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Firefox update added more sponsored content on new-tab page
- Hamuko 2y agoAre these still geofenced to just the US?
- dc3k 2y agono, i have the weather thing now and i am not in the US
- laktak 2y agoSaw the same with some new sponsored shortcuts that were previously disabled.
- mbwgh 2y agoYes? And the submission leads to twitter, which blocks FF deliberately, so what's your point?
- k_sze 2y agoWait, Twitter/X blocks FF? How does that work? Is that only in some countries? I'm in Canada and I still use X on a daily basis in the latest Firefox on Windows and I have not noticed a thing.
- mbwgh 2y agoI am simplifying in saying that they outright block FF, but the site is broken with Enhanced Tracking Protection enabled [0], and has been for a while. They even mention FF in a dedicated error message, which I have to admit just grinds my gears :) 0 - https://cybernews.com/news/x-twitter-not-working-on-firefox/ https://cybernews.com/news/x-twitter-not-working-on-firefox/
- k_sze 2y agoThat's odd. I use X on FF with not only Enhanced Tracking Protection, but also a whole bunch of other privacy extensions (uBlock Origin, Ghosterly, Disconnect.me, DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials, EFF Privacy Badger) without adding any exception for x.com, and it still works for me.
- 0dayz 2y agoAre you logged in to your account? Since I suspect that's why.
- k_sze 2y agoI am; but for what it's worth, if I open a new private window, I can still browse any public profile on X without logging in, and with Enhanced Tracking Protection enabled.
- 0dayz 2y agoTry doing it with removing your cookies or in a vm since it could be that Twitter uses super cookie to track you.
- tpm 2y agoI just tried to enable ETP (had it disabled previously) on x.com and it works, so they must have fixed it.
- usr1106 2y agoDidn't verify. Twitter is on my mental blocklist anyway.
- shiroiushi 2y agoYep, the sooner that website disappears into a black hole, the better. Nothing of value will be lost.
- rand0mx1 2y agoTangentially related thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41441501 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41441501
- perihelions 2y ago- "This is the 5th time Mozilla opted me into something like this w/o asking - existing about:config changes didn't apply; they add new ones (15 results for 'sponsor')" Do I understand right, that you can't disable it normally in about:preferences (i.e. the user-friendly configuration page)? You have to dig into about:config (the hidden debug page for advanced, unsafe stuff) to turn it off? Does the "sponsored shortcuts" toggle on about:preferences#home, the one that's always been there, not disable whatever this thing is showing for some users?
- 0dayz 2y agoNo they mean that say there a about:config called dontShowSponsored and it's set to true that didn't retroactively disable the new introduction of sponsorsed stuff.
- irrational 2y agoAm I the only one that has a blank page show for new tabs?
- RheingoldRiver 2y agoI do too, I use my history to navigate by typing a couple characters of where I want to go in the location bar
- vancroft 2y agoNope, blank page here too. Or, it's actually going to the Firefox Home screen, I just turned off all the content in Settings > Home. I'm on 130, still a blank home screen.
- olowe 2y agoIn my `about:config`: browser.startup.homepage about:blank browser.newtabpage.enabled false My workstation is too slow to load these new "Home" pages anyway!
- politelemon 2y agoI've replaced mine with a random flickr photo. The new tab page has no functionality that isn't matched by the address bar.
- UberFly 2y agoI have: Group Speed Dial. This other stuff is unknown to me.
- MilnerRoute 2y agoI've also got my new tabs set to just display a blank page. Firefox had a support page if you need help finding the setting... https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/customize-your-new-tab-page https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/customize-your-new-tab-...
- theodric 2y agoI use the random Google Earth image extension for my new tabs https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/earth-view-from-google/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/earth-view-fr...
- k_sze 2y agoSpeaking only for myself: I don't really mind sponsored content as long as there is no tracking and it is not causing FF to be considerably less performant/more resource-hungry. The Mozilla Foundation needs money to keep the lights on, after all. I might also just pay Mozilla for a premium subscription that completely disables sponsored content if they offered one (at a reasonable price).
- aorth 2y agoOne small way I support Mozilla is to pay for Firefox Relay https://relay.firefox.com https://relay.firefox.com. It's $1/month and you get a lot of value for that. Being able to create email aliases on the fly to keep your real email private is worth a lot to me! I also support Thunderbird with a recurring monthly donation. And a dozen other devs of libraries and applications on GitHub. We have to create the world we want to live in. When I discovered open source software around the year 2000 I was amazed, and it got me where I am today. Engineers and servers cost money. I hope that open source software can survive because I believe in the philosophy and I know there are people out there who depend on it.
- Rinzler89 2y agoMozilla doesn't need donation money from users. They get paid more than enough by Google and squander it. I'd gladly pay them if I knew that my money would go into the development of Firefox and not into the social and political causes of their foundation.
- nicman23 2y agoyeah that whole deal is basically dead
- WD-42 2y agoThe problem is there is no way to donate to Firefox development. Mozilla’s operating expenses are in the hundreds of millions a year. They might be putting a fraction of that into Firefox, after CEO pay and whatever the hell else they are doing.
- WD-42 2y agoThe amount of stuff you need to disable on a fresh Firefox install now is getting ridiculous. In settings you need to uncheck: 1. Recommend extensions as you browse 2. Recommend features as you browse 3. Sponsored Shortcuts 4. Recommended stories/Sponsored stories 5. Show trending search suggestions 6. Suggestions from Firefox 7. Suggestions from sponsors 8. Allow Firefox to install and run studies 9. Allow websites to perform privacy-preserving ad measurement 10. Everything AI related in Firefox Labs
- Rinzler89 2y agoIt's one of the reasons I gave up on Firefox. Mozilla have no incentive to improve Firefox and can afford to keep running it into the ground knowing Google has to foot the bill for them to not get hit with the monopoly hammer by the US and EU governments.
- nicman23 2y agowhat did you choose to move to
- unicornporn 2y agoLet me guess... Another Blink engine browser?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Rinzler89 2y agoHere's my aproximate browser history since I started using the internet. IE(2002) -> Firefox(2004) -> Opera(2008) -> Firefox(2011) -> Chrome(2015-present) -> Brave (probably in the near future)
- nicman23 2y ago[flagged]
- baq 2y agoHow do you get money to develop a browser? 1) sell it. You’re competing with Google. Not gonna fly. 2) embed ads. You can now get Google to pay you. Sounds nice, except Google’s own browser doesn’t do that. 3) donations and grants. This could work with a government with enough foresight to ensure viable browser competition, which isn’t even a theoretical problem. Getting enough money to pay for anything but coffee and electricity may be a problem, though. 4) run an ad network and make sure your browser shows those ads ‘better’ than the competition: kinda makes sense, except you don’t need the browser here to make money? Google already makes one, after all. So you need some kind of a long term contract between the ad network and the browser development branch to make sure the browser part keeps doing the browser.
- shiroiushi 2y ago>3) donations and grants. This could work with a government with enough foresight to ensure viable browser competition It's worked for Wikipedia, perhaps a little too well in fact: their foundation spends a bunch of money on stuff unrelated to the Wikipedia website.
- okwhateverdude 2y agoAnd then they beg for more every year on Wikipedia itself. It is gross and no one should give them money any more. The endowment amount was met long ago. No one wants their other shit. Just be happy with Wikipedia being the massive success story it is, you parasitic non-profit management class assholes.
- JimDabell 2y agoMozilla has received billions from Google and has a billion in cash reserves. Why didn’t they set up an endowment so they could spend it sustainably instead of assuming the free Google money would just keep flowing forever? They could’ve been independent of Google by now.
- baq 2y agoI'm all ears on how they could be independent. All I see is using Google's money to invest somewhere else than the browser market and perhaps maybe fund the browser-making foundation with it out of good will.
- a_bonobo 2y agoOP is weird, their second post says that they 'exclusively use Chromium for web dev now as Firefox simply cannot keep up' - who knows what Google Chrome does with your data, you don't even get to opt out.