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Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage

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Re: Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage

#111

Post by JohnFen »

lolinder wrote: post #86
JohnFen wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched away from Firefox a couple of years ago for a number of reasons that can be collectively summarized as "Firefox no longer meets my needs". But as a Firefox user from the very beginning, I still keep tabs on it, hoping that it will improve enough for me to return to it. Things like this, however, strongly indicate to me that Firefox is just lost and will never find its way back.

What did you switch to?

I'm using Brave right now as a stopgap until/unless I can find a better one. Brave isn't fantastic, but it works better for me than FF.

Re: Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage

#112

Post by doctor_radium »

devmor wrote: post #26

Bring back the browser wars. I'm tired of only having essentially two browsers to choose from, both from unethical companies that use slimy marketing speak to disguise their intentions.

Hear, hear! The problem is that browser complexity has exploded to the degree that at this point it seems impossible for a small team to reinvent the wheel. Who wants to write a web assembly engine from scratch, let alone the rest?

My main browser has been Waterfox which I update manually, which doubly insulated me from this. But don't misunderstand...I hate pretty much all browsers now, too.

Re: Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage

#113

Post by kuratkull »

warkdarrior wrote: post #105
mozman wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the correct answer

Why would Google try to prop up Firefox as a competitor? Both Safari and Edge on desktop are twice the market share of Firefox, so the browser market is competitive enough without Firefox. https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/worl...

Chrome, edge and safari are just, well chrome, on a single family of rendering engines

Re: Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage

#114

Post by isomorphic »

jeroenhd wrote: post #87
ilikepi wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you miss the episode in 2017 in which they used an internal control to force the installation of an add-on as part of a promotion for a television show? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15941302 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15940144 I feel similarly to you...long-time user, bummed out by stuff like this. Sometimes it feels like Firefox would be a lot better off without Mozilla occasionally making deal…

The execution was definitely terrible, but "browser company ships promotional easter egg" isn't that bad as "browser company inserts ads into browsing experience" in my opinion. These ads are why Windows 10+ has become a trash fire despite all the technical improvements made to Windows. Mozilla were stupid enough to try and sneak this Roboto stuff in, probably as part of the requirements or intentions of the ad campa…

The thing is, if I was somewhat interested in a Mozilla VPN service, this spectacularly idiotic decision to deploy full-page intrusive advertising into Firefox makes it 100% certain I will never buy the Mozilla VPN service--because, how can I trust that they won't do the equivalent to that service? What's to stop them from blocking certain sites (on the other side of the VPN) as part of some promotion? Or worse?

They've made it clear they don't believe their own language about privacy and user choice. They've compromised one product to advertise another. And perhaps worse, they doubled-down about it in Bugzilla with corporate doublespeak, which to me is the tell that they'll absolutely do it again.

It's amazing how apt the trust-thermocline analogy is.

Re: Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage

#115

Post by JohnFen »

logdap wrote: post #4
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…

Mozilla management are malicious snakes. This isn't the first time they've tried something like this and it won't be the last. Each time they issue noncommittally apologies, if you can call them that, but it keeps on happening. They're testing the water for even more ads in Firefox, trying to normalize this until people stop complaining. Keep the heat on them, don't give them an inch or they'll take a mile.

> Each time they issue noncommittally apologies, if you can call them that, but it keeps on happening.

An apology needs three parts: admission that you did wrong, expressing regret for your wrongdoing, and a change in your behavior so that you don't do it again.

Mozilla's tendency to just do the first two and skip the third means that, in my view, those weren't real apologies.

Re: Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage

#117

Post by wongarsu »

warkdarrior wrote: post #105
mozman wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the correct answer

Why would Google try to prop up Firefox as a competitor? Both Safari and Edge on desktop are twice the market share of Firefox, so the browser market is competitive enough without Firefox. https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/worl...

Safari can probably be discounted since Apple discontinued the Windows version in 2012. A browser that can only run on 18% of desktops worldwide isn't necessarily the competitor Google is looking for.

Edge is available on Windows, Linux and macOS, so it would probably do. But that would allow one of Google's biggest competitors to drop an under-performing product and lobby for antitrust against Google. Unlikely to happen, but a risk Google might not want to take.

https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide

Re: Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage

#118

Post by chrsig »

jeroenhd wrote: post #87
ilikepi wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you miss the episode in 2017 in which they used an internal control to force the installation of an add-on as part of a promotion for a television show? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15941302 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15940144 I feel similarly to you...long-time user, bummed out by stuff like this. Sometimes it feels like Firefox would be a lot better off without Mozilla occasionally making deal…

The execution was definitely terrible, but "browser company ships promotional easter egg" isn't that bad as "browser company inserts ads into browsing experience" in my opinion. These ads are why Windows 10+ has become a trash fire despite all the technical improvements made to Windows. Mozilla were stupid enough to try and sneak this Roboto stuff in, probably as part of the requirements or intentions of the ad campa…

how are you differentiating "promotional easter egg" from "ad"?

Re: Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage

#119

Post by logdap »

wodenokoto wrote: post #66
logdap wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla management are malicious snakes. This isn't the first time they've tried something like this and it won't be the last. Each time they issue noncommittally apologies, if you can call them that, but it keeps on happening. They're testing the water for even more ads in Firefox, trying to normalize this until people stop complaining. Keep the heat on them, don't give them an inch or they'll take a mile.

I’m not sure what “something like this” you are referring to. But Firefox is an ad supported browser and has been for nearly 2 decades. That they want to take ownership of the advertising is no surprise. Who knows when google will turn off the faucet. But this is definitely not the right way

[dead]

Re: Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage

#120

Post by triyambakam »

sandyarmstrong wrote: post #3

I noticed this yesterday. I've been using Mozilla/Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox as my primary browser for over 20 years. They've made some questionable calls, sure, but most of the recent things that have bothered people (like Pocket integration) haven't really irked me. This is the first time where I got a visceral feeling that maybe this isn't the browser I knew and loved anymore. It's not like I'm uninstalling and swit…

I recently switched to Brave
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