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New Search Strategy for Firefox

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: New Search Strategy for Firefox

#221

Post by userbinator »

tn13 wrote: post #199

Honestly I dont see how this is a "choice". In fact this sounds exactly opposite of the choice. In this particular case Firefox has made the choice on our behalf that we are better off using Yahoo's crappy search results instead of market leader Google. If you are making a browser which is focused on giving freedom to users you are supposed to : 1. Either let the users chose the search engine as an on-boarding step.…

Mozilla are known for their doublespeak (best example to-date being https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publish...), but this is one of their more honest pieces - they are giving users a choice of search engines; nonetheless, I can see why the title rubs you the wrong way, and I'd also prefer the original one which was "Yahoo and Mozilla form Strategic Partnership".

Re: New Search Strategy for Firefox

#222

Post by throwawaymoz »

zobzu wrote: post #212
hackuser wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand you want to remain anonymous, but care to give us a clue about your credibility? Do you work for Mozilla? Google?

Given his comment i can say he works for Mozilla or worked for Mozilla or have good contacts there. What he wrote is 100% truth as far as I'm concerned. (i have good friends at Mozilla myself and that echo their exact words from 3 y ago)

Yes.

Re: New Search Strategy for Firefox

#223

Post by bzbarsky »

gorhill wrote: post #209
throwawaymoz wrote: post #67

(throwaway account) While I believe the party line is probably true ("Mozilla decided not to go with Google"), it's also disingenuous. Mozilla chose not to go with Google because Google wasn't willing to pay what they were before. They straight up told Mozilla this 3 years ago when they signed the billion dollar contract; Mozilla had 3 years to become profitable. That's why they switched focus to FirefoxOS; they thou…

> They paid Firefox $300mil a year for three years Mozilla's 990 forms are public. For 2012 I see a bit more than $9 million in revenue, of which $5.4 million came from contributions [1]. "$300mil a year" makes no sense -- unless there is something I don't know about how non-profits are supposed to report their revenue. [1] https://static.mozilla.com/moco/en-US/pdf/2012_Mozilla_Form_...

There's a difference between the Mozilla Corporation and the Mozilla Foundation. The latter owns the former. Revenue for the former is not revenue for the latter, though dividend payments from the former to the latter are revenues for the latter.

The Form 990 is for the Foundation. You probably want to look at https://static.mozilla.com/moco/en-US/pdf/Mozilla_Audited_Fi... instead, since that includes the subsidiary Mozilla Corporation. Page number 4 (sixth page of the PDF), the "Revenues and other support" table.

Re: New Search Strategy for Firefox

#224

Post by pwnna »

drdaeman wrote: post #214
zaachary wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not going to rebut each mischaracterization, but I did work on Persona, so: > the BrowserID/Persona thingy that happily continued the trend that makes your identity owned by a third party Nah. You could happily choose any Identity Provider that implemented the protocol, including a self-hosted one.

Nope, that's a pretty common misconception though. You surely can own a server (I do) but you just can't own a domain. You're merely leasing one from a registrar. You see, I strongly believe identity's an intrinsic property of a person, and if you need a provider for one there's something really wrong with the setup. I'm completely fine with asserting notaries, but not providers.

Yes. Identity is an intrinsic property of a person. However, how would you design a system to check this property? It's a very difficult property to measure. Having someone vouching for it is a relatively safe and easy way to do this.

Re: New Search Strategy for Firefox

#225

Post by throwawaymoz »

throwawaymoz wrote: post #82
dragonwriter wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For the record, Google made billions off being Firefox's default search engine. They paid Firefox $300mil a year for three years, but that was only a small fraction of how much Google profited from Firefox searches. Not sure if it's still true, but three years ago they made more from Firefox than they did from Chrome. Google doesn't really make money from Firefox or Chrome (the browser), per se (except insofar as C…

Don't forget that Chrome users are more tech savvy on average than Firefox users, meaning they click ads less.

My "source" is more direct, however this collaborates:

http://thenextweb.com/apps/2012/11/12/opera-users-click-on-t...

Re: New Search Strategy for Firefox

#226

Post by aranjedeath »

nnethercote wrote: post #134
Ntrails wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if, and this is crazy I know, you needed an explicit action to track me instead of relying on users not knowing such a thing exists to avoid.

You're going to love Firefox's new Tracking Protection feature, which is currently under development: http://blog.mozilla.org/nnethercote/2014/11/12/quantifying-t... It allows you to block things coming from known tracking domains, giving better privacy and faster page loads on many sites.

Is this what will replace (as a meta-solution, it appears) the backed-out third party cookie blocking stuff?

Re: New Search Strategy for Firefox

#227

Post by haberman »

glitchdout wrote: post #204
haberman wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Googler who cares very much about open standards, I don't think that assessment is fair or accurate.

What about the move from Talk to Hangouts? https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/05/google-abandons-open-s...

Google added support for XMPP fedederation in 2006, hoping that other messaging services would follow suit: http://www.zdnet.com/google-embraces-open-im-standards-30392...

Seven years later, not a single other major IM service had added the same support. All XMPP federation support had accomplished was providing a spam vector to Google Talk users.

Google's public statement when they dropped federation in 2013 was: "XMPP was designed over a decade ago to provide a way for chat networks to interoperate, known as federation. Google Talk was the only major network to support federation, and after seven years, it’s evident that the rest of the industry is not moving to embrace this open system. If, at some point in the future, the industry shows interest, then we would then be open to discussions about developing an interface that's designed for modern needs." http://www.zdnet.com/google-moves-away-from-the-xmpp-open-me...

Calling this an anti-openness move seems a little backwards when Google was the only company supporting federation to begin with!

Re: New Search Strategy for Firefox

#228

Post by drdaeman »

pwnna wrote: post #224
drdaeman wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, that's a pretty common misconception though. You surely can own a server (I do) but you just can't own a domain. You're merely leasing one from a registrar. You see, I strongly believe identity's an intrinsic property of a person, and if you need a provider for one there's something really wrong with the setup. I'm completely fine with asserting notaries, but not providers.

Yes. Identity is an intrinsic property of a person. However, how would you design a system to check this property? It's a very difficult property to measure. Having someone vouching for it is a relatively safe and easy way to do this.

As usual, with credentials.

It's just that credential must be something you can handle by yourself and not require a third party to provide to you. A third party may assert some aspect of your identity by providing a statement that the person who's in possession of the certain credentials has been verified by this notary to indeed have certain properties. But if me and some website are starting to become acquainted why do we need any third party as a strong requirement? When I walk into some office I don't have to show my passport, I just introduce myself and we get to the business. And then, if there's a necessity (!), business owner may ask me to provide some assertions of my identity. I don't see any reason it shouldn't work in a same manner on the web. Like, for example, "Hey there, you may call me Aleksey and here's my, say, public key so you could authenticate me at a later time."

Re: New Search Strategy for Firefox

#229

Post by graeme »

mightykan wrote: post #34
s4sharpie wrote: post #2

Looks like a smart move by Yahoo to be the default search for a major browser: google/chrome, bing/ie. This also means that Firefox will likely get some serious support from Yahoo in $$s to build back market share. Question is can they catch Google?

It'll be very interesting to see what this does to Bing's marketshare in six months or so, since Yahoo's search runs through Bing. Although we might never find out, I'm very curious to find out the terms of the deal. Did Yahoo pay more? What about Microsoft? Were MS as motivated since they, essentially had two horses in the race (Bing and Yahoo) vs. Google? Lots of fun little details. Edit: Typos

>It'll be very interesting to see what this does to Bing's marketshare in six months or so, since Yahoo's search runs through Bing.

Does Yahoo do their own tweaks? I just checked my site's ranking for a few terms in Bing vs. Yahoo. Bing gave much the same results as Google, whereas my site ranked significantly worse in Yahoo.

Re: New Search Strategy for Firefox

#230

Post by fumar »

twic wrote: post #159
geekam wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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),…

I have slowly moved to Microsoft Office Online. It has worked fine so far. I had become a heavy GDocs user and became accustomed to the simplified feature set. I think Office Online is decent free alternative.https://office.com/start/default.aspx
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