from the On-display..bottom..locked-filing-cabinet..disused-lavatory..sign...saying-‘Beware-of-the-Leopard' dept.
Mozilla apologizes for unskippable VPN ads shown in Firefox:
Mozilla often tries to persuade users about its stance against intrusive advertising, promoting the Firefox browser as the best way to enjoy the web almost ad-free. Still, the San Francisco-based corporation is well known for forcing its own ads on users every now and then.
Mozilla officially promotes ad blockers on Firefox as a "best friend" for users forced to watch too many unsolicited advertisements while browsing the web. The average person sees "an average of 4,000 ads a day," Mozilla says, and that's a bit too much. And yet, Mozilla recently joined the crowd of ad-serving companies with an "unskippable" message trying to promote the company's own paid VPN service.
Mozilla VPN is a subscription-based product designed to shield users' activity online, with hundreds of servers in over 30 different countries to enhance privacy and the overall internet experience. The service is one of Mozilla's many ventures to seek additional revenue sources, as the company is still largely relying on Google Search money to fund Firefox promotion and development.
This past week, Mozilla started to show fullscreen advertising about its VPN service to disgruntled Firefox users. The ad campaign was met with universal displeasure, with many lamenting the "disruptive, intrusive" violation that goes against Firefox's supposed core values. The ad was shown through the browser's Messaging System, so it was difficult to block with a traditional ad-blocker like uBlock Origin.
Furthermore, the VPN ad was seemingly breaking Firefox and web browsing for several users. Many bug reports submitted to the Bugzilla platform were initially marked as "resolved" by Mozilla developers, as the ad was working as intended and there was nothing to fix. Power users could disable the VPN advertising altogether by changing the browser.vpn_promo.enabled config (on the hidden about:config page) to false.
Power users could disable the VPN advertising altogether by reading the instructions on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Ox0000 on Tuesday May 30 2023, @11:05AM (23 children)
I've said it before and I'll say it again: "Ain't no such thing that an MBA cannot fuck up".
The level of entitlement exhibited by these people is astounding. Just presuming that "of course people want to see this message of ours, they'd be out of their minds to want to miss out on this".
In fact, it's a level of entitlement exhibited by the entire marketing industry. The only thing I'd ever want to be marketed to for is a solution to the scourge that is marketing, advertising, and everything else associated with that plague!
For anyone at Mozilla listening: make ... a... browser... and stay the fuck away from EVERYTHING else! Don't worry about "tapping new markets" or "growing/expanding your capabilities", just focus on the damn browser. Anything else but the browser (and Thunderbird, I'll give you that) is a distraction! Sadly you are our only (viable) alternative to Chrome. Don't fail at that too!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday May 30 2023, @11:24AM (11 children)
Not to play devil's advocate here but...
How much did you pay for Firefox and Thunderbird again?
Mozilla pays salaries. The money's gotta come from somewhere. Sadly it has to come from shitty advertisers or from shitty Google. Because in this day and age, you can't straight pay up for a service and be 100% certain you won't be (1) tracked online up the wazoo and (2) bombarded with advertisement anyway.
Mozilla tries its hardest to get chrome-style money without alienating its users too much, because they have no alternative. They're walking a tight rope, and they slipped spectacularly on that one. But the fact remains that you didn't pay jack squat for their product, so you have no right to complain about it.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 30 2023, @12:55PM (1 child)
Mozilla tries its hardest to get chrome-style money without alienating its users too much
Mozilla has ONE viable product and they have been alienating it's users since long before Quantum. Remember they has over 30% of the browser market share in 2010, and now they are sitting at less than 5%. Some of that drop was due to everyone jumping on the Google Chrome bandwagon, but the rest of it was management incompetence. Also-ran browsers like Edge and Safari now even have more users! Locking down the UI, nerfing addons, shoving Pocket up every users butt (at least they let you disable it), removing useful settings from Preferences, removing useful settings from about:config, and removing the status bar. It still remains the most configurable browser, has the best built-in disable autoplay of vids, and has the best addons IMO but not because it's so good, but it's only because the other browsers are so bad in those departments. Stupid shit such as removing simple one value menu/toolbar UI settings from about:config and making users write 200 lines of css to (maybe) accomplish the same thing is not an improvement!
But the fact remains that you didn't pay jack squat for their product, so you have no right to complain about it
Oh come on! Facebook, Google search, Libreoffice, Linux, IOS upgrades are also "free as in beer", so therefore no one can complain about bad UI changes, removal of useful features, and bugs? Same with the thousand residents in the syringe-tent-city downtown-they don't directly cost me anything, I don't live downtown, so I can't complain about the needles, garbage, and body-waste smell they produce on the rare occasions when I am downtown?
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 30 2023, @01:40PM
Emphasis mine...
Careful now... saying things like that will land you in an asylum. It's bad for sure, but let's not be delusional... Using a browser once to download another browser does not make one a 'user'.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Ox0000 on Tuesday May 30 2023, @01:37PM (5 children)
Oh hi, you mean this link: https://donate.mozilla.org/ [mozilla.org] ?
I use it on a yearly basis, because I do use and rely on both FF and TB every single day, and because I therefore would love for both of these pieces of work to keep existing and ideally being maintained. I've given them USD 100/year for the past 7 years now looking through my tax receipts. Granted, maybe not enough, but more than most, I recon...
As someone who does give them money, I am rather ticked off by all their escapades outside of what they, in my not-so-humble opinion, should be sticking to: Firefox and Thunderbird. Unfortunately at this point in time, there is no other (viable) alternative against Chrome than Firefox, they are either chrome-reskins or non-functional pieces of code (I'm looking at you Pale Moon, Waterfox, and whatever other animals or celestial bodies that zoo carries).
What this means is that, until further notice, Firefox must do - which I mean in a way that is more than just "it reluctantly has to do", I also mean this as a "for all our sakes, it has no option but to be fit for purpose, it must be made to be fit for purpose, because the alternative is even worse"...
That is why I give them money, even though I think they are (to a large degree) squandering it: because if I (and you) don't, the alternative is even worse!
They are deluded in thinking that they should be running mozilla as a "real" business, which is a folly in the first place, given that their main source of money is their competitor. A competitor which pulls the same tricks as MSFT pulled back when they bought non-voting AAPL stock: it's a good argument to make in front of the DOJ saying "look, we really want competition because we have a financial stake in our competitor". It's a great way to keep a competitor alive, but on a choke-collar.
You're absolutely right, and it's a shame that "we'll just fund (part of) our service by digitally whoring our users out to the highest bidder" continues to be considered as a reasonable thing to do. It's also a shame that the majority of the populace apparently is fine with these panem et circenses, not realizing that the real beneficiaries are the pick-pockets roaming the circus, some, if not most, of which seated on the first handful of rows...
Mozilla has no business getting 'chrome-style money'... The only reason they 'need' that 'chrome-style money' is because they're burning it on the wrong things!
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday May 30 2023, @02:41PM (2 children)
Oh, it was you :)
Okay so you bought the right to complain. Actually not really: you have the right to complain about Mozilla the same way someone who donated to a needy children fundation has the right to complain about how the fundation is run: you don't. But let's assume: if you've been paying for so long and you don't like the way they run the show, why do you keep paying?
Me, I don't pay, because whether I pay or not, I still run a free product with the distinct feeling that the product's maker is dying to give me the big-data treatment Google-stylee but doesn't dare because their last remaining users are those who don't like Google.
What I want to give money to is a real Mozilla software: a premium version of Firefox and Thunderbird with a real price tag and a real difference from the free product, and enough assurances that Mozilla won't track me and push advertisement and shitty features my way without my consent. Which will never happen: nobody pays for software anymore because everybody would rather sell their very soul than spend a dollar for real products and services, and even if it was possible to pay for premium software, Google and their ilks have proven without the shadow of a doubt that they can't be trusted to stop the corporate surveillance for love nor money.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Ox0000 on Tuesday May 30 2023, @03:34PM
I take very serious issue with this assertion. Of course I have the right to complain, not because I give them money but because I inherently have that right, just like you do. My point is not about purchasing the right to complain, my point is that while many decisions made by that organization are 'sub-optimal' in my (complainy) opinion, that it is still better to give them money and in some weird, tiny, almost-insignificant way, ensure the continued existence of Firefox (and Thunderbird). I'm not doing that because I want to (be able to) complain, I do that because the cost of Mozilla disappearing is much, much greater to me than the pittance (in the grand scheme of things) I can afford to give them.
Well, isn't today your lucky day: https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/setup/index.html [mozilla.org] Go ahead and dig in.
Compile your own with everything that even remotely reeks of snitching on you ctrl+Y'ed out...
At least with Firefox, you can disable the telemetry, you can disable the tracking. Good luck doing that with Chrome (not Chromium because if you're not willing to roll your own Firefox, you aren't allowed to roll your own Chromium either - at least be intellectually honest).
You most certainly have a point for individuals (although there are some exceptions, direct and indirect), but corporations continue want to be able to point a finger at someone and go "shit's not working, come fix it". I'll point at MSOffice for which people continue to shell out multiple hundreds of dollars, versus LibreOffice which is functionally equivalent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 30 2023, @06:09PM
The poster literally explained why they keep paying despite not liking the way they run things.
Fuck off. Or, become a civil human being. Your call.
(Score: 2) by bloodnok on Tuesday May 30 2023, @06:29PM
I've been using Vivaldi on Linux for about a year now. There are some annoyances to be sure, and it's not the snappiest of things but the experience for me is mostly good. I fire up firefox maybe once a week to deal with sites that Vivaldi just fails out (like my router and my pi-hole - go figure).
I'd say it's certainly worth a try.
__
The Major
(Score: 2) by KritonK on Wednesday May 31 2023, @07:47AM
I don't know about Pale Moon, but Waterfox comes in two versions: the more or less abandoned "classic", which I suppose you could call non-functional, as many sites don't work properly on such an old browser engine, and the "Gn" version, where currently n=5, which is based on the latest ESR version of Firefox, with better defaults and a few enhancements (I believe it has a status bar, e.g.). I wouldn't call the latter non-functional. If you are a Firefox user, I would recommend giving Waterfox G5 a try; you might be pleasantly surprised. As for me, I switched from Waterfox classic to Vivaldi a few years ago, and have no reason to change browser.
(Score: 2) by sonamchauhan on Wednesday May 31 2023, @03:26AM (1 child)
How wrong are you?!
This user and every other Firefox user *pays* Firefox. Payments are made via Google, which is Mozilla's chief source of revenue. Google pays for default search engine placement. So users are paying with attention, and Firefox earns in dollars.
Firefox just burnt a ton of goodwill with this incident Some finance wizard better properly account for the incident on its balance sheet, and compare it to the upside in VPN revenues. So that Firefox does a Firefix and impart wisdom to future managers tempted to do something similar in future
(Score: 2) by sonamchauhan on Wednesday May 31 2023, @03:32AM
Correction. Every user *pays for* Firefox. Not *pays* Firefox directly. Only indirectly.
So its users have every right to complain, just as Firefox has the right to ignore them (altogether at its own peril though)
The point about the balance sheet stands.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday May 31 2023, @10:49AM
Could say that I paid by contributing to the project. Found and reported a couple dozen bugs. In one case I proposed an enhancement, then drilled into the source code to figure out how to do it, and implemented it. However, in subsequent use of the enhancement I found it not as useful as I had imagined it would be. So it was never added.
Some of the bugs I found by pushing the browser in directions that it seems few try to take it. If you just browse, you may never find any problems. It's when you create web pages that should work but don't that you find the most problems. One thing I tried was a fairly deep dive into SVG, using it to implement a few games. There's an obscure feature of SVG in which an graphic element that contains text can be rotated while keeping the individual letters in a horizontal orientation. The Firefox devs evidently decided that this little feature of SVG wasn't used enough to warrant trying to implement it. I think the maintainers of the SVG standard may agree.
One other way I contributed was by buying an overpriced Firefox t-shirt.
Yeah, I find Mozilla's hawking of their VPN services pushy. I and I imagine many others really dislike being asked to decide yes or no to several questions presented one at a time. Any more, when I am faced with that, I always refuse to spend any of my valuable time reading the wall of text about whatever it is they're going on about, and just choose "no".
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Tuesday May 30 2023, @01:39PM (7 children)
Firefox is 5% of the current browser market today. They are irrelevant.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Ox0000 on Tuesday May 30 2023, @01:42PM (3 children)
Gather around the fireplace, and let me regale you with horror stories from back in the day of IE4 and IE5... <sarcasm>The browser mono-culture was GREAT!</sarcasm>
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Tuesday May 30 2023, @03:09PM (2 children)
IE5 was actually decent compared to Netscape. I used it a lot during that era.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday May 30 2023, @05:15PM (1 child)
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday May 31 2023, @02:37AM
We called it Nutscrape because we could, all the way back to NS Original. Later versions maybe earned that, but Netscape 3 was very stable, and extraordinarily snappy compared to everything that came after. I still have it installed, because compared to SeaMonkey it's a lot more efficient at trawling FTP sites (remember those? some still exist!)
I shouldn't say installed; I've been dragging the same copy from PC to PC since 1997.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 30 2023, @02:52PM
> 5% of the current browser market
5% of a huge market (wild guess--billion internet users use a browser?) is a whale of a lot of users. Very relevant.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday May 30 2023, @05:11PM (1 child)
They're not irrelevant to we, the 5%. I just don't like Chrome and I hate Microsoft. Any web dev ignoring us 5% is an idiot. Write to specs!
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Tuesday May 30 2023, @05:34PM
I'm not concerned about the 5%. I'm concerned about the ones who make the browser. The promise of the open web has gradually turned into a corporate hellscape, and the tiny fraction that nominally remains committed to that should not be trying to cram every piece of rent-seeking garbage they can in.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by GloomMower on Tuesday May 30 2023, @02:08PM (1 child)
> The only thing I'd ever want to be marketed to for is a solution to the scourge that is marketing, advertising, and everything else associated with that plague!
I think in their heads that is what they were doing.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Ox0000 on Tuesday May 30 2023, @03:37PM
I mean... of course. They even thought about it a little and then realized that people who - in their thinking - would be using that type of service would be the type of person that would run an ad-blocker. "Therefore, we must push this to them via an enforced ad that bypasses their ad-blocker. Surely, this will endear us to that audience..."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Rich on Tuesday May 30 2023, @08:22PM
IIRC, their boss is not an MBA, but a lawyer. With a three million dollar salary. For less than that money alone, you could run a team (say in eastern europe) that maintains a top notch browser.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by cykros on Tuesday May 30 2023, @11:08AM (1 child)
Opera and Brave both have built in ad-blockers. Firefox doesn't seem to be any better for browsing ad-free than Edge or Chrome, which both also have the ability to install uBlock Origin (among others).
Seems like the Mozilla team is stuck in the past, when Firefox was the only game in town with Adblock.
Sad to watch it crumbling.
Though at LEAST they still make the best browser for using extensions on Android, even if it does take quite a bit of jumping through hoops. Good luck installing Bypass-Paywalls on anything else on the platform.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by ikanreed on Tuesday May 30 2023, @05:36PM
Firefox is absolutely better than chrome for browsing ad-free thanks to google's own corporate bullshit. Namely for "security" concerns they made it so plugins can't block requests, only content, meaning their ad-sense network need only tweak presentation to circumvent blockers, and they can track everyone.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday May 30 2023, @11:18AM
An ad that works as intended is an ad that's intrusive enough to evade filtering and enter your consciousness.
In other words, an ad that works as intended is an unwanted ad.
Mozilla achieved that particular result with exceptional success.
(Score: 2) by WizardFusion on Tuesday May 30 2023, @12:34PM (6 children)
I haven't seen an advert in years.
Install the uBlock Origin extension, and get yourself setup with Pi-Hole.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 30 2023, @02:31PM (1 child)
That probably means you're stupid.
For some reason, we just love subjecting eachother to fake messages - or as I like to call it, propaganda. Just an observation. Like it or not, we as a species have an absolute hard-on for non-stop industrialized propaganda. Why are we doing this? Not the Illuminati or some other fantasy, but simply one human to another, why?
(Score: 3, Touché) by Nuke on Tuesday May 30 2023, @04:21PM
Then I must be stupid too. But I believe you are conflating advertising and propaganda.
I do however see adverts if I deliberately look for them, for example if I am looking for a local plumber.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 30 2023, @02:58PM (3 children)
> I haven't seen an advert in years.
I see some ads, but don't recall seeing anything about a Mozilla VPN. This is with slightly old Firefox ESR (I'm about one release behind the most recent) and Privacy Badger, No additional ad blocking, on Win 7 Pro.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 30 2023, @05:07PM (1 child)
> No additional ad blocking, on Win 7 Pro
You go online with that thing? :| Are you mental?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 30 2023, @06:43PM
> Are you mental?
No, I'm AC!
Sing it to the tune of:
Are we not men?
We are Devo
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday May 31 2023, @02:42AM
Hmmph. Such a modernist.
Posted from XP64 and SeaMonkey with NoScript and a good HOSTS (no other adblocker), and zero incidence of ads or malware.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by mcgrew on Tuesday May 30 2023, @05:26PM
There's not a day goes by that I don't use Firefox in Android and Windows and often in Linux. It must not have lasted long.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org