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Firefox Suggest (address bar based ads, currently limited to US)

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Re: Firefox Suggest (address bar based ads, currently limited to US)

#12
post #2

I know this has been posted before, but it seems to be getting some traction and outrage on twitter and other social media today. Props to Mozilla for finding revenue diversification opportunities, but this still doesn't feel quite right since it's enabled by default.

Who would deliberately enable this, given that the Mozilla user base is the kind that would have adblocker extensions?

Re: Firefox Suggest (address bar based ads, currently limited to US)

#13

I have considered the owners and maintainers of Firefox to be malicious to the project for quite some time now. This finally cements that theory beyond any reasonable doubt. What should we do about it?

> What should we do about it? Fork it. But I'm not sure I agree this is malicious. Perhaps annoying and even poorly thought out, but malicious implies they are actively trying to undermine the project, rather than trying to find ways to break the project's dependence on Google but missing the mark.

Fork it, and form a publicly-funded non-profit to continue development for the public good.

Re: Firefox Suggest (address bar based ads, currently limited to US)

#14
post #5

I have considered the owners and maintainers of Firefox to be malicious to the project for quite some time now. This finally cements that theory beyond any reasonable doubt. What should we do about it?

What's the malice here? Maybe I missed it.

There isn't any.

Re: Firefox Suggest (address bar based ads, currently limited to US)

#15
post #6

I have considered the owners and maintainers of Firefox to be malicious to the project for quite some time now. This finally cements that theory beyond any reasonable doubt. What should we do about it?

Just one more thing to disable in the settings, when you don't want it. Just like search engine suggestions.. What's more to do?

I shouldn't have to disable a single damn thing. The entire browser should operate without any telemetry whatsoever. There should not be a single HTTP request sent outside of the ones I explicitly authorize by either explicitly clicking a link in a webpage or entering a URL into the URL bar. Anything else is harmful and a slippery slope.

Re: Firefox Suggest (address bar based ads, currently limited to US)

#18

I have considered the owners and maintainers of Firefox to be malicious to the project for quite some time now. This finally cements that theory beyond any reasonable doubt. What should we do about it?

If you have ideas for alternative sources of funding for Mozilla to pay its programmers and other staff without relying so heavily on Google money for their organization's existence, I'm sure they'd like to hear about it.

They're trying to tackle the revenue issue on multiple fronts, including Mozilla VPN, a subscription "privacy pack" (that includes Mozilla VPN and upgraded versions of Firefox Relay and Firefox Monitor) and this.

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