4 ms·

I never switched away from Firefox. I am old enough to know that nothing comes free, especially from a Big Corporation. As customers, all we can do is to always

by GoToRO 6y ago

I never switched away from Firefox. I am old enough to know that nothing comes free, especially from a Big Corporation. As customers, all we can do is to always keep a good alternative alive, no matter what.

Keloo 6y ago
But Chrome is not free (well kind of). It saves lot's of money in royalties for Google (because Google search is the default search engine in Chrome). So even if it's 'free' it saves money for Google.
fastball 6y ago
Firefox isn't free either. It's just paid for by Google.
- andai 6y ago
  The other day I heard Firefox described as Google's antitrust lawsuit insurance...
  - sleavey 6y ago
    Hah, that actually makes me happy as a no-break Firefox user since 2003. At least that means Google will continue to support Firefox independently for as long as they're in the browser business.
    - hckr_news 6y ago
      They also support Bing
- AsyncAwait 6y ago
  That doesn't mean it's behavior is the same.
  - fastball 6y ago
    True, but then I’m not sure Mozilla would be able to survive if Google stopped their deal with them due to say, adding ad-blocking to Firefox by default. Not the same, but it certainly influences the direction of FF.
    - AsyncAwait 6y ago
      > but it certainly influences the direction of FF I don't think Mozilla's trying to please Google in any way. Google's keeping Firefox around to try to avoid the appearance of a total monopoly. But Mozilla's behavior certainly is influenced by trying to find alternative business models, sometimes not perhaps with the best results, (Mr Robot promotion everyone), I still think it's worth using it over Chrome.
    - bad_user 6y ago
      This is true, but then again absolutely all browsers are being funded by ads. We are talking Edge, Safari, Brave, all of them. Did you know that Apple does in fact get more money from Google than Mozilla does, for keeping their search engine as the default? 12 billion dollars in 2019. Do you think Apple would activate ad blocking by default and risk losing that many billions of dollars? Speaking of which, Safari's ad blocking is the joke of the industry. You could make the case that Safari might survive if Google cuts its funding, but judging from the history of IExplorer, I have my doubts. One could make the case that Safari is alive just because Apple is making a shit ton of money on it. Did you know that Microsoft's Bing Ads platform made them 8 billion dollars in 2019? Do you think Microsoft would do anything to jeopardize that ads revenue? Did you know that Windows 10 has an "advertising ID" used to personalize ads, that via Edge is transmitted to Bing? Did you know that Brave, that leech which is piggybacking on other people's work, that's supposedly blocking ads by default, is effectively replacing publisher ads with their own, then forcing those publishers to enter into deals with them for a piece of the action, while making it really hard to detect and block Brave? All the while pushing shady cryptocurrency affiliate ids straight in their source code? --- Mozilla might not push for ads blocking by default. But they do block trackers by default and their browser is afaik the only one that has legitimately supported uBlock Origin on top of Android. And uBlock Origin is the best, most aggresive ads blocker available and given Google deprecating the blocking ability of the WebRequest API, Firefox might remain the only one with a uBlock Origin implementation. Could Firefox survive without Google? I don't know, but can any other browser survive without Google or Bing? I have my doubts and you'd be naive to think otherwise. Plus this is just whataboutism.
cesarb 6y ago
> > I switched to Firefox years ago and never looked back. > I never switched away from Firefox. I switched to Firefox... from Netscape/Mozilla.

by GoToRO 6y ago

Keloo 6y ago

But Chrome is not free (well kind of). It saves lot's of money in royalties for Google (because Google search is the default search engine in Chrome). So even if it's 'free' it saves money for Google.

fastball 6y ago

Firefox isn't free either. It's just paid for by Google.

andai 6y ago
The other day I heard Firefox described as Google's antitrust lawsuit insurance...
- sleavey 6y ago
  Hah, that actually makes me happy as a no-break Firefox user since 2003. At least that means Google will continue to support Firefox independently for as long as they're in the browser business.
  - hckr_news 6y ago
    They also support Bing
AsyncAwait 6y ago
That doesn't mean it's behavior is the same.
- fastball 6y ago
  True, but then I’m not sure Mozilla would be able to survive if Google stopped their deal with them due to say, adding ad-blocking to Firefox by default. Not the same, but it certainly influences the direction of FF.
  - AsyncAwait 6y ago
    > but it certainly influences the direction of FF I don't think Mozilla's trying to please Google in any way. Google's keeping Firefox around to try to avoid the appearance of a total monopoly. But Mozilla's behavior certainly is influenced by trying to find alternative business models, sometimes not perhaps with the best results, (Mr Robot promotion everyone), I still think it's worth using it over Chrome.
  - bad_user 6y ago
    This is true, but then again absolutely all browsers are being funded by ads. We are talking Edge, Safari, Brave, all of them. Did you know that Apple does in fact get more money from Google than Mozilla does, for keeping their search engine as the default? 12 billion dollars in 2019. Do you think Apple would activate ad blocking by default and risk losing that many billions of dollars? Speaking of which, Safari's ad blocking is the joke of the industry. You could make the case that Safari might survive if Google cuts its funding, but judging from the history of IExplorer, I have my doubts. One could make the case that Safari is alive just because Apple is making a shit ton of money on it. Did you know that Microsoft's Bing Ads platform made them 8 billion dollars in 2019? Do you think Microsoft would do anything to jeopardize that ads revenue? Did you know that Windows 10 has an "advertising ID" used to personalize ads, that via Edge is transmitted to Bing? Did you know that Brave, that leech which is piggybacking on other people's work, that's supposedly blocking ads by default, is effectively replacing publisher ads with their own, then forcing those publishers to enter into deals with them for a piece of the action, while making it really hard to detect and block Brave? All the while pushing shady cryptocurrency affiliate ids straight in their source code? --- Mozilla might not push for ads blocking by default. But they do block trackers by default and their browser is afaik the only one that has legitimately supported uBlock Origin on top of Android. And uBlock Origin is the best, most aggresive ads blocker available and given Google deprecating the blocking ability of the WebRequest API, Firefox might remain the only one with a uBlock Origin implementation. Could Firefox survive without Google? I don't know, but can any other browser survive without Google or Bing? I have my doubts and you'd be naive to think otherwise. Plus this is just whataboutism.

cesarb 6y ago

> > I switched to Firefox years ago and never looked back. > I never switched away from Firefox. I switched to Firefox... from Netscape/Mozilla.