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WTF @firefox ?!?! (media.tech.lgbt)

submitted 2 years ago by Frikisada@tech.lgbt to c/firefox@lemmy.ml

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WTF @firefox?!?!

Why am I getting sponsored content on my free browser (and I mean free as in freedom)

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[–] nour@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

If you want to turn it off, go to about:config and toggle browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.showSponsored and browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.showSponsoredTopSites to false (I'm not sure which one does it, but if you don't want sponsorships, I assume you don't want either).

I'm also unhappy about it being on by default... Unfortunately, this is probably the fault of the state of the internet, how modern browser development requires to implement unreasonably many functions, making it impossible to anyone except a corporation like Mozilla — who wants to profit off it. If there was a better alternative, I would switch in an instant, but all the other browsers that have all the functionality I need are Chromium in disguise.

[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 years ago

People always talk about an alternative, but that would require a massive open-source community to come together. And those volunteers willing to work on a massive legacy codebase could just as well be contributing to Firefox, reducing Mozilla's costs and need for ads.

Obviously, some might be more excited to work on a browser without ads, but respective Firefox forks aren't gathering manpower comparable to Mozilla either...

So, yeah, I don't think, hoping for an alternative is useful. We have to make the best out of Firefox.

[–] Frikisada@tech.lgbt 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

@nour don't worry, I found it by going into settings>home page and unchecked sponsored shortcuts

I'm just a bit disappointed because Firefox is one of the few things I trusted to not give me ads constantly, I'm tired at this stage, but there's no better option out there

[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 years ago

Well, the only shareholder of the Mozilla Corporation (which develops Firefox) is the non-profit Mozilla Foundation.

So, the MoCo essentially cannot pay out profits to anyone, meaning those ads directly pay for the wages of the people creating Firefox. No ads would mean fewer employees and less progress.

[–] lionel@lemmy.coupou.fr 6 points 2 years ago

Well, Firefox is free as in freedom but also free as in free beer, the money has to come from somewhere I suppose. At least it doesn't come from selling absolutely everything possible from your data as in other browsers.

[–] ksynwa@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 2 years ago

Free as in freedom does not preclude the possibility of sponsored links.

[–] rk96@lemmy.one 2 points 1 year ago

Because google is responsible for 90% or so og mozillas income, I am also not quite happy about it, but mozilla needs income from something, I assume that they are also not happy with google, that's why they started deploying paid services like a vpn, and firefox relay

[–] RussoBusso@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago

You can turn them off in settings luckily.

[–] sexy_peach@feddit.de 1 points 2 years ago

yeah they have done this for a while, it's bad, but still best browser on the market... Really says something about the market I think.

[–] digidali@feddit.de 1 points 2 years ago

If you pin Google, its okay to serve you ads.

[–] Aria@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I don't mind ads (though I turned them off), to me what makes me upset about these sponsored links is that they feel like they're violating my space. I wasn't communicated clear terms for them.

Are they being downloaded from the internet? I didn't ask you to download ads from the internet. Can they change? Who's responsible for changing them? I don't want Google, Amazon and Adidas to have a direct line of communication with my browser. Is that paranoid? Yeah probably, it's almost certainly updated together with the rest of Firefox, but it wasn't communicated to me, so it feels violating.
I'd sooner accept much larger ads if they looked more static. Mozilla probably feels these look pretty static, but they definitely could look more static.

[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Well, not that easy to pro-actively communicate such things. Randomly throwing a popup at users would be pretty annoying, too.

They do communicate the details here: https://support.mozilla.org/kb/sponsor-privacy

[–] Aria@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 2 years ago

Certainly don't want a pop-up. But the way the layout is designed can help communicate such things. On that same page is a Firefox logo. I really wouldn't read the Firefox logo as something that is dynamically loaded. So what sets that apart from the sponsored links?