this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2023
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Won't this kill Firefox? As far as I understand Google is providing a lot of funding with the default search engine agreement.
Related: https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4387539/firefox-money-investigating-the-bizarre-finances-of-mozilla
It would definitely require a substantial effort for Mozilla to find other funding. If I were Mozilla right now I would be trying to secure other deals to act as a safety net if this ruling goes through.
That said, with Firefox being open source apart from the branding another group could pick up development if Mozilla were to somehow go under. One of the popular "spins" of Firefox could become the predominant version and could see further browser development there.
It basically already has killed Firefox for normies, though. It's just taking a long time to die. Have a look at their market share over the last decade. Hopefully enough people keep using it that it stays actively developed, but that's hardly guaranteed.
It only needs enough users that Google keeps paying enough to be the default search engine.