Mozilla Will Serve Ads Within Tiles Of Its New Tab Pages

I have Pale Moon as Fx's backup browser and its developer wrote he wouldn't implement Australis. But Pale Moon browser is currently using the ESR version and although he has written that he wouldn't introduce Australis in his browser, we will have to see if and how he can do that. Even the ESR version will probably introduce Australis in time. Australis is a complete overhaul of the UI.

 

In regards to these alternative forks, I wonder how much longer they'll keep trying to deal with all the changes. Eventually it might prove too challenging and frustrating, especially when they aren't seeing much if any return on their time investment. I think we're passing the time when it was a matter of editing a few lines of code and sending the next release out.

 

All the code up to this point is open. Even if they close it from this point forward, that code is still available. Any fork that used it can continue in the direction of their choice.

Even if there were no other choices, there's nothing forcing users to adopt the adware versions.

 

Although Moonchild wrote in his forum that he would not introduce Australis, we will have to see if he will/can really stick with it.

PS: I use Pale Moon as a backup browser and love it as well and keep it up-to-date what bookmarks are concerned and have the same bookmarks, extensions and plugins as Fx.

 

Perhaps, but then you deal with the security issues that would eventually come. If I am thinking correctly, current forks don't change/implement any security fixes beyond what Mozilla itself puts in. It would be quite different for the Cyberfox, Pale Moon, etc, devs to start dealing with that instead of sticking to tweaking the unwanted features Mozilla puts in and telling users "Here you go."

You're right though, even if there were no other choices, users aren't forced into the ad versions. Mozilla could simply die off.

 

Unless they unite.

 

True, but they still need the know-how to deal with security issues. I actually think they'd be better off uniting into one single fork regardless. But then ideals and personal preferences might conflict.

 

What I hate is dishonesty. If they said, we want money, here is how we do it, fine. But when they say, user experience and content and such nonsense, it ~ Snipped as per TOS ~ me off.

Make the experience richer and more meaningful - drop that. Call it what it is.

The same with the new download UI. If you go to bugzilla, you will see they changed the download thingie because they couldn't work around its memory problems and startup, and had to rewrite from scratch. I can accept that. But not when they write that it's a new smarter way of managing things and such. I hate when they sugarcoat it with oligophrenia.

Mrk

 

If they came out and said "Guys, our sugar daddy got bored and walked away, so we're gonna track you across the web and annoy the ever loving ~ Snipped as per TOS ~ out of you, kthnxbye"..how quickly do you think faith in them would drop and users flee like someone screamed "Fire!" in a theater? I mean, that's how it would sound and would be taken by plenty of people. It's just marketing 101.

 

I certainly hope that Firefox won't be removing browser.newtab.url in about:config because they've already removed quite a few entries in about:config.

There is the potential to erode the trust that Firefox did build over the years if they go ahead and will serve ads within tiles. Would this only the beginning?

 

First the dumbing down of Firefox and Australis and now this

I recently came across a download page of Firefox where they claim to be the only browser caring about their users, yeah right...

You can change the New tab page so you don't see any advertisement, but that won't stop siphoning your personal data if they decide to use your browser history or whatever to provide targeted advertising:

Nicely said, there is a lot of hypocrisy coming from Mozilla these days.

True, though I discovered that Pale Moon regularly implements security fixes, before they are implemented in Firefox's release version:
http://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3567
And he also backported the new NSS from FF 27 to support TLS 1.2 in Pale Moon.

 

See, I did not know that about PaleMoon. That's good of him/them. I'm still not certain whether these forks will believe it worth it to keep up with ever increasing and faster changes, but we'll of course see in time. Good point about the tab page. Not seeing the ads won't do much if they are doing what normal ads and trackers do. And remember, they already are working on a separate program to do just that using your browsing history.

 

Bad move on their part. I have been threatening to dump Firefox for a while now. This motivated me to try IE 11. Running with 64 bit protected mode on Windows 8.1. All of the add-ons I care about still work. Overall I think I'll keep using it.

 

Moonchild's (Palemoon Dev) thoughts on this, and related thread at PM forum:
http://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3862&sid=5f67c85af87bc54bae05e83d86f4b1ad

 

http://adage.com/article/special-report-iab-annual-meeting/mozilla-sell-ads-firefox/291641/

Only a start eh ?? Are the new users supposed to be a test?

 

See, I'm not getting this. How does a built in ad system only reach "first time users"? That would mean, to me, people who go to the website and download the browser. That means downloading the most current browser..which Firefox automatically updates to each release for current users. Does the thing have some sort of clock built in that shuts off the ads after a while, or is Mozilla going to separate releases until they decide everyone gets ads? Are downloads off the main site going to be bundled with something? I just don't understand how they are planning this.

 

Found something by the product manager at Twitter:https://twitter.com/clarkbw/status/433333066514198528. Check the second image, that looks precisely how Opera and others handle the new tab page. That being said, do notice the lack of what I consider "ads". That one is still a mystery.

 

I'm hoping this will be something that we can toggle off in about:config or block using conventional ad-blocking methods. Otherwise, I expect Mozilla is going to see an uproar or mass exodus. Wish I knew why they insist on fixing something that isn't broken. The current firefox is fine as it is. We don't need options disappearing from the options menu, redesigning the browser interface with australis, etc. Honestly, do we need to bring back public stoning to enforce tradition.

 

Perhaps we should be focusing on "Mozilla sees 100 billion tile impressions in the U.S. alone each year". I'm inclined to assume that is an estimate that Mozilla deems achievable within a few years and one that is based on somewhat specific plans regarding how the ad tiles will be handled.

I can't find a good stats page to use for such purposes. However, I spot a potentially useful "450 Million Firefox users worldwide" figure in several places. Just for fun, if we go 100 Billion tile impressions / 450 Million users we'd get approx 222 tile impressions/user each year but across the world. I don't see how even this could be achieved if the ad tiles were quickly replaced with thumbnails of sites the user visits.

If we were to assume that 20% of 320 Million US resident population were exposed to the tile impressions each year, we'd get approx 1,563 tile impressions/year/user in the US alone. Which smells to me like full-time advertising in the tiles page.

 

Techwiz, there's no way to say for sure yet, but it looks like Mozilla isn't expecting a renewal of their Google contract. That or they are slowly drifting in a different direction than when they started, much like their current sugar daddy Google.

TheWindBringeth, perhaps the plan is to occasionally switch out a previously viewed thumbnail with an ad as the day goes on. Or, perhaps they'll "lock" a tile or two to be permanent homes for said ads. I'm going to hop over to the forums of ABP and see if there has been any talk over there of what ABP might do if anything.

**Edit** Nada over there about it thus far, which is surprising.

 

The Adblock Plus forums are being censored. Besides, they're currently dealing with their own crisis back in Germany:

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=2340049&postcount=261

 

It's never been away. As for enforcing tradition, not a good idea. The Mozilla Foundation used to be transparent and accountable. With Google, Australis and Ad Tiles it is becoming increasingly clear that they no longer are. We will not likely see Mozilla return to their freshly discarded principles anytime soon. What is needed now is an open source browser project that is big enough to compete, both in terms of economies of scale and community support.

 

I don't even want to start that in this thread. The other one is filled enough with the same complaint and argument over and over.

 

It would seem all of this is contrary to Mozilla's Manifesto -
http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/

 

Possibly. Another thought has occurred to me... that the "Directory Tiles" could persist through use and/or purposeful pinning. That "after" twittered image (http://cl.ly/image/3I172o2f202k) is quite similar to the way some people want their New Tab Page to look (http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/new-tab-browser-addons/). Vanilla tiles, with just a logo, have their place. Particularly on small/touch devices I would expect. If "popular website X" directory tile were pushed out to users and they use/keep it and every time it is displayed to them is countered as an impression, such impression counts would add up fast.

My gut says not to trust that this will be/remain so innocent and unoffensive. Touched upon here...

http://www.clickz.com/clickz/news/2328539/mozilla-finally-embraces-ads

I hope I'm wrong.