Does Firefox make money even if I don't use Google as my default search engine? (self.firefox)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by Maddison to c/[email protected]

14 comments fedilink hide all child comments

How does it work anyway? I mean, how does Firefox make money? Are they paid per google search or something like that?

And, do they make money if I use forks of firefox and use Google on them?

And, what are the total number of active users for Mozilla and do the forks account into this count?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago

Firefox is a piece of open source software. One can download it for free. It's packaged by many different organizations for use in different settings.

In general, if a developer is modifying Firefox for their own needs, logging data would probably still report it as Firefox even if the browser has been renamed. Of course that could be changed if a developer wanted to do so, and as a user you can even install plugins that allow you to spoof browser profiles.

There is an NPO called The Mozilla Foundation that develops Firefox, although many contributions come from people who are not part of the foundation. If you're asking how much money the NPO uses, I think you can go take a look at its books. It is an NPO, so making money is not the objective.

[-] [email protected] 22 points 10 months ago

There is an NPO called The Mozilla Foundation that develops Firefox

Just to be precise, Firefox development is lead by Mozilla Corporation, which in theory is a for-profit company; however it is fully owned by the Mozilla Foundation, and all profit is reinvested to the Mozilla project.

this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2023

83 points (97.7% liked)

Firefox

17042 readers

505 users here now

A place to discuss the news and latest developments on the open-source browser Firefox

founded 4 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]