151–160 of 178 posts
What incentivized Mozilla to do this? How does this get them more money? (I.e., who's paying M for this?)
They just bought an ad company.
> Anonym was founded in 2022 by former Meta executives Brad Smallwood and Graham Mudd.
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-anonym-raising-t...
Meanwhile, Ladybird, the first new browser engine since the 90's to 100% the Acid3 JavaScript test, just secured $1 million in funding from the founder of GitHub. We, as responsible web users, need to do whatever it takes to break up Google's web oligopoly. The open web is at stake.
Why can't they just fork Blink like everyone else? A new rendering engine is an unnecessary duplication of effort and ripe for security issues. I don't think the open web is really as dependent on the browser anymore anyway. We already have multiple choices today, but the web is still mostly controlled by a huge big companies and nations. Doesn't feel particularly open. A new browser engine won't really solve that. M…
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Coupon codes have existed before the Internet as a privacy-preserving way for businesses to track conversions for advertising. If a buyer quotes "MAGAZINE5" when purchasing to obtain a 5% discount, the seller knows the magazine advert is working. In modern times, there is nothing technologically preventing a business placing online ads with frequently changing coupon codes "HAPPY15" vs "HAPPY22" to gauge effectivenes…
Coupons worked, but they can't really work now in the way they used to. People exchange codes in other information channels. Especially in the current, always-connected, high speed internet era.
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Why can't they just fork Blink like everyone else? A new rendering engine is an unnecessary duplication of effort and ripe for security issues. I don't think the open web is really as dependent on the browser anymore anyway. We already have multiple choices today, but the web is still mostly controlled by a huge big companies and nations. Doesn't feel particularly open. A new browser engine won't really solve that. M…
Yes, but Ladybird will be a much smaller attack surface. Starting with a competent, modern base and a great deal fewer lines of code will prove advantageous for both security and performance. See: WireGuard
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The thing is, you cannot pay for Firefox even if you wanted to*, so the assertion that people wouldn't pay is unproven (but has good circumstancial evidence). I'd still prefer they make a paid version without this crap. * Donations to Mozilla go to a non profit which is separated from Firefox development and has questionable effectiveness in general
You can, since Firefox is open source. Just hire a dev.
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> The idea that critical communication infrastructure must be (directly or indirectly) supported by advertising interests is certainly not obvious I think the problem is more that the trend over the last 5-7 decades has been to privatise things. The EU (for instance) has rules forcing (e.g.,) privatisation of train companies and postal services. This has caused previously government-owned services to be privatised. I…
> I think the problem is more that the trend over the last 5-7 decades has been to privatise things. The private/public border is volatile and heavily contested and by all accounts will forever be a topic of political debate. But notice how unusual the context of web technologies: Its not that a private monopoly is controlling and selling some piece of web infrastructure (that might, instead, be opened to more compet…
1) Google's model. They try to control all the ways that people discover goods and services, and then sell ads to the providers of services. Whether people are looking for electronics, flights, restaurants, contractors or nannies, they are going to use Google Search or Google Maps or another Google service to find it, and service providers need to pay Google to be discovered. Google is using ads to get a cut of every business transaction.
2) Apple's model: They try to control all the ways that people pay for things. For digital goods, that's the App Store and In-App-Purchases, for traditional things it's Apple Pay and Apple Card and Apple Cash. Apple is using payment services to get a cut of every business transaction.
It is obvious why Firefox does this though; they have no income otherwise like Google does. Firefox users somehow think that using is "supporting" Mozilla/Firefox, but it is not, and they would not pay for the browser, or pay a subscription free. Privacy-friendly ads are a reasonable way for Mozilla to survive long-term -- if they are indeed privacy-friendly. Ultimately you probably either need a clean-room NGO that…
You can't reasonably claim "they would not pay for the browser, or pay a subscription [fee]" when it is not even possible for a user to donate to the Firefox project specifically.
The only thing that seems to somewhat work is Patreon, which seems to work fine for some developers that are good marketers, but even there the number of creators that can support themselves is very small, and I don't know of any Patreons that support more than a single person.
To support a browser, you need a team, and there is no plausible way to pay for that team with donations.
It's not that nobody has tried financing open source with donations, it's just that nobody has found a way to make it work yet.
This gives me impression like what happens to the nuclear weapon proliferation. At beginning, it is an arms race, between US and USSR, between users and advertisers. Either side thinks they can't survive without vanquishing the other. Eventually they realize it is stupid to continue, and reach a point to both step back. I think Mozilla is at the point where they realize it is no longer beneficial to continue the race…
Put content out there, if I like it, I'll pay. If it's not good enough for enough people to pay for it _consciously_, then it's not good enough, and you stop doing that. You move on to better things and so does everyone else, with the added benefit of the content pool being a little less diluted.
1. Visit about:config 2. Set dom.private-attribution.submission.enabled to false I've added the configuration value to the following page: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Privacy/Privacy_Task_Force/firefox_... I'm not affiliated with Mozilla, but I do understand how wikis work. ;-)