4 ms·

I love firefox but i don't have as much faith in mozilla as an org. IMHO, they should consider firefox a loss leader (despite search engine deals) and focus on

by _8j50 3y ago

I love firefox but i don't have as much faith in mozilla as an org. IMHO, they should consider firefox a loss leader (despite search engine deals) and focus on unrelated projects that make money and attract users due to the firefox brand. Or...hear me out: Firefox gets into the adblocker business and lets the big boys paya fortune to be exempted by default. This includes using ML to block ads (i have ideas on how to implement unblockable ads using traditional means). I really wish they would invest more in servo. Imagine a memory safe browser! But beyond all that, EU and US govs mandating it as the only default browser would be huge for mozilla. They're catching up now in some areas like GPOs but mozilla has nothing on chrome enterprise. They don't realize that corporate types are eager to spend money or random shit so long as b2b marketing is done right (makes the buyer look good internally). And I cna sort of see the conflict because they are pro-privacy and chrome enterprise is very much about giving security/system admins control. For example, if a user clicks through a failing https warning or downloads a file despite safe browing (phishing/malware) warning you would know. So long as you make sure it is only sold to enterprise and gov customers, giving them such insights (and much more, even browsing history) can be a good money maker, help dominate the market share and maintain moral leadership (don't do personal stuff at work or shit where you eat).

Cyberdog 3y ago
> Or...hear me out: Firefox gets into the adblocker business and lets the big boys paya fortune to be exempted by default. That will make Firefox a very attractive browser to people who want to block as many ads as possible, and they will then install an add-on which also blocks the ads that Firefox whitelists, perhaps using Firefox's own whitelist as a source if it's easily available. Then if Firefox tries to pull a Google and be evil and lock down their add-on API so that ad blocker add-ons can no longer be made, these people will just switch to a fork with no such limitations. And in the first place I don't think Firefox has enough usage for them to be able to charge a "fortune" for such an ad blocking exemption in the first place. By "EU and US govs mandating it as the only default browser" I assume you mean for government employees and not for the entire populace (which would be straight up despotic), but either way it would probably be unenforceable.
- NegativeK 3y ago
  > but either way it would probably be unenforceable. A healthy IT organization shouldn't allow the average user to install their own browser of choice. But government orgs tend to be underfunded to the point that Firefox mandates are nowhere near their top tech priority.
- _8j50 3y ago
  > By "EU and US govs mandating it as the only default browser" I assume you mean for government employees and not for the entire populace Yes, for their own gov pcs not the people in general. > and they will then install an add-on which also blocks the ads that Firefox whitelists You are the third commenter I had to explain this to, so maybe my fault in not making this clear but there is no need for that, the whitelist is just a default "moderare" adblock setting which you can change to "aggressive" to block everything. And exisiting adblockers will continue to work if you prefer them. This is similar to how you can set your search engine to duckduckgo but google pays a fortune to be the default.
jakkos 3y ago
> Firefox gets into the adblocker business and lets the big boys paya fortune to be exempted by default. This would completely alienate Firefox's core userbase. > i have ideas on how to implement unblockable ads using traditional means If a way to serve unblockable ads existed, it would already be implemented and widely used
- sergiotapia 3y ago
  >This would completely alienate Firefox's core userbase. How's that core userbase working out for them? Sub 2% very nearly. Time to shake things up and figure it out. What they've been doing don't work no more.
  - rc_mob 3y ago
    Hi Satan.
    - sergiotapia 3y ago
      Mozilla will have the most beautiful, pure FOSS browser on the planet. But who is going to use it?
      - jakkos 3y ago
        Me and 2% of the internet, happily.
- ants_everywhere 3y ago
  > If a way to serve unblockable ads existed, it would already be implemented and widely used I don't think this is necessarily true. It's clear that any tech that literally forces users to look at something is coercive. Forcing your users to wear a Clockwork Orange style eye gadget is clearly not acceptable. Playing ads and asking your users not to switch to another channel is clearly acceptable. The game is largely about gaining or ceding ground between those extremes about what's socially acceptable rather than what's technologically possible. Many users are okay with some level of ads. It's easier to ratchet up the ads those users are willing to watch than it is to get increasingly authoritarian with the small number of users who insist on not seeing any ads. For example, YouTube didn't attempt to fight ad blockers for years. They're only really starting now because it's trying to hit revenue targets.
aetimmes 3y ago
> Firefox gets into the adblocker business This would be an abysmal decision all around. Firefox doesn't have enough market share to command any sort of price for this, and selling ad-blocker access would immediately destroy all trust in Firefox as a product.
- _8j50 3y ago
  They already make hundreds of millions just for allowing google as default search engine, they can make more with this. I re-read what I said and it is in plain english, why are you and others not understanding that I didn't say selling ad blocker access? Ad blocker default exempt list is what is sold which users can change. And you can still use ad blocking extensions. Basically a ton of people get an adblocker by default and you people have your pitchforks out because mozilla sells the default setting of an adblocker? Your emotions and open source religion aside what exactly offends you about this?

by _8j50 3y ago

Cyberdog 3y ago

> Or...hear me out: Firefox gets into the adblocker business and lets the big boys paya fortune to be exempted by default. That will make Firefox a very attractive browser to people who want to block as many ads as possible, and they will then install an add-on which also blocks the ads that Firefox whitelists, perhaps using Firefox's own whitelist as a source if it's easily available. Then if Firefox tries to pull a Google and be evil and lock down their add-on API so that ad blocker add-ons can no longer be made, these people will just switch to a fork with no such limitations. And in the first place I don't think Firefox has enough usage for them to be able to charge a "fortune" for such an ad blocking exemption in the first place. By "EU and US govs mandating it as the only default browser" I assume you mean for government employees and not for the entire populace (which would be straight up despotic), but either way it would probably be unenforceable.

NegativeK 3y ago
> but either way it would probably be unenforceable. A healthy IT organization shouldn't allow the average user to install their own browser of choice. But government orgs tend to be underfunded to the point that Firefox mandates are nowhere near their top tech priority.
_8j50 3y ago
> By "EU and US govs mandating it as the only default browser" I assume you mean for government employees and not for the entire populace Yes, for their own gov pcs not the people in general. > and they will then install an add-on which also blocks the ads that Firefox whitelists You are the third commenter I had to explain this to, so maybe my fault in not making this clear but there is no need for that, the whitelist is just a default "moderare" adblock setting which you can change to "aggressive" to block everything. And exisiting adblockers will continue to work if you prefer them. This is similar to how you can set your search engine to duckduckgo but google pays a fortune to be the default.

jakkos 3y ago

> Firefox gets into the adblocker business and lets the big boys paya fortune to be exempted by default. This would completely alienate Firefox's core userbase. > i have ideas on how to implement unblockable ads using traditional means If a way to serve unblockable ads existed, it would already be implemented and widely used

sergiotapia 3y ago
>This would completely alienate Firefox's core userbase. How's that core userbase working out for them? Sub 2% very nearly. Time to shake things up and figure it out. What they've been doing don't work no more.
- rc_mob 3y ago
  Hi Satan.
  - sergiotapia 3y ago
    Mozilla will have the most beautiful, pure FOSS browser on the planet. But who is going to use it?
    - jakkos 3y ago
      Me and 2% of the internet, happily.
ants_everywhere 3y ago
> If a way to serve unblockable ads existed, it would already be implemented and widely used I don't think this is necessarily true. It's clear that any tech that literally forces users to look at something is coercive. Forcing your users to wear a Clockwork Orange style eye gadget is clearly not acceptable. Playing ads and asking your users not to switch to another channel is clearly acceptable. The game is largely about gaining or ceding ground between those extremes about what's socially acceptable rather than what's technologically possible. Many users are okay with some level of ads. It's easier to ratchet up the ads those users are willing to watch than it is to get increasingly authoritarian with the small number of users who insist on not seeing any ads. For example, YouTube didn't attempt to fight ad blockers for years. They're only really starting now because it's trying to hit revenue targets.

aetimmes 3y ago

> Firefox gets into the adblocker business This would be an abysmal decision all around. Firefox doesn't have enough market share to command any sort of price for this, and selling ad-blocker access would immediately destroy all trust in Firefox as a product.

_8j50 3y ago
They already make hundreds of millions just for allowing google as default search engine, they can make more with this. I re-read what I said and it is in plain english, why are you and others not understanding that I didn't say selling ad blocker access? Ad blocker default exempt list is what is sold which users can change. And you can still use ad blocking extensions. Basically a ton of people get an adblocker by default and you people have your pitchforks out because mozilla sells the default setting of an adblocker? Your emotions and open source religion aside what exactly offends you about this?