Are these ads introduced with these updates, or does Firefox include a backdoor so the Mozilla Corporation can show whatever they want on your home page?
https://robert.ocallahan.org/2014/08/choose-firefox-now-or-l...
We might as well just make our peace that the age of an open internet and general-purpose computing is coming to an end. In future, we'll enjoy AOL 2.0 access on our Google Home Terminal Appliances.
If people will not use it for these reasons now, then they will not be able to use it in the future.
That's the argument, and it seems pretty straightforward to me.
Maybe for you. For me, it's unuseable until they add hardware accelerated video decoding.
Source: https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/chrome-store-fox...
The linked discussion makes the impression that they try to revive it.
From what I understand though, Eich has lost faith in Mozilla maintaining their own renderer, so if he came back to Mozilla it would probably coincide with Firefox becoming yet another chromium skin.
Brave is growing, has grown every month, not at over 5.5M MAU. I am not sure how to interpret "Brave doesn't seem to be catching on" as other than false. Firefox in 1H2004 was in a similar trendline. People then still said "IE for evar!"
2) "Things were better before so let's revert to where we were five years ago" is a terrible strategy.
I mean, if things really were better before, reverting to how they were sounds like a pretty good strategy. That's kind of a tautology.
Anyway, they'll always be guaranteed at least 3% of the market from diehard anti-Google/Microsoft/closed-source users like me, and users from outside the US who are concerned by unaccountable US tech behemoths who are intimately intertwined with the government. With that 3%, they'll be able to fulfill their primary function of being something that Google can claim in an antitrust hearing keeps them from being a monopoly.
They could try to offer some kind of "pay us to forgo marketing partnerships" deal, but I somehow doubt even most of the well-paid privacy advocates on HN would sign up.
Wikipedia has sufficient marketshare to survive despite that.
The ads that mozilla shows are fairly privacy-friendly, much more than any other ads you'd find on most websites. That's an improvement.
If you don't like them you can easily disable them.
Users may not like nag screens, but I doubt they like the shitty ads Mozilla shows on the new tab page by default either. As long as the screen is easy to dismiss I don't see the problem.
Wikipedia has, as mentioned, the market monopoly advantage so they can do as please, Firefox doesn't and can't afford to annoy users.
I would doubt users are more annoyed by ads, especially the type of ads that Mozilla uses, than nag screens.
I would pay for this, provided it was a one time payment! (I feel I need to add that caveat nowadays, since subscriptions are all the rage.)
The problem is that web browsers require some of the most intensive software maintenance of any software, ever. They're one of the most exposed attack surfaces to external security threats; and piles of new features are unfortunately getting continuously added to web standards, which need to be supported for compatibility reasons.
I think a one time tip-jar payment makes sense for a lot of software, but not for web browsers. I think a subscription-type contribution makes the most sense for them.
Subscriptions are just difficult to manage, I can't deal with individual recurring costs for so many pieces of software.
You can find more here: https://www.privacy-handbuch.de/handbuch_21u.htm
This user.js will disable most of the telemetry and other things: https://www.privacy-handbuch.de/download/minimal/user.js
So yes, you can disable these.
Mozilla needs that information to be able to make a decision on where to focus.
Same for ads, default off ads defeats the entire purpose.
Mozilla is a privacy-aware and even -focused corporation and I will assume that the defaults of the browser are good for the common end user. Everything else may be configured.
The ads on their homepage are far more benign than their google search integration which pays hundreds of millions per year.
Backdoor? Please.
Even though the link claims that it is not a paid placement, it's still an advertisement. If Mozilla really wants to provide more value to me, they'll tell me how to permanently disable it. Its presence provides negative value to me.
> This snippet was an experiment to provide more value to Firefox users through offers provided by a partner. It was not a paid placement or advertisement. We are continually looking for more ways to say thanks for using Firefox. In a similar vein, earlier this month we offered Firefox users a free opportunity to enjoy a live concert from Phosphorescent.
It could be that they are knowingly making public statements which are untrue and will expose themselves to legal liability for that or it could be that the statement means exactly what it says and that Mozilla is experimenting with promotions for using Firefox which do not involve money changing hands, especially if they're just gauging interest to see whether people even click on those regions. The concert was definitely promoted as a “Thanks for using Firefox” deal so I would not be at all surprised to learn that Booking.com gave a modest discount as part of a deal where no money changed hands as per the statement.
I don't know about legal liability, but you don't really need to look further than this to know that Mozilla lied because these two statements are already inconsistent. "Offers provided by a partner" are advertisements. The quid pro quo in this case wasn't money, but rather a link on booking.com to download Firefox.
I guess you think I should use chrome? Because that has zero to do with serving me up more profitable advertising at all..
But aside from that, you do know you can disable everything on the home page under general preferences - including the ad section.
And worst case if they remove the option, ublock will still block it and if it can't you can just disable it's display in userChrome.css.
Furthermore, I’m not sure where you got the idea that I am telling you to move to chrome or indeed do anything at all, given the comment to which you replied says “me” 3 times in it. I was quite evidently purely asking about my own situation.
Their argument, per the GP’s link, is that they want to provide their users additional value. This does not achieve that for me, hence I want to remove it.
I have not yet had a chance to upgrade and try to disable it, as I am not near my computer right now to upgrade to the latest release. Hence why I asked for them to provide a means of removing it. If that already exists, fantastic! It achieves precisely the outcome I’m after.
But its not only ads they serve up, it's closer to the Google Now feed you see on chrome new tabs in android or Google now.
The accusation was that they're not adding value or in fact negating it. My complaint was that Google or alternatives don't do nearly as much as they could to ad value - so to call out Firefox like this just makes no sense.
I will mention they're pushing pocket hard and I think this sis the route they're going for monetary gains. It's gross but it's pretty easy to remove it all from context menus via user chrome CSS anyway.
Firefox desperately needs a revenue stream that is independent from Google. Although Google has not done so yet -- it's imo very valuable to Google to preserve the illusion of not having a browser monopoly -- a huge amount of their revenues come from their Google search deal. Google can, for example, cut that deal at any time: Firefox is selling into a monopsony.
I don't love advertising, but we need Firefox to have a non-google revenue source.
The alternative is subscription. That hasn't fared too well traditionally in browser space for a few decades. Maybe the Brave approach might work, where a fraction goes to the browser vendor akin to a transaction fee?
I have no idea if it would bring in enough revenue, but it would presumably help? I'd much prefer a Wikipedia-esque donation request on the new tab page than any of Mozilla's other partnerships.
The snippets are just a web page fragment fetched over HTTPS, AFAIK.
Hit the gear at the top right of your new tab page. Uncheck boxes you don't want.
Optionally, disable Pocket completely by going to about:config in address bar. Search for 'extensions.pocket.enabled' and double click to change value from true to false.
Then Mozilla started back dooring ads and other promos and broke my trust.
I’ve since gone back to Chrome. At least there Google has the decency to make it obvious you’re being tracked, and with the new privacy controls I (hopefully correctly) feel like I can exercise some control.
Mozilla really needs to get right with their users.