"According to Mozilla's CEO Mitchell Baker, Firefox is just at the beginning of its life cycle. In this one-on-one interview with APCMag.com, she talks about where Firefox came from and where it's going."
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Member since:2005-07-08
Based on TFA, it seems that Mozilla gets so much money from Google and alternative default search providers that they see no reason to shoehorn (more) crapware into Firefox. I think they're thrilled that they were able to drive so much revenue ($55M/year!!) from a feature that even the most sensitive users find convenient and unobtrusive.
They'll get more dollars out of offline web apps and mobile platforms. There's no reason to ruin a good thing with their traditional PC web browser when that's their meal ticket into the markets that will make them tons of money going forward.
Member since:2005-07-01
I wonder how much of that money from Google is for the hits generated by default page/search engine options, and how much is just to support a product that undermines Microsoft's online business efforts.
That said, I'm sure Google does get a lot of hits from Firefox, but it would be my default search engine anyway. Hard to know the exact monetary value. From figures in the article ($55m, not just from Google and 75~100m users), I guess Google are paying in the order of 50 cents per user per year. Are they getting that much back?
Member since:
2007-03-30
The modern browser is like the operating system for the computer that is the internet. So the real power and respect and reward should go to the people who create the standards of the system, and to the developers who build the browsers that adhere to those standards.
Reading about the business folks coming in and selling search tie-ins and advertisements and branding opportunities... it makes me go a bit "ugh".
The browser has a lot of power to make money from steering people. For Mozilla's sake I hope they remember why people switched to Firefox in the first place. (it worked and wasn't full of shit)
Because if a browser exodus can happen once, it can happen again!