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Firefox will show ads on the new tab page based on browsing history

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Re: Firefox will show ads on the new tab page based on browsing history

#61

Post by maxerickson »

ama729 wrote: post #38
icebraining wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mostly, it funded development: http://venturebeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/mozilla_re...

In 2012 they had a surplus of more than $100,000,000 though... And still, $30,000,000 for administrative cost? $45,000,000 for marketing? (never saw any ads for firefox, did you? I have no idea what they spent so much money on)

The discussion of those numbers is here:

https://static.mozilla.com/moco/en-US/pdf/Mozilla_Audited_Fi...

It isn't hugely informative, but I would guess that the $9 million in office leases mentioned towards the end is categorized as an administrative cost.

Re: Firefox will show ads on the new tab page based on browsing history

#63

Post by maxerickson »

vdaniuk wrote: post #52
vegancap wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not particularly, they still have to gain some form of revenue to keep their core ventures. Their revenue in 2012 for example was $311 million.

An organization being for-profit or non-profit is not particularly important distinction? Elaborate please.

It's literally just a tax status.

Part of that is that no one owns the Mozilla Foundation, but, for example, the people controlling it can still extract money by paying themselves salary. This is how family foundations can be a tax dodge, the huge legacy is dumped into a non profit and grows without incurring much taxes, meanwhile the family has some meetings and draws comfortable salaries for it.

Re: Firefox will show ads on the new tab page based on browsing history

#65

Post by learnstats2 »

Is there a project to make a decent browser that doesn't have any intention of making a profit or selling out its users, and has governance appropriate to make that a reality?

It seems like this is necessary. If I can contribute to that, pre-existing or not, I will start today.

There are 3 billion web users: between us we must have enough altruism and skill to compete with this.

Re: Firefox will show ads on the new tab page based on browsing history

#66

Post by icebraining »

kozukumi wrote: post #44

Sigh. I was worried this would happen. I know Mozilla need to make money and with their market share shrinking that is getting harder but these kind of "features" put me off wanting to use Firefox all together. I would rather use Chromium over a version of Firefox with targeted advertising built in. For now at least it looks like being able to disable it is still possible but I cannot find any mention if disabling th…

There's no real analysis of your history, it's just selecting the top visited links (using existing code, which is used to show you the current tiles of visited sites).

Re: Firefox will show ads on the new tab page based on browsing history

#67

Post by cJ0th »

kozukumi wrote: post #57
binarymax wrote: post #42

I hate ads. I love Mozilla. I understand Mozilla needs the money. I don't mind supporting them with cash. Why not have a freemium option for folks to subscribe to Firefox and hide the ads?

Freemium wouldn't work. There will be unofficial builds available with this kind of stuff removed available for free within hours of the official release. They could charge for services such as sync but again that is going to be difficult Chrome does it for free. I think Mozilla need to seriously look at how they are spending their money as it seems to be pretty insane some of their outgoings. I know they are trying…

> Freemium wouldn't work. There will be unofficial builds available with this kind of stuff removed available for free within hours of the official release.

But how is "Firefox with ads" going to work then? Firefox is still open source after all. Someone will remove the bit of code enabling ads, gives it a fancy new name and eventually a critical mass will switch to this browser.

Re: Firefox will show ads on the new tab page based on browsing history

#68

Post by icebraining »

learnstats2 wrote: post #65

Is there a project to make a decent browser that doesn't have any intention of making a profit or selling out its users, and has governance appropriate to make that a reality? It seems like this is necessary. If I can contribute to that, pre-existing or not, I will start today. There are 3 billion web users: between us we must have enough altruism and skill to compete with this.

I'm pretty sure the browsers by suckless won't ever show ads; not sure if you consider them decent, though.

http://surf.suckless.org/

Re: Firefox will show ads on the new tab page based on browsing history

#69

Post by cmdrfred »

mukundmr wrote: post #31
cmdrfred wrote: post #19

I stopped using firefox about 5 years ago. Adblock + Chrome is the best browser I've ever used.

That doesn't stop Google from reading your URL history.

I don't particularly care, If I need anonymity i use tor. P.S. Are you so sure Firefox won't be doing any tracking for 'advertising purposes'?

Re: Firefox will show ads on the new tab page based on browsing history

#70

Post by gillianseed »

dannypgh wrote: post #30
vegancap wrote: post #5

They're a business, just like anyone else. Unless we all start throwing thousands of donations at them, they have to find ways to monetise to keep up the awesome work they do. If it's both relevant and intuitive, then no harm done. Remember, your browsing history isn't exactly a big secret. That's why incognito modes exist in most browsers.

Firefox isn't a business, it's an open source/free software project. Mozilla is a nonprofit entity which pays some people to work on it. This is an important distinction, no?

>Mozilla is a nonprofit entity which pays some people to work on it.

Mozilla now consists of the non-profit Mozilla Foundation and the for-profit Mozilla corporation subsidiary.

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