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Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage

bleepingcomputer.com

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Re: Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage

#21

Post by weinzierl »

wlesieutre wrote: post #2

Makes you wonder how someone thought this was a good idea in a browser that was an early pioneer of popup blockers. Imagine if Firefox in the 2000's had seen popup ads and said "Yeah let's get in on that action!" At least it was a small scale experiment and not something that rolled out to the whole install base, I use Firefox on a couple of computers and didn't see it myself. But should you really need user feedback…

If something like this happens once it could be a slip, but we've been there again and again. Mozilla is testing how far it can go only backpedaling when there is resistance. I don't trust them a bit and would switch Browser anytime if there was a visble alternative.

Re: Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage

#22

Post by devmor »

comice wrote: post #15

it's a bit unclear what they intended here but I see a lot of people assuming the absolute worst intent. That Firefox would fully intend to insert full page unskippable adverts of it's own into unrelated websites is a major accusation and there is evidence this was an accident. Looks more to me like bleepingcomputer purposefully sensationalized the issue as clickbait.

This is not the first time Mozilla has injected an ad campaign into the browser chrome.

They did this a couple years ago as well to similar backlash, that time with a plugin that they force-installed for users.

Re: Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage

#23

Post by charlieyu1 »

A lot of organisations/entrepreneurs have made decisions that are so out of touch with the user base that people would question why would someone do that.

Like, I can understand maximising profit, but you don’t have to enrage your user base to achieve your goals

Re: Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage

#24

Post by burnished »

comice wrote: post #15

it's a bit unclear what they intended here but I see a lot of people assuming the absolute worst intent. That Firefox would fully intend to insert full page unskippable adverts of it's own into unrelated websites is a major accusation and there is evidence this was an accident. Looks more to me like bleepingcomputer purposefully sensationalized the issue as clickbait.

Can you point to that evidence? I'm wondering how that change was even ideated let alone rolled out to people.

Re: Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage

#25

Post by VTimofeenko »

comice wrote: post #15

it's a bit unclear what they intended here but I see a lot of people assuming the absolute worst intent. That Firefox would fully intend to insert full page unskippable adverts of it's own into unrelated websites is a major accusation and there is evidence this was an accident. Looks more to me like bleepingcomputer purposefully sensationalized the issue as clickbait.

Bugzilla links in yesterday's post:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36077360

seem to indicate that Mozilla intended for the popup to be shown if the user is AFK for 20 minutes but that timer malfunctioned

Re: Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage

#28

Post by Rebelgecko »

comice wrote: post #15

it's a bit unclear what they intended here but I see a lot of people assuming the absolute worst intent. That Firefox would fully intend to insert full page unskippable adverts of it's own into unrelated websites is a major accusation and there is evidence this was an accident. Looks more to me like bleepingcomputer purposefully sensationalized the issue as clickbait.

What else could they have been trying to do? From seeing the bug filed/fixed wrt the issue, it seems like the only unintentual part was that the popup appeared to quickly, it was showing up after 20ms instead of 20s or something like that
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