6 ms·
Firefox is reviving “Sponsored Tiles”
- superdisk 6y agoJust noticed a sponsored Amazon ad on the "new tab" page today which was pretty annoying...
- junippor 6y agoHi, what version are you on? I'm running two versions: 85.0.1 and 87.0a1 and haven't seen it on either. On the other hand, I had configured my new tabs to be entirely blank, so maybe if you'd like to try the same we could find out if this removes their ads?
- junon 6y agoJust when I thought Firefox was going to emerge as the most pro-consumer browser... Why can't there be a browser that is just... a browser?
- ohgodplsno 6y agoBecause it quite literally takes hundreds of millions of dollars to make a browser. So, you can either: * Eat the costs because you're so wealthy you don't care (Apple, Google) * Use the work of those who ate the costs (Waterfox, Icecat, Edge, Firefox-Fork-Of-The-Month-Whose-Only-Purpose-Is-To-Shit-On-Firefox-Lol-Palemoon) * Find a way to actually make money (Firefox, Brave) Needless to say, you entire lifeline being depending on Google when you're Firefox is horribly bad.
- panpanna 6y agoHere is a crazy idea: Maybe web technologies have gotten too complicated. Maybe they need to be replaced with something that does not cost hundreds of millions to support?
- hjek 6y agoLynx was always the best browser.
- Teever 6y agoWhat is so different about browsers? Why can we have the whole galaxy of free software with the various distributions and desktop environments and entire kernel ecosystems and device drivers free of this kind of monetization yet somehow this is impossible with browsers? I don't think twice about using Debian, Freebsd, Openbsd, or Openwrt. What the hell is going on with Mozilla and Firefox?
- themacguffinman 6y agoThe consumer marketshare of desktop Linux/BSD and its ecosystem is tiny, something like 2% AFAIK. Mozilla is probably not happy for Firefox to occupy a similar browser marketshare, that would likely mean the end of Mozilla's influence on web standards. A lot of the remaining OSS ecosystem benefits corporate software development and is already supported by corporate backers.
- marcthe12 6y agoBrowsers scope is so huge(and none of them is sufficiently modular). FOSS Software of that size and scope is usually require at the minimum donation from companies use it.
- tinus_hn 6y ago> Waterfox, Icecat, Edge, Firefox-Fork-Of-The-Month-Whose-Only-Purpose-Is-To-Shit-On-Firefox-Lol-Palemoon Many of these ‘forks’ emerged because of the Firefox trademark policy which prevented distributions from packaging Firefox under that name.
- parsimo2010 6y agoBecause developers need to be paid for their time and there isn’t enough charity in the world to pay them without advertising, nor is the general public willing to pay $10 for an ad-free Firefox. I probably prefer this compared to Mozilla’s deal with Google to be the default search engine- sponsored tiles can go to a variety of sites, but the search engine deal pushed even more market share to a single player.
- panpanna 6y agoMozilla is getting hundreds of millions of dollars to set Google as the default search engine. You can change that in 10 seconds. How are these stupid additions better for anyone? Consumers find them more annoying and they probably don't result in any significant month for Mozilla. Anyway, we need another open source browser, one that is controlled by the community and not some SV company.
- parsimo2010 6y agoYou can also turn off sponsored tiles, so this isn’t different in that respect. Plus, while Mozilla the corporation is technically a for profit entity, they operate under the direction of the not for profit Mozilla Foundation. They are already the best choice for a browser that is free from an SV company’s influence. But they do have to pay their employees and keep the lights on. How are they supposed to pay for things if they don’t do stuff like this? At least they are honest about which things they are making money from.
- panpanna 6y ago> You can also turn off sponsored tiles, so this isn’t different in that respect. The point is, I should not need to keep a close eye on Mozilla and disable stuff regularly. I should not need to fight my browser.
- bllguo 6y agoThere are a lot of "should"s in the world. People should not feel entitled to something they use extensively but do not pay for, yet here we are.
- RedComet 6y agoPro-consumer? Only weeks ago the CEO came out in favor of censorship and deplatforming.
- junon 6y agoI don't type "somesite.com" into the CEO's address bar. I type it into my browser's.
- panpanna 6y agoI desperately need a browser extension that automatically disables the latest shenanigans from my browser vendor. Something like ublock with an open list maintained by the community. That way, I won't need to keep up with the latest crazy ideas Mozilla suits come up with to earn 0.01% more while annoying 99% of their costumers.
- Krisando 6y agoHave you considered developing one?
- hrktb 6y agoOn the business model: are we in a situation where advertisers get to choose to pay to have their ads specifically in firefox, but users can’t donate for firefox directly ? I feel like with this initiative they can set a price for a user’s attention. One could hope the user also gets the option to pay it upfront and opt out.
- chii 6y agoit could be that advertising revenue from displaying in the tiles is something that is recurring and known in advance. Donations can dry up instantly, and there's no obligation to continue - thus a less secure source of revenue.
- hrktb 6y agoI know these feel empty as comments on the net, but I'd pay for a firefox specific subscription. I do for other open sourcy services (Bitwarden etc), there wouldn't be a huge public for that, but it doesn't need to either I think.
- themacguffinman 6y agoYou already can, kind of. Pocket Premium and Mozilla VPN are subscription services that fund Mozilla.
- tinus_hn 6y agoIf you get $10 you can actually choose to use $2 of it every year for five years.
- perryizgr8 6y agoOr you can use $2 in a year and give the remaining $8 to the C-level executives.
- tinus_hn 6y ago
- a0-prw 6y agoGoodbye, Firefox and Mozilla. I've had enough. I just need a browser that's libre and can show me text, anyway.
- ohgodplsno 6y agoEnjoy your browser that's based on Gecko/WebRender, funded by ads, or your browser that's based on Chromium, funded by ads.
- oarsinsync 6y agoWhich browser are you switching to? I think many people on here, like me, think the options are Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome derivatives. There was a recent hullabaloo about Chromium packagers throwing in the towel with Google deprecating a bunch of Google features from Chromium, suggesting that using a Chrome derivative may not be the strongest choice, but I'm still curious as to where you're heading.
- a0-prw 6y agoI'm trying out FOSS browser from Fdroid. Its based on webview, but very minimalist. I don't use any Google services, so I don't mind about Chromium browsers being cut off from those. I just want a lightweight browser with a good privacy policy, adblocking and no obnoxious corporate intrusions :) FOSS browser is on Github.
- wodenokoto 6y agoI don’t understand why people are so upset about this, but okay with google showing ads in search. This is cutting out the middleman.
- jobigoud 6y agoAny sources that people are ok with ads in search results? Especially from the same people?
- h0l0cube 6y agoAny of these people have to reconcile how much the average person are willing to pay for a currently free service or product. And judging by the lack of uptake and quality of paid alternatives, I'm thinking it's not enough, and by not enough people.
- wodenokoto 6y agoThis whole comment section is full of people saying these tiles are reason to quit FF. That is saying they are okay with status quo. Otherwise they would have already quit.