[graham_paul]

As a Firefox fan, I really hope it happens again and again. It's good for the web as a whole when Chrome fails and Firefox doesn't.

As a technical person, you should be advocating the use of (real, community owned) open source browsers not just whatever the majority uses.

I feel that Google's monopoly on the browser market for desktops will be more and more endangered as they (for legitimate business reasons) refuse to provide the services and processes that a modern browser user/developer deserves.

[coolspot]

1) Chromium is open-source as well.

2) Like 90% of Mozilla revenue comes from contract with Google.

3) Not sure what community-owned means here, but one could submit useful patch to both Chromium and Mozilla teams and have it accepted into main codebase.

4) Decisions for both products are not made by a community, but by internal full-time employees who are subordinates of CEO. Mozilla CEO knows the company absolutely can’t lose that contract with Google.

[graham_paul]

1. No, it is not. Chromium relies on binaries as well as calling Google's web services whose code you cannot read. That is why ungoogled-chromium is a thing

2. Not sure what your point is here. Mozilla needs to make money to maintain and improve its advocacy work

3. See point 1. You don't own or control Google's web services nor its domains therefore you have no full control of the build process if Google decides to shut down its services. If you want to see what community owned means, I suggest you look at the Python community. No hidden binaries or mysterious calls to corporate web services

4. Google's goal is to make money, Mozilla is to keep an open web. Obviously, Google has potential business conflicts while Mozilla doesn't, Mozilla wins even if it dies as long as the web is kept open, Google wins if it makes money full stop

You simply cannot compare them. Just look at Chrome in a fully Google-owned environment (Android), it does not even have extensions.

[kelnos]

> Not sure what your point is here. Mozilla needs to make money to maintain and improve its advocacy work

I think the point is that Google could one day just say "hmm, we don't care about being the default search engine on Firefox anymore", decide to not renew the contract, and there's goes Mozilla's biggest source of revenue. With Firefox's market share as low as it is, I wouldn't be surprised to see it happen.

It's a bit risky when a large chunk of your revenue comes from a single company, and it's incredibly risky when that company is essentially a competitor.

[ferzul]

if mozilla dies, the open web is over. mozilla has been the champion of the open web through two browser monopolies and the five minutes in between. without them, all that is left is a the internet archive and wikipedia, neither of which can hold the web open.

[ric2b]

1) Chrome != Chromium.

And even Chromium depends a lot on Google services...

[notriddle]

Firefox has gotten plenty of flack from extension authors. So have Apple and Microsoft.

The widespread failure of every major app store makes me skeptical that Google is going to improve. It's a good sign that it isn't possible, but even if it is, it's not going to happen unless a competitor forces it.

[Mindwipe]

Firefox's extension signing has failed in similar ways.