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No Surprises (2009)

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: No Surprises (2009)

#51

Post by jacquesm »

Programmatic wrote: post #48
batou wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm right there now. I just simplified everything by going back and looking for the technological singularity where everything just worked. This is a really hard and uncomfortable thing after years of convenience along the same lines of going back to CDs after using mp3s but it's worth it.

Hah. I actually am very happy with my music solution (for now). I buy CDs and rip them with iTunes to MP3 on my media PC to a network drive, and then manually sync my phone. I can play it on anything by opening a folder. The UI is essentially put in CD, wait, have music, and sync phones occasionally. What is your current setup that you're happy with?

I built my own music player / music library after I got sick of lugging around my CD collection with every move.

Re: No Surprises (2009)

#52

Post by Programmatic »

glass- wrote: post #38
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #4

Does this mean they'll be rolling back the Pocket integration?

This policy was created in 2009 in response to the controversy when NoScript started messing around with ABP and broke functionality so that ads would display on the NoScript developer's website. https://adblockplus.org/blog/attention-noscript-users https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2009/05/01/no-surprises/

Wow, thank you for posting that. Very informative. The post and the NoScript reply [1] both raise some interesting points about how to compensate plugin authors for their hard and continued work that seem like they're still not addressed six years later. I have never really stopped to consider either compensating plugin for their work and I rely on them daily.

1. https://hackademix.net/2009/05/04/dear-adblock-plus-and-nosc...

Re: No Surprises (2009)

#53

Post by calgoo »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #22
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #4

Does this mean they'll be rolling back the Pocket integration?

This policy has zero to do with Pocket if you actually read it. It's about changing the user's search engine and homepage. Unless of course you wanted to get in a completely unrelated jab at Pocket again because reasons. Get over Pocket. There's no closed source code included. The open source code that integrates with Pocket is never executed due to lazy loading if you don't specifically use Pocket. No money changed…

I actually pulled down the Firefox nightly code and removed both the Pocket and the Telefonica crap. Its not that complicated, however, removing it from each update is a pain, so I stopped. So it can be done, which is the point of Open Source I believe.

Re: No Surprises (2009)

#54

Post by vdaniuk »

This derogatory treatment of Mozilla by hivemind consensus emerging from opinions of a vocal minority is a curious phenomena and a indicator of the increasing ideological rift in open source community. It can be roughly summarized as a conflict between deontological and consequentialist ethics. User privacy, "meritocracy", freedom from DRM/EME, etc above all else vs strategical trade-offs that strengthen competitive positions against Chrome, Edge and Safari.

Re: No Surprises (2009)

#56

Post by Programmatic »

drdaeman wrote: post #12
LeoNatan25 wrote: post #10

Is that a surprise in your pocket, or are you just happy to throw away my privacy?

Pocket is small stuff. A button on the taskbar that can be removed. Or completely disabled in about:config. Surprising, but not much damage. For me the Sync surprise was much more disappointing. They broke the feature to the extent it became unusable for me any more (unless I spend some more weekends trying to understand their poorly-documented proprietary protocol mess, which is not how I'd like to spend time).

It's not about how hard it is or isn't to disable. It's about how a lot of users suddenly wondered what scummy software they downloaded that put that button in their browser, only to be left feeling extremely dirty when they found out it was Mozilla.

It makes you wonder what other liberties they'll take to make a couple bucks and when the other shoe will drop. It has made me start actively evaluating alternatives, when previously I considered it to be the best.

Re: No Surprises (2009)

#57

Post by callahad »

jacquesm wrote: post #45
callahad wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had multiple offers on the table, all of which had improved finances compared to the previous contract. Yahoo's offer was focused on the US, which allowed us to partner with Yandex and Baidu in other regions of the world. All else being the same, I don't see how supporting a global search monoculture controlled by a direct competitor would have been in the best interests of the Web or of Mozilla.

What you could have done is this: change nothing for those users that had already downloaded mozilla and were happy with their results. Slamming around your users like that is for me expressly against the reasons why I'm using firefox and not one of the other browser offerings. And I'm not exactly a google fanboy, to put it mildly.

That's fair; the intent was to only change the search setting for users who had not changed their default. I don't know the specifics around that decision, but it seems like a reasonable position; I'm not sure anything further would have been viable. Still, I get how that can seem intrusive, and I apologize for it.

At the time we landed this change, we also tweaked the search box to increase the visibility of alternative engines and make it easier to switch your default. Hopefully that mitigated some of the pain for you.

We're in a weird place. We have to make enough money to fund the engineering that keeps Firefox competitive, but we also have to stay true to our non-profit mission and ownership. Balancing those two interests is difficult, and we're not always going to get it right. For when we don't, I'm sorry.

Re: No Surprises (2009)

#58

Post by jacquesm »

callahad wrote: post #57
jacquesm wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you could have done is this: change nothing for those users that had already downloaded mozilla and were happy with their results. Slamming around your users like that is for me expressly against the reasons why I'm using firefox and not one of the other browser offerings. And I'm not exactly a google fanboy, to put it mildly.

That's fair; the intent was to only change the search setting for users who had not changed their default. I don't know the specifics around that decision, but it seems like a reasonable position; I'm not sure anything further would have been viable. Still, I get how that can seem intrusive, and I apologize for it. At the time we landed this change, we also tweaked the search box to increase the visibility of alterna…

> We're in a weird place. We have to make enough money to fund the engineering that keeps Firefox competitive, but we also have to stay true to our non-profit mission and ownership. Balancing those two interests is difficult, and we're not always going to get it right. For when we don't, I'm sorry.

That I completely acknowledge and there is absolutely no need for you to apologise, where work is being done mistakes are automatically being made. The people I'm most scared of are those that claim they never make mistakes.

Is there an easy way for users like me to simply pay Mozilla for the product?

I'd much prefer that than being made the subject of a tug-of-war between internet giants.

Re: No Surprises (2009)

#59

Post by jacquesm »

eterm wrote: post #33
jacquesm wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's stuff like this that has an indirect effect that is much more serious than the change itself. Not all that long ago there was a thread here about 'why those bloody end users don't keep their systems up-to-date'. Well, there you have it: because they never just get the fixes, they also get all kinds of other junk rammed down their throats, if such an upgrade does not break their systems entirely. And so the end-u…

Your browser updates anyway, the "click to restart to get the new version" just initiates a restart. You'll get the new version next time you close and re-open anyway.

The hell it doesn't. No software on my computers runs unless I want it to.

Re: No Surprises (2009)

#60

Post by atopal »

criley2 wrote: post #40

Does "No Surprises" mean I won't find unwanted Firefox extensions pre-installed by Mozilla that are impossible to remove and only serve to reduce privacy by opening up new unwanted avenues to access my input and broadcast it over third party non-mozilla private networks? Shouldn't I at least be able to opt-out of a private video service running on a third party server that I have no terms of use or privacy policy cov…

Firefox Hello is opt-in. If you don't use it, it will just be a button in your toolbar, it will do absolutely nothing before you opt-in, by making a call.

As a bonus: You can make video calls without ever having to create an account.

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