this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2024
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Privacy

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Mozilla doubling down on ads in Firefox (blog.mozilla.org)
submitted 17 hours ago by Blizzard@lemmy.zip to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
46 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/23894598

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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[–] BumpingFuglies@lemmy.zip 3 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 minutes ago) (1 children)

~~Yet another Mozilla hit piece that seemingly-intentionally misrepresents the good they're doing for users.~~

It begs the question: who has the means and motivation to consistently pay "journalists" to malign the only browser that has the slightest chance of tearing any significant amount of users away from chromium-based browsers?

EDIT: Turns out the answer to my question above might, in fact, be OP! They wrote a patently false, inflammatory title that isn't supported by the article (or reality) at all, and I fell for it like a sucker.

[–] felsiq@lemmy.zip 4 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

…did we read two different articles? The only link I see is to Mozilla’s own blog, explaining their choices in a relatively positive way. I’ve seen the effect you pointed out a lot, I just don’t see it here.

[–] BumpingFuglies@lemmy.zip 1 points 20 minutes ago* (last edited 14 minutes ago)

Nope; you read an article, and I just reacted to comments on Lemmy, assuming that those commenting had read the article.

If I'd simply opened the link, I'd've seen it was on mozilla.org and would've realized it was just that the OP made a shitty clickbait title, not another Mozilla hit piece.

Shame on you, OP! Also shame on me.

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 hours ago

I guess the hit piece is just the title OP put on the post.

[–] refalo@programming.dev 12 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

69% of the world population doesn't use ad blockers. Google made their billions from people clicking on ads.

Not only are we technical folks, only 5% of the population, not their target audience, it seems most people don't care enough about ads to ever try to stop them... at all.

[–] Blizzard@lemmy.zip 8 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

69%

Nice.

[–] yikerman@lemmy.world 5 points 7 hours ago

I installed local-network-wide DNS adblockers. After the change my mother found me and asked me why she couldn’t see the ads: she needed the ads and were enjoying them.

[–] WhiteOakBayou@lemmy.world 4 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

That's really nuts to me when I run into it in the wild. It's so easy and such a qol upgrade. I know a guy who self hosts a bunch of services, programming job, but does not use any ad block at all. He's on the computer all day. Just looking at ads.

[–] refalo@programming.dev 2 points 8 hours ago

such a qol upgrade

I don't think you're wrong, but I do think that if everyone thought that, they would be doing it already.

I have routinely tried to get friends and family to use ad-blockers and they simply don't care enough to even attempt to download one.

[–] sabreW4K3@lazysoci.al 72 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

A bit disingenuous to call explaining what they're doing as doubling down.

[–] parpol@programming.dev 69 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

Also disingeneous to call it adding ads to firefox, because that's also not what is happening. They're trying to replace cookies with something better for our privacy, and them developing this feature will not impact any users who block ads or disable tracking cookies already.

I think they should go ahead and make the feature so that people who don't care about ads at least don't get tracked.

[–] jjlinux@lemmy.ml 8 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (2 children)

They are not trying to "replace" cookies. This is effectively adding yet another way to track users. Sure, may not be as invasive as cookies, but this does nothing to remove or modify them either.

Then there's the fact thay they deployed this behind the scenes and did not mention it until they were called out.

This comment alone:

"As part of this work, we are also committing to being transparent and open about our intent and plans prior to launching tests or features."

... means they have no intention to be honest about shit.

[–] parpol@programming.dev 12 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

It doesn't track users. It collects anonymous statistics and assign them to a unique ID without storing any other information about the user.

And it IS meant to replace cookies, but you can't just replace them all at once and disable the legacy cookies. It is going to have a gradual transition.

And they did tell us about this many months ago.

[–] tiddy@sh.itjust.works 7 points 8 hours ago

I hate to say but technically collecting statistics is non-anonymous identifiable tracking, especially in this age where theres so many datasets companies can coorelate them to

[–] BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 3 points 7 hours ago

Hahaha, because data can never be de-anonymised, right?

Oh, yea, that's repeatedly been show to not be true.

[–] BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 1 points 7 hours ago

Didn't we go through all this like a month ago?

Why are people still excusing Mozilla for this?

[–] LWD@lemm.ee 2 points 8 hours ago

disingeneous to call it adding ads

Who called it adding

[–] ArbiterXero@lemmy.world 38 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Gotta pay the bills somehow, and I’m just happy they care about privacy.

[–] pipariturbiini@sopuli.xyz 54 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (4 children)

I dislike ads as much as the next person, and find uBlock Origin necessary for browsing the web, but the cold fact is that the internet is run with advertising, whether you like it or not.

If that is done without creating a profile on me, and without crippling the reading/viewing experience, I can tolerate advertisement.

I assume this is also an action towards becoming independent from Google funding; which is a good thing.

[–] mnmalst@lemmy.zip 15 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Happy to see some sane comments here. Couldn't have said it better. You can hate ads and still keep a foot in reality.

[–] Lexam@lemmy.ca 4 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

I choose to keep both feet firmly planted in unreality.

[–] sneezycat@sopuli.xyz 7 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

If ads are necessary for the internet, I'm going back to reading books. It was fun y'all.

[–] parpol@programming.dev 1 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

They put ads in books too, unfortunately. The internet ones you can block.

[–] TurtleTourParty@midwest.social 3 points 8 hours ago

Book ads are at least usually at the end of the book and for other books you might want to read. And they're static. If internet ads were like book ads I wouldn't have to block them.

[–] XTL@sopuli.xyz 4 points 11 hours ago

[–] kylian0087@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

I absolute despise ads but they are a necessary evil, it can be implemented well if it is not done intrusive and doesn't take up more space then the content it self. Also if it are mostly scam ads and such they might as well not have ads at all.

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 12 points 15 hours ago (3 children)

The internet is run with egress contracts. The web is run with ads.

[–] the_post_of_tom_joad@sh.itjust.works 6 points 13 hours ago

?? What? Bird law got nothin to do with the web you crazy

[–] NateNate60@lemmy.world 6 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Okay bud. Have a biscuit 🍪

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

Yay :)

[–] BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 0 points 7 hours ago

Fuck ads.

You're lying to yourself if you think ads will ever be delivered without tracking.

This whole "anonymization" nonsense is a lie. It's been shown, repeatedly, that data can be de-anonymised, especially data that's not exactly narrowly collected.

[–] fireshell@lemmy.ml 5 points 9 hours ago

I can already see a crowd of advertisers running to them for the remaining 3% of its users.

[–] flappy@lemm.ee 3 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

So banning ublock origin lite from the addon store was malice, after all?

That means they will drop MV2 as soon as Chrome ends the business/legacy support, since they were the alternative.

[–] disguised_doge@kbin.earth 18 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

I think the ublock origin lite thing was a legitimate mistake, though I understand Mozilla's depleting benefit of the doubt.

[–] melroy@kbin.melroy.org 6 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

THe developer also don't want to develop uBLock Origin Lite. Mozilla is sucking all energy out of people.

[–] ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org 3 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

of course they don't want, it's such an inferior addon that it's almost useless for privacy. it's little besides just visually hiding ads. but that's the best that can be done on chrome

[–] melroy@kbin.melroy.org 3 points 9 hours ago

uh.. no... The add-on was also developed for Firefox, which still have Manifest V2. Because of the headache of Mozilla, Hill decided to stop development for Mozilla and only release the latest (signed) add-on via github, without further updates. The developer just makes a statement that it's getting so worse to develop for Firefox that he just doesn't do it anymore.

https://www.ghacks.net/2024/10/01/mozillas-massive-lapse-in-judgement-causes-clash-with-ublock-origin-developer/

[–] melroy@kbin.melroy.org 1 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

I'm very happy that I moved to Floorp.

[–] Blizzard@lemmy.zip 7 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

No idea what's that but it sounds... sticky.

[–] CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 2 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

Here ya go! it's a Japanese fork of FF that's more focused on privacy. I prefer Librewolf personally but it's good to have options I guess.

[–] clb92@feddit.dk 1 points 3 hours ago

I just... I... I can't install a browser that's called "Floorp". I just cant. I wouldn't be able to look another person in the eyes and tell them that "I use floorp". It's probably a perfectly good fork of Firefox, but I just can't.