• yamanii@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Don’t you think they dabbled on stupid projects and acquired some companies like pocket precisely because just a browser wasn’t enough to pay the bills?

      • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
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        6 months ago

        this does mystify me. only time I nearly dropped firefox was when they did the big change that broke add ons but firefox with the addons I like is the best browser for me. nothing they have done has been consequentially bad. philosophically maybe but the actual effect is not bad compared to any other options.

          • mkwt@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            For the money they are (were I guess) handed to set that it’s clearly worth it.

            Not disagreeing with you. I just want to point out that Google is probably deliberately “overpaying” on this Mozilla deal, because they want to keep Firefox afloat, because they don’t want to catch a court ruling that they are monopolizing the browser market too.

            Dirty tricks with web browsers is the antitrust charge that actually caught Microsoft in the 90s.

          • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
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            6 months ago

            oh yeah. duck duck go is for my firefox. duck duck go is another one with a lot of drama that amounts to nothing. have tried a few alts but went back.

      • DannyBoy@sh.itjust.works
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        6 months ago

        I don’t think people hate Firefox as much as people hate Mozilla and what they’re doing with Firefox.

      • Chloé 🥕@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        6 months ago

        its an emotional reaction. google has always been bad, them doing a bad thing is just business as usual. who cares

        but when mozilla does something bad? mozilla is supposed to be the good guy! they betrayed us!

      • I always got the opposite impression: people here love Firefox. But it seems that’s part of why they’re critical of its shortcomings.

        At least for me, if I’m criticizing something, it probably means I care at least a little bit about whatever I’m criticizing. Not worth time talking about things I actually dislike.

      • Thrashy@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Consider that many of the same people think of Arch as a viable daily driver distro for the everyman. Some folks are more accepting of jank than others.

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        It is shocking to me how many people on Lemmy hate Firefox

        Although some people are Google fanbois or reactionary dumbasses, I think most of what you’re misinterpreting as “Firefox hate” is actually love for Firefox and hate for what Mozilla has done to it.

        Most Firefox-critics’ feelings towards it are more like this:

        • Sabata@ani.social
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          6 months ago

          Love the browser, hate the corpos desperately trying to fuck it up because that’s the cool thing to do to your software now days.

        • db2@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          I remember building Phoenix from source when it was basically still an experiment to decouple it from the suite. Good times.

    • Ephera@lemmy.ml
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      6 months ago

      Google will appeal the ruling, which will drag out the measures for a while still, and no one knows yet whether they’ll actually be forced to stop paying Mozilla. Presumably, Mozilla will mention in court that this is a real fucking problem and would actually weaken Google’s competition. But the concern is still there, yeah.

    • KazuyaDarklight@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      The meme is real, but that doesn’t mean that Mozilla is suddenly bankrupt. I can’t speak to Mozilla specifically, but there are non-profits like Wikipedia that set up stores of money equal to at least a full year of operating expenses, so that they can work to pivot in the face of exactly this kind of eventuality.

    • Laser@feddit.org
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      6 months ago

      librewolf

      Downstream of Firefox that relies on Firefox being developed by Mozilla

      brave

      Sketchy downstream of Google Chromium

      mullvad browser

      Downstream of Tor Browser which in turn is downstream of Firefox that relies on Firefox being developed by Mozilla

  • _edge@discuss.tchncs.de
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    6 months ago
    • Mozilla will take money from Microsoft
    • Firefox gets Office 365, Exchange, and Azure AD integration
    • Netflix partners with Microsoft for advanced HD and DRM
    • Microsoft and Mozilla partner to deliver Microsoft-enhanced Firefox for Windows
    • ActiveX 2.0
      • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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        6 months ago

        Mass Layoffs

        AI Focus

        End of Support status for FireFox on windows older than Windows 10

        Removal of many settings such as browser.privateWindowSeparation.enabled

        It’s a company. Mozilla Foundation has nonprofit status but the Subsidiary Mozilla Corporation is for-profit.

        TBH I’m biased af because I just liked it better before all the recent updates.

        • Railing5132@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          Of these, the EoS for pre-Win10 is probably a good thing. Everything older has been EoL from MS and shouldn’t be exposed to the Internet anyway. And if you’re concerned about an old, air gapped system, what does it matter? Use that old version of FF right alongside the ancient Windows?

          But yeah, they should just fuck off with the AI bs.

        • Possibly linux@lemmy.zip
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          6 months ago

          I don’t understand why you are about layoffs. They are cutting useless bloat. (VR didn’t pan out go figure) Also Windows 7 isn’t supported by Microsoft so it doesn’t make sense to support it. It isn’t even receiving security patches.

          From a profitability perspective I think there is lots of potential in privacy tech. The problem is that they keep creating and then discontinuing random stuff.

          I don’t like Mozilla but the stuff you listed doesn’t seem like the problem to me.

            • Possibly linux@lemmy.zip
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              6 months ago

              Servo has been integrated into Firefox. The old engine has been partially replaced that’s why Firefox is fast now. Servo is now the old term for Gecko.

              • leopold@lemmy.kde.social
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                6 months ago

                Servo is not the old name for Gecko. Gecko existed long before Servo was started and Servo continues to be developed independently of Mozilla. It was a research project to develop a web rendering engine in Rust taking advantage of parallelization. The parallelization stuff mostly made it through the Quantum project several years ago, which did indeed help performance. That’s about it. As of right now, Gecko’s code base 55.4% C++, 22.6% JavaScript, 4.5% C, 4.3% Kotlin and a mere 3.8% Rust. If Servo had indeed been integrated into Firefox, over half of this would be Rust. 53.2%, if the current Servo repository is anything to go by.

                • Possibly linux@lemmy.zip
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                  6 months ago

                  I personally think it is silly to try to keep alive. If it was good Mozilla would’ve used it more. You can have your own take though

  • LostWanderer@lemmynsfw.com
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    6 months ago

    Oh for fun! I don’t want Mozilla to go down, Firefox is one of the few non-Chromium web browsers; I’m glad that Google is pronounced as a monopoly, as it is true. However, for every good thing, there is a terrible curse that shows how much our system needs to be changed. It will be so heartening to not have Apple using Google Search by default, as the results are fucking shit. They could survive the lack of Investor Daddy’s cash.

      • areyouevenreal@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        Who exactly is going to pay for it’s development in their stead? Developing firefox is an enormous ongoing technical project akin to building the Linux kernel. Someone has to pay or it won’t get done to the standard it needs to be done.

        • Ajen@sh.itjust.works
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          6 months ago

          A project as big as Mozilla wouldn’t be abandoned. If Mozilla stopped development I guarantee more than one group would fork.

            • Ajen@sh.itjust.works
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              6 months ago

              Of course they would, Firefox is a huge project. But that doesn’t mean Mozilla is the only organization that can manage it.

              • nintendiator@feddit.cl
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                6 months ago

                And that’s why IMO the project should ensmallened. Instead of trying to catch up to everything bloatware internet and Google are doing, Neo Firefox / Neo Mozilla could instead focus on developing a subset that’s lean and safe to use (no JS, for example) or even promote and offer first-class support to alternative internets like Gemini (the actual one, not Google’s namesquat).

      • LostWanderer@lemmynsfw.com
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        6 months ago

        Provided that someone with enough skill takes up the mantle of maintaining a fork…I’m sure it will be fine!

        • Ajen@sh.itjust.works
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          6 months ago

          Welll yeah, obviously. I wasn’t suggesting Firefox would somehow become sentient and develop itself.

          • LostWanderer@lemmynsfw.com
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            6 months ago

            ROFL I wasn’t suggesting that you were suggesting that. Like any open source project, uh, talent tends to pick up important things that get abandoned. It would be an amusing turn of events, probably in the distant future when AI becomes a thing. That a program can start its own journey of self-improvement. 😂

            • Ajen@sh.itjust.works
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              6 months ago

              I know, I was just being hyperbolic. Not sure why my OC is so downvoted, I’m pretty sure people don’t think Mozilla is the only org capable of leading the project.

        • Ajen@sh.itjust.works
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          6 months ago

          If you disagree, why not share your opinion instead of just downvoting? Why do you think Mozilla is the only organization capable of supporting Firefox?

      • LostWanderer@lemmynsfw.com
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        6 months ago

        I suspect that Apple will choose to open up the choice of what search engine a user would like to use instead of Google. To avoid playing favorites or getting into an oversaturated market.

        • mecfs@lemmy.worldOP
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          6 months ago

          They could piss all their competitors off by investing a bit into a FOSS add-free search engine (and hosting it) and putting that as default

          • LostWanderer@lemmynsfw.com
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            6 months ago

            ROFL This is Apple we’re talking about, the slowest to innovate in the tech space. That would be a Samsung maneuver, in my opinion (if that giant tech corpo would even consider a FOSS ad-free search engine). Apple is just now getting some customization options this September with an update, something Samsung and third party launchers have pretty much solved years ago.

              • LostWanderer@lemmynsfw.com
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                6 months ago

                I don’t know, I think they wanted that Google money so much they didn’t bother! It might have been in the cards, but perhaps Google beat them to the punch and evaporated their desire to create a search engine. Search engines are likely not a business that Apple wants to get too involved in as well, that’s something to consider. Sometimes it’s better to use what is already out there and not sink too much capital in something so uncertain. I doubt Apple would’ve seen a serious amount of success with Google being the top dog in search.

  • datelmd5sum@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    I hope Mozilla put most of that Google money into index funds or something. At least it didn’t go into paying the developers.

  • cobysev@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Why does this percentage keep going up? Who keeps inflating the numbers? The first time I heard about this, it was like 64%. Then 77%. Now 81%?! Tomorrow, I’m gonna see a meme stating 97% of Mozilla’s income is from Google.

    • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
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      6 months ago

      The actual numbers are $510MM/y from Google out of $593MM/y total revenue. So 86% if my math is correct. It’s bonkers how dependent on a single deal they are.

      • frazorth@feddit.uk
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        6 months ago

        Are they dependent?

        All I see is Google throwing a fuck tonne of money at them, and Mozilla spaffing it on pointless crap. They could probably raise more if Google went away, but they could also reduce spend significantly if they didn’t have stupid money get thrown at them.

        Its like giving your kids $100 a day. Sure they could blow it on pay to win games, but what would happen if you reduced it to $10 a day? Probably nothing of note, just less spending on crap.

        • stinerman@midwest.social
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          6 months ago

          They could probably raise more if Google went away

          I’m interested in how you think Mozilla would raise more than half a billion dollars if they didn’t take any money from Alphabet/Google. Genuinely. In what ways could Mozilla raise money that they’re not doing right now?

          • frazorth@feddit.uk
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            6 months ago

            That’s not what I said. Their fundraising is dead because they don’t need to raise any more cash.

            They literally throw cash away each month. Without Googles dump truck money I am sure they could increase fundraising to raise what they actually need to operate. Not that they could increase fundraising to match Googles current contributions.

            • stinerman@midwest.social
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              6 months ago

              I think it’s fair to think that they could refocus their efforts on the browser if they didn’t have that large slush fund from Google. I don’t think “hey we don’t take Google money anymore” is going to lead to a lot of new donations, however.

        • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
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          6 months ago

          I can’t say if they are completely dependent without seeing where the other ~$80MM comes from. If they come from products that require significant staff and server cost, then yes they are fully dependant. If the $$ comes from something they can keep going for much less than ~$80MM, then they are not.

  • FlexibleToast@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Which would ironically give even more monopoly over how the web is viewed to Google. Chrome and Firefox are just about the only two players in that space right now.

    • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
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      6 months ago

      No they’re not, there’s safari and Edge. Don’t forget about opera.

      :|

      Sorry. I’m having a hard time keeping a straight face while I say that…

  • FearfulSalad@ttrpg.network
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    6 months ago

    In my utopia, Google would be forced to continue to pay out the current annual contract sum, at a decreasing percentage every year, for some number of years, to all affected companies, giving them the opportunity to divest and pivot.

    The root problem doesn’t get fixed if the company with enough money to be a monopolist still has the money when this is “resolved.”