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Ads Based On Browsing History Are Coming To All Firefox Users
An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla has announced plans to launch a feature called "Suggested Tiles," which will provide sponsored recommendations to visit certain websites when other websites show up in the user's new tab page. The tiles will begin to show up for beta channel users next week, and the company is asking for feedback. For testing purposes, users will only see Suggested Tiles "promoting Firefox for Android, Firefox Marketplace, and other Mozilla causes." It's not yet known what websites will show up on the tiles when the feature launches later this summer. The company says, "With Suggested Tiles, we want to show the world that it is possible to do relevant advertising and content recommendations while still respecting users’ privacy and giving them control over their data."
https://developer.mozilla.org/...
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"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
How about no? How about some of us don't want advertising? How about you better give a mechanism to disable this crap?
What part of "not interested in your damned ads" is hard to understand?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
How is taking our browser history to serve ads respecting our privacy?
A search suggests they made $311 million in 2012, how much money is actually required to run Mozilla?
Remember when the Netscape web browser cost $40? Remember buying one? Me neither.
Looks like it's time to start uninstalling Firefox across all computers...
The world has changed a lot since then. I would gladly pay $40 for a good browser before I will put up with ads. I use
my browser too much to put up with ads. Luckily, I don't have to as there are still several good free ones.
That's not an answer. Why the fuck would anyone bend over backwards to make Firefox usable when they can just download a different browser?
I'm with OP. Mozilla apparently has a death wish and doesn't give a shit about how they treat their users, so fuck 'em.
Looks like it's time to start uninstalling Firefox across all computers...
Yes, and install Chrome because that won't collect any of your data.
Or, uncheck the option from the menu, which is admittedly much less fun than throwing a total shitfit.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but in this case I have to ask, is there a clandestine effort underway to utterly destroy Firefox, and maybe even Mozilla, from the inside?
It's like every decision made over the past several years has been designed to alienate Firefox's remaining users, without bringing in any new users.
I'm talking of the unwanted UI changes. Then there were the release frequency changes that broke extensions every release for a long time. Then there were more unwanted UI changes, cumulating in the despised Australis UI. Then there was the switch to Yahoo for searches. There were the grid advertisements. Then there was the mandatory HTTPS proposal. Now there's this nonsense. All of this is being done when there are still many bugs to fix, some of them existing for years.
It's just one bad thing after another, even when Firefox users loudly object, and even with Firefox's ever-dropping share of the market.
I'd like to just blame it on ineptitude or incompetence, but these decisions are unbelievable, even in those cases. I just can't get over how obviously terrible so many of these decisions have been.
DRM codecs are a feature, it allows you to access more sites. Some people are out to make software and not always a political statement.
However adding custom adds doesn't seem to help the end user out in any way.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
If you don't like my foot up your ass, I can give you instructions to remove it.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
It's funny how the mobile (Android) versions of both Chrome and Firefox already manage to do this -- I can have 50+ tabs going on my phone and not run out of memory, although some of them will reload when I switch back to them -- but the desktop versions don't.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
You have to remember, Mozilla isn't run by people who understand business. They are just a group of mediocre programmers with short attention spans and no experience.
It's like programmer art. The programmer himself thinks it's pretty good, but any objective viewer will obviously be able to see that it's amateur at best and utter crap at worst.
> The world has changed a lot since then. I would gladly pay $40 for a good browser :-P
Not really - you've just become richer
Comment removed based on user account deletion
...Just look at some of the self-entitled and abusive comments here on Slashdot....
Those comments started out as constructive criticism. However, Mozilla pressed on with their determination to ignore and alienate users.
.
Now Mozilla is getting the criticism they have earned.
Mozilla/Firefox has a problem. A big one. The first step in solving a problem is to identify its cause and not, as you attempt, to blame others for Mozilla's self-inflicted problems.
my 'fix' has been to stop upgrading, about 2 or even more years ago.
yes, it has bugs and probably security issues, but I deal with that instead of dealing with more bullshit from moz.
really - a web browser is a little bit like a flashlight; it has a job to do, its clearly defined and its not hard to solve the problem. I don't need a flashlight with 'accessories' on it or with 'helpful advertising'. I simply need it to work, stay stable and not change every damned time someone has an itch to change-just-for-changes-sake.
I won't give up what I have, but I have stopped upgrading a long time ago.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
More to the point, "but you can change it back" was the excuse for Tabs on Top. Then, the tickbox for tabs on bottom went away. Then, the about:config preference for it went away.
"But you can change it back" was the excuse for when the status bar went away. Then, as of 4.0, you couldn't change it back at all. Someone had to write an extension to undo the UX team's fuckup.
"But you can change it back" was the excuse for Javashit enabled by default. Then, the tickbox in the UI to enable/disable Javashit went away. How long until some UXtard decides Javashit should no longer be disablable even from within about:config?
"But you don't have to install it" was the excuse for DRM/EME. Any takers on how long that remains true?
"But you can change it back" is the thin edge of the wedge; it's how a UXtard tells the userbase that however much you loathe his "elegant" "innovation", someday you won't be able to change it back, because his UX vision is more important than your - the actual user's - experience.
Fuck Asa Dotzler and fuck all his clones.
I don't think you have to come up with that many conspiracy theories, Mozilla's "problem" is that they won. They broke Microsoft's monopoly, made HTML/CSS properly standardized and together with KHTML/WebKit/Blink some 80% use an open source renderer though many use it in a closed source binary. Microsoft would be laughed at if they tried any new proprietary extensions and for the rest the implementation details are all in the open.
I'm talking of the unwanted UI changes. Then there were the release frequency changes that broke extensions every release for a long time. Then there were more unwanted UI changes, cumulating in the despised Australis UI. Then there was the switch to Yahoo for searches. There were the grid advertisements. Then there was the mandatory HTTPS proposal. Now there's this nonsense. All of this is being done when there are still many bugs to fix, some of them existing for years.
Their problem can be summed up in two words: "Now what?" and it turns out they didn't really have any other goal in common than slaying the dragon and now the dragon's dead. Some UX designers get to make an art project. Some cowboy coders thinks more releases is better. Some will do anything to get away from the reliance on their biggest competitor. Some security nuts get to go overboard. Some want to go after Android/Chrome OS with Firefox OS, but this time they're not competing against proprietary and neglected shovelware and barking up a tree Ubuntu has made essentially no progress on.
Let's face it, Mozilla mainly won because Microsoft was trying to keep the web from competing with local applications so they could sell Windows licenses, they got to the head of the pack and grinded it to a halt. They didn't want to compete, they wanted to put a spanner in the works for as long as possible. It annoyed many and gave Firefox enormous amounts of goodwill even when it didn't work properly, out of spite for Microsoft people kept using it and pushing for sites to support it. They don't have a clue on how to compete with someone that puts up a fight, which is their second biggest problem.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings