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May 12, 2008 6:11 AM PDT
Mozilla's browser at the end of the rainbow
The BBC is spot on in suggesting that Mozilla's Firefox is a gold mine waiting to happen, though it's unclear how Mozilla gets there from here. Could Firefox be one of the web's biggest beneficiaries as a platform? Absolutely. Does it want to be?
That's not so clear.
Firefox is dangerously dependent on Google for its income. But now, in the "awesome bar" [Scheduled to hit as part of Firefox's 3.0 GA release this June], it's got its own search engine which could, in theory, provide a very valuable stream of data about the browsing habits of hundreds of millions of internet users. Tristan Nitot claims that Firefox is approaching a 30% market share.
Mozilla isn't the sort of organization to profit from the private activities of its users, but what if we wanted to give up a bit of our privacy in order to glean additional benefits from our browsing experience? It could mean serious, new cash for Mozilla, which in turn would fuel the development of much more excellent open-source development.
I'm intrigued.
Matt Asay is general manager of the Americas and vice president of business development at Alfresco, and has nearly a decade of operational experience with commercial open source and regularly speaks and publishes on open-source business strategy. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
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Odds and Ends,
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Development
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Mozilla,
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Firefox,
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advertising
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There is no benefit that a browser can provide that is worth giving up your privacy for.
First, they could make it very clear what data they collect, how it would be used, how to opt in/out, etc. Second, they could anonymize the data they collect. Third, many people may be willing to give up a *little* privacy for the benefit they could derive from the service or to support Mozilla.
Any ideas why Mozilla turned from great to crap in a few weeks? I hate IE, but I have been forced to use it because Mozilla sucks so bad. I have asked them question after question and no one cares enough to answer. I have tried to find a reset button, I have uninstalled, then reinstalled, nothing seems to work. Any ideas before I dump it for good?