Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

support.mozilla.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 721 posts

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#191

Post by blippage »

callahad wrote: post #98
Barrin92 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe go the other direction and try to cut expenses rather than trying to make more money? Firefox gets hundreds of millions from Google alone in royalties, that is not enough to build a web browser? Firefox has lost almost half of its users since 2010, yet it keeps burning more money every year. Run the company in a lean way, cut the fat, do one thing well. It's like Wikipedia, every year they seemingly find new in…

> Firefox gets hundreds of millions from Google alone in royalties, that is not enough to build a web browser? Empirically, it is not. Even Microsoft gave up that chase. Browsers are staggeringly complex and expensive to build. Which may be an indictment of the Web itself, but in the absence of a simpler alternative (Gemini?), the Web we have is the Web we've got, and browsers have to meet it where it is.

> simpler alternative (Gemini?)

I never heard of that before. I'm off to investigate.

I've often thought we need to rewind the clock on the internet, as the whole thing has gotten way out of hand.

What's to stop feature creep of Gemini, though?

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#192

Post by roca »

Nextgrid wrote: post #179
roca wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It should still be the user's choice.

I'm using Firefox Nightly and it lets me manually control when updates are installed.

Alternatively, on Linux you can use the distro Firefox package and control its updates that way.

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#193

Post by dabedee »

On a tangentially related point, as much as I love Firefox, their current implementation of search suggestions is a mess when using the search bar. Even if I try to deactivate the "provide search suggestions" option in the "Search" settings, it always keeps the a child-option active (i.e. "Show search suggestions ahead of browsing history in address bar results").

Another nit-pick, when I type "github", the first result shown is "github.blog" which forces me to type "github.com". I assume it uses my bookmarks for this completely irrelevant suggestion.

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#194

Post by daveoc64 »

huhtenberg wrote: post #111
eCa wrote: post #4

As someone who has used Firefox since v0.* I really, really, really dislike the language they have used lately. > relevant suggestions from our trusted partners The suggestions are not relevant to, and the partners not trusted by, me.

> RELEVANT suggestions The fuck with this? How can they make _relevant_ suggestions without spying on my (s/browsing history/activity/), profiling it and phoning back to the mothership? (Edited, "browsing history" -> "activity")

> How can they make _relevant_ suggestions without spying on my browsing history, profiling it and phoning back to the mothership?

If you search for "hotels", they'll show you suggestions that match "hotels".

Doesn't seem that complicated to me.

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#195

Post by nine_k »

> We are rolling out a new type of even smarter suggestions. You might notice a message inviting you to enable these new suggestions the next time you install or update Firefox.

Off by default? Fine by me.

OTOH, if Firefox developers provided e.g. a Patreon link, and could wean themselves off the "default search engine" and "suggestions" revenue, how many people would it take to keep it running in the direction actual users want? Could it score, e.g. a million of $5 monthly pledges worldwide?

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#196

Post by TeMPOraL »

samizdis wrote: post #128
eCa wrote: post #4

As someone who has used Firefox since v0.* I really, really, really dislike the language they have used lately. > relevant suggestions from our trusted partners The suggestions are not relevant to, and the partners not trusted by, me.

> I really, really, really dislike the language they have used lately. That is exactly the problem I have with it - weasel words and euphemisms; FF is scoring an own-goal here and eroding trust. Why not just tell it like it is. "We need funding and are lining up deals with third parties to display their ads/messaging in the address bar search. We vet these third parties by holding them contractually to these standard…

Exactly. No excuses - when you use such a language, you do it on purpose - you know you're going to fuck people over, and the language is there to keep them unaware that they're being exploited.

I second your opinion - I'd be willing to entertain, or even support, this way of them making money iff they spelled out honestly what they're doing and why. In details. Talk with me like two adults that respect each other.

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#197

Post by morsch »

Thev00d00 wrote: post #147
krono wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neutral FYI: VLC on OSX had unremovable sponsored radio/podcasts in its sidebar last time I used it

They have "Jamendo Selections" nowadays, but that service offers independent music under creative commons licences, you can also right click and remove it.

Did the VLC people get paid to include the Jamendo plugin? Because it's not sponsored if they weren't (I realize you never claimed otherwise).

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#200

Post by ploum »

Winsaucerer wrote: post #118
Certhas wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A browser is expensive. Currently Firefox is funded (though not controlled) by Google's Ad business. I am all for them reducing their reliance on Google's Ad business. In this sense this is a step _towards_ what you want. I really really dislike them double speaking about this though.

I'd love to be able to pay some monthly subscription to support Firefox. But every time this comes up, someone tells me that there's no way to directly support Firefox itself. I wish they'd do something like Wikipedia does, to ask their users to donate or contribute.

While I philosophically agree with you, I can’t help but think:

- Developing Firefox looks way more expensive than running Wikipedia servers. - It looks like there’s at least 10x less Firefox users than Wikipedia users.

It might still be possible (Firefox users might me more willing to pay and to pay more than Wikipedia users). It still looks really hard.

I wish they didn’t try to match the startup/VC/pivot/diversify frenzy but, in the end, I’m really happy that they exist.

Post reply on HN