I always found the denials of this to be bizarre:
Given the intrusive nature of government surveillance, Mozilla—with its dedication to privacy and independence from corporate and government interests—should be more vital than ever. But in the age of social media and mobile devices, it has struggled to maintain relevance and failed to transition to a world where the desktop browser is fading in importance. Mozilla hasn't even dented the mobile market with mobile versions of its browser or its Firefox OS smartphone operating system. And the organization has done little to counteract Facebook's expanding influence. What's more, its foothold on the desktop continues to slip as Google Chrome grows in popularity.
[...] The good news is Mozilla has found some partnerships to supplement its search revenue. For example, the company quietly integrated the "read-it-later" service Pocket into Firefox along with a video conferencing feature powered by European telco Telefonica earlier this year. Although the company emphasizes that Pocket and Telefonica didn't pay for placement in the Firefox browser, Mozilla Corp. chief legal and business officer Denelle Dixon-Thayer told WIRED that Mozilla has revenue sharing arrangements with both companies.
takyon: Mozilla retires Firefox's sponsored tiles, hunts for new revenue streams
Previously: Mozilla Integrates Proprietary Pocket Plugin
Warning - Firefox Has You in the Pocket
Related Stories
Over at ghacks, Martin Brinkmann writes:
Mozilla has added Pocket, a third-party "save for later" service, to Firefox Beta (and other development channels of the browser).
This is based on the proprietary former addon pocket, which is now no longer supported since it is being integrated.
It's only the beta channel, but this has all the hallmarks of a half-baked revenue stream for Mozilla that ultimately sells out user privacy - and what's worse, is opt-out, rather than opt-in.
Sponsored tiles on the new tab page, changing default search settings during updates, surrendering on DRM, and now this... Mozilla keeps finding ways to make it hard to stay a supporter. Here's hoping they hear some feedback on this decision before it gets out of beta!
What are the best available browser options for users wanting to protect their privacy as much as possible, as well as run a bloat-free browser? Pale Moon? Midori?
Julien Voisin blogs:
Today, I updated my Firefox, and had a new icon on my toolbar: pocket. I took at quick look at the ToS and privacy policy; here is my tl;dr:
Read it Later, Inc. is collecting a lot of intimate information and is tracking you.
When you share something through Pocket with a friend, the emails contains spying material using malware-like techniques to track your friends.
They are sharing those information with trusted third parties (Could be anyone they are doing business with.).
The policy might change, and it's your responsibility to check Pocket's website to see if it has.
[...] The Pocket implementation is not an extension (while it was available as an extension), it's implemented in Firefox. You can not remove it, only disable it, by going in about:config, since this option is not available in the preferences menu.
What the hell is pocket? on Mozilla's site:
The Pocket for Firefox button lets you save web pages and videos to Pocket in just one click. Pocket strips away clutter and saves the page in a clean, distraction-free view and lets you access them on the go through the Pocket app. All you need is a free account, an Internet connection and the Pocket button.
Original Submission
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 07 2015, @11:56PM
If it pays for a better Firefox, I'm for it. However, if it starts them down Greed Lane such that they go Dilbert on us, then bail for Pale Moon etc.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Tramii on Tuesday December 08 2015, @12:12AM
Personally, I consider a Firefox that doesn't come pre-loaded with non-browser stuff to be a "better Firefox".
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @12:13AM
Pale Moon
Don't you mean Furry Moon?
(Score: 2) by Non Sequor on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:10AM
I kind of imagine Mozilla as operating in some kind of bureaucratic loop where various groups add features and other groups remove them. Think "hoarders and wasters" in Dante's Inferno.
Write your congressman. Tell him he sucks.
(Score: 2) by NoMaster on Tuesday December 08 2015, @06:26AM
You give Mozilla too much credit; the liars & hypocrites are a few levels lower down than that...
Live free or fuck off and take your naïve Libertarian fantasies with you...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @05:26AM
> If it pays for a better Firefox, I'm for it. However, if it starts them down Greed Lane such that they go Dilbert on us
Seems to me that actively obfuscating, aka lying, about the monetary benefits of such integration is pretty damn far down Greed Lane.
It is getting harder and harder to support mozilla's development decisions. Am I getting old or are they getting lost?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @12:17AM
Facebook is the interweb. Old people shut up and die already.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @12:33AM
Dump all Mozilla Chrome and all their other products.
www.palemoon.org
www.fossamail.org
(Score: 3, Informative) by Celestial on Tuesday December 08 2015, @12:47AM
I prefer to use a browser that isn't by a one-man band, thanks.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @12:56AM
Duopolies are not good for competition. I prefer open standards that can be freely implemented by any parties. Similarly, standards-compliant web servers and web sites that can be viewed correctly in any browser, whether made by a big company or a small team of enthusiasts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @01:42AM
People on that green site said the same thing about MATE.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @04:19AM
There're multiple people maintaining the browser at this point.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Kunasou on Tuesday December 08 2015, @08:01AM
Exactly, they even have someone to care about the linux edition of Palemoon. I've been using it for two years with any major issue, sometimes it crashes but same happens to Firefox though.
They have their own fork of HTTPS Everywhere, AdBlock Plus (Latitude) and other extensions.
Also, the only Google service I use is Youtube and also works fine on it.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @11:30AM
Cool story bro.
What happens when Mozilla gets rid of XUL and Gecko? These guys won't be able to provide security updates. As it is, they rarely release security patches and that's WITH someone else maintaining a majority of the code for them.
Palemoon is the Trinity Desktop of the browser world. Looks great when there isn't much divergence in the codebase, but two years from now is when we'll really see how serious this project is (hint: Trinity Desktop introduced all sorts of bugs, regressions, and exploits into their fork of KDE once the main project diverged too much for them to leech from).
(Score: 2) by Kunasou on Tuesday December 08 2015, @12:00PM
I will use it while it lasts and I've been a happy user of Firefox (since v1) until they did the Australis GUI switch. Since I needed to add several addons to bring the old GUI back that was an issue for me. I tried to go back several times but they added more useless stuff like Firefox Hello or Pocket.
Mozilla will remove the support for NPAPI (and I still need flash) and Complete Themes soon and that's another piece of code that Moonchild will have to maintain.
And also, there's the Servo problem in the near future: https://github.com/servo/servo/wiki/Roadmap [github.com] , and the Rust coding problem.
As far as I know, the Pale Moon project also forked Gecko and renamed it to Goanna: https://www.palemoon.org/WIP/ [palemoon.org]
As for security patches they release only a few every version: https://www.palemoon.org/releasenotes.shtml [palemoon.org]
I used Opera Presto for years (really old computer) after they ended their Linux support and I survived, but after a while it was buggy as hell. So, after they release version 26 with Goanna we'll see if they can do a good work or it will end like Trinity Desktop.
(Score: 2) by AndyTheAbsurd on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:10PM
Have you even read their release notes page [palemoon.org]? No? Didn't think so, otherwise you'd know your argument is BS. Just because they're not changing major version numbers at the insane pace that Google Chrome started (and Mozilla just followed suit on) doesn't mean they're not handling security issues in a timely fashion.
Please note my username before responding. You may have been trolled.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:20PM
> Just because they're not changing major version numbers at the insane pace that Google Chrome started
By saying that you prove you didn't understand GP's point. Increasingly divergent code-bases have nothing to do with version numbers.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:45PM
Yep, about what I expected.
Look at that fucking mess. CVE-2015-7199 was identified on 16 September [mitre.org]. It was fixed in the upstream Mozilla browser on 3 November [mozilla.org].
OMG, look, here comes PaleMoon, they released a fix exactly two weeks later [palemoon.org]! Gee, I wonder where that came from?
Let us know when the PaleMoon developers write a bugfix before the Mozilla guys do. Right now, they're just maintaining a fork, and backporting fixes from upstream. That upstream is about to change rendering engines, plugin support, and user interface language. Backporting someone else's bugfixes is trivial compared to the load of work that PaleMoon will have to do once they are maintaining their own rendering engine, keeping it standards compliant, and working out the bugs across multiple platforms.
Palemoon -- right now, they're no different than any of the kids on Distrowatch who change the default Window Manager and fonts on Ubuntu or Fedora and then release it as a new "distribution."
(Score: 2) by Kunasou on Tuesday December 08 2015, @03:23PM
Also https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2015-7189 [mitre.org] was found on 16 September and fixed on 3 November.
In release notes (25.8.0) they show this:
Fixed a potentially vulnerable crash from a spinning event loop during resize painting. DiD
Fixed several Javascript-based memory safety hazards. DiD
Maybe are own Palemoon fixes or Mozilla ones, since they don't have CVE or bugzilla link.
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Tuesday December 08 2015, @03:06PM
I prefer to use a browser that isn't by a one-man band, thanks.
misandrist! ;)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jdavidb on Tuesday December 08 2015, @03:43AM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 4, Informative) by richtopia on Tuesday December 08 2015, @12:47AM
I understand Mozilla needs money to keep the lights on. When Firefox was getting started, the search revenue was commended as a blend between feature/profit vector.
Chances are that if Mozilla selects a vendor to integrate with Firefox, I may be interested in the product. But please be transparent with the agreement. If using the default search engine is how I can pay back to Firefox, I am tempted to.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @01:45AM
Of course, the 300 million worth nonprofit needs more money for another private basketball court.
(Score: 3, Funny) by maxwell demon on Tuesday December 08 2015, @05:13AM
But it's nonprofit basketball!
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @12:59AM
They continue to remove configurable options and introduce poor UI changes. They ignore the wishes of their core users and act as if they only care about new future users. These types of third party deals are a sign of a sinking ship; and I no longer have sympathy for them. Also, didn't Mozilla recently announce they were abandoning Thunderbird development?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Francis on Tuesday December 08 2015, @05:33AM
Indeed, it's been a steady death march for years now. Rather than realizing that people were using Fx because of the standard UI, great addon collection and portability, they decided to just become a Chrome clone.
They've made the same basic mistake that MS did with Windows 8 where they were trying to make one UI that worked across both large and small screens. I've got a 22" monitor and the attempt to reduce the usage of screen space just make the browser hard to use. I have more screen real estate than I need as it is, I don't need or want them to remove the UI because it works better on subnotebooks and tablets.
They had legitimate work that needed doing, like shoring up the performance and supporting new standards, but they opted into that asinine major release every few weeks because Chrome. The project is clearly headed by people that are completely incompetent as it's almost as if they've trying to get as many people to stop using it as possible.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by darkfeline on Tuesday December 08 2015, @03:03AM
Serious question, why not use Chromium?
- Customizable UI
This is a nice thing about Firefox, but really I've found that I don't care anymore. I want a web browser, not eye candy.
- Memory usage
Chromium generally uses more memory, but I've found it to be much more stable than Firefox. The last few times I used Firefox, it crashed on me at least once a day, but Chromium I can keep up as long as my machine. Also, memory is pretty cheap nowadays: say you have a 4GiB laptop. For $20 you can upgrade to 8GiB, more than enough to keep a few hundred tabs open.
- FOSS
Actually, Chromium is FOSS too.
- Google
Well, Mozilla owns Firefox, I don't think it's clear at this point which company is a worse influence on the browser. Plus, both browsers are FOSS, rendering this point somewhat moot. I mean, Firefox comes bundled with Pocket and Chromium comes bundled with nothing.
Are there any other complaints?
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Tuesday December 08 2015, @03:48AM
Also, memory is pretty cheap nowadays: say you have a 4GiB laptop. For $20 you can upgrade to 8GiB
What laptop do you have that this is true for? I just updated my wife's 2G laptop to 4G for about that much, but upgrading to 8G was going to cost me something like $80. I think I saw a similar story when I was looking for my laptop.
Maybe I'm just nuts or searching in the wrong place.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 3, Informative) by dyingtolive on Tuesday December 08 2015, @05:13AM
I think he's assuming you have 1 x 4gb stick: http://www.microcenter.com/product/409718/4GB_DDR3-1600_(PC3-12800)_CL11_SO-DIMM_Laptop_Memory_Module [microcenter.com]
And that's without trying to shop around. Looks like Amazon has 2 x 4gb DDR3 for about $36 shipped, which isn't that much more than what he's quoting: http://www.amazon.com/PC3-12800-1-35V-Laptop-Sodimm-Memory/dp/B00KFNQWZY/ [amazon.com]
His numbers are a little high barring getting a deal somewhere, but the takeaway I'm getting from him is that you're not paying $199/gb (and that's looking at historical desktop ram prices) like you were even 10 years ago.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday December 08 2015, @05:25AM
Also, on my windows 10 box, I have Deluge, steam, winamp, chromium with four tabs, eclipse, and ventrilo running currently, and I'm using 4.3gb. I don't run a paging file, so that's actual memory in use.
Chromium is reporting 117mb but Windows is hiding another couple hundred in background threads, which is a little funny. Most people aren't playing games or servers on their laptops. For better or worse, most computer use cases I've seen from "normal" users IS their browser.
As a point of comparison, eclipse appears to be using about as much memory just idling. All I have loaded is pydev and about 10 (very small) files in workspace, none of which are even open.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Tuesday December 08 2015, @05:17AM
I don't customize the UI for eye candy. I customize it for functionality.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday December 08 2015, @10:55AM
In theory that's true, in practice not so much. I've found that any real functionality that can be added to Firefox and not to Chromium can be more elegantly resolved on other ways.
For example, Firefox can use FoxyProxy, while Chromium's proxy support is lacking. However, a much more elegant solution is to run Privoxy and make Chromium use it.
Can you list essential functionality that can be added to Firefox and not Chromium, and can not be resolved in another manner (for example, using a competent tiling windows manager instead of trying to make Firefox play the role of a windows manager)?
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 3, Informative) by maxwell demon on Wednesday December 09 2015, @06:47PM
What is your definition of "essential"?
Anyway, here's some extensions I don't want to miss; are all of those available to Chromium?
* Add to search bar (allows to easily add any search field to the search bar)
* All-in-One sidebar
* Clean Links
* Lazarus Form Recovery
* Policeman
* QuietUrl
* Resurrect Pages
* Tree Style Tab [and no, a window manager is no replacement for that — at least none I know]
BTW, as far as I can tell, Chromium doesn't have good profile support.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Thursday December 10 2015, @03:02AM
I can't be bothered to look all of those up, but off the top of my head
* Policman
uMatrix
* Lazarus Form Recovery
It's definitely possible, I don't know if one exists currently though
* Tree Style Tab
Tab Outliner is better. In fact I originally switched to Chromium for it.
* Add to search bar
Not sure if possible or not, but Chromium automatically adds all search fields that you have used to its search engines.
* All-in-One sidebar
Don't know what that is, but sounds like it should be possible.
* BTW, as far as I can tell, Chromium doesn't have good profile support.
That's such an odd accusation. What kind of profile support are you looking for? Because Chromium saves all of your settings, extensions, extension settings, open pages, cookies, history, bookmarks per user profile, just like Firefox.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 3, Informative) by maxwell demon on Thursday December 10 2015, @07:58AM
From the Tab Outliner FAQ:
So an essential feature is not only not present, but not even possible in Chromium.
So in Chromium, I would actually need the opposite extensions: One to prevent overloading the search engines with everything I've ever searched in.
Per-profile root certificates.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @08:27AM
Then it's a no-go. Firefox uses up all memory available to user space, and then gets OOM-killed. Which is why I'm running a 32-bit system with 4 GB RAM (user space can generally only allocate 2 GB) as a workaround - and why I don't want to upgrade to 64 bit (more RAM than user space can access costs about the same as a fighter jet on 64 bit).
And you're saying that Chromium uses even more...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @10:39AM
Chromium doesn't have any good js blockers like, say, noscript. Also, it constantly crashes on my Ubuntu Trusty PC...
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday December 08 2015, @10:51AM
Chromium has uBlock Origin and uMatrix, both of which are very capable JS blockers.
I won't respond to replies such as "it doesn't block JS correctly" because that's wrong, or "but I don't like the UI" because that's subjective and in my opinion they're much better than Noscript's crappy UI.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by iamjacksusername on Tuesday December 08 2015, @04:55AM
I am going to address this from the perspective of someone who maintains desktop images for their organizations.
I started putting Firefox in my desktop packages around v0.9 which was a few companies ago. It was significantly less prone to browser hijacking compared to IE 6 on Windows 2000 which made my users pretty happy. I want to say this was around 2004. So, I have been packaging and installing it for about 10 years, give or take. Right now, we are testing Windows 10. We use Enterprise so I cannot speak to any other releases. So far, it has been pretty good and we will likely look to move our Windows 7 desktops to it (Actually, we are waiting for Server 2016 to go RTM - once it is stable enough for the RDS farms, it is good enough for general release).
In any case, what does this have to do with Firefox? Given the Mozilla organization's open hostility to institutional needs, their continued insistence on chasing the technology of the month (Firefox Phone OS?? Really??!! Why??), flirtations with the same types of companies we use FF to ignore (sponsored tiles) and Microsoft finally taking their own browser seriously, I don't see much of a future. If Edge + IE is "good enough" for the corporate desktop package, then I am happy to have one less application to manage.
I really do want to like Firefox but I have not been too happy with the direction of the Mozilla organization for the past few years. It may be time to look elsewhere. Just my two cents.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @03:00PM
back when I used netscape, and then was upset to see what netscape navigator 4.x turned into, i was happy when Firefox came out. Firefox seems to be doing what Netscape did before they failed. I am not the only one to mention this, but history sometimes repeats, as do I.
That happiness mostly eroded after version 24.x. I can't even recognize it for Firefox anymore and mistook it for Chrome. Chrome doesn't even have a stop button in it anymore -- many sites I visit will display the content I expect and then "oh i'm sorry this site doesnt work unless our tracking scripts work on your computer, upgrade to a modern browser or agree to get tracked by 30 different domains we do not list out for your review prior to accepting such connections and cookies".
In a regular browser, if I am quick in hitting stop... I can read the page and then take time to see what I want or do not want to permit (if the site is worth the BS to me or if I shall never return, etc).
Anyway, what this has to do with firefox is that if they remove the crap, leave features in like a search bar that doesn't include a single URL bar that sends copies of what I type in to various other companies, sending my stuff mostly in cleartext unless I go to an HTTPS site (use an MD5 hash for now, if wanting to securely send updates. With it encrypted I don't know if if I have been hijacked and getting instructions from a domain that looks legit. At least with cleartext I can pretend to know what I am looking at).
But all of these features for my security, safety and convenience have resorted in my opting to use palemoon and even a customized EFR release of firefox that is quite old (24 or so, as mentioned).
I guess as a non-paying customer that doesnt want a part of their advertising revenue scheme and tracking agendas, I don't really have much of a say in the matter. But these developments of theirs sure is not the way to convince me to reward them to continue tracking me and solicit further donations from me.
Sell the small, quick, cheap version, no bloated version with checkboxes for the email client or extensions and whatnot for $5 or $10 and I'll buy it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @05:35AM
When netscape failed, they put what's left over into Mozilla/firefox and made something good out of it.
Now mozilla has failed, and there is no going back. Mozilla can't be saved.
But the browser source is open out there. Let's make something good out of this failure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @11:13PM
No no, all they need to do is re-redesign the UI to be ultra ultra lean and modern - no text, no icons, just a clean gray bar with no distractions, pure unadulterated gray - then break the API for addons again. THEN they will have success.