mozilla making millions

Everyone loves Firefox, or at least everyone I know does. As an avid mac fan I tend to use safari most of the time. (Except when blogging blogger no likey safari) One of the main reasons I stopped using IE was the lack of a search box in the corner, though Microsoft have sorted that out now.

Well it seems the little Google box in the corner is proving lucrative for other reasons than attracting punters. Seems Google are paying Mozilla for each search carried out in that little box. Which apparently is totaling up to $53 million a year. Not bad business, I assume on Google's end it makes sense as people might click adsense adverts and being there stops MSN and Yahoo pinching the searches.

Can't help but raise two questions to me.

First is the new IE shipping with Vista going to point more people to Live? Lots of people when they upgrade might forget to reinstall Firefox or the Google Toolbar. Though I can't see Live stealing many of the tech savvy users back from Google, espescially in the UK, but your normal user might be swayed away from Google

Secondly are Apple pocketing some money from Safari, I imagine the number of searches or users aren't as many Firefox but its got to be a few million dollars which might come in handy...