• chaotic_ugly@lemmy.zip
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    4 hours ago

    I’m not sure Firefox belongs on this list. Google finances Mozilla’s operation to the tune of $420M a year. It’s not for-profit, but it’s also not the same as the others.

    • yardratianSoma@lemmy.ca
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      48 minutes ago

      Google wants to finance anything they can get their damn search engine into, that’s not entirely the fault of Firefox. I still use a firefox-based browser, but only for now.

      There is ladybird on the horizon, a browser being built from scratch, not based on either Gecko or Webkit.

      • BCsven@lemmy.ca
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        17 minutes ago

        Google funds them so their is “competition” in the browser space, to ward of antitrust lawsuits

      • chaotic_ugly@lemmy.zip
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        2 hours ago

        Almost certainly not. All the offshoots from Mozilla’s tech rely first and foremost on Mozilla’s production of the foundational software, which eats up a significant portion of their roughly $500M/yr operational costs. The heavy development cost of modern browsers is why everything is either Chromium or Gecko-based.

        That said, Mozilla will be around as long as Chromium continues to dominate the market. Google literally funds Mozilla because it’s cheaper to prop up a competitor than it is to be sued by the government for monopolistic practices (check out 1998 decision against Microsoft for bundling Internet Explorer with Windows).