this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2023
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Privacy
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Given that Firefox is now faster than Chrome I see no reason to remain.
Momentum. And it's likely most people won't be about to tell, or regularly run comparisons to find out for themselves. Theres enough value added to Chrome that people kind of assume it's "the best" ... It took me years to convince my boss to switch, but the one thing that did it for him was just that the PDF viewer is better in Firefox.
People have weird preferences that don't always line up with what software developers expect.
but isn't Firefox itself basically paid by Google? I can't see it as a threat to Google full control of the web
Google is their biggest donor. They pay $$$ to be the default search engine in Firefox.
But Microsoft would happily give a not-insignificant amount to have Bing be the default search engine, and everyone knows it.
It's a symbiotic relationship. Google sorta need to pay up. Firefox needs the funding.
Google does not control the running of Firefox.
If you rely on Google donation in order to survive, at the end of the day you are under some sort of control. I'm not saying that Google is running Firefox directly, of course, but if Firefox would grow enough to became a problematic competitor for Chrome, they would definitively have the power to step in. So, how really free can they be?
Mozilla's definitely aware of this, but since all the competitors' browsers are free it's hard to make inroads on other means of profit.
I thought Google funding Firefox was the cheapest way to fend off an antitrust issue?