Firefox app on android. Never seen this before until today. But Firefox is now putting ads in the app?
you can literally turn it off. firefox is one of the last good browsers out there.
Former employee here. Firefox has been adding sponsored content to the new tab page since Firefox 60 in 2018. Their support article gives a good amount of detail on how it works, but perhaps more importantly for you, how to disable it.
They’ve been doing it on desktop Firefox for ages
They’ve always done that afaik?
settings > homepage > shortcuts > uncheck ‘sponsored shortcuts’
Opt-out is still toxic
Yeah but Firefox doesn’t get their income like google does
They will never compete with Google by adding ads to the browser. I pay for Kagi, I would pay for Firefox too, but I guess most people wont.
I would pay for their firefox search engine as well.
They get it from Google ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yeah but it doesn’t change that it’s sh*t. It’s no justification
How do you mean its not justificatin? If noone is paying you would you still go to work?
If we want firefox to be good again we need to pay for it, or rather give some symbolic amount that will be huge for them because there are tousent of people using firefox.
Even thou they are losing users for years and now hawe only a relativly small procent of world populacion. Which is bad because people dont understand that firefox is open source and chrome is proprietery.
And dont even understand what open source means… Thats why we are in situacion like this where google is controling everything…
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I think people need to appreciate that Mozilla is probably the only company in the world that will allow you to turn off ads like this, for free.
Low friggin’ bar.
Yet one so many competitors fail to clear.
Low bar, but that’s how far our options have sunk.
Ah hahahaha no. That’s not even close to true. Do we seriously need to mention the dozens of alternative web browsers out there?
There are not dozens of alternative browsers. There is Chromium, Safari, and Firefox, with a few niche options that aren’t really production ready yet and may never be. The “variety” you speak of is just Chromium in lots of disguises.
And here, my friend, you forgot what OP was posting about. Let me refresh your memory. Built in advertising. They don’t like it. So … even if we ignore the dozens of non-Chromium non-Firefox based browsers on the market, like you did for no good reason, OP could still solve their problem by using one of these derivatives.
Facts and logic, together!
So condescending for no good reason…
Anyway, I didn’t forget. I just pointed out that we have an illusion of choice, and that a lot of people who use Firefox do so, at least in part, to fight the Google monoculture.
As for your claim that there are dozens of alternative browser engines on the market, you’re going to have to provide some evidence for me to take that seriously. And remember I was limiting the scope to browsers that could feasibly be used as a daily driver for the modern web, not some pet project that crashes when you try to load DoorDash.
I turn everything off in Firefox’s new page except search! I always found the news stuff distracting too.
that’s typically what i do but on desktop i turn off search too since a) i use the awesomebar primarily and b) my ntp is a background and i’d rather see that for a cleaner look :)
You should be able to turn off “web search” too if you go to the page mentioned in the parent comment.
(Note the Edit icon in the corner of the homepage does not give you all the options. It used to let you turn off sponsored content, but Mozilla removed that a couple versions ago.)
Thankies…you solved a problem I didn’t know I had
I think those have been there since forever?
This should be towards the top. I’ve been on FF4A for years now and they’ve had those links there the whole time. You can toggle them off if yku don’t want them.
how many people see that page tho? when i open a new tab i don’t even see the page, I open new pages quite often, all i see is the address bar until i type and hit enter. never even saw the “sponsored content”
You must have changed an option, by default the page shows up every time you open a new tab. (Though you can disable the ads on it)
I have wonderful tunnel vision. I opened a new tab and actually looked at the page and they do in fact exist, I have 3 sponsored links, I just never actually look at the page until i hit enter cause there is nothing of interest til then hehe
Pretty much
The default search engine being google is a much worse offence imo, but somehow people dont complain about that.
That’s the one thing keeping Firefox (and all it’s forks) afloat.
You can literrally change that with just a few clicks. It takes a few seconds…
But I guess you don’t like that great software costs money to develop, so you will start using those alternatives that wouldn’t exist, if it were not for Mozilla/Firefox… Make that make sense!
I’ve been using Duck Duck Go through Firefox for years now.
Me too, but its surely still a decision that has much worse of an impact on the average non techie user than a random little bookmark thats even easier to remove.
As has always been the case, you can turn off Sponsored Shortcuts and Sponsored Stories.
Yeah… Never knew that setting existed because this is the first time I’m even seeing a sponsor.
If it was something besides some big Corpo I’d probably not have minded…
Mozilla’s #1 sponsor is Google, which is why you’ll see two Google logos on a fresh install of FF (after you click through their initial setup screens)
So, every real alternative to Firefox, is most likely based on all the work that Mozilla has done on Firefox. People get it for free, and yet they crumple and whine, when Mozilla tries to get the money to keep steady development going.
I want it free, I want them to do all the work, and then I’m going to use another browser, based on their work, because I don’t like that great development cost money - and I won’t pay! Buhuu!
Get over yourself. Mozilla does great work for users worldwide. Don’t like to see ads? Then start donating! Grow TF up, and realize that nothing is free in a capitalistic world!
Donating to Mozilla doesn’t change any behavior in Firefox.
Also, donations to Mozilla don’t go towards Firefox development. As far as I’m aware the only way to “give” money to Mozilla Corp (who work on Firefox, as opposed to the Mozilla Foundation) is to subscribe to the VPN service they resell.
It might… But I guess it’s easier to just badmouth Firefox.
I prefer to view this as a socialist. Firefox is the work of tens of thousands of laborers, and is not owned by an out of touch upper class. Yet, they are mismanaging it.
It took me time to realize that I, a highly trained engineer, was a laborer and have similar issues to most people the last few centuries.
It is literally needed that the workers of Firefox rise up and revolt before the entire project is harmed beyond repair
That might be… Then you should work for that.
I would pay for Firefox. The same way I donate every year to Thunderbird!
But do you?
While I get the sentiment, I think you are missing the two pieces here. One is that advertising is not the only method of monetization which can support something like Firefox. The second is that advertising is by it’s nature influence. Both in influence over the purchaser and reader. It’s an influence we should not approve of in both cases, without better boundaries.
Oh, do enlighten me. How should they get som money otherwise?
I think Mozilla loathe ads as much as you and I… But do enlighten os, how can they earn enough money otherwise?
My question is: can it be turned off?
Mozilla has been trying to get me to look at news or use Pocket for years now, but it’s easy to turn off.
Edit to add: my above reference to turn off two different settings I’ve turned off for years now seemed obvious to me that I assumed it could be turned off.
Lot of people didn’t read past the first sentence.
Oooh this is lemmy.ml. Fuck gross bye
Settings>Homepage>Sponsored shortcuts
I turned it off a long time ago, I don’t think this is new.
Yes. I’m pretty sure you can disable sponsored suggestions in the options, or you can also just delete the individual sponsored options. I’ve not seen one of these in the last 4 years.
Goodbye, have a good day.
Mozilla Firefox have never forced you to do anything in regards of ads. They fight for your right, for your freedom. Do you know there’s a help file in the browser? It’s a lot easier to use, than to write in here about mundane problems.
It was more of a rhetorical because of the second sentence, but it’s clear you didn’t read that far.
Is lemmy.ml chock full of dumbshits?
Well, you are here…
Why ask a question you have the answer. So weird
Wow. Wtf… Thats absolutely ridiculous.
Edit: oh its the tab page. Never used it…
There are more shitfox
Explain? I use ironfox and its great.
WaterFox and LibreWolf are decent alternatives if you get tired of needing to opt out of Mozilla nonsense.
Fennec!
I didn’t mind the occasional sponsor or two for many years. Then one day they went over the line.
Yeah I know i should be on librefox/waterfox. Im lazy okay?
That was actually a server-side bug 8 months ago which they not only fixed within 3 days of the issue being reported but followed it up with a hard block against more than 2 displaying at once to make extra sure this didn’t happen again.
If this is what you’re currently seeing then please report it to them. If instead this is an old screenshot then I’ll just agree that Mozilla has certainly suffered many avoidable self-inflicted wounds but this isn’t one of them.
Switching your firefox profile to a firefox fork is super easy peasy squeezy cheesy peas.
You just need to follow the steps for moving your profile in this Firefox support article: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/back-and-restore-information-firefox-profiles
When you start librewolf or whatever you switch to (librewolf is what I use) it will have everything from Firefox including whatever your last session was (if you save your session) and all of your history and bookmarks and even addons and UI customization etc.
Thanks for believing in me
You can disable them, but also I’m pretty sure the default behavior is just to fill extra space if you have less than 8 pinned shortcuts. Your single shortcut is why there are so many ads.
This isn’t new afaik. You can disable it in settings
I always wonder how these links even work. Who would even click on them except by accident?
