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Mozilla: Ad on Firefox’s new tab page was just another experiment

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Re: Mozilla: Ad on Firefox’s new tab page was just another experiment

#61

Post by solarkraft »

MiddleEndian wrote: post #11

It's an experiment in hurting the good will of their brand. I still use Firefox but it's painful sometimes. Not as painful as Chrome, but Mozilla seems determined to come up with unexpected new ways to fuck up Firefox for some reason.

Yep. I once considered donating to them for developing a browser I quite like and that's needed in the current landscape, but they obviously want to be for profit in the scummiest way possible, so - yeah.

There should be another organisation taking over Firefox development.

Re: Mozilla: Ad on Firefox’s new tab page was just another experiment

#62

Post by MiddleEndian »

solarkraft wrote: post #61
MiddleEndian wrote: post #11

It's an experiment in hurting the good will of their brand. I still use Firefox but it's painful sometimes. Not as painful as Chrome, but Mozilla seems determined to come up with unexpected new ways to fuck up Firefox for some reason.

Yep. I once considered donating to them for developing a browser I quite like and that's needed in the current landscape, but they obviously want to be for profit in the scummiest way possible, so - yeah. There should be another organisation taking over Firefox development.

Firefox was born from Netscape, so maybe a similar jump is possible!

Re: Mozilla: Ad on Firefox’s new tab page was just another experiment

#63

Post by metajack »

mprev wrote: post #27
x0x0 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's reality, though: The minimum annual cash burn to have a high quality browser engine, js runtime, and UI seems to be several hundred million dollars. FF is now utterly dependent on google for cash (and to be fair, google really needs FF to exist to pretend chrome isn't close to a monopoly). But who knows how long that will last and if/when google will exert control. One of the best things for Mozilla to do as a…

Yes but Mozilla does a lot more now than produce and maintain software. For example, in 2017 it spent $24m on its internet health project [1]. I’m making no judgement about that but there are two sides to fiscal longevity: getting more money is one, the other is to focus spending. 1. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2017/

Those are entirely different buckets of money. Money the foundation spends on things like the IHR, do not come out of the revenue from the Google search deal. Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corp are two different entities (though MoFo owns MoCo). In the same way, donations to MoFo do not pay for browser developer salaries.

Re: Mozilla: Ad on Firefox’s new tab page was just another experiment

#64

Post by zaarn »

tedunangst wrote: post #24
agwa wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there anything to suggest that this violated people's privacy? If not, I see no reason why privacy advocates should have a problem with it.

People use privacy to also mean "you violated the sanctity of my mind by beaming propaganda onto my retinas".

I don't think that's a proper meaning for privacy.

I consider privacy to be that it is my choice how much of my personal data I reveal to a third party not directly involved with any of the parties I am doing business with.

Showing privacy-conserving ads doesn't violate what I consider privacy, some people might object to ads in general but there doesn't seem to be a better funding model (considering Mozilla doesn't want to continue being 90% funded by deals with search engines and donations being a drop in the bucket).

Open Source needs to figure out a funding model and Mozilla seems to be making positive headway into the realm of privacy-sensitive ads. Google and Chromium on the other hand is making headway into privacy-violation ads.

Re: Mozilla: Ad on Firefox’s new tab page was just another experiment

#65

Post by zaarn »

zzzcpan wrote: post #53
agwa wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you were right about that, Firefox doesn't really have a say. Chrome is intent on rapidly adding more Web features. If Firefox doesn't keep up with the pace, websites will stop working in Firefox because they use the new Chrome-supported features. This is a huge threat to Firefox, and has been made even worse by Edge adopting Chromium. Chromium now has huge market share, making any feature adopted by Chrome e…

Is there a reason to keep doing that? I mean what is the point in reimplementing Chromium as Firefox? Shouldn't they just fork Chromium and stop wasting resources chasing it? And focus those resources on something that can give them competitive advantage over Google.

If they fork Chromium then Google has won and we enter the next IE-era of the web; one browser engine to rule them all, terrible for everyone involved except Google.

Re: Mozilla: Ad on Firefox’s new tab page was just another experiment

#66

Post by david-gpu »

scarejunba wrote: post #50
david-gpu wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Snarkiness does not help. Right now publishers make zero from me because I have a couple layers of ad blockers. If I'm willing to pay X for some number of ad-free articles, which does not have to be unlimited, then publishers would be making X dollars more.

Yup. That's why I don't pay for HBO, so I totally get it. If they want to make it $2, at least they'd get something from me. Until then, there's always Putlocker. Their loss, really.

HBO is not funded by ads. We are talking about removing ads with a micropayment of equivalent magnitude.

The energy spent feeling smart would be better directed at your reading comprehension.

Re: Mozilla: Ad on Firefox’s new tab page was just another experiment

#67

Post by btschaegg »

csande17 wrote: post #58
agwa wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you were right about that, Firefox doesn't really have a say. Chrome is intent on rapidly adding more Web features. If Firefox doesn't keep up with the pace, websites will stop working in Firefox because they use the new Chrome-supported features. This is a huge threat to Firefox, and has been made even worse by Edge adopting Chromium. Chromium now has huge market share, making any feature adopted by Chrome e…

I'm not sure I agree that Mozilla bears no responsibility for Web feature bloat. While you're right that Google currently appears to be stuffing every feature imaginable into their web browser at a breakneck pace in a desperate attempt to make it literally impossible for anyone else to write one, other browser vendors don't need to take it lying down. Imagine if Mozilla, Apple, and (pre-Chromium-fork) Microsoft all c…

> would websites really give up ~30% of their audience (including the lucrative iPhone crowd!) just to use some Chrome-only dingus?

Websites? Maybe not that much (at first, at least). But from IE experience: There are many intranet-style tools that would most certainly go "well, our tool X is only supported on Chrome, deal with it"[1]. Which, of course, only further cements Chrome's monopoly because everyone would just go "well, I have to run Chrome anyway, so why bother installing another browser?"

[1]: Yes, SAP, I'm looking at you.

Re: Mozilla: Ad on Firefox’s new tab page was just another experiment

#68

Post by rrrguy »

nvo wrote: post #57
codinger wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've switched because chrome manages my accounts seamlessly across my Android phone and Desktop. It's an unfair advantage Google has. I don't know how Mozilla can compete in the long run.

From your answer, I assume you own an Android phone. Mozilla could compete because Firefox has Sync, but Firefox on Android is some seriously laggy shit with built-in ads, so it's going to be hard for them to win.

While I agree ff on Android has big lag problems, where are the built in ads?
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