So a lawsuit against Google will end up killing Firefox?
this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2024
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@superkret weirdly, yeah. Firefox gets the majority of its money from Google paying to be the default browser. If they're banned from doing that, a lot of browsers will see a big drop in funding.
And Chrome too. I don't really see how either of those can be viable without that search engine money.
If happens, it will start a clock ticking for Firefox to replace that income or shrink to a sustainable staff size before their money runs out.
Would Apple be banned from funding Firefox by this?
Why would Apple fund Firefox? Not for the kindness of their heart, that's for sure. I can see Microsoft/bing replacing google though.
For the same reason as Google, to be the default search engine.
https://www.macrumors.com/2024/08/07/will-apple-build-a-search-engine/
Note that it's not "will have to be" sold off, it's that the demand is for that to happen. The case still has to play out (including appeals) before we know what the actual consequences will be.
This is going to be very interesting. Not getting that sweet Google money anymore will Mozilla a) finally concentrate on making a good browser or b) enshittify all the things! I really wonder if it would possible for the community to maintain a fork when Mozilla implodes. It seems to be working for Thunderbird but E-Mail is probably a lot less complicated than keeping up with a gazillion webstandards pushed by thousands of Chrome engineers.
@jlow@beehaw.org
@hazz223@mstdn.social Hopefully Chrome can't do much better. Also hopefully Apple continues to make Safari good, but rejects adding more standards in general (a few might be good, but not too many)
@jlow if the Google funding dropped out, I really don't know how tenable it would be to keep the Gecko engine working / with pace with Chromium etc.
Ironic that this is to help competition, when really it'll probably end it.
That would be just awful, I cant really believe that is going to happen. I'd think it end up maybe be a browser for "just" browsing websites and you'd need a Chrom(ium) based one (or - like back the day! - specialised programs!) for fancy stuff like videocalling, DRM video playback, docs, chat and whatever else you do in the browser nowadays. Which would be awful as well but ...
What about operating systems? Apple sells out their users to Google in the same way for billions of dollars a year.
@zoostation good question. Though in Apples case, they're probably fine. They make a tonne of cash, and have a pile of it 😅