10 ms·

It's more like "We need money. Due to Google monopolistic position, it's Google's money for now."

walrus01 6y ago
I think you would see a (further) mass exodus from people using Firefox if they suddenly changed the default search engine for all versions, in all languages worldwide, to Bing.
- gogopuppygogo 6y ago
  Is there even enough mass market adoption for such an exodus at this point? Firefox has basically ceded its mass market usage to chrome. From my subjective experience, the only people I see using it today are technical.
  - ForHackernews 6y ago
    People keep claiming this, but how has Mozilla 'ceded' anything? Firefox became somewhat popular at a time when the big player was Internet Explorer, and it was manifestly terrible. As soon as Google started heavily promoting Chrome (which is, whatever else you might say about it, vastly superior to IE6) people switched to that. What could Mozilla realistically do to compete against the world's largest marketing company pushing their browser?
    - pferde 6y ago
      By consistently and continually molding Firefox to be as similar to Chrome as possible instead of offering something different enough to present a meaningful choice. Of course most users took the path of least resistance if the choice was between Chrome and pretty-much-also-Chrome.
      - sgc 6y ago
        I think FFs loss of market share of course has been affected by advertising, but mainly by their own mistakes. I don't think the similarities to Chrome (which were not really so great for a long time) were the main driver. I tried to hold onto FF for as long as possible for ideological reasons, and then for some years when I couldn't justify it because of just terrible performance, I used Chromium. They had a much, much better plugin market / platform for a long time and that too was a larger part of the draw that differentiated them. I switched back to FF as soon as I heard they had dealt with most of their speed issues in an update but, extremely reluctantly, I have been considering whether they are any better than Chromium at this point with the privacy / ad shenanigans that really seem to insist on reappearing in different ways with great consistency lately. The recent monetization debacle has frankly been disheartening. So the main points for me are that they failed on speed (which drove most people I know who switched to Chrome) and now on culture/honesty.
        whatshisface 6y ago
        You might want to keep an eye on the Firefox tracking forks: https://librewolf-community.gitlab.io/ https://librewolf-community.gitlab.io/ https://github.com/intika/Librefox https://github.com/intika/Librefox
        pferde 6y ago
        I still use Firefox and only Firefox, as I still see it as the lesser evil, while being performant enough (I never really noticed any significant slowness that people keep harping about), but Mozilla is making it harder and harder every year. Still, I am nowhere near wanting to switch to a Google product - Firefox would have to become really bad for me to consider that - and I see no other browser even remotely close to replacing Firefox for me. It's still "good enough". I even keep an ancient Firefox version installed in /opt, because I need it to run a small proprietary Java applet for work, but that's another topic. :)
        Izkata 6y ago
        > I never really noticed any significant slowness that people keep harping about > /opt From what I understand, the slowness was primarily on Mac (a high-dpi rendering issue) and sometimes Windows (don't recall if there was a specific issue or just several small things that added up). On linux these issues tended not to exist, or at least be nowhere near as bad.
      - kmeisthax 6y ago
        Is it even possible to be "different enough" from Chrome without also being a significantly worse browser? Becoming "as similar to Chrome as possible" is also the thing most browser users want. e.g. Multiprocess broke the XUL add-on model, but it also means dramatically better browser stability.
        pferde 6y ago
        Multiprocess was a step in the right direction, of course - nobody likes it when one crashed tab brings down everything else with it. But they kept on removing various cool and useful features just because their telemetry showed that they were only used by a small percentage of users, claiming that they need to save money and focus on things people use the most. Naturally, that leads to the world's blankiest blank of a browser, to borrow a bit of Futurama vernacular.
        Izkata 6y ago
        Don't forget Mr. Robot and integrating Pocket instead of having it as an add-on.
    - coliveira 6y ago
      This is another case of people blaming the victim. The monopoly case against Google is there to show that it has stifled competition, including Firefox. Don't get distracted by the fact that Google is paying Firefox, in fact they're causing much more damage through their monopolist practices than whatever amount they're paying.
  - berkes 6y ago
    > Firefox has basically ceded its mass market usage to chrome. Is that so? What are the numbers? And how do they look absolute? Is there an absolute decline in firefox use? Or just a relative one? Which of those really matter?
    - devenblake 6y ago
      Relative numbers: https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/worldwide/#monthly-201509-202009 https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/worl... Absolute numbers: https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity The numbers are worse when you look at American data alone. It looks like Firefox is slowly shedding users. Probably because of Mozilla's questionable practices recently (the enlarged awesome bar, the layoffs, etc).
      - berkes 6y ago
        Maybe I am missing a zoom function, or the visualisation is poor, but I see an almost flat curve, in some cases even slightly upwards (hours per day, probably Covid/work-from-home effect?). US data does show a very small downtrend on some graphs, but so small, that it hardly counts as "trend", IMO.
        devenblake 6y ago
        According to statcounter in September 2016 Firefox had a roughly 15% market share. It now has roughly 9%. In America it's 13.7% down to 7.1%. The monthly active users chart for Firefox shows that the last time there were 250M+ active users was April 2019 and the last time there were 240M+ active was October of that year. The graph as presented shows a very slight curve downward, it would be more clear if the Y axis started at 200M (which would however bring about its own caveats - data visualization sucks).
        gilrain 6y ago
        Firefox usage is flat or slightly trending down. However, overall internet usage grows each year, which means their market share is shrinking.
- makomk 6y ago
  Especially since Bing's contracts have historically required disabling the ability to switch to a different search engine, presumably because they realize that everyone would just switch to Google anyway, meaning that it wouldn't just be the default but the only search engine people could easily use unless they jumped ship to Chrome. The problem isn't that Google is the only company that can pay due to their monopolistic position, it's that they're the only company willing to pay that wouldn't require Mozilla to compromise their key principles and their browser - probably because they're good enough that they're confident people actually want to use them.
  - prepend 6y ago
    > Especially since Bing's contracts have historically required disabling the ability to switch to a different search engine I wasn’t aware of this or that it was even possible to not be able to switch search providers. What is the biggest example of Bing being forced on an install base without the ability to switch? The only example I know of Bing is the setup in Windows for IE/Edge. And iOS toyed with it for a while but has stuck with google.
- xenocratus 6y ago
  I honestly don't understand why people would give up an app because of a default setting. You can just change it in like 30 seconds. I know the average web user might not even be aware that this is possible, but I'd expect those to be mostly Chrome users in today's Google-dominated market.
- x87678r 6y ago
  I thought the main reason people use Firefox is that they dont like Google in the first place? Bing is my default for that reason.
  - andybak 6y ago
    I use Firefox because I support Mozilla. I use Google as my search because I find the alternatives to be inferior.
- amatheus 6y ago
  If that's the case why would Google pay for being the default search engine? Firefox hands would already be tied.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > If that's the case why would Google pay for being the default search engine? Even if it is, in fact, the best choice for Mozilla even if money is involved doesn't mean Mozilla will see it that way over stacks offered by Microsoft. So, if it's valuable to Google, it's worth them paying for to assure the decision, whether or not Mozilla should rationally be expected to choose the same thing anyway.
  - rgbrenner 6y ago
    Like when Microsoft invested in Apple to keep it afloat... the monopolist needs a token competitor to show off to regulators. Google dominates the browser market... Firefox is down to single digit marketshare. If Firefox is gone, it's pretty much just Safari on mobile... and who else? (Chrome forks don't count.) As far as Firefox's hands being tied: they had a deal with Yahoo starting in 2015 for 5 years.. and they terminated it in 2017 when their contract gave them an opportunity. So that should say something about Firefox's choice in the matter.
    - vanviegen 6y ago
      > (Chrome forks don't count.) I'd guess that as far as regulators are concerned, Chrome forks count just fine.
    - treis 6y ago
      >Like when Microsoft invested in Apple to keep it afloat... the monopolist needs a token competitor to show off to regulators. I've always viewed it more as protection money/a bribe to not block ads by default. Not just to Firefox, but to Apple, Samsung, et. al.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- lkbm 6y ago
  They switched to Yahoo search for a while. Looks like maybe 2014-2017[0], though I'm not certain of that. It was briefly annoying, but I just switched it back, so it wasn't a big deal. Defaults matter, but if you're using Firefox, you're probably less likely to accept an inferior default than most people. [0] https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/14/mozilla-terminates-its-deal-with-yahoo-and-makes-google-the-default-in-firefox-again/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/14/mozilla-terminates-its-dea...
mtgx 6y ago
Seems short-sighted, considering Google could soon dump Mozilla or drastically reduce the money it gives Mozilla in the deals. It should be in their best long-term interest to have a "weaker Google" in the market. Then again, not surprised this kind of shortsightedness comes from the same Mozilla leaders that keep raising their own pay despite lower performance every year. It's all about the short-term gain with these people.

I think you would see a (further) mass exodus from people using Firefox if they suddenly changed the default search engine for all versions, in all languages worldwide, to Bing.

gogopuppygogo 6y ago
Is there even enough mass market adoption for such an exodus at this point? Firefox has basically ceded its mass market usage to chrome. From my subjective experience, the only people I see using it today are technical.
- ForHackernews 6y ago
  People keep claiming this, but how has Mozilla 'ceded' anything? Firefox became somewhat popular at a time when the big player was Internet Explorer, and it was manifestly terrible. As soon as Google started heavily promoting Chrome (which is, whatever else you might say about it, vastly superior to IE6) people switched to that. What could Mozilla realistically do to compete against the world's largest marketing company pushing their browser?
  - pferde 6y ago
    By consistently and continually molding Firefox to be as similar to Chrome as possible instead of offering something different enough to present a meaningful choice. Of course most users took the path of least resistance if the choice was between Chrome and pretty-much-also-Chrome.
    - sgc 6y ago
      I think FFs loss of market share of course has been affected by advertising, but mainly by their own mistakes. I don't think the similarities to Chrome (which were not really so great for a long time) were the main driver. I tried to hold onto FF for as long as possible for ideological reasons, and then for some years when I couldn't justify it because of just terrible performance, I used Chromium. They had a much, much better plugin market / platform for a long time and that too was a larger part of the draw that differentiated them. I switched back to FF as soon as I heard they had dealt with most of their speed issues in an update but, extremely reluctantly, I have been considering whether they are any better than Chromium at this point with the privacy / ad shenanigans that really seem to insist on reappearing in different ways with great consistency lately. The recent monetization debacle has frankly been disheartening. So the main points for me are that they failed on speed (which drove most people I know who switched to Chrome) and now on culture/honesty.
      - whatshisface 6y ago
        You might want to keep an eye on the Firefox tracking forks: https://librewolf-community.gitlab.io/ https://librewolf-community.gitlab.io/ https://github.com/intika/Librefox https://github.com/intika/Librefox
      - pferde 6y ago
        I still use Firefox and only Firefox, as I still see it as the lesser evil, while being performant enough (I never really noticed any significant slowness that people keep harping about), but Mozilla is making it harder and harder every year. Still, I am nowhere near wanting to switch to a Google product - Firefox would have to become really bad for me to consider that - and I see no other browser even remotely close to replacing Firefox for me. It's still "good enough". I even keep an ancient Firefox version installed in /opt, because I need it to run a small proprietary Java applet for work, but that's another topic. :)
        Izkata 6y ago
        > I never really noticed any significant slowness that people keep harping about > /opt From what I understand, the slowness was primarily on Mac (a high-dpi rendering issue) and sometimes Windows (don't recall if there was a specific issue or just several small things that added up). On linux these issues tended not to exist, or at least be nowhere near as bad.
    - kmeisthax 6y ago
      Is it even possible to be "different enough" from Chrome without also being a significantly worse browser? Becoming "as similar to Chrome as possible" is also the thing most browser users want. e.g. Multiprocess broke the XUL add-on model, but it also means dramatically better browser stability.
      - pferde 6y ago
        Multiprocess was a step in the right direction, of course - nobody likes it when one crashed tab brings down everything else with it. But they kept on removing various cool and useful features just because their telemetry showed that they were only used by a small percentage of users, claiming that they need to save money and focus on things people use the most. Naturally, that leads to the world's blankiest blank of a browser, to borrow a bit of Futurama vernacular.
        Izkata 6y ago
        Don't forget Mr. Robot and integrating Pocket instead of having it as an add-on.
  - coliveira 6y ago
    This is another case of people blaming the victim. The monopoly case against Google is there to show that it has stifled competition, including Firefox. Don't get distracted by the fact that Google is paying Firefox, in fact they're causing much more damage through their monopolist practices than whatever amount they're paying.
- berkes 6y ago
  > Firefox has basically ceded its mass market usage to chrome. Is that so? What are the numbers? And how do they look absolute? Is there an absolute decline in firefox use? Or just a relative one? Which of those really matter?
  - devenblake 6y ago
    Relative numbers: https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/worldwide/#monthly-201509-202009 https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/worl... Absolute numbers: https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity The numbers are worse when you look at American data alone. It looks like Firefox is slowly shedding users. Probably because of Mozilla's questionable practices recently (the enlarged awesome bar, the layoffs, etc).
    - berkes 6y ago
      Maybe I am missing a zoom function, or the visualisation is poor, but I see an almost flat curve, in some cases even slightly upwards (hours per day, probably Covid/work-from-home effect?). US data does show a very small downtrend on some graphs, but so small, that it hardly counts as "trend", IMO.
      - devenblake 6y ago
        According to statcounter in September 2016 Firefox had a roughly 15% market share. It now has roughly 9%. In America it's 13.7% down to 7.1%. The monthly active users chart for Firefox shows that the last time there were 250M+ active users was April 2019 and the last time there were 240M+ active was October of that year. The graph as presented shows a very slight curve downward, it would be more clear if the Y axis started at 200M (which would however bring about its own caveats - data visualization sucks).
      - gilrain 6y ago
        Firefox usage is flat or slightly trending down. However, overall internet usage grows each year, which means their market share is shrinking.
makomk 6y ago
Especially since Bing's contracts have historically required disabling the ability to switch to a different search engine, presumably because they realize that everyone would just switch to Google anyway, meaning that it wouldn't just be the default but the only search engine people could easily use unless they jumped ship to Chrome. The problem isn't that Google is the only company that can pay due to their monopolistic position, it's that they're the only company willing to pay that wouldn't require Mozilla to compromise their key principles and their browser - probably because they're good enough that they're confident people actually want to use them.
- prepend 6y ago
  > Especially since Bing's contracts have historically required disabling the ability to switch to a different search engine I wasn’t aware of this or that it was even possible to not be able to switch search providers. What is the biggest example of Bing being forced on an install base without the ability to switch? The only example I know of Bing is the setup in Windows for IE/Edge. And iOS toyed with it for a while but has stuck with google.
xenocratus 6y ago
I honestly don't understand why people would give up an app because of a default setting. You can just change it in like 30 seconds. I know the average web user might not even be aware that this is possible, but I'd expect those to be mostly Chrome users in today's Google-dominated market.
x87678r 6y ago
I thought the main reason people use Firefox is that they dont like Google in the first place? Bing is my default for that reason.
- andybak 6y ago
  I use Firefox because I support Mozilla. I use Google as my search because I find the alternatives to be inferior.
amatheus 6y ago
If that's the case why would Google pay for being the default search engine? Firefox hands would already be tied.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > If that's the case why would Google pay for being the default search engine? Even if it is, in fact, the best choice for Mozilla even if money is involved doesn't mean Mozilla will see it that way over stacks offered by Microsoft. So, if it's valuable to Google, it's worth them paying for to assure the decision, whether or not Mozilla should rationally be expected to choose the same thing anyway.
- rgbrenner 6y ago
  Like when Microsoft invested in Apple to keep it afloat... the monopolist needs a token competitor to show off to regulators. Google dominates the browser market... Firefox is down to single digit marketshare. If Firefox is gone, it's pretty much just Safari on mobile... and who else? (Chrome forks don't count.) As far as Firefox's hands being tied: they had a deal with Yahoo starting in 2015 for 5 years.. and they terminated it in 2017 when their contract gave them an opportunity. So that should say something about Firefox's choice in the matter.
  - vanviegen 6y ago
    > (Chrome forks don't count.) I'd guess that as far as regulators are concerned, Chrome forks count just fine.
  - treis 6y ago
    >Like when Microsoft invested in Apple to keep it afloat... the monopolist needs a token competitor to show off to regulators. I've always viewed it more as protection money/a bribe to not block ads by default. Not just to Firefox, but to Apple, Samsung, et. al.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
lkbm 6y ago
They switched to Yahoo search for a while. Looks like maybe 2014-2017[0], though I'm not certain of that. It was briefly annoying, but I just switched it back, so it wasn't a big deal. Defaults matter, but if you're using Firefox, you're probably less likely to accept an inferior default than most people. [0] https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/14/mozilla-terminates-its-deal-with-yahoo-and-makes-google-the-default-in-firefox-again/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/14/mozilla-terminates-its-dea...

mtgx 6y ago

Seems short-sighted, considering Google could soon dump Mozilla or drastically reduce the money it gives Mozilla in the deals. It should be in their best long-term interest to have a "weaker Google" in the market. Then again, not surprised this kind of shortsightedness comes from the same Mozilla leaders that keep raising their own pay despite lower performance every year. It's all about the short-term gain with these people.