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Make Firefox Private Again

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Re: Make Firefox Private Again

#331

Post by staplers »

marcinzm wrote: post #270
staplers wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The internet and humanity would exist fine without advertisers. History has proven this to be true.

History doesn't move backward and the internet users of the mid 90s are not the internet users of now. Give the vast majority of internet users a choice between the internet of mid 90s (after that ads powered it all) and having nothing but large tech owned sites to browse I think you're delusional if you think they'd actually pick the former.

  after that ads powered it all
You must be browsing too many social media and news sites.

Re: Make Firefox Private Again

#332

Post by admdly »

lolinder wrote: post #141
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,…

> advertising as a business model is what allows the internet to be free and open to everyone My favorite period in internet history was the years in which self-hosted phpBB forums dominated the social landscape. We had a diverse set of forums paid for by one or more of their participants, who made the forum available simply because they liked hanging out with the community they were hosting. Advertising-based social…

There was somewhat of a golden era of independent forums (be them phpBB, vBulletin, etc.), but they were for the most part isolated communities. The rise of social media platforms brought some useful centralisation (lowering the barrier to engage - though arguably OpenID, etc. could have achieved the same), but realistically it has turned many platforms into a hellscape of “idiots”.

Re: Make Firefox Private Again

#333

Post by akho »

layer8 wrote: post #317
akho wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ghostery is an ad company, just as Anonym.

Please elaborate. See also the FAQ regarding data collection: https://www.ghostery.com/faq

Under its past owner Evidon, their business model was based on selling data to advertisers.

Starting 2018, they showed personalized ads by themselves, through the GhosteryRewards program. I think that has since been terminated, but it would comply with the FAQ you posted (they claimed that personalization was purely on-device).

I don’t know of any current offending practices, but there is no reason to trust or support this enterprise in the presence of better alternatives. uBlock Origin never did any of that, avoids all shadow of conflict of interest, and works better.

Re: Make Firefox Private Again

#334

Post by jart »

IndySun wrote: post #321
jart wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

News is a narcotic that, like ads and social media, preys on human weakness. It shouldn't surprise anyone that the purveyors of news would partner with purveyors of ads, similar to how casinos like to partner with alcohol and tobacco companies.

You mean poor news, right? There is such a thing as news, coming from reputable sources, at least, as reputable as a friend of a friend. We can agree to start from the position knowing all news information is biased, but if you still end up with that view, where is the learning coming from?

News isn't just biased. Modern technology gives us the power to get news from the source. In the past, a reporter would report on something that happened to a person. Today, that person can just post what happened to them on Twitter. Where do you think journos get their information from? The only reason to have another layer is to curate, decipher, and explain the raw information. That means applying bias. In fact it means news is bias in today's world, which is fine if you're aligned with the person doing it. For example, internal newsletters at companies are a great source of information, because your interests are intertwined. But you might not necessarily feel that way when it comes to media organizations that are mouthpieces of the state. Algorithms like Twitter are a much better system, because the worst bias they can inject is curation. They can't do spin and they can't assign meaning. At least not if you're only looking at the raw feeds. If you limit it to "Following" then it can't curate either, so the platform is capable of providing a small corner we can choose to be in that has zero bias other than your own.

Re: Make Firefox Private Again

#335

Post by einsteinx2 »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #327
einsteinx2 wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AdGuard works perfectly fine in Safari on Mac and iOS

Its no ublock origin thats for sure

Unblock Origin is best in class for sure and I use it on my other browsers, but when browsing on Safari I don’t notice any real difference in the number of ads I see compared to Ublock Origin, that is to say I don’t really see any ads on any browser I use.

My point being that the statement that there’s “no good ad blocking on Safari” is just not true. Saying “there’s no Ublock Origin on Safari” is true, but that’s not the same thing as “no good ad blocking”. AdGuard works just fine.

Re: Make Firefox Private Again

#336

Post by marcinzm »

staplers wrote: post #331
marcinzm wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

History doesn't move backward and the internet users of the mid 90s are not the internet users of now. Give the vast majority of internet users a choice between the internet of mid 90s (after that ads powered it all) and having nothing but large tech owned sites to browse I think you're delusional if you think they'd actually pick the former.

after that ads powered it all You must be browsing too many social media and news sites.

Of the top 100 sites in the US the only ones I see that don't have ads are corporate (ie: Microsoft, Capital One, etc.) and Wikipedia. Arguably the corporate ones are nothing but an ads for that brand. Even Home Depot has ads on its site.

I don't think a 1% rate of no ads is selling your point.

Even most of the smaller sites have Google ads on them in massive quantities.

Re: Make Firefox Private Again

#337

Post by lolinder »

admdly wrote: post #332
lolinder wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> advertising as a business model is what allows the internet to be free and open to everyone My favorite period in internet history was the years in which self-hosted phpBB forums dominated the social landscape. We had a diverse set of forums paid for by one or more of their participants, who made the forum available simply because they liked hanging out with the community they were hosting. Advertising-based social…

There was somewhat of a golden era of independent forums (be them phpBB, vBulletin, etc.), but they were for the most part isolated communities. The rise of social media platforms brought some useful centralisation (lowering the barrier to engage - though arguably OpenID, etc. could have achieved the same), but realistically it has turned many platforms into a hellscape of “idiots”.

I disagree that the centralization was useful. The isolated communities were healthier and funner as a result of being smaller and disconnected from other communities—the isolation worked towards their benefit not their detriment. No one could go trawling through your posts in other communities and decide they don't like you after all because you had an identity there that could be completely different from your identity in other communities.

I think the centralization is actually a huge contributing factor to the decline in overall health of the internet. We didn't evolve in a way that's compatible with seeing everything that our friends say to any of their other friend groups—we're wired for compartmentalized interactions, not global state.

Re: Make Firefox Private Again

#338

Post by IndySun »

jart wrote: post #334
IndySun wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean poor news, right? There is such a thing as news, coming from reputable sources, at least, as reputable as a friend of a friend. We can agree to start from the position knowing all news information is biased, but if you still end up with that view, where is the learning coming from?

News isn't just biased. Modern technology gives us the power to get news from the source. In the past, a reporter would report on something that happened to a person. Today, that person can just post what happened to them on Twitter. Where do you think journos get their information from? The only reason to have another layer is to curate, decipher, and explain the raw information. That means applying bias. In fact it…

I don't get your point. You are describing a world I do not take part in, I think for myself. And make adjustments appropriate to me. Your points are mostly circular and decidedly lacking in irony. I repeat, if what you say is so true, how do you learn? It sounds as if the barest of truth is out of reach, no matter what. How do I thus gauge the content of your words?

Re: Make Firefox Private Again

#339

Post by jart »

IndySun wrote: post #338
jart wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

News isn't just biased. Modern technology gives us the power to get news from the source. In the past, a reporter would report on something that happened to a person. Today, that person can just post what happened to them on Twitter. Where do you think journos get their information from? The only reason to have another layer is to curate, decipher, and explain the raw information. That means applying bias. In fact it…

I don't get your point. You are describing a world I do not take part in, I think for myself. And make adjustments appropriate to me. Your points are mostly circular and decidedly lacking in irony. I repeat, if what you say is so true, how do you learn? It sounds as if the barest of truth is out of reach, no matter what. How do I thus gauge the content of your words?

If by truth you mean facts, then most news is factual. Non-facts are easy to disprove. News is about glomming beliefs and emotion onto facts, similar to how advertisements get attached to web pages. If you're looking for truth, look to math.

Re: Make Firefox Private Again

#340

Post by IndySun »

jart wrote: post #339
IndySun wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get your point. You are describing a world I do not take part in, I think for myself. And make adjustments appropriate to me. Your points are mostly circular and decidedly lacking in irony. I repeat, if what you say is so true, how do you learn? It sounds as if the barest of truth is out of reach, no matter what. How do I thus gauge the content of your words?

If by truth you mean facts, then most news is factual. Non-facts are easy to disprove. News is about glomming beliefs and emotion onto facts, similar to how advertisements get attached to web pages. If you're looking for truth, look to math.

That's not what news is at all. That's biased news. And not facts either. You might be confused with talking about how one projects feelings on to stories, filter internally, and, inevitably, bias them all by oneself.
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