

Mozilla exec urges Firefox users ditch Google for Bing - barredo
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/12/mozilla-exec-urges-firefox-users-ditch-google-for-bing.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

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Deestan
Outright misleading, linkbait headline; it implies that he insists _all_
Firefox users switch from Google to Bing.

What he actually says is: "[...]if you care about your privacy, remember that
Bing is better than Google, at least in that department."

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brown9-2
That's a quote from the article, it is not a direct quote from Asa Dotzler.

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Deestan
You're right.

In the blog post
[http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/2009/12/if_you_h...](http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/2009/12/if_you_have_nothing.html)
all he says about the matter is:

> And here's how you can easily switch Firefox's search from Google to Bing.
> (Yes, Bing does have a better privacy policy than Google.)

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jfager
I don't get it. I just read both privacy policies, and they seem pretty much
identical.

Asa says in the comments that "Microsoft doesn't connect it to my name, my
addressbook, my friends, my email address, my physical location, etc.
Microsoft scrubs things like IP address immediately and stores the data for
less time."

But the Bing privacy policy specifically says that it does store IP addresses.
The only reference to scrubbing IP addresses is that they do so when they hand
off their search data to 3rd parties (um, thanks), or after 18 months (just as
long as Google). The bit about not linking those searches to the rest of your
account info is also specious - the privacy policy only says it stores search
terms separate from information that 'directly identifies' a user, but it
doesn't say or imply that IP addresses are considered direct identification,
and it specifically says that it stores the cookie id associated with the
search terms.

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chaosmachine
I never thought I'd see a Mozilla exec recommending a switch to Microsoft
products. It's funny how fast things can change, and kind of scary that
Microsoft is considered the best alternative.

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tlrobinson
Um, does Mozilla have a similar revenue share deal with Bing as it does with
Google Search?

Because last I checked Mozilla gets nearly all of it's revenue from Google.

If they have a _better_ deal with Bing, then it's in Mozilla's interest to
push users away from Google towards Bing anyway...

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tedmielczarek
No, there's not currently any sort of deal there. (Also I wouldn't exactly
label Asa as a "Mozilla exec", but what do I know.)

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metatronscube
Too bad I have already ditched Firefox for Chrome then. Now that plugins are
developing nicely I don't think I will ever go back to FF.

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InclinedPlane
I have trouble reading just about any recent criticisms of Google from Mozilla
as anything other than a crybaby's temper tantrum. It sounds like they are
disappointed that Google acts as an independent company rather than merely a
money train straight into Mozilla's coffers. It also sounds like they are more
than a little upset that Google managed to put together arguably the best-in-
class web-browser on the planet in a very short time frame just when they were
getting comfortable with the idea that inevitably Firefox would be not only
the best but also the most popular browser.

It seems that the Mozilla corporation was quite satisfied in its leading
position in the special olympics race that has typified web browser
development (Netscape under AOL failed so hard they killed their own once
dominant brand, Mozilla took years to achieve reasonable quality, Microsoft is
still putting out versions of IE competitive to the browser market in about
1999, Opera is a permanent bit-player, and Apple loathes the idea of writing a
decent version of any of its software products that runs on windows). Now that
there's some honest to goodness competition (in speed, usability, robustness,
standards compliance, cutting edge standards adoption, and security) it's
nothing but whine, whine, whine.

Dear Mozilla, stop whining, Firefox is an excellent browser, keep the effort
going to make it even better and you won't have to worry about what big-bad-
Google is doing because it won't matter.

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indiejade
I have trouble reading criticisms of Mozilla from just about every person who
jumps on the "Google can do no wrong" bandwagon. There's a definite benefit to
the user to have a separation of control over the data that various tech
entities have on it. Firefox isn't selling anything; it is the only browser
that truly allows users to decide what data websites gather from them as
visitors.

Google developed Chrome because, for some reason, they thought that there's
just _not enough_ "Google Advertising" online already, and they wanted to make
sure that people can't easily disable advertisements, tracking cookies, etc. I
tried Chrome on Linux, and really . . . was not that impressed. Firefox
revolutionized the "tabbed browsing" concept, and that's the main fancy
feature of Chrome. In a way, Chrome kinda just stole all the great things
about Firefox (things that have taken _years_ to develop), put those things
into a shiny blue curvy-cornered UI, and slapped the Google name on it.

~~~
InclinedPlane
I'm certainly not a Google fan-boy (read some of my other posts if you want to
check, I'm very skeptical of google), but Chrome really is a great achievement
and it's silly to disrespect what Google has done with Chrome considering the
difficulties so many other development teams seem to be having with browsers.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with stealing features from a competitor,
that's how progress is made. Chrome is not some sort of anti-consumer "forced
ad consumption" monstrosity that you seem to make it out to be. By every
measure it very much seems to be an attempt by Google to raise the bar for web
browsers. Key indicators of this being: they have leveraged existing open
source software (webkit); have put a lot of effort into standards compliance,
javascript performance (v8), and forward looking standards adoption (html5 and
css 3 features, web sockets, etc.); a drastically open development process
(even more so than firefox, with much easier access to dev builds); an
incredibly fast development pace (Chrome is barely 1 year old); and have made
the vast majority of their work open source with the Chromium project. To
every indication they want to prove what can be done with browsers and very
much hope other browsers copy them.

If you look at Chrome and all you see is yet-another-tabbed-browser then I
question whether or not Hacker News is the correct community for you to hang
out in.

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encoderer
A great achievement?

They took a rendering engine, made some changes to allow tabs to be run as
their own process, and took a year to implement an underwhelming and feature-
sparse extension system.

What is the big achievement? Mozilla created their own rendering engine. And I
don't think that's a bad thing. I think we'd be worse off in a world where the
sole choices are Trident and WebKit.

~~~
InclinedPlane
There is no browser as fast as chrome anywhere for javascript, not even
safari, not by a factor of 2x. The "omnibar" in chrome is a legitimate
innovation, every browser should work that way in my opinion (it's not too
difficult to tell the difference between a search string and a url
automatically). How many browsers implement web-sockets? Hrm, not too many.
The Chrome dev team's amazing pace of development has been spent in the last
year putting together a solid, full-featured browser (extension support is
almost there, that's the only real lacking element), it looks like they will
continue that pace into implementing state-of-the-art features (like web-
sockets) before anyone else.

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alecco
What I don't get is why would Bing be better at privacy. I could understand if
he recommended one of the new search engines (e.g. D. D. Go) with better
privacy policies and less tracking cookies.

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va_coder
I try to use other search engines out of fear that Google will get too
powerful. Unfortunately, when I need a deep dig search Google is often best.

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barredo
How long till Firefox has its own Firebird?

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TallGuyShort
I'm sure this is more about the browser wars than it is about privacy.

