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So every random small developer or indie game studio can get a multibillion dollar partnership with google? As it is, Mozilla's relationship with Google is loo
by blueskin_ 12y ago
So every random small developer or indie game studio can get a multibillion dollar partnership with google?
As it is, Mozilla's relationship with Google is looking shakier every day, as from Google's perspective it's undercutting their own business with Chrome, while from Mozilla's perspective, they promote firefox as being a browser that respects privacy, and partnering with an organisation as fundamentally anti-privacy as Google undermines that.
Yes, Mozilla needs funding, but I'd rather pay a one off fee to purchase firefox if it really became necessary. Firefox could then come with no bundled search engines[1], and by default direct the user to the mozilla addons page to select which they would like to add, perhaps with a predefined list of popular choices given prominence similarly to the microsoft browser choice screen that gave prominence to Firefox, Chrome, Opera, IE and Safari, then had others listed if you cared to look further. I guess that whole argument is getting into the question of whether firefox is for power users or the drooling masses who wouldn't want to configure their search engines though.
[1] I'd like to see it bundled with duckduckgo included, but I know that even if it came without any, many users would want to add google themselves. I respect their choice to in that case.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- blueskin_ 12y ago>Chrome isn't a business, so much as another way to search the web. But instead of automated crawlers it has people who will do the searching, do the crawling. Kind of ingenious if you think about it. Google will make more (indirect) money off the average chrome user than the average firefox user, simply because they get far more metrics, analytics and data from them to make a profile for advertising. Obviously, the average firefox user is likely to have higher technical skill so possibly go to some lengths to confound tracking attempts, but that is beside the point, especially since comparable privacy addons are generally available for chrome too, with the primary exception of NoScript. (Edit: NoScript itself for chrome may not exist, but there are still comparable addons). Back when google signed the Mozilla deal, they didn't have a browser, and the stream of data they get from directing firefox users' searches through google was and still is more profitable to them than letting mozilla pick another default and denying them that data.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- blueskin_ 12y agoIsn't that exactly my point? Maintaining their (that is, Google's) majority is more important to them than a small financial loss as they make more money off those firefox users indirectly. If they didn't, they would probably write them off as a loss and let mozilla direct them somewhere else, especially since a majority would likely add google to their search engine list anyway.
- vezzy-fnord 12y agoYes, Mozilla needs funding, but I'd rather pay a one off fee to purchase firefox if it really became necessary. Note that this alone would not make Firefox proprietary software. It'd still be free, just not gratis, provided redistribution and modification rights are still present.
- chimeracoder 12y ago> Yes, Mozilla needs funding, but I'd rather pay a one off fee to purchase firefox if it really became necessary. Wonderful! So you don't even have to wait - you can do almost exactly what you're describing right now! Just do the following: 1. Donate to the Mozilla Foundation[0] 2. Download IceWeasel, a version of Firefox that comes with no non-free software by default (but which allows you to install non-free plugins later on if you desire)[1] [0] https://mozilla.com/donate https://mozilla.com/donate [1] http://www.geticeweasel.org/ http://www.geticeweasel.org/
- gcp 12y agoa version of Firefox that comes with no non-free software by default So is the Mozilla version, and that will even still be true after EME gets added.