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Mozilla Rolls Out Sponsored Tiles To Firefox Nightly's New Tab Page
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.
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.
This space for rent.
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.
tuck3r
If you don't like the redesign Mozilla has done with the new tab page and want to avoid the sponsored tiles, this extension reverts much of the new tab page appearance and allows a decent amount of customization.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-...
That's how I feel too: they've turned Firefox into a cheap whore - albeit with an opt-out option.
Yet I realize they have to make money to keep bringing out new Firefox releases.
Yet... it sucks. Ads sucks. Ad-funded internet sucks.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Software monetization is basically just like anal sex. You keep on pushing until the person you're doing it to can't take it anymore. And then you keep pushing.
You seem to know a lot about monetizing anal sex...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
...a reminder that you can turn tiles off completely ...
How long will it be before Mozilla decides that the users no longer need the ability to turn off the sponsored tiles?
Started experimenting with the PM browser - it seems to have a lot of the +'s of Firefox without all the crap ...and australis.
I can ignore ads on the "new tabs" page. I'm more concerned about the "share" garbage they want to add to the context menu: https://bug1000513.bugzilla.mo...
and doesn't suffer the bloat or other security woes FF and Chrome do. Sure, there are not a ton of add-ons, but how many do you need outstide of being able to block ads (a must), and disable HTTP/S referer (another must)?
Yet I realize they have to make money to keep bringing out new Firefox releases.
The problem is that they don't need to bring out a new release every six weeks. The six-week release cycle is unnecessarily fast, and tends to just add bloat to Firefox, instead of doing anything substantive.
In fact, I suspect that Mozilla doesn't really need the money from "sponsored tiles"; they just want more money.
use the Mozilla assets (intellectual property such as copyrights and trademarks, infrastructure, funds, and reputation) to keep the Internet an open platform;
How does mozilla expect sponsored advertisement to exist without a conflict of interest? It can't. Mozilla is now beholden to and will become ever increasingly dependent upon ad revenue, which in turn will ensure mozilla projects and opinions will be screened before release to meet the advertisers approval.
personally? im switching because i still want a free internet. check out icecat or midori.
Good people go to bed earlier.
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...
I am so thankful for Pale Moon. I don't have to read Firefox news with dread anymore. Even at work here using Linux I can enjoy it.
http://www.palemoon.org/
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.
... count. The uptake of new users is going to decline big time. Established users will learn to deal with the changes, but new users will be turned off before learning how to turn all this off.
Don't mistake me for a zealot, because I'm not. However, this move seems a lot like something the Microsoft of the early 2000s - when IE had near-100% marketshare and Firefox was still called Firebird - would do, and the kind of thing Mozilla should be fighting against.
IE got where it was at that time because of how it was forced upon everyone who bought a copy of Windows, and there was no easy way to opt-out. It won a monopoly by default, and this was one of the reasons that the Mozilla Foundation came along and developed Firefox. One of the senior Firefox devs said a year or so ago to one of his critics (it was on here somewhere) that what was important to him and to Mozilla was not that you use Firefox or that Firefox even be the dominant browser. What was important to him is that you have a choice of browsers so that another situation in which IE (or any other browser) gains near-100% market share never happens again.
This sounds like the same sort of thing. It's on by default, is obscure to disable (I personally can never remember the command to turn the new tab window off and have to look it up every time) and isn't something people are going to want. It's going to gain a monopoly by default, just like IE did. Using IE's tactics is not a good thing, and we can see why from IE itself. I might not hate it as much if there was a simple button in the preferences menu that reads "Turn off the New Tab Page" or "Disable Sponsored Links on the New Tab Page".. but there isn't. If anything, this should be opt-in "Would you like to support Firefox and the Mozilla Foundation by turning on sponsored links on the New Tab page?" instead of opt-out.
What saddens me is that most users won't notice or care. Clearly the Mozilla people need revenue somehow. But software should be on the user's side. Worry about the "open web" all you want, but if your own computer is out to get you then what's the point?
"When you first launch Firefox, a message on the new tab page informs you of the following .. It's quite a lot to take in all at once"
..
It seems fairly straight forward to me: a) a promise that the feature abides by the Mozilla Privacy Policy, b) a reminder that you can turn tiles off completely
Really? I don't support the move at all.
Read any security whitepaper on drive by malware installation through ad-hijacking to understand why this is a horrible idea.
Here's one to get you started: http://blog.fox-it.com/2014/08...
To be fair Mozilla made it clear that they love this market segment more than their founder/former CEO.
If every Firefox user donated $1 they would not need to do this.https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/
It's sad, but if Mozilla dies, will any free software group fill their void?
imo, Mozilla is no longer a free software group. They sold out long ago. And now they are exploiting their users, just like other for-profit corporations.
yeah, remember when the Amazon content in the search window was opt-out in Ubunutu?
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
What else are you going to support? Google? Mozilla is the only sane browser left, even if they haven't done everything perfectly.
No - this is exactly what happened with Television.
We had 3 broadcast channels which were ad-supported.
then we had the option to purchase around 20 channels.
Then, all of those channels which we PAID for with cable, became ad-infes.... ad-supported. And you had to pay EXTRA for more ad-free channels.
Then many of those extra channels also became ad-infested.
Then we got the internet, and the option to pay for ad-free TV. Then motherfucking HULU comes along, and rams ads down your throat for content you paid for.
They don't "get" it: people want a way to escape the fucking ads.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I think they perfectly "get it". Remember, as soon advertising enters the picture, we are no customers anymore, we are the product.
Lighting (the Mozilla calendar app) is also pretty nice. Rust is gaining a lot of interest as a systems programming language, although not so much in the application space.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Mozilla communicates a lot about openness, privacy, etc...It wants to be the "good guy". Sponsored tiles (ads) are mostly considered evil.
IMHO, Chrome already has the technical advantage. Firefox tends to copy Chrome features rather than the opposite, and Chrome feels faster and more stable. It would be a shame to also lose the political advantage.
As for the comment "but the ads can be turned off". Sure, but look at ABP. They made their controversial whitelist feature completely optional, yet, it didn't stop people from raging and even create forks that just disable the option.