Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Make Firefox Private Again

make-firefox-private-again.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 348 posts

Re: Make Firefox Private Again

#221

Post by dylan604 »

raxxorraxor wrote: post #72
mrinfinitiesx wrote: post #4

wasn't aware that 'anonym' existed. I don't care if PII is stripped or not. the answer to 'helping advertisers' or anything with advertisement metrics in any fashion is always 'No.' - training things so that there's better data on how to best manipulate our psyche / give people data to psychologically manipulate us in to buying/doing things is a hard 'No.' > Asked whether Mozilla has any concerns that its user base,…

Also advertising is certainly not the reason the web is free. It was free before the insane amount of advertising. Maybe for platforms like Youtube or similar sites advertising is part of their business model. But the primary reason here is foremost people creating content. That Youtube has insane infrastructure costs is secondary and we certainly don't need Browsers to help advertising at all. If it doesn't stay opt…

> It was free before the insane amount of advertising.

It was free to users, but the operators were paying hosting fees. Maybe the did that out of love or charity or simply because nobody knew how to make money with it. First gen ads came from companies buying banners directly with the host based on user metrics which ultimately landed with GoogAnals installed every where. Hosts used that to offset their out of pocket expenses. But the content was still the content. The wheels started wobbling when blogs started chasing topics for the metrics. The wheels came completely off the bus when socials introduced algos tweaked to feed your addictions.

It was never free. The form of payment has moved to unsuspecting users' data instead of money out of pocket.

Re: Make Firefox Private Again

#222

Post by commodoreboxer »

bluGill wrote: post #212
commodoreboxer wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most importantly, advertisement is a business. It's not charity and it's not a publicly owned resource. It doesn't keep the Internet free, because it makes a boat load of money doing what it does. It doesn't take an expert understanding of economics to see that any belief that advertisement allows for a free Internet is smoke and mirrors. The money comes from somewhere, notably from you. Either advertisement works, a…

> It doesn't keep the Internet free There are two different definitions of free. Advertising keeps the internet free as in your don't have to pay for it. However there is also freedom and advertising doesn't help there at all.

That's the rub. You do pay for it. By the intention and definition of the business, advertisement eventually extracts money from you. It wouldn't be profitable otherwise. The fact that it happens more subtly and enables them to extract money from you in ways that you don't notice doesn't change the fact that it's still paid for.

An advertisement funded Internet is still you paying for your content, it's just built so that you don't feel like you're paying for it. Advertisement is not free money, and it can not be free money. It's for-profit.

So with advertisement, you're still paying for the Internet. We don't have a free Internet. We have an Internet built around businesses that make their entire business around psychological manipulation and extracting money from people without being noticed. The fact that people still push the myth that advertisement enables a free Internet like ad companies are somehow a public service shows how good they are at manipulation.

Re: Make Firefox Private Again

#223

Post by layer8 »

LunaSea wrote: post #149
Dalewyn wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going back to 90s internet is a very good thing.

Which site from the 90s are you still visiting regularly in it's 90s form?

Personal blogs. Smaller online retailers. Not a web site, but Usenet and mailing lists.

Re: Make Firefox Private Again

#224

Post by digging »

p-e-w wrote: post #52
idle_zealot wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If HN didn't exist people would gather on another link aggregator.

And yet no successful link aggregator has ever been "free" or "open" in a meaningful sense. Matrix, Lemmy, and many others exist, work well, are free from centralized control, and are well-known to the crowd that frequents this place. And yet users prefer to stick to one of the least transparent platforms of its kind, which could be turned off, or turned into something else entirely, at the whim of a small group of p…

> it is now clear that the vast majority of people (including tech people) just don't give a fuck.

This is a fallacy. Sounds like you're invoking "revealed preference."

I care strongly that decentralized tech like Lemmy exists... but Lemmy is a dumpster fire project badly managed, so I've given up on using it.

Re: Make Firefox Private Again

#225

Post by nox101 »

hypeatei wrote: post #105
nox101 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty confident that without advertising, the majority of YouTube channels people love most would not exist. maybe overall that would be a good thing as there's so much trash too

I'm pretty sure ad revenue for most channels is negligible so they resort to third party sponsorships or platforms like Patreon. The advertisements are there for Google to recoup some of the cost of running YT.

not sure what your point is. let's assume it's true. That still means the ads are paying for YouTube to host the videos. Without that those channels would have to pay for hosting themselves and could not afford to make the content.

Further, most of them would have never even tried if it wasn't free to start

Then, I don't buy your premise. Most of the channels I watch insert ads directly for Brilliant, NordVPN, etc... which means even without YouTube's ads they're still ad driven

Re: Make Firefox Private Again

#226

Post by nox101 »

grishka wrote: post #87
nox101 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty confident that without advertising, the majority of YouTube channels people love most would not exist. maybe overall that would be a good thing as there's so much trash too

And that's fine. YouTube channels are always better when they're someone's hobby rather than a full-time job.

hard disagree. the majority of the channels I love the most have become full time jobs.

Re: Make Firefox Private Again

#227

Post by layer8 »

Hard_Space wrote: post #114
zczc wrote: post #29

More privacy-related about:config settings: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Privacy/Privacy_Task_Force/firefox_...

Please be aware that at least one of these settings will log you out of all your accounts (I suspect it may be the one related to fingerprinting, though I am not certain). If, as I am, you are signed into 10-20 essential accounts, including work accounts, it is going to be very difficult to get your browser back into its prior 'ready to use' startup, state, even after you have reversed some of the settings outlined h…

> it is going to be very difficult to get your browser back into its prior 'ready to use' startup, state

Creating a backup before making any changes would solve that.

Re: Make Firefox Private Again

#228

Post by digging »

nox101 wrote: post #67
kelnos wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the thing... people would still make free content, and since there wouldn't be as many shady ways to monetize, it would cut down on low-effort (and AI-generated) garbage. The internet would be such a better place. We would probably lose some good stuff, or see it moved behind paywalls. That would be a shame, but I think it would be worth it.

I'm pretty confident that without advertising, the majority of YouTube channels people love most would not exist. maybe overall that would be a good thing as there's so much trash too

Most of my favorite channels make more money from one or more of:

1. Premium subscribers

2. Direct support on Patreon

3. Direct video sponsorship (a form of advertising, but wholly tolerable IMO)

4. Direct support by joining Nebula, which has no ads

Re: Make Firefox Private Again

#229

Post by kmeisthax »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #124

There is a form of advertising that doesn't invade your privacy and doesn't need metrics. It is called "context sensitive" advertising. This is what happens when you go to a web site dedicated to pets and you see advertising related to pets. It's reasonable to assume you have an interest in pets; otherwise, you probably wouldn't be there. No metrics required. "Personalized advertising" is what happens when you go to…

Personalized advertising has one key property that is very useful to this generation of Internet companies: it moves the ad dollars away from websites selling ads (aka "publishers") and to the networks (Google/Facebook).

If you're, say, the NYT, you can sell ads, of course. But anyone who wants to buy ads on NYT can instead buy ads on other websites that only target NYT readers. Which are much cheaper.

This is why news organizations all went paywall a decade ago. When you had to buy ads on a website to advertise to that website's audience, news was rolling in money. That's why they gave everything away for free, it'd be really dumb not to. But then Google and Facebook pirated[0] their audience, meaning all that free website traffic from the search engines is completely meaningless and provides no revenue.

[0] Piracy as in "stole our lunch money", not piracy as in copyright infringement. We're making a moral judgment, not a legal one.

Re: Make Firefox Private Again

#230

Post by kazinator »

mrinfinitiesx wrote: post #4

wasn't aware that 'anonym' existed. I don't care if PII is stripped or not. the answer to 'helping advertisers' or anything with advertisement metrics in any fashion is always 'No.' - training things so that there's better data on how to best manipulate our psyche / give people data to psychologically manipulate us in to buying/doing things is a hard 'No.' > Asked whether Mozilla has any concerns that its user base,…

> is what allows the internet to be free and open to everyone

The internet is free to hardly anyone. People pay for broadband and mobile plans.

Free Wi-Fi hotspots are what actually keeps the internet free for many people.

Post reply on HN