3 ms·

Sabotage Firefox? They've literally been keeping Firefox afloat for what, a decade? Longer?

billiam 2y ago
Afloat like Weekend at Bernie's. I lived through multiple efforts to prop up the corpse while making sure it would never ever be as good as Chrome.
- ta1243 2y ago
  Depends on your definition of "good". To me it's impossible not to be as good as Chrome, as I define good as not being run by google.
asadotzler 2y ago
Google's been paying Mozilla for search traffic for more than 20 years, just like the other major browsers. It's not out of kindness any more than paying Apple for Safari traffic is out of kindness. It's literally payments for search traffic and reported to the IRS by Google as "traffic acquisition cost" or TAC. Google doesn't do it for "keeping Firefox afloat," it's about Google grabbing even more search traffic and dissuading browsers from sending their traffic to alternatives, or creating their own search engines, and always has been. But Google was a mostly reasonable partner to browser makers until they got into the business themselves. After Chrome shipped, Google properties started mysteriously becoming slower or broken in Firefox in ways that had no good technical support and that consistently siphoned large numbers of Firefox user over to Chrome before being addressed. It happened over and over on major Google properties like Gmail and Docs all through the 2010s. Jonath's Twitter thread is gone but the reporting isn't https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has-sabotaged-firefox-for-years/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has... And they did it to IE and Edge too, until MS finally capitulated and jumped on Google's tech to escape the sabotaging. There's reporting on that too https://www.neowin.net/news/former-edge-intern-says-google-sabotaged-microsofts-browser/ https://www.neowin.net/news/former-edge-intern-says-google-s...
- EbNar 2y ago
  > Google's been paying Mozilla for search traffic for more than 20 years Well, and Mozill gladly accepted the deal, being passive and without even trying to be self-sustainable. The (only) culprit here isn't Google. Mozilla's mismanagement has played a big role.
  - asadotzler 2y ago
    Mozilla had 10 engineers a total team of about 20 and about $1M in the bank and a few dollars in donations coming in when we made the Google search deal. Take that deal away in late 2004 and Mozilla dies by 2026. It seems like you don't actually understand any of this and are just bluffing.
    - ta1243 2y ago
      > Take that deal away in late 2004 and Mozilla dies by 2026 Run a team of 10 engineers for 20+ years on $1m? Wow that's a bargain! (I assume you meant dies by 2006 :D)
    - ranger_danger 2y ago
      If you're implying that Mozilla has not been horribly mismanaged for decades, I think many would disagree with that.
    - EbNar 2y ago
      [dead]

Afloat like Weekend at Bernie's. I lived through multiple efforts to prop up the corpse while making sure it would never ever be as good as Chrome.

ta1243 2y ago
Depends on your definition of "good". To me it's impossible not to be as good as Chrome, as I define good as not being run by google.

asadotzler 2y ago

Google's been paying Mozilla for search traffic for more than 20 years, just like the other major browsers. It's not out of kindness any more than paying Apple for Safari traffic is out of kindness. It's literally payments for search traffic and reported to the IRS by Google as "traffic acquisition cost" or TAC. Google doesn't do it for "keeping Firefox afloat," it's about Google grabbing even more search traffic and dissuading browsers from sending their traffic to alternatives, or creating their own search engines, and always has been. But Google was a mostly reasonable partner to browser makers until they got into the business themselves. After Chrome shipped, Google properties started mysteriously becoming slower or broken in Firefox in ways that had no good technical support and that consistently siphoned large numbers of Firefox user over to Chrome before being addressed. It happened over and over on major Google properties like Gmail and Docs all through the 2010s. Jonath's Twitter thread is gone but the reporting isn't https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has-sabotaged-firefox-for-years/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has... And they did it to IE and Edge too, until MS finally capitulated and jumped on Google's tech to escape the sabotaging. There's reporting on that too https://www.neowin.net/news/former-edge-intern-says-google-sabotaged-microsofts-browser/ https://www.neowin.net/news/former-edge-intern-says-google-s...

EbNar 2y ago
> Google's been paying Mozilla for search traffic for more than 20 years Well, and Mozill gladly accepted the deal, being passive and without even trying to be self-sustainable. The (only) culprit here isn't Google. Mozilla's mismanagement has played a big role.
- asadotzler 2y ago
  Mozilla had 10 engineers a total team of about 20 and about $1M in the bank and a few dollars in donations coming in when we made the Google search deal. Take that deal away in late 2004 and Mozilla dies by 2026. It seems like you don't actually understand any of this and are just bluffing.
  - ta1243 2y ago
    > Take that deal away in late 2004 and Mozilla dies by 2026 Run a team of 10 engineers for 20+ years on $1m? Wow that's a bargain! (I assume you meant dies by 2006 :D)
  - ranger_danger 2y ago
    If you're implying that Mozilla has not been horribly mismanaged for decades, I think many would disagree with that.
  - EbNar 2y ago
    [dead]