Last week the Department of Justice and some state attorneys general filed revised proposed remedies in the U.S. v. Google LLC search case. If the proposed
Does anybody expect them to say anything else? Web engine development is more costly than even OS development, we’re talking costs that often run into the hundreds of millions per year – it’s virtually impossible to fund unless you’re a giant like Google or being funded by someone with very deep pockets, like… er… Google.
Even MS bailed and ceded power to Google, because it simply didn’t make financial sense. Apple does it but they’re pretty meh in terms of implementing standards and such… there’s a reason 3rd party WebKit browsers are rare. They comparatively run it on a shoestring budget, and they’re Apple FFS - their wealth is practically limitless!
People aren’t going to start paying to use Firefox, and that money needs to come from somewhere. The community rejects giants paying Mozilla (understable sentiment), rejects paying for Firefox (also understandable), and rejects Mozilla selling data (definitely understandable).
What is the solution here? I’m not trying to be contrarian I just don’t know what they can do in their position. You’d hope that the Linux Foundation or something would chip in, but nope, they help Chromium instead. I worry for the future of web browsers.
That said, I’m also deeply uncomfortable with Google being able to pay to be default search on so many products. It gives them a huge advantage. I don’t want them to have that advantage. It’s anticompetitive and scummy as fuck.
Mozilla are definitely between a rock and a hard place here. I don’t like some of the decisions they make, but damn, I’m not sure I have the smarts to come up with better ones, given the position and market they’re in.
I know I’m in the minority but I would pay yearly to use Firefox. Not sure how much I’d pay, but I am getting into the habit of purchasing software instead of allowing it to purchase me
That’s rarely how donations work, though. Ultimately you need to have some level of trust that the people at the organisation you are donating to know a lot more about where, when and how your money can be effectively used than you do. Your pre-donation requirements/demands are extremely unrealistic and I’m not sure if people like yourself are genuinely delusional about this fact or if you just use it as some sort of moral bargaining tactic to never feel bad about the fact that you don’t donate any of your money to the causes you supposedly really want to.
I could but I’d still be getting the same Firefox which has a nagging incentive to cooperate with advertisers and google. The benefit of having to pay for software is that their revenue stream comes directly from me and not from a 3rd party. It’s not about supporting the developer for me, it’s about knowing that the product I pay for is the product I get
Web engine development is more costly than even OS development
Unfortunately, many applications that used to be desktop applications in the past are now programs that run in the web browser. It doesn’t matter anymore if they are a lot less effective than being native.
we’re talking costs that often run into the hundreds of millions per year – it’s virtually impossible to fund unless you’re a giant
That is the problem - the web needs to be a lot simpler, browser development should cost fractions of that. It got unnecessarily, absurdly complex.
The correct solution would have been for Mozilla to pursue alternative income a long time ago. Owning a browser gives you a lot of leverage. Instead they made a half-hearted attempt a few years back and half the products failed. I don’t know why FF fans were so comfortable holding them as the savior of the web when they were entirely funded by Google.
And now… well I don’t see a way forward either. Maybe it should just die then.
I would legit pay $40+ for Firefox… it’s gotta make and keep some promises around security, compliance, configurablity and compatibility, etc. though. It also needs to be a decently long term purchase. I’m not doing it for every version they release, maybe a lifetime license or at least a 4-6 year cadence if it’s a bit cheaper.
Why doesn’t Mozilla just fork Chromium? Anything bad sneaks in, they rip it out. New feature? Develop it specifically without paying for the whole browser. From the user’s perspective, very little changes, but cost savings would be massive.
It would also be a good high profile tab of “bad things Chrome/Chromium is doing”
EDIT: It would also justify regulating Chromium like a monopoly, though I think that government ship has sailed.
Does anybody expect them to say anything else? Web engine development is more costly than even OS development, we’re talking costs that often run into the hundreds of millions per year – it’s virtually impossible to fund unless you’re a giant like Google or being funded by someone with very deep pockets, like… er… Google.
Even MS bailed and ceded power to Google, because it simply didn’t make financial sense. Apple does it but they’re pretty meh in terms of implementing standards and such… there’s a reason 3rd party WebKit browsers are rare. They comparatively run it on a shoestring budget, and they’re Apple FFS - their wealth is practically limitless!
People aren’t going to start paying to use Firefox, and that money needs to come from somewhere. The community rejects giants paying Mozilla (understable sentiment), rejects paying for Firefox (also understandable), and rejects Mozilla selling data (definitely understandable).
What is the solution here? I’m not trying to be contrarian I just don’t know what they can do in their position. You’d hope that the Linux Foundation or something would chip in, but nope, they help Chromium instead. I worry for the future of web browsers.
That said, I’m also deeply uncomfortable with Google being able to pay to be default search on so many products. It gives them a huge advantage. I don’t want them to have that advantage. It’s anticompetitive and scummy as fuck.
Mozilla are definitely between a rock and a hard place here. I don’t like some of the decisions they make, but damn, I’m not sure I have the smarts to come up with better ones, given the position and market they’re in.
I know I’m in the minority but I would pay yearly to use Firefox. Not sure how much I’d pay, but I am getting into the habit of purchasing software instead of allowing it to purchase me
Subscribe to their VPN. I don’t use it, but do it to support Firefox
Does the money for that go directly to the dev teams? I wouldn’t want it to be swallowed up by Mozilla bureaucracy.
I bet most of the money goes to Mullvad because they run the actual VPN service. Mozilla just does the front end and user management.
That’s rarely how donations work, though. Ultimately you need to have some level of trust that the people at the organisation you are donating to know a lot more about where, when and how your money can be effectively used than you do. Your pre-donation requirements/demands are extremely unrealistic and I’m not sure if people like yourself are genuinely delusional about this fact or if you just use it as some sort of moral bargaining tactic to never feel bad about the fact that you don’t donate any of your money to the causes you supposedly really want to.
You can donate to software development freely right now. This and many others developers
I could but I’d still be getting the same Firefox which has a nagging incentive to cooperate with advertisers and google. The benefit of having to pay for software is that their revenue stream comes directly from me and not from a 3rd party. It’s not about supporting the developer for me, it’s about knowing that the product I pay for is the product I get
As far as I can tell you can’t donate to Firefox specifically. I would if I could.
I, too, would pay. Probably $200/year. What I don’t know is how much we need to keep up development.
Unfortunately, many applications that used to be desktop applications in the past are now programs that run in the web browser. It doesn’t matter anymore if they are a lot less effective than being native.
That is the problem - the web needs to be a lot simpler, browser development should cost fractions of that. It got unnecessarily, absurdly complex.
SASS has pushed the work their app developers should be doing onto the development teams of web browsers.
The correct solution would have been for Mozilla to pursue alternative income a long time ago. Owning a browser gives you a lot of leverage. Instead they made a half-hearted attempt a few years back and half the products failed. I don’t know why FF fans were so comfortable holding them as the savior of the web when they were entirely funded by Google.
And now… well I don’t see a way forward either. Maybe it should just die then.
I would legit pay $40+ for Firefox… it’s gotta make and keep some promises around security, compliance, configurablity and compatibility, etc. though. It also needs to be a decently long term purchase. I’m not doing it for every version they release, maybe a lifetime license or at least a 4-6 year cadence if it’s a bit cheaper.
I don’t think $40 would support much use time. Maybe yearly would be fair. Idk what kind of money they need but it’s clearly a lot.
I’m paying for vpn 60 bucks per year, for storage 70, I’d give the same for a decent trustworthy browser.
Why doesn’t Mozilla just fork Chromium? Anything bad sneaks in, they rip it out. New feature? Develop it specifically without paying for the whole browser. From the user’s perspective, very little changes, but cost savings would be massive.
It would also be a good high profile tab of “bad things Chrome/Chromium is doing”
EDIT: It would also justify regulating Chromium like a monopoly, though I think that government ship has sailed.
The solution is for Firefox to die and for all the payments to be paid to Servo instead.
Servo survived all the problems that got thrown at them without excuses.
Meanwhile Firefox seem to shot themselves every week by their own choice.
I mean who the hell thought that integrating AI into Firefox for example is a good idea.
So the solution to Google’s browser near-monopoly is kill the competition and still have an arrangement where Google is funding its competition.
Supergenius level take there.