The bi(n)g assumption the article makes is: Firefox switches to Bing from Google and still continues to be equally popular in the medium/long run.

There are multiple possible scenarios -

Post such a shift FFs market share erodes quickly and Microsoft basically bought a Lemon. Chrome becomes even more powerful.

Post such a Shift FFs market share is simlar to that it enjoys today - Microsoft bought some traffic but a a large majority of FF users switch the search engine back to Google. Microsoft bought a sort of Lemon

Post a shift - FF market share stable/increases and lots of people do not change default search - Microsoft bought a winner and Article makes sense.

I do not see #3 as the most likely outcome.

I think in any of your 3 cases, if Microsoft pays 85 million then they are already ahead.

I'll be willing to bet that winning 1% of the search market cost much more than 85 million, and they'll get a much larger share of the market than 1%, even under your most pessimistic scenario.

I agree, I was actually surprised that MS didn't approach Firefox with a better offer right now. It makes senses now that I know there is a contract with a expiration. Larger park means more advertiser interest for Bing. It would even be more profitable for Bing than it is for G because they need to conquer some of the G users.

"I was actually surprised that MS didn't approach Firefox with a better offer right now."

Do you know something we don't?

I really do not see #3 as being so unlikely. How many people actually change their default search engines? We are talking about Normals, not just tech-savvy people.

Normals are afraid of menu items, especially "Tools", "Options" and "Preferences".

And they click "Yes" or "Ok" on any dialog without reading ;)

There have been studies of that. Very few normals change search engines.

Google shouldn't make Firefox their enemy anyway. Together with Firefox they can actually "not care" if Microsoft agrees with new standards or not (like say, WebGL). Together they can push a lot more stuff out there and transform them into standards.

This one is quite tricky. Google shares Webkit with Apple, so they sure can ram new stuff through that way. Together they control the majority of the mobile market.

The Amazon Kindle reader was a nice example of that, working on Chrome and Safari, but not Firefox, due to competing web-database standards being implemented.

H.264 vs WebM is another one. Google made a lot of noise about dropping H.264 for WebM, Firefox actually did so (because they had no choice, anyway), but Chrome still ships with H.264 support.

So I don't have the impression there are real fronts as far as promoting web standards are concerned. For better or worse.

I'm sure Google realizes the strategic and technical value of a second open-source browser implementation.

Just because they're using WebKit today doesn't mean they will forever (or for everything). Gecko is valuable as an alternative and as a way to "keep web standards honest". A WebKit monoculture would eventually bake in too many hidden assumptions.

I have to disagree. Yes, Kindle reader came out using Web SQL DB, but that spec is dead and for good reasons. I don't know how far along IE is at supporting IndexedDB, but it won't be long before Firefox, Chrome and IE all support IndexedDB and then it will make plenty of sense for Amazon to build Kindle Reader on top of that. From what I read, iOS 5 doesn't support IndexedDB, sadly. But it will in time.

I'm still surprised that no one has written an IndexedDB shim on top of Web SQL DB.

But with what do you disagree? That WebSQL and IndexedDB are competing standards? From the point of view of a web developer, they must be, or we wouldn't have gotten into this situation in the first place.

Could Firefox change their default search engine to Bing? Without losing users and causing a huge flame war?

I doubt it.

Google should stop paying just to see that flamewar, would be fun.

'Losing' firefox wouldn't be a massive blow, people who use firefox know how to change the default search engine. All that will happen is that they'll be a massive amount of hate directed at firefox for trying to force bing down their throat.

I expect Google to keep paying so they can pretend there's some sort of competition in the search market though. 'But we had to pay for firefox's search box!'.

I'm sure "Microsoft was willing to fund Firefox development and Google wasn't" would play just fine.

Some people would switch their default to Google and some wouldn't, but I don't see Firefox losing a significant number of users regardless.

I imagine the vast vast majority of Firefox users don't know how to change the default search engine, and probably wouldn't care to do so even if they did. Sure there will be a few thousand angry people shouting on forums and mailing lists and threatening boycotts, but the other 90+% of the Firefox user base will be totally unaware of this. Firefox is not a geeky niche product anymore, but the default browser of huge and growing number of normal internet users.

It's not that these people would be "totally unaware" if suddenly their searches defaulted to Bing.

I imagine it would be disconcerting in the same sort of way that having rusty water shoot out of your shower for a second or two every morning would be. It's not the end of the world, you don't know how to fix it, but after a couple seconds it's not like it really matters.

> Could Firefox change their default search engine to Bing? Without losing users and causing a huge flame war? I doubt it. Google should stop paying just to see that flamewar, would be fun.

It would be insane for Google to risk even 1% of its search marketshare for "fun". And the risk here is larger than 1%.

It would be fun for you, but disastrous for Google.

Firefox existing helps Chrome become a better browser, both by providing new tech and methods which Chrome can borrow from and also to further motivate the Chrome team to continue pushing to be the best browser. We have all seen which way innovation goes when the browser market is dominated by one player.

I wonder what would happen if somehow duckduckgo managed to be the default firefox search engine. Their results compared to google aren't bad at all.

On my Firefox it is the default search engine.

Seriously, I was thinking the same thing a couple of days ago when I downloaded FF Beta 6. Adblock used to be my first installed extension, now DDG SSL search is. Right after that I "fix" the fallback address bar search as well.

I dunno. As an experiment I set my default search to duckduckgo about 3 weeks ago and I'd say I end up running about 30-40% of my searches a second time with the "!g" command to forward to Google instead.

How much does Opera earn with their auctions?

Not sure exactly, but its financial doc for 2010 is here: http://media.opera.com/media/finance/2010/annual-report.pdf

Bottom of page 37 says that Opera made 242,000,000 NOK from its desktop browser, which is mainly from search revenue (about $43 million)

The same argument for Google not funding FF could be made for Microsoft.

Firefox has demolished Internet Explorer's market share over the years, and it's always been an important product for MS. Arguably more important than Bing (which continues to hemorrhage money).

I don't see how funding Firefox would be any more in Microsoft's interest than in Google's.

I miss the days when Google was trying to chip away at Microsoft and paid websites $1 per Firefox download/install. To me, the article is really a heads up for Microsoft. If a channel for search revenue is available, go get it.

I think the article actually makes the opposite point, i.e. that Google needs Firefox more than Mozilla needs Google.

Firefox is bleeding market share as it is. Pulling people's favorite search engine out from under them is only going to goose the uptake of Chrome.

Hopefully Google and Mozilla both appreciate they have more to gain by cooperating.

On one of my machines I have Test Pilot enabled (Mozilla's opt-in tool to get user feedback), and I noticed it was returning Bing searches by default, followed by a query of "Were these results useful?"

Read into that what you want.

With current trends, in some years Google will need Mozilla as much as it needs Opera.

Yes. Good riddance IMO. Firefox has become a bloated beast over the years, Mozilla is nothing but obstructionist these days, and the sooner the entire web moves to WebKit the better.