Firefox is in big trouble, there’s no point trying to sugarcoat the truth here folks. In addition to slipping from 25% to 22% in the most recent market share results, we are now also hearing word that the search partnership with Google which made up over 84% of the company’s revenues is about to expire, and may not be renewed. The Google deal according to Mozilla’s financial statements was set to expire at the end of November, and so far nobody at the company has confirmed any extensions.
It’s still possible a new deal will be worked out at the eleventh hour, but you have to wonder if that’s even in Google’s best interests anymore. When Google originally signed the deal with Mozilla, Chrome was little more than a comic doodle on ambitious programmer’s desk. Fast forward to 2011 and they are now in a neck and neck race for second place with over 18% of the market depending on who you ask.
Google knows Firefox will only hurt itself further if they change their default search engine, leaving Mozilla in a difficult bargaining position.
Comments are closed on this article
Big-Kid777
December 14, 2011 at 5:09pm
FF dropped the fox when it rolled out FF4 claiming it to be the best thing since pockets on shirts. Instead of rolling it out the front door, it needed to go back to the starting door. These guys and gals and foxets did not test a damn thing or they would have seen that it DID NOT work as stated.
To make things worst, they refuse to respond to folks that pointed out the problems, and to make it worse, FF failed to fix problems. Instead, the just rolled more dysfunctional crap with more problems. Result, most of us just refused to update anymore or just said screw em.
I just got an email from FF today beggin for $$$. If they were spending time fixing problems and PROOF TESTING IT, maybe we would consider a donation. As it is, no way Jose.
Google should not matter, We would always have Google search on our desktop anyway, BUT NO MATTER, if the WON"T make FF work as they claim, they need to go the way of the Saber Toothed Tiger, or the Green Footed Red Haired Horny Toad.
mpcusr
December 08, 2011 at 6:39pm
the greatest thing about FF has always been its focus on privacy and user control. those to my mind are its greatest assets and for it to be swallowed up by one of the, if not THE greatest criminal out there when it comes to invasion of privacy, google, would be a catastrophe.
Firefox should ditch google and team up with Ixquick search engine, and push the privacy issue with all possible zeal.
btw FF is not "largely" broken, just a bit buggy. to me it's always been worth it to know i'm using something open source, under constant development, with people enthused for all the right reasons. i'd a million times that than feel like a led by the nose blind consumer with some horrible opaque browser like IE. having read this alarming article i'm ditching chrome after today no matter how fast the evil thing is
Steevo
December 08, 2011 at 9:55am
Firefox is largely broken in multiple ways.
The password manager is terribly unreliable.
I have put test cases on Bugzilla about it and all the defensive fighting I got was unbelievable.
Different wrong opinions. Certain people disagree about it being broken, though I proved the problem.
No one in charge ready to make an executive decision. To fix things. Users get frustrated when things don't work the way they expect them to work.Firefox is starting to really show that it's being written by hundreds of different people.
No one strong in charge. It's like Linux in that respect.I have put in bug reports that are now over 5 years old. Never worked on by anyone. The bugs are still there.
Security issues too, often caused by Adobe Flash, it's nearly impossible to update that often enough. But Firefox has it's own security problems.
The best things about Firefox are obviously the extensions, some of which are so good they keep me using a largely defective browser.
Adblock is the main one. That thing is the bomb. If IE had that I would just use IE.If Firefox is going to progress and be a force in the future someone is going to have to take responsibility for things. Decide how things are going to work and how they are not going to work. Override the volunteer developers objections when it's necessary for survival of the project.
Not sure what can be done about the company's revenue stream from Google. Google now has chrome, a largely crippled browser if you ask me. Why would they want to pay Firefox that much?
Pression de Gonflage
December 08, 2011 at 4:08am
As a newbie here, may I preface my observations by saying Good Morning to other members.
Now to my comment; a lot of people have complained in many forums about the instability of Firefox 4.0.0 and later. As a non-techie I wonder if I am missing something.
When FF went from the threes to the fours, I dutifully, updated. After a week or so of trying to resolve the various problems I backtracked to 3.6.24. Stability restored ! Regular exhortations to update "for security reasons" were duly ignored.
I would be interested to hear the opinions of other users.
Thank you.
win7fanboi
December 08, 2011 at 10:47am
Greetings, new member. Do you use any of the plugins? I like no-script, lastpass and adblocker plus. I wonder if I can get updates on those plugins while staying back to 3.6.24. Also, I couldn't help but feel like I am missing out on important security/bug fixes but maybe that's not the case.
Ervserver
December 06, 2011 at 6:59pm
Firefox has sure gone down hill...somebody there lost the vision
glamdring
December 05, 2011 at 1:55pm
I think Google will, because if they don't Microsoft is just drooling to get any one to use Bing. They even give you free stuff just for searching with Bing now, I bet they are standing outside Mozzila with a suitcase of money. I bet Microsoft will make a bid to Mozilla even if Google plans to renew the contract.
glamdring
December 05, 2011 at 2:00pm
"Google knows Firefox will only hurt itself further if they change their default search engine, leaving Mozilla in a difficult bargaining position."
Really? The simple steps of changing your homepage and clicking the little arrow to change you search engine to another one of pre-installed options? Firefox with Bing wouldn't stop most people form using it, if your to lazy to make exactly 3 mouse clicks total to change the homepage and search engine you have problems.
Slugbait
December 05, 2011 at 5:16pm
I recall reading about four years ago that statistics showed MSN was the most-visited website in the world each year for about five years in a row. Today, their Alexa rank has dropped all the way down to #12 world-wide (they rank 14th in the US).
How did they manage such mind-boggling rankings? It was IE's default home page.
Tens of millions of people never take the effort to change their homepage or search engine. Even if they switch browsers. Google knows this fact, as does Mozilla. Those people's "problems" mean serious money to whomever gets the eyeballs.
glamdring
December 06, 2011 at 12:11am
Oh I know, that is why MS would pay big for it. But he says FireFox will further hurt it's self, I don't think this is true. I don't know anyone who is going to use a new browser, so they don't have to change the homepage. It's more to bother downloading a switching over to a new browser than to just change the homepage.
kuebel33
December 05, 2011 at 8:46am
I've been a die hard Firefox user for many years now, but to be honest, I've had more issues with Firefox crashing/leaking since they got to 4.0. All these "major" releases suck. They've gone from 4.0 to 8.0 in less than a year. It's ridiculous and it seems the browser just gets more and more unstable as we go. Sure, it could have something to do with my end, but I sincerely doubt it since it appears to be this way on every machine I touch (at work, at home, etc.)
It's sad when 3.5.9 seems to be more stable than any newer version. Unfortunately, I never got on the chrome bandwagon, but it looks like I just may have to give it a go. IE.. well I'd rather just avoid it.
Brewskie
December 05, 2011 at 8:15am
Poor Mozilla
They haven't learned that when you get in bed with the devil, you end up with Rose Mary's baby.
livebriand
December 04, 2011 at 5:25pm
The thing is, google is really becoming greedy, like all other corporations. Not being nice to competition, shoving chrome ads everywhere and putting it in other installers as a trojan-like opt-out install... that's why I dumped it and went back to Firefox. If Microsoft dumped their proprietary IE and instead started embedding firefox, I would be very happy.
poee
December 05, 2011 at 9:37am
I agree. Google isn't Brin and Page's genius little startup anymore. Under Eric Schmidt and the like, it has been slowly morphing into the next evil empire, and the goodwill I and many others had for that brand has greatly diminished. Chrome is a decent, fast browser, but I don't trust Google anymore, especially with all the additional info they collect on you when you use Chrome.
They have become arrogant and insulated; out-of-touch with their average users. They have grown up and come into their own as an impersonal global conglomerate in aggressive pursuit of dominating the Internet. They know more about you and your interests, persuasions, contacts, habits, history, and finances than the Federal government does. We are NOT Google's customers. We are Google's product that they sell to their actual customers: advertisers. Google cares about their users, yes. Similar to the way a fisherman has concern for his bait.
The relationship between Google and typical Internet users is carefully packaged and marketed such that its underlying adversarial nature is easily mistaken for a trusted "partnership." Perhaps an earthworm imagines that it is in a partnership with the fisherman? He is a nice fisherman, and seems quite trustworthy after all...
gibsurfer84
December 04, 2011 at 3:47pm
iJedi touched on a thought - Just imagine if MS "buys" up FF and replaces IE with it? Heh, I'd like to see that....GOODBYE activeX!
livebriand
December 04, 2011 at 5:34pm
If they did that, man, they would have a HUGE weapon against google. It would mean all these IE users being switched over to FF I suppose, plus there are already a lot of people on FF, and that just makes things a lot harder for google (who I don't support due to their tactic of putting Chrome opt-out installation stuff in other programs). It's kinda unfair that google is getting ahead when they have tons of budget for advertising and mozilla doesn't.
I Jedi
December 04, 2011 at 11:19am
To be honest, and I think there are a lot of people freaking out over this issue, including myself at one point; however, I think what we have to understand is that if Google doesn't decide to backup Mozilla again for another round of funding, there is one other entity that can and might - Microsoft. Yes, the same company that hates open source, but the one thing Microsoft would hate to see happen more is for Google Chrome to take over Firefox's market share ontop of its (Chrome) current share. What we have to understand is that Mozilla, if you look at it from my perspective, is in a great position as it is. True, losing support from Google would be a big hit, but that doesn't mean another competitor, again Microsoft, couldn't cover the costs of Google's position.
Microsoft and Mozilla share a lose friendship with one another with the I.E. team and the Firefox team, and to top this cake as I said before, it's entirely in Microsoft's own interest to not allow Mozilla to crumble. Could you imagine Google Chrome eating up a majority of the market share in five years from now from Firefox's fall? It would be devastating for Microsoft's fight in the browser market. Yes, Microsoft does control the majority of the browser market right now, but that percentage only seems to get lower with time. For now, it's not in Microsoft's best interest to let Mozilla die. It's also not in Google's best interest to allow millions of dollars of revenue it gets back from Mozilla from its current default search engine to change to a Bing default search engine in Firefox.
If Google doesn't back up Mozilla again, which I highly doubt that they wouldn't backup Mozilla again, then I'm willing to bet that Microsoft comes in to save the day for Mozilla. Just another reason why I love Microsoft. Finally, for anyone who says that because Mozilla is open source, that it can and will survive - yes and no. The project will go on, but we have to understand that the amount of people being paid to make the Mozilla foundation what it is will disappear. That means that we lose significant amounts of talented hands that make Mozilla what it is. I'm not saying that all talent would disappear in the event Mozilla lost funding, but the applications we've come to enjoy we'll probably not be the same. I dare to say that Mozilla might just become a community pet project, in which it looses significant market share but has a small user base. Believe me, the last thing we need is for Mozilla's funding to go dry. It's not as if Mozilla spends its $100 million it gets from Google to advertise Firefox.
Danthrax66
December 04, 2011 at 2:33pm
Microsoft doesn;t hate Open Source anymore. They didn't embrace it when they were building their empire because all of th analyst saw it as a path that wouldn't lead to enough profit. Now there are a ton of companies that are breaking that mold and as a result MS is now the number one contributor to the linux kernel, because they understand the importance. I also doubt this google deal would destroy Mozilla, they survived without it in the past and, arguably, produced better browsers in the past. I think if anything the additional money available tot hem has had an inverse effect, they went away from their roots of making something better than everyone else, instead releasing a bloated product with ridiculous memory leaks. Either way I hope this forces them to take a look at what they are doing and release a browser worthy of beating google.
pocosdad
December 04, 2011 at 10:58am
Linux Mint 12 has gone to Duckduckgo as its default search engine for FF already. I was gladto see this since I have been a user of DDG for some time and prefer it to google or any of the engines that give results based upon advertising dollars. DDG just gives me a nice clean result and not a bunch of sidetarcking sites.
glamdring
December 05, 2011 at 1:56pm
DDG is a great search engine! Not only dose it give clean results, it doesn't track you all the time.
RtDK
December 04, 2011 at 10:37am
Considering that Firefox is entirely open-source, I don't think I'd worry too much about it disappearing. There will always be a number of developers working with it. Plus, didn't Mozilla make a deal with MS and Bing recently?
Neel Chauhan
December 04, 2011 at 10:17am
Anyways I hated FF. They shoved updates up our a**es every 3 weeks which broke plugins like Java. I got sick and tired of these updates so I decided to uninstall firefox and use something else for the web. And what else, FF likes to eat memory.
win7fanboi
December 05, 2011 at 8:58am
Ironically, what makes FF great is also its achilles heel - plugins. They have unfettered access to your data and I think the safest option is to use FF for normal internet use with plugins like no-script and adblock plus and use chrome for online banking and other critical tasks.
Also, I don't see why Google has to bend over backwards and help their competitors every chance they get. I mean most of their services are free, they even come out with google voice, maps , gmail, etc apps for other plathforms. All the while they get blamed for making their search engine "too good" and giving their competition hard time. There, there, congressmen, feeling like throwing up 'cause google doesn't need unfair advantage(laws) to succeed and hence don't pay you guys via lobbyist enough? Tough shit.
Svetty Parabols
December 04, 2011 at 2:40pm
Firstly, It is the plug in's developer responsibility to update their plug ins, not Mozilla.
Secondly, Mozilla has been using considerably less memory since they have been working on it for the last 3 or 4 updates.
Please continue using Google chrome though... I don't think you could handle anything more than a information tracking, Fisher Price browser anyways.
Supall
December 05, 2011 at 7:10am
Firstly, It is the plug in's developer responsibility to update their plug ins, not Mozilla.
Incorrect. There should be no reason why all plug-ins break upon an update. NONE. The reason why I prefer Chrome over FF now is simple - its faster, it has a large library of plug-ins, and when there is an update, it doesn't break the plug-ins you installed. Its the developer's responsibility to update their products, yes. But its the Mozilla team's responsibility to make sure their platform can be updated without breaking anything.
GaryIKILLYOU
December 05, 2011 at 4:39am
So instead of actually giving reasons why you support FF, you just slam the guy?
1. It's a web browser, how hard does it have to be to use?
2. But FF still has memory leaks/ still uses more memory.
Personally I use Chrome with FF on occasion. They honestly seem too much the same. Chrome to me seems a bit faster in certain places. So I use it. Plus, with extensions that are comparable to FF, and an open source version (Chromium) available allows Chrome to be a top notch contender.
Chrome hasn't gotten closer and closer to the top for no reason.
But please continue using Mozilla Firefox thought, I don't think you could understand how Chrome is used with your minimalistic brainpower, other than of course Ctrl+Shift+N for your "incognito" browsing.
praetor_alpha
December 04, 2011 at 4:24pm
Please continue using Google chrome though... I don't think you could handle anything more than a information tracking, Fisher Price browser anyways.
I've been looking for a mildly insulting description of Chrome. You hit it on the head with that one. Thanks.
siramic
December 04, 2011 at 12:19pm
I agree. Not only with some of F.F. Add Ons, but with some security software vendors antiphishing, safe search extensions that sometimes can take them 2 weeks to 2 months to get it to be compatiable with the major F.F. revision updates.
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