 7y ago
      It’s well within Mozilla’s right to offer a packaged deal that you can either take or leave. If that includes parts you don’t use, you’re stuck with buying or not buying. It’s well within your right to not buy the bundle, but there is no right to get it unbundled.
gremlinsinc 7y ago
How is 550 million for a browser company not enough money? I mean seriously, how much more do they need? If I were a systems or c++ dev I'd start my own browser, apparently it's very profitable to do so... Maybe firefox should become more like microsoft and amazon and instead of monetizing the browser become a bigger competitor to google et al viz vi cloud services. They also could build products for developers to use for browser testing across multiple platforms, etc... I don't see premium firefox taking off, but more competition with AWS, Azure, GCP is never a bad thing, or maybe they do something like Brave Browser and merge crypto with browsing though that seems tenuous compared to some other options.
- weinzierl 7y ago
  > How is 550 million for a browser company not enough money? This makes me wonder how much Google spends on Chrome?
- gshdg 7y ago
  Sorry, this reminds me of people who go to Upwork to get a Facebook clone written in a weekend for $600. Writing a rendering engine for CSS and an interpreter for javascript are not trivial. Plus you have to make them secure. And deal with all sorts of edge cases. And that’s before we even get to the HTTP stack, cookie and local storage handling, etc. Let alone expected browser amenities like bookmarks and (secure) extensions. And then make it cross-platform, including supporting older versions of a bunch of operating systems, and all sorts of hardware configurations, several dozen languages, RTL input...
  - jstewartmobile 7y ago
    $550,000,000 per year is a bit more than $600 on upwork.
- detaro 7y ago
  Mozilla is not just "a browser company".
- lmorchard 7y ago
  > If I were a systems or c++ dev I'd start my own browser, apparently it's very profitable to do so... If it were that trivial, systems & C++ devs would already be doing it.
brador 7y ago
How can it cost half a billion a year to maintain a web browser?
Grue3 7y ago
Is Firefox Premium going to keep removing features people use, such as tab groups, and stopped nerfing add-ons by removing API for extensible functionality (such as proxy by url wildcard)? While a free product might be excused for doing this (because you get what you pay for), the expectations for paid product a bit higher. Now that I think about it, Firefox 56 updated with security patches in perpetuity and with active add-on ecosystem would be a great product. It was the most extensible browser ever, so new features can be delegated to add-on developers. Make the add-ons paid as well, I wouldn't mind.
karmakaze 7y ago
Call me a cynic. This is how it starts. Either your using premium or you are the product--a second class citizen. It won't happen right away but by each small decision that splits users will set trends. Like experiments that would have been perfect for non-premium, etc.
- panarky 7y ago
  You can pay and be the product.
user17843 7y ago
When it comes to dependence on ad-tech money, the writing is on the wall: > Cost per click on Google properties — which roughly measures the amount Alphabet charges advertisers for each ad served on its web sites — dropped 29 percent from last year and 9 percent from last quarter, which might be alarming investors concerned that Google’s pricing power for ads is eroding. [1] Additionally, Firefox is losing users, around 50,000 - 100,000 per day. [2] They now want to add all kinds of additional stuff in order to make money. For a browser this is a death sentence. A browser can not be more than a browser, and ad tiles are the only practical way of making money next to search engine deals. While a pro-version of Firefox is certainly an interesting idea which can be sold to a tech-savvy minority, it neither can diversify their revenue in a meaningful way, nor is clear yet whether Mozilla is going to offer a paid Firefox version, or simply tries to upsell a software bundle branded with their name. Mozilla paid around 30 million to aquire Pocket (one of their supposed foundations for making money), but there isn't any data to show whether they are profitable with it. Given the low number of ads in Pocket, they probably aren't profitable. In 2017, according to their financial report, they only made 2,5 million with Pocket ads. Opera is the only other major browser that has to survive without having a tech giant behind them. They do everything they can to make money with Opera. And it has boiled down to ads in the start page and licensing. There’s nothing more you can do. Opera is surviving on three kind of deals: [3] – search (ca 60%) – ads in start page – licensing deals on mobile phones Licensing is off limits to mozilla because they have lost the mobile market. So all that is left is ads on the start page. Its that simple. There’s also a lesson to learn for Mozilla from the time Opera abandoned Presto: [4] > “Because of our switch to the Blink engine, our retention rate on desktop users is much better now. This is because most websites work in Opera since we’re using the same engine as Google. We think we’ve become more relevant after we moved over to the Blink platform, and more companies now start to work with us,” Boilesen said. > “We’ve got twice as many developers on the desktop browser now than we had with Presto, because all [our] resources went into maintaining Presto. The only error we made with Presto was that we kept it too long. Our change to Blink was because we wanted to get on the offensive with regards to innovation, we used too many resources to keep Presto competitive." There are only two ways. You either stay innovative and keep up with the times, or you downsize and develop for a small niche group. Mozilla is doing neither. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/04/alphabet-earnings-q4-2018.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/04/alphabet-earnings-q4-2018.ht... [2] https://data.firefox.com https://data.firefox.com [3] https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/02/browser-maker-opera-has-filed-to-go-public/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/02/browser-maker-opera-has-fi... [4] https://www.zdnet.com/article/show-me-the-money-how-opera-started-thinking-about-the-bottom-line-and-what-that-did-to-its-software/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/show-me-the-money-how-opera-st...

48 points by dschuetz 7y ago

TFA doesn't seem to expand on the opening claim that it's 'potentially disturbing'. I think it could be great - better funded by 'power users' than by tracking and ads.

Xylakant 7y ago
A paid Firefox version would be great. Companies often have less of a problem buying software than donating to another entity, so adding features that are primarily of interest to companies might be a good way to earn money.
lmorchard 7y ago
Reads like FUD. From everything I've seen, "Firefox Premium" is not a thing as such. I can't read German, so maybe Chris Beard revealed something different in the interview from what he's been saying in other public meetings - but I doubt it. There are plans to launch paid subscription services & products in a Firefox brand family. Some of services may even be independent from the browser and be separate standalone apps & products. Some of the services may even - gasp - work in a non-Firefox browser. Think of things like Firefox Send, Firefox Monitor, Firefox Lockbox, a system-wide VPN, an in-browser secure proxy. Specific plans are still in progress, but I don't think any of them are literally "you pay for browser now"
- OJFord 7y ago
  Fwiw, I wasn't assuming that 'pay for browser' (optionally) meant any more than, if I'm signed in, I get Lock~box~wise et al. - or 'unlocked' access beyond 100 passwords or something. I just think if you don't make payment look like it's about a specific product, that people will be more willing and likely to pseudo-donate by subscribing before they hit whatever such limits.

jddj 7y ago

Depending on the price point, I can imagine myself paying some non-zero amount monthly just for the peace of mind of supporting the existence of a Mozilla browser. Although there isn't much information, I can't see myself really wanting/using any of the premium features personally, though. Unless they can reliably replace Dropbox or my password manager. Also, I feel they'd likely be making a mistake by putting any useful future core browser features which emerge behind a paywall (and that's going to be a constant temptation).

dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago

That's great news! Can't wait to vote for FF with my wallet.

jonah 7y ago
You can support FF with your wallet now! ;) https://donate.mozilla.org/ https://donate.mozilla.org/
- unilynx 7y ago
  That doesnt actually go to Firefox the browser. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10648693 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10648693
- dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago
  Somehow that's not the same thing. I don't always agree with what Mozilla is doing. But I want to support Firefox the browser, especially now, when privacy-wise the division gets more and more pronounced, with Google and Microsoft on one side, and Apple and Mozilla on the other.

hardwaresofton 7y ago

Found this tidbit interesting: > We have repeatedly commented on Mozilla's precarious funding situation. According to Beard's answer in the interview 90% of the organization's income comes from search - i.e the royalties received from companies like Google and Yandex for including their search engines in Firefox. From our report on its 2017 balance sheet, the latest year for which it has published its accounts, Royalties amounted to $539,168,000 of total revenue of $562,279,000, which is around 96%. Anything to lessen that reality is probably a step in the right direction. In agreement with others, can't wait to vote for FF with my wallet (even though I might not use any of the features).

PostOnce 7y ago
I predict almost no sales. Imagine trying to make a dent in $500M selling a browser you can also largely download for free, with arguably better (to the average consumer) competing browsers, which are also free. Mozilla keeps building stuff nobody wants and employing a thousand or more people to affect that pointless effort. What Mozilla needs is not a new, paid product; what Mozilla needs is new management that understands what the point of Mozilla is.
- hardwaresofton 7y ago
  The idea isn't to sell a browser you can download for free, it's to sell value added services that they can cheaply produce/maintain to those who want to purchase it. I might agree that Mozilla might need some new management, but this seems like a good move not a bad one so...
tannhaeuser 7y ago
I've been using FF forever (never bought into the idea of using a browser from an ad company, or from the party running the web; checks and balances and all), and have recommended it many times here and elsewhere. But what's disturbing with only Chrome and FF left and Google financing both, is that this self-referential, self-sustaining situation can't develop the web into directions not benefitting the powers that be at this point. Imagine a political situation where you have only two parties to choose, with this binary choice having a qualitative rather than merely quantitative effect on democracy ;) It's most disturbing that those responsible for developing web standards are financially dependent on Google as well, and are thus incapable to drive material change, or even see a problem with the ever-expanding complexity of browsers.

derin 7y ago

When you consider the costs associated with running, say, a proper VPN or cloud storage solution it doesn't seem unreasonable to offer a paid plan. Supporting Firefox and getting some perks normally associated with other paid services sounds like a win-win to me.

rullopat 7y ago

Looking at all the shady VPN services that can potentially be worse than connecting without VPN, I would for sure put my trust much more in a Firefox VPN than any other.

Lazare 7y ago

This seems like a pretty good idea; hopefully the execution will be up to scratch. I'm not adverse to paying for a performant, privacy respecting browser.

davidhyde 7y ago

I’d be ok with paying for a Firefox licence but I would not be ok with having to be logged in to a Firefox account to achieve that goal. Being logged into anything makes it too easy to be tracked online and although I trust Mozilla more than any other company it gives me piece of mind to browse without the potential to be tracked through this medium. Unfortunately, purchasing an unlock key is not much better either. It ties your browser to personally identifiable information you submit when you pay.

Jonnax 7y ago
Well if you want to pay just to support them, you can subscribe/buy. And then not sign into the browser that you use to browse the internet.
weinzierl 7y ago
This is a very good point. Payment should be as anonymous as realistically possible. As for the unlock key: I think this solution would be OK for me as long as the keys are transferable. We could buy the keys in bulk an resell them at conferences for cash.

daxterspeed 7y ago

I suppose this is slightly off-topic, but what security does a VPN actually offer when connecting to a https site? Surely browsers should show a NOT SECURE warning if connecting to a https site while on an unsecured wifi was actually insecure?

0-_-0 7y ago
Isn't the problem there a MITM attack? In my experience Firefox does detect MITM attacks though.
Xylakant 7y ago
Currently, the WIFI can still observe what sites you’re visiting (SNI still happens in plaintext) and, depending on the circumstances attempt a downgrade attack. Many people first try http and the destination then redirects, a lot of sites still don’t prevent that. For some folks you might even leverage something like the Sony rootkit. Once the connection is established, you’re fairly good, but until then quite a few things can go off the rails.
iamnothere 7y ago
It prevents your ISP, roommate, spouse, or employer from learning what domains you are visiting. It should also protect against the creative HTTPS downgrade attacks that sometimes show up.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

weinzierl 7y ago

I'd be happy to pay for Firefox, but I have a few points that are important to me. They are probably not very realistic but here they are anyway: 1. I want my money to go into Firefox development and nowhere else. I certainly don't want my money spent on their content business, even if it is used as a leverage to generate more money for Firefox development. I'm torn about Rust development because I certainly would love to see Rust flourish, but if we allow the money go into personally preferred projects it becomes hard to draw the line. 2. I want a Firefox with absolutely no strings attached. - No Pocket, not even a trace of it - No experiments, labs or whatever they call it (see Mr. Robot for an example) - No network connections to third party hosts as long I haven't explicitly opted in. - Safe search off by default - No predefined search engines - No predefined start page 3. I want Mozilla (as a whole and not only the Firefox branch) to be more carefully with the selection of their businesses partners. I'm am not aiming at their co-operations with Google, Yandex and the like, which are OK for me. At least as long as my points from above are respected. Specifically I'm OK if the free version of Firefox continues to be sponsored mainly by Google. I'm not OK with business deals of the kind they had with Cliqz for example.

wodenokoto 7y ago
You want a pro version that doesn’t use Mozilla services and money is not spend on infrastructure or dependent software or application research because that is not “Firefox development”. I think anyone would be just fine not having you as a customer.
- weinzierl 7y ago
  Paying for development infrastructure and research to bring Firefox forward is Firefox development. I'm not interested in their services, all I care for is the browser. As a customer I think it is well in my right to just pay for what I use. At the very least it is not impolite to ask for that.
  - Xylakant 7y ago
    It’s well within Mozilla’s right to offer a packaged deal that you can either take or leave. If that includes parts you don’t use, you’re stuck with buying or not buying. It’s well within your right to not buy the bundle, but there is no right to get it unbundled.

gremlinsinc 7y ago

How is 550 million for a browser company not enough money? I mean seriously, how much more do they need? If I were a systems or c++ dev I'd start my own browser, apparently it's very profitable to do so... Maybe firefox should become more like microsoft and amazon and instead of monetizing the browser become a bigger competitor to google et al viz vi cloud services. They also could build products for developers to use for browser testing across multiple platforms, etc... I don't see premium firefox taking off, but more competition with AWS, Azure, GCP is never a bad thing, or maybe they do something like Brave Browser and merge crypto with browsing though that seems tenuous compared to some other options.

weinzierl 7y ago
> How is 550 million for a browser company not enough money? This makes me wonder how much Google spends on Chrome?
gshdg 7y ago
Sorry, this reminds me of people who go to Upwork to get a Facebook clone written in a weekend for $600. Writing a rendering engine for CSS and an interpreter for javascript are not trivial. Plus you have to make them secure. And deal with all sorts of edge cases. And that’s before we even get to the HTTP stack, cookie and local storage handling, etc. Let alone expected browser amenities like bookmarks and (secure) extensions. And then make it cross-platform, including supporting older versions of a bunch of operating systems, and all sorts of hardware configurations, several dozen languages, RTL input...
- jstewartmobile 7y ago
  $550,000,000 per year is a bit more than $600 on upwork.
detaro 7y ago
Mozilla is not just "a browser company".
lmorchard 7y ago
> If I were a systems or c++ dev I'd start my own browser, apparently it's very profitable to do so... If it were that trivial, systems & C++ devs would already be doing it.

brador 7y ago

How can it cost half a billion a year to maintain a web browser?

Grue3 7y ago

Is Firefox Premium going to keep removing features people use, such as tab groups, and stopped nerfing add-ons by removing API for extensible functionality (such as proxy by url wildcard)? While a free product might be excused for doing this (because you get what you pay for), the expectations for paid product a bit higher. Now that I think about it, Firefox 56 updated with security patches in perpetuity and with active add-on ecosystem would be a great product. It was the most extensible browser ever, so new features can be delegated to add-on developers. Make the add-ons paid as well, I wouldn't mind.

karmakaze 7y ago

Call me a cynic. This is how it starts. Either your using premium or you are the product--a second class citizen. It won't happen right away but by each small decision that splits users will set trends. Like experiments that would have been perfect for non-premium, etc.

panarky 7y ago
You can pay and be the product.

user17843 7y ago

When it comes to dependence on ad-tech money, the writing is on the wall: > Cost per click on Google properties — which roughly measures the amount Alphabet charges advertisers for each ad served on its web sites — dropped 29 percent from last year and 9 percent from last quarter, which might be alarming investors concerned that Google’s pricing power for ads is eroding. [1] Additionally, Firefox is losing users, around 50,000 - 100,000 per day. [2] They now want to add all kinds of additional stuff in order to make money. For a browser this is a death sentence. A browser can not be more than a browser, and ad tiles are the only practical way of making money next to search engine deals. While a pro-version of Firefox is certainly an interesting idea which can be sold to a tech-savvy minority, it neither can diversify their revenue in a meaningful way, nor is clear yet whether Mozilla is going to offer a paid Firefox version, or simply tries to upsell a software bundle branded with their name. Mozilla paid around 30 million to aquire Pocket (one of their supposed foundations for making money), but there isn't any data to show whether they are profitable with it. Given the low number of ads in Pocket, they probably aren't profitable. In 2017, according to their financial report, they only made 2,5 million with Pocket ads. Opera is the only other major browser that has to survive without having a tech giant behind them. They do everything they can to make money with Opera. And it has boiled down to ads in the start page and licensing. There’s nothing more you can do. Opera is surviving on three kind of deals: [3] – search (ca 60%) – ads in start page – licensing deals on mobile phones Licensing is off limits to mozilla because they have lost the mobile market. So all that is left is ads on the start page. Its that simple. There’s also a lesson to learn for Mozilla from the time Opera abandoned Presto: [4] > “Because of our switch to the Blink engine, our retention rate on desktop users is much better now. This is because most websites work in Opera since we’re using the same engine as Google. We think we’ve become more relevant after we moved over to the Blink platform, and more companies now start to work with us,” Boilesen said. > “We’ve got twice as many developers on the desktop browser now than we had with Presto, because all [our] resources went into maintaining Presto. The only error we made with Presto was that we kept it too long. Our change to Blink was because we wanted to get on the offensive with regards to innovation, we used too many resources to keep Presto competitive." There are only two ways. You either stay innovative and keep up with the times, or you downsize and develop for a small niche group. Mozilla is doing neither. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/04/alphabet-earnings-q4-2018.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/04/alphabet-earnings-q4-2018.ht... [2] https://data.firefox.com https://data.firefox.com [3] https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/02/browser-maker-opera-has-filed-to-go-public/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/02/browser-maker-opera-has-fi... [4] https://www.zdnet.com/article/show-me-the-money-how-opera-started-thinking-about-the-bottom-line-and-what-that-did-to-its-software/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/show-me-the-money-how-opera-st...