this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2024
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Despite its emphasis on protecting privacy, Mozilla is moving towards integrating ads, backed by new infrastructure from their acquisition of Anonym. They claim this will maintain a balance between user control and online ad economics, using privacy-preserving tech. However, this shift appears to contradict Mozilla's earlier stance of protecting users from invasive advertising practices, and it signals a change in their priorities.

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[–] zurohki@aussie.zone 51 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

I'm not interested in my computer striking a balance between my needs and the needs of people seeking to manipulate me into buying things.

I paid for my computer, it serves my needs. Yes I do run Linux, how did you guess?

[–] sunbeam60@lemmy.one 5 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

But that isn’t the balance that’s being struck. Mozilla is trying to balance between useful services being available for free and people’s right to privacy. If you’re using any websites that has staff employed, they’re more likely than not being paid for by advertising.

[–] savedbythezsh@sh.itjust.works 1 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Honestly, despite the crypto, good on Brave browser for trying to subvert the advertising model by providing an actual monetization alternative

[–] RedditWanderer@lemmy.world 6 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

What does this even mean? Brave didnt find something to "subvert the advertising model", they have a subscription lol. Mozilla is trying to keep its browser free and safe, especially now that it's losing its billion dollar google funding.

[–] LWD@lemm.ee 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

You haven't heard about the Brave ads that let you slowly accumulate tokens that you can then use to tip creators or websites? I'm not saying it was a good plan, or an ethical plan, but it was... You know, something.

Unlike what Mozilla did, Brave didn't enable this by default, but they heavily marketed it as a feature.

If Mozilla implemented some kind of tipping system, that could be interesting. Apparently, such a system already could exist under GNU Taler too.

[–] lime@feddit.nu 2 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

brave also used it to scam people by taking tips for creators who weren't on the platform. if the creator never signed up, they kept that money.

and they had an adblocker that replaced ads with their own, making the browser money instead of the site.

they have actively contributed to making the web worse. saying "at least they're doing something" is like praising the hard work and entrepreneurial spirit of a mugger.

[–] LWD@lemm.ee 1 points 5 hours ago

You're 100% right about Brave being scummy.

And I hope my point didn't come across as a defensd of Brave, but rather, "how is it that Mozilla is doing this thing in a worse way than a company that is infamously disreputable?"

[–] savedbythezsh@sh.itjust.works 0 points 4 hours ago

Brave can make micro payments to content creators based on the number of views to the site, directly supporting content creators without ads or the need to join the patreon for each creator. It's a fully optional system, off by default but prompted upon opening the browser for the first time. It's a cool idea but they kind of spoiled it by making it be a crypto wallet with ads to earn the crypto.

Also, Brave doesn't have a subscription...?