> Historically, search engine royalties have been the main revenue driver for Mozilla. Back in 2014, the last year of the Google deal, that agreement brought in $323 million of the foundation’s $330 million in total revenue.
So basically Google was/is funding Firefox? Seems weird given the battle with Chrome for market share.
Google has funded Firefox since before Chrome was created. At that time Firefox was an important way to protect against Microsoft, which is able to use Internet Explorer to funnel traffic to Bing.
Now that Google has Chrome, I suppose the situation is a bit more nuanced. I imagine that for Google a Firefox install is still preferable to a Safari or Internet Explorer install. Also I suspect that Mozilla will often (although not always) be an ally to Google on web standards committees. Google (as the main web search engine) has a strong interest in growing the capabilities of web browsers and the web generally (vs other proprietary alternatives).
> Google (as the main web search engine) has a strong interest in growing the capabilities of web browsers and the web generally (vs other proprietary alternatives).
Is that true? Google's AMP initiative seems like a precursor to building their own walled garden.
AMP is pretty anti-walled-garden. It's specifically a way of getting the advantages of centralization (performance standards, caching by a central server) while making that the same advantages are available to competitors (see e.g. Twitter's use of AMP: https://searchengineland.com/twitter-ramps-amp-278300)
There is no real battle between Chrome and Firefox.
Google doesn't make money off Chrome, it is just a gateway to access profitable services. If Firefox gets users to the same place, there is no reason for Google to complain.
Googles approach is to own the roads, not be a car company...
Chrome is something that makes them money indirectly by ensuring fair access to services where Google has less to lose by openness than their competition. A loss leader, if you want to think of it that way.
Strategically it also puts Googles thumb on the scale of web standards and the enterprise market, and lets them shape both to their ends. Office Online 2025 is going to be a loooot more open if it has to work in Chrome in addition to MS NewEdge than if MS were successfully pushing a walled off stack from client to web, and being able to move over half the internets webbrowsers in any direction to support any given position puts them in the drivers seat wherever it matters to them.
Google is also using Chrome in their Chrome OS products which threaten massive volumes of seat licenses in their competition.
Considering direct monetisation of their webbrowser kinda misses the aims of that product, and their considerable income from related markets where openness ensures their viability and competitive advantages.
I see it as a Pepsi vs Coke or BMW vs Audi relationship. The head-to-head competition style gives the illusion that they're the only choices (thus removing Safari/IE from the conversation), and at the same time, both choices are under your influence.
So basically Google was/is funding Firefox? Seems weird given the battle with Chrome for market share.