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

#401

Post by iamnotacrook » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 8:52 PM UTC

wutbrodo wrote: post #343

iamnotacrook wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an ex-customer why would I care? Do you know how many sites there are on the internet? I'm sure browser support will come up in a meeting at some point if they ever consider increasing sales. I left an online bank because it was too slow on Firefox, and some of the pages didn't render properly. It's trivial moving between banks (you get a cash reward in some cases). I don't want the bad sites fixed; our interests…

The GP comment in this thread specifically calls out doing something as the only way to effect "positive change". It's a little bizarre to respond to someone pointing out that that action won't have the intended effect with "what do I care about changing anything?" It's a valid opinion, but not the conversation anyone on this subthread is having.

Like most internet conversation, I was responding to the person I was responding to, not the person they were responding to. Different people have different opinions, surprisingly.

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

#402

Post by WorldMaker » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 8:58 PM UTC

fouric wrote: post #368

fnord77 wrote: post #351

> The block might appeal to users, but is potentially worrying to publishers Yes, let's have pity on these poor publishers who are relentless infiltrating and measuring our online lives so they can squeeze a few more bucks out of the data grab. Trackers have gotten insidious. I have privacy badger and on one particular news site there were 36 distinct trackers. And somehow they're still getting around the blockers be…

Wired is a (particularly) tracking-reliant publisher, so I'm not particularly surprised that they adopted this tone. I also hope that any sort of tracking-based business model goes extinct. Unfortunately, in the case of online publishing, consumers have repeatedly rejected micropayments (most recently Blendle[1]), which I believe is the only viable alternative. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blendle

Traditional media never needed individual tracking for advertisements nor "micropayments". Just because we have the technology to track advertisement spends to the exact person doesn't mean we have to. Just because we because we have the technology charge (fractions of) pennies per article read doesn't invalidate the traditional subscriber model.

(In fact both microtargeting and micropayments are arguably much worse, less stable business models from the perspective of a publisher. Y "demographic" or "universal" advertisers at a steady monthly ad buy with X subscribers at a steady monthly spend is an easy formula to forecast future revenue from. O(X).Y micro-targeted ad buys with X readers at O(X).Z articles per month, is almost entirely impossible to forecast with any accuracy.)

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

#403

Post by FussyZeus » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 9:15 PM UTC

WorldMaker wrote: post #402

fouric wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wired is a (particularly) tracking-reliant publisher, so I'm not particularly surprised that they adopted this tone. I also hope that any sort of tracking-based business model goes extinct. Unfortunately, in the case of online publishing, consumers have repeatedly rejected micropayments (most recently Blendle[1]), which I believe is the only viable alternative. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blendle

Traditional media never needed individual tracking for advertisements nor "micropayments". Just because we have the technology to track advertisement spends to the exact person doesn't mean we have to. Just because we because we have the technology charge (fractions of) pennies per article read doesn't invalidate the traditional subscriber model. (In fact both microtargeting and micropayments are arguably much worse,…

This so much. We had large media organizations and publishers of news/magazines/television/radio for decades and in some instances, centuries, before targeted advertising was even a thing. Traditional advertising is now nearly dead because it's worthless and as a result, media orgs have had to rely increasingly on these creepy as hell targeting advertising systems. Why?

We as consumers never agreed to this. We were never even asked. Make the entire industry illegal, and publishers will revert to traditional advertisement. Again and again it's been made clear that the ad tech industry cannot be trusted with our data, so why do we continue allowing it to collect it and use it to show us crap we don't want?

Throw it all in the garbage. The whole damn thing.

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

#404

Post by jshowa3 » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 9:18 PM UTC

RobertRoberts wrote: post #393

jshowa3 wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, if you're making your own product. If you're not making your own product (ie. company development), then it's not purely a technical exercise. Even if you're making your own product, you at least want to get market data and/or customer feedback once you release it. Otherwise, what's the point of selling a product if your customers don't like it? And I'm not saying that gathering requirements is Mozilla's only so…

Do you feel their is a difference between asking people what they want in a browser and telling people how they should live their personal lives? Because I think that is a core distinction many of the commenters are concerned about here.

Not really, Mozilla tells you to use its browser. So does every product. Why is that an issue? You're telling me you want to live a life where people aren't telling you how you should live? Just by the fact of the organization asking the people for feedback is an invitation for people to tell them what to do.

If you don't want people telling you what to do, Hacker News ain't a great place to be.

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

#405

Post by tracker1 » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 9:23 PM UTC

oftenwrong wrote: post #381

fouric wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wired is a (particularly) tracking-reliant publisher, so I'm not particularly surprised that they adopted this tone. I also hope that any sort of tracking-based business model goes extinct. Unfortunately, in the case of online publishing, consumers have repeatedly rejected micropayments (most recently Blendle[1]), which I believe is the only viable alternative. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blendle

I tried loading Wired in a stock Chromium, and it's hard to believe how poor of an experience it is. You have to dismiss multiple overlays. The actual article is only readable in a tiny window formed by sticky elements and ads. Every page or so there is a big ad in the middle of the article. Hundreds of requests flying by in the background. In my "daily driver" browser (a customised Firefox), nothing loads by default…

I do like JS myself... I wish there was a way to disable JS in IFrames (where ads/trackers typically propagate).

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

#406

Post by tracker1 » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 9:25 PM UTC

Why I hate are when sites tether their interactions to their tracking/analytics system... a failure for the analytics script should not prevent pressing 'Login' from working properly. This one is as much on developers as the ad/tracking scripts. When I've worked for public entities, I always went extra to make sure things worked well for users with ads disabled. Even so far as to make sure ad slots didn't even display the placeholders.

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

#407

Post by wutbrodo » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 9:28 PM UTC

iamnotacrook wrote: post #401

wutbrodo wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GP comment in this thread specifically calls out doing something as the only way to effect "positive change". It's a little bizarre to respond to someone pointing out that that action won't have the intended effect with "what do I care about changing anything?" It's a valid opinion, but not the conversation anyone on this subthread is having.

Like most internet conversation, I was responding to the person I was responding to, not the person they were responding to. Different people have different opinions, surprisingly.

It's cute that you're pretending like you understood the conversation all along, but you started your comment with "why would I care?", in response to a conversation where two goal-aligned people were discussing tactics for reaching that goal.

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

#408

Post by mkonecny » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 9:39 PM UTC

Just installed version 69 on my Thinkpad T540p with Debian 9.9.

I'm going back to Chrome. Firefox still lags on my machine after all these years. Even with a single tab and on their own initial launch page, scrolling performed a "caterpillar" effect where only the top half scrolled, and the bottom half jumped to catch up a split second later

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

#409

Post by itronitron » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 9:49 PM UTC

skocznymroczny wrote: post #57

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…

Is there some way to ensure the donation money will actually go to Firefox and not to some sort of "diversity" campaign?

when you buy a product or service, do you get to tell the company how they can spend the money?

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

#410

Post by JoeAltmaier » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 9:51 PM UTC

johnisgood wrote: post #390

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its sophistry, to say "to combat race bias, you are using race bias! That's just as bad!" Of course one is in service to bigotry, and the other to equality. That makes them pretty different. If you're driving down the road, and your car pulls slightly to the right, you steer slightly to the left to compensate. Sure, we'd all like a car that steers straight. But it doesn't. So we steer slightly to one side.

I do not understand your analogy. Are you implying that we cannot be unbiased? I do agree with that, however, what is this diversity thing, fighting over biases or preferences (sides)? I do not understand how one side is bigotry, and the other is equality. It seems like it is just a matter of POV. When you are steering to the left, the right is in service of bigotry, and when you are steering to the right, the left i…

Because one side attempts to ease societal bias by including folks often overlooked. The other attempts to perpetuate this system, keeping an underclass.

The old tired argument that "It's just another sort of bias!" is bankrupt. Its a sort of bias that seeks to repair real problems, not keep them.