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If only we could pay for Firefox so they could get rid of that Google funding…
by dest 25d ago
If only we could pay for Firefox so they could get rid of that Google funding…
- metalliqaz 25d agohas any browser ever made that work? Opera has to be the most popular by a mile and even they couldn't keep that business model going
- dest 25d agoNot in my knowledge. It would be hard to have the same amount of funding as they have now from Google.
- lexicality 24d agoespecially when you pay your executives 7 figure salaries
- brewdad 24d agoThat’s what a good executive costs these days. You could try to hire a CEO for $100,000/yr with the expected quality of applicants.
- lexicality 24d ago> That’s what a good executive costs these days. maybe they should go get some then
- account42 23d agoGood executives that have achieved an ever shrinking market share while continuing to piss of enthusiast users? At this point they could pay someone with zero experience minimum wage and would probably do no worse. Have you considered that a "good executive" (i.e. someone good at maximizing shareholder values and his own compensation) is the last person Firefox needs?
- johanyc 25d agoPeople just expect browsers to be free. And there's no way that can be more than Google money.
- schubidubiduba 25d agoThat's because browsers should be free. They are infrastructure, just like bridges. And nobody wants a bridge troll sitting on the single bridge crossing the internet river, demanding money from everyone.
- ferngodfather 25d agoI mean, bridge tolls are absolutely a thing.
- edoceo 24d agoMy area has roads w/o bridges that have a toll.
- rightnutwingjob 24d agoIf things keep going as they are, my area will soon have a bridge, several bridges, and no roads. But it will still have tolls.
- shric 25d agoBridges are not free
- al_borland 25d agoOrion (by Kagi) is still new, but seems to be trying.
- shakow 24d agoOrion is webkit-based though, not a whole independent browser like FFox.
- plausibility 24d agoTo be fair, Firefox on iOS is also WebKit based thanks to Apples’s rules. Much of a muchness in this aspect.
- shakow 24d agoI'm not criticizing Orion for that; I actually enjoy it quite a lot (and will do even more when they will have ironed out all the UI bugs). Also I'm eager to see how it will behave on Linux when they will have finished their port; I hope we will finally have a really low-energy consumption browser then.
- yubblegum 25d agoWhat exactly is the problem? I understand a browser is a complex program but is the claim it is impossible to build a browser without continual dependence on advertising toxic dollars?
- makeitdouble 25d ago> a browser is a complex program A browser in the class of Firefox or Chrome is for all intents and purposes a full OS constantly exposed to the world. I understand open source OS development to be sustainable thanks to the the effort put into the server farms. That doesn't work for client side software, with the additional hurdle of needing to be better than the ad funded browser.
- teekert 24d agoMy Linux kernel is not riddled with ads? Maybe companies should see browsers more as a the Linux kernel, a precompetitive commodity layer on top of which we deliver/extract value to/from users.
- palata 24d ago> My Linux kernel is not riddled with ads? And Firefox is not riddled with ads. The websites it loads are. If you run a program that shows ads on your Linux distro, the Linux kernel won't block them, will it?
- yubblegum 24d agoDoes your hypothetical kernel make it easy or difficult for you to install add-ons that block ads? Does the organization that build it have a conflict of interest regarding advertisting/surveillance interests such as Google/Meta/...?
- palata 24d agoNot sure what your point is. My comparison was not made to be stretched infinitely. Next question may be "does your kernel render web pages?", but I don't see where it is going. But to give an answer: if you wanted to bake an ad-blocker in the Linux kernel that would prevent programs from showing ads in a transparent way (the ads just don't show and the programs still work and look fine), I think it would not be trivial at all. But I don't see the point of going down that discussion.
- nottorp 25d ago... if only their donation links would let you specify your donation goes to Firefox development and no other mozilla service ...
- NoMoreNicksLeft 25d agoIf only we could open source it and load it onto the phone with Sideloadly.
- tgv 24d agoYeah, if everyone gave $10, that would get them at least $50.
- illiac786 24d agoLOL (and I love ff)
- tgv 24d agoMe too, but we are few. Google paid $585M in 2024. I don't think Mozilla can get 58 million users to pay $10 each. That might even exceed the FF user base. Even if they could, they would use it as extra money, not to get rid of Google.
- janlaureys 24d agoThere's dozens of us ! So 120$ should be pretty realistic.
- Meneth 24d agoMozilla has had a lot of funding over the years. They wasted most of it on useless side-projects. If, instead, they had saved up into a foundation, they could have been financially independent like a decade ago. Do not try to pay for Firefox; they'll just waste that too.
- Itoldmyselfso 24d agoJust.. use different search engine? Startpage if you still want the Google's search results but with vastly superior privacy