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Is Firefox Doomed?

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Re: Is Firefox Doomed?

#22
It's entirely possible that Google won't renew the deal, which would put about $100 million of Firefox's revenue at stake.

It would make no sense for Google to renew this agreement... if Mozilla suddenly changed Firefox's default SE that would not go over well with the users. It seems much more likely that they would form a new deal with less revenue going to Mozilla.

Of course that doesn't mean Firefox is done. That is highly dependent on Mozilla's innovation in the next few years.

Re: Is Firefox Doomed?

#23
I hope not. Currently nothing beats Firefox with Pentadactyl, Adblock Plus, Firebug, Tabmix plus combination. For real VIM geeks this is an insanely fast way to navigate the web and do online research.

Re: Is Firefox Doomed?

#24

It's entirely possible that Google won't renew the deal, which would put about $100 million of Firefox's revenue at stake. It would make no sense for Google to renew this agreement... if Mozilla suddenly changed Firefox's default SE that would not go over well with the users. It seems much more likely that they would form a new deal with less revenue going to Mozilla. Of course that doesn't mean Firefox is done. That…

I am sure someone else would pick up the slack.

Re: Is Firefox Doomed?

#25
post #19

Mozilla is a non-profit foundation. It isn't out to be the best at everything in every market, it's out to encourage competition and provide a solid FOSS solution to a difficult problem. As far as they're concerned, they've already won.

That's a bit of an oversimplification. Non-profits are interested in "providing a solution to a difficult problem", but they are also interested in self preservation.

Re: Is Firefox Doomed?

#27

What does Mozilla do with their cash?

They publish their audited financial statements online:

http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/documents/

http://static.mozilla.com/moco/en-US/pdf/Mozilla%20Foundatio...

As of December 31, 2010, they have assets of $168MM, of which $35MM is in cash and $105MM in investments. In the 12 months they spent $62MM on software development, $10MM on branding and marketing, and $12MM on 'General and administrative'.

There's more granular detail if you're interested.

Re: Is Firefox Doomed?

#28

I hope not. Currently nothing beats Firefox with Pentadactyl, Adblock Plus, Firebug, Tabmix plus combination. For real VIM geeks this is an insanely fast way to navigate the web and do online research.

Same here. I'm using all of those extensions, plus a number that help increase web privacy/security, such as BetterPrivacy, Ghostery, HTTPS-Everywhere, LastPass, and OptimizeGoogle.

There's no way to replicate that level of customization in Chrome. In fact, it's much worse because of all the tracking functionality Google's included.

Re: Is Firefox Doomed?

#29

I hope not. Currently nothing beats Firefox with Pentadactyl, Adblock Plus, Firebug, Tabmix plus combination. For real VIM geeks this is an insanely fast way to navigate the web and do online research.

Agreed, and add Treeview tabs to that list. That extension alone is keeping me from moving to Chrome
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