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Mozilla’s revenue increased significantly in 2016

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Re: Mozilla’s revenue increased significantly in 2016

#121
post #55

Well, i've been running firefox pretty consistently since I switched from Netscape all those years ago. I've tried pretty much every browser out there, and have a fair number of them installed but came back to FF... But 57, is likely the end. Yah, they fixed it. Its a little faster, but it still seems to consume RAM/CPU until my whole machine grinds to a halt. Previously, when it did this I could be assured that it l…

Does Chrome fare any better?

Chrome has a serious issue with too many tabs open in the same window. Eventually the tabs cannot become any narrower and will ovwrflownto the right with no way to scroll. This is a known and unfixed issue since day one. So the Chrome UI does provide a sort of limit on the number of tabs you can reasonably have open and comparison becomes difficult. I use Vivaldi which is also based on blink and has a better UI for many tabs. This browser has way worse memory consumption than Firefox and I believe the results are similar to what you would get with Chrome.

Re: Mozilla’s revenue increased significantly in 2016

#122

I imagine that if AOl had known the value of a browser back when they spun Netscape out, they would have made a different decision. Given Mozilla’s revenue and market share, it means Chrome is a multi billion dollar product.

With the size of Chrome's market share it isn't just money; it's power too. Google has enormous control in this area, that is to say, the internet.

I would expect a company like Facebook to worry about this near-monopoly and help out the competition, or possibly add to the competition by making its own browser. That's a browser I'd never trust.

Facebook does have their apps though, which are independent from Chrome. But most people use Android, and Google controls that too.

Re: Mozilla’s revenue increased significantly in 2016

#123
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing part of the picture here. Yahoo has been the default engine in firefox... for the US market. it was still google everywhere else in the world except Russia where they went with yandex. Mozilla got a lot of flak in Europe for not replacing google in the part of the world that mattered the most , where they have the most market share and where there is a good local alternative that actually respect priva…

No, you're still missing most of the picture. Mozilla didn't get paid for Google being the default outside of the US, China and Russia when it made Yahoo the default in the US. Mozilla had a global deal with Google and that expired. Bottomline is, most of Mozilla's 2016 revenue came from Yahoo.

That seems weird. There was no search engine that was willing to pay money to be default outside of US, China, and Russia?

Re: Mozilla’s revenue increased significantly in 2016

#124

"Mozilla ditched Yahoo recently however in favor of Google, two years before the five year contract would be up for renewal. The terms of the new deal with Google have not been revealed yet, and it remains to be seen whether this new deal will give Mozilla's revenue another boost in 2017." Apparently Firefox 57 when it is installed tries to switch the users default search engine to Google. Whether it asks for user pe…

I'm not privy to the search deal, but my understanding is that this is driven by our internal user research and metrics, which show that a significant number of users have a search engine other than what they prefer or expect. In these cases, users usually choose to directly navigate to their preferred search engine to search, instead of using Firefox access points. That’s a poor user experience, so our focus here is…

Re 3.: I think that's a terrible promtp. The prompt says, my settings might be outdated and I should switch back to Google as a search engine. What's the reasoning here? Why is implied that the settings are outdated if I use a custom search engine? No other settings are checked/affected by this prompt, so why frame it as a settings issue at all?

Re 4.: Why silently, why not a prompt here?

Re: Mozilla’s revenue increased significantly in 2016

#126
post #123
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you're still missing most of the picture. Mozilla didn't get paid for Google being the default outside of the US, China and Russia when it made Yahoo the default in the US. Mozilla had a global deal with Google and that expired. Bottomline is, most of Mozilla's 2016 revenue came from Yahoo.

That seems weird. There was no search engine that was willing to pay money to be default outside of US, China, and Russia?

There was no search engine willing to pay that would deliver good enough search results in those markets...

Re: Mozilla’s revenue increased significantly in 2016

#127
post #122

I imagine that if AOl had known the value of a browser back when they spun Netscape out, they would have made a different decision. Given Mozilla’s revenue and market share, it means Chrome is a multi billion dollar product.

With the size of Chrome's market share it isn't just money; it's power too. Google has enormous control in this area, that is to say, the internet. I would expect a company like Facebook to worry about this near-monopoly and help out the competition, or possibly add to the competition by making its own browser. That's a browser I'd never trust. Facebook does have their apps though, which are independent from Chrome.…

Yeah, I'm often surprised Facebook hasn't published their own browser yet. Though then again I guess their other strategy is to move people away from browsers.

Re: Mozilla’s revenue increased significantly in 2016

#128
post #118

Yes, and also continued to lose market share!* I wish they would stop changing the user interface so frequently. * https://www.w3schools.com/browsers/default.asp

W3Schools isn't a terribly reliable source for market share, since they only measure their visitors, which is primarily webdevs. And Mozilla offers a competing service, MDN, so webdevs primarily using Firefox probably also have a preference for MDN. Besides that, they don't separate between desktop and mobile. Marketshare on mobile hardly reflects user opinions, if this is what you were trying to imply. Other sources…

While this is true, it is unfortunately hard to deny that Firefox has been losing a lot of market share, and that the situation on mobile is especially bleak.

That said, keeping things the same would obviously only sustain that trend. Hopefully Firefox 57 and above will help them reverse it. I'm hopeful though, if it doesn't, I don't think there's much else they could've done.

Re: Mozilla’s revenue increased significantly in 2016

#130
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's also nice to be able to show other groups: Yes, you can be a "do good" company, and make a good living. ...so long as a "don't be evil" mega-corp continues paying for it

Actually I wouldn't be surprised if Google sees Mozilla as a PR tool and a lightning rod. Still whatever: I think we can all agree that the world is better with an alternative to Chrome.

That created an alternative to C/C++ (i.e. Rust) in the process of being an "alternative" to Chrome.
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