Magic Oddball writes:
"Mozilla's new VP of Content posted an announcement to his blog stating that sometime in the presumably-near future, "sponsored content" will begin appearing in the unused tiles on Firefox's New Tab Page. It will be rolled out first to desktop Firefox, then mobile and FirefoxOS. AdAge: "Mozilla hasn't made a final decision on how to treat third-party tracking technologies, but Mr. Herman said it is investigating solutions such as unique identifiers from Apple and Google as well as other third parties."
DigitalTrends pointed out, "if the scheme proves lucrative, it may be hard to resist rolling them out to all users in some shape or form" and TechCrunch feels it's a trial 'to see how users react before pushing promoted tiles to all users in their new tab pages.'"
Related Stories
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Microsoft reckons its forthcoming Azure Stack on-premises cloud needs a special breed of sysadmin to keep it humming.
The company describes that worthy as a " Azure Stack Operator" and says they will be "Responsible for operating Azure Stack infrastructure end-to-end – planning, deployment and integration, packaging and offering cloud resources and requested services on the infrastructure."
[...] True to form, Microsoft will try to monetize these roles: it's flagged a new five-day course titled "Configuring and Operating a Hybrid Cloud with Microsoft Azure Stack" that will debut on September 18th. When, presumably, we'll also learn what it costs to become an Azure Stack Operator and how quickly the certification will expire. ®
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Tork on Monday March 24 2014, @08:14PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 24 2014, @09:04PM
For some reason, these tiles appear to fetch pages with javascript enabled even if it's disabled in browser prefs. That's already a problem.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Tork on Monday March 24 2014, @09:29PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1) by cockroach on Monday March 24 2014, @10:18PM
Well that's dumb. Any idea whether noscript helps?
(Score: 1) by zosden on Monday March 24 2014, @09:30PM
I would assume you would pay money to Mozilla to get your ad up there and it would go through a review process
When I'm walking I worry a lot about the efficiency of my path ~ Randall
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bob_super on Monday March 24 2014, @08:19PM
I smell decay and rotting.
I use firefox because it's not made by google or Microsoft. Start shoving even more ads than the web already contains and I'll just forget to advise my family to use it.
Ads on a webpage are one thing. Anybody (besides my ISP) who tries to monetize all my browsing, when there are alternatives who don't, will get the boot. Google may well be doing it, but they've had to go around noscript/adblock/ghostery first.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by buswolley on Monday March 24 2014, @09:27PM
Yes. Except the browser was built by the Mozilla foundation on donations.
This is a sign that their donations are not sufficient to allow them to compete.
subicular junctures
(Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Monday March 24 2014, @09:55PM
Possibly.
This is the "VP of Content".
It would be like hiring a rapist and getting all shocked when you find him raping the intern in the conference room.
Was it too hot in the room? Break room out of coffee? No, he was just a rapist.
The only thing marketers sit around and do is try to bring monetization to areas that don't have it with the hopes that they will have found something incredibly lucrative so they can get rich.
For a marketer, they only know they are really doing their jobs well when the wheels are well lubricated with the tears of frustration from the consumers they exploit.
I wouldn't have expected anything less from a VP of "Content"
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1) by halcyon1234 on Tuesday March 25 2014, @03:54PM
Original Submission [thedailywtf.com]
(Score: 1) by Alphatool on Tuesday March 25 2014, @03:37AM
I think that your nose might be miscalibrated on this one. Mozilla has been dependent on financial support from Google (in the form of search refer payments) for a long time, and this is a good move to reduce that dependence. It is also being done in a way that won't be visible 99% of the time, and might be useful for the 1% of the time that it is. All things considered I'm finding it hard to get upset about this.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by TheGratefulNet on Monday March 24 2014, @08:20PM
I won't touch chrome or anything google based.
what the hell does this leave us, now? I love the plugin arch. of FF but I'm liking FF less and less these days. I had my adblockers all setup and working nicely. then, mozilla auto-'updated' me and I lost what I had and had to redo things all over again. their update was not benign and it costed me real time to restore things to how I had them before. I now disable all updates for FF and their plugins. the 'cure' is worse than any disease I can get online.
why must everyone always be thinking of 'how can we monetize things EVEN MORE?'. aren't FF getting ENOUGH money from google to stay the fuck out of our hair? I guess not.
the FF guys are now no better than the MS or apple guys. time to switch. but to what? lynx++ ??
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 2) by bucc5062 on Monday March 24 2014, @08:28PM
There is Internet Explorer...kidding...really...although...
Opera seems like the next option down the line, or Safari though I've not sure how extensions/add on are on those browsers.
What is strange is will they be disabling ad block plus (or blockers) for it seems to me that unless t hey do, any one running that would still get blank page displays on the new tab. Now if they work around that....yikes.
Chrome still may be the better bet. There are some extensions to limit tracking and if I am to be a servant, then google still seems(?) like a benevolent moocher. As I run adBlock Plus, the day I see ads in FF like that, that is the day I drop it for good. As is, it regularly crashes my Linux Mint system at home.
The more things change, the more they look the same
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Reziac on Tuesday March 25 2014, @02:58AM
I tried Chrome and promptly wished to do horrible things to Google's developers. "Hated it" doesn't begin to express it.
Right now I use the pre-Firefox fork SeaMonkey (with PrefBar and NoScript), and sincerely hope it doesn't go down this same misguided path.
I do predict that this will generate another major fork of Firefox.
[And yet another reason why I keep old browser versions, rather than uninstalling them.]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by pshuke on Monday March 24 2014, @08:28PM
I figure forks and semi-forks like IceCat will still be around to make more sensible choices than Mozilla does. Otherwise it's w3m for me.
(Score: 1) by guises on Tuesday March 25 2014, @08:37PM
I use Pale Moon, a Firefox fork that I rather like. Even if that stops being an option, there's always Konqueror - no need to give up on the graphical web entirely.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Monday March 24 2014, @09:50PM
Chrome really is a superior browser though. I have to use IE/Firefox/Chrome/Safari/Opera every day to make sure there are no bugs and a relatively consistent browsing experience.
Chrome has been by far the most stable, most responsive, and also, the most correct rendering engine.
I understand the resistance towards Chrome completely, which is why there is the alternative: Chromium.
All the good parts of Chrome and none of the tracking bullshit.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by TK on Wednesday March 26 2014, @01:15PM
Does Chrome/Chromium have noscript (or a clone) yet? That's kind of a sticking point for a lot of people here.
The fleas have smaller fleas, upon their backs to bite them, and those fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum
(Score: 2, Informative) by Teckla on Monday March 24 2014, @09:56PM
Have you considered trying Chromium? [chromium.org]
(Score: 1) by The Archon V2.0 on Tuesday March 25 2014, @02:47AM
I've been liking the Comodo-made variants on Chrome and Firefox, though I haven't done any sort of security audit of 'em or anything.
http://www.comodo.com/home/browsers-toolbars/icedr agon-browser.php [comodo.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by tangomargarine on Monday March 24 2014, @08:22PM
Guess I'll be switching to SeaMonkey when the new and "improved" Firefox interface drops.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mrbluze on Monday March 24 2014, @08:26PM
Agreed. Nothing worse than drive-by downloads built into your browser. What on earth are they thinking?!
Do it yourself, 'cause no one else will do it yourself.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 24 2014, @08:30PM
Yeah I turned that crap off already. It was actually semi annoying. about:config->browser.newtab.url -> yourfavoritestartpagehere... I use google as that is what I am usually opening a new tab for anyway...
(Score: 2) by tibman on Monday March 24 2014, @08:27PM
There is a little button that looks like a grid top-right that turns all the panels off. You won't see any ads.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 1) by Tork on Monday March 24 2014, @08:37PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by tibman on Tuesday March 25 2014, @12:24AM
lol, no idea man. That's how it currently works but could certainly change in the future. Something else to note is that noscript and requestpolicy are currently affecting the about:newtab page.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday March 25 2014, @03:00AM
Does the OFF button just prevent them from displaying, or actually prevent them from loading? Cuz if they still load -- as someone else pointed out above, apparently there is a problem with them bypassing user settings.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by Taibhsear on Tuesday March 25 2014, @06:30PM
Once this is implemented will that button still be there? If so and I turn off the panels will the ad software still load in the background when I'm not looking at it?
(Score: 2) by tibman on Tuesday March 25 2014, @08:05PM
I'm sorry, i do not know (not affiliated with Mozilla in any way). I just use Firefox : ) If a dev build comes out with ads on the newtab page we can probably get another story posted about it.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by d on Monday March 24 2014, @08:29PM
As the comment title says - I don't like the change either, but I understand and accept it. So, I'd like to ask you commenters the question - who here understands that leaving Firefox isn't going to help it any little and unless we donate, they're basically free to include advertisements to keep their huge codebase alive, free as in freedom?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Monday March 24 2014, @08:41PM
You really think donating more will mean they decide not to include ads anyway?
But since they're busily turning FF into Chrome, they've pretty much gone off the deep end. Rats, sinking ship, etc. It was a bad sign when they added facebook and Twatter compatibility code awhile back, and it's been downhill since.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 24 2014, @08:47PM
The trouble is, they're also free to include advertisements even if we do donate.
The advantage of Firefox for me was always the plug-ins, which let me do things like block ads and stop flash. This made the free Firefox better than the free IE which came with my machine.
Now the free IE has a working adblock (same folks that make the Firefox adblock). Firefox keeps changing the UI in annoying ways, and already has annoyed me enough to make me switch to a Mozilla fork rather than use straight Firefox.
So... why should I pay to keep Firefox from getting more annoying, when it's already about par with IE (which I've already kind of paid for)? Especially when the Firefox developers proved willing to ignore the vast number of users who have decried their UI changes? Why should they suddenly start listening now?
At least with IE, I expect the pain. Firefox started as a solution to IE... now it's just moving the pain to a slightly different place.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by d on Monday March 24 2014, @08:59PM
And here's my second thought - why hadn't anyone thought of just maintaining a fork of the program?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 25 2014, @02:49AM
a fork[...]?
Iceweasel? IceCat? Abrowser?
(Swiftfox development stopped at 3.6.x.)
(Using the suite here since 2002.)
-- gewg_
(Score: 2, Insightful) by TheGratefulNet on Tuesday March 25 2014, @01:41AM
I'm not donating to mozilla. they already get MORE than they need from google.
yes, google bankrolls them.
and so, this is probably google's doing, under the covers.
mozilla has sold out. we knew it would happen someday. everything grows in size, then they become evil. mozilla is well on its way to being evil.
time to try one of the forks. if the forks suck, I'll have to try a spoon, then.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 1) by DECbot on Monday March 24 2014, @08:34PM
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2, Funny) by gishzida on Monday March 24 2014, @08:45PM
Where's the LaminatorX option?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 24 2014, @09:10PM
Needs a "going back to gopher" option.
(Score: 2) by buswolley on Monday March 24 2014, @09:31PM
How about, "I will continue to to use 3-5 different browsers, randomly chosen at each session"
subicular junctures
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 24 2014, @09:40PM
Is the redundancy supposed to be a joke? For the love of all that is sane... either use what some now regard as "best practise" and use sudo or ditch it and use su. Recalling a time when there was a vulnerability announcement on the program every other week, I've never installed or used sudo on my personal machines.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 28 2014, @11:22AM
What, you use su? That is foolish, delete it ASAP, you never know what can happen. Just use ssh root@localhost instead.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 24 2014, @10:37PM
I use Sleipnir you insensitive clod
(Score: 2) by TK on Wednesday March 26 2014, @01:22PM
Needs another option, roughly:
I'll make my own fork, with blackjack and hookers.
Maybe it could be called AltFireFox, or SoylentFox...
The fleas have smaller fleas, upon their backs to bite them, and those fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 24 2014, @09:42PM
I am now commenting with Midori.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 24 2014, @09:57PM
I don't allow crap like this on my machine.
And if you are smart you won't either.
Enough said.
(Score: 1) by cockroach on Monday March 24 2014, @10:14PM
Good thing Firefox is free software then, it should be rather trivial to remove those ads.
Also makes me wonder whether adblock works there.
(Score: 2) by TK on Wednesday March 26 2014, @01:30PM
I could see a website devoted to nothing but taking the latest version of FF, stripping out the code that points to external ads and replacing it with whatever is in there now, recompiling for all systems, and sharing them via bit torrent.
Ironically, I would donate to a site that did that.
The fleas have smaller fleas, upon their backs to bite them, and those fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum
(Score: 2, Insightful) by panachocala on Monday March 24 2014, @11:48PM
They're starting to reach the threshold.
I wish they'd make a "classic" option. Shit this is like deja vu! They need to delete all the crud off the bookmarks menu... unsorted, toolbar, recent, subscribe blah blah blah. And the Flash blocking is not very good - it should be an icon on the blocked component.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 25 2014, @12:22AM
Perhaps Mozilla could start offering a pay version of Firefox. I know I would be willing to pay to not see ads built into my browser.