We and Mozilla are working together to make the web awesome

https://plus.google.com/114128403856330399812/posts/9dKsD7Mi7JU

by nr0mx • 15 years ago

278 85 15 years ago

plus.google.com

Mozilla is putting a lot of resources; including some of their best coders, into advancing mobile. I don't see the same on Google's side. Am I wrong?

jiggy2011• 15 years ago

Android?

kevingadd• 15 years ago

Android's browser isn't nearly as good as Chrome or Firefox and only gets updated with the OS (which means never, for most phones).

DasIch• 15 years ago

Android and iPhone are the only mobile platforms worth worrying about for the rather longterm goal of improving the web, both have good browsers.

So unlike Mozilla Google is not practically irrelevant on mobile platforms, why then should they invest more money?

MatthewPhillips3• 15 years ago

I disagree that both have good browsers. What I'm worried about is the lack of emphasis that seems to be placed; Android browser is missing a lot of html5 features (according to caniuse.com it only supports 66% of current features in Android 4.0).

Mozilla, on the other hand, seems to be making mobile a priority with all of the work they are doing in WebAPI. Their browser is updating a lot faster than Android's, which I believe still only updates with OS upgrades.

zobzu6• 15 years ago

is it about market shareor advancing mobile?

the point, right there.

rmc• 15 years ago

They have sponsored and released the only modern smartphone OS that isn't locked down to one company like iOS. They (through Android) are to Apple, what OpenOffice/LibreOffice is to MS Office. They are the reason Apple don't own smartphone. With Google/Android what would be the Apple competitor? Blackberry? OpenMoko?!

MatthewPhillips3• 15 years ago

In the context of this posting, I'm specifically talking about the mobile web.

Xuzz3• 15 years ago

Maybe the only popular one, but certainly not the only one. In fact, only webOS is (was, I guess) locked to a single company. Windows Phone isn't open source, but there are at least four hardware manufacturers. Nokia's MeeGo is open source (and quite good on my Nokia N9). And, soon, webOS will be too. So, while Android is a more open mobile OS, it certainly isn't the only one.

drhowarddrfine• 15 years ago

Google has said from the beginning that the purpose of Chrome was to move the web forward, not compete with other browsers, and I had forgotten that.

davidu2• 15 years ago

This is not Chrome's purpose. Everything between the user and the monetization mechanism (advertisement) is strategic to Google. It just doesn't sound as warm and fuzzy when they say it like that.

rayiner• 15 years ago

The two statements are not necessarily in conflict. It helps Google's bottom line to move the web forward, and make more things possible through browser interfaces.

magicalist3• 15 years ago

Er, does OpenDNS exist only to make you money? This seems like exactly the simplistic analysis that the post was objecting to.

ygjb• 15 years ago

So close... add a couple more details: - Google makes money from ads - Promoting open web technologies reduces the stack they have to support - Promoting open platforms removes roadblocks to reaching customers - Supporting "competitors" that provide revenue generation channels ensures that even when the lose, they win.

Business is not warm and fuzzy. For that, you need to go non-profit. Look at these and you can see that Mozilla is really warm and fuzzy: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefoxlive/

ippisl2• 15 years ago

Actions speak louder than words. Brendan Eich, Mozilla's CTO , which has some authority around issues concerning the open web , think Native client and Dart are bad for the open web[1].

Also one small way to improve the search experience, is easy search in multiple search engines. Firefox's search box is one way of doing so, But it has been removed in chrome. Does it really improve the web ?

Does limiting the power of adblocking relative to firefox for example , really improves the web ?

Do giving better/faster experience for youtube and google(no data but few anecdotes from me and friends) , for chrome users is improving the open web ?

And if we talk about moving the web forward , privacy is one of the biggest issues the web currently has. privacy from big companies , privacy from advertisers , privacy from other people doing searches on you and privacy from being needed to show your real name publicly on the web.

Privacy is probably much more important than technical issues like current javascript speed.

Does google really help "move the web forward" on the issue of privacy ?

[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2983430

zobzu6• 15 years ago

about the google sites speed its mostly all SPDY. It's hack but it's a good one. Thus it's in Firefox Aurora. Enable with about:config look for stuff called spdy, til its on by default

zobzu6• 15 years ago

Q: does google win billions from this deal?

A:yes

Q: does google donatethis money?

A: no.

Q: what is TFA worth then?

A: oh, wait.

so.yeah. right.

nextparadigms2• 15 years ago

I would've thought this was obvious. Google didn't just pay $300 to stop Firefox from using Bing, although I'm sure that played a big role, too, but I believe the reason Mozilla got $300 million was because they knew how to negotiate the price up. I don't think Mozilla really wanted to change to Bing.

Also, Google is a lot better off having an ally in Mozilla. Not so much because they don't want Bing to get a lot of users, but because together with Mozilla they have over 50% of the browser market share, and since the whole total of that market share includes very modern browser versions(Chrome always on latest version, Firefox not too far behind with the old ones), Google and Mozilla can pretty much dictate where the web is going now. I wouldn't be surprised if for those $300 million they also got Mozilla to accept using Native Client in Firefox later on. I think this part of the partnership matters more than just stopping Bing from becoming the default search on Firefox.

khuey2• 15 years ago

Mozilla's decisions on what technologies to support and what to oppose are not influenced by our business arrangements.

jedberg• 15 years ago

Not officially, no, but I'm sure if google goes to mozilla and says, "hey, we think you guys should support technology X, it's really great" I'm sure you'd listen and probably get a good nudge from the higher ups that, "hey maybe we should listen to those google people".

azakai5• 15 years ago

> I wouldn't be surprised if for those $300 million they also got Mozilla to accept using Native Client in Firefox later on.

If you're suggesting that Mozilla would do something bad for the web for money, then I think you couldn't be more wrong. Mozilla is a nonprofit exactly for this reason.

(Worth noting that the for-profit Opera opposes Native Client too - it isn't just nonprofits that have values.)

tomjen32• 15 years ago

Is that sarcasm? Native client is one of the best things that will ever happen to the web since jQuery made it possible to write cross-browser javascript.

Imagine how much easier it will be in the future when ever very intensive programs can be written, and run, on the web.

redthrowaway5• 15 years ago

s/300 ^[million]/300M

I think...

hendrix• 15 years ago

This article is BS. Google is a for-profit public company, hence google wants to make more money for google's shareholders. If they can do that by pushing chrome (advertizing platform) or firefox (OSS platform that they want to control) then that's what they will do. It doesn't matter what browser you use, so long as you look at their ads. Never mind their horrible privacy practices (2038 cookie) and associated shenanigans.

hub_7• 15 years ago

How is that incompatible with bringing the web forward?

Making sure the web is an open platform make sure no one control the technology, therefor Google have more opportunities to display ads. And also people have more opportunities to compete with Google too.

Nothing forces you to visit Google properties, etc.

cpeterso3• 15 years ago

Would Mozilla stop making Firefox an open, web-advancing browser if Microsoft Bing paid Mozilla's bills? I don't think so. So why didn't Google save its shareholders $1B and let Microsoft foot the bill to continue Mozilla development? Google clearly must profit from their relationship with Mozilla.

davidu2• 15 years ago

Peter's drinking a bit too much of the Kool-Aid.

Chrome advances the web. It does this because it's damn good. It's forced others to be good. None of this has anything to do with the point being made in the OP he's responding to.

Everything between the user and the monetization mechanism (advertisement) is strategic to Google. To believe otherwise is to be delusional. It's like the people who thought they could partner with Microsoft in the 90s and it'd be good for them.

potch2• 15 years ago

I work at Mozilla, and the atmosphere between us and Chrome is not the high-stakes cage match people would have it be. At a fundamental level there's only so much market share, but at an engineer-level, we're insulated from such corporate politics. It's a cooperative atmosphere, and we both succeed with each others' help and knowledge.

powertower• 15 years ago

Some people would have a hard time surviving in the real world outside of Google's walls.

I can see why a guy on the Chrome UI team would dismiss a valid business strategy of hedging against the IE + Firefox user-base that uses the search bar and address bar for 100% of their searches (vs. going to http://www.google.com directly) ... having their default search engine switched on them.

To him, owning a share of the browser market is not really important to Google, in that way, because he has this image of himself and Google being the good guys and doing to no evil.

Someone drank the kool-aid.

JS_startup• 15 years ago

My thoughts exactly. Paradoxically, being closer to the issue and company actually clouds your perception instead of enhancing it.

photon_off• 15 years ago

Please make the Chrome address bar awesome.

redthrowaway5• 15 years ago

The omnibox is already awesome. It's Chrome's definitive UX feature, and I'm surprised nobody else has implemented it yet.

jQueryIsAwesome2• 15 years ago

Yep, when i have to test something in Firefox i always forget that to search in Google (or in other popular site) i can't just write it in the address bar.

And it always remember all my sites so to go to hacker news i just write an "n" and it writes the rest... and i can even delete the suggestions with shift+delete.

So yeah, i also don't have any idea what the parent comment was triyng to say.

nikcub• 15 years ago

Google's browser efforts started with Gears. At the time browser development was stagnant an Google needed the technology to advance in order to improve their web applications and compete with the old desktop software model.

Chrome is an extension of that effort and has played a large part in driving adoption of new web technology.

But I don't buy the part about Google not being as interested in having users. Chrome is the operating system that runs the Google applications. They have increased their marketing spend this year by 69% to $4.9 billion dollars.

Google, marketing, something they never used to do and were known for not spending on. A lot of that marketing is for the chrome brand. The reason so many average PC users know about chrome is because of the market. They even hired Lady Gaga to do a Chrome ad, and I don't think they would go to the trouble of doing that if they were not interested in attracting users.

It is ok that Google want users for Chrome - nothing wrong with it. They have done so much to help users and the web with their investment in browser technology that there is no shame in marketing the product and wanting the world to use it.

DanBC• 15 years ago

> * "It's very simple: the primary goal of Chrome is to make the web advance as much and as quickly as possible."*

This is actually a bit frustrating. There's a bunch of people writing sub-optimal web-pages; not understanding the features or the security; and then there's a bunch of browser engineers trying to keep up.

Security still needs huge amounts of research and energy to progress beyond the broken model (username and pass everywhere / single weak social media login for everything) to something that most users can cope with.

I sound like a luddite, but I miss the days when you could do a Google search for something and the first page would be people who knew a lot about that subject, and who'd written some great text about it, and given it a bit of markup.

Honestly, ideal web pages for me are those but with CSS.

A lot of the web now feels like it's been designed by people who grew up with Geocities and <blink> and <marquee>.

zobzu6• 15 years ago

I'd note that browserid (browserid.org) solves the "single social login for everything". It also solves the "user and pass everywhere" in fact. It's pretty damn neat.

Unfortunately i'm not sure people will adopt it. It's only good for the user. It doesn't bring money.

We and Mozilla are working together to make the web awesome

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