Mozilla is going to sell VPN subscriptions within Firefox
Beginning October 24th, the ad will show for select US-based Firefox users who are running the latest version — Firefox 62 — on desktop. If eligible and browsing on an unsecured network, you'll be shown an ad in the top right corner of your Firefox window that prompts you to click through to a sign up page.
Mozilla is offering ProtonVPN's services for $10 a month, which is actually $2 more than if you signed up for the same package directly through ProtonVPN. But, the majority of the revenue from ProtonVPN subscriptions that are processed through Mozilla will go directly to Mozilla. Both companies are banking that people will have good will about paying a little more in order to support their "shared goal of making the internet a safer place."
Also at ZDNet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @04:25AM (28 children)
If I get hit with this, it will be end of mainline firefox on my machines. Does anyone know if there is a quantum- based fork like palemoon?
(Score: 1, Troll) by Arik on Tuesday October 23 2018, @04:31AM (10 children)
And even fewer are to be trusted. You mentioned Palemoon. Blacklisted noscript, blacklisted ad-nauseum.
It's rapidly reaching the point where it would be completely insane to run any modern web browser outside of a VM.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @05:58AM (9 children)
Hyperbole much? Nothing stops anyone from running either add-on in palemoon.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @06:03AM (8 children)
PS - All that happens with noscript is that a message appears over it in the add-ons manager saying that it may cause stability problems, the original message everyone got their panties in a knot over was the default message mozilla uses in firefox that was kept as-is at the time.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Arik on Tuesday October 23 2018, @06:28AM (5 children)
Which is a lie along the lines of 'failing to eat your spam may cause erection disorders.'
Well, no, there's absolutely no evidence for it, no reason for any reasonable human being to believe you, ahh but so clever we used 'may!' *rolls eyes*
Noscript causes no stability problems. Scripts cause all kinds of problems, including stability problems. Noscript fixes those problems.
Noscript would not be necessary, were browser sane.
Noscript is necessary.
Browser would be sane, if browser authors were sane?
Not sure, but it seems likely.
Ergo, browser authors likely insane.
And this explains so much, so clearly.
But the questions remain, can one write a browser without going insane?
And is Sir Tim Berners-Lee a great human being? Or the viscous incarnation of the thing that should not let it be [youtube.com]?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @07:22AM
And yet, none of this is stopping you from using noscript in palemoon.
PS - whether noscript causes stability problems or not is impossible to reliably ascertain without in-depth testing. It may look like it doesn't, and as someone who has used it since it's inception I'd also err on that side, but there's no telling what havoc it can wreak as a result of PEBKAC colliding with badly designed scripts. It doesn't help that PEBKAC prone users are quicker to blame the browser than the extension or the website or their own usage of the latter two (although, this too is unsubstantiated - nobody has ever statistically tested this, unless gut feelings by upset developers count as statistics).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @09:55PM
Switch to Umatrix.
Life on the net is so much happier afterwards.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday October 25 2018, @03:26PM (2 children)
Likely not insane, but high probability of greed.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday October 25 2018, @03:38PM (1 child)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday October 25 2018, @04:41PM
Mozilla offering a service deal, isn't insane greed. Though, it may be revolting and enough to push some people to other more invasive, less functional, and/or untested Web Browsers. I'm also uncertain of what insane greed would be as opposed to someone just being insane and greedy at the same time.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @06:32AM
Blacklist Arik. Blacklist most of SoylentNews. Problem solved. Unless Firefox is not letting me. In that case, blacklist firefox, and their Anti-gay Mormon sponsers! This is what killed Wordperfect for me! Damn Orson Scoot Card Mormon kill-bot Death-Angels and the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Never trust Mormons, or the equivalent, Saudi Crown Princes. They both will kill you dead, and leave your once favorite browser a pile of data-aggregating filth. Who do you trust in your wallet?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @09:19PM
They used the message saying [archive.org] thhat NoScript "is known to cause security or stability issues," the same message Mozilla uses for malware. [malwarebytes.com] Their reasoning seems to be that "many websites breaking" is the same thing as instability. I don't agree.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday October 23 2018, @04:43AM (4 children)
Get the source code and compile Firefox yourself., sans the ads. You do realize it's open-source, right?
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @06:05AM
Palemoon is easy to compile from source too. Once you do that, you'll feel empowered to cut things out you don't care for. It's plenty fast for me.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Bot on Tuesday October 23 2018, @08:53AM (1 child)
But seriously I have to remind you that evil has already countered the personal empowering from free software by making projects with huge interdependence and arbitrary choices (systemd), high rate of incompatible updates (android) and trolling/ instating policing CoC (mik*usa, not gonna evoke its full name)
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @09:46AM
of the dependency hell that Linux and many of its tools have become.
Go try building the original 'beta' netscape gold releases from before they spent 2+ years on gecko rewriting everything in C++.
The C++ one was as much if not more nightmarish, and it has only gotten worse with each new revision.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @02:03AM
I suspect the Debian packages will strip this crap-- Debian forked firefox (iceweasel) before over the copyright on an icon.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @04:59AM (8 children)
Try Waterfox.
(Score: 1) by Chromium_One on Tuesday October 23 2018, @06:08AM (6 children)
You do realize Waterfox is using pre-Quantum versions of FF as a base, right?
When you live in a sick society, everything you do is wrong.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Marand on Tuesday October 23 2018, @06:56AM (3 children)
That's a feature, not a bug; the addons that made Firefox actually worth using still function in Waterfox. Extensions like "It's All Text!", Ubiquity, tab groups, and tree-style tab were the only reason Firefox remained my primary browser over the years, and with post-Quantum Firefox, they (and others) are either completely dead or functionally neutered.
If I wanted to use Chrome and Chrome extensions, I'd fucking use Chrome. So, goodbye Firefox, hello Waterfox.
(Score: 1) by Chromium_One on Tuesday October 23 2018, @07:56AM (2 children)
The argument that addons are not available for the new Quantum builds is far less persuasive now than it was a few months ago.
That said, the answer given (Waterfox) is in direct opposition to what the prior posted asked for. It does not meet stated requirements.
When you live in a sick society, everything you do is wrong.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Marand on Tuesday October 23 2018, @09:43AM (1 child)
Maybe for you, but Ubiquity, Tab Groups, and Tree Style Tab are especially important to me, and neither Chrome nor FF Quantum have been able to provide sufficiently useful versions of any of them. I've looked, I've tried, and there's just nothing suitable, because Chrome-style extensions don't have enough control over the browser. For example, every TST-wannabe for Chrome has been a complete disappointment, and the Quantum update/port/remake/whatever for FF isn't yet in a suitable state. Tab groups are similarly gimped by the WebExtension restrictions, though Ubiquity may have some hope (though unlikely to happen any time soon, considering it's a Mozilla experiment that's barely kept functioning by one person.)
True, but sometimes stated requirements aren't actually what the person needs. AKA the XY Problem [wikipedia.org]. Waterfox doesn't use Quantum, but it DOES use Electrolysis to separate UI and page content processes, which still greatly improves UI and addon responsiveness. Pale Moon still doesn't use either AFAIK, which means it's possible the AC is trying to ask for a more responsive fork of FF than Pale Moon, but isn't aware that FF (fork) responsiveness can be improved even without Quantum.
It's also worth noting that Waterfox has not yet taken an opinionated stance on extensions like NoScript, which is a commonly cited reason for not choosing Pale Moon as a Firefox alternative. The creator of the fork has specifically stated that Waterfox is "aiming for a more technical crowd", so things like NoScript and a more powerful extensions system should be safe for a while, at least.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Chromium_One on Tuesday October 23 2018, @07:19PM
Good points. Glad I'm not dependent on too many plugins. As for performance, I've found a notable difference between Waterfox 56 and FF 62. Most of the time it's not much, but the little bit of extra lag here and there would annoy me if for some reason I had to go back to Waterfox now. Also, would be helpful if prior poster had stated why they require Quantum builds.
For Pale Moon, uh, at a first glance, the entire controversy looks like nothing more than ego and stupidity. Couple of addons are flagged by PM to pop up warnings about compatibility, yet continue to function. Everyone involved then loses their minds and when challenged, doubles down on whatever stance they've chosen.
When you live in a sick society, everything you do is wrong.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday October 23 2018, @08:55AM (1 child)
at the moment I see no compatibility problems with either waterfox or seamonkey. If you do go bother the fucking webmaster. The web becomes proprietary if THEY want to, but you can always fight back a little.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2, Troll) by FatPhil on Tuesday October 23 2018, @03:45PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday October 23 2018, @02:48PM
You are my saver. Thank you very very much.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @11:26AM
Well, it's not Quantum-based, but text-based browsers like lynx and links do a decent job for browsing sites with mainly textual content. Not ideal if you want to see multimedia content (although links do have a framebuffer and X mode that can show images) or want to interact with Javascript-heavy sites though. Could using different browsers for different tasks be a viable solution?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @01:24PM (1 child)
Quantum was a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so why support it?
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday October 23 2018, @06:28PM
Yeah, Quantum (and especially the disabling of pre-Quantum extensions) was the straw that finally got me to quit using mainline Firefox for most uses (I still use it for online banking and at work).
But I must say they have chosen the name well: Quantum mechanics is known for unpredictable events that happen without an apparent reason other than that they are not impossible. Just like Mozilla interface changes. ;-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 4, Informative) by DrkShadow on Tuesday October 23 2018, @05:07AM (5 children)
Why not check out an XUL-based browser that's not set on looking and acting like Chrome?
https://www.palemoon.org/ [palemoon.org]
(No affiliation)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @05:46AM (3 children)
Palemoon does seem the obvious choice, but I personally would rather have the performance improvements that came with the 'quantum' rewrite than XUL extension support. Also, as was mentioned elsewhere in the comments, Palemoon has taken to blacklisting some of the more useful privacy protecting add-ons (noscript, ad-nauseum) which does not sit well with me.
What I would really like is a palemoon-inspired fork, but that doesn't end with Firefox 57. One that keeps up with the post-quantum firefox, so that we can take advantage of the improved performance of the rewrite.
So far the transgressions from Mozilla have been moderate (statistics gathering, pushing Pocket, Mr. Robot promotion, secretly installing add-ins of tenuous utility, and now testing the waters of paid promotion), it seems straightforward enough to make a fork that strips these and keeps the users safe from these boneheaded decisions from Mozilla while also keeping the browser updated at a reasonable cadence.
Is it a dick move to try and work against Mozilla's efforts to monetize Firefox? Maybe, but if Mozilla is going to start pushing ads through Firefox (either through distros package managers, or through its internal updater) I think it is warranted.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by KritonK on Tuesday October 23 2018, @06:53AM
So, you want the next version of Waterfox. (The current one is still based on version 56, but the plan is to follow the ESR versions.)
(Score: 2) by Marand on Tuesday October 23 2018, @09:53AM
It sounds like you should try Waterfox even though it doesn't use Quantum. Like I said in my other comment [soylentnews.org], it uses Mozilla's initial multiprocess feature (electrolysis), which helps a lot with UI responsiveness. Between that and auto-unload tab [mozilla.org] to stop old tabs from staying loaded and running forever, I have no trouble at all with hundreds of tabs. (Currently at around 300, but I've had much more before. Thank you tab groups and tree-style tab.)
It's also claiming to target a more technical crowd and touts privacy, so it's not blacklisting addons like NoScript the way Pale Moon is.
(Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Tuesday October 23 2018, @03:47PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @08:11AM
There are a few suspicious things about PaleMoon making me use the browser in an older version using process separation and very strict NoScript rules.
First, a few not well known settings for limiting scripts execution disappeared from configuration while still being in use. Especially timeouts.
Next, adNauseam and NoScript affair. While it is still possible to use NoScript, the reason people chosen PaleMoon is that it's secure browser and scripts are a huge security hole. Dismissing support for people with NoScript is suspicious, like that's the backdoor. Similarly for adNauseam. Sorry, cooperation with criminals is a crime too, and calling the first class spying technology "advertisement" is an ordinary fraud which needs to be fought by all means.
Another thing Firefox did was breaking the drag and drop of bookmarks for Linux environments except newest GNOME in version 48. This is a full-range affair, with bugs disappearing and e-mails unanswered, especially that officially this is a regression bug which could be trivial to fix for someone who did the modification. It looks bad, like someone wanted users not to use bookmarks and paid for breaking this feature. Someone... like a search engine who wants people to search.
I think that browsers became so big beasts, that it's not easily possible to manage them with not only significant programming effort impossible for one man, but also without significant financial effort on law enforcement, read bribe law offices so they won't sue you that you used a blinking text which is patented by another Imaginar... err, Intellectual property mafia. However authors, being "on a hook" of these sponsors with their previous tricks like with NoScript or drag and drop don't want to say it explicitly.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Chromium_One on Tuesday October 23 2018, @06:25AM (4 children)
What's recently pissed me off is that I set "allow studies" as disabled, and the fuckers went and installed shit on me anyway. User preferences aren't there just to look pretty, assholes.
Mozilla has lost the path. Scope creep. Yak shaving parties. Iron Law of Bureaucracy is in full effect. Need to spend some time poking at alternatives again. The most important item on the features list is viable filtering. Something akin to uBlock Origin would be preferred, but if I wind up with an external solution, so be it. Pi-hole or similar might be okay.
When you live in a sick society, everything you do is wrong.
(Score: 3, Informative) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday October 23 2018, @06:52AM
Here I've got thirty years in the industry but only just now learned all about yak shaving.
I've got quite a different take on yak shaving: I have quite a serious problem with focussing on my work. Sometimes something important needs to be done but I just can't bring myself to do it. But if I find some other, more pleasant task - such as yak shaving - to pursue, then I really am making forward progress.
There is some limit to the effectiveness of this, I must admit.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @12:12PM (2 children)
Wanna be a little bit more specific?
(Score: 1) by Chromium_One on Tuesday October 23 2018, @07:01PM (1 child)
Post title doesn't state it clearly enough? The new "shield studies" have their own settings for opt-out which are only found under "about:config" rather than the normal user preferences UI. While I had studies disabled, a new shield study was helpfully installed for me after a version upgrade. While researching what happened with that, I found posts suggesting this should only have been the case with dev versions. Stopped looking once I found the options to twiddle in about:config.
When you live in a sick society, everything you do is wrong.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 26 2018, @09:46AM
The only related one pref I can find is app.shield.optoutstudies.enabled. Apparently set it to false to get rid of whatever guinea pig action it controls. That one can be changed via the menus too, preferences, security, Allow Firefox to install and run studies.
Now is there some other pref I should toggle?
(Score: 3, Funny) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday October 23 2018, @06:48AM
"You see that icon right there in your Dock, Mom?"
"Oh I won't touch it!"
"No, Mom. It's for you. I installed it because all of Safari's root certificates are expired."
Eight years later...
"I think I might really have to get a new Mac."
"Not if you use TenFourFox!"
"What's that?"
Mom has always been quite set in her ways.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 5, Informative) by bradley13 on Tuesday October 23 2018, @07:37AM (2 children)
Can't trust Chrome. Brave, Pale Moon, and others are too dated. Firefox has made a number of weird decisions lately.
I installed Vivaldi a couple of days ago. A lot (almost too many) customization options. Chrome plug-ins work. So far, so good...
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Tuesday October 23 2018, @09:10PM
I'm pretty sure a closed source browser is a non-starter for most Soylentils:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivaldi_(web_browser) [wikipedia.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday October 25 2018, @04:53PM
So, when you say dated, you mean not hip?
Brave had a new release on Oct. 18th.
https://brave.com/new-brave-browser-release-available-for-general-download/ [brave.com]
I will take, stable, fast, and private. You can take flashy, trendy, and hip. I don't need those three when we're talking about my web browser.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @02:50PM (1 child)
Firefox has engineered intentionally bad security architecture for a decade on now, as do pretty much all mainstream browsers. The difference now is, since they are charging for the product there is legal consideration for it under the UCC. It will be much easier to sue them for their negligent engineering now.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday October 23 2018, @04:02PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @10:04PM
Instead of trying to sell you shit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @08:07AM
I went with Private Internet Access (PIA) and the yearly subscription works out to less than $4 per month. PIA is known for not keeping logs, sending the FBI away empty handed when they decided to test that claim, and withdrawing servers from Russia to avoid a law that would have compromised VPN users. I'm not a sponsor and there are no links in this post. If you're thinking about getting VPN, do yourself a favor and check out PIA before you over pay.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @08:43AM
As far as VPNs go, Mozilla chose poorly...
https://restoreprivacy.com/protonvpn-review/ [restoreprivacy.com]