Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New Search Strategy for Firefox

blog.mozilla.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 352 posts

Re: New Search Strategy for Firefox

#151

Post by mbrubeck »

enneff wrote: post #131
DevX101 wrote: post #63

This is why Google built Chrome. Google's strategy has been to remove the layers between the user's intent to search and Google's own server. Every intermediate layer that Google does not control is a risk to their business. When viewed through these lens, many of the seemingly ancillary Google business units start to make strategic sense. Android (control the device), Chrome (control the browser), Fiber (control the…

> This is why Google built Chrome. Seriously? Do you remember what browsers were like before Chrome?

I'm a Firefox user and contributor, but I'm happy to agree that Chrome advanced (and continues to advance) the state of the art in all sorts of ways.

But that still doesn't explain why Google thinks that building a web browser is an important business for Google to be in, especially at an annual cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. To answer that question, you do need to look at how it intersects with Google's other businesses and revenue streams.

Re: New Search Strategy for Firefox

#152

Post by mbrubeck »

opinali wrote: post #148

Yahoo! is OK, but... Yandex and Baidu are not exactly recommended company for an organization that pretends to hold the Open Web's moral higher ground. They practice large-scale censorship, they are instruments of repressive regimes. How does that make any sense?

Note that Mozilla has had revenue arrangements with Yandex and Baidu previously. And Google doesn't exactly have clean hands in China itself.

Re: New Search Strategy for Firefox

#154

Post by warbaker »

hrktb wrote: post #121
DevX101 wrote: post #63

This is why Google built Chrome. Google's strategy has been to remove the layers between the user's intent to search and Google's own server. Every intermediate layer that Google does not control is a risk to their business. When viewed through these lens, many of the seemingly ancillary Google business units start to make strategic sense. Android (control the device), Chrome (control the browser), Fiber (control the…

Yahoo's main business is not search, so I don't know how bad it needs it. Of course more money is always good, and Yahoo is not a super growing company, Alaso, this is the same strategy that turned Google from "best buddy" to "arch rival" in the eyes of Apple and pushed Apple to have its own mapping service and offer other search options. This is also the level of control that motivates people to try Duckduckgo, or s…

Yahoo's main business is its investments in Asian companies. It's a hedge fund with a side business in tech. It's not crazy for them to try to break out of that.

Re: New Search Strategy for Firefox

#155

Post by mbrubeck »

Ntrails wrote: post #142
chuckharmston wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth noting that Google isn't disappearing from Firefox; you will still be able to manage your search engines as you have before.

But not in the "new tab" page I assume?

The "new tab" page in recent versions of Firefox uses whichever search engine you select in the search toolbar. So it's easy to switch it to Google, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, or others.

Re: New Search Strategy for Firefox

#156

Post by drdaeman »

mythmon_ wrote: post #78
_pius wrote: post #69

Note that Mozilla is making Yahoo reinstate support for Do-Not-Track, which it had dropped earlier this year. http://www.pcworld.com/article/2150981/yahoo-drops-do-not-tr...

Yahoo will only respect DNT for Firefox users. This is because DNT was essentially ruined after Microsoft turned DNT on by default in IE. Since it didn't represent an explicit user choice, it carried much less weight. It is an explicit choice in Firefox.

DNT was a terribly flawed idea anyway.

If you don't want to be tracked — just don't allow to track yourself. Make your digital fingerprint as indistinguishable as possible and don't persist anything for any longer that's required to work.

Re: New Search Strategy for Firefox

#157

Post by mousa »

gcp wrote: post #100
dragonwriter wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yahoo is looking at the same marketshare numbers, so that actually can't be the reason. It certainly can be the reason that Google's offer isn't as strong -- the value of default search place in the third-place-with-continuing-declining-share browser is conceivably quite different to a party that owns what is, depending on which measure you look at, either the first- or second-place browser and a party that doesn't…

I don't see how that follows. Why would it? That x% of users represents X amount of users who click ads, which means y% of lost revenue. Why would the monetary value of that y% be so different to another search engine vendor? Either it's scaling effects (owning a few percent makes you more known, which drives new users) or Yahoo is better at selling ads through those users. Note that in the former case, there's even…

It's not that interesting. Yahoo is under a lot of pressure to grow and just got a windfall of cash from the Alibaba IPO. This is an easy place for them to grow their revenue.

Re: New Search Strategy for Firefox

#158

Post by ke7ofi »

hrktb wrote: post #121
DevX101 wrote: post #63

This is why Google built Chrome. Google's strategy has been to remove the layers between the user's intent to search and Google's own server. Every intermediate layer that Google does not control is a risk to their business. When viewed through these lens, many of the seemingly ancillary Google business units start to make strategic sense. Android (control the device), Chrome (control the browser), Fiber (control the…

Yahoo's main business is not search, so I don't know how bad it needs it. Of course more money is always good, and Yahoo is not a super growing company, Alaso, this is the same strategy that turned Google from "best buddy" to "arch rival" in the eyes of Apple and pushed Apple to have its own mapping service and offer other search options. This is also the level of control that motivates people to try Duckduckgo, or s…

I’m not sure why they haven’t made DDG the default yet.

Re: New Search Strategy for Firefox

#159

Post by twic »

geekam wrote: post #116
bad_user wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every intermediate layer that Google does not control is a risk to their business. Every intermediate layer that Google does control is also an opportunity for lock-in. Which is seriously starting to piss me off, as they are increasingly turning their back on open standards.

I remember I started moving out of Google's claws when they started pushing Google+ everywhere. Today my primary browser is Firefox, Search engine is DDG (with occassional Google search), Email is FastMail. The dependency on Google had started to annoy me.

The biggest thing i'm looking for now is a replacement for Google's apps suite - mainly Calendar and Docs/Drive. Something that i can use on the web and sync to my (Android) phone. If the Docs replacement just did text documents, that would probably be enough; if it did spreadsheets and text, it would definitely be enough. It would be great if it was free, and fine if it was cheap. Not Apple (no better than Google), not Evernote (poor and declining quality). What's out there?

Re: New Search Strategy for Firefox

#160

Post by bjz_ »

geekam wrote: post #116
bad_user wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every intermediate layer that Google does not control is a risk to their business. Every intermediate layer that Google does control is also an opportunity for lock-in. Which is seriously starting to piss me off, as they are increasingly turning their back on open standards.

I remember I started moving out of Google's claws when they started pushing Google+ everywhere. Today my primary browser is Firefox, Search engine is DDG (with occassional Google search), Email is FastMail. The dependency on Google had started to annoy me.

Thanks for the Fastmail recommendation! I have been using Yahoo for 8 years now, but I've never really felt comfortable using a free service for something as critical as email. And certainly not comfortable leaving it in the hands of one of the biggest companies in the world.
Post reply on HN