Slightly buried in the news that #Chrome will have to be sold off, there’s also news that Google cannot pay browsers to be their default search engine.
That’s going to have huge effects, especially for browsers like #Firefox - it’s going to be an interesting to see this pan out
#tech #webdev #google #programming #web #code #Mozilla
So a lawsuit against Google will end up killing Firefox?
@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.
1·1 day ago@hazz223 @superkret I do know what you meant, but i’m a pedant sorry…
Google paying to be the default browser
No it’s actually to be the default search engine within Firefox.
@MsDropbear425 @superkret sorry yes; you’re correct - typo on my part.
Question; how does one add a quote Luke you have?
I can’t seem to find documents on how to do it, and it doesn’t seem to be markdown?@hazz223 @superkret Ah, well, it is Markdown, but to apply it during drafting you have to be on an instance that supports it. Many non-Masto instances support it, eg, Friendica, Hubzilla, Diaspora iirc, Firefish, Misskey, Sharkey, Calckey etc, but only a subset of Masto instances do. Mine does, via its use of the
glitch.socfork. I don’t know if you might be able to appeal to your instance’s Admin, otherwise… you’d need to jump ship.@MsDropbear425 @superkret ahhhh ok, thanks!
Glad I’m not going totally mad
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?
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 😅
