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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.
  - fastball 6y ago
    None of the things you mentioned about Brave make them funded by Google, and the system they want for ads is clearly better for the consumer than the status quo.
    - AsyncAwait 6y ago
      Brave is essentially a repackaged Chrome and does nothing to help undermine the Blink monopoly. They're not directly funded by Google, but their browser depends directly on Google funding Chrome's development.
      - fastball 6y ago
        If Google disappeared tomorrow, Brave would continue to exist and would continue to get updates. Brave does not depend on Google, directly or otherwise. They depend on an open source project called Chromium, which is largely developed by Google, but because it is open source anyone can build off of it. Brave funds their development through the BAT token and through affiliate marketing, both of which are much better for user privacy and security, and much more resilient to Google than where Mozilla is getting its money. No, I don't think Apple would integrate thorough ad-blocking by default, just as I don't think Mozilla will do this either. Brave has already done it. Brave's ad-blocker works better by default than any ad-blocker I've used, and I've tried them all. HN's hate-boner for Brave is very strange. They clearly care more about user privacy than any other browser vendor (except maybe Safari, but again they have a conflict of interest), and it is built on a core that is arguably the best at handling the modern web (Chromium).
        bad_user 6y ago
        > If Google disappeared tomorrow, Brave would continue to exist and would continue to get updates. Microsoft wasn't able to keep developing a browser on their own, I doubt that Brave could. The problem is that a browser nowadays is so complex to develop that you need serious resources to invest in it. Without Google's ongoing development, Brave would not survive. And given Google's changes to undermine ads blockers, it's going to be interesting to see Brave struggling to maintain their fork. --- > much better for user privacy and security Right, keep telling yourself that. Btw, I actually wonder how what Brave is doing isn't copyright infringement, given they are directly profiting from blocking the ads of publishers. I guess they are small enough to not matter, for now. --- > Brave's ad-blocker works better by default than any ad-blocker I've used, and I've tried them all. I worked on anti-ad-blocking technology. Nothing beats uBlock Origin running on top of Firefox, everything else was strictly inferior. Not even blocking JavaScript in the page, because you can easily force the user to enable JS for you by breaking the content on that page. uBlock Origin is so bad that we avoiding it entirely, being useful for people frustrated with AdBlock Plus to turn to, sort of like in the Matrix.

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.
- fastball 6y ago
  None of the things you mentioned about Brave make them funded by Google, and the system they want for ads is clearly better for the consumer than the status quo.
  - AsyncAwait 6y ago
    Brave is essentially a repackaged Chrome and does nothing to help undermine the Blink monopoly. They're not directly funded by Google, but their browser depends directly on Google funding Chrome's development.
    - fastball 6y ago
      If Google disappeared tomorrow, Brave would continue to exist and would continue to get updates. Brave does not depend on Google, directly or otherwise. They depend on an open source project called Chromium, which is largely developed by Google, but because it is open source anyone can build off of it. Brave funds their development through the BAT token and through affiliate marketing, both of which are much better for user privacy and security, and much more resilient to Google than where Mozilla is getting its money. No, I don't think Apple would integrate thorough ad-blocking by default, just as I don't think Mozilla will do this either. Brave has already done it. Brave's ad-blocker works better by default than any ad-blocker I've used, and I've tried them all. HN's hate-boner for Brave is very strange. They clearly care more about user privacy than any other browser vendor (except maybe Safari, but again they have a conflict of interest), and it is built on a core that is arguably the best at handling the modern web (Chromium).
      - bad_user 6y ago
        > If Google disappeared tomorrow, Brave would continue to exist and would continue to get updates. Microsoft wasn't able to keep developing a browser on their own, I doubt that Brave could. The problem is that a browser nowadays is so complex to develop that you need serious resources to invest in it. Without Google's ongoing development, Brave would not survive. And given Google's changes to undermine ads blockers, it's going to be interesting to see Brave struggling to maintain their fork. --- > much better for user privacy and security Right, keep telling yourself that. Btw, I actually wonder how what Brave is doing isn't copyright infringement, given they are directly profiting from blocking the ads of publishers. I guess they are small enough to not matter, for now. --- > Brave's ad-blocker works better by default than any ad-blocker I've used, and I've tried them all. I worked on anti-ad-blocking technology. Nothing beats uBlock Origin running on top of Firefox, everything else was strictly inferior. Not even blocking JavaScript in the page, because you can easily force the user to enable JS for you by breaking the content on that page. uBlock Origin is so bad that we avoiding it entirely, being useful for people frustrated with AdBlock Plus to turn to, sort of like in the Matrix.