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I would switch to Brave immediately except for extensions like Lastpass and Vimium are simply too integral to abandon, however that may change [0]. Ultimately,

by jlos 11y ago

I would switch to Brave immediately except for extensions like Lastpass and Vimium are simply too integral to abandon, however that may change [0]. Ultimately, advertising is a form of inefficiency both for the end-users and producers. Perfect world, user's are aware of products and services they do/could/would want without annoying grabs for their attention while producer's can either reduce prices or focus capital elsewhere. Finding models that successfully reduce advertising inefficiencies is better for everyone. Consider how much better the internet is than television and print newspapers/magazines where you actually pay to consume what contains a substantial amount of advertisement (over 1/4 for television). Because advertisement is a necessary efficiency I don't think just blocking advertisements is really a solution. For now, some model of efficient advertisement is better than the growing number of bloated and data gathering websites out there. I don't see any of the other browser vendors making efforts to move this forward. Yes, a new browser is annoying and then again perhaps we wouldn't need one if Mozilla hadn't fired Eich for his political contributions? [0] https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/issues/253 https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/issues/253

brighteyes 11y ago
He wasn't fired. He quit after industry pressure (boycott from OkCupid and others) showed Mozilla would suffer greatly if he didn't. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich#Mozilla https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich#Mozilla
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- sangnoir 11y ago
  > He wasn't fired. About that: have you ever noticed that C-level executives never get fired? They get to "resign to spend more time with their families". Being forced to quit is the same as being fired, it just sounds better for PR reasons
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - brighteyes 11y ago
    First of all, that is not true. For example, this executive was fired: http://recode.net/2016/03/12/longtime-sequoia-capital-vc-michael-goguen-is-out-in-wake-of-sexual-abuse-lawsuit/ http://recode.net/2016/03/12/longtime-sequoia-capital-vc-mic... Second, while in some cases "spend more time with my family" is clearly an excuse, in the Eich case there is a much simpler explanation. He founded Mozilla and cared deeply about it. Boycotts were going to destroy it. Of course he would step down, it's his only option from his perspective. If he hadn't, it's very likely Mozilla would not exist today.
    - sangnoir 11y ago
      The 'simpler' explanation is not necessarily true: there is simply not enough information for outsiders to know whether Eich jumped or was pushed. I'd say the Brave venture shows Mr. Rich is not done with improving the internet yet. > Boycotts were going to destroy it...it's very likely Mozilla would not exist today. I doubt highly doubt it: around the same time, some folk were threatening to boycott Dropbox over Condoleeza Rice's role and the board did not equivocate in their support for her. Dropbox is still around, who knows what would have happened if Mozilla's board had chosen to support Eich.
      - brighteyes 11y ago
        The Mozilla boycotts were actually effective, though, unlike DropBox. All Firefox users visiting OkCupid were blocked, and very loudly. Boycotts like that can tank a browser's market share.
kevining 11y ago
Looks like some work to support this is happening in a branch: https://github.com/brave/libchromiumcontent/commit/ca3e356b0f12dbea8ef8f5542d2f55b5fced7eb0 https://github.com/brave/libchromiumcontent/commit/ca3e356b0...
Nutmog 11y ago
Isn't the data gathering an improvement on efficiency, not a reduction of it? If you define efficiency as something like a ratio of useful informing to viewer attention. More personalized ads should be providing more useful information with less noise from irrelevant information. Your example of TV is a good one to show the value of targeted ads. TV ads are even more wasteful of people's attention.
- Joof 11y ago
  Depends on your perspective. I try to stay the hell away from ads (ads are generally not a good method to discern how to think or buy things) and don't buy all that much anyway; the ideal personalization for me is ads that are in-depth and provide a neutral comparison among products I already want. So basically, no ads; I'll find what I'm looking for. Since I have no interest in ads, targeted ads are worse because now my data is out there too. From the perspective of a company, targeted ads probably make more money than untargeted ads, which make more money than zero ads. It's a compromise to try to get those who have zero ads to move to untargeted ads.
frandroid 11y ago
Mozilla would not be engaging in this kind of content filtering natively. However the question can be, why is this not a browser plugin?

by jlos 11y ago

brighteyes 11y ago

He wasn't fired. He quit after industry pressure (boycott from OkCupid and others) showed Mozilla would suffer greatly if he didn't. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich#Mozilla https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich#Mozilla

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
sangnoir 11y ago
> He wasn't fired. About that: have you ever noticed that C-level executives never get fired? They get to "resign to spend more time with their families". Being forced to quit is the same as being fired, it just sounds better for PR reasons
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- brighteyes 11y ago
  First of all, that is not true. For example, this executive was fired: http://recode.net/2016/03/12/longtime-sequoia-capital-vc-michael-goguen-is-out-in-wake-of-sexual-abuse-lawsuit/ http://recode.net/2016/03/12/longtime-sequoia-capital-vc-mic... Second, while in some cases "spend more time with my family" is clearly an excuse, in the Eich case there is a much simpler explanation. He founded Mozilla and cared deeply about it. Boycotts were going to destroy it. Of course he would step down, it's his only option from his perspective. If he hadn't, it's very likely Mozilla would not exist today.
  - sangnoir 11y ago
    The 'simpler' explanation is not necessarily true: there is simply not enough information for outsiders to know whether Eich jumped or was pushed. I'd say the Brave venture shows Mr. Rich is not done with improving the internet yet. > Boycotts were going to destroy it...it's very likely Mozilla would not exist today. I doubt highly doubt it: around the same time, some folk were threatening to boycott Dropbox over Condoleeza Rice's role and the board did not equivocate in their support for her. Dropbox is still around, who knows what would have happened if Mozilla's board had chosen to support Eich.
    - brighteyes 11y ago
      The Mozilla boycotts were actually effective, though, unlike DropBox. All Firefox users visiting OkCupid were blocked, and very loudly. Boycotts like that can tank a browser's market share.

kevining 11y ago

Looks like some work to support this is happening in a branch: https://github.com/brave/libchromiumcontent/commit/ca3e356b0f12dbea8ef8f5542d2f55b5fced7eb0 https://github.com/brave/libchromiumcontent/commit/ca3e356b0...

Nutmog 11y ago

Isn't the data gathering an improvement on efficiency, not a reduction of it? If you define efficiency as something like a ratio of useful informing to viewer attention. More personalized ads should be providing more useful information with less noise from irrelevant information. Your example of TV is a good one to show the value of targeted ads. TV ads are even more wasteful of people's attention.

Joof 11y ago
Depends on your perspective. I try to stay the hell away from ads (ads are generally not a good method to discern how to think or buy things) and don't buy all that much anyway; the ideal personalization for me is ads that are in-depth and provide a neutral comparison among products I already want. So basically, no ads; I'll find what I'm looking for. Since I have no interest in ads, targeted ads are worse because now my data is out there too. From the perspective of a company, targeted ads probably make more money than untargeted ads, which make more money than zero ads. It's a compromise to try to get those who have zero ads to move to untargeted ads.

frandroid 11y ago

Mozilla would not be engaging in this kind of content filtering natively. However the question can be, why is this not a browser plugin?