Firefox 94 advertises VPN in new private browsing tabs | Hacker News Reader

Firefox 94 advertises VPN in new private browsing tabs

bugzilla.mozilla.org

40 pointsamariteuthis55 comments

> My new tab window should have no advertisements in it, because you are a nonprofit.

Well it doesn't make anysense. Nonprofit doesn't mean you don't have to make money.

While I understand having such an ad is not perfect, it is non intrusive (doesn't popup from nowhere), relevant to your context (private browsing can benefit from a VPN) and non tracking.

> My new tab window should have no advertisements in it, because you are a nonprofit.

"Non-profit" doesn't mean that money magically appears out of nothing.

> pushed me ever closer to just giving up and going to Chrome, where at least they exploit me in predictable ways.

Chrome is worse, and the ways are much more intrusive. They aren't even predictable. If people keep attacking Firefox like that, there won't be any choice but Chromium/Google, and then it will get even worse.

In Firefox you can usually turn off the things you don't like. Just turn it off.

I'd normally agree with you, but Firefox has so many knobs in the about:config and they change often enough (and e.g new ones appear) that it's a game of constant surprise, thinking you turned off all of x, only to find something very similar popped up somewhere else and you didn't know about it because it's a buried about:config preference

Mozilla hasn't always made the best decisions in the past few years, but there are better ways to communicate things to them than lashing out and threatening to on quit every update. People regularly do that even for things that are easily turned off in the normal settings. If Firefox disappears, it's going to result in a far worse outcome.

> "Non-profit" doesn't mean that money magically appears out of nothing.

It appears already from Google's pockets. First why dont they try to be lean instead of shoving ads to users all year long? How many millionaire execs do you need to run a non-profit?

Because Google could cut funding from them at any moment. I literally use Firefox in order to not be dependent on Google's whims, so I think it makes sense for Mozilla to move towards a position where they too are not dependent on Google's whims.

> > pushed me ever closer to just giving up and going to Chrome, where at least they exploit me in predictable ways.

> Chrome is worse, and the ways are much more intrusive. They aren't even predictable. If people keep attacking Firefox like that, there won't be any choice but Chromium/Google, and then it will get even worse.

I understand where they're coming from: With Chrome I don't see those ads. They are probably exploiting my data, but I don't see ads that come from the browser. Firefox on the other hand shoves the ads right under my nose.

> shoves the ads right under my nose

You can turn them off.

You can't really turn off the ads with Google. Chrome is designed to send you to Google Search where you are encouraged to click on ads and visit other Google sites instead of the URL you intended to visit. That's why they turned the URL bar into a search bar. At least in Firefox you can split search into a separate box.

> My new tab window should have no advertisements in it, because you are a nonprofit.

Basically, I can't agree with that. As a user who is unable to contribute to the development of Firefox. I'd love to see my favorite product have a stable, independent cash flow that comes from a product that doesn't conflict with the company's culture (i.e., protecting privacy). Anyway, at least, this is much better than the cryptocurrency things that come with Brave.

Crazy concept but what if you just paid for the browser then?

Do those even exist, paid-for browsers that is

WHy don't they propose a plan without ads?

How would you legally do that? Pay for a browser to block ALL ads?

I'd love to pay for Firefox. Not Mozilla or anything else. Just the Firefox team. Can I?

Here's one way to support them. https://fpn.firefox.com/

Nope. This is not supporting the browser, it's supporting their VPN that they develop, that takes time and effort from the browser work.

I thought FPN and the VPN are white-labeled 3rd party services (Cloudflare for FPN and Mullvad for VPN). Are you sure that every attempt Mozilla makes to become less dependent on Google negatively impacts Firefox development? I find that doubtful.

I would prefer a 10$ a year subscription with no telemetry, keeping plugin support

Mozilla is in a tough spot. An ad for their VPN might be amongst the least bad options they have.

Mozilla plays an important role in providing platform diversity.

Any user that wants Mozilla to succeed but protests by using a WebKit based browser is achieving only a pyrrhic victory.

Mozilla would be in a much less tough spot if they didn't keep rearranging their deckchairs every six months, and actually let us fund the browser team directly.

That is exactly the root of the problem. Yet they keep pretending its not.

Mozilla could be in a much better position if they focused more on that platform diversity instead of all those other types of "diversity". Alas, their multi-million dollar CEO - who is keen on using the platform for censorship purposes [1] - seems to crave the warm embrace of the diversity crowd over success in the marketplace.

I was there when the Netscape source was released and stated building the same day. I followed the burgeoning Mozilla project from the start and have used first Netscape, then Phoenix, then Firebird, then Firefox and every now and then Seamonkey ever since. I want there to be a strong competitor to Blink (the engine behind Chromium) but I think it has become clear that Mitchell is not the right person to lead this project, being more interested in politics and progressive causes than keeping the competition at bay. Mozilla needs to scale down its organisation and focus on those aspects, creating a number of interoperating projects and products which can compete with Chromium and the infrastructure - sync etc - behind it. Those projects should be platform-neutral and not reliant on central hosting, i.e. it should be possible to easily self-host a Mozilla auth/sync server. Given those conditions Mozilla could become a key component of the drive towards a more decentralised internet.

Get rid of Mitchell and her lackeys and use her copious remuneration (more than $3.000.000) to hire 10 to 20 full-time engineers, set them on this task and get that ball rolling.

[1] https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplat...

> My new tab window should have no advertisements in it, because you are a nonprofit.

That doesn't mean they're a non-revenue.

It was decent up until the last half. The all caps nature of your post was unnecessary and childish, and while it makes sense to be upset at Mozilla's mismanagement and ads in your browser, you cite needlessly off-topic examples where Mozilla should actually be doing something (aside from the color scheme part).

Does Mozilla really need a VR research team?

at least they don't have an OS development team anymore.

Browsers are at the forefront of interfacing with the web.

If VR is coming to the web, Mozilla need to at least be ready for this, if not leading it.

There are precedents from the previous wave of attempts at VR: "MICROSOFT AND NETSCAPE TEAM UP ON VRML STANDARD" (1997) [1]

[1] https://techmonitor.ai/technology/microsoft_and_netscape_tea...

They have a VR web browser, and a full implementation of WHATWG already requires a lot of VR-interfacing technology.

Blame W3 and WHATWG?

> So let me be really clear: STOP PUTTING ADS IN THE GOD DAMNED WEB BROWSER! I DON'T WANT YOUR VPN! I WILL NEVER WANT YOUR VPN!

YES. How can Mozilla be so out of touch? Do they not understand the fact people use their browser because it supports uBlock Origin? We need to repeat this loud and clear until they get it.

I use Firefox. I don't use an ad blocker, but I do use Firefox's tracking protection, and first party isolation.

If Mozilla doesn't track with this ad, I'm _okay_ with it.

ads can be used to track you (profile you), and even as malware vector.

> I don't use an ad blocker

Why not?

The cost-benefit isn't there for me.

Benefit: Removing ads isn't much of a benefit for me, since having tracking protection and first party isolation.

Cost: Ads blocker require high privilege permissions that I choose not to grant.

> Removing ads isn't much of a benefit for me

Why not? I'm genuinely curious... The web feels completely different without ad blockers, at least to me.

> Ads blocker require high privilege permissions that I choose not to grant.

That is perfectly understandable. I agree with you. I think these blockers should be built into the browser themselves in order to eliminate this problem. Sadly, conflicts of interest prevent that. Firefox is funded by Google.

> Why not? I'm genuinely curious... The web feels completely different without ad blockers, at least to me.

To clarify, I prefer an ad-free browsing experience.

However, I haven't seen an alternative to ads that works for adequately funding content on the /open/ web.

I like that most journalism, YouTube, and social media are free for all.

On macOS, I started using testing Orion [0] when the last discovery of ad-injection into Firefox was posted. While it isn’t perfect, and it’s a closed beta, it actually works quite well.

But ostensibly the best feature is that the browser will have a “pro” tier with extra features that can be paid for, and a major selling point of Orion is that it has literally zero telemetry, by design. I didn’t imagine a decade ago that I’d be begging to pay for a browser, but here I am. I would love to pay Mozilla for Firefox if it meant that I knew I wasn’t going to be advertised VPN software.

Sure, I could pay for a Firefox VPN, but would that make the ads go away? I’m not sure. I would rather pay for Firefox, the browser, and have no ads or studies, but I can’t.

[0]: https://browser.kagi.com/

In about:config, change browser.privatebrowsing.vpnpromourl to an empty string.

Is self-promoting your own bug report complaints allowed at HN?

I have not seen the ad and hence speak somewhat uninformed. I will just present and alternate view.

I think a lot of people will be unaware about the fact that in terms of sharing information with your ISP and others, you are no more secure by using "private browsing".

If Mozilla can help educate some of these people, then I cannot fault them for that. But as I started by saying I have not seen the actual ad, just trying to present an alternate view.

After many, many years of stubbornly staying on Firefox, I recently finally made the switch to Vivaldi.

This reinforces my decision.

If this is what they need to do to survive, they already lost. The userbase won't accept ads.

Just noticed this a few moments ago myself. I am not as angry about it as the reporter, but agree there should be a setting to disable ads if they're going to throw ads in Firefox.

Do you want Mozilla to rely on Google's money, or make their own money, pick one.

Please take my goddamn money. Let me pay for the actual browser, with that money going to browser development. I'll do it. Many others will do it. But this ad and "partner" shit is frustrating and wrong.

Should be an option.

3 download buttons: Firefox (funded by Google), Firefox (funded by Ads), Firefox ($20/year)

But 99% of people will pick the first I'd bet

1% of Firefox users paying $20 per year would be more than enough.

YES! Let me pay for the browser directly!

That was Mozilla's original plan, until IE shipped for free

There are so many people on HN that work for Google, Facebook, etc.

Are there no people that work for Mozilla or Firefox?

If you are here, please keep telling the people above you that users will pay for the browser and the browser alone.

people need to chill out, and mozilla needs to refocus

Why isn't there a FOSS browser? Why is building FOSS OSes more popular than FOSS browsers?

Edit: Ok, I'll see if I can compile the source. (Firefox is foss)

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=firefox+s...

Aren't both Firefox and Chromium open-source? I'd say the answer to why aren't there more like there used to be is because it's too large an undertaking to actually keep up.

The company that respects your privacy!

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