21 ms·

When Google paid websites to promote Firefox

226 points by leonidasv 4y ago

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ameyamk 4y ago
This was a brilliant strategy. It allowed Google time to build Chrome at the same time slowing down : (1) explorer (2) Got decent data on CAC for browsers and what channels work and what don't. Its interesting to see new era of browser wars playing out with Chrome firmly in the lead, but Microsoft attacking with Edge where ChatGPT on bing only available on edge browser and no where else. Would be interesting to see how Google would respond.
- throwaway128128 4y ago
  Explorer didn't need "slowing down". It was in maintenance mode and being developed it on a shoestring budget around the days of IE6-IE7. Microsoft apparently decided that the web browser circa 2006 was essentially a finished product because they had "won" - IE had no serious mass market competition on Windows.
  - corybrown 4y ago
    You're basically right, though the IE dev team was effectively disbanded in 2002 so it's even earlier then you mentioned
  - robocat 4y ago
    Somewhere mid-2000s Microsoft recognised web applications were an existential threat to their Windows Applications monopoly. Presumably after IE5 when they first introduced XMLHttpRequest as an ActiveX control (or was that infighting? It was released for online mail AFAIK). Did that have anything to do with the slow down in development of IE?
    - Kerrick 4y ago
      They weren’t wrong. Electron apps and web apps have made switching to Linux or Mac much more seamless for many people.
      - marcosdumay 4y ago
        Well, the fact that everybody though the same, and this was hyped at the Netscape marketing material surely helped making their mind. And once they destroyed Netscape, Sun created Java with the same goal.
        ido 4y ago
        And Sun sued Microsoft when they tried to EEE Java shortly thereafter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_J%2B%2B#Sun's_litigation_against_Microsoft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_J%2B%2B#Sun's_litigatio...
  - phendrenad2 4y ago
    Reminds me of Teams in 2023.
    - andirk 4y ago
      Is Teams a pile now? The dot going yellow when I was playing golf instead of pretending to work really bothered me.
- Dalewyn 4y ago
  Chrome vs. Edge is not a browser war, they are both Chrome. Speaking more broadly, the browser war is all but decided until the Chromes fail of their own accords. The only non-Chrome browsers still in existence today are Safari and the Firefoxes (Firefox and its various forks). Safari is only relevant in iOS by way of Apple gatekeeping, and Firefox hasn't been relevant for well over the past decade thanks to Mozilla's utter mismanagement and malice.
  - gkoberger 4y ago
    This is incredibly wrong. They aren't both Chrome; they're both Chromium-based and use Blink and V8 under the hood. And Blink is just a fork of WebKit, which is Safari, so by your logic it's all Safari (it's not). These companies don't care about the rendering engine under the hood, they care about literally one thing: the default search. The war isn't over how CSS is rendered; it's over how many opportunities they have for surfacing their other products (search, email, identity and payments). If anything, Chrome/Firefox are more aligned than Chrome/Edge, because every 3 years Google pulls up with a dump truck of money to stay the default search engine. Also, not for nothing, but there's not a single iota of malice inside Mozilla. Extreme mismanagement, yes, but it's genuinely guided by good people trying to do good for the world. (Source: I'm ex Mozilla)
    - bscphil 4y ago
      OP is presumably talking about stuff like dictating the future of web development, not about who gets money as a result of users having a browser installed. It's a different definition of "sameness" than you're using, but not necessarily a wrong one. (Whether the companies themselves care about this seems immaterial.)
    - Dalewyn 4y ago
      >This is incredibly wrong. They aren't both Chrome; they're both Chromium-based and use Blink and V8 under the hood. So they're both Chrome. You can't have a war with just one participant. >These companies don't care about the rendering engine under the hood, they care about literally one thing: the default search. They absolutely care about the rendering engine, because that's how you secure a monopoly and subsequently get to foist your default search engine and whatever other monetization schemes on more customers. Did you not learn anything from Internet Explorer and its victory over Netscape? Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. There are many sites that only function properly in Chrome today, and that is to Google's (and now also Microsoft's) commercial interests. You can't have a browser war with just one participant. >If anything, Chrome/Firefox are more aligned than Chrome/Edge, because every 3 years Google pulls up with a dump truck of money to stay the default search engine. As far as Google is concerned, it's cheaper to pay Firefox to stay irrelevant than to compete on the market. Mozilla's flush with cash thanks to Google, but that also means they have no incentives to develop or not mismanage their products. >Also, not for nothing, but there's not a single iota of malice inside Mozilla. Extreme mismanagement, yes, but it's genuinely guided by good people trying to do good for the world. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. History also shows Mozilla today are more concerned about checking the right political checkboxes than delivering a good product that users want. >(Source: I'm ex Mozilla) I'm not surprised that (ex-)Mozilla would play the "Am I out of touch? No, it's the people who are wrong." meme almost to the letter, but that is probably neither here nor there.
- amelius 4y ago
  I want to see a new era of wars where web admins fight for web freedom and start subtly penalizing BigCorp web browsers, e.g. by showing annoying popups or slightly delaying loading times.
vinhboy 4y ago
Fun memory, I made like $40K selling Firefox downloads.... on google ads. Learned a lot about google ads and SEO. That was a lot of money for me as a poor kid from the TL.
- n1b0m 4y ago
  Were you paid by Mozilla?
  - cpeterso 4y ago
    What is the TL?
    - phendrenad2 4y ago
      Possibly SF's tenderloin neighborhood?
      - elkos 4y ago
        I thought it was Timor Leste still makes sense I guess.
  - elkos 4y ago
    by Google, it was a special google ads program
    - vinhboy 4y ago
      Yep. Google paid like $2 per download of Firefox. It cost like 5 cents a click, for the "download Firefox" keyword, on Google Ads to bring someone to my website. Profit.
      - n1b0m 4y ago
        Was that a one off or does Google run other paid promotions like that?
adamwk 4y ago
This reminds me when my parents would have half their browser covered in random toolbars they'd get tricked into installing, whether by online ads or software bundled with them. The modern dark patterns are really nothing like the early 2000's windows days.
- olyjohn 4y ago
  Yeah they were obvious, and easy to clean up back in those days. Now it's happening, and it's just built into the software you use, including your OS... and most people have no way of knowing.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    I recall some of them requiring editing registry, or using software like CCleaner. Far from easy in my opinion, especially for a layperson.
- MiddleEndian 4y ago
  Tragically, Microsoft has looked back and realized that people will put up with a lot of shit, so they decided to implement about 20% of it themselves.
- yedava 4y ago
  Smartphones are the modern dark patterns and are far worse than IE era toolbars. The toolbars and other Windows crap were easy to notice and easy to get rid off. The modern smartphone is a fast, sleek and utterly locked down device which collects a firehose of your personal data without ever giving any indication that it is harming you. Out of sight, out of mind.
  - imwillofficial 4y ago
    Easy to get rid of? I remember a monkey one that was harder to cure than aids. Anyone remember that? Bonzi Buddy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BonziBuddy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BonziBuddy
kccqzy 4y ago
Note that before Google had Chrome, they contributed quite a bit to Firefox. Some of the features and initiatives (like Safe Browsing) actually began as features for Firefox.
rvnx 4y ago
Remembering also when Google Chrome was aggressively bundled with toolbars, antiviruses and various "speed boosters".
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- kccqzy 4y ago
  Google only recently decided to retire the "cleanup tool" that was bundled with Chrome. Back when it was clear that Google wanted users not to suffer from malware but they didn't want to draw the attention or ire of established antivirus companies. https://security.googleblog.com/2023/03/thank-you-and-goodbye-to-chrome-cleanup.html https://security.googleblog.com/2023/03/thank-you-and-goodby...
  - rvnx 4y ago
    The clean-up tool was most of all a tool that had a "side-consequence" of uninstalling softwares which were pushing Bing or Yahoo.
- cpeterso 4y ago
  Chrome used to be bundled with Adobe's Flash Player installer. Chrome bundled the Flash Player, so the only people downloading Adobe's Flash Player installer would be Firefox users. So excellent user targeting on Google's behalf. But those Firefox users didn't want Chrome; they wanted the Flash Player for their Firefox.
- crazygringo 4y ago
  What toolbars or speed boosters are you talking about? I don't remember any of that and Chrome doesn't even support toolbars. Or am I misunderstanding something? Chrome on Windows had a malware checker built in. Which you can debate whether that belongs, but that's not really bundling, just a feature. Which arguably helps protect browser security.
  - paradox460 4y ago
b7r6 4y ago
The "Best Google" busts up Microsoft monopolies via going big on open software and open standards. The "Worst Google" copies the business model they just un-fucked. I'd say in 2023, we really need the "Best Google".
- LegitShady 4y ago
  best google is long dead. long live best google.
  - andirk 4y ago
    "Don't be evil". Yeah they dropped that a while ago.
pessimizer 4y ago
Who knew that eventually Google would pretty much be Firefox's only source of income?
- 3np 4y ago
  Google?
  - INTPenis 4y ago
    Google donates something like 350 million every year to Mozilla Corporation. Some would say it's the only way they can stay in the expensive area of norcal, and maintain their competitive salaries there.
    - ShadowBanThis01 4y ago
      Any company wasting loads of cash on stupid real estate doesn't deserve to stay in business.
- johannes1234321 4y ago
  Thing is: You can't easily donate to Firefox. One can send money to the Mozilla Foundation, which is a political organisation (where I share many of the goals, but still spend my "political" money elsewhere) not to Mozilla Corporation, who are the developers.
  - cxr 4y ago
    It's true that donations to Mozilla Foundation don't fund Firefox. > Mozilla Corporation, who are the developers Mozilla Corporation is a corporation. If you want to send money to developers who work on Firefox, you can. Better if you do it for the ones who are not Mozilla Corporation employees—although this is more difficult than it would have been in the past, owing to Mozilla Corporation's successful play to accumulate most development and decisionmaking power while alienating volunteers.
    - 4y ago
tech234a 4y ago
The associated landing page for this was still up until fairly recently: https://web.archive.org/web/20220819085123/https://tools.google.com/firefox/fftb/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220819085123/https://tools.goo...
ignoramous 4y ago
Google hired a bunch of Mozilla folks in 2005/06 to create Chrome. What'd they say about embrace, extend, extinguish?
- tirpen 4y ago
  Those two sentences are totally unrelated to each other.
101008 4y ago
Oh man... I am so nostalgic of the past web. Probalby because I became the person I am browsing that web (I was a teenager maturing). The images of the old Google and the Google Toolbar (in the web.archive link) brought so many memories... Not only of internet, but what was happening with my life around it, the people I had, and more. Those were the happy times, weren't?
- wildrhythms 4y ago
  It's a nostalgia blast isn't it! For more reminiscing: Web Design Museum: https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/ https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/ Yesterweb community: https://yesterweb.org/ https://yesterweb.org/
Brajeshwar 4y ago
Oh! Wow, this was a good earner for websites in those days.
RedCondor 4y ago
It's interesting that explorer is like some kind of evil Spanish conquistador chrome is like some kind of terminator and firefox is like a cute, cuddly, endangered fox
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  > explorer is like some kind of evil Spanish conquistador Sure you're not thinking of Konqueror? It was named in what was seen as a logical sequence from "explorer" and "navigator".
rodric 4y ago
I note that Google Toolbar had a big RSS ‘Subscribe’ button…
substation13 4y ago
There comes a time in every company's evolution when they switch from supporting openness (an opportunity) to protecting the walled garden from openness (now a threat)
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  Google's suport of Firefox wasn't a benevolent action on their side to support openness but to erode IE's monopoly for their own benefit till they could launch their own browser. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend".
opportune 4y ago
For people talking about openness, walled gardens, etc. If Google at the time could figure out how much their marketing assisted Firefox adoption, and saw that the marketing was a huge if not main driver, does it not make complete sense for them to just write their own browser and market that? If I basically had a guarantee that some product would see huge adoption if it only existed, I would start working on that in a heartbeat.
robk 4y ago
Oh I ran this as a product manager and even worked on those graphics. Ama.
n0tahacker 4y ago
Do you also know the plaquette "View this in any browser"??

226 points by leonidasv 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

This was a brilliant strategy. It allowed Google time to build Chrome at the same time slowing down : (1) explorer (2) Got decent data on CAC for browsers and what channels work and what don't. Its interesting to see new era of browser wars playing out with Chrome firmly in the lead, but Microsoft attacking with Edge where ChatGPT on bing only available on edge browser and no where else. Would be interesting to see how Google would respond.

throwaway128128 4y ago
Explorer didn't need "slowing down". It was in maintenance mode and being developed it on a shoestring budget around the days of IE6-IE7. Microsoft apparently decided that the web browser circa 2006 was essentially a finished product because they had "won" - IE had no serious mass market competition on Windows.
- corybrown 4y ago
  You're basically right, though the IE dev team was effectively disbanded in 2002 so it's even earlier then you mentioned
- robocat 4y ago
  Somewhere mid-2000s Microsoft recognised web applications were an existential threat to their Windows Applications monopoly. Presumably after IE5 when they first introduced XMLHttpRequest as an ActiveX control (or was that infighting? It was released for online mail AFAIK). Did that have anything to do with the slow down in development of IE?
  - Kerrick 4y ago
    They weren’t wrong. Electron apps and web apps have made switching to Linux or Mac much more seamless for many people.
    - marcosdumay 4y ago
      Well, the fact that everybody though the same, and this was hyped at the Netscape marketing material surely helped making their mind. And once they destroyed Netscape, Sun created Java with the same goal.
      - ido 4y ago
        And Sun sued Microsoft when they tried to EEE Java shortly thereafter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_J%2B%2B#Sun's_litigation_against_Microsoft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_J%2B%2B#Sun's_litigatio...
- phendrenad2 4y ago
  Reminds me of Teams in 2023.
  - andirk 4y ago
    Is Teams a pile now? The dot going yellow when I was playing golf instead of pretending to work really bothered me.
Dalewyn 4y ago
Chrome vs. Edge is not a browser war, they are both Chrome. Speaking more broadly, the browser war is all but decided until the Chromes fail of their own accords. The only non-Chrome browsers still in existence today are Safari and the Firefoxes (Firefox and its various forks). Safari is only relevant in iOS by way of Apple gatekeeping, and Firefox hasn't been relevant for well over the past decade thanks to Mozilla's utter mismanagement and malice.
- gkoberger 4y ago
  This is incredibly wrong. They aren't both Chrome; they're both Chromium-based and use Blink and V8 under the hood. And Blink is just a fork of WebKit, which is Safari, so by your logic it's all Safari (it's not). These companies don't care about the rendering engine under the hood, they care about literally one thing: the default search. The war isn't over how CSS is rendered; it's over how many opportunities they have for surfacing their other products (search, email, identity and payments). If anything, Chrome/Firefox are more aligned than Chrome/Edge, because every 3 years Google pulls up with a dump truck of money to stay the default search engine. Also, not for nothing, but there's not a single iota of malice inside Mozilla. Extreme mismanagement, yes, but it's genuinely guided by good people trying to do good for the world. (Source: I'm ex Mozilla)
  - bscphil 4y ago
    OP is presumably talking about stuff like dictating the future of web development, not about who gets money as a result of users having a browser installed. It's a different definition of "sameness" than you're using, but not necessarily a wrong one. (Whether the companies themselves care about this seems immaterial.)
  - Dalewyn 4y ago
    >This is incredibly wrong. They aren't both Chrome; they're both Chromium-based and use Blink and V8 under the hood. So they're both Chrome. You can't have a war with just one participant. >These companies don't care about the rendering engine under the hood, they care about literally one thing: the default search. They absolutely care about the rendering engine, because that's how you secure a monopoly and subsequently get to foist your default search engine and whatever other monetization schemes on more customers. Did you not learn anything from Internet Explorer and its victory over Netscape? Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. There are many sites that only function properly in Chrome today, and that is to Google's (and now also Microsoft's) commercial interests. You can't have a browser war with just one participant. >If anything, Chrome/Firefox are more aligned than Chrome/Edge, because every 3 years Google pulls up with a dump truck of money to stay the default search engine. As far as Google is concerned, it's cheaper to pay Firefox to stay irrelevant than to compete on the market. Mozilla's flush with cash thanks to Google, but that also means they have no incentives to develop or not mismanage their products. >Also, not for nothing, but there's not a single iota of malice inside Mozilla. Extreme mismanagement, yes, but it's genuinely guided by good people trying to do good for the world. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. History also shows Mozilla today are more concerned about checking the right political checkboxes than delivering a good product that users want. >(Source: I'm ex Mozilla) I'm not surprised that (ex-)Mozilla would play the "Am I out of touch? No, it's the people who are wrong." meme almost to the letter, but that is probably neither here nor there.
amelius 4y ago
I want to see a new era of wars where web admins fight for web freedom and start subtly penalizing BigCorp web browsers, e.g. by showing annoying popups or slightly delaying loading times.

vinhboy 4y ago

Fun memory, I made like $40K selling Firefox downloads.... on google ads. Learned a lot about google ads and SEO. That was a lot of money for me as a poor kid from the TL.

n1b0m 4y ago
Were you paid by Mozilla?
- cpeterso 4y ago
  What is the TL?
  - phendrenad2 4y ago
    Possibly SF's tenderloin neighborhood?
    - elkos 4y ago
      I thought it was Timor Leste still makes sense I guess.
- elkos 4y ago
  by Google, it was a special google ads program
  - vinhboy 4y ago
    Yep. Google paid like $2 per download of Firefox. It cost like 5 cents a click, for the "download Firefox" keyword, on Google Ads to bring someone to my website. Profit.
    - n1b0m 4y ago
      Was that a one off or does Google run other paid promotions like that?

adamwk 4y ago

This reminds me when my parents would have half their browser covered in random toolbars they'd get tricked into installing, whether by online ads or software bundled with them. The modern dark patterns are really nothing like the early 2000's windows days.

olyjohn 4y ago
Yeah they were obvious, and easy to clean up back in those days. Now it's happening, and it's just built into the software you use, including your OS... and most people have no way of knowing.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  I recall some of them requiring editing registry, or using software like CCleaner. Far from easy in my opinion, especially for a layperson.
MiddleEndian 4y ago
Tragically, Microsoft has looked back and realized that people will put up with a lot of shit, so they decided to implement about 20% of it themselves.
yedava 4y ago
Smartphones are the modern dark patterns and are far worse than IE era toolbars. The toolbars and other Windows crap were easy to notice and easy to get rid off. The modern smartphone is a fast, sleek and utterly locked down device which collects a firehose of your personal data without ever giving any indication that it is harming you. Out of sight, out of mind.
- imwillofficial 4y ago
  Easy to get rid of? I remember a monkey one that was harder to cure than aids. Anyone remember that? Bonzi Buddy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BonziBuddy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BonziBuddy

kccqzy 4y ago

Note that before Google had Chrome, they contributed quite a bit to Firefox. Some of the features and initiatives (like Safe Browsing) actually began as features for Firefox.

rvnx 4y ago

Remembering also when Google Chrome was aggressively bundled with toolbars, antiviruses and various "speed boosters".

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
kccqzy 4y ago
Google only recently decided to retire the "cleanup tool" that was bundled with Chrome. Back when it was clear that Google wanted users not to suffer from malware but they didn't want to draw the attention or ire of established antivirus companies. https://security.googleblog.com/2023/03/thank-you-and-goodbye-to-chrome-cleanup.html https://security.googleblog.com/2023/03/thank-you-and-goodby...
- rvnx 4y ago
  The clean-up tool was most of all a tool that had a "side-consequence" of uninstalling softwares which were pushing Bing or Yahoo.
cpeterso 4y ago
Chrome used to be bundled with Adobe's Flash Player installer. Chrome bundled the Flash Player, so the only people downloading Adobe's Flash Player installer would be Firefox users. So excellent user targeting on Google's behalf. But those Firefox users didn't want Chrome; they wanted the Flash Player for their Firefox.
crazygringo 4y ago
What toolbars or speed boosters are you talking about? I don't remember any of that and Chrome doesn't even support toolbars. Or am I misunderstanding something? Chrome on Windows had a malware checker built in. Which you can debate whether that belongs, but that's not really bundling, just a feature. Which arguably helps protect browser security.
- paradox460 4y ago

b7r6 4y ago

The "Best Google" busts up Microsoft monopolies via going big on open software and open standards. The "Worst Google" copies the business model they just un-fucked. I'd say in 2023, we really need the "Best Google".

LegitShady 4y ago
best google is long dead. long live best google.
- andirk 4y ago
  "Don't be evil". Yeah they dropped that a while ago.

pessimizer 4y ago

Who knew that eventually Google would pretty much be Firefox's only source of income?

3np 4y ago
Google?
- INTPenis 4y ago
  Google donates something like 350 million every year to Mozilla Corporation. Some would say it's the only way they can stay in the expensive area of norcal, and maintain their competitive salaries there.
  - ShadowBanThis01 4y ago
    Any company wasting loads of cash on stupid real estate doesn't deserve to stay in business.
johannes1234321 4y ago
Thing is: You can't easily donate to Firefox. One can send money to the Mozilla Foundation, which is a political organisation (where I share many of the goals, but still spend my "political" money elsewhere) not to Mozilla Corporation, who are the developers.
- cxr 4y ago
  It's true that donations to Mozilla Foundation don't fund Firefox. > Mozilla Corporation, who are the developers Mozilla Corporation is a corporation. If you want to send money to developers who work on Firefox, you can. Better if you do it for the ones who are not Mozilla Corporation employees—although this is more difficult than it would have been in the past, owing to Mozilla Corporation's successful play to accumulate most development and decisionmaking power while alienating volunteers.
  - 4y ago

tech234a 4y ago

The associated landing page for this was still up until fairly recently: https://web.archive.org/web/20220819085123/https://tools.google.com/firefox/fftb/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220819085123/https://tools.goo...

ignoramous 4y ago

Google hired a bunch of Mozilla folks in 2005/06 to create Chrome. What'd they say about embrace, extend, extinguish?

tirpen 4y ago
Those two sentences are totally unrelated to each other.

101008 4y ago

Oh man... I am so nostalgic of the past web. Probalby because I became the person I am browsing that web (I was a teenager maturing). The images of the old Google and the Google Toolbar (in the web.archive link) brought so many memories... Not only of internet, but what was happening with my life around it, the people I had, and more. Those were the happy times, weren't?

wildrhythms 4y ago
It's a nostalgia blast isn't it! For more reminiscing: Web Design Museum: https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/ https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/ Yesterweb community: https://yesterweb.org/ https://yesterweb.org/

Brajeshwar 4y ago

Oh! Wow, this was a good earner for websites in those days.

RedCondor 4y ago

It's interesting that explorer is like some kind of evil Spanish conquistador chrome is like some kind of terminator and firefox is like a cute, cuddly, endangered fox

thaumasiotes 4y ago
> explorer is like some kind of evil Spanish conquistador Sure you're not thinking of Konqueror? It was named in what was seen as a logical sequence from "explorer" and "navigator".

rodric 4y ago

I note that Google Toolbar had a big RSS ‘Subscribe’ button…

substation13 4y ago

There comes a time in every company's evolution when they switch from supporting openness (an opportunity) to protecting the walled garden from openness (now a threat)

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
Google's suport of Firefox wasn't a benevolent action on their side to support openness but to erode IE's monopoly for their own benefit till they could launch their own browser. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend".

opportune 4y ago

For people talking about openness, walled gardens, etc. If Google at the time could figure out how much their marketing assisted Firefox adoption, and saw that the marketing was a huge if not main driver, does it not make complete sense for them to just write their own browser and market that? If I basically had a guarantee that some product would see huge adoption if it only existed, I would start working on that in a heartbeat.

robk 4y ago

Oh I ran this as a product manager and even worked on those graphics. Ama.

n0tahacker 4y ago

Do you also know the plaquette "View this in any browser"??