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Mozilla Rolls Out Sponsored Tiles To Firefox Nightly's New Tab Page

Posted by timothy on from the now-how-much-would-you-pay? dept.

An anonymous reader writes Mozilla has rolled out directory tiles, the company's advertising experiment for its browser's new tab page, to the Firefox Nightly channel. We installed the latest browser build to give the sponsored ads a test drive. When you first launch Firefox, a message on the new tab page informs you of the following: what tiles are (with a link to a support page about how sponsored tiles work), a promise that the feature abides by the Mozilla Privacy Policy, and a reminder that you can turn tiles off completely and choose to have a blank new tab page. It's quite a lot to take in all at once.

7 of 171 comments (clear)

  1. Well... by recoiledsnake · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I atleast hope they use the money for something really good, like desktop Linux, instead of chasing mobile with Firefox OS.

    With Google clamping down with Chrome, promoting on Google and Youtube and paying to bundle it everywhere like with Java, Flash and Acrobat updates, I am surprised Firefox hasn't lost even more marketshare, but I do think the clock is ticking.

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    This space for rent.
    1. Re:Well... by mystikkman · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Mozilla is the only hope left in the browser market. The rest are controlled by mega corps. Witness the recent ramrodding of video DRM into W3C standards by Google, Microsoft and Apple, all of which have their own DRM implementations.

      Not to mention Firefox being forced to support H.264 playback, after Google promised and backtracked on removing support from Chrome. Based on the above two cases, I guess it's already too late, corporate control has taken over the web.

    2. Re:Well... by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It bothers me a lot when I see people shouting "abandon all hope". It's not that bad.

      Still, I would like to see Firefox getting more of its revenue from sources other than Google. Maybe the Firefox Phone will go a long way to realizing that.

      On the other hand, I found tiles on the new page useful, if only marginally. I would prefer to be able to turn off the ads and still use the tiles. But if I must turn them all off to do away with the ads, I will.

      I almost forgot: Chromium is hardly a major player in the browser market.

      Firefox is important, and we should support it. But I don't think supporting it via ads is the best way to go.

    3. Re: Well... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The problem is that it's a dumbed-down UI design. Maybe this works well for some users, buy it's extremely limiting and inefficient for others.

      A lot of us specifically avoided Chrome or Chromium, and used Firefox instead, because it offered a much more usable UI. But Australis has taken away that advantage of Firefox, however.

      Unfortunately, I had to switch to Chromium. If I'm going to get the same dumbed-down UI whether I'm using Firefox or Chromium, I might as well just use Chromium because it does feel a lot faster than Firefox does. And I'm not going to waste my time installing one extension after another just to undo the bad changes that the Firefox devs forced on us.

      Mozilla has lost me as a user and as a supporter. I will no longer make donations to them, I will no longer earn them search revenue, and I will no longer recommend their products. It pains me to have to take such a stance, but they left me no choice with how they have destroyed Firefox and refused to listen to what their users actually want.

  2. Fork in the Road by tuck3r · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I find myself agreeing less and less with the things the Mozilla is doing as a company. I get what they want to do and where they want to go, just don't agree with the methods they are using.

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    tuck3r
  3. Re:Work for the man, not for mankind by psyclone · · Score: 3, Interesting

    To compete with Google [Chrome] they need to not rely on Google for 90% of their funding.

    As long as the ads are clearly marked with no privacy implications (no pre-fetch of those sponsored tiles that sends cookies, exec's javascript, pings 40 trackers, etc.) then I support the move.

    It's sad, but if Mozilla dies, will any free software group fill their void? The Net would never be the same...

  4. Pale Moon will release you. Seek thy savior! by chaosdivine69 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    No seriously, don't put up with this bullshit. Dump Firefox and come over to Pale Moon (www.palemoon.org). Your favorite plugins and add-ons will still work, you can customize the interface just how you're used to (that means no Australis excrement) and have the latest security updates too. It's fast, stable, standards compliant and doesn't force needless stuff on their users. They don't and won't sell your details, snoop on your browsing behavior and subject you to advertising. This whole process is painless thanks to their profile migration tool but just in case, back up your browser settings/bookmarks/add-on settings and get back to browsing the Internet on YOUR OWN TERMS.

    It's incredible that people are still using Firefox at all honestly. Firefox is just a shell of what it once was and now it's just a name - one forever tarnished by corporate greed/influence and the lust for money. Firefox has become a cancer. It needs immediate removal - permanently.