I also want to add that I 1000% fault Mozilla on this for not diversifying their funding over the years. They knew that this much of their funding was that dependent on Google and they ignored it while, at the same time, advertising themselves as some kind of independent organization. They could have began seriously trying to decouple themselves from Google, but have seemingly repeatedly chose not to.

So how do we know that Google doesn't have their thumb on Firefox right now behind the scenes? Because looking back, Firefox always appeared to compete with Chrome - but I'm now seeing that it only competed "enough" as to possibly create an illusion of true competition. Could Google possibly have influenced this behavior?

Just follow the money.

Mozilla was started by Netscape a few years before Chrome came out. So presumably they had a few years of Netscape money rather than Google's. But I believe they were always dependent on corporate money from one source or another (like many nonprofits are). Except in their case, there was a very clear conflict of interest that the board did nothing about for decades...

Something else I just found (literally from two days ago):

https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1kdc02o/firefox_co...

> I don't think that people understand what interest Google has in paying Mozilla so much for, let's be honest, so little.

> Louis Rossmann explained it the best to me - Google pays Mozilla so much only to keep them alive to prevent antitrust litigation if Blink becomes basically the only browser engine left for Windows.

Looks like the courts might be understanding that relationship and declaring that illegal as well.