Smoke and mirrors more like it. They collaborate with Facebook and Google all the time. 80%-90% of their revenue comes from Google. Fighting the 'big guys' for real would mean shutting shop and never to be seen again.
Has Google ever mentioned anything about privacy? (privacy from hackers doesn't count, that's security) Do you think Apple, with the joke of a browser that is Safari and basically zero stake in the web, would be able to keep Google from turning the web into its own closed little sandbox?
Who would say "if Chrome kills adblockers, switch to our browser" and be able to actually sustain it, not just keep their Chromium fork slightly out of date for as long as they can get away with?
The only reason Firefox has been able to survive this long after Chrome's launch is Mozilla's historic importance. A new player could never dream to compete with Google - even Microsoft failed! If Mozilla folds, who else do you think will be able to compete with Google? Stallman himself?? This is the real world and compromises must be made.
What makes you think they're not doing that now and Mozilla's existence even matters in this case? Funny enough, they're only keeping Mozilla alive to avoid any antitrust cases.
> would be able to keep Google from turning the web into its own closed little sandbox?
Flawed argument. If Google all of a sudden stops funding Mozilla, do you think that they're going to continue development of the browser? Firefox has steadily been losing market share for years, the writing is on the walls.
The fact that Mozilla's existence itself depends on Big-Tech is one huge irony. It's like saying, “I'm against meat eating... Oh hey, my hamburger is here!”.
> Who would say "if Chrome kills adblockers, switch to our browser" and be able to actually sustain it, not just keep their Chromium fork slightly out of date for as long as they can get away with?
Literally Brave.
Firefox developers are still in the standards organisations and their position on new proposals does have some weight on the way they're written. Google is funding Mozilla for good PR, it's not like they're in any real danger from antitrust legislation. I say take the money if they're offering and do as much good for the web as you can until it runs out. It's not like you're sacrificing anything for it, it's basically free money.
> If Google all of a sudden stops funding Mozilla, do you think that they're going to continue development of the browser?
I don't know, but even if they immediately drop Firefox when that happens, we still have it until then. If Firefox disappears now, we're fucked. But who knows what might change until then - maybe someone figures out a business model for browsers, or some other tech or policy makes it easier to compete. When/if that happens, starting from a near-monopoly is way better than a complete monopoly.
> Literally Brave
What was that about ethics again? Also, it's just a closely following Chromium fork, so they don't really have a say in how Blink develops.
We should not be talking about ethics if we're talking about Mozilla either. From shameless extension backdoors to not blocking trackers from Google on purpose, it's all over the place when it comes to ethics and privacy. At least Brave directly challenges Big Tech by making bolder decisions to block them instead of being afraid like Firefox, enabling trackers and not providing any privacy against Google.
What Brave has done with respect to privacy features, Firefox couldn't even do it in decades:
https://brave.com/privacy-updates/
I do understand that Brave is a chromium fork and that they depend on Chromium for patches but this is still a FOSS browser that is independently funded and has better statistical chances of survival than Firefox. Brave's MAU is very good, almost doubling every year since its first release. On top of that, they're the only existing company that challenges Big Tech search engine monopoly by actually providing a great privacy focused search engine that is also independently indexed.
Firefox is a series of unfulfilled promises and failures. An untapped potential ruined by management.
