Silicon.com (http://software.silicon.com) announced on November 12 that Google (www.google.com) and Mozilla (www.mozilla.org) are cosier than ever with Firefox's latest release (www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/). The search engine giant is newly featured, centre-stage, on the default home page of Mozilla's open-source browser Firefox 1.0, which was made available for free download on November 9, and which, according to the president of the Mozilla Foundation Mitchell Baker, has been downloaded by an estimated 2.5 million people in only two days.
Google is hosting the Firefox start page because, according to Baker, the company's technical infrastructure is more capable of supporting high volumes of traffic. In earlier versions of Firefox, Google has been a resident on the upper right-hand box of the browser and it is the same in version 1.0. Firefox users can use a pull-down menu from the search box to navigate the web with Yahoo, Amazon.com and they can change the default from Google to other search engines such as Ask Jeeves. Baker said that Mozilla has assembled a set of different search partners including Yahoo. She would not say whether there is a financial relationship between Mozilla and Google.
Rumours, though, have circulated for months that Google is developing a web browser, potentially in partnership with Mozilla. On the other hand, Mozilla outlined plans this week to work closer with desktop search providers to develop similar capabilities for upcoming versions of Firefox, which could play nicely into Google's recent push into desktop search. More imminently, their relationship could greatly benefit Google if the Firefox browser were to take off with consumers like some people expect, given the growing discontent with Microsoft's dominant Internet Explorer browser. Google makes the lion's share of its revenue from advertising placements next to search results, and, according to Silicon.com, Firefox could help fuel demand for its search engine and advertising.
