In a swipe at Chrome, Firefox now blocks ad trackers by default • Hacker News Board

Re: In a swipe at Chrome, Firefox now blocks ad trackers by default

#291

Post by johnisgood » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 2:48 PM UTC

marble-drink wrote: post #214

interactivecode wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yikes why would you not want companies investing in diversity? Especially if they are the interface to our online world?

"Diversity" in tech means "we should have programmers with skin colour X or genital configuration Y". But I don't care about people's skin colour or genitals. It turns out people are diverse anyway and that's why not everyone end up in tech.

Yeah, and it is insane how much amount of money you can receive in the name of diversity. I am pretty sure people who are getting fat rich from it are perfectly aware of this.

Slightly off-topic but it is also funny that X would praise diversity, and at the same time imply that we should balance some things out when it is the people themselves who are the cause for the imbalance. They make the assumption that imbalance is bad. Imbalance is not a problem! We do not have to balance/even things out. Examples: construction workers? Mostly males. Nurses? Mostly females, although this has been changing. So what? I do not see these people trying to push women into getting to construction work. Let people decide. We do not have to intervene. If women do not want to get into construction, that is fine! If they do not want to get into IT, that is also fine (but apparently it is not)!

Re: In a swipe at Chrome, Firefox now blocks ad trackers by default

#292

Post by Kaiyou » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 2:49 PM UTC

IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #59

a_imho wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's something a person would say with a salary depending on ads. Who likes tracking and popups? TV programming butchered? Endless garbage in the mail? Come on.

In the same way that nobody likes taxes, traffic stops, or insurance salesmen, but almost anyone sees their necessity, things can be beneficial without being enjoyable .

I don't really see the necessity of taxes, to be honest and can easily imagine a world where everything taxes are used for are paid directly by citizens that see a benefit in spending it on that particular endeavor. Just having a say in what your taxes are allowed to be spend on would go a long way to prevent taxes from being wasted.

Re: In a swipe at Chrome, Firefox now blocks ad trackers by default

#293

Post by newscracker » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 2:49 PM UTC

benologist wrote: post #271

newscracker wrote: post #55

Those who want a world where Firefox has a higher market share and mind share, please consider doing the following: 1. Evangelize Firefox to people you know any chance you get and show them all the reasons why its better than Chrome (focus on privacy as an important point). Show them how great browsing can be with a few key extensions (like uBlock Origin, Containers, Privacy Possum, etc.). This does not imply that Mo…

With 100s of millions in revenue every year for the last decade plus through their corporate entity aren't they already funded pretty much in perpetuity? On Wikipedia it says they get 2% of their corporation's revenue, which they own in its entirety, they can increase their funding more just by increasing the 2% they assign themselves from their own revenue. Not even a third of their funding is donations according to…

Most of that money is coming from the search partnership with Google, and that's what's paying the bills for Firefox and other direct development work (as I understand it). The donations from people go to Mozilla Foundation, which works on initiatives and campaigns. So whenever Google decides that the search partnership is not worth it, Mozilla Corporation (the entity that pays for Firefox, and is different from Mozilla Foundation) would have only a few tens of millions from other revenue sources (just guessing).

Re: In a swipe at Chrome, Firefox now blocks ad trackers by default

#294

Post by cmrdporcupine » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 2:51 PM UTC

shadykiller wrote: post #3

Switched to Firefox a few months back. Havn’t missed Chrome at all

Things I miss after having switched a couple machines at home:

Stored credit card / payment information.

Chromecast because of the ecosystem devices in my house that use it. There are extensions to do this but they're not great. (Disclaimer: I work @ Google on Chromecast platform stuff.)

Other than that, it's great.

Re: In a swipe at Chrome, Firefox now blocks ad trackers by default

#295

Post by ecmascript » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 2:52 PM UTC

Insanity wrote: post #232

ecmascript wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He funded such a campaign, yes. With his private money on his free time. That is not discrimination. He even wrote sorry for causing hurt and pledged to promote equality at Mozilla. Your comment is a prime example of what's wrong with the tech industry in my opinion.

Happy to be an example against discrimination. :) People should be held accountable for such views. It should be clear to anyone that having "an opinion" which discriminates a whole group of people is not that same as sharing an opinion about Star Wars..

> People should be held accountable for such views

Well, in my country (and I think in the entire EU) what you want is very illegal and is taken very seriously. I think you choose a very fitting username. ;)

Re: In a swipe at Chrome, Firefox now blocks ad trackers by default

#296

Post by jshowa3 » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 2:52 PM UTC

h0h0h0h0111 wrote: post #205

brianpgordon wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suppose if he wanted to donate to a diversity campaign, he'd donate to one directly. This interpretation of his comment is... generous. I agree that there's a legitimate point around wanting your donation to go specifically to browser development and not overhead or other side-projects, but it's pretty clear that he was using the word diversity contemptuously.

Perhaps OP feels that the specific strategy Mozilla employee for helping diversity is ineffective; in the same manner that refusing to donate to ineffective anti-poverty charities, is not the same as supporting poverty. Edit: rather than trying to read OP's mind or surmise what they may be thinking, I'll give my own experience on this. I have seen companies spend money on diversity as lip-service, or targeting groups…

The irony is, females/LGBTQ/race rights compromise, statistically, a large majority of the lower socio-economic class and are poorly educated (especially with regards to race).

It's very perplexing that you make this conclusion as a legitimate opposition to diversity.

Re: In a swipe at Chrome, Firefox now blocks ad trackers by default

#297

Post by _coveredInBees » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 2:53 PM UTC

aldanor wrote: post #199

Started using Firefox half a year ago because of a single plugin: TreeStyleTab - which lets you keep a tree of your tabs in a sidebar on the left (I tend to keep a hundred or so open all the time). I have no idea how I've lived without it for so long... Since then, Firefox has been gaining some momentum + performance and add tracking, surely not planning to switch back to Chrome/Safari anytime soon.

Yep, I've been using TreeStyleTabs for years and years and it is the single most useful addon I have ever used in my life and is also what will keep me using Firefox over every other browser indefinitely. Every other browser feels like a toy without TST. I'd highly recommend everyone check out TST and give it a whirl. It is especially useful when you are researching something on the web due to how well it supports hierarchical, collapsible tab groupings.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-ta...

Re: In a swipe at Chrome, Firefox now blocks ad trackers by default

#298

Post by dblohm7 » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 2:55 PM UTC

newscracker wrote: post #55

Those who want a world where Firefox has a higher market share and mind share, please consider doing the following: 1. Evangelize Firefox to people you know any chance you get and show them all the reasons why its better than Chrome (focus on privacy as an important point). Show them how great browsing can be with a few key extensions (like uBlock Origin, Containers, Privacy Possum, etc.). This does not imply that Mo…

Not that the donations are not going to a good cause (they are [1]), but donations do not go to funding Firefox development.

[1] https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/initiatives/

Re: In a swipe at Chrome, Firefox now blocks ad trackers by default

#299

Post by johnisgood » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 2:56 PM UTC

Insanity wrote: post #124

ecmascript wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because diversity in the tech world isn't real. Just read about Brendan Eich. He got fired because he had the incorrect opinion. In my world, that is the complete opposite of diversity.

Javascript is not the kind of diversity I want! But on a more serious note, from the little I know he got fired because he supported banning same-sex marriage. Which is not just about 'opinion'. That's about discrimination and he should be called out for it.

Let us assume that he got fired for what you said. What if he supported the legalization of same-sex marriage? Would he have gotten fired for it?

Re: In a swipe at Chrome, Firefox now blocks ad trackers by default

#300

Post by martin_a » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 2:56 PM UTC

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #195

martin_a wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I cannot understand this way of thinking. I want Mozilla to build a browser and a mail program. Nothing else. It's easy as that. And if I have to "fear" that they will use my money to build something else, I will not donate to them. Think of them as a company with several products. People would buy Firefox, they would buy Thunderbird, but probably nobody would buy the aforementioned "moz://" product or Pocket. In a…

> I want Mozilla to build a browser and a mail program. Nothing else. It's easy as that. Then buy Mozilla, the company, or buy FF/mail server devs to do it. By donating to mozilla you are actually supporting at least one effort Mozilla is participating in. If their revenue goes down after pursuing Pocket, then Mozilla will understand in general their donors don’t approve of pocket. On another coin, by not donating to…

> Then buy Mozilla, the company, or buy FF/mail server devs to do it.

Stupid argumentation. If you don't like the new Apple MBP keyboards, you don't buy Apple itself, but just another notebook from another vendor. Same thing applies here, just that I don't need to "not buy" something but can just decide not to donate.

> On another coin, by not donating to Mozilla one also is fine with not funding FF/Mail because money just might go to things one doesn’t approve of.

No need to make me feel guilty. Simply decouple those projects cleanly from each other and everything is fine. If I could donate for a specific purpose, that would be okay, too. But just like Wikimedia, it's not about keeping the servers running but cross-financing other "projects" (broad term for really anything here) that I do not want to support.