zlacker

Th other conspiracy I've heard is Google subsidizes Mozilla so they have a credible claim there's competition in the market.

>>dehrma+(OP)
This is the correct answer

>>mozman+Z8
Why would Google try to prop up Firefox as a competitor? Both Safari and Edge on desktop are twice the market share of Firefox, so the browser market is competitive enough without Firefox.

https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/worl...

>>dehrma+(OP)
Doing both makes sense. Google has a clear motive to keep Firefox in the market, at the same time they have repeatedly shown that they want Firefox to have the smallest market share possible. For antitrust purposes it might be enough to show "people could to Firefox", even if nobody does.

>>warkda+Xb
Chrome, edge and safari are just, well chrome, on a single family of rendering engines

>>warkda+Xb
Safari can probably be discounted since Apple discontinued the Windows version in 2012. A browser that can only run on 18% of desktops worldwide isn't necessarily the competitor Google is looking for.

Edge is available on Windows, Linux and macOS, so it would probably do. But that would allow one of Google's biggest competitors to drop an under-performing product and lobby for antitrust against Google. Unlikely to happen, but a risk Google might not want to take.

https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide

>>dehrma+(OP)
If true, it really backfired on them as buying Mozilla's default search is currently being used against them in a search engine antitrust suit.

>>warkda+Xb
Google would probably prefer if Safari and Edge did not gain market share. They're both developed by large corporations that pose a major threat to Google. Firefox, not so much.

>>boombo+zo
According to a weird definition of "really backfired," because they would without question have been hit a long time ago with credible antitrust if they hadn't kept Firefox afloat (though user-hostile enough to keep people on Chrome.)

There's such a marginal difference between the quality of the two browsers, and Chrome is held back in what it can be by the necessity of furthering Google's commercial interests. The only limit Firefox has had is that they can't abuse the trust of their users. Firefox had to voluntarily (and often aggressively) inflict a huge amount of reputational and functional damage on itself to reduce its market share to the place that it has.

edit: it's important to say that they didn't really backslide technically; it's user-hostile (management) decisions that have hurt the browser, not anything to do with the skill of Firefox developers.

>>warkda+Xb
Safari and Edge (which is also Chrome) having twice the dismal market share of Firefox doesn't make the browser market competitive. Safari is an appliance delivered exclusively on machines manufactured by a single company that holds a small, though luxury, part of the market. Edge (is Chrome, and) is only available on one OS [edit: I'm guess I'm wrong about this, didn't imagine that Edge would be available on Macs.]

Firefox is the only "credible" competitor, although Firefox's only profitable customer is Google itself.

>>pessim+1v
> would without question have been hit a long time ago with credible antitrust if they hadn't kept Firefox afloat

It is questionable, and being declared a search engine monopoly would be far worse for Google than Chrome being a browser monopoly. They only make Chrome to push their search/ad network.

>>warkda+Xb
It is plausible that it's part of a broader antitrust litigation defense strategy