Mozilla Ditches Firefox's New-Tab Monetization Plans

hypnosec writes "Mozilla has ditched Firefox's new-tab monetization plans because they 'didn't go over well' with the community. Johnathan Nightingale, Mozilla's VP of Firefox, said much of Firefox's community was worried Mozilla would 'turn Firefox into a mess of logos sold to the highest bidder' and that users wouldn't have control over this or see any actual benefit. 'That's not going to happen. That's not who we are at Mozilla.'"

Comments

That's not who we are at Mozilla

[koan]

laugh... but you would have gone ahead with it if you could have gotten it past the "community".

We need a new Firefox, someone "pure" again.

Re:That's not who we are at Mozilla

[QuasiSteve]

We need a new Firefox, someone "pure" again.

Wouldn't a 'pure' Firefox also do away with the default search provider - which is effectively whoever bids highest for the position anyway?

I do think the 'new tab promotion' bit would have been bad, but mostly from a "what's next?" perspective. Otherwise, it would still be a page you can customize - including just deleting the promotional bits - that essentially has the promoted bits replaced as you browse, and if you really wanted to, never have to see more than once after installation as it is; and if you do, at least there will be some content there instead of vast emptiness. If it means Mozilla gets a bit more money, or at least money from a more diverse pool, I would have been fine with it.

Re:That's not who we are at Mozilla

[Hsien-Ko]

Seamonkey exists, has always been the last designbycommittee-bullshit-free Gecko-based browser for over a decade, but it always feels so unloved.

Re:That's not who we are at Mozilla

[koan]

You can have a "default" just give the user a choice, if they want to use it or not.
That's my thing really, so tired of updates on my phone and computers that don't take how the user feels into consideration.
A perfect example is Windows 8, another would be Unity.
Let me leave my GUI the way it is while still getting security updates and feature sets (other than GUI features obviously) give *ME* the choice.

Re:That's not who we are at Mozilla

[sunami88]

We need a new Firefox, someone "pure" again.

Indeed! Australis (FF29 in general) has very nearly pinched my last nerve with Firefox. What the fuck is going on at Mozilla? The last two versions have run like complete and utter shit on my systems, from freezing windows to outright random crashes. What happened to my lightweight and reliable browser?

(Side tangent: Also, when will we get text reflow back in Android?)

Re:That's not who we are at Mozilla

[QuietLagoon]

We need a new Firefox, someone "pure" again.

Indeed! Australis (FF29 in general) has very nearly pinched my last nerve with Firefox. What the fuck is going on at Mozilla? The last two versions have run like complete and utter shit on my systems, from freezing windows to outright random crashes. What happened to my lightweight and reliable browser? >

Pale Moon

Re:That's not who we are at Mozilla

[CheshireDragon]

With FF 29's new look you may as well be running Chrome...

Re:That's not who we are at Mozilla

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is that Mozilla can't operate for free. If they could they would. If donations were enough to sustain them, why would they care? But the browser world is such that not even Opera could maintain their own browser engine, and they weren't a non-profit. Nobody seems to give a shit about Mozilla's needs, only their own. And when you dare to mention that, you're the bad guy for playing into the idea that "browsers cost money" and that "Mozilla should be trying harder to make money that everyone agrees is from ideologically flawless sources". And the worst part? The same users wouldn't donate to the cause if they had to, because they're too damn selfish and upset about tiny UI changes and bogeymen they think they're successfully evading by running Tor and NoScript.

In this kind of environment, you're guaranteed to get a Firefox that spends more time trying to find out how to make money than a Firefox that can fix its bugs and please everyone. You do it to yourself, Firefox users. That's why the vocal minority is beginning to be rejected with some things, and why the userbase is fragmenting and losing the more obnoxiously selfish users to forks that would go under the instant Mozilla went under.

Re:That's not who we are at Mozilla

[Anonymous Coward]

I just tried Chrome, and it looks almost fucking nothing like Firefox 29. Thanks for nothing.

Re:That's not who we are at Mozilla

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats exactly what this would have been, you can easily disable the directory tiles or the entire new tab page

That's what the UX people said when Win8 previews came out with a registry key that could disable Metro.

That's what the UX people said when they took "tabs on bottom/top" with regards to the about:config preference that is no longer respected within Australis.

That's what the UX people said when they came up with /. Beta (just biding their time...)

That's what the UX people said when they destroyed Gmail.

That's what the UX people are saying when they talk about removing the URL from the Omnibar in Chrome.

When a UX person says they'll give you the option to disable their UX "innovation" with a preference setting, they're lying. They intend to remove that preference setting as quickly as possible.

I ditched Firefox 'cause they're intolerant bigots

[SensitiveMale]

And I'll never use it again.

Quit telling us what we want, 'kay?

[pla]

FTA: "But we will experiment. In the coming weeks, we’ll be landing tests on our pre-release channels to see whether we can make things like the new tab page more useful, particularly for fresh installs of Firefox, where we don’t yet have any recommendations to make from your history."

Or how about just not recommending anything to me? That too complicated a concept, or just not enough money in it?

Funny thing about the web - I get to decide where I go and what I see and when. Any attempts to circumvent that control, whether by obnoxious advertising or regional access controls or even hijacking my new blank tabs with anything other than a new blank tab, people will push back against. And people will succeed, because you ain't the only game in town - And yes, that includes Mozilla, it includes Google, it includes Microsoft. Give us what we want, not what you wish we wanted, or we will move on and leave you to die from prolonged irrelevance.

Re:Quit telling us what we want, 'kay?

[bill_mcgonigle]

That too complicated a concept, or just not enough money in it?

Funny thing about the web - I get to decide where I go and what I see and when.

Fine, write your own browser.

Mozilla is facing their $300M/yr revenue stream from Google going away as of December. Perhaps you can offer and execute a better plan for continuing to provide a good, secure, public-interest browser?

Heaven forbid they sell some ads and give people the option to turn that off ... it's worse than kidnapping little girls, I tell you!

Mozilla, don't listen to the haters - do what you need to to keep Firefox & Thunderbird alive and libre.

Re:Quit telling us what we want, 'kay?

[JMJimmy]

If Google drops the ball, Microsoft will pick it up for the default search revenue. Mozilla also doesn't need the 300m/y for a public interest browser - they've got more products and experiments than you can shake a stick at and they're expanding into the mobile OS market which will likely result in tablet/pc market as well. They could pull back or eliminate duplication.

Why they need 11 offices globally is beyond me as well. Close down/consolidate the Vancouver, Portland, Auckland, Taipei, London, and Paris offices then open one in India and Brazil.

Re:I ditched Firefox 'cause they're intolerant big

[Nidi62]

And I'll never use it again.

Now who's being intolerant?

Re:Damn you firefox!

[QuietLagoon]

Take a look at Pale Moon browser. It's built with FireFox source, but with a rational user interface layout.

Re:I ditched Firefox 'cause they're intolerant big

[Microlith]

for not having the "correct" beliefs*

More importantly, for contributing $1000 to a political campaign in favor of an amendment that explicitly attacked a segment of the populace, on top of repeatedly (and publicly) supporting congressmen who regularly express bigoted attitudes towards homosexuals. So yeah, he was given the lead position on Mozilla and people flipped their shit because he backed politicians that spew bullshit to demonize them.

when someone objects or defends his right to an opinion, he, too, is "intolerant"

No, this is the old "you must be tolerant of my intolerance" nonsense. No one has to sit back and accept being walked over, particularly when the basis for it is entirely hollow.

Scratch a liberal or "advocacy group" and you see the same rotten core you saw in 1933.

Wait, what? Is this an indirect Godwin?

And the terrible crime here is that the man contributed to a *successful* change to the CA constitution

What does it having been successful have to do with anything?

after a previous *successful* propostion to the same effect was defeated by the same pack of "tolerance" bullies?

What are you referring to?

Re:almost there.....

[kthreadd]

It is different. That doesn't make it unusable. Seriously, the browser is not unusuable because the UI elements changed slightly.

Re:Firefox is about money now

[kthreadd]

Firefox has grown to the point were it is more about money than the users. Google's dominance was the first big shot across the bow of its mission. Now this and the continued Chromification of the UI.

So it is decision time. Abandon the mission or the money. Unfortunately, I've seen this movie before and I know how it ends.

Mission is still the same, regardless if you're on the train or not.

Time for a fork...

People have already done this long ago. Not a lot of poeple using them though. Turns out most people may actually like these changes.

More about Pale Moon

[Futurepower(R)]

The Pale Moon browser is a better version of Firefox. Pale Moon appears to have better management than the Mozilla Foundation gives Firefox.

Pale Moon Windows version
Pale Moon Linux version

Here are some of the advantages:

1) Pale Moon has a 64-bit version. Firefox doesn't. The 64-bit Pale Moon uses the Firefox add-ons; there are no problems except with some unusual add-ons.

2) The "Find in page" is better in Pale Moon. In Firefox the "Find in page" field is on the left of the screen and the "Highlight All" and "Match Case" buttons are on the right. In Pale Moon they are together so that you immediately see if something is chosen from a former search.

3) Pale Moon has backup software. Firefox has only Mozbackup, which works well, but isn't Mozilla Foundation software.

4) Pale Moon is said to be more stable than Firefox. The memory-hogging flaws in Firefox are so widely acknowledged that there are add-ons for re-starting Firefox: Firefox Re-start Add-ons. I use Restartless Restart.

5) Pale Moon is completely independent of the forces that guide Firefox. Pale Moon is in no way associated with Mozilla Foundation. The Mozilla Foundation seems to feel forced to change Firefox in ways most users don't want.

Migration tool: Pale Moon has a profile migration tool.