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Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

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Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#171

Post by jve »

ssss11 wrote: post #125
Adrig wrote: post #34

Meh, the feature is easily deactivable, the settings are clear and extensive. As far as ads go, it's one of the best implementations. Firefox still has no alternative in the privacy / user-centric space (don't mention Brave, I'm gonna get mad). Mozilla has done a lot for the web, I can give them some slack for exploring different revenue models. Still, I'm going to keep on eye for this kind of practices in the future…

We all know regular users don’t change settings. At the least it needs to be opted out by default.

From the article ai understand you must opt in to make this available: These suggestions — which aim to enhance and speed up your searching experience — are only enabled when you provide access to new data types.

People complain when the default is opted-in. Now someone makes something that by default is opted-out and... people still complain.

They ask that when someone uses telemetry, that would be shown upfront. When someone does that, they ask it to be disabled by default. And when we get disabled by default, where do we go? Remove the feature, ofcourse :)

Ads, privacy and telemetry is a hot cake topic on HN.

That button is actually a cheap way to support mozilla, if anyone cares.

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#172

Post by modzu »

rich_sasha wrote: post #6

It’s sucky and I particularly hate ads percolating to every part if my life, BUT how are they meant to support Firefox and other software without a revenue stream? Mozilla seems to attract criticism for how they run the whole operation, I can’t tell how correct it is, but even if they run it perfectly they still need revenue.

brave have some ideas...

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#173

Post by Hendrikto »

abbe98 wrote: post #117

It's a common wish here at HN that one would like to donate directly to Firefox development. Is there a legal reason that Mozilla can't do this considering their setup having the Mozilla Corporation run Firefox development? What else could their reasons be for at least not experimenting with the option?

> What else could their reasons be for at least not experimenting with the option?

Greed. They want to have they money to spend on increasing their own salaries each year, while their market share is plummeting.

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#174

Post by cinquemb »

axelthegerman wrote: post #76
chaostheory wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There should be a paid ad free membership for anyone who doesn’t like ads. Even if not many people take them up on this offer, it would be more fair since there would be a choice.

This! How hard can it be to put a FF subscription payment somewhere inside the browser or on their website? Of course people can always fork it and remove it blabla. But we're talking about people who otherwise would donate and just want to do it more directly (as opposed to the whole Mozilla foundation)

Those people should form a DAO, pool their funds in a governable smart contract for disbursing them, and reach out to people thru hn search who have their own forks of FF now and who make comments cough like me cough on hn about it over the years every time FF adds some more garbage in their browser.

;)

At this point, threads like this help me add to my list of what garbage i need to compile out every year or so when i feel like syncing up hahaha.

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#175

Post by owlmirror »

ubercow13 wrote: post #71
owlmirror wrote: post #19

Now I better understand why they butchered the address bar the way they did. Instead of treating it like simple form element their change served one point and one point only, draw attention to it and make it more prominent. And the reason for it was just to serve their ads on a bigger and more intrusive canvas and not UX related.

Well, no, the address bar is one of Firefox’s best UX features. Thank god it’s not just a simple form element, it’s much more useful now. Before it was something like the Windows run dialog text box but now it’s more similar to my zsh prompt with aliases for searching and fuzzy history recall etc.

I see the benefits for these features, but do not see why the bar had to become that obtrusive in appearance and behavior for them.

But for me these features are useless at best and a distraction in practice, I don't want suggestions from my browser, at all, I want to think for my self.

I use the url bar simply for entering addresses, or for copying and editing them. I completely disabled my history and what I want to remember I keep as bookmarks. When I want so search something I use the search box.

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#176

Post by roca »

blippage wrote: post #127
monooso wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like pure speculation.

That seems like pure naivete. Two can play that game. A little over a year or so ago I downloaded Firefox. It kept bugging me for updates. But I didn't want these pestering updates. Erstwhile, I could just disable updating with a single unchecking of a box. But they changed it to make it almost impossible to disable updates. I never put enough effort into figuring it out. Firefox is getting just like Microsoft, Apple…

It is extremely dangerous to use a browser that is not fully up-to-date.

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#177

Post by Nextgrid »

gpvos wrote: post #78
hericium wrote: post #33

I've lost hope for Firefox when the browser started opening spyware-infused ("tag manager") sites describing how Mozilla takes privacy seriously, immediately after browser's installation and before the user has any chance to add uBlock Origin or other Firefox add-on that limits spyware/malware execution on their device.

Did/do they? I forgot about that. Do you have a source?

On first run it will open 2 pages on the Mozilla website, all of which embed Google Analytics and/or Tag Manager.

Mozilla claims they have some special agreement that supposedly prevents Google from using this data for advertising purposes but if you actually believe it then I may have a bridge to sell you.

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#178

Post by OneTimePetes »

toyg wrote: post #112
mrtesthah wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As mismanaged as Mozilla is, they are in it to make the web a decent place for users. Placing ads in the search bar and datamining everything you search for is failing at this mission.

I don't disagree, but it's still a somewhat partial failure. The others still do much worse.

cuisses de grenouille it is sir, coming right up..

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#179

Post by Nextgrid »

roca wrote: post #176
blippage wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like pure naivete. Two can play that game. A little over a year or so ago I downloaded Firefox. It kept bugging me for updates. But I didn't want these pestering updates. Erstwhile, I could just disable updating with a single unchecking of a box. But they changed it to make it almost impossible to disable updates. I never put enough effort into figuring it out. Firefox is getting just like Microsoft, Apple…

It is extremely dangerous to use a browser that is not fully up-to-date.

It should still be the user's choice.

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#180

Post by Certhas »

pizza234 wrote: post #115
AegirLeet wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reducing reliance on Google by partnering up with a different ad company instead. What good does that do? I don't want ads anywhere near my browser. Here's what I'd really like them to do: * Stop paying out millions to execs * Focus more on Firefox instead of other side projects * Let me pay for Firefox development directly

The Opera browser used to do this, from v5. It lasted a few years (it seem 5, based on Wikipedia), and they ultimately ended up switching to the default engine business model.

There is so much wishful thinking around this... "me and five other people want to pay, if you just cater to my specific tastes, than the me and these 5 people will happily bankroll your massive engineering effort!"

Maybe people would be happier if they had to pay to switch off the ads instead of it just being a setting (/switching default search engine)??

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