Firefox: On the front lines of the Internet wars
U.S.News: What do you think about the controversy over Google's censoring of Chinese websites?
Baker: I don't comment on search engines, positive or negative, because they are partners of ours. [Search companies like Google pay Firefox for searches made with the browser.] But we are striving to be the center for consumers on the Web. Are we going to be perfect at that? Nope. One of these days you are going to sit here, and you are going to ask me, "Gee, you said you are for the consumer, and do you think this is 100 percent right?" and maybe I'll have to say, "Maybe we made a mistake" or "Maybe we had two bad options." No organization is going to be perfect.
U.S.News: Microsoft is coming out with a new browser that seems to promise many of the features of Firefox. What have you heard about how good IE 7 will be?
Baker: I never underestimate Microsoft or the fierceness of its competitive caliber. IE 7 is going to be much improved. It will probably have most or all of the things that made Firefox useful. I think IE 7 represents a significant success for the Mozilla project in its own right. The fact that IE users will have the benefit of [these] things is part of our goal of making the Web better. Will it cut into our market share? We'll see. I'm not sure how successful they have been in solving some of the security problems. But IE 7 is just one step. What we really need to see is whether IE 7 represents a change of heart in Microsoft's approach to browsers and not just in response to Firefox, but a long-term change in making a product that serves users well, because we will continue to do that.
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