Mozilla CEO warns against Google's increasing control over internet browsers after Microsoft adopts Chromium engine

For years, Google has been supplanting Apple, Microsoft, Mozilla, and countless other Internet and electronics companies in several marketplaces: search engines, phones, social media (sort of), media, and especially internet browsers. When it launched, Google Chrome almost immediately soared into supremacy over its most immediate competitors, Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Internet Explorer. After Microsoft finally announced it would be ending its relatively recent Edge browser in favor of a Chromium (an engine developed by Google) based one, Mozilla made strong statements warning users of the implications.

A spokesperson for Mozilla made a statement to The Verge, saying

This just increases the importance of Mozilla’s role as the only independent choice. We are not going to concede that Google’s implementation of the web is the only option consumers should have. That’s why we built Firefox in the first place and why we will always fight for a truly open web.

Google represents more than half of all internet browsers used today, with Mozilla following in second place, albeit with a much smaller share. Although Mozilla, as Google's foremost competitor in the browser market, obviously has a financial incentive to criticize Microsoft's move, there is a good deal of truth to the company's statements. Even before Microsoft's adoption of Chromium, Google has been accused of creating a monopoly by top level US politicians. Considering Google's always on location tracking and the recent failures to keep malware out of the Play Store, perhaps Mozilla is right that a Google monopoly isn't in everyone's best interests. 

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