Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions • Hacker News Board

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#361

Post by forgotpwd16 » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 10:56 AM UTC

exar0815 wrote: post #85

By the love of all thats holy, I still don't understand how the development of an entire operating system can be reasonably coordinated by a (admittably singlularly competent) sole finnish guy in a bathrobe from home, while a comparably simple webbrowser needs a foundation, a company, a ceo, a code of conduct, all those outreach and social-action programmes etc... Or maybe, is all that cesspool of ineffectiveness and…

First, Linux is a kernel, not an operating system. Second, nowadays web browsers are fairly big beasts, perhaps even more than the complex machinery that Linux is. If lines of code are any measure Firefox and Chromium are above it[1][2][3]. Finally, Mozilla isn't making only Firefox.

[1]: https://www.openhub.net/p/firefox/analyses/latest/languages_... [2]: https://www.openhub.net/p/chrome/analyses/latest/languages_s... [3]: https://www.openhub.net/p/linux/analyses/latest/languages_su...

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#362

Post by dsr_ » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 10:57 AM UTC

qwerty456127 wrote: post #314

samizdis wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Well, if Mozilla trusts someone - I feel curious. I would believe they have a chance to be better than others and my trust to them in fact goes from 0% to 25%.

i dunno. In my experience, when someone says "trust me" and simultaneously offers me money to do something that I know is wrong, that's a good time not to trust them.

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#363

Post by account42 » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 10:59 AM UTC

laurent92 wrote: post #208

_wolfie_ wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We need funding Yeah, I guess Baker needs a raise.

Counterpoint, I’d rather NGOs and benevolent societies be attractive for world-class leaders, rather than be the constant underdog. Of course those CEOs have to avoid implementing classic business schemes.

Word class leaders?

https://calpaterson.com/mozilla.html

I'd rather have people that care about the cause in charge of these NGOs.

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#364

Post by GordonS » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 10:59 AM UTC

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…

I'm with you on this - Firefox is supposed to be different, more trustworthy, more on your side.

They've been losing market share, and these actions and language are not going to help.

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#365

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 10:59 AM UTC

Nextgrid wrote: post #167

hnlmorg wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern webbrowsers are hugely more complicated to implement than a kernel with no user space and very limited driver support (as Linux was back when it was a single person operation). In fact modern webbrowsers are bordering on being an operating system in their own right. They're already a virtual machine, with their own run times, plus one of the most complicated document markup standards known to man (and to make…

This severely underestimates the complexity of the Linux kernel.

[deleted]

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#366

Post by morsch » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 11:01 AM UTC

krono wrote: post #356

morsch wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found this thread from 2012 while researching my post. There are in fact not a lot of posts about this topic. Are you sure these entries are sponsored? It doesn't say sponsored in the screenshot.

It's been half a decade since I last used VLC and looked this up, but I'm certain there was a VLC staff member, perhaps a moderator, who explained the presence of these sidebar entries as measures to cover development cost. There are in fact not a lot of posts about this topic You mustn't have looked very far ;)

Well, a couple of minutes on Google. I just looked at all results for "sponsored" on the forum and it is in fact the only thread that uses it in that sense.

I'm still waiting for any concrete evidence, as I am genuinely curious what kind of sponsorships of that kind there are, or were, if any.

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#367

Post by user3939382 » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 11:07 AM UTC

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 had an exchange with Darren Herman at Mozilla about these issues back in 2014 when they had just started the nonsense of calling ads “content discovery”. If memory serves these were for the first time on the new tab page.

It was my position that ads violate the ethos of free software by making the user serve the software. You can debate that, but in any case that was the beginning of this culture at Mozilla to use bs language to placate users.

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#368

Post by krono » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 11:07 AM UTC

morsch wrote: post #366

krono wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been half a decade since I last used VLC and looked this up, but I'm certain there was a VLC staff member, perhaps a moderator, who explained the presence of these sidebar entries as measures to cover development cost. There are in fact not a lot of posts about this topic You mustn't have looked very far ;)

Well, a couple of minutes on Google. I just looked at all results for "sponsored" on the forum and it is in fact the only thread that uses it in that sense. I'm still waiting for any concrete evidence, as I am genuinely curious what kind of sponsorships of that kind there are, or were, if any.

You're fully aware I was making an assumption or a false recollection. There's absolutely no need for this adversarial tone.

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#369

Post by huhtenberg » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 11:08 AM UTC

unreal37 wrote: post #315

huhtenberg wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are OK that - by default - you type something in the Firefox address bar and some random company you've heard of gets a copy of it? You are A-OK with this? Because this is on by default in FF93, be it a new install or an upgrade. For now limited to the US, but it's safe to assume they are just testing waters.

Its not by default. You have to turn this feature on.

You have to refuse turning it on.

The default, in friendly big blue colors, is to "Allow suggestions" with the alternative called "Customize in settings". It is also not clear if disabling "suggestions", switches off all its machinery or merely prevents them from being shown.

As others have said up this thread, the problem is not as much the feature itself, but the fact that Mozilla deemed it perfectly fine to roll out something like this in the first place.

It becomes increasingly obvious that Mozilla no longer understands (or cares!) what it was that made Firefox special, made people stick with it and what the motivation and priorities of these people are.

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#370

Post by y4mi » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 11:10 AM UTC

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #310

y4mi wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not as clear cut as you seem to think. A lot of people just think that Mozilla should be a nonprofit and not aim to primarily enrich it's CEO and leadership. This isn't the case at the moment, which is clear if you paid any attention to what they've been doing for the last few years. Little of the money that's going to be raised by this will end up paying for engineers to improve or maintain the Firefox code bas…

Do you have a source showing the vast majority of revenue goes to leadership? In 2018, the CEO’s salary equaled 0.64% of revenue. Before we discuss whether that is right or wrong, we should at least agree on a set of facts. https://itdm.com/mozilla-firefox-usage-down-85-but-why-are-e...

they generally get more then 400 million yearly revenue, though there was one outlier with over 800 million. this is money they generally don't have to pay taxes on because of their status as a non-profit.

mozilla employs at the moment around 800 people.

according to their FAQ

> https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2015/f...

> More than 75% of Mozilla spending is on people-related investments to produce the products and programs that support our mission: keeping the web open, free, and accessible.

this would mean they had around 300 million to spend on these 800 employees, averaging around 375 000 per employee.

Sr. Software Engineers get extremely unlikely), their salary would be around 160 million, which is slightly more then 50% of what was available. a more realistic calculation would be around 20-30%, because not everyone will be getting SV wages. They've got global presence after all with offices SF, Toronto, Berlin, Beijin etc.

you'd have to verify in which unrelated projects by third parties mozilla invests and generally follow the money to figure out anything more, but that is simply out of scope of a hn comment.