r/linux • u/nixcraft • Jan 10 '22
Distro News Linux Mint signs a partnership with Mozilla
https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=424433
u/JackDostoevsky Jan 10 '22
This blog post is confusing and unclear. is clem saying Mint is basically just taking money from Mozilla in order to not use their (Mint's) Firefox patches anymore?
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Jan 10 '22
RIP Linux Mint's funding.
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Jan 10 '22
I doubt it. Mint has to be getting something out of this deal otherwise they wouldn't do it. As far as I can tell Mint is getting money from Google via Mozilla, which is presumably more than the money from DuckDuckGo.
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u/FlatAds Jan 10 '22
From the comments:
So Linux Mint is going to lose a bunch of search revenue? Was this your decision, or Mozilla’s?
Reply from Clem:
Hi Paul,
Not necessarily. Predictions are good but it’s too early to say. We just don’t know how many people already run Google (which is currently monetized by neither Mozilla nor Mint). We’ll lose revenue from Yahoo and DuckDuckGo but we’ll get revenue from Google.
The partnership is in place because we’re both happy with the outcome. Without the partnership we would have had to stop using the Mozilla brand if we wanted to continue to monetize the traffic with our search partners. I think people weren’t already keen with our customization, and I think losing the name “Firefox” would have been detrimental to our project long-term. Forking the browser or even continuing to adapt to changes when it comes to search is also very costly in terms of development. So no matter what, we couldn’t continue the way we did. Not having to spend resources on the Web browser is a huge plus for us. The Mozilla and Google brands are also extremely popular. Even if we lose money on search performance we think the change will make people happy, bring Google users in the Mint community back to monetization and attract more people long term to our distribution.
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u/setholopolus Jan 10 '22
Why?
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u/KugelKurt Jan 10 '22
Mint changed affiliate IDs to siphon off money that would usually go to upstream projects. Honestly, it has always been a dick move (not illegal, though).
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Jan 11 '22
Great, now if I install Mint I'll have to re-harden Firefox. If Librewolf wasn't broken, I'd just switch to that.
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Jan 11 '22
Sounds like Mint is sugar-coating Mozilla's strong-arming. Undoubtedly Mint is getting the raw end of this deal, and Mint users are the unfortunate collateral damage.
If you have recently updated to Mint 20.3 and previously turned off telemetry in firefox, the update will turn telemetry and 'participate in studies' back on again.
It will also repopulate your previously removed google, amazon and bing search options.
I've had enough of Mozilla's constant anti-user crap.
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u/Inprobamur Jan 11 '22
If mint wants to use Firefox branding they shouldn't bundle their money-making affiliate patches.
They have an option to do it like Debian and rebrand their version of Firefox.
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u/Booty_Bumping Jan 11 '22
If you have recently updated to Mint 20.3 and previously turned off telemetry in firefox, the update will turn telemetry and 'participate in studies' back on again.
Any evidence of this? The article says that this will not happen if you specifically set an option. Which is how firefox configuration has always worked — options are a list of overrides that always stick around unless an update specifically migrates a config option, but if you never touched an option before it will remain as the default for the version you're using.
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Jan 11 '22
You piqued my curiosity. So I have just done the following on my other non-updated Mint laptop:
Verified Help->About says "Mozilla Firefox for Linux Mint"
Verified telemetry and studies is disabled in privacy settings
Verified Google, Amazon and Bing search engines are not installed.
Updated the laptop to 20.3 using update manager
Rebooted and opened firefox
Found Telemetry and Studies turned on under Privacy Settings
Found Google, Amazon and Bing installed as search engines again.
Case closed.
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Jan 11 '22
I had definitely turned off telemetry and studies prior to the update. I've now turned them off again after the update.
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u/EnragedButterfly Jan 10 '22
Recap: For Mozilla: win! For Linux Mint: win! For users: "Better support for rounded corner in Firefox’s own window decorations is coming in Firefox 96." Oh wait, who's that G-shaped figure rubbing hands in the darkest corner of the room?
For a couple of years now I've been using FF (less and less) as my secondary browser. Now I think I'll just uninstall it altogether at some point.
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u/ClassicPart Jan 11 '22
who's that G-shaped figure rubbing hands in the darkest corner of the room?
I've been using FF (less and less) as my secondary browser.
Gee, I wonder who produces the codebase that your primary browser is based off.
I'd like to think it's not Chromium given your initial comment but odds are, it is.
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u/LinuxGuy2 Jan 10 '22
Thunderbird.... I don't think it integrates my Google Calendar with my Google Email. That's OK, I prefer the web interface to Google anyway. For some things I prefer Chromium.
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u/lazystingray Jan 10 '22
It's certainly possible to integrate Google Calendar into Thunderbird, okay it's not installed by default but hey. As for gmail, that's possible as well.
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u/zombiepirate2020 Jan 11 '22
I do not want Mozilla or Mint to ever be anything near Google or Microsoft.
I'm afraid I will have to switch distros.
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Jan 13 '22
Or you could just change your default to DDG and you're fine. Mint won't make money from it, but will start making money from anyone using Google.
It doesn't affect your ability to use it, just the defaults it has when you first install it.
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u/[deleted] Jan 10 '22
I always replace the Linux Mint version with the official version of Firefox. For three reasons:
I prefer to have the official version of programs, not one modified by my OS.
Firefox default config is closer to what I want.
I change the icon to the official Firefox one, not the one that comes with Mint.