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Firefox search update

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Firefox search update

#151

Post by mjw1007 »

mtmail wrote: post #4

"list of categories we’re using: animals, arts, autos, business, career, education, fashion, finance, food, government, health, hobbies, home, inconclusive, news, real estate, society, sports, tech and travel." "This helps us [...] providing a browsing experience that is more tailored to your needs" How would my browsing experience be different in any of the categories? Unless it's about showing me ads yet again.

Right.

If the categories were things like "using search as the most convenient way to find a well-known website", "entering a term that's likely to appear in a news headline", and "asking a fully-formed question", I'd find the claim that this is about ways to make a better "browser experience" more convincing.

Re: Firefox search update

#152

Post by proactivesvcs »

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https://connect.mozilla.org/

When you make a comment here, do a quick search beforehand to check the topic doesn't already exist, and do abide by the spirit of the guidelines.

Re: Firefox search update

#154

Post by [deleted] »

aquova wrote: post #129
romanows wrote: post #11

Seems like this is in support of "Firefox Suggest", which seems to show sponsored links. I really don't like advertising so I really don't like going down that road. Can't they just take Google's yearly $600,000,000 payment and build the best browser "for the user" while also addressing technical debt and organizational issues so it can continue as an open source project if/when the money ever dries up?

I constantly see this take and I'm afraid I don't agree with it. Firefox is continuing to lose market share, and I think it's less anything they're doing and due simply to the fact that Google is a household name while Mozilla is not. When the user is already using a Google phone, email, search, maps, drive, and document editor, it follows to also use their browser. Simply being a solid browser isn't enough to motiva…

[deleted]

Re: Firefox search update

#155

Post by prophesi »

SoftTalker wrote: post #95
jmkb wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it's time to stop searching from the url bar (sorry, "awesomebar") and create a local html file as the startup and new tab page, with search boxes for all your fav engines. Just like the good old days.

I did that for years, then it became difficult as browsers didn't want to let you set a local file as your default home page (for "security reasons"). I now just have "Blank Page" set for my Homepage, new windows, and new tabs. I just tried setting a local file in Firefox and it seems to work again, so I may go back to that.

I was able to set a local file for new windows, but it looks like there's no built-in way to set a custom URL for new pages, not even in about:config (v125.0.3, Fedora). :/

I may have to simply use the URL bar with data collection opted-out, as I'd rather not bother with vetting and installing a custom open source extension to override the new tab behavior.

Re: Firefox search update

#156

Post by multimoon »

I was a chrome user for over a decade and just last year switched to Firefox when googles decision to just flat share my data with ad brokers and call it a security feature finally pushed me over the edge and I switched to Firefox.

I still think chrome is the better browser both in functionality and performance, but at least Firefox was 90-95% of the way there, and respected my desire to not sell my data.

While this in of itself isn’t super egregious and has an easy opt out, what alternatives are there? I know there’s a bunch of chrome clones, but at that point why not just use raw chromium?

Re: Firefox search update

#157

Post by [deleted] »

spiffytech wrote: post #93

I posted this on another story 6mo ago: Every time I hear "anonymous data", I think of that time AOL published anonymized search logs (for academic research). The anonymization was negligent, and an NYT reporter de-anonymized and tracked down one of the users with the local & personal info present in the search queries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_search_log_release https://web.archive.org/web/20130404175032/ht…

[deleted]

Re: Firefox search update

#158

Post by zamadatix »

pquki4 wrote: post #122
romanows wrote: post #11

Seems like this is in support of "Firefox Suggest", which seems to show sponsored links. I really don't like advertising so I really don't like going down that road. Can't they just take Google's yearly $600,000,000 payment and build the best browser "for the user" while also addressing technical debt and organizational issues so it can continue as an open source project if/when the money ever dries up?

> Can't they just take Google's yearly $600,000,000 payment They can do that for as long as Google is willing to pay. Without additional revenue stream, the day Google decides to cut cost and stop sponsoring Mozilla, that's the day Firefox will run into big trouble. Any additional revenue stream is going to help. I am no CEO but that seems very clear to me.

It's not a sponsorship, it's a sale.It's also made such deals with Yandex, Baidu, and Yahoo before. The sale is for eyeballs on your search (ad) service. Firefox is getting in a precarious situation with it though as the number of users on Firefox has been decreasing (in absolute terms) despite the number of web users increasing.
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