4 ms·

Mozilla is making some major moves these days. They've ditched Google as their main revenue source, partnering with Tor and Yahoo. Yahoo is angling to be a dig

Mozilla is making some major moves these days. They've ditched Google as their main revenue source, partnering with Tor and Yahoo. Yahoo is angling to be a digital magazine, which I like as a business model much more than Google's. Firefox is making a strong case for itself as the privacy centric browser. I still remember when Firefox started gaining market share. Even non-tech-savvy people were getting firefox, because IE was so bad for security, and so hard to maintain. Excited to see what the next few months brings.

joosters 12y ago
I thought that Google was still far and away their main revenue source?
- mbrubeck 12y ago
  It has been for the last three years, but Mozilla decided to go with Yahoo/Yandex/Baidu rather than renew the deal with Google. So Yahoo (and others) will replace Google as the main revenue source.
  - joosters 12y ago
    Have they disclosed the new financial terms of the agreement though? I'd be interested to see how the numbers have changed.
    - mythmon_ 12y ago
      The only public numbers are from the the previous Google search deal (the one from 3 years ago). It will be a long time until the details of this new deal are public. In the mean time I (as a Mozilla employee) can say that all of the options Mozilla had for the new search deal were better economically than the now-ending Google deal. This was really nice, because Mozilla got to make a choice that wasn't about money, but was about strategy and what we want in the web instead.
    - gcp 12y ago
      The numbers are never disclosed, but they can usually be inferred from Mozilla's public accounting. That'll take a while, though.
- nnethercote 12y ago
  Not any more. That's exactly what this story is about! :)
  - joosters 12y ago
    But the story mentions no $ numbers. Yahoo getting the default for US searches is clearly a big thing. Is that bigger than the rest-of-world searches? I really have no idea and seeing the figures would be very interesting.
blumkvist 12y ago
Yahoo is angling to be a digital magazine, which I like as a business model much more than Google's. not sure if srs
drdaeman 12y ago
> Firefox is making a strong case for itself as the privacy centric browser. They try their best to market themselves as a privacy-centric browser. To promote themselves as so they add some shiny things like making clearing browser history a two mouse clicks more accessible. But I'm still worried. I'm really nitpicking but... That 3rd party cookie controversy that lasted for almost an year, the "oh, we're full of FLOSS ideals and are firmly against DRM but... hey, wait, users want Netflix, gotta support DRM" controversy, the recent "sponsored tiles" controversy, the update of over-engineered and undocumented proprietary Firefox Sync/Accounts that makes it even harder to not depend on their servers, the complete ignorance on TLS client certificates' UI and usability (which is why we're still stuck with passwords), the BrowserID/Persona thingy that happily continued the trend that makes your identity owned by a third party, and so on. I know, it's not good to complain in such rude manner, but the issues do exist. Personally, I wouldn't really trust Firefox. Not without lots of addons, at least. Unfortunately, I guess this can't be helped. A large project like Firefox seems to be impossible without steady and fairly big money income, and since this money comes from advertisers whose interests are in complete opposite of users' privacy, Mozilla just have to make some sacrifices. Still, among the mainstream browsers they're better than competitors.
- zaachary 12y ago
  I'm not going to rebut each mischaracterization, but I did work on Persona, so: > the BrowserID/Persona thingy that happily continued the trend that makes your identity owned by a third party Nah. You could happily choose any Identity Provider that implemented the protocol, including a self-hosted one.
  - drdaeman 12y ago
    Nope, that's a pretty common misconception though. You surely can own a server (I do) but you just can't own a domain. You're merely leasing one from a registrar. You see, I strongly believe identity's an intrinsic property of a person, and if you need a provider for one there's something really wrong with the setup. I'm completely fine with asserting notaries, but not providers.
sogen 12y ago
Also let's remember the humble bundle, and the new Mozilla Developer Browser

joosters 12y ago

I thought that Google was still far and away their main revenue source?

mbrubeck 12y ago
It has been for the last three years, but Mozilla decided to go with Yahoo/Yandex/Baidu rather than renew the deal with Google. So Yahoo (and others) will replace Google as the main revenue source.
- joosters 12y ago
  Have they disclosed the new financial terms of the agreement though? I'd be interested to see how the numbers have changed.
  - mythmon_ 12y ago
    The only public numbers are from the the previous Google search deal (the one from 3 years ago). It will be a long time until the details of this new deal are public. In the mean time I (as a Mozilla employee) can say that all of the options Mozilla had for the new search deal were better economically than the now-ending Google deal. This was really nice, because Mozilla got to make a choice that wasn't about money, but was about strategy and what we want in the web instead.
  - gcp 12y ago
    The numbers are never disclosed, but they can usually be inferred from Mozilla's public accounting. That'll take a while, though.
nnethercote 12y ago
Not any more. That's exactly what this story is about! :)
- joosters 12y ago
  But the story mentions no $ numbers. Yahoo getting the default for US searches is clearly a big thing. Is that bigger than the rest-of-world searches? I really have no idea and seeing the figures would be very interesting.

blumkvist 12y ago

Yahoo is angling to be a digital magazine, which I like as a business model much more than Google's. not sure if srs

drdaeman 12y ago

> Firefox is making a strong case for itself as the privacy centric browser. They try their best to market themselves as a privacy-centric browser. To promote themselves as so they add some shiny things like making clearing browser history a two mouse clicks more accessible. But I'm still worried. I'm really nitpicking but... That 3rd party cookie controversy that lasted for almost an year, the "oh, we're full of FLOSS ideals and are firmly against DRM but... hey, wait, users want Netflix, gotta support DRM" controversy, the recent "sponsored tiles" controversy, the update of over-engineered and undocumented proprietary Firefox Sync/Accounts that makes it even harder to not depend on their servers, the complete ignorance on TLS client certificates' UI and usability (which is why we're still stuck with passwords), the BrowserID/Persona thingy that happily continued the trend that makes your identity owned by a third party, and so on. I know, it's not good to complain in such rude manner, but the issues do exist. Personally, I wouldn't really trust Firefox. Not without lots of addons, at least. Unfortunately, I guess this can't be helped. A large project like Firefox seems to be impossible without steady and fairly big money income, and since this money comes from advertisers whose interests are in complete opposite of users' privacy, Mozilla just have to make some sacrifices. Still, among the mainstream browsers they're better than competitors.

zaachary 12y ago
I'm not going to rebut each mischaracterization, but I did work on Persona, so: > the BrowserID/Persona thingy that happily continued the trend that makes your identity owned by a third party Nah. You could happily choose any Identity Provider that implemented the protocol, including a self-hosted one.
- drdaeman 12y ago
  Nope, that's a pretty common misconception though. You surely can own a server (I do) but you just can't own a domain. You're merely leasing one from a registrar. You see, I strongly believe identity's an intrinsic property of a person, and if you need a provider for one there's something really wrong with the setup. I'm completely fine with asserting notaries, but not providers.

sogen 12y ago

Also let's remember the humble bundle, and the new Mozilla Developer Browser