I think that there needs to be a level of accountability here for the programmers who did this. Tech workers need to stand up against this kind of anti-user hostility. Firefox is an openly-developed project, who wrote the code to allow this kind of attack, and should we ask them to commit to not writing such code again?
Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage
141–150 of 227 posts
Re: Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage
#142> The most recent relevant report on Mozilla’s bug tracking platform received the "RESOLVED WORKSFORME" tag Typical Mozilla. At this point I don’t know why they even allow bug submissions from the public at all.
This isn’t a bug, so the resolution is expected. What I don’t understand is how Mozilla thought this would work out.
Re: Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage
#143A 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
Depends on your goals. Facebook has done well selling outraged eyeballs.
The outrage Facebook feasts on is not directed at Facebook. That is just a byproduct.
Here Mozilla decided to place a nice target on their backs asking for money.
Re: Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage
#144I 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…
Firefox at least exposes an endless amount of toggles to tweak pretty much every behaviour the browser has. This is includes settings for removing or disabling all the integration with Mozilla services and their ads. See for example: https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js
FF removed the ability to delete the sites from MRU list in the address bar, the ability which it had since ages. It was removed when moved to Photon, 2017. They finally would add it back in FF 113, so 2023. Six / Fucking / Years
Re: Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage
#145i gave up on firefox when i couldn't stop it from connecting to Google on a network device i was working on. Removing all the links from the advanced settings made it fail to start. That's when I realized how hypocritical they are. ( arm64 firefox-esr.) Even the latest chromium on arm64 connects to Google almost daily. i use epiphany-browser for that project now. no unwanted internet traffic from epiphany.
Any issues with DRM content?
Re: Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
I read a conspiracy that Google has paid off Mozilla management to specifically sabotage the browser development. Actions like this make it hard to dispute the moves that frequently seem deliberately anti-user.
Th other conspiracy I've heard is Google subsidizes Mozilla so they have a credible claim there's competition in the market.
If true, it really backfired on them as buying Mozilla's default search is currently being used against them in a search engine antitrust suit.
Re: Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage
#147Bring 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.
> Who wants to write a web assembly engine from scratch
Webassembly engine is one of the simpler things to implement in a browser. It's essentially a giant switch statement in a loop.
> let alone the rest?
But who said a new browser has to implement everything from scratch? Why couldn't a browser use well established libraries for things like image decoding, webasm, JavaScript, font rendering, webrtc, http, etc?
Re: Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage
#148Earlier 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.
I wanted to like Firefox. So much so that I used to carry my keys on a Firefox branded lanyard. Eventually, I gave up and switched. Presently, Im trying Brave. I don't really like it, but I'm now at the point where I don't think there is such a thing as a user-friendly browser anymore.
What don't you like?
Re: Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage
#149i gave up on firefox when i couldn't stop it from connecting to Google on a network device i was working on. Removing all the links from the advanced settings made it fail to start. That's when I realized how hypocritical they are. ( arm64 firefox-esr.) Even the latest chromium on arm64 connects to Google almost daily. i use epiphany-browser for that project now. no unwanted internet traffic from epiphany.
Yeah when my DNS went sporty I noticed Firefox got very slow to load even local ips and investigated.
Turns out it does two dozen queries on every start. Mostly to unknown Mozilla services but also a few from Google and others I couldn't identify (IP on either AWS or CloudFlare, likely just more Mozilla). And when it can't resolve those hosts it seems to continually retry every few seconds...
Before the apologists arrive, try it yourself. Disable all your add-ons and set your homepage to blank, close Firefox, start wireshark, start Firefox and watch the avalanche.
Re: Mozilla stops Firefox fullscreen VPN ads after user outrage
#150Well, I'm not going to use Chrome, but I guess WebKit is okay... what browser should we be using now?
Arc