5 ms·

Most of Mozilla's funding came from Google in exchange for making Google the default search page.

rusk 7y ago
Right ... It really isn’t inconceivable that they wouldn’t have got funding from somewhere else. It was a marketing opportunity for Google, them being the David to Microsoft’s Goliath. Remember that whole ”don’t be evil” thing? Turns out it was jusy a ruse to be abandoned once the market had consolidated.
- Majestic121 7y ago
  The triple negative in your sentence makes it confusing. I expected that you wanted to say : It is conceivable that they would have got funding from somewhere else
  - frogpelt 7y ago
    I don't disagree. You're not wrong.
  - rusk 7y ago
    it's not inconceivable is a common enough phrase. You could say this might be more parsimoniously expressed as "it is conceivable", but the colloquial phrasing intones that the premise proceeds specifically from the supposition that it may be inconceivable.
- Lio 7y ago
  There is also an argument that back in the day Firefox saved Google rather than the other way around. Why? Because when Microsoft had 90% browser share, gained through tying IE directly into Windows, there was a very real chance that they could have adapted IE so that it was harder to use Google than a default MS Bing search engine. Having a better, cross-platform alternative to IE allowed Google to stay in the game and make use of FF's cutting edge features. Remember the old Microsoft was quite happy to cripple Windows to kill it's competitors. For example "Windows ain't done until WordPerfect won't run" and the weird "errors" you saw if you tried running Windows on top of DR DOS.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - mkl 7y ago
    I'm not sure that adds up. When Bing was introduced in mid-2009, IE had about 60% of the market, and it was dropping fast as Chrome's popularity exploded [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#/media/File:StatCounter-browser-ww-monthly-200901-201905.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#/m...
    - Lio 7y ago
      I believe that Microsoft’s interest in Google’s business predates the launch of Bing. You can replace the brand name “Bing” with “some kind of search/advertising/internet gateway” business. Remember Microsoft used to be a very competitive outfit with a history of using their dominance of desktop OSs to enter new markets. It’s easy to forget that Microsoft of old were able to keep bankrolling loss leaders to “cut off the oxygen”[1] of any market that they saw as threatening Windows. [1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1998/04/98/microsoft/198390.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1998/04/98/microso...
  - tylerhou 7y ago
    > "Windows ain't done until WordPerfect won't run" Source? All I can find is http://www.proudlyserving.com/archives/2005/08/dos_aint_done_t.html http://www.proudlyserving.com/archives/2005/08/dos_aint_done....
    - Lio 7y ago
      I think you’d find most of the court proceedings under Novell vs Microsoft. If memory serves me correctly Novell believed in their case enough to take it to the US Supreme Court but were not given leave to proceed further. No reason/justification was given for that.
tyingq 7y ago
And Yahoo! for a time.
- branon 7y ago
  I remember this. It was terrible. There was a (bug|user error) I experienced during this time which prevented me from changing the default search engine. It was _terrible_.

rusk 7y ago

Right ... It really isn’t inconceivable that they wouldn’t have got funding from somewhere else. It was a marketing opportunity for Google, them being the David to Microsoft’s Goliath. Remember that whole ”don’t be evil” thing? Turns out it was jusy a ruse to be abandoned once the market had consolidated.

Majestic121 7y ago
The triple negative in your sentence makes it confusing. I expected that you wanted to say : It is conceivable that they would have got funding from somewhere else
- frogpelt 7y ago
  I don't disagree. You're not wrong.
- rusk 7y ago
  it's not inconceivable is a common enough phrase. You could say this might be more parsimoniously expressed as "it is conceivable", but the colloquial phrasing intones that the premise proceeds specifically from the supposition that it may be inconceivable.
Lio 7y ago
There is also an argument that back in the day Firefox saved Google rather than the other way around. Why? Because when Microsoft had 90% browser share, gained through tying IE directly into Windows, there was a very real chance that they could have adapted IE so that it was harder to use Google than a default MS Bing search engine. Having a better, cross-platform alternative to IE allowed Google to stay in the game and make use of FF's cutting edge features. Remember the old Microsoft was quite happy to cripple Windows to kill it's competitors. For example "Windows ain't done until WordPerfect won't run" and the weird "errors" you saw if you tried running Windows on top of DR DOS.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- mkl 7y ago
  I'm not sure that adds up. When Bing was introduced in mid-2009, IE had about 60% of the market, and it was dropping fast as Chrome's popularity exploded [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#/media/File:StatCounter-browser-ww-monthly-200901-201905.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#/m...
  - Lio 7y ago
    I believe that Microsoft’s interest in Google’s business predates the launch of Bing. You can replace the brand name “Bing” with “some kind of search/advertising/internet gateway” business. Remember Microsoft used to be a very competitive outfit with a history of using their dominance of desktop OSs to enter new markets. It’s easy to forget that Microsoft of old were able to keep bankrolling loss leaders to “cut off the oxygen”[1] of any market that they saw as threatening Windows. [1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1998/04/98/microsoft/198390.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1998/04/98/microso...
- tylerhou 7y ago
  > "Windows ain't done until WordPerfect won't run" Source? All I can find is http://www.proudlyserving.com/archives/2005/08/dos_aint_done_t.html http://www.proudlyserving.com/archives/2005/08/dos_aint_done....
  - Lio 7y ago
    I think you’d find most of the court proceedings under Novell vs Microsoft. If memory serves me correctly Novell believed in their case enough to take it to the US Supreme Court but were not given leave to proceed further. No reason/justification was given for that.

tyingq 7y ago

And Yahoo! for a time.

branon 7y ago
I remember this. It was terrible. There was a (bug|user error) I experienced during this time which prevented me from changing the default search engine. It was _terrible_.