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Google benefits from being the default search engine in Firefox. They wouldn't pay $100 million per year to Mozilla if there wasn't some reasonable return on that investment. I imagine that the search traffic generated by Firefox will remain valuable to Google until FF's market share drops into the single digits.

The article implies that Google is charitably allowing Firefox to exist ("Google doesn't need Firefox anywhere near as much as Firefox needs Google."). I'd like to the think the Google-Mozilla relationship is mutually beneficial.

Firefox may become a viable alternative to Android's built-in browser once the native UI version is complete.

[sliverstorm]

Google doesn't need Firefox anywhere near as much as Firefox needs Google

Even if true, that doesn't mean Google doesn't need Firefox.