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They really just can't get a break. When they take money from Google they get attacked. When they try to create other revenue streams (pocket, vpn, etc.) they get attacked. I don't think you want the browser to be a paid for subscription product and the donations aren't enough to reliably cover browser development.

Maintaining and keeping secure a large standards compliant browser is decidedly expensive. And most of the expenses are not one off they are ongoing.

factually incorrect, they're just paid to have them as the default search engine and they need that money to maintain the browser

they get paid billions of dollars and all you have to do is switch default search engines win win if you really hate it DONATE TO MOZILLA

I don't see you helping keep the lights on.

I'm mostly thinking of making Google the default search engine and not doing much of anything to stop its data-gathering out of the box (although I will give them credit for the Tracking Protection feature in private windows and not taking active steps to prevent people from protecting their privacy, what the hell Google), integrating the famously-invasive Pocket into the browser with no obvious way to remove it, and creating a new paid-exclusive AI help chatbot for web deevelopers that's just ChatGPT in a trenchcoat

Admittedly Mozilla's track record is light years better than any of the other software companies out there, and I won't begrudge them taking Google money in order to survive, but...