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Mozilla Was "Outfoxed" by Google

Accepted submission by takyon at 2019-04-16 14:38:12
Software

Mozilla "Got Outfoxed" by Google – Former VP Accuses Google for Sabotaging Firefox [wccftech.com]

Former Mozilla VP, Johnathan Nightingale, has called out on Google for what could only be termed as anti-competitive practices. In a Twitter thread on a somewhat unrelated subject, Nightingale said that during his 8 years at Mozilla, Google was the company's biggest partner. "Our revenue share deal on search drove 90% of Mozilla's income," he tweeted.

However, that doesn't mean Google wasn't involved in some underhand practices. "When I started at Mozilla in 2007 there was no Google Chrome and most folks we spoke with inside were Firefox fans," Nightingale wrote [twitter.com]. "When chrome launched things got complicated, but not in the way you might expect. They had a competing product now, but they didn't cut ties, break our search deal – nothing like that. In fact, the story we kept hearing was, 'We're on the same side. We want the same things.'"

"I think our friends inside google genuinely believed that. At the individual level, their engineers cared about most of the same things we did. Their product and design folks made many decisions very similarly and we learned from watching each other. But Google as a whole is very different than individual googlers," Nightingale added.

Google Chrome ads started appearing next to Firefox search terms. gmail & gdocs started to experience selective performance issues and bugs on Firefox. Demo sites would falsely block Firefox as "incompatible."

All of this is stuff you're allowed to do to compete, of course. But we were still a search partner, so we'd say "hey what gives?"

And every time, they'd say, "oops. That was accidental. We'll fix it in the next push in 2 weeks."

Usage share of web browsers [wikipedia.org].

Previously: After 10 Years with Google, Firefox Switches to Yahoo [soylentnews.org]
Netmarketshare Claims Mozilla Firefox Usage Drops Below Ten Percent [soylentnews.org]
Mozilla CEO Warns Microsoft's Switch to Chromium Will Give More Control of the Web to Google [soylentnews.org]
Is Google Using an "Embrace, Extend..." Strategy? [soylentnews.org]
Google Denies Altering YouTube Code to Break Microsoft Edge [soylentnews.org]
Microsoft Employee Sparks Outrage by Suggesting Firefox Switch Browser Engine to Chromium [soylentnews.org]

Related: Firefox 29 is a Flop; UI Design Trends Only Getting Worse [soylentnews.org]
Mozilla Teases Chromium-Based Firefox, Then Pulls Back [soylentnews.org]
Can the New Firefox Quantum Regain its Web Browser Market Share? [soylentnews.org]
Firefox 64 Will Remove Support for RSS and Atom Feeds [soylentnews.org]
Microsoft Reportedly Building a Chromium-Based Web Browser to Replace Edge, and "Windows Lite" OS [soylentnews.org]


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