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Comment by ramblenode | Hacker News Reader

I would guess a lot of Firefox's core users (the ones who evangelize it, install it for relatives, file bug reports, write plugins, etc.) stick around because this browser has been a hedge against uncomfortable trends in big tech, many of which were spawned from ad tech. Going the way of ads seems like a dangerous line to tinker with if Mozilla wants to maintain the trust of these users.

Maybe there is a way to do ads well that isn't intrusive and that adds value to the UX. Or maybe it will annoy people and damage the brand by de-differentiating Firefox from Chrome and Brave. I like to give Mozilla the benefit of the doubt, because it's important that they innovate, but getting into the ad business feels like it could be a deal with the devil. Maybe you make more money---but if you lose your soul then you're just another browser ready to be replaced by the next shiny thing.

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Yep. It's way beyond anything I consider acceptable. I'm disgusted, really.

It's still pretty fresh, so it's possible my opinion softens later, but right now I'm thinking it's appropriate to consider Chrome and Firefox pretty much equivalent on 'ethical' (or whatever you want to call it) grounds.

Google is far more of a concern than Mozilla, but at this point it feels like Chrome is out to get you less than Firefox is.

I nearly acted on my impulse to start switching everything over to Chrome. The only thing that saved Firefox here is the memory of some concerns about adblocking on Chrome in the future. I haven't looked into it much, so I don't know how significant of a concern that is. But functionally no adblock is worse than being forced to turn off user-hostile options, so, here I remain. I guess. For now.

Yea, I can't even imagine the furor if Chrome were to do this and make it opt-out. Very unexpected from Mozilla, even with my lowered standards of the last half decade.

> Yea, I can't even imagine the furor if Chrome were to do this

But... Chrome does do this. They're just not labeled as ads.

Type the letter "K" (or any other single letter) into your Chrome search bar on a fresh profile and tell me what you see. Because I see an awful lot of "contextual suggestions" that are not really any different from ads.

https://imgur.com/a/baXZDrN

Welp. I guess that's my daily dose of 'oh god everything is actually worse than I thought and I don't know why I'm surprised again.'

There's no way that's a decent no-history guess for what is intended.

Not saying I ditrust you, but do we know for sure that those are paids ads not unpaid sugesstions?

I don't honestly think it matters. They're effectively ads in practice regardless of whether they're paid or not.

But I do get the feeling that "Kahoot", a mobile game I've literally never heard of, isn't an organic result.

I get zero suggestions for that within Google Chrome.

https://i.imgur.com/2uREs6u.png

I think it may be your own history popping up there.

I think there's some weird A/B test shenanigans going on with this one. I have a machine where some letters or whole words will get google search results and ads with images in the first few entries of the dropdown, but on my main machine it's just google searches and then history/bookmarks at the bottom.

It's not my own history because I have no history, I use Chrome exclusively for things that are completely broken on Firefox, which is mostly just 1 or 2 google websites.

Yeah, I think it might be A/B testing as well. I don't get any suggestions from typing K. Everything that popped up is from my history.

Also, not really related, but from my experience, Kahoot is really popular in education. I bet at least 80% of my classmates in college have used it at least once. I am a bit surprised you never heard about it.

I don't think I understand your point. Are those ads, or just entity search? Or are you saying you don't think that the distinction between paid autocomplete results and rich autocomplete results are meaningful?

Mostly the latter, but I also don't think these results (especially the first one) are organic.

Surely you'd agree that most people _do_ recognize this distinction though? And that's what relevant to whether the would be a furor, not your personal view on what makes ads harmful, which is rather idiosyncratic (regardless of whether it's more defensible/correct).

I'm switching to Nyxt browser on Linux and keep only Safari on Apple devices. Mozilla indeed developed a brilliant way to lose last 5% of market share.

Browser vendors know they need to change this gradually as a sudden impact would spawn a fork with a slight chance that it might catch on. Mozilla is certainly trying to boil some water here, but I think Google is worse in the long run.

Mozilla is still dependent on Google for funding, so the situation is already bad.

>Maybe there is a way to do ads well that isn't intrusive and that adds value to the UX.

There isn't.

Okay, I'll bite.

I believe ads can exist if I consent to being shown them BEFOREHAND and alternatives, such as paying to opt-out completely are offered. The world is vast and changing with increasing velocity. I cannot keep up with all the possible tech products and services coming out even if I had a theoretically perfect RSS feed combined with other follows/subscriptions to content feeds. If a product is commercially successful to the point where they can afford to throw dollars at a probability of acquiring a new user, there's no fundamental reason why that behavior is necessarily bad/unwelcome. If I visit a news website, I want to be presented (before assaulted with ads) with a notice that provides me the option of paying for the content or seeing ads. Off the top of my head, spiegel.de follows this paradigm. A level further, and within reason for a downloaded/heavily-used/customizable software such as web browser is the opportunity to see ads that are relevant to my interests by affording me the option of indicating my interests to the platform before ads are shown and the ability to easily discriminate arbitrarily against a specific ad or categories related to any ad I don't like for any reason. If I don't like the ads a company shows me, even on the free version, they should not be repeated. If I don't want any category of ads that must be fine, but they company may opt to place a generic request for support of their corporation a-la-wikipedia funding request-- I am using their software for free, after all...

But to say there isn't exploring the full range of UX that can be afforded by modern software systems.

I say this as someone who is deeply disturbed by this latest update and will stop recommending FF as an alternative to chrome with superior privacy settings. Your reply just struck me as horribly defeatist. Ads are not leaving the web, but they _can_ be served with far better motives than they are currently.

Look there's just people who don't make purchasing decisions based off ads.

AFAIK, YouTube actually losing money by offering paid ads opt-out.

Really? I've heard from YouTubers they make drastically more money from Premium viewers ( those who pay for no ads) and "regular", ad-paid viewers.

I have no source to back up this claim but I think SergeAx is referring to YouTube themselves making less money.

I think you are right in saying that YouTubers make more money, but YouTube themselves might lose more by not showing ads.

Advertising is, by definition, both intrusive and poor UX.

> Maybe there is a way to do ads well...

At the very least, they should have made it opt-in rather than opt-out. I don't like them quietly sneaking a pre-enabled advertising option into the configuration options.

And they know it's a potential privacy issue, since all the address bar suggestion options are already under the "Privacy & Security" settings.

If they were opt in, would they even make back the investment it took to build the feature to begin with?

There's the simple “we're sponsored by Twarfle this month”. But I guess it's less valuable to the advertiser. As for adding to the UX, still no.

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