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Keep in mind that it's not within Google's incentives to facilitate ad-blocking and prevention of tracking. After all, that's where the lion's share of their re

by wyc 9y ago

Keep in mind that it's not within Google's incentives to facilitate ad-blocking and prevention of tracking. After all, that's where the lion's share of their revenue comes from. However, Mozilla is free to actively support such efforts.

fabrice_d 9y ago
If that was that clear cut, they would ship tracking protection enabled by default, not just in Private Browsing mode. The default configuration of Safari is actually protecting you better than Firefox's and most users don't have an ad blocker installed.
- wyc 9y ago
  Good point. Mozilla made most of their money from Google, and other advertisers, iirc. "More free" might've been prudent. You make a good observation about Safari too. Apple doesn't make much money from advertising--they still sell hardware. They can provide privacy to users at little expense to their core business.
  - 482794793792894 9y ago
    > Mozilla made most of their money from Google, and other advertisers, iirc. The much bigger problem is webpage owners which lose almost all incentive to support Firefox, if it blocks their ads. You'd have broken webpages all over the place.
- chinhodado 9y ago
  Just like in IE/Edge, the "Do not track" setting used to be enabled by default, then it became disabled by default, and for good reason. The argument is, if it is enabled by default, sites will not bothered to support it since it was not something that the user turned on explicitly and was aware of.
  - AndrewCHM 9y ago
    Tracking Protection isn't Do Not Track. Tracking Protection in Firefox blocks web trackers https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/tracking-protection-pbm https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/tracking-protection-pbm
- sammoth 9y ago
  In my experience tracking protection breaks a lot of websites so I am not surprised it's not enabled by default
a_imho 9y ago
Opt out adblocking should be the number 1 differentiator as it has the biggest impact on browsing including performance, security and eye sore. It is borderline negligence that moz://a is not pushing it while Google and co are lubing up users with their Acceptable Ads nonsense.
esturk 9y ago
I agree. Not just that, I would add that Google's incentive is often to encourage usage of these services despite being a detriment to the user. To this day, Android still does not have Night Mode built in probably because so people would simply use the device more instead of going to sleep.

by wyc 9y ago

fabrice_d 9y ago

If that was that clear cut, they would ship tracking protection enabled by default, not just in Private Browsing mode. The default configuration of Safari is actually protecting you better than Firefox's and most users don't have an ad blocker installed.

wyc 9y ago
Good point. Mozilla made most of their money from Google, and other advertisers, iirc. "More free" might've been prudent. You make a good observation about Safari too. Apple doesn't make much money from advertising--they still sell hardware. They can provide privacy to users at little expense to their core business.
- 482794793792894 9y ago
  > Mozilla made most of their money from Google, and other advertisers, iirc. The much bigger problem is webpage owners which lose almost all incentive to support Firefox, if it blocks their ads. You'd have broken webpages all over the place.
chinhodado 9y ago
Just like in IE/Edge, the "Do not track" setting used to be enabled by default, then it became disabled by default, and for good reason. The argument is, if it is enabled by default, sites will not bothered to support it since it was not something that the user turned on explicitly and was aware of.
- AndrewCHM 9y ago
  Tracking Protection isn't Do Not Track. Tracking Protection in Firefox blocks web trackers https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/tracking-protection-pbm https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/tracking-protection-pbm
sammoth 9y ago
In my experience tracking protection breaks a lot of websites so I am not surprised it's not enabled by default

a_imho 9y ago

Opt out adblocking should be the number 1 differentiator as it has the biggest impact on browsing including performance, security and eye sore. It is borderline negligence that moz://a is not pushing it while Google and co are lubing up users with their Acceptable Ads nonsense.

esturk 9y ago

I agree. Not just that, I would add that Google's incentive is often to encourage usage of these services despite being a detriment to the user. To this day, Android still does not have Night Mode built in probably because so people would simply use the device more instead of going to sleep.