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Alert HN: Mozilla puts advertising into Firefox AGAIN

news.ycombinator.com

11–20 of 51 posts

Re: Alert HN: Mozilla puts advertising into Firefox AGAIN

#11
> We are in the process of rolling out a new offering to improve the Firefox Suggest experience. This feature requires access to new data and is only available to a small number of users via an *opt-in* prompt. Mozilla collects the following information to power Firefox Suggest when users have opted in to the improved experience.

I would assume anything outside of that is inferred from local data, much like firefox's new tab page does

Re: Alert HN: Mozilla puts advertising into Firefox AGAIN

#12
post #6

I stopped updating Firefox on version 89.0 because I got tired of having to unfuck it after every update.

What I did when I used firefox was using the ESR version. It also comes with ads but you can disable them and you know they won't reenable them. And at least you get security patches.

Re: Alert HN: Mozilla puts advertising into Firefox AGAIN

#14
post #2

> but Mozilla's unceasing obsession with inveigling advertising into the browser is... disturbing. Why? It's Open Source.

Yeah I guess the few people still using it can modify the source code and compile it...

Reminds of the days when any complaint about a missing video codec in Linux used to be met with "write and compile your own kernel".

Re: Alert HN: Mozilla puts advertising into Firefox AGAIN

#15
post #2

> but Mozilla's unceasing obsession with inveigling advertising into the browser is... disturbing. Why? It's Open Source.

Yeah I guess the few people still using it can modify the source code and compile it...

That's essentially what Librewolf is.

https://librewolf.net/

Re: Alert HN: Mozilla puts advertising into Firefox AGAIN

#16
post #2

> but Mozilla's unceasing obsession with inveigling advertising into the browser is... disturbing. Why? It's Open Source.

Because Mozilla misleads users with corporate-speak bs, telling them that they respect their privacy when in reality they have a history of doing anti-user nasty stuff.

Today, the public is well aware that G, Meta, Amazon, Apple, etc... spy them and monetize their data to sell ads. So most people using products from those organizations know what to expect.

What Mozilla does is worse than FAANG. They release anti-user and spyware features but they have the nerve to preach in their site, docs, UX, etc about how they "lead a revolution to save the web" and "deeply care for user's rights". Perverse and disgusting.

Re: Alert HN: Mozilla puts advertising into Firefox AGAIN

#17
post #2

> but Mozilla's unceasing obsession with inveigling advertising into the browser is... disturbing. Why? It's Open Source.

Because Mozilla misleads users with corporate-speak bs, telling them that they respect their privacy when in reality they have a history of doing anti-user nasty stuff. Today, the public is well aware that G, Meta, Amazon, Apple, etc... spy them and monetize their data to sell ads. So most people using products from those organizations know what to expect. What Mozilla does is worse than FAANG. They release anti-user…

Mozilla's tracking is not even in the same ballpark as Microsoft's and Google's. I agree that the hypocrisy is annoying but saying they're worse than FAANG is just wrong.

Re: Alert HN: Mozilla puts advertising into Firefox AGAIN

#18
post #7
post #3

Luckily, there’s a solution… https://librewolf.net/

It does indeed look superior. But getting the 2nd most important software on my PC from a group of randos with not even full names and God knows what level of opsec is just too scary even for me. I've been toying with the idea of setting up a build enviroment for LibreWolf myself but that would still require auditing the patches and their changes as they come in every day.

Do you mean they keep patching stuff? What's the problem with tracking their patches a bit more slowly?

Re: Alert HN: Mozilla puts advertising into Firefox AGAIN

#20
post #7
post #3

Luckily, there’s a solution… https://librewolf.net/

It does indeed look superior. But getting the 2nd most important software on my PC from a group of randos with not even full names and God knows what level of opsec is just too scary even for me. I've been toying with the idea of setting up a build enviroment for LibreWolf myself but that would still require auditing the patches and their changes as they come in every day.

> from a group of randos with not even full names

Somehow I'd trust a group of randos more than most corporations

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