This is not a good look for firefox
Almost all the links in my front homepage are sponsored now. What's next, a few ads in the bookmark bar? How about when I enter a URL, I then have to type "McDonald's" before I can actually navigate there?
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These can be turned off. Not great that they’re on by default, but you gotta pay the bills somehow right?
Yeah, this is basically the least offensive thing possible that ensures the lights stay on.
Remember when most sites had simple banner ads, and there was no widespread outcry about how much they sucked and we needed ad blocking software? Then they started flashing, then the popups and pop-unders came, then vids started autoplaying, and now here we are.
If advertisers hadn't gotten greedier than banners on the sides of sites, maybe no one would've gotten around to blocking all their shit.
Pop-under ads were obnoxious. As were the popups that were like 1 pixel large but it still had the windows bordering around it.
Nicely said.
The only thing really offensive about it, judging from the post, is that they're positioned before the user's pins, not after.
I was okay with it before for that reason, but they went to far (as all eventually do).
Settings -> Homepage:
Uncheck everything "sponsored".
Done.
It's already done but I appreciate you being helpful. My black heart wiggled one time from the kindness you have shown here today. Peace.
People keep giving Mozilla shit for taking money from Google, yet they see an ad for a different company and lose their shit.
I think the downvoters can’t hold these two thoughts in their mind at the same time:
It's only real competitors, in my eyes, are Firefox forks.
Agreed. I love Firefox and don't really like Mozilla.
No it's the complaint about one of the few transparent revenue flows Mozilla managed to pull off.
It's disabled one step deep on the settings
There is a shitload of stuff going wrong with the Mozilla foundation and this doesn't even make the top 10.
That's the reason for my down vote: it's nothing I want this community to focus on. It's basically engagement bait with the topic "ads bad".
Let the people downvote. These points don't matter. I turned off the visibility of points. I am immune, my morale is unbreakable. The downvoters have no power here!
This has been the case for several years. Super easy to turn them off
Cool. Willing to say how or is that a secret?
It's a secret reserved for smart people
it's a secret only those who dare venture into the scary "settings menu" can learn about it. most don't come back alive.
🚀 🕳 🤣
https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/sbp/sbp/1990/00000018/00000002/art00014
Oh noooo. Sounds like you're about to off yourself. What a huuuuge* loss. Anyway.
Edit because I didn't write enough mourning u's.
😪
There is a settings gear icon on that literal page that says customize next to it iirc
In Settings > Home, there's a Sponsored Shortcuts checkbox.
Thank you.
No problem!
Firefox Desktop: Settings - Home panel - uncheck "Sponsored shortcuts" box.
Firefox Mobile: Settings - Homepage - uncheck "Sponsored shortcuts" box.
See ads, "how dare they" Sees paid version, "how dare they" Development costs time and money, pick your poison.
@UltraGiGaGigantic @lemmylurkaround Actually, I would gladly pay for a browser that is just doing its job.
I need one for macOS and iOS, preferrably one solution for both.
Could you point me in the right direction, please?
Maybe you can donate to Mozilla?
Are they going to give me a link to a version that doesn't do this? Otherwise what exactly am I paying for?
How has no one in this thread put together that you can literally just customize your home page, removing categories until it’s literally blank, or only keeping pages you select available.
Git good noobs.
Pay how much and how often?
$20 a month? $50 a month.
I'm not really sure what you're getting at?
I understand that my circumstances are unusual but I would absolutely pay $20 a month without a moment's hesitation.
I would pay $50, but I'd really have to believe in the project.
It's worth noting that presently mozilla earns $0 from my not using google, and not seeing sponsored tabs.
I thought Google pays (or paid?) Mozilla just to be the default engine out the box, regardless of whether you change it or not.
Another point is that it's so easy to turn those things off (the sponsored shortcuts too) that I wonder if it would be worth the cost of launching an alternate version behind a paywall while making sure it works only for people who pay (which could be seen as DRM anyway, with potentially massive backslash). So I imagine the end result would not be that profitable (whether they decide to paywall it properly or not). Those who wanna donate and have no ads can do that already, those who want a cleaned up version of Firefox can have that and from neutral and independent third parties which I'd argue is better than if it were Mozilla who did it (and you can donate to Mozilla while using those too).. so I'm not sure it would make sense.
But it would make sense to have a donation pool specifically to fund Firefox development. That would be something interesting, considering Mozilla does other things besides Firefox. But I expect they don't do that because they probably fear all donations will move there and they don't want to lose funds for other things. We might need to create a separate organization if we want an independent fund for Firefox-based browsers.
You might be right about Googles agreement with Mozilla. I had assumed it would be based on the number of searches performed with a mozilla user agent but that's just a guess.
I'm not sure why exactly but I just feel very uncomfortable with the idea of donating to Mozilla. I absolutely believe in the importance of Firefox' existance, and if I felt I was contributing to that then I would donate. I think with the situation as it is making a donation would feel a bit like voting - my own contribution isn't going to effect the outcome, and I don't really agree with mozilla's behavior anyway.
On the other hand, if Mozilla declared that they were going to spin off a separate org exclusively to develop and maintain firefox, and would have no ongoing relationship with google nor advertising of any kind, would focus on privacy, and were going to survive entirely on subscriptions, I feel like that's something I could get behind and feel happy to contribute.
https://kagi.com/orion/
I was okay with the sponsored links, but now this is affecting the functionality of the app. My phone is shit and I have a hard time sliding to the next page.
You can disable sponsored shortcuts on the homepage settings, if that's what it's referring to
Everyone is too busy being angry to click the little gear icon.
Eh, the criticism isn't invalid - those are still ads being added on the front page. What does irk me is people talking about how something breaks their workflow, yet they don't even try to fix the issue.
This shit irks me so much, because it keeps happening!
There's this feature that makes your address bar randomly auto complete sponsored URLs instead of your actual history. Pretty fucking annoying to type
nand have Netflix pop up, even though I don't use it.When you disable this "feature", it still breaks your autocomplete! Now instead of suggesting Netflix, it just sometimes doesn't suggest anything before I continue typing.
If you must add these anti-features to pay for your CEO, at least don't break the app when it's disabled!
I think you can make it only autocomplete your bookmarks in the settings.
But I also don't want that. I just want the normal auto-complete to work 10/10 times, not just 9/10.
Then turn it off?
Also, I rarely use Firefox on my phone and my links are still all from websites I've visited.
Mozilla already has Scrooge McDuck amounts of money. It doesn’t need any more to maintain a browser and an email client.
From jwz, who founded Mozilla & Firefox:
.
no. they don't.
the google money that they rely too heavily on, may not always be there. they need more diverse funding. these paid placements, which can be turned off, are one way to do that.
turn off and delete the sponsored stuff at install, never see 'em again. it's not like they're microsoft or something, constantly turning that kind of shit back on with every-other-update.
https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/06/mozilla-is-an-advertising-company-now/#comment-249969
While this analysis is somewhat convincing, let's not forget that for now Firefox is all we have. Important not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
In my ideal scenario, Mozilla becomes like the Wikimedia Foundation. Which has somehow also accumulated "Scrooge McDuck amounts" of cash but seems to be on a firmer footing and better managed.
Serving Wikipedia is a different order of magnitude vs building a web browser
Okay but you mean which is harder?? Both projects rely on a bunch of salaried professionals supervising an army of volunteers. Firefox is a web browser, i.e. notoriously the space shuttle of software. But the Wikipedia is doing some surprisingly innovative and cutting-edge stuff with its own codebase too, as I understand it. Whichever is costlier, I'm not sure we're talking about an order of magnitude of difference.
I'm not an expert on either codebase but I believe the main driver of complexity with developing a browser engine is the sheer number of standards and how fast they change and multiply. Wikipedia has to update articles and maintain the server backend, which is no small task with such a global and comprehensive website, but Firefox has to do similar things on top of vastly more complex code with much more churn. There's a reason Mozilla developed Rust as well.
Firstly, updating the articles is the one thing Wikipedia doesn't do, the army of unpaid volunteers does that.
But as for "just maintaining the backend", the Wikimedia Foundation does far more than that. It created and maintains and constantly iterates a huge pile of ever-complexifying frontend code - the wiki itself, discussion software, media tools etc - not just for Wikipedia but for a whole bunch of peer sites. Much of it is pretty cutting-edge, it's used daily by many thousands of editors and there's also the accessibility requirement. I know from personal experience that there's nothing harder than front-end when you have to tick the accessibility box. No doubt Firefox's technical challenge is greater but really the difference is not night and day.
Skill issue
The browser itself is free, and they have to make money somehow to keep the company running (if the CEO didn't keep most of it for themself). If you don't like it, you can turn it off or download an ad-free fork.
Name an internet browser that costs money
Name an internet browser that's not rigged to show you adds, or one that doesn't havest your data.
Y'all can use LibreWolf or BestHomePageEver if it really bugs somebody. I do get being annoyed by shortcut ads though.
I wouldn't recommend LibreWolf to the average user as they'll unfoubtedly stretch their attack surface thin.
It's not gonna make them more exposed than vanilla Firefox
Absolutely, it's just the browser extensions most end-users want/need that would cause them distress in that regard. It's simply not as user friendly from what I can recall, it's been a while since I last used it so it may have improved since then
And many, many more.
How much money are they likely to make over a lifetime of a user from the sponsorships. Would FirefoxPro actually be a good idea?
Microsoft Edge
Better than the unlabeled sponsorship behind the default search engine.
If they make some money from harmless icons, I mean, I can live with it
I was fine with 2. Having all but one icon in the tray be an ad is too much.
Yeah but you can literally just turn this off with no fuss.
1.Firefox for Android.
2.Tap the menu button.
3.Tap. Settings.
4.Tap Homepage.
5.Deselect Sponsored shortcuts under Shortcuts.
This was a bug
And looks like it's been fixed :)
Can't you remove those?
There's literally a settings button on that new tab page to take you right to the correct setting.
Or, ya know, literally any other browser that's not a fork of Firefox.
And Brave has significantly lower costs, given they don't develop an own engine, but rather just put lipstick onto Chromium.
I bailed on brave when I learned more about the shenanigans that one dude pulled.
If we want software to be FOSS we have to stop bitching so much about developers trying to make the math work.
One could posit an ideal public sector development studio that takes grants from the state/federal government to produce useful Open Source software. Think public radio or public broadcasting, but for apps.
Hell, it isn't even wild in the current moment. Modern day AWS and Azure subsidize much of its small/new user client base with the massive public sector clientele. OpenAI and DeepSeek are both the product of giant state-sponsored initiatives to develop AI that is free at point of service. Plenty of the original internet architecture was the product of public investment and grants, as was the university-centric ARPNET that would eventually be commoditizated into the commercial World Wide Web.
Look up the history of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and the pioneering of Mosaic, the first widely available GUI-based web browser. It was the foundation for both Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator, which licensed the original design for the tiniest fraction of what it would ultimately generate in future revenues.
So how exactly were you planning on them making money if they don’t take money from Google to be the default search engine and they don’t take money to place advertisements on the default home page?
Open source projects shouldn't have "making money" on their priority list. I would donate to Mozilla if I had some guarantee that my money would actually fund Firefox development
I'm not one of those people, and to be clear I support for-profit companies open sourcing code. Mozilla is a unique case where donations are a tiny fraction of their income and Firefox development is a tiny fraction of their expenses. I just want to donate directly to the parts I care about (Firefox, MDN).
I say let them cook a little, they arent drowning in donations and still do a tone of things for foss communities.
Let's remember that the de fuckto market (ie pleb) alternative is overwhelmingly Chrome.
We dont need such projects just so we as individuals can have privacy focused experiences but also for how that influences markets and society. And to have any influence you need certain power of masses.
The perplexing thing is that unlike Thunderbird, I have never seen them ask for donations
They had a very successful donations drive a while back. They might still be good.
Be that as it may we are old enough to know foss needs support.
I myself rarely click on some campaign for donations, I prefer the coffee button or whatever they have on their page or bithub.
Either that or they go bankrupt. Design your own browser and give it out for free if you don't like it
A for profit company is not a charity
Their profit motive is capped by their only shareholder being a non-profit.
Again, not really. Mozilla wants to bring in as much money as they can. They are really bad at actually making useful products but that's a separate issue.
Whether it's for profit or charity. It can't accomplish its goals without financing.
Personaly those shortcuts are a feature I literally never use so much so I don't even register their existence anymore.
How do you get this? My home page just has some recent links
Depending on where you got Firefox from, default settings are different. Maybe your distro ships with these deactivated.
Yep. I get it from Librewolf. 😁
Fresh install.
on mobile, too, it looks like. on pc, i've only ever seen half that many, plus google pops in there if you switch your search default. click-dismiss and they're gone. toggle a couple settings, done. they don't come back.
nah in firefox those ads can be disabled by unchecking a checkbox, in windows it's probably not just an easy to find checkbox and i bet after removing the ads they'll just come back after an update.
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And even if you disable this, your address bar still randomly breaks, but instead of suggesting an ad it just doesn't suggest anything.
Fuck you, Mozilla.
Was trying to reference this
Maybe I should have added a paragraph somewhere in there. I was typing fast because I only get so much time on my break at work.
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Ads are one thing, but this seems excessive and probably unintentional. Looks like someone just filed this bug, which is another sign that it might be an unintentional problem: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1944704
This is why I torrent firefox pro using Limewire.
Fennec F-droid
Honestly, I don't care. I don't even look at that stuff, I just type in the bar thing what I want. Mozilla has to fund the project somehow.
Seems fine to me, they need to make money somehow.
There are some more privacy friendly forks of "Firefox for Android", which have sponsored shortcuts disabled or minimized by default. For example:
Feel free to give them a try :)
I use Fennec for my phone, but I'm rediscovering Floorp on desktop right now and I'm seriously impressed. Smoothest Fox Fork I've used in a long time.
+1 for fennec
@UltraGiGaGigantic Sorry about that, not quite what is expected to happen. I understand that it has been looked into and has now been resolved.
#fxhelp
Don't give them new ideas, Sony might jump in and patent that too.
Don't give them any ideas
Why is this an issue ??
Meanwhile Let's discuss on how we can make Mozilla Great again (as in independent)
Breaking news: Businesses need to make money, more at 11
I think the best viable option for them is to either offer a subscription model. Or increase requests for donations.
what would a subscription even do?
Id say support Firefox development, maybe premium access to some of Mozilla's services, possibly cosmetics in browser
support ff development: thats called donating
premium access to mozillas services: that's already a thing but you subscribe to each one, like their vpn, pocket, etc
cosmetics in browser: thats just https://addons.mozilla.org
I don't mind as those are easy to switch off.
Wow, that's levels of commercial removed that I did not think possible, given how much FF sell themselves as being against this sort of thing.
Also, not being able to set the home button to a custom URL is fucking crazy. I want the home button to take me to my selfhosted dashboard that has all my services and links on it. I don't want the home button to take me to the dumbass firefox page and have to click another link to get to it.
Been using Kiwi instead for this sole reason but now Kiwi is dead. I'm not willing to concede this workflow and make an extra click because Mozilla is braindead and can't implement a functional home button like every single browser since the beginning of time.
???
I think they mean on mobile as opposed to PC. I can't find any option besides the dashboard-style homepage offered by default. I can customize it, but I can't make it a specific URL.
Well first of all, rude! Second, where was that stated? Oh it wasn't? You just felt like being a little bitch on the Internet for no reason? Honestly, relatable.
As is mine. But the post and discussion itself are about sponsored links on the home page which are present and look exactly the same across platforms. You're the only one talking about the android app. Despite making zero clarifying statements in your original post, you still have the audacity to lie like anyone else is with you on this, and call me names when all I've done is go out of my way to try and help you. Well, suck my whole ass, dick!
You can set it to custom and to my knowledge that's always been true.
What a nice person
https://f-droid.org/packages/org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid/
What part of it doesn't work? Rather than resorting to name calling I would instead say what the problem is. You will get way more help when you aren't being a jerk.
Are you talking about Firefox based browsers or is my link broken? Firefox allows pinning a web page to start and setting a home page.