Starting with Firefox version 92 (Mozilla releases a new version every 4.2 seconds it seems… so they’re up to version “92” right now), Mozilla added a feature they call “Firefox Suggest”.
“Firefox Suggest is a new feature that serves as a trustworthy guide to the better web, surfacing relevant information and sites to help you accomplish your goals.
Firefox Suggest provides website suggestions in the address bar. When contextual suggestions are enabled, Firefox Suggest uses your city location and search keywords to make contextual suggestions from Firefox and our partners, while keeping your privacy in mind.”
In other words: Ads. Firefox is now inserting advertisements into the URL address bar. As you type, Firefox will now spew a constant stream of “contextual” advertisements at you. Served by a company called adMarketplace.
Mozilla implies that this “feature” is not “on by default.” Yet, it clearly is.
Regardless.
Considering the nosediving marketshare of Firefox (around 3%), I wonder if “shove more advertisements down the throats of users in increasingly annoying and disruptive ways” is the best strategy to right the ship and begin to earn back the trust and interest of previously annoyed and burned Firefox users.
Mozilla, the half-billion dollar per year mega corporation, already spends a huge amount of its revenue on projects not related to web browsing — and with a stated goal of suppressing On-Line speech of people they disagree with politically. If they feel the need to bring in increased revenue to further fund Firefox development, might I suggest pulling back on the increasingly oppressive and discriminatory Mozilla programs that, pointedly, have little to nothing to do with web browsing.
Interestingly: Mozilla’s heavy-handed, forced on users, advertising with Firefox is now going even further than that of Google’s Chrome. And Google is, first and foremost. An advertising company. That’s saying something.
Side Note: Remember Netscape Navigator? Remember how it was… a web browser. That you used to browse web pages. And it didn’t collect all your data and advertise to you on every possible button, page, and widget? Remember how their goal seemed to be “make a good web browser”? Yeah. Those were the good old days.
I kept hoping there would be a note somewhere that this was satire. Not only was it not satire, but firefox suggest was enabled by default for me as well.
The news from Mozilla has been so disappointing lately. It's almost as though they're trying to discourage people from using their browser. I get that times are tough financially for them but they're compromising some of their core principles. With Chromium hegemony, it's difficult to find an alternative that isn't actively trying to be just as bad as the competition.
I kept hoping there would be a note somewhere that this was satire. Not only was it not satire, but firefox suggest was enabled by default for me as well.
The news from Mozilla has been so disappointing lately. It's almost as though they're trying to discourage people from using their browser. I get that times are tough financially for them but they're compromising some of their core principles. With Chromium hegemony, it's difficult to find an alternative that isn't actively trying to be just as bad as the competition.