5 ms·

Firefox nightly is running an experiment featuring a Fakespot feed on newtab

58 points by nalinidash 2y ago

nalinidash 2y ago
Firefox nightly will be running an experiment in December featuring a Fakespot feed in the vertical list on newtab. This list will show products that have been identified as high-quality, and with reliable product reviews. They will link to more detailed Fakespot product pages that will give a breakdown of the product analysis.
not_your_vase 2y ago
And the example is "Kodak Printomatic Full-Color Instant Print Digital Camera". An absolute Chinese dumpster-filling, for Kodak price. And the off-brand JBL headset, with affiliate link! Nice, this is much better than having an advocacy department.
victorstanciu 2y ago
This is great news, thank you, I was just thinking how much I'd like some affiliate links in my browser. Also many thanks for all the telemetry improvements listed in the changelog, those are also something I've been looking forward to for a long time. If this doesn't solve Firefox's abysmal market share, I don't know what will!
- viraptor 2y ago
  > Also many thanks for all the telemetry improvements listed in the changelog, those are also something I've been looking forward to for a long time. If this doesn't solve Firefox's abysmal market share, I don't know what will! Telemetry is how they figure out popular or blocked addons, failing pages, browser crashes, etc. Part of a managing popular software is indeed getting information like that. Because general public isn't keen on filling out forms by hand.
  - Y_Y 2y ago
    People on HN don't object to telemetry because they don't know what it might be used for. It's patronizing and useless to just respond with a naive psuedo-explanation.
    - stavros 2y ago
      Why do they object? What's objectionable about Mozilla knowing what features someone anonymous uses?
      - bayindirh 2y ago
        First, fingerprinting & correlation is real, and it's easier than ever because of the identifiers tools collect, and correlating is cheap because we have tons of GPUs for cheap now. On the other hand, I personally don't like a pair of eyes looking over my shoulder, physical or digital. People don't understand or don't want to understand that digital telemetry is not different from somebody looking over your shoulder, taking notes, and making "Mhm..." sounds. When done without consent, both are equally invading personal space, and I don't want my personal space to be invaded like that, as a person on HN, who understands what telemetry is.
        stavros 2y ago
        Why don't you consent?
        bayindirh 2y ago
        Part social contract, part the knowledge of what I can do with that data. You know, somebody coming to your cubicle and taking something without asking is rude, in some cases unethical, even damaging. It's the same thing with computers. No application/website ever should be able to collect information about me without my consent. It's called a "personal computer". If the application needs telemetry from me, they can ask (not tell we're doing this, but ask), and start the moment I consent. The moment I withdraw my consent all telemetry and data collection should stop. Moreover, I shall be able to see all the telemetry data in its full glory to make my own assessment of what's collected and how. If you don't know, Go tried this, even with an arguable provable way of anonymization, people roared back, and the decision is changed to "opt-in". For some applications, I explicitly consent to telemetry because a) They ask, b) They show what they collect and do with it, and c) I do respect and trust them because of the previous encounters I had with them. The moment they break this social contract, they lose telemetry, and in most cases me as a user. ...and I have nothing to hide.
- bachmeier 2y ago
  The important thing is that this allows them to avoid making a paid version of Firefox available to those that want to support it, or even taking donations that go to Firefox development. Because...I'm sure they have reasons.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
  Nightly allows uMatrix where Fennec does not. But Nightly has default HSTS which is annoying to users that monitor own traffic on own networks. The number of Mozilla-initiated phone home domains one has to filter when using Firefox is nuts. It should be zero. Option to disable all these unsolicited remote connections quickly and easily should exist.
mafriese 2y ago
This is perfect advertising for the Ladybird browser. I hope that some of the developers (if this really goes live on the release channel) will join other projects. I can understand that Mozilla needs money, but I don't think this feature fits with Firefox and what it stands for.
- Y_Y 2y ago
  It's bad press for Firefox, but honestly it just makes me want to use the internet less. Ladybird is cool, but the incompatibility with badly-made websites only intensifies the more niche your browser gets. Librewolf or the resurrected Sero browser feels like the next best thing, but even so it feels like a losing battle.
Pooge 2y ago
Use Librewolf and never go back. How people keep up with Mozilla's bullshit is beyond me. Can't wait for the Ladybird alpha release.
- mnmalst 2y ago
  I agree with the sentiment but ladybird is years and years away from being on par with Firefox. Performance, compatibility let alone extensions are far away at this point. Exiting to see the development tho.
  - prox 2y ago
    It was true Blender as well. No one would touch it, and it has bright future now. We gotta be patient.
  - Brian_K_White 2y ago
    A few people have mentioned ladybird, and I was going to say "wasn't there some problem with the guy behind it?" Then I looked. I don't know if I just still need to look further, maybe the guy is actually somehow bad, but having a branch named "master" does not promote freaking slavery. I never bought that stupid master/main nonsense. It was never a valid argument. It's an artificially created problem. You can pick anything like the color of someones shoes and just arbitrarily declare it's some sort of crime, and then when I disregard that, you can technically truthfully accuse me of being insensitive to the issue. The pr about he/they, that is a little weirder. I would both agree with using the word "they" outside of any other context, like if I were writing the docs the first time, and yet object to the drive-by pr from no actual browser developer or someone actually interested in the project. Mayyybe I'd have accepted the pr anyway if it didn't actually have any other objectionable things, but I also see no problem with someone else having a sort of personal policy to just not entertain every passer-by at their whim. Regardless what they say or want, good or bad. As far as I can tell I have all exactly the same crime as that guy. The biggest crime of all which is simply not respecting ideas or people that have not earned any respect. Just not caring what someone else says and not giving them what they want, especially when they try to invoke crazy emotional hyperbole. Fucking people. So anyway, yeah ladybird is probably still way off, but yeah it looks good.
netsharc 2y ago
Firefox was open-sourced when Netscape was bought by AOL. It seems like they're now on their way to offering their own AOL experience. And I guess my references only make sense to "geriatic" millennials and older..
- wilsonjholmes 2y ago
  I've read some ESR, so I'm tracking (: (I am quite young so I have to rely on seminal texts for my historical knowledge)
- pjmlp 2y ago
  It made full sense to me. :)
greyadept 2y ago
The top item in the "Gifts They'll Love" list is a beanie that scores a solid F on Fakespot: https://www.fakespot.com/product/etsfmoa-unisex-beanie-with-the-light-gifts-for-men-dad-father-usb-rechargeable-led-warm-knit-headlamp-hat https://www.fakespot.com/product/etsfmoa-unisex-beanie-with-...
- markstos 2y ago
  and the multi-cooker in the screenshot was not an Instant Pot. Disappointed.
infotainment 2y ago
Presenting: a real-world preview of what Chrome will inevitably transform into if it is spun into an independent entity.
- Spivak 2y ago
  Yeah, amateur honestly. You're supposed to hide the browser ads in the search engine results like a real company.
- sabbaticaldev 2y ago
  that would be a game-changer and actually help firefox find real revenue stream
krelian 2y ago
Criticizing is easy, I'd like all critics to suggest alternatives to how FF development should be funded. I don't like this at all but I also cannot come up with any realistic alternatives.
- wiether 2y ago
  https://kagi.com/orion/orionplus.html https://kagi.com/orion/orionplus.html
  - The_Rob 2y ago
    I agree, but this limited to macOS and iOS. Not helpful to most people.
    - wiether 2y ago
      OP was asking for alternatives in funding, not just straight FF alternatives; I agree that Orion is not, at the moment, an alternative to FF! /comment posted with FF on Windows
  - Spivak 2y ago
    iOS only is for sure a limitation but I've been using it for a while and it's great! Chrome and FF add-ons on iOS including full uBlock Origin. This is exactly the browser HN has been asking for: no ads, not funded by ads, fully funded by users directly paying them. Fully bootstrapped business with the only funding round they've ever taken coming entirely from their user-base. Their planned features is a HN wishlist: https://orionfeedback.org/?secondaryTag=planned https://orionfeedback.org/?secondaryTag=planned I'm sure they're going to sell their default search engine slot to that soulless company Kagi. /s
- noirscape 2y ago
  For one, it would probably help a lot if Mozilla didn't try to be everything at once. They have a specific product niche, but both Firefox and Thunderbird (both of which should be their core development efforts), just don't seem to be what they're focusing on, instead seeming to thinking they have to be the EFF... before MBA rot seems to have kicked in and now Mozilla is a non-profit that owns an internet ad company (whilst deprioritizing and scaling back a bunch of the advocacy efforts that could upset advertisers. It's kinda funny that they're torpedoing their EFF-esque advocacy to invest into a business sector whose core existence runs contrary to their purpose.) And that's before we dive into just how much they pay their executives and how much they could probably cut into the executive salaries to fund Firefox and Thunderbird before resorting to sponsorship deals. The Mozilla Foundation isn't the most disconnected free software org where I have the suspicion that a lot of money is being spent on unnecessary side projects or funneled into rainy day funds while begging on the streets like they're poor (they're guilty of the former, they spend too much for the latter), but make no mistake - every major cut in their own browser market share was of their own making. And it's always tied to harebrained schemes to try and inject sponsored shit into Firefox. (Their original major dent that wasn't just gradual decline/rebalance due to Chrome entering the Browser market originated from Mozilla installing a tie-in extension with the show "Mr Robot".)
asteriske 2y ago
Is there a straightforward way to move an about:config to a new install? The number of things I require to be disabled or changed is mounting and I'm not looking forward to putting Firefox on a new machine.
- yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
  I think you want a user.js file.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
newscracker 2y ago
> New Tab Page > We will be running an experiment in December featuring a Fakespot feed in the vertical list on newtab. This list will show products that have been identified as high-quality, and with reliable product reviews. They will link to more detailed Fakespot product pages that will give a breakdown of the product analysis. Will the products be generic (not targeted at the user based on some profile building) or is there some tracking and profile building going on to “suggest useful products” for that person? Is there going to be a different “Topics” implementation to serve this purpose?
- klez 2y ago
  I don't want to see ads, targeted or otherwise, on my new tab page. If I liked ads I would be using the other browser from the ad company.
apununtau2017 2y ago
[flagged]
solarkraft 2y ago
So we all agree this is bad. How can we show them? They claim to speak the language of telemetry, so how do we speak it to them? What actions must we perform to show that this is undesirable?

58 points by nalinidash 2y ago

Firefox nightly will be running an experiment in December featuring a Fakespot feed in the vertical list on newtab. This list will show products that have been identified as high-quality, and with reliable product reviews. They will link to more detailed Fakespot product pages that will give a breakdown of the product analysis.

not_your_vase 2y ago

And the example is "Kodak Printomatic Full-Color Instant Print Digital Camera". An absolute Chinese dumpster-filling, for Kodak price. And the off-brand JBL headset, with affiliate link! Nice, this is much better than having an advocacy department.

victorstanciu 2y ago

This is great news, thank you, I was just thinking how much I'd like some affiliate links in my browser. Also many thanks for all the telemetry improvements listed in the changelog, those are also something I've been looking forward to for a long time. If this doesn't solve Firefox's abysmal market share, I don't know what will!

viraptor 2y ago
> Also many thanks for all the telemetry improvements listed in the changelog, those are also something I've been looking forward to for a long time. If this doesn't solve Firefox's abysmal market share, I don't know what will! Telemetry is how they figure out popular or blocked addons, failing pages, browser crashes, etc. Part of a managing popular software is indeed getting information like that. Because general public isn't keen on filling out forms by hand.
- Y_Y 2y ago
  People on HN don't object to telemetry because they don't know what it might be used for. It's patronizing and useless to just respond with a naive psuedo-explanation.
  - stavros 2y ago
    Why do they object? What's objectionable about Mozilla knowing what features someone anonymous uses?
    - bayindirh 2y ago
      First, fingerprinting & correlation is real, and it's easier than ever because of the identifiers tools collect, and correlating is cheap because we have tons of GPUs for cheap now. On the other hand, I personally don't like a pair of eyes looking over my shoulder, physical or digital. People don't understand or don't want to understand that digital telemetry is not different from somebody looking over your shoulder, taking notes, and making "Mhm..." sounds. When done without consent, both are equally invading personal space, and I don't want my personal space to be invaded like that, as a person on HN, who understands what telemetry is.
      - stavros 2y ago
        Why don't you consent?
        bayindirh 2y ago
        Part social contract, part the knowledge of what I can do with that data. You know, somebody coming to your cubicle and taking something without asking is rude, in some cases unethical, even damaging. It's the same thing with computers. No application/website ever should be able to collect information about me without my consent. It's called a "personal computer". If the application needs telemetry from me, they can ask (not tell we're doing this, but ask), and start the moment I consent. The moment I withdraw my consent all telemetry and data collection should stop. Moreover, I shall be able to see all the telemetry data in its full glory to make my own assessment of what's collected and how. If you don't know, Go tried this, even with an arguable provable way of anonymization, people roared back, and the decision is changed to "opt-in". For some applications, I explicitly consent to telemetry because a) They ask, b) They show what they collect and do with it, and c) I do respect and trust them because of the previous encounters I had with them. The moment they break this social contract, they lose telemetry, and in most cases me as a user. ...and I have nothing to hide.
bachmeier 2y ago
The important thing is that this allows them to avoid making a paid version of Firefox available to those that want to support it, or even taking donations that go to Firefox development. Because...I'm sure they have reasons.
1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
Nightly allows uMatrix where Fennec does not. But Nightly has default HSTS which is annoying to users that monitor own traffic on own networks. The number of Mozilla-initiated phone home domains one has to filter when using Firefox is nuts. It should be zero. Option to disable all these unsolicited remote connections quickly and easily should exist.

mafriese 2y ago

This is perfect advertising for the Ladybird browser. I hope that some of the developers (if this really goes live on the release channel) will join other projects. I can understand that Mozilla needs money, but I don't think this feature fits with Firefox and what it stands for.

Y_Y 2y ago
It's bad press for Firefox, but honestly it just makes me want to use the internet less. Ladybird is cool, but the incompatibility with badly-made websites only intensifies the more niche your browser gets. Librewolf or the resurrected Sero browser feels like the next best thing, but even so it feels like a losing battle.

Pooge 2y ago

Use Librewolf and never go back. How people keep up with Mozilla's bullshit is beyond me. Can't wait for the Ladybird alpha release.

mnmalst 2y ago
I agree with the sentiment but ladybird is years and years away from being on par with Firefox. Performance, compatibility let alone extensions are far away at this point. Exiting to see the development tho.
- prox 2y ago
  It was true Blender as well. No one would touch it, and it has bright future now. We gotta be patient.
- Brian_K_White 2y ago
  A few people have mentioned ladybird, and I was going to say "wasn't there some problem with the guy behind it?" Then I looked. I don't know if I just still need to look further, maybe the guy is actually somehow bad, but having a branch named "master" does not promote freaking slavery. I never bought that stupid master/main nonsense. It was never a valid argument. It's an artificially created problem. You can pick anything like the color of someones shoes and just arbitrarily declare it's some sort of crime, and then when I disregard that, you can technically truthfully accuse me of being insensitive to the issue. The pr about he/they, that is a little weirder. I would both agree with using the word "they" outside of any other context, like if I were writing the docs the first time, and yet object to the drive-by pr from no actual browser developer or someone actually interested in the project. Mayyybe I'd have accepted the pr anyway if it didn't actually have any other objectionable things, but I also see no problem with someone else having a sort of personal policy to just not entertain every passer-by at their whim. Regardless what they say or want, good or bad. As far as I can tell I have all exactly the same crime as that guy. The biggest crime of all which is simply not respecting ideas or people that have not earned any respect. Just not caring what someone else says and not giving them what they want, especially when they try to invoke crazy emotional hyperbole. Fucking people. So anyway, yeah ladybird is probably still way off, but yeah it looks good.

netsharc 2y ago

Firefox was open-sourced when Netscape was bought by AOL. It seems like they're now on their way to offering their own AOL experience. And I guess my references only make sense to "geriatic" millennials and older..

wilsonjholmes 2y ago
I've read some ESR, so I'm tracking (: (I am quite young so I have to rely on seminal texts for my historical knowledge)
pjmlp 2y ago
It made full sense to me. :)

greyadept 2y ago

The top item in the "Gifts They'll Love" list is a beanie that scores a solid F on Fakespot: https://www.fakespot.com/product/etsfmoa-unisex-beanie-with-the-light-gifts-for-men-dad-father-usb-rechargeable-led-warm-knit-headlamp-hat https://www.fakespot.com/product/etsfmoa-unisex-beanie-with-...

markstos 2y ago
and the multi-cooker in the screenshot was not an Instant Pot. Disappointed.

infotainment 2y ago

Presenting: a real-world preview of what Chrome will inevitably transform into if it is spun into an independent entity.

Spivak 2y ago
Yeah, amateur honestly. You're supposed to hide the browser ads in the search engine results like a real company.
sabbaticaldev 2y ago
that would be a game-changer and actually help firefox find real revenue stream

krelian 2y ago

Criticizing is easy, I'd like all critics to suggest alternatives to how FF development should be funded. I don't like this at all but I also cannot come up with any realistic alternatives.

wiether 2y ago
https://kagi.com/orion/orionplus.html https://kagi.com/orion/orionplus.html
- The_Rob 2y ago
  I agree, but this limited to macOS and iOS. Not helpful to most people.
  - wiether 2y ago
    OP was asking for alternatives in funding, not just straight FF alternatives; I agree that Orion is not, at the moment, an alternative to FF! /comment posted with FF on Windows
- Spivak 2y ago
  iOS only is for sure a limitation but I've been using it for a while and it's great! Chrome and FF add-ons on iOS including full uBlock Origin. This is exactly the browser HN has been asking for: no ads, not funded by ads, fully funded by users directly paying them. Fully bootstrapped business with the only funding round they've ever taken coming entirely from their user-base. Their planned features is a HN wishlist: https://orionfeedback.org/?secondaryTag=planned https://orionfeedback.org/?secondaryTag=planned I'm sure they're going to sell their default search engine slot to that soulless company Kagi. /s
noirscape 2y ago
For one, it would probably help a lot if Mozilla didn't try to be everything at once. They have a specific product niche, but both Firefox and Thunderbird (both of which should be their core development efforts), just don't seem to be what they're focusing on, instead seeming to thinking they have to be the EFF... before MBA rot seems to have kicked in and now Mozilla is a non-profit that owns an internet ad company (whilst deprioritizing and scaling back a bunch of the advocacy efforts that could upset advertisers. It's kinda funny that they're torpedoing their EFF-esque advocacy to invest into a business sector whose core existence runs contrary to their purpose.) And that's before we dive into just how much they pay their executives and how much they could probably cut into the executive salaries to fund Firefox and Thunderbird before resorting to sponsorship deals. The Mozilla Foundation isn't the most disconnected free software org where I have the suspicion that a lot of money is being spent on unnecessary side projects or funneled into rainy day funds while begging on the streets like they're poor (they're guilty of the former, they spend too much for the latter), but make no mistake - every major cut in their own browser market share was of their own making. And it's always tied to harebrained schemes to try and inject sponsored shit into Firefox. (Their original major dent that wasn't just gradual decline/rebalance due to Chrome entering the Browser market originated from Mozilla installing a tie-in extension with the show "Mr Robot".)

asteriske 2y ago

Is there a straightforward way to move an about:config to a new install? The number of things I require to be disabled or changed is mounting and I'm not looking forward to putting Firefox on a new machine.

yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
I think you want a user.js file.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

newscracker 2y ago

> New Tab Page > We will be running an experiment in December featuring a Fakespot feed in the vertical list on newtab. This list will show products that have been identified as high-quality, and with reliable product reviews. They will link to more detailed Fakespot product pages that will give a breakdown of the product analysis. Will the products be generic (not targeted at the user based on some profile building) or is there some tracking and profile building going on to “suggest useful products” for that person? Is there going to be a different “Topics” implementation to serve this purpose?

klez 2y ago
I don't want to see ads, targeted or otherwise, on my new tab page. If I liked ads I would be using the other browser from the ad company.

apununtau2017 2y ago

[flagged]

solarkraft 2y ago

So we all agree this is bad. How can we show them? They claim to speak the language of telemetry, so how do we speak it to them? What actions must we perform to show that this is undesirable?