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Firefox lost users during “failed” Yahoo search deal, says Mozilla CEO
(arstechnica.com)
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this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023
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Another interesting comment Mozilla's takeaway from the experiment was that Firefox "users made it clear that they look for and want and expect Google.”
that's not really Mozilla's fault, users are too locked into Google and that's ultimately Google's fault.
Although I don't like at all that Mozilla is funded by Google and testified in their favor.
I saw it more as testifying about why they did what they did
Ultimately the message is still 'we had to use Google to survive, they have that much control over the space'
I'm of two minds. I use Firefox for privacy reasons and don't use Google if I can avoid it, but I have to admit that chrome was leagues better than other popular browsers at the time. It's no accident that they ran away with the market share even when IE was on everyone's computer by default.
Now they've gotten huge and their search engine has gone to shit. So it goes with infinite growth. I'm with Firefox for now, but I've learned the hard way not to totally trust any piece of software.
You can export EVERYTHING, Forward email, and have alternatives for every thing. It's incredibly easy to move away from Google.
It's a choice. There is no lock in.
oh definitely. I haven't used a Google service in 5 years. But Google's lock in is not forced, it's one that relies on people tech illiteracy, comfort and not knowing better.
I disagree. It's easier to use.
Look I have commits to PHP, python, cncf, and hasicorp shit. Running that stuff takes effort and skill. I design and implement multicloud fail over resiliency apps professionally. I have zero fucking desire to run jellyfin at home.
Google offers valuable services and you don't need to be a tech illiterate boomer to find value in the services they offer. I don't want to have to explain why a raid failure lost 20 years of photos and Google is going to put a hell of a lot more effort into that than I will.
Not gonna lie. This is the kind of tech illiteracy people are talking about.
In the specific case of setting up Jellyfin, it takes about 10 minutes, you do it once, never have to do it again, and it has no programming skill requirement to it.
These services google offer thrive on ignorance of alternatives, they're not any easier to use than the alternatives.
No it's fucking not when you have to support a fucking family or ultimately are responsible for backups or service for family members.
Jellyfin fucks up just like Plex. If it's translations a busted fine from a bad torrent, usenet having incomplete manifests (yes, this is a I've been doing this longer than your life comment), or a shitty default download setting from *darr service.
I don't want to fucking deal with my family bitching at me for support when paw patrol episodes don't line up with the automated scan of my library.
Christ, even with my low key, I fucking commit to core Linux highly available services technology comment I still run into assholes trying to acklutally me while ignoring that I don't want to run a help desk.
I'm surpsied (but obviously shouldn't be) that that many potential users would instantly bounce off Firefox instead of changing the default search engine.
Honestly, the association with Yahoo just makes the platform look like a joke. Like, the first time you do a search and it pops up as Yahoo your first instinct is thinking you're using the wrong thing.
Yup it could be literally anything else but yahoo
Nothing binds me to my browser besides my bookmarks which can be exported, my addons which are usually on both platforms and my history.
At home and on my phone I use FF and am mostly happy.
At work I choose Chrome because most websites work best in it.
It's not really that surprising that the average user wants the most popular search engine instead of yahoo (of all things) baked in, whatever your views on Google.
To be honest I find that hard to believe, but who knows? It's a crazy world after all.
Im also not convinced. If it were a DDG default it would just make the browser better.
To be clear, I'm not even using DDG as my main search.
DDG is just Bing on the backend. Why is the megacorp Microsoft preferable to the megacorp Google?
I was under the impression that DDG is pretty private and while underlying search is Bing, bing can't track the searches to individuals
Maybe not the individual, but you're still training an internet giant, just a different one.
I'd also be fine with Startpage, want, whatever. They have to use something and they can't exactly make some poor selfhosters searing instance the Firefox default
That's not really true. It uses multiple sources, including their own search engine, to give results. Basically the only thing they don't include is Google. In practice Bing often produces the majority of the results, but it's not "just Bing on the backend". I mean, DDG is older than Bing after all, so it would be a little weird if they didn't have their own search engine.
Even if it was just a frontend for Bing that wouldn't really be a bad thing. Ecosia is, and that's a pretty good search engine. Being one of millions of users all privately receiving the same anonymized results already makes Bing much less problematic.
Bing as a brand, sure. But Bing was just a rebranded Windows Live Search, which was a rebranded MSN Search
Sure, but nobody seriously thinks Duckduckgo was originally based off Windows Live Search, because it wasn't. Nobody cared about Windows Live Search, because it sucked. They rebranded when it became halfway competent. I don't think the ancient history of Microsoft search engines is really relevant to the point I was making.
So what if it didn't use Bing at launch? It wasn't privacy-focused then, either. I'm talking about the present, not the past. Even in their own FAQ they acknowledge that results are mostly Bing.
Do you have a response to my point that the data is just going to different megacorp?
Did you even bother to read most of my post? I literally acknowledged that most of their results are from Bing in it, and also pointed out that I would care if that was actually all they did.
The actual point I was trying to make that you completely ignored is that I care about preventing the harm of information collection, not preventing anyone from learning anything out of pure spite.
I don't trust Microsoft as far as I could throw them, but being one of millions of people sending them information that has been anonymized before they receive it doesn't actually harm anyone, so I don't think it's a bad thing. You can be privacy conscious without being completely paranoid and closed off from the world.