I think, this is good. Competing with Google costs a ton of money and their primary source of money being Google is a shitty circumstance. This opens up a different revenue stream, making them more independent from Google, and it seems to be done in a privacy-friendly way.
Yes, I would also prefer, if the open-source community or the FSF or whomever could put out a stellar free software browser which solely serves the user, but that happening is just not realistic in the slightest.
Because Google is their primary income. They can’t plan to remove it until they build up other income streams. They obviously want to find other ways to fund development
Yeah, but neither of those could compete with Chrome, if they wouldn’t constantly rebase on top of Mozilla’s work. They are dependent on Mozilla getting funding.
If your goal is to compete with Chrome, fair enough. Personally, I just want a browser that works and that respects my freedom. I don’t care how good the Google malware is as it’s still malware.
As for depending on Mozilla’s funding (and thereby Google’s money), I think Free software is very resilient and they would continue where Mozilla left off if their funding ever got cut (see the Palemoon project as an example).
The problem is that if Firefox (and derivatives)'s market share drop too low then developers won’t continue to support them. This is already happening to some extent with websites missing features or flat out refusing to run on Firefox.
Then you won’t be able to use Firefox to browse a lot of the web, and Google will basically have full control.
So Firefox being popular isn’t just good for Mozilla and the people that use it. It is critical for the open web in general. (Unless we can find another Chrome competitor)
I think, this is good. Competing with Google costs a ton of money and their primary source of money being Google is a shitty circumstance. This opens up a different revenue stream, making them more independent from Google, and it seems to be done in a privacy-friendly way.
Yes, I would also prefer, if the open-source community or the FSF or whomever could put out a stellar free software browser which solely serves the user, but that happening is just not realistic in the slightest.
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Because Google is their primary income. They can’t plan to remove it until they build up other income streams. They obviously want to find other ways to fund development
Is Icecat not good enough? Iceweasel is also pretty good, IMO.
Yeah, but neither of those could compete with Chrome, if they wouldn’t constantly rebase on top of Mozilla’s work. They are dependent on Mozilla getting funding.
If your goal is to compete with Chrome, fair enough. Personally, I just want a browser that works and that respects my freedom. I don’t care how good the Google malware is as it’s still malware.
As for depending on Mozilla’s funding (and thereby Google’s money), I think Free software is very resilient and they would continue where Mozilla left off if their funding ever got cut (see the Palemoon project as an example).
The problem is that if Firefox (and derivatives)'s market share drop too low then developers won’t continue to support them. This is already happening to some extent with websites missing features or flat out refusing to run on Firefox.
Then you won’t be able to use Firefox to browse a lot of the web, and Google will basically have full control.
So Firefox being popular isn’t just good for Mozilla and the people that use it. It is critical for the open web in general. (Unless we can find another Chrome competitor)