Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

I do not follow your logic, at all.

Users use search engines. In fact it's pretty much a required feature to display a search bar proudly in the UI of a browser.

Users therefore give their search data to search engines. You can quibble about which corps are good corps and which corps are bad corps, but users cannot use search engines without giving search engines their search queries. Obviously.

Mozilla does no concomitant damage to users' privacy by allowing them to use their browser to use search engines. Mozilla, therefore, is not complicit in any wrongdoing which you ascribe to them.

If Mozilla made a deal with a manifestly worse option than the popular ones, measured either by results quality or by user abuse, the yes -- Mozilla would be reprehensible.

DDG is better, but it's not what users want.

> You know what would be nonsensical? If Yahoo didn't collect data about you.

Sure. Cool. That'd be neat.

> If Mozilla did not need to sell our data ...

Repeating that doesn't make it true. Mozilla does not sell your data. They sell placement of choice. We can agree that most users won't change the default choice, but we must also agree that almost no users will choose !google !yahoo !bing !ddg. In that order.

> ... it could ask which provider we want to use or integrate technology like YaCy.

The choice exists and is highly accessible. Are you suggesting a first-run dialog to ask the user to pick a search engine, a la Internet Explorer post-DOJ judgement? That's usability insanity.

YaCy doesn't even exist in Mozilla's user population's awareness. What's better? A good browser option or a dead browser?




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: