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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

#561
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.

> These suggestions — which aim to enhance and speed up your searching experience

To me this is clearly not spin or weasel words, this is glaringly blatant dishonesty.

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#562
post #52
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you won't enable it. What is there to dislike?

He wrote that he dislikes the language – and so do I. I feel like this kind of marketing language is only there to obfuscate the real reason why things are done. They want to include ads to help finance Mozilla – the main goal isn't "to enhance and speed up your searching experience". Calling the introduction of ads an enhancement for the user is just dishonest.

If the context algorithm is good enough for a user, it could be seen an enhancement + providing funding.

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#564

So just disable it. I'm sick and tired of people smearing Firefox because they're trying to make a living. It's still the best open source browser out there, it's still free, as in freedom and as in beer. Any fork of Firefox is mainly a change in default settings or branding. None of them would exist without the huge contributions Mozilla Foundation receive. People who criticize Firefox and then use one of its many f…

How many millions do they make? How much of that money goes towards Firefox development?

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#565
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.

It feels like this also erodes the trust of many people in Mozilla even further.

Apart from many questionable choices over the past few years, they fired fired a large number of employees, then their CEO bumped up their own salary to 3 million USD: https://www.zdnet.com/article/endangered-firefox-the-state-o...

I am not sure whether their fall to around a 5% market share in the browser market had anything to do with any of the things in the above article, but to me it feels like the logical next progression at some point is to remove Mozilla from the actual Firefox software.

So my question is this: how long will it be before any fork of Firefox will gain a large following, much like what happened to CentOS/Rocky Linux?

Seems like there are quite a few independent forks, but nothing that i think would be a no-brainer for replacing Firefox as the default browser of any Linux distro or on a Windows desktop: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_web_browsers#Gecko-bas...

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#566
post #352

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…

> Why not just tell it like it is. Given the massive salaries and bonuses paid out to upper management[0], I think their problem would be not sounding like that dril tweet about budgeting[1]. After the massive layoffs and cuts to vital web platform projects this move just feels consistent in their move from their old "quirky nerd charity" image to a new, more corporate one. I'm not saying that this is a good thing. […

Huh, information in https://calpaterson.com/mozilla.html are, delicately speaking, disturbing.

One thing surprised me as well:

"Firefox barely exists on phones, with a market share of less than half a percent. This is baffling given that mobile Firefox has a rare feature for a mobile browser: it's able to install extensions and so can block ads."

Yes, indeed, FF is pretty great on the phone, it looks like someone fails to advertise it as such. I use it precisely because I can use add blocker. The person with 2.4M compensation should notice that something wrong is going on.

I am afraid that Firefox/Mozilla at some point will become something like Yahoo or Commodore, a name that is being bought and sold by investment founds to extract some income and sell it further...

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#567

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…

Linux is a kernel, not an entire operating system. Lots of companies contribute, it has a foundation, and I'm sorry to break it to you but it even has a code of conduct.

What makes you think a web browser is comparatively simple compared to a kernel?

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#568
It's good because this puts an end to the farce that Mozilla cares for it's users privacy and that we should use Firefox even though it's lagging behind Chromium.

I do not trust Google but I don't trust Mozilla either. I just hope they don't kill MDN. We can't trust big corps be it for profit or non-profit.

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They need money to improve FF so they will get it by fucking up FF? Sounds counterproductive to me.

No, they need money to pay for their CEO. She had to fire 250 engineers to pay her salary last year, she might not have another 250 left to fire this year.

The salary of 250 engineers is way more than her own salary, but yes it is a bad look to be firing engineers while raising executive pay.
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