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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

#611
post #372
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…

Just imagine the meltdown if Google or Microsoft built that in. Somehow, Mozilla always get the slack and a couple of months down the road they are the saviour of the privacy world yet again.

Well, both of them already include something a bit similar.

Search suggestions are displayed and the items are conditioned to your location, cookies... Pages which know how to trick themselves to the top of this suggestions get visitors straight from the user's navbar.

The main difference between Google/Microsoft's approach and Mozilla's is that the pages themselves don't pay to be displayed directly onto your browser's navbar dropdown.

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#612

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…

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…

Smells like a whole lotta bloat. If only people cared about Gemini or something similar.

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#613
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…

How many things are we going to need to deactivate in 5 years from now? First Pocket, then this; what next? Thanks a lot for mismanaging your budget like seemingly every other non-profit, Mozilla.

http://dpldocs.info/this-week-in-d/Blog.Posted_2021_09_06.ht...

Pocket is a good thing. It provides a reason for Mozilla/Firefox to exist.

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#614
post #276
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.

Mozilla takes hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue a year. For decades it hired its engineers from the single most expensive place on earth to hire an engineer, the Bay Area. It boosted CEO pay into the millions shortly before laying off a big chunk of its engineering team. If they had taken the cash they spent on "diversifying their revenue streams" (i.e. getting distracted by side projects while their moneyma…

What other browser has a tree style tabs extension?

Also, Firefox mobile lets me block YouTube ads with ublock origin.

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#615
post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Firefox still has no alternative in the privacy / user-centric space (don't mention Brave, I'm gonna get mad). Vivaldi perhaps https://vivaldi.com/ ? It is still a chrome derivative, but it feel less shady and less spyware than Brave. And it's pretty good and configurable. Firefox remain my first and main browser tho. I never ever used "proper" chrome, not even one day.

Vivaldi is not open source so that's an immediate "no" from me. I'm fine with using closed source tools from time to time, but a web browser is just too important and intertwined in my life to trust a closed source offering. In a perfect world we'd have nothing but fully open source software funded by support contracts and commercial interest in offering superior software, but the world isn't perfect and so we have t…

Vivaldi does keep their source out in the open for inspection, it's just not licensed so that it'd be forkable.

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. They should just state "It's an Ad". I doubt they actually going to try every product that they are advertising, to make wording "suggestion" be even close to the truth. That said, I don't understand, why would somebody use Firefox instead of Chrome, Edge, or Safari if they ad in-browser ads.

For example because Chrome treats Google cookies differently [1]? This is a red flag for people. With Firefox you at least know what you get. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18064537

> Chrome treats Google cookies differently

This was released in Chrome 69 and rolled back in Chrome 70: https://www.blog.google/products/chrome/product-updates-base...

(Disclosure: I work for Google, speaking only for myself)

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#617

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…

They're choosing a very unethical, and (given their own ads) hypocritical funding model. The corporate speak euphemisms for this model signal the further underlying rot. To me your position reads analogous to "Im sick of people smearing organic produce corp for trying to make a living selling agent orange. If you dont like it dont buy it!"

You're overreacting, it's not agent orange. It's a setting you can disable. It's also an open source browser with forks that disable the setting for you.

But this is exactly why I feel Mozilla and Firefox deserve more respect. If we're free to fork their code, then any such decision from their part to keep their funding should be met with respect from the user base.

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#618

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?

Good question, I actually went through their budget report a few days ago. I'm not from the states but they seem to be spending over 300 million dollars a year on developer salaries alone. And considering they're HQ'd in Silicon Valley I guess that's not so strange.

The bulk of their income is from Google donating 450 million USD every year just to remain the default search choice. That shouldn't reflect poorly on Mozilla, it should make you question how Google can just throw 450 million dollars on remaining the default search choice in a browser with 1% market share.

It should make you question the massive monopoly that is Google, not Mozilla who are struggling to make open source software for people.

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#619
post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really hate this as well. If there is a "not now" button, why is there no "no and do not remind me, ever" button, too?

It's a dark pattern I call 'the consent ratchet'. As soon as you ever get irritated enough and misclick that button is gone for ever and good luck disabling the 'feature' (term used lightly) seven layers of menus down, assuming it can be done at all.

A ratchet is a good analogy. But let's not call it consent.

Re: Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions

#620
post #526
post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like Vivaldi but the issue is that you're still locking yourself into Chromium's Blink rendering engine which just serves to strengthen Google's push to be the de-facto standards enforcer of the web.

Exactly. Thanks for writing it out.

Anything wrong with Opera or Opera GX?
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