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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

#431

Post by whoisthemachine »

Certhas wrote: post #180
pizza234 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)??

I agree. I think they would find use in having a "Firefox Enterprise" that catered to businesses directly - basically a version of Firefox that they will tailor to an organization's crazy security requirements. Basically anywhere I've worked has wanted to lock down internet browsing in some way or other, and they now pay for expensive products to do so externally. I think it would be very appealing to just pay for a product that did so out of the box...

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#432

Post by toyg »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #302
toyg wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering that contract was originally negotiated when exec salaries were much lower... likely yes, s/he would do a better job. It's very plain that Baker and her friends have lost the ideological hunger and now are just in it for the money they can make before it all goes bust.

What are you talking about? The contract is constantly renegotiated, and the only recent one that Baker was in charge for saw the same terms after the previous contract dropped over a hundred million dollars a year.

The point is that the whole system was thought out and initiated before exec salaries spiralled. There is no visible correlation between exec compensation and this type of negotiation.

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#433

Post by imgabe »

sodality2 wrote: post #405
imgabe wrote: post #343

No thank you. I really like Firefox but maybe it would be time to move on to Brave. It’s a shame because I want to support an alternative rendering engine besides Chrome so Google doesn’t control the whole Internet. Do they need me to pay? I would 100% pay a reasonable annual subscription for a browser that works for me and not advertisers. Maybe $30 per year?

Brave literally has built-in ads, except now you're supporting the Chromium engine dependency. What do you think you're improving on by switching to Brave?

huh, I never really used Brave, thought it was focused on privacy.

Oh well, guess there's nothing to do but write your own browser.

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#434

Post by toyg »

account42 wrote: post #402
toyg wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's unsustainable. It's what some projects already try to do with Chromium, and it just doesn't work: every time Google steers a bit more towards evil, the downstream burden increases significantly, and sooner or later the bad patches creep in anyway. There is an institutional problem at Mozilla, we should focus on fixing that rather than trying to come up with even more complex sticking plasters.

> There is an institutional problem at Mozilla, we should focus on fixing that rather than trying to come up with even more complex sticking plasters. How do you fix that from the outside if not by forking or at least using a different Browser to make it clear that the current behavior is unacceptable.

Forking is an option only insofar as the forking team is actually capable of leading development. Purely reactive forks, like most of the ones we see in the Chromium world, are not sustainable in the long run. Is there a team, out there, who could fork FF and take it into a new direction? Maybe. But that has happened only once in the history of Mozilla, and it was paid for by Mozilla itself, because it's a huge task.

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#435

Post by rglullis »

Aeolun wrote: post #411
rglullis wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Brave is outright corrupt I am sure I will regret asking... but why do you think that?

For me at least, all the language Brave uses seems to indicate something similar to a pyramid scheme to me. I dunno, something about the whole thing sets me on edge.

Really? That is quite odd.

Users receive crypto if they join the brave rewards system. The rewards are directly related to Brave's revenue from their ad network - the notification ads. Advertisers put money for a known reason and a quantifiable investment. It's all opt-in. Users don't need to put any of their own money to be able to withdraw the rewards they receive. It's as much the opposite of a scheme as it can be.

What would you take to get you to take another look at it, to see it for yourself?

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#436

Post by sork_hn »

jarofgreen wrote: post #346
ekianjo wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worst thing is that every single time they do this kind of bullshit, they do it without asking for opt-in and enable it sneakily by default. Absolutely the worst.

The blog seems pretty clear they will be asking for permission? Tho not in the best way, I feel, but at least this is opt-in?

It was turned on by default for me. I had to uncheck the settings.

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#437

Post by Jenk »

dageshi wrote: post #282
Jenk wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people would pay for firefox. I don't know if it's enough people to offset what advertisers are willing to pay, nor if adding that would dissuade too many users but it'd be nice to have the option to pay so we can support the development of the browser directly, and avoid adverts. Donating to the foundation feels a bit like donating to the WWF because I want to help a specific Panda I met at the zoo.

Many people would pay for firefox so long as it supports their pet features and they all have their own pet features. And it would still be less than they'd get from advertising.

Invariably this is true, but I think had a payment model been adopted when Firefox itself was gaining traction, they wouldn't need to stray from that winning product model - privacy focused, user control, advertisement free, web standard honoring.

As it stands now, they are obviously wanting to monetise their product but for whatever reason don't want to open up to the option of a retail/consumer grade price. Probably it is because they'll make more from feeding ad companies.

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#439

Post by toyg »

rglullis wrote: post #332
toyg wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm one of those five, and I'm not switching. Chromium is tainted, Brave is outright corrupt, and IceCat is seriously unpractical (they don't even build Windows binaries, because ideology beats practicality for them). Do I hate the current exec team? Fuck yes. Do I have any serious alternative? Effectively, no. Am I a hostage? Sadly, a bit. I hope people with the power to influence this state of thing will, sooner or…

> Brave is outright corrupt I am sure I will regret asking... but why do you think that?

Their whole business model is predicated on effectively replacing ad networks with Brave's own system; I don't know about you, but I find that abhorrent from the perspective of site owners. If it became dominant, you'd just be creating a new monopoly.

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#440

Post by chrisjc »

vbo wrote: post #395
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.

Ads would be cheeky, but I would welcome any efforts to get into the search space through search suggestions, akin to what Apple is doing in Safari with Siri Suggested Websites. Whether those are provided by Apple or Google I don't know, but they do open a window for Apple (and Mozilla) to slowly develop search capabilities. I've no idea whether that's either Apple or Mozilla's end game, but it would be a promising d…

I'm pretty sure that Mozilla isn't getting into the search/ad business. I assume that's what you mean when you say "search capabilities".

While it would be good news if they were, insofar as creating more competition for the incumbents (let's be honest, the incumbent, google), at this point only regulators can do anything about the state of search/ad industry.

If this is actually the case Mozilla is yet again being used as one of Google's pawns.

"See, there are other browsers and search/ad companies flourishing despite our market position!"

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