Mozilla not happy about Microsoft moving to Chromium project, the devs of the Mozilla project can smell the competition and claim by adopting Chromium, “Microsoft hands over control of even more of online life to Google”.

Last week the news surfaced that Microsoft will be replacing the Edge browser based on Edgehtml with an engine based on the Chromium engine, reports myce. 

Mozilla in their argument thinks the swap to Chromium would bring Google even more control over the web and potentially make it harder for Firefox. Mozilla’s CEO, Chris Beard writes, “will Microsoft’s decision make it harder for Firefox to prosper? It could. Making Google more powerful is risky on many fronts.”

Beard fears that Google will soon have a monopoly on the internet. He writes about that, “If one product like Chromium has enough market share, then it becomes easier for web developers and businesses to decide not to worry if their services and sites work with anything other than Chromium. That’s what happened when Microsoft had a monopoly on browsers in the early 2000s before Firefox was released. And it could happen again.”

Beard also writes he understands that from Microsoft’s business point of view it’s no longer profitable to fight Google, but stresses how important it is that not a single company has control over the internet. He writes, “from a social, civic and individual empowerment perspective ceding control of fundamental online infrastructure to a single company is terrible. This is why Mozilla exists. We compete with Google not because it’s a good business opportunity. We compete with Google because the health of the internet and online life depend on competition and choice.”

Therefore, Beard calls for users that care about the web to try Firefox again for at least a week. Especially users who haven’t used the browser the last two years should notice it’s “radically better”. He concludes his call for a more diverse web with, “your use helps web developers and businesses think beyond Chrome. And this helps Firefox and Mozilla make overall life on the internet better — more choice, more security options, more competition.”

Mozilla not happy about Microsoft moving to Chromium project