Mozilla plans to sell ads in Firefox browser

[bill]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/12/mozilla-advertising-idUSL2N0LH14920140212 [reuters.com]

Mozilla plans to sell ads in Firefox browser

The company said in a blog posting on Tuesday that it has reached out to potential corporate sponsors about its fledgling "Directory Tiles" program, targeted at first-time users.

Novice Firefox users now see nine blank tiles when they open up the browser, which fill in over time with their most-visited or recently visited websites. Now, Mozilla intends to display the most popular sites by location, as well as sponsored websites that will be clearly labeled as such.

I've already heard people saying they were going to drop FF because of this. Are they overreacting?

[roshaoar]

It's a personal choice, but very few people love ads, myself included.

[Angonasec]

It will be interesting to observe how the tension between FF and the Adsense (ad-blocker) add-on develops :)

I use old FF primarily because of its superior ad-blocking to old Safari.

Secondarily, because being retro you avoid new "features" such as this twaddle.

[blend27]

FF is a great and useful tool. Oh, Did You hear that Mo?

"corporate sponsors".... that is like saying "I dolt cale any mole, or "lez be frienz or sone-sing".

[drhowarddrfine]

Anybody dropping FF over this is insane.

1) The ads are only on the new tab page.
2) They are only there for new users
3) They disappear after you develop a browser history (about 30 days)
4) Who lives on the "new tab" page?
5) It gains a not-for-profit organization that gives you one of the best browsers in the world some money to pay for development.

This talk is all insane.

[piatkow]

As long as you don't loose the ability to default a new tab to your regular home page I can't say that I care.

[blend27]

They are only there for new users

Why?

[brotherhood of LAN]

The majority of Mozilla's revenue is from Google and the search bar, this is a good way for the browser maker to be less reliant on one revenue source.

[engine]

New users! Clear your cookies and you may be seen as a new user.

They have to fund the operation somehow. This could just be testing the waters to gauge the reaction.

I doubt i'd drop FF just because of this.

[dstiles]

I long ago turned off that page anyway. You have to edit the about:config file but it's worth it in my view. There was originally concern over that page showing sensitive https pages (eg banks) but I'm not sure that's relevant.

My "home" page is a list of my own web sites, to simplify my access to them, but a similar page could be made for anyone.

[incrediBILL]

I would gladly pay Firefox an annual maintenance fee if they're strapped for cash, I'd prefer to see the users take control of this before I'll agree to installing anything with advertising.

If you can't turn it off, I'll dump Firefox like a hot potato.

It's the same reason I've dropped many of my past faves, like YIM! when they started popping up a full page thing on my screen I didn't even bother looking to see if I could turn it off. I installed OpenFire on my own server Pidgin on my desktop, and now run my own ad free chat service to chat with my wife and friends from my computer. I'm down with XMPP, yeah, you know me! But I digress.

There are other browser options out there, including branches of Firefox that don't have all the nonsense that comes with Firefox already.

Don't make me use them, cause I will!

FWIW, Firefox is OPEN SOURCE - if you don't like it, just download it and change it.

[4serendipity]

This talk is all insane.

I agree. Development money has to come from somewhere. Advertisements are a fairly transparent way to generate revenue.

[lucy24]

Clear your cookies and you may be seen as a new user.

Clear your history, I'd think?

I can't stand those "tile" things. Just give me a blank page. And I disliked them even more vigorously after I learned that those thumbnails aren't simply pulled from your cache. They represent nine separate full requests that will show up in the target site's logs looking exactly like human visits.

[blend27]

about:config

Doesn't that get overwritten every time we go to Help/About Firefox, Soft gets downloaded forcefully making you install new version and forces little me to restart FF?

Mozilla's revenue is from Google.

Just for kickers...
about:config >> goog

urlclassifier.keyupdatetime.https://sb-ssl.google.com/safebrowsing/newkey >> what do you think that is?

[brotherhood of LAN]

>urlclassifier.keyupdatetime.https://sb-ssl.google.com/safebrowsing/newkey >> what do you think that is?

It's a list of URLs for safe browsing that Google maintains, to indicate phishing/hacked sites. Google provides a public API to that list.

[tangor]

As long as about:config continues to allow full customization of FF features, such as turning the New Tab (tiles) off... I'll hang in there.

[graeme_p]

Doesn't that get overwritten every time we go to Help/About Firefox

No

If you can't turn it off, I'll dump Firefox like a hot potato.

Unlikely, and even if it cannot be turned off extensions or alternate builds will fix that.

[EditorialGuy]

It's a clever idea, and it isn't really intrusive, so why not? I just wonder how much revenue it would bring in. (Probably not as much as the FF people might hope.)

[dstiles]

> URLs for safe browsing

I've turned that off. I'm fairly safe anyway and I object to google setting cookies for it.

about:config - stays as I set it right through updates. Occasionally I go into it to change newly-created settings but the old ones remain as I set them.

New Tab Page - in about:config set...
browser.newtabpage.enabled false

Not sure if that will also fix the adverts but I'm sure it will become obvious.

[Dominic_X]

Firefox is my default and vastly preferred browser.

I could care less is there are ads. I just want the best quality browser.

The fact that they are a non-profit means even more. That means no-one can take money out of the outfit other than wages..... integrity all over the place.

If a non-profit needs to raise funds via ads, it's a reality of their operating conditions.

I'll continue to use and strongly recommend Firefox to all my contacts.

[dp2web]

I prefer Firefox over all other browsers, IE, Chrome, Safari, etc. If a non-profit company looking for advertisement to raise funds, it's a reality of their operating conditions. WikiPedia is a good Example in this domain.

[goodoldweb]

Firfox who?... try 'Iron Browser' and forget the rest. It's an open source browser with chrome under the hood (but without all the Google BS). A very fast and slick browser... the best currently out there IMO.

[dstiles]

Iron Browser ... chrome under the hood - So it's based on applewebkit? Not the best choice of engines, from a security viewpoint. Well-known for exploits.

[goodoldweb]

Well I've been using it for almost 2 years now (over more then 7 laptops/pcs) with Zero exploits.

It is as secure as chrome is.

[lucy24]

I will continue using Camino ("Firefox Lite") for as long as I can. Among other things it's got the world's best ad blocker. So good, in fact, that I had to tweak some of my ebooks because it was quietly eating the publisher's advertising section :) OK, so <div class = "ads"> won't work as a name...

[graeme_p]

No other browser can match Firefox extensions.

A few examples:

Tree style tabs
Its all Text
Seld destructing cookies
Certificate patrol
SQLite manager

the last is the good example of why FF is so flexible - it includes XUL Runner which can be used to run standalone apps. You can get a media player (Songbird/Nightingale) and IDE (Komodo IDE), a sketching app (Pencil) all of which are written using XUL runner and can be run as stand alone apps.

[incrediBILL]

Unlikely

Not for me.

Just a little push and I'm a full blown Chrome user.

Wouldn't be my preference, but I have my limits.

Maybe we should all head to the FF donate page and see if we can't potentially stave off this nasty turn of events?

[dstiles]

> It is as secure as chrome is.

Which isn't very. Although not a user, I think MSIE 10/11 are probably safer.

[goodoldweb]

Although not a user, I think MSIE 10/11 are probably safer.

You "think"?

Care to provide some stats or real life examples to back your "thoughts"...lol

[dstiles]

It's an impression gleaned from reports on threat sites. Applewebkit seems to have more exploits, especially G chrome. But,as I said, an impression that MSIE is PROBABLY safer. Certainly Firefox is, given very little extra attention.