Someone on the Firefox subreddit mentioned that one of the ideas which is being considered is offering a privacy-centric VPN service for people who donate. I think that would be a great benefit for subscribers, and a neat way for Mozilla to set Firefox apart from other browsers.

In the meantime, Cloak is doing a good job providing a paid product that meets this need: https://www.getcloak.com/

(I'm a satisfied customer)

Why would you recommend a apple only service?

Because neon_electro is a satisfied customer?

Are you in some way affiliated maybe?

You can always donate at https://donate.mozilla.org/.

Donations don't replace paying options, that's a grave error. Companies can't "donate" (or it's super difficult) because their accountant will yell at them.

Offer something that can be bought and written down on a proforma.

That's interesting because I've seen plenty of articles over the years stating that they get a ton of money via the search agreements - not to mention the people who donate code. Shouldn't they be self sustaining?

Yahoo! is going belly up so not sure they can rely on search agreements for much longer. It's better if they have some direct small individual customers I think.

I'm pretty sure Mozilla has a clause in the contract with Yahoo that covers this: http://www.recode.net/2016/7/7/12116296/marissa-mayer-deal-m...

"According to the change-of-control term, 9.1 in the agreement, Mozilla has the right to leave the partnership if — under its sole discretion and in a certain time period — it did not deem the new partner acceptable. And if it did that, even if it struck another search deal, Yahoo is still obligated to pay out annual revenue guarantees of $375 million."

So if Mozilla goes to another search engine, Yahoo still needs to pay them for nothing? How did Yahoo agree to this?

That's Marissa Mayer for you. [0]

[0] http://www.recode.net/2016/7/7/12116296/marissa-mayer-deal-m...

How would you like Mozilla to be financed?

My point is - I thought they were - by search engine agreements.

That's correct. When you say "self-sustaining", do you mean from direct user donations or paid services (like the built-in VPN example), instead of "selling eyeballs" to Google or Yahoo? There is discussion about creating a Mozilla membership program and what benefits could be offered.

You realize they do have quite a bit of revenue via yahoo right?