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Comment by philipallstar | Hacker News Reader

> They dont have the advantage of owning the OS (android/chrome and iOS / Safari)

They don't need to. Chrome does extremely well on Windows without "owning the OS".

> nor the advantage of advertising on the google home page like chrome

Very few people go to that page anyway.

> The "customers" they are courting are security/privacy zealots who constantly want them "just work on the browser" but never seem to have an answer on how to pay for that.

They already get half a billion dollars a year from Google for very little in exchange. They just need to spend that money on the website browser and not nonsense.

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> They already get half a billion dollars a year from Google for very little in exchange. They just need to spend that money on the website browser and not nonsense.

QFT. The biggest impediment to Firefox's success is the Mozilla Org, which sees it as a cash cow to fund a zillion projects no one wants (sacrificing the future of the browser everyone wants).

Quantum field theory? Quiet Firefox tremors? What is this QFT you speak of?

Quarterly Financial Targets? Questionable Functionality and Technology?

Quoted for truth

Quoted for the truth.

Windows is not really a growing user base in a lot of places it is in decline.

Most "internet users" are mobile. The ones using windows are doing it from work laptops that are locked down and use edge (chrome).

If windows was a growing market MS would not be so far down the extraction path they have gone with the OS.

Edge still doesn't have a market share as big as Chrome, even among desktop browsers. Chrome is still a behemoth at 70% of all desktop browser usage.

Silly take. Chrome does extremely well on Windows because every Google site, from search to Youtube to Gmail to Docs nudges people to install it. Without that 99% of people would just stay on Edge.

Firefox as "just a browser" that is entirely dependent on funding from its main competitor just isn't a future-proof solution. That's why they keep on trying to come up with new revenue streams.

> Silly take. Chrome does extremely well on Windows because every Google site, from search to Youtube to Gmail to Docs nudges people to install it. Without that 99% of people would just stay on Edge.

No they wouldn't. Everyone recommended Chrome, and it came long before Edge (given Edge is based on Chromium). People have got used to Chrome. That's why it does well. People don't even interact with those sites so much any more, as they've all moved to phone apps, but they all still use Chrome.

> Firefox as "just a browser" that is entirely dependent on funding from its main competitor just isn't a future-proof solution. That's why they keep on trying to come up with new revenue streams.

Just paying far fewer executives and putting money aside for lean years is a good start. Put aside $150m/year and spend $100m on servers and engineers and that'll get you a long way. But because it's free money it gets spent on nonsense.

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