Well, I'm not going to use Chrome, but I guess WebKit is okay... what browser should we be using now?
Brave is pretty good.
Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage
131–140 of 227 posts
Re: Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage
#132The particularly terrible thing about this is that the Mozilla VPN product is actually Mullvad underneath, one of the better and more ethical VPN providers. Then they have to do this popup ad bullshit pushed by the browser and take a dump all over it.
I have Mullvad running on my devices all the time... I wonder if they showed the ad to Mullvad users? Also, Mullvad is unique in that it generally doesn't do commissions or special sale prices, etc. The "top rated" VPNs on review sites and YouTube channels are usually the ones paying the most in commission. And it's a reason Mullvad is rarely in the "top rated" lists -- it doesn't pay commissions. I wonder how that w…
Without actually researching this, my impression is that Mullvad is a white label provider that the Mozilla VPN product is built on.
That's very different business arrangement than Mullvad paying commission for customer acquisition.
Re: Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage
#133"The advertisement boosts Mozilla VPN, a paid open-source VPN service that constitutes a crucial revenue source for the not-for-profit company." In 2021, Mozilla CEO received $5M in compensation. I don't really consider them a non-profit.
Wish my non-profit paid like that.
That's how you don't make a profit
Re: Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage
#134Earlier 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.
It's not all management. It's Mitchell Baker. She needs to step down as CEO.
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Re: Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage
#135Are the bean counters and ad freaks taking the helm? Maybe time to look for a different browser…
Re: Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
No it's not blocked by ad blockers, since this was not injected in pages but part of the browser UI (the "chrome").
I wonder why I have not seen the advert popup then. I run Firefox daily for 8 to 10 hours and I've not seen it once... Something must be blocking it for me.
Looks like that was an experiment targeted to a subset of the user base, and you were just not in the pool.
Re: Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage
#137Bring 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.
Meh. Webassembly has polyfills. I think an incremental approach wouldn't be as hard as people make it out to be but someone does have to sit down and do it.
Re: Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage
#138>"We’re continuously working to understand the best ways to communicate with people who use Firefox. Ultimately, we accomplished the exact opposite of what we intended in this experiment and quickly rolled the experience back.
What absolute lies. All they would have to do is a quick search on HN and boom - enough user input to last quite some time. In my country (perhaps others), the best way to "continuously work[ing] to understand the best ways to communicate with people who use Firefox." would be to actually communicate with people... "Ultimately, we accomplished the exact opposite of what we intended in this experiment" No, you got called out for trying to cheat people.
Re: Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The people who greenlighted this were the people who ousted those who built Firefox. Mozilla got rid of their founder, Brendan Eich, for donating to a California initiative against gay marriage. Now we see what that costs us.
There would have been a cost to keeping him as well. There is a significant percentage of tech workers who are gay or trans, which would have reduced the hiring pool available to Mozilla.
> There would have been a cost to keeping him as well. There is a significant percentage of tech workers who are gay or trans, which would have reduced the hiring pool available to Mozilla.
Having the best pool of workers in the world aren't going to make a difference[1] if they are working for power-mongers who use outrage to achieve a coup.
The reverse is not true - having fewer skilled workers to choose from can be irrelevant when they are working for someone who is focused on goals that are aligned to the user.
IOW, there's no point in having the absolute best and the brightest people employed by self-serving schemers who wanted to use firefox as a vehicle for their political/virtuous ambitions.
There might be, however, a point in having "only" the 90% best people employed towards making firefox better.
[1] And, it looks like it didn't make a difference.
Re: Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage
#140[flagged]