The developer of the famous browser Firefox, Mozilla has just made a profit of $53 million throughout the whole 2005. This figure is somewhat announced by Mitchell Baker, the chairman of Mozilla Foundation. $53 million may not look like some big news but let’s see Mozilla profit for 2003 and 2004. In 2003, revenues for Mozilla are only $2.4mil and 2004 it is only $5.8mil. $53mil for 2006 is about 9x what they earned in 2004 and that is pretty impressive!

Now you must be wondering how free browser like Firefox manages to contribute so much to Mozilla’s revenue. Mitchell Baker did say that this tremendous growth came from a close relationship with a search engine but she did not disclose who, but obviously we all know that’s Google. But how Google help Firefox generate such crazy revenue?

See the small little Google search box on the right side. Do you use it often, if you do you are actually a big contributor to Mozilla’s earning this year. This Google search box come as a default with the installation of Firefox browser and Mozilla gets paid a publicly undisclosed amount for each query you make in that Google search box. I use the Google search box very often, how about you.