Mozilla Updates Firefox With Forget Button, DuckDuckGo Search, and Ads

Bastards ... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-11-10 16:20 · Score: 5, Insightful

rolling out its directory tiles advertising experiment

I sincerely hope this is optional.

Not all of us are willing to accept ads. Especially not from the open source browser which is supposed to help be more private.

Re:Bastards ... by houstonbofh · 2014-11-10 16:22 · Score: 3, Funny

Time to dust off the IceWeasel...
Re:Bastards ... by craigminah · 2014-11-10 16:33 · Score: 5, Funny

Is this a euphemism?
Re:Bastards ... by jeepies · 2014-11-10 16:34 · Score: 5, Informative

If you disable directory tiles on new tabs, the ads are also disabled.
Re: Bastards ... by slack_justyb · 2014-11-10 16:54 · Score: 4, Insightful

Oooh, that one is good. Sneaky and snark, I miss the days when that combination was common in the comments on Slashdot.
Re:Bastards ... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-11-10 17:36 · Score: 5, Interesting

Google stopped funding Firefox and started funding chrome.
Google is an advertising Giant, Microsoft is an advertising Giant, both produce web browsers not to maximize utility but revenue.
We're talking about one company that, in the IE4 days, ran windows update through IE and wondered why everyone caught viruses through it; to this day disgusting webbies are still making feature requests and design changes to the browser with exactly zero consideration for security. Chrome is the same exact thing. In the end, the end objective of advertisers is to run full-blown applications on your machine, and to do whatever the hell they want to it, and track every purchase and data-mine every action you take.
And that makes them absolutely no different then the Russian Mob\Russian Hackers in that regard. This is the reason companies have started to install ad-blocking software at the firewall on back, and why users are installing Adblock. Not because the ad's are annoying, but because of the very, very real need to protect themselves. Cryptolocker wiped out tens of thousands of projects, and thousands of businesses; criminals were not prosecuted because files were encrypted on police file-shares, and people died because the same happened to hospitals. This is why Putin arrested everyone involved, and why the newer versions of it are not as virulent.
Where did it come from? Yahoo's web advertising network. That one is well-documented.
I've moved the majority of my users onto Seamonkey which has become a standard part of our deployment, adblock is implemented via GPO and is part of our NAC policy. Whenever users complain they can't get to site content because of it, I let the website owner know what we are using it and why, and if they complain my simple answer is "Are you going to pay for my time to re-image machines? No. Find a new revenue stream.". "Trust us our advertisers would never break your computer", and my answer to that is "Fuck you, fuck your website, fuck your mom, fuck your career, and again, fuck you. I will blacklist your ass on my firewall and tell my end user to find a new source before I allow your banner ad's in.".
Now these Webbies have gotten into the standards documents, and browsers are doing things that really, they have no fucking business doing such as DRM'd Video in HTML5. The ONLY Reason you do that is you want a full-page video ad to pop up and take control of the browser for a minute. There's no other fucking reason for that; netflix can easily provide a separate app for streaming video. Why is your MAC address in your IP address in IPV6? The ONLY reason is to track the device from location to location, because it's super useful to be able to have persistence and serve ad's based upon what an IP last saw.
The result of that is networking guru's have basically said "Fuck you we are using IPV4 internally until you give us a NAT RFC". They are engineers, not advertisers, they have no patience for bullshit, and if they want to go down this path, large networks are going to seek alternatives.
Expect MS and Google to continue pushing back against the likes of ad-block with feature changes, and expect those feature changes are going to enable the next crypto-locker to hit, except this time it's going to do a lot more damage. Eventually these companies' monopoly positions will be challenged.
Re:Bastards ... by dejanc · 2014-11-10 21:08 · Score: 4, Informative

It looks optional. I just updated and on directory tiles you get options: "Enhanced", "Classic" and "Blank". I don't see a difference between Enhanced and Classic but I am going to guess that Classic is ad free.

Anyway, why be so negative about this? People at Mozilla provide a great browser and if that means you get to see some ads (that you can disable) every once in a while, what's the big deal? If they were injecting ads into pages you load, I would object, but seeing them on an otherwise empty page is as intrusive as default search engines they give you. Both things are perfectly fine.
Re:Bastards ... by AmiMoJo · 2014-11-11 00:55 · Score: 4, Funny

I dread to think what Pale Moon is a euphemism for.

--
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:Bastards ... by Anonymice · 2014-11-11 02:29 · Score: 2

They're just the static tiles you get on a normal new tab page, except they're populated with sponsored sites until your browser history automatically replaces them. This isn't something that would even affect updating users, just fresh installs with an empty history.

Can't wait for this! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-11-10 16:27 · Score: 5, Interesting

What is Firefox thinking? From the last paragraph in the article: "Firefox users should 'expect a lot more experimentation in advertising,' Mozilla Senior Engineering Manager Gavin Sharp told VentureBeat."

Re:Can't wait for this! by fustakrakich · 2014-11-10 16:32 · Score: 5, Insightful

Don't worry. There will be a lot more experimentation in ad blocking extensions.

--
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Re:Can't wait for this! by UltraZelda64 · 2014-11-10 16:47 · Score: 4, Interesting

Mozilla should expect a lot more fleeing users with that attitude. I just just about ready to ditch their browser anyway, and they only keep making me want to do it more. The only problem is that the the competition--Chrome--sucks, and is single-handedly the reason Firefox's interface has sucked for the last few years. Ever since Google released the crap and Mozilla decided to make Firefox a carbon copy of it.
Re:Can't wait for this! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-11-10 16:50 · Score: 4, Funny

Leela: Didn't you have ads in the 21st century?
Fry: Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio, and in magazines, and movies, and at ball games... and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts, and bananas and written on the sky. But not in dreams, no siree.
Re:Can't wait for this! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-11-10 16:55 · Score: 2, Insightful

Give Pale Moon a try.
Re:Can't wait for this! by nmb3000 · 2014-11-10 17:47 · Score: 2

What is Firefox thinking? From the last paragraph in the article: "Firefox users should 'expect a lot more experimentation in advertising,' Mozilla Senior Engineering Manager Gavin Sharp told VentureBeat."
If you want to raise your blood pressure and really ruin your outlook of Firefox's future, go read some of Gavin Sharp's comments on various Bugzilla bugs. Seeing the justification for the removal of features and the addition of toxic features ruins my day every time I'm driving there to try and understand why something changed.
Gavin and the others like him that simply want to turn Firefox into Mini-Chrome are the biggest threat to Firefox today.

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"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
/)
Re:Can't wait for this! by hairyfeet · 2014-11-10 19:20 · Score: 3, Funny

Here are some choices, Palemoon (used to be my go-to but the 25x release broke too much) Comodo Secure Chromium (my current go-to), Waterfox, Comodo Icedragon, Comodo Dragon, Kmeleon, SWIron, Opera, Seamonkey.
Try the above and see which fits you best, no point in accepting crappy practices with so much choice.

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ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Re:Can't wait for this! by Kunedog · 2014-11-10 19:32 · Score: 4, Insightful

The former head of Marketing replaced Brendan Eich (who , by contrast, had been a co-founder, former lead architect and CTO) after he was forced out at CEO. Any other questions?
Re:Can't wait for this! by Luckyo · 2014-11-10 23:54 · Score: 3, Informative

FYI: They fixed a lot of broken stuff in 25.0.1 and 25.0.2. If you haven't done so, you may want to check if your specific qualms have been fixed.
Re:Can't wait for this! by Luckyo · 2014-11-10 23:56 · Score: 2

Why not just run it in sandboxie?
And frankly as long as you run adblock, ghostery and if you're really paranoid noscript, you're not going to get owned unless you make a point of visiting every porn site on the web. I ran 3.6.28 on several machines until finding palemoon recently and didn't get hit by a single infection.
Re:Can't wait for this! by AmiMoJo · 2014-11-11 00:59 · Score: 2

Midori is webkit based and pretty minimal: http://midori-browser.org/

--
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:Can't wait for this! by hairyfeet · 2014-11-11 02:42 · Score: 2

Tried it and FYI but buuuuulllllsssshhhhiiiitttt! Their static version of adblock is a bad joke, unless you consider videos not loading at all as "functional", many pages still won't load correctly or come up with the mobile version, the entire thing is a fucking mess. I kept the install and will be happy to give it a spin on each release but ATM its completely crippled compared to the 24.x branch. Sadly since there is a pretty severe security hole in 24.x the devs won't fix to force users to take the broken 25.x at this time I simply cannot in good conscience recommend PaleMoon to anybody.

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ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Re:Can't wait for this! by Luckyo · 2014-11-11 03:25 · Score: 2

Strange. I have no such problem with it. Adblock's "pseudo-static" version they have is simply adblock with one line of code changed to recognise palemoon's interface as acceptable. In fact, normal adblock works just fine on 25.0.x, the only problem is that it won't show interface elements on UI because it doesn't recognise PM's UI elements as FF elements. When I updated to 25.0.0, it blocked ads as usual, but I couldn't see the UI element.
Did you perhaps install it on top of old adblock without removing it first? That is a known problem, because if you do, you may confuse your browser.

Re:er, Netscape? by jeepies · 2014-11-10 16:38 · Score: 3, Insightful

Netscape was dead in 2004. IE was closing in on 90% market share by the end of 2000.

I remember finally making the switch to IE from the Netscape 4.76 series that summer after my friend asked why I didn't use IE and showed me it was better. To be fair, IE had surpassed Netscape at that point. I believe that was IE 5 or 5.5. Prior to that Netscape was better hands down but it stagnated after Netscape 4.

What was that new feature again? by Tony+Isaac · 2014-11-10 16:41 · Score: 4, Funny

(I don't need a button to help me forget things!)

Re:Alternative browsers? by Moridineas · 2014-11-10 16:44 · Score: 4, Funny

How about Safari?

Contradiction by Tony+Isaac · 2014-11-10 16:46 · Score: 4, Insightful

They added two new features:
1. A "Forget" button for your privacy, and
2. Ads, that remember everything forever.

Sounds like a case of giving with one hand, and taking with the other!

Sounds like I should just "forget" Firefox by SeaFox · 2014-11-10 17:20 · Score: 2

...and stay with Pale Moon.

At the very least I'm disabling automatic updates on Firefox.

Fork it. by adolf · 2014-11-10 17:29 · Score: 4, Insightful

Please look into Pale Moon.

Built from Firefox sources, it is the closest thing to the lightweight and flexible browser that Firefox promised to be that I'm aware of.

Linux, Windows, Mac, Android, etc.

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Kid-proof tablet..

Re:Fork it. by Somebody+Is+Using+My · 2014-11-11 02:38 · Score: 2

I like Palemoon too, but new users should be aware that the switch will probably cause problems because - despite some claims to the contrary - it isn't 100% compatible with Firefox add-ons. Admittedly, this is more often the fault of the add-on developers, but since the add-ons are usually the primary thing keeping people on Firefox, some extra consideration should be given before switching to its competitor. Especially since it has problems with so many big-name add-ons
Some examples: AdBlock Plus & AdBlock Edged (no menu or toolbar icon, so can't easily change options or disable), HTTPS Everywhere (does not function), Self-Destructing Cookies (does not function), Greasemonkey & Scriptish (do not function), Google Privacy (does not function), DOM Inspector (does not work), Privacy Badger (nope, not this one either), TabMixPlus (partly functional), AutoPager (nope) and dozens more.
(see Known Incompatible Add-Ons for the complete list).
I use Palemoon myself, but this lack of complete compatibility is actually making me reconsider going back to Firefox (at least with Firefox I can correct more egregious mistakes made by Mozilla through more add-ons). I hope that Palemoon figures out a way to improve compatibility but unfortunately the above list just seems to be getting longer and never shorter. New users should definitely look over the incompatibility list before they make the switch.

Re:Free yourself from this SHIT - Get Palemoon by LordLimecat · 2014-11-10 17:32 · Score: 3, Funny

Your stunning eloquence has me convinced. Sign me up!

Re:Free yourself from this SHIT - Get Palemoon by chaosdivine69 · 2014-11-10 17:38 · Score: 2

Think of it as Imodium for the Internet.

The Ads Can Be Disabled by enter+to+exit · 2014-11-10 17:40 · Score: 4, Interesting

The Advertisements may be disabled in the preferences. They're trying to diversify their revenue which currently is mostly Google. Over the last few releases they've been highlighting the various privacy features and ideology Firefox has in a bid to differentiate themselves against Chrome, so it' a little Ironic to see this Ad compromise.

The Ads only occupy unused thumbnail tiles i believe..so it's not obtrusive. As long as us techies can turn it off, I'm happy. Everyone else will hardly notice, and it'll pay the Mozilla devs.

Re:The Ads Can Be Disabled by Pi1grim · 2014-11-10 19:46 · Score: 5, Insightful

Sure, I mean who cares about the truth as long as we can run around screaming bloody murder and probably soiling ourselves in the process. The "ad tiles" are placed on quick dial instead of empty ones until users get them filled with their browsing history or just drag and dropb pinned stuff from their bookmarks. That's it. But everyone and their dog are starting to whine and threatening to go to Chrome or Pale moon, which is twice as funny as just the wining, because if first browser was built by an advertising company for tracking users and increasing ad efficiency, while the other is nothing but a measely fork, sucking on Firefox codebase and proud of removing a lot of features (websockets anyone? Nah, who needs direct calls from browser, let's all use proprietary Skype), while it is Mozilla that keeps improving JS and HTML rendering engines and yet still keeps all the customizability that was there to begin with.
Re:The Ads Can Be Disabled by hyades1 · 2014-11-10 20:10 · Score: 2

Yeah, and I bet you believed your boyfriend when he said he'd just put the tip in, too. ;-)

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I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Re:The Ads Can Be Disabled by Pi1grim · 2014-11-10 21:09 · Score: 2

I judge by what's been actually done, not by hysteria, that a lot of people like to fuss up around any issue as long as it has trigger words that get them going. They see an article titled "Mozilla adds ads" and they start running around with a sign "The end is nigh" without even familiarizing themselves with the issue and coming up with "ad absurdum" arguments.
Re:The Ads Can Be Disabled by JMJimmy · 2014-11-11 01:59 · Score: 2

I don't want to pay the Mozilla devs. They just like to masturbate their egos rather than fixing huge/serious privacy flaws with sqlite.places, the decay frecancies algorithm, monitoring experiments that have no privacy oversight, etc. Their "privacy team" is supposed to meet once a month - ONCE. Last time I checked it'd been 3-4 months since they actually did it.
Re:The Ads Can Be Disabled by Tony+Isaac · 2014-11-11 02:49 · Score: 2

Kind of like Slashdot.
I used to not disable ads on Slashdot, you know, a site's got to make money somehow. But lately the ads have gotten SO annoying that I have to disable them, just to make the site usable!
Re:The Ads Can Be Disabled by Sir_Eptishous · 2014-11-11 04:46 · Score: 2

Slashdot has ads?

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We play the game with the bravery of being out of range

they are thinking Google has them by the balls by raymorris · 2014-11-10 18:12 · Score: 5, Insightful

> What is Firefox thinking?

I suspect they are thinking that it sure was nice to have Google paying them millions of dollars for so long, but with Chrome already having twice as many users, Google won't need to keep doing that. They've built an organization that has expenses in the hundreds of millions. Close to 90% of that is for using Google as the default search. Right now, Google has the power to make the Mozilla foundation vanish. That means, of course, that Google can exercise power over them just by a vague threat, or even simply expressing displeasure with a Mozilla decision.

Each November the foundation releases their financial statement. When preparing this financial statement and the last one, they must have seen that the reliance on Google is a problem. They made some small deals with other companies, like including Bing as an _option_ users can set as their default search, but the other deals don't come close to covering their expenses. So to stop being completely reliant on Google, they need some other revenue stream. Somebody sketched a proposal for how they could run ads in a fairly unobtrusive way, in a way that doesn't seem sneaky or underhanded, and that revenue could cover their expenses.

I don't want ads in my browser. I think clumsily adding ads to Firefox could backfire in a huge way. I also think it would be stupid for the Firefox devs to NOT be looking at clever ways to include fairly acceptable ads, new ideas on how they could generate ad revenue if needed without pissing everyone off.

It CAN be done, and even without being all too clever. Slashdot users are generally less tolerant of ads than the general population, yet there are ads here. We deal with it in one way or another and those ads make money. If Firefox can find some elegant ways to place ads and avoid being dependent on Google, they would be smart to at least have that _plan_ ready in case Google stops paying.

Again, I don't WANT ads in Firefox. I also don't WANT to die, but I do buy life insurance so my family has some protection if that happens.

Re:they are thinking Google has them by the balls by Microlith · 2014-11-10 19:22 · Score: 2, Interesting

or take Google's money by showing ads from a Google-owned ad network.
And it's not this either, given that they're basically sponsored slots that pretty much only new installs see.

if Mozilla would stop fucking with the interface of Firefox and making it a Chrome clone
It'll only be a Chrome clone when they remove the ability to customize the UI via add-ons.

We have muscle memory and we expect things to work certain ways. Changing it just annoys the user base.
That sounds like the worst reason to slam the brakes on UI improvements. On the other hand, maintaining the flexibility of the add-on system is golden and lets people like me keep the UI pretty much identical to how it was in the 3.x days, rather than whining like a 4year old.
Re:they are thinking Google has them by the balls by serviscope_minor · 2014-11-10 20:04 · Score: 2

Though really, if Mozilla would stop fucking with the interface of Firefox and making it a Chrome clone, perhaps people would stop leaving Firefox.
Yep. I'm sure it has *nothing* to do with one of the most popular websites in the world aggressively advertising chrome at every opportunity.

--
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Re:they are thinking Google has them by the balls by Antique+Geekmeister · 2014-11-11 00:18 · Score: 2

> Firefox existed before it was a huge business and it will still exist if the huge business aspect falls apart.
I'm afraid it's gotten too large to maintain as a normal freeware project. It has too many platforms, with far too much extraneous bloatware that must be tested and operate correctly to run on a normal freeware shoe string.

More like... by denzacar · 2014-11-10 19:00 · Score: 2

Sounds like a case of giving with one hand, and taking with the other!

Advertizing a free handjob, while it is actually a part of a reach-around.

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Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens

Re:duckduckgo by mister_playboy · 2014-11-10 23:49 · Score: 2

DDG's search has become very close in quality to Google's these days, so whatever the reality of their privacy protection claims at least they no longer have reduced functionality compared to the market leader.

They are a worthy competitor on the merits now in a way they were not even 1 year ago.

--
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law ::: Love is the law, love under will

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Mozilla Updates Firefox With Forget Button, DuckDuckGo Search, and Ads

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