The DOJ wants to level the playing field for browser makers, but the Firefox developer says the plan will take crucial revenue away from smaller companies with lucrative Google search deals.

The Justice Department’s proposal to force Google to rein in and even sell off its Chrome browser business may seem like a win for competitors such as Mozilla’s Firefox browser. But the company says the plan risks hurting smaller browsers.

In their recommendations, federal prosecutors urged the court to ban Google from offering “something of value” to third-party companies to make Google the default search engine over their software or devices.

The problem is that Mozilla earns most of its revenue from royalty deals—nearly 86% in 2022—making Google the default Firefox browser search engine.

"If implemented, the prohibition on search agreements with all browsers regardless of size and business model will negatively impact independent browsers like Firefox and have knock-on effects for an open and accessible internet,” Mozilla says. “As written, the remedies will harm independent browsers without material benefit to search competition.”

    • Lung@lemmy.worldEnglish
      14·
      2 days ago

      Not only does it need to do everything from memory management to job scheduling, it also has all of the UI and graphics driver complexity blended in. Usually that’s a different layer that the kernel historically didn’t worry about, it would be as if GTK is part of Linux, along with the programming language. Then there’s shit like WebAssembly and WebGL, databases, sandboxing, permissions, user management… A Brower is like a cross platform OS built to run on another OS

      • theherk@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        1 day ago

        The comment that was here was a bit rude, and I don’t like that. Well others didn’t either, but that just reminds me that being kind is possible while disagreeing. So I abridge to this.

        I’m surprised by this take and personally feel the algorithmic density of the kernel and scope of work with hardware abstractions make it much more complex than a browser with access to system calls. But maybe that is just a crazy old man that isn’t thinking straight.