7 ms·

Help Test Changes to New Tab in Firefox Beta

29 points by ericras 11y ago

Grue3 11y ago
I'm glad I have the new tab page completely blank. I hope they don't remove that option.
- soapdog 11y ago
  You can set your desired behavior on the preferences screen. You can set "your home page" to about:blank and let new tabs open to it.
- sayhello 11y ago
  Engineer on the Tiles team here. One of our core tenets is "user agency", or putting the user in control. The user should always have the choice. That option will not go away.
Dirlewanger 11y ago
Well...they gotta make money somehow.
- sayhello 11y ago
  Engineer on the Tiles team here. Revenue is not our primary objective. We really want to change how the industry works. At the moment, revenue is our way to say that we can make something that is viable and will work for everyone else. It is something that is hard to condense into blog posts, because the topic is so touchy. That said, our primary goal is really to make a big change and to prove that it can be viable for others. We're rethinking how digital advertising works. It is what makes the internet free for everyone. We're hoping to make a system that is effective, yet less annoying for users, and does not violate their right to privacy. More on my reply on another thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9588451 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9588451
  - pdkl95 11y ago
    > Revenue is not our primary objective. This still creates an incentive to meet the needs of the advertisers (instead of the users) or you risk losing your new source of revenue. This conflict of interest in not theoretical - titling a blog post[1] "Providing a Valuable Platform for Advertisers, Content Publishers, and Users" already suggests where your priorities are. There is no middle ground here - users and advertisers have conflicting requirements. > We really want to change how the industry works. You are doing no such thing, and you (Mozilla/Firefox) don't have anywhere near the influence you would need to accomplish such a thing. Giving the ad industry a new place to put ads is not going to get them to stop (or even slow down) their current methods; you're just expanding the surface area they can utilize. At best, the strategy at Mozilla appear to be appeasement, Neville Chamberlain style. Assuring us th "it is privacy for our time" further demonstrates who you really work for. [1] https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2015/05/21/providing-a-valuable-platform-for-advertisers-content-publishers-and-users/ https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2015/05/21/providi... [2] and DRM
  - Nadya 11y ago
    Feel free to put ads on the new tabs page. Watch how many people change to Startpage or create their own startpage to get rid of them after searching Google on how to do so or switch to Chrome :) Users hate ads. An increasing amount of more technical-savvy users are learning how to remove ads from their internet experience. The more intrusive and prevalent you try to make ads - the harder we'll try to get rid of them. I consider ads on my new tab page to be intrusive. Luckily I created my own new tab page so this won't be an issue for me.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    > It is what makes the internet free for everyone. "The internet" isn't free for everyone, so saying that advertising is what makes it that way is quite mistaken. Once you've paid to get on the internet, some of the content is free-of-(additional)-charge, and some of that free-of-(additional)-charge content is subsidized by advertising.
  - learnstats2 11y ago
    I observe that the ad industry will change (has changed) Firefox for the worse, and not that Firefox will change the ad industry for the better. I do not want my browser to support the ad industry at all.
userbinator 11y ago
All the doublespeak is disturbing. The original post[1] about this (mis)feature was even worse though. we started working to improve digital advertising experiences for the Web. "we started working to turn Firefox into adware" to show it is possible to deliver personalization "to show it is possible to deliver advertisements" However, it’s important to understand that no tracking is involved in delivering Tiles. So all the content was downloaded at the same time as Firefox itself, and showing them doesn't make any requests to external servers...? [1] https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publisher-transformation-with-users-at-the-center/ https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publish... (The first comment there sums up my thoughts exactly. If I open a text editor, word processor, image editor, or other application I expect to see a blank slate, not ads.)
- sp332 11y ago
  Personalization doesn't just mean ads, it means changing which ads you see depending on what they determine your interests to be. Directory Tiles are a static list periodically downloaded by Firefox from Mozilla and everyone gets the same list. The other tile types are fetched via cookieless HTTPS requests to Mozilla.
- rockdoe 11y ago
  So all the content was downloaded at the same time as Firefox itself, and showing them doesn't make any requests to external servers...? Not necessarily at the same time as the download of the browser, but yes, the tile matching is done on the client side so the history doesn't leak out. Imagine that Adsense worked this way: instead of tracking you through cookies everywhere, each site sends a list of advertisers. The browser then inspects that lists, matches locally against your history, and picks an ad to show. This gives advertisers targeting without invading user privacy. I think that's Mozilla's goal here.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
    - deleted 11y ago
tormeh 11y ago
I notice that I don't really care about Firefox anymore. Servo will probably be really cool, but until then I'm not excited.
ape4 11y ago
It seems the ads will be very low key. And optional. Your history isn't sent to them. So I am ok with it.
- sarciszewski 11y ago
  I'm not.
sarciszewski 11y ago
It’s been 18 months since we started working to improve digital advertising experiences for the Web. Oh hell no. Can I get Iceweasel to compile on Windows?
- TheLoneWolfling 11y ago
  Try Pale Moon.

29 points by ericras 11y ago

Grue3 11y ago

I'm glad I have the new tab page completely blank. I hope they don't remove that option.

soapdog 11y ago
You can set your desired behavior on the preferences screen. You can set "your home page" to about:blank and let new tabs open to it.
sayhello 11y ago
Engineer on the Tiles team here. One of our core tenets is "user agency", or putting the user in control. The user should always have the choice. That option will not go away.

Dirlewanger 11y ago

Well...they gotta make money somehow.

sayhello 11y ago
Engineer on the Tiles team here. Revenue is not our primary objective. We really want to change how the industry works. At the moment, revenue is our way to say that we can make something that is viable and will work for everyone else. It is something that is hard to condense into blog posts, because the topic is so touchy. That said, our primary goal is really to make a big change and to prove that it can be viable for others. We're rethinking how digital advertising works. It is what makes the internet free for everyone. We're hoping to make a system that is effective, yet less annoying for users, and does not violate their right to privacy. More on my reply on another thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9588451 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9588451
- pdkl95 11y ago
  > Revenue is not our primary objective. This still creates an incentive to meet the needs of the advertisers (instead of the users) or you risk losing your new source of revenue. This conflict of interest in not theoretical - titling a blog post[1] "Providing a Valuable Platform for Advertisers, Content Publishers, and Users" already suggests where your priorities are. There is no middle ground here - users and advertisers have conflicting requirements. > We really want to change how the industry works. You are doing no such thing, and you (Mozilla/Firefox) don't have anywhere near the influence you would need to accomplish such a thing. Giving the ad industry a new place to put ads is not going to get them to stop (or even slow down) their current methods; you're just expanding the surface area they can utilize. At best, the strategy at Mozilla appear to be appeasement, Neville Chamberlain style. Assuring us th "it is privacy for our time" further demonstrates who you really work for. [1] https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2015/05/21/providing-a-valuable-platform-for-advertisers-content-publishers-and-users/ https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2015/05/21/providi... [2] and DRM
- Nadya 11y ago
  Feel free to put ads on the new tabs page. Watch how many people change to Startpage or create their own startpage to get rid of them after searching Google on how to do so or switch to Chrome :) Users hate ads. An increasing amount of more technical-savvy users are learning how to remove ads from their internet experience. The more intrusive and prevalent you try to make ads - the harder we'll try to get rid of them. I consider ads on my new tab page to be intrusive. Luckily I created my own new tab page so this won't be an issue for me.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > It is what makes the internet free for everyone. "The internet" isn't free for everyone, so saying that advertising is what makes it that way is quite mistaken. Once you've paid to get on the internet, some of the content is free-of-(additional)-charge, and some of that free-of-(additional)-charge content is subsidized by advertising.
- learnstats2 11y ago
  I observe that the ad industry will change (has changed) Firefox for the worse, and not that Firefox will change the ad industry for the better. I do not want my browser to support the ad industry at all.

userbinator 11y ago

All the doublespeak is disturbing. The original post[1] about this (mis)feature was even worse though. we started working to improve digital advertising experiences for the Web. "we started working to turn Firefox into adware" to show it is possible to deliver personalization "to show it is possible to deliver advertisements" However, it’s important to understand that no tracking is involved in delivering Tiles. So all the content was downloaded at the same time as Firefox itself, and showing them doesn't make any requests to external servers...? [1] https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publisher-transformation-with-users-at-the-center/ https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publish... (The first comment there sums up my thoughts exactly. If I open a text editor, word processor, image editor, or other application I expect to see a blank slate, not ads.)

sp332 11y ago
Personalization doesn't just mean ads, it means changing which ads you see depending on what they determine your interests to be. Directory Tiles are a static list periodically downloaded by Firefox from Mozilla and everyone gets the same list. The other tile types are fetched via cookieless HTTPS requests to Mozilla.
rockdoe 11y ago
So all the content was downloaded at the same time as Firefox itself, and showing them doesn't make any requests to external servers...? Not necessarily at the same time as the download of the browser, but yes, the tile matching is done on the client side so the history doesn't leak out. Imagine that Adsense worked this way: instead of tracking you through cookies everywhere, each site sends a list of advertisers. The browser then inspects that lists, matches locally against your history, and picks an ad to show. This gives advertisers targeting without invading user privacy. I think that's Mozilla's goal here.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
  - deleted 11y ago

tormeh 11y ago

I notice that I don't really care about Firefox anymore. Servo will probably be really cool, but until then I'm not excited.

ape4 11y ago

It seems the ads will be very low key. And optional. Your history isn't sent to them. So I am ok with it.

sarciszewski 11y ago
I'm not.

sarciszewski 11y ago

It’s been 18 months since we started working to improve digital advertising experiences for the Web. Oh hell no. Can I get Iceweasel to compile on Windows?

TheLoneWolfling 11y ago
Try Pale Moon.