Mozilla To Begin Pushing Ads To The New Tabs Page

[MartinN]

Funny, when Feudalism was all the rage, some people used to say the same thing...

Hey I didn't know you're that old, tell us more please....

[CTTY]

This reminds me of something the Japanese prime minister said to their central bank last year. It was to the effect of "if you don't do what I say, I will take away your independece".

Yes A president of the United States said a similar phrase to the FED, but i dont remember which one.

[MartinN]

Beliefs that condition our lives are not expensive, and the more we consume them, the more real they become. But what is believed is a product that has no common ground with the truth, since it is a totally different notion...

http://cromalternativemoney.org/inde...-all-time#2776

Nice write up - thanks for sharing. Here's another one you might like by Andreesen - http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/deal...tcoin-matters/. It's very level headed and takes people's desires, ethics, morals and service in consideration and frames bitcoin in that context...

I love bitcoin as much as the next guy - but to think it can thrive to its fullest potential outside of the boundaries of law, morality and ethics - all connected to a power base of people/governments... is the worst kind of pipe dream that could sap it of whatever potential it currently has or can bring.

Even a cursory reading of bitcointalk.org definitely gives you the impression that BitCoin is as big as the internet revolution - which it is not... or the next best thing since sliced bread and butter.. which it is not. I am certain I'm in a minority (at least as far as bitcointalk goes)... which is why I probably stopped reading it.

Phoronix is cool, Michael puts in the time to synthesize all Linux/UNIX newsworthy things here, so I am still here .

[Straximus]

On the Chrome new tab page, i have links showing up to Google search, GMail, Youtube, and something called the Chrome Web Store. I don't even know what that is, so i'm pretty sure i didn't go there and have it added to my list.

There's only two way you are seeing that. 1) You haven't updated Chrome in a long time. 2) You explicitly re-enabled the Apps page in chrome://flags after Google disabled it.

The default new tab view in Chrome now is a list of your most-visited sites.

[sarmad]

how did this get turned into a governmental discussion?

Michael turned it into a political discussion when he said in his article that he is a "believer in capitalism".

[TemplarGR]

Hey I didn't know you're that old, tell us more please....

You don't have to have experienced a thing first hand, to know about it. You can learn from the experience and knowledge of others... It is called written word. Books. You should try it some time...

[Markore]

seamonkey-project.org

Get back to SEAMONKEY.
The Original modern Mozilla application suite descendent,
that you should be using, anyway,
instead of playing monkey with Firefox all these years now.

http://www.seamonkey-project.org/

And yes, apply View->Apply theme>Modern to 'normal' browser look and feel.
And you gen Mail client, IRC client and small HTML editor with it. ;P

[MartinN]

You don't have to have experienced a thing first hand, to know about it. You can learn from the experience and knowledge of others... It is called written word. Books. You should try it some time...

Thank you sensei! I'm gonna go read a book on flying airplanes now!

[Bucic]

The foundation might be non-profit, but the main workers (programmers) are (always) paid and paid well, if you don't want childish source code in the browser you better have a paid project rather than a testing minefield for hobbyists.
Truth is, regardless of what a working group is called - a "foundation for homeless children" or "organization for preserving democracy" - its members are almost always paid, and usually well paid. Nobody works for free, not in capitalism nor in socialism.

The problem is finding the golden middle where you can earn enough yet not be an ads circus.

The fact that you even had to explain that clearly says that Mozilla should just go for the ads and don't even bother to explain the motives. They won't convince ignorants anyway.

Most of the reactions are missplaced, especially that the move may well mean that Mozilla is exploring options of loosening its dependancy on cash from Google.

[bwat47]

There is so much ridiculous hyperbole in most of these replies.

And phoronix's (and other website's are guilty of this too) completely sensationalist clickbait headline does not help.

1. All this is is a few sponsored links being present on the new tab page on a clean install of firefox. they go away once the new tab page becomes populated with your own most visited and/or pinned sites. These are just new tab page tiles that would otherwise be empty.

2. If you have an existing install with a populated new tab page, you won't even see any ads, because they only appear on new tab page tiles that would otherwise be blank (which in most cases is just on a clean install). This is barely even any different from opera's speed dial being populated with example links from amazon, facebook etc... on a clean install.

3. You can easily completely disable the new tab page tiles, one single click.

This is the biggest amount of hyperbole and people making a mountain out of a molehill I've ever seen. Its just some sponsored example links on the goddamn new tab page. There's no invasion of privacy, the 'ads' aren't intrusive at all.

Google being the default search and being the default home page in firefox is just as much of an 'ad' as this is. Mozilla currently depends far too much on google for revenue for developing firefox, so it is important that they diversify.

So much idiots acting like this is the end of firefox and that they are forcing ads everywhere. their proposed implementation is simple and as unobtrusive as it gets.


And the people saying that they will switch to chrome/chromium because of this... just lmao, that would be the most nonsensical and misguided reason to switch imaginable. chrome may not have any sponsored links, but they do send all of your info to google by default which is much worse.