Mozilla's 3 Big Bets To Keep the Web Open 88
GMGruman writes "Savio Rodrigues writes that Google's latest agreement with Mozilla will ironically fund three new areas of competition between Google and Mozilla — areas that users and open source advocates should cheer on as they will make the Web both better and more open. The alternative, he says, is more control by the likes of Google, Facebook, and Apple."
dude! (Score:1)
Re:dude! (Score:4, Interesting)
dickbag move dude. dickbag move.
Quite the opposite, actually. It's often been argued [abovethecrowd.com] that a major reason for Google's purchase and development of Android was to safeguard Google's search empire. Except from an ad-revenue-generating sense (and possibly also a kick-Apple-up-the-arse sense :) Google doesn't care whether you're using Android or not. What's of primary importance is that you're using their search tools to generate them income through advertising. Android is simply a very good means to protect that ad revenue castle.
A boot-to-Gecko OS that promotes Google search is a much better option (as far as Google is concerned) than a boot-to-Gecko OS that promotes Bing or somebody else. I'm sure they'd much rather Android stayed dominant, but it doesn't hurt them to have allies in their camp rather than enemies outside the gates.
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Notice you had to post AC, that is pretty much all you can do with all the flag waving fangirls around here. And I was talking about their ORIGINAL mission, the one they announced when they switched from the suite to Firefox? Forget that one? hell their whole selling point was "to make the browser leaner and meaner, to get rid of cruft and old code, to make a truly great browser".
Parent is right. The mission of the Mozilla Foundation is to promote standards. You are talking about one product of the Mozilla Foundation: Firefox. Back when it was still called Phoenix it was a pet project of David Hyatt (now the safari guy) and then Ben Goodger. The goal was to have a simple browser with an XML language to define the UI combined with javascript and XPCOM. Compared to the Mozilla Suite (which had everything but the kitchen sink) Firefox back then was really lean, fast and configurable/ex
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The "big" bets: (Score:5, Informative)
Since the summary didn't provide this, the allegedly large bets are:
1. An alternative to Android
2. An alternative to OpenID
3. An App store
Re:The "big" bets: (Score:5, Informative)
It's not quite as simple as that. A better bulleted list would be:
1. An alternative to the proprietary mobile stacks which control the full vertical from hardware to app stores. An open Web stack based on real standards.
2. An alternative to Facebook Connect, Sign in with Twitter, and Google Accounts. A web-wide ID system that doesn't depend on one particular provider.
3. A set of standards for Web applications discovery, monitization, and installation and an implementation that will work across all platforms.
Re:The "big" bets: (Score:4, Informative)
Try reading http://identity.mozilla.com/post/7669886219/how-browserid-differs-from-openid [mozilla.com] for the difference between BrowserID and OpenID.
TLDR: OpenID is harder to integrate into the browser, and needed a third party for every login (meaning it just swapped Facebook, Twitter or Google with someone else that could potentially track you).
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Wouldn't a web browser on a device which connects through your own proxy server work?
With any decent desktop browser one can connect via proxy to a secure tunnel which you control.
Does not seem to exist on cell/tablets due to greedy device SW vendor lockins - right?
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"someone" is key though. OpenID is open and distributed, so yes you need an account with *someone*, but the key distinction is that you are free to pick anyone you want as your provider, and if none of them suits your needs, you are even free to set up your own provider. (no it's not difficult)
This is parallell to email: *someone* must run a mailserver for you, but you're free to pick who, and if none of them suits your needs, you're free to set up your own email-server.
Re:The "big" bets: (Score:4, Informative)
The core innovation is that BrowserID does not require you to phone home to your certificate authority (say, Google) every time you want to look at a page. Instead, it passes certificates around in a way that allows the site (DonkeyPronz, or whatever) to check that the cert is valid, but does not reveal to Google (or Mozilla, or whoever is running the cert authorty) which of the many BrowserID users is opening the page. This is a fundamental difference.
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How are they going to do all this while ignoring 12+ year-old usability bugs in order to implement the latest Chrome imitation feature?
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Obligatory XKCD for #2 (Score:1)
2. An alternative to OpenID
http://xkcd.com/927/ [xkcd.com]
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1. Windows Phone 7
2. Windows Live ID
3. Windows Store
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1. Android
2. Google Account
3. Chrome Store
Glitch in the Matrix (Score:2)
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You're probably thinking of that pilot project which wasn't advertised on the main Firefox website but served as a test balloon to see how a competing search engine would fare as the default choice.
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Where did all the zeppelins go?
Orgrimmar
What? (Score:1)
The alternative, he says, is more control by the likes of Google, Facebook, and Apple.
What? Apple? I know that dropping the "Apple-bomb" in any discussion helps to generate page-views, but what? Apple controlling the internet? I can understand Google, to say the least. I can understand Facebook as well. They both are a huge part of the internet but Apple? Apple supports (heavily) an open source browser engine... Ah... Wait... I see. They support webkit which is the foundation of Safari and Chrome (you know, Chrome, which is kicking Firefox's ass right now) as well is most mobile browsers, a
Re:What? (Score:5, Interesting)
No, it's the fact that Apple has a damn-near monopoly on mobile purchases, which are done in their walled garden. This is a big area of user activity, and will become a much bigger area of economic activity. Apple, through iTunes, matters to the Internet. In a bad way, unfortunately.
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No, it's the fact that Apple has a damn-near monopoly on mobile purchases,
And why is that? Because "it just works!"(TM)
You are welcome to build an alternative. But it better be (very) good.
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No, it's the fact that Apple has a damn-near monopoly on mobile purchases,
And why is that? Because "it just works!"(TM)
You are welcome to build an alternative. But it better be (very) good.
Welcome? Apple sues anyone who builds an alternative.
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I'm not questioning the value or the quality of Apple's garden. But I am questioning the impact that such a walled garden has on the Internet in general.
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> Because every other digital marketplace is a disaster.
Agreed. The Android Market tempted me with the 10p apps, but man was it a painful experience. I would really really need an app to go through that again.
Re:What? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's also in Google's interest because it keeps part of the anti-monopoly cries off their back.
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I have actually stumbled across some early stage startup sites that are optimized for iPad. Yeah, you can view them with IE; but they suck that way.
It's a "velvet rope" business model. iPad users buy the cool clothes and fancy watches. They get into the club because the management knows they'll also buy that $20 drinks.
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It's not just about the tubes on the internet. It's also about the last inches of unfreedom. From your palm to your face, there's Apple, locking you in, en masse.
WSJ: $1 Billion Google Windfall for Mozilla (Score:5, Informative)
What Google and Mozilla declined to disclose, reports AllThingsD's Kara Swisher, is that Google will pay just under $300 million per year to be the default choice in Mozillla's Firefox browser [allthingsd.com], a huge jump from its previous arrangement, due to competing interest from both Yahoo and Microsoft. Sources said this total amount - just under $1 billion - was the minimum revenue guarantee for delivering search queries garnered from consumers using Firefox. Google's main rival in the bid, sources said, was Microsoft's Bing search service."
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Clarification: The deal was disclosed, the dollars weren't.
Please STOP using the word "ironically" (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re:Please STOP using the word "ironically" (Score:5, Funny)
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Ironic, isn't it?
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It doesn't mean what you think it means. Please, "ironically" has been massacred enough already. Let's this word rest for a couple of decades, unless you are one of the two people in the world that actually uses it appropriately.
Ironically, by drawing peoples attention to the word without providing them an explanation of how it ought to be used, YA_Python_dev exacerbated the problem and increased his own suffering...
Re:Please STOP using the word "ironically" (Score:5, Funny)
It doesn't mean what you think it means. Please, "ironically" has been massacred enough already. Let's this word rest for a couple of decades, unless you are one of the two people in the world that actually uses it appropriately.
Ironically, by drawing peoples attention to the word without providing them an explanation of how it ought to be used, YA_Python_dev exacerbated the problem and increased his own suffering...
Plus he threw everyone who uses that expression under the bus. Literally.
Please STOP using the word "Literally" (Score:1)
It doesn't mean what you think it means. Please, "ironically" has been massacred enough already. Let's this word rest for a couple of decades, unless you are one of the two people in the world that actually uses it appropriately.
Ironically, by drawing peoples attention to the word without providing them an explanation of how it ought to be used, YA_Python_dev exacerbated the problem and increased his own suffering...
Plus he threw everyone who uses that expression under the bus. Literally.
It doesn't mean what you think it means. Please, "Literally" has been massacred enough already. Let's this word rest for a couple of decades, unless you are one of the two people in the world that actually uses it appropriately.
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Please, "Literally" has been massacred enough already. Let's this word rest for a couple of decades, unless you are one of the two people in the world that actually uses it appropriately.
Please stop building quote pyramids, that's what the "parent" link is for. Quote the pertinent part, to give your comment a bit of context, not the whole thing.
Please, "massacred" has been used to death already; Let's let this word rest for a couple of eternities, unless you are one of the two people in the world that literally uses it literally.
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I was trying to be funny by using more cliches. Sorry.
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Irregardless...
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I think that everybody that uses that expression under the bus sould be threwed.
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>unless you are one of the two people in the world that actually uses it appropriately.
1) George Carlin
2) ? you ?
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Nice try, but you're in the wrong. TFS actually uses "ironically" correctly.
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
irony
n 1: witty language used to convey insults or scorn; "he used
sarcasm to upset his opponent"; "irony is wasted on the
stupid"; "Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do
generally discover everybody's face but their own"--
Jonathan Swift [syn: {sarcasm}, {irony}, {satire}, {caustic
remark}]
2: incongruity between what might be expected and what actually
occurs; "the irony of Ireland's copying the nation she most
hated"
3: a trope that involves incongruity between what is expected
and what occurs
Google paying money to Mozilla that would quite obviously be used to further develop products that compete with Google's own is not something one might expect, thus an incongruity between what is expected and what occurs has been introduced.
I know that many people use "ironic" and "ironically" incorrectly, and that it is popular to jump on them for doing so, but TFS has not made that mistake. Contrast this with the well-known exampl
Anti-competitive (Score:2)
Google: FF search deal expired, DOJ hot on heels. (Score:2)
Nice! Three great products! (Score:2)
P.S. I recently experimented with Chrome and Opera. But I am back to Firefox because it is just better. Chrome eats memory like crazy without being so fast. Frankly Chrome is also buggier. And the incognito mode is leaky.
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> How do you make apps for Boot 2 Gecko?
Just like you make websites.
There will be some sort of APIs for doing things that need expanded privileged, but those will be proposed for standardization just like any web API.
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Richard Stallman refuses to use credit cards for anything because he doesn't want the government tracking his purchases. I don't think having a free (as in speech) OS on a phone will make any difference. Unless it was built by himself with free hardware using a free network.
Doomed because.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Competition? Really? (Score:3)
Unless Mozilla releases its own advertising network or office suite, it isn't competing with Google. Frankly, anyone who even believed for a second that Google would let the search deal with Mozilla expire doesn't understand Google at all. Google has one main directive: Increase usage of Google **websites** to increase **advertising revenue**. Ending a deal with a major browser to provide the default search engine is completely adverse Google's business plan. You better believe that if Google could, they'd pay Microsoft to make IE's default search engine Google's.
Chrome isn't a business model. It is a tool Google is using to influence every other browser and the web. By making a fast, standards-based browser, and influencing other browsers to follow their example, they make general internet usage--and by extension ALL Google sites--work better. And if Google sites work better, users will spend more time using them.... will see more ads... will use Google Docs... will increase Google's revenue.
Comparing 2011's Google/Chrome to 1997's Microsoft/IE is a false dichotomy. Microsoft thought it could control the web to lock people into proprietary software. Google wants to speed up the web to get people to use it even more then they already do.
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> they make general internet usage--and by extension
> ALL Google sites--work better.
That's where they started.
Now they are specifically trying to make Google sites work particularly well with Chrome (and in some cases only with WebKit), even if that has to happen at the expense of other browsers. They are also trying to make Chrome work particularly well with their own sites, even if that comes at the expense of other sites, of course.
> Microsoft thought it could control the web to lock
> people
The firefox needs to become the phoenix (Score:2)
Firefox needs to die and start over. This is a good thing for most software. I think the Mozilla Foundation should start over and develop a new browser with a new name. Firefox takes up too much memory, it seems to be they aren't coming up with new efficient code, they are instead just caching everything. I dream about the good old days with internet explorer 2. In fact I think they need to come out with multiple browser, browsers for different users and uses. How about a security enhance browser for doing
Do we want this? (Score:2)
A new push for "apps" just when HTML5 was going to lower the boundaries between applications and web sites?
An easier way for web sites to identify me?
I know I'm grossly over-simplifying, and there are positive aspects for each of the three "bets" that I'm not listing here, but still I don't know if I'm 100% sold to those ideas. Or to the fact that they should be a priority for open source developers.