191–200 of 411 posts
AdNauseam is an extension that clicks ads at random in the background, thus polluting your user data. It was useful enough to get banned from the Chrome web store.
It’s probably wise not to encourage interstate advertising fraud that the FBI might decide to investigate and arrest you for knowingly participating in. https://www.fastcompany.com/90273549/fbi-and-google-take-dow...
I find it really interesting that when a company is making moves in a direction that benefits privacy of consumers, everyone takes the opportunity to shit on them for past mistakes or how it isn't good enough or why isn't it on by default or any other thing they can find to shit on. Yes, every single company has made mistakes. FireFox is no exception. Some of them were pretty egregious. Mistakes are - hopefully - an…
> This always-negative/outrage attitude just erodes any sort of meaningful discussion. They destroyed some of my bookmarks when they dropped RSS support. That isn't privacy-eroding, it's data destruction, and they didn't even let me opt out. I know they probably had a lot of conversation about it, but when the conversation ends with "And then we destroy the data of random people without letting them say no", you need…
In addition:
>Firefox will tell you when support for Live Bookmarks has ended and will do the following:
>Automatically export all existing Live Bookmarks to an OPML file on your desktop named Firefox feeds backup.opml which you can import into another feed reader.
>Live Bookmarks will be turned into regular static bookmarks if Firefox can identify the URL. If the URL doesn't exist, the original Live Bookmark is removed.
>ESR version 60 will support the built-in feed reader and live bookmarks features. Support for these features will be removed in October 2019, when ESR 60 is no longer supported.[2]
So, what would suggest instead of (or in addition to) providing months of warning, automatic export, and extended support that will continue for another 4-5 months?
[1]https://www.gijsk.com/blog/2018/10/firefox-removes-core-prod... [2]https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/feed-reader-replacement...
It seems that almost weekly, I am reminded why I love Firefox because of some new thing Mozilla is doing. A lot of good decisions have been coming from them lately.
I find it really interesting that when a company is making moves in a direction that benefits privacy of consumers, everyone takes the opportunity to shit on them for past mistakes or how it isn't good enough or why isn't it on by default or any other thing they can find to shit on. Yes, every single company has made mistakes. FireFox is no exception. Some of them were pretty egregious. Mistakes are - hopefully - an…
Giving the users commenting negatively the privacy they want would mean that Firefox would not implement the "features" that its developers believe are necessary for a "good browser".1
What "good browser" really means to these developers is a browser that does what the "competing" browser does first and foremost, not the ideal browser some vocal group of ad-loathing, privacy-conscious users want. That is how Mozilla defines "good". "Good" to them means "competitive". To the users who comment on Firefox flaws, "good" means something else. It does not necessarily mean one that "competes" with Chrome.
The honest response from Mozilla to negative comments would be to acknowledge they do not exist primarily for all users. They exist primarily for the developers who work there, as part of a project to be "competitive" with commercially-driven browsers.
Cutting ties to the revenue stream of internet advertising and the browsers that it finances is not an option for Mozilla. It is not volunteer-driven like many open source projects. It has to pay developers a competitive salary.
The idea of "something we all want: privacy" is at odds with developers who are being paid to support the internet ad business. The pervasive advertising found on the internet would not be possible without the cooperation of browser authors.
1 "Without the Yahoo ad deal, or "the ability to inject code remotely in your browser" i.e. automatic updates, or reliable telemetry from the majority of Firefox users, it would have been impossible to build a good browser." - Mozilla employee
I find it really interesting that when a company is making moves in a direction that benefits privacy of consumers, everyone takes the opportunity to shit on them for past mistakes or how it isn't good enough or why isn't it on by default or any other thing they can find to shit on. Yes, every single company has made mistakes. FireFox is no exception. Some of them were pretty egregious. Mistakes are - hopefully - an…
Obviously having a spyware company like google control the web is a bad thing, but that doesn't make mozilla good, they've been poor stewards for a long time and we should be looking toward others, the pale moon fork to name one example.
I find it really interesting that when a company is making moves in a direction that benefits privacy of consumers, everyone takes the opportunity to shit on them for past mistakes or how it isn't good enough or why isn't it on by default or any other thing they can find to shit on. Yes, every single company has made mistakes. FireFox is no exception. Some of them were pretty egregious. Mistakes are - hopefully - an…
Mozilla has a conflict of interest. It pays its developers indirectly from internet ad revenue through deals with companies that sell ads. More importantly it seeks to compete with a browser controlled by ad sales company. Giving the users commenting negatively the privacy they want would mean that Firefox would not implement the "features" that its developers believe are necessary for a "good browser".1 What "good b…
I don’t understand- how is trying to offer a competitive, viable product not “for all users”? Are you suggesting that if they focus on a non-competitive product that’s better for “all users”?
Serious question. Suppose we have this. I suppose my expectation is that instead of seeing the same ad over and over again, now I'm seeing effectively a random one. Why is this necessarily better? I guess personally, I've always thought that regulating the content of the ads, rather than the usage of sufficiently anonymized data for ad targeting.
> Keep in mind that blocking fingerprinting may cause some sites to break. This represents the sad state of Internet we are all living through. I have noticed that when I turn on privacy settings on Firefox, some major websites are broken and rendered unusable. It seems that the Internet is rampant with tracking and privacy violation, and we consumers are passively accepting it, by and large.
I find it really interesting that when a company is making moves in a direction that benefits privacy of consumers, everyone takes the opportunity to shit on them for past mistakes or how it isn't good enough or why isn't it on by default or any other thing they can find to shit on. Yes, every single company has made mistakes. FireFox is no exception. Some of them were pretty egregious. Mistakes are - hopefully - an…
Mozilla has a conflict of interest. It pays its developers indirectly from internet ad revenue through deals with companies that sell ads. More importantly it seeks to compete with a browser controlled by ad sales company. Giving the users commenting negatively the privacy they want would mean that Firefox would not implement the "features" that its developers believe are necessary for a "good browser".1 What "good b…
The point I was trying to get across is this:
Companies do bad things, sometimes intentionally, sometimes by accident, and sometimes because they were misguided. Companies also do good things, sometimes intentionally, sometimes by accident. How are we, as users, able to communicate our thoughts with the company in question in these cases?
One method is by calling out the negatives and applying pressure so that, hopefully, the company feels some obligation to act or risk user exodus. This is an example of what you are doing - and it is a valid way of communicating displeasure with a company when they have made a decision the users don't agree with. Negative reinforcement absolutely has its place.
However, an often forgotten method of communication is positive reinforcement. This is how we can tell a company "Hey, good job on this specific thing. It's in a direction we would like to see you keep moving in.". This signals to the company that they are on the right track and, hopefully, encourages them to continue developing that way.
In the specific context of Mozilla, this means that I try to encourage them when they do positive things (blocking fingerprinting) while still expressing my displeasure over the certificate fiasco and other issues.
However, my original post was not meant to be read only in the context of Mozilla, nor was it meant to be read in a way that makes you think that you cannot also raise your concerns. There is a time and place for both positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement. It just seems like people forget about the positive one.
I find it really interesting that when a company is making moves in a direction that benefits privacy of consumers, everyone takes the opportunity to shit on them for past mistakes or how it isn't good enough or why isn't it on by default or any other thing they can find to shit on. Yes, every single company has made mistakes. FireFox is no exception. Some of them were pretty egregious. Mistakes are - hopefully - an…
Mozilla has a conflict of interest. It pays its developers indirectly from internet ad revenue through deals with companies that sell ads. More importantly it seeks to compete with a browser controlled by ad sales company. Giving the users commenting negatively the privacy they want would mean that Firefox would not implement the "features" that its developers believe are necessary for a "good browser".1 What "good b…
Mozilla doesn't exist for its developers. Most of its developers could make a lot more money working elsewhere.
The reality is that if Firefox isn't competitive in performance, security, and Web compatibility, very few people will use it, in which case why even bother?
There's more at stake here than just privacy, too. An open platform that isn't controlled by a single vendor, that doesn't have gatekeepers, that has lots of content AND lots of clients is really important. The standards-based Web is the only candidate at this point. Mozilla cares a lot about that, and they need a competitive browser with significant marketshare or they have no leverage.