Ask HN: How are web browsers monetarily supported?
4 コメント
Advertising, search partnerships, premium subscriptions afaik.
These things can be found public:
- Opera https://investor.opera.com/news-releases/news-release-detail...
- Mozilla (largely funded by google) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation
- Brave https://brave.com/blog/100m-mau/ (ads, search api, premium subscription, and their crypto thing)
- Browser company: not sure, I think they have a subscription, but I assume they still mostly run on VC money.
Chrome, Safari, and Edge are funded by their parent companies. I believe Google does also pay Apple $20B to be the default search engine on Safari and ios.
So you could make an argument that Google pays for browsers. A lot of browsers run on Chromium, owned and funded by Google (although technically open source). Except Apple and Mozilla who get search money from Google.
These things can be found public:
- Opera https://investor.opera.com/news-releases/news-release-detail...
- Mozilla (largely funded by google) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation
- Brave https://brave.com/blog/100m-mau/ (ads, search api, premium subscription, and their crypto thing)
- Browser company: not sure, I think they have a subscription, but I assume they still mostly run on VC money.
Chrome, Safari, and Edge are funded by their parent companies. I believe Google does also pay Apple $20B to be the default search engine on Safari and ios.
So you could make an argument that Google pays for browsers. A lot of browsers run on Chromium, owned and funded by Google (although technically open source). Except Apple and Mozilla who get search money from Google.
> Chrome, Safari, and Edge are funded by their parent companies.
Of course, but how do the parent companies fund them?
If I were a company, I'd only fund something if it provided capital (or the reasonable assumption of capital in an agreeable timeframe). But nobody is paying for Chrome (Google Chrome), Safari, or Edge.
Someone may say "but everyone uses a browser. If Google stopped releasing Chrome it would upset a lot of people." Of course, but Chrome is a huge effort, very complex, lots of money. Google isn't pouring money into it because it makes lots of people happy, nor are they doing it because they have a gun pointed at them (although I bet legislative guns would appear quickly if Google did unexpectedly pull Chrome from the virtual shelves). So I'm left with the only alternative: money being moved from something revenue generating (probably advertising as you've mentioned or selling datasets etc) to the Chrome effort to keep it going.
My question is about the specifics. These are publicly-traded companies, but a lot of the decisions are opaque. Has anyone here on HN come across good data or analysis of specifically how money is moved around to support the huge efforts of maintaining popular web browsers?
Of course, but how do the parent companies fund them?
If I were a company, I'd only fund something if it provided capital (or the reasonable assumption of capital in an agreeable timeframe). But nobody is paying for Chrome (Google Chrome), Safari, or Edge.
Someone may say "but everyone uses a browser. If Google stopped releasing Chrome it would upset a lot of people." Of course, but Chrome is a huge effort, very complex, lots of money. Google isn't pouring money into it because it makes lots of people happy, nor are they doing it because they have a gun pointed at them (although I bet legislative guns would appear quickly if Google did unexpectedly pull Chrome from the virtual shelves). So I'm left with the only alternative: money being moved from something revenue generating (probably advertising as you've mentioned or selling datasets etc) to the Chrome effort to keep it going.
My question is about the specifics. These are publicly-traded companies, but a lot of the decisions are opaque. Has anyone here on HN come across good data or analysis of specifically how money is moved around to support the huge efforts of maintaining popular web browsers?
Imo it's pretty transparent, it's indeed all about ads. 70-80% of Google's revenue is from ads, that says it all imo.
First of all because of search: If you type something in the search bar of your browser, and that takes you to Google, you see all those ads and Google makes a lot of money.
Second of all because the browser is the entry point to the web. If you browse the web, the chance that you come across Google Adsense ads is very high, in other words, if you browse the web, Google makes money.
Browsers can control what you see, they can have ad blockers, they can replace ads (like the shady business Brave tried at some point), but also change the extension API so ad blockers are less effective (see manifest v3).
Conclusion: Controlling how people browse the internet is highly valuable as direct money maker (search ads) but also to make sure nobody but you can mess with 70-80% of your revenue. That alone is worth every dollar they spend on it.
Microsoft has Bing (but also based on chromium so less investment). Apple needs a browser for their devices, and gets 20B from Google to make it the default search engine (again, if Google can serve more ads, it makes more money). I don't know if Safari is well funded, they lag behind a bit currently.
Edit: Apple also has motivations btw. They have been lagging on implementing a lot of the features in Safari IOS that would make webapps more capable of replacing native apps, the App Store that Apple makes tons of money on... If you allow other browser you don't control that, so you need your own.
Second part why Google might want to fund Mozilla (and Safari to some extend) is to keep regulators happy. Being able to say "no no, it's not a monopoly, see!" is quite useful.
Idk if there is more data, but imo all you have to do is look at the financials, and it's pretty obvious that it's all about serving ads, billions of dollars in ads, directly or indirectly.
First of all because of search: If you type something in the search bar of your browser, and that takes you to Google, you see all those ads and Google makes a lot of money.
Second of all because the browser is the entry point to the web. If you browse the web, the chance that you come across Google Adsense ads is very high, in other words, if you browse the web, Google makes money.
Browsers can control what you see, they can have ad blockers, they can replace ads (like the shady business Brave tried at some point), but also change the extension API so ad blockers are less effective (see manifest v3).
Conclusion: Controlling how people browse the internet is highly valuable as direct money maker (search ads) but also to make sure nobody but you can mess with 70-80% of your revenue. That alone is worth every dollar they spend on it.
Microsoft has Bing (but also based on chromium so less investment). Apple needs a browser for their devices, and gets 20B from Google to make it the default search engine (again, if Google can serve more ads, it makes more money). I don't know if Safari is well funded, they lag behind a bit currently.
Edit: Apple also has motivations btw. They have been lagging on implementing a lot of the features in Safari IOS that would make webapps more capable of replacing native apps, the App Store that Apple makes tons of money on... If you allow other browser you don't control that, so you need your own.
Second part why Google might want to fund Mozilla (and Safari to some extend) is to keep regulators happy. Being able to say "no no, it's not a monopoly, see!" is quite useful.
Idk if there is more data, but imo all you have to do is look at the financials, and it's pretty obvious that it's all about serving ads, billions of dollars in ads, directly or indirectly.
I forgot the most important reason! Data for ads.
Delivering ads is based on data about you, so you get the most effective ads. Your browsing data is really valuable data in that sense.
If you read about the privacy controls in chrome you get a pretty good idea of what they collect:
> Your topics of interest are noted by Chrome and are based on your recent browsing history. Sites can also store info with Chrome about your interests. As you keep browsing, Chrome may be asked to share stored info about ad topics or site-suggested ads to help give you a more personalized ad experience. To measure the performance of ads, limited types of data can be shared among sites and apps.
https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/13355898
It's all about ads.
Delivering ads is based on data about you, so you get the most effective ads. Your browsing data is really valuable data in that sense.
If you read about the privacy controls in chrome you get a pretty good idea of what they collect:
> Your topics of interest are noted by Chrome and are based on your recent browsing history. Sites can also store info with Chrome about your interests. As you keep browsing, Chrome may be asked to share stored info about ad topics or site-suggested ads to help give you a more personalized ad experience. To measure the performance of ads, limited types of data can be shared among sites and apps.
https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/13355898
It's all about ads.
There is information available via Google search, but I'm curious what the HN crowd thinks. Besides, maybe it's just me at the end of 2025 but I'm starting to get paranoid about info on the web being accurate about the monetary foundations of the web... if that makes sense.