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Comment by UweSchmidt | Hacker News Reader

It is very important to use Firefox: For Microsoft, Apple or Google their "free" browser MUST eventually be a pawn in their corporate strategy. It's one thing to use a service from a company, but conceding this crucial puzzle piece to any one company? I don't know about that. Mozilla takes money from Google and others, but ultimately depends 100% on a free internet.

One could argue which browser is a little ahead in any area, and which one needs "revitalization", to use a word from the article, but Firefox would have to seriously fall behind before I would switch browsers. Do you think ad-blockers would be a thing if it was between Chrome, Safari and IE? A lot depends on a single number: Firefox' market share.

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I agree with you. Have confidence in a international company whose main revenue is internet advertisement is not the best way to grantee people to have the Internet freedom.

Browsing with a Google browser make me feel like riding an Exxon car.

How many people would still use Chrome if Google rebranded it as "DoubleClick Chrome"? :)

That's genius, you can do the same for any Google service and double check your own response. :)

Firefox has also been a pawn in Mozilla's corporate strategies many times.

They changed Firefox users' default search engine to Yahoo, not only in new installations but overriding existing settings, after Mozilla cut a deal with Yahoo.

Mozilla also backed EME, eventually, a big threat to free internet as we knew it, among many other things.

If you take this history into account, portraying Firefox as being unblemished by Mozilla Corporation's monetization schemes and guardian of the free internet is just romantic fiction.

> They also backed EME,

No they didn't. They argued and fought against EME until it was clear that there was no way they would win. At that point they implemented it so that they could stay relevant, without it their market share would be even lower and they'd have zero chance of getting market share again.

And market share isn't a "corporate" concern, it is vital to their non-profit mission.

All that being said, that doesn't mean I'm happy with everything they do. Just arguing on that one point.

You just gave details on how and why they flipped their stance on EME. And you're essentially saying they traded market share for their principles about free internet. You're basically agreeing with me.

> At that point they implemented it so that they could stay relevant,

...instead of fighting it without giving up.

> And market share isn't a "corporate" concern

This literally makes 0 sense to me. Do you actually believe this? Market share share is vital to Mozilla Corporation's business, which they have been using to cut million dollar deals with Yahoo, Google, etc. I don't wanna go all the want and say "you're the product", but they basically monetize their collective user base. So regardless of how they/you spin it, I don't buy that it's not a corporate concern.

To be clear, I meant market share isn't solely a corporate concern. Certainly it is in the corporation's best interest, but it is also a very big interest from a non-profit/altruistic perspective.

Don't forget the Pocket integration that nobody asked for.

A trip down memory lane: (a brave stance)

"Bug 923590 - Pledge never to implement HTML5 DRM": https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=923590

From 2013: https://brendaneich.com/2013/10/the-bridge-of-khazad-drm/

From 2014: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/05/14/drm-and-the-challen...

Content blockers would exist for Safari, yes. Apple doesn't depend on ad revenue or tracking and therefore this differentiates them from Google.

Seeing as Firefox has terrible market share on iOS, and Apple still offered Content blocking... I think it's clear Firefox has no impact on the matter.

For most people (at least on Macbooks) the logic is this: this extension isn't on Safari.. -> Chrome. Hey, my battery life is cut in half -> Firefox. Battery life still cut in half, but now scrolling sucks too.. -> Safari with substitute extension

For me it's which browser am I least likely to get my machine owned. I'll be happy to switch back to Firefox when they aren't near the bottom of that list.

http://www.cvedetails.com/product/3264/Mozilla-Firefox.html?...

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