• Firefox wants a bit of ads+AI

    From Retrograde@21:1/5 to All on Mon Feb 24 03:51:15 2025
    From the «browser game is lost?» department:
    Title: Mozilla once again confirms it’s all about ads and “AI” now Author: Thom Holwerda
    Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2025 00:42:27 +0000
    Link: https://www.osnews.com/story/141757/mozilla-once-again-confirms-its-all-about-ads-and-ai-now/


    We’ve recognized that Mozilla faces major headwinds in terms of both financial growth and mission impact. While Firefox remains the core of what
    we do, we also need to take steps to diversify: investing in
    privacy-respecting advertising to grow new revenue in the near term;
    developing trustworthy, open source AI to ensure technical and product relevance in the mid term; and creating online fundraising campaigns that
    will draw a bigger circle of supporters over the long run. Mozilla’s impact and survival depend on us simultaneously strengthening Firefox AND finding
    new sources of revenue AND manifesting our mission in fresh ways. That is why we’re working hard on all of these fronts.
    ↫ Mark Surman on the Mozilla blog[1]

    None of this is new to anyone reading OSNews. I’ve been quite vocal about Mozilla’s troubles and how it intends to address those troubles, and I’m incredibly worried and concerned about the increasing efforts by Mozilla to push advertising and “AI” to somehow find more revenue streams. I think this is
    the wrong direction to take, and will not make up for the seemingly inevitable loss of the Google search deal – and my biggest fear is that Firefox will get a
    lot worse before Mozilla realises advertising and “AI” just aren’t compatible
    with their mission and the morals and values of the last few remaining Firefox users.

    I don’t have any answers either, of course. Making a competitive browser is hard, and clearly requires a lot of people and a lot of time. Donations are fickle, nobody will pay for a browser, and relying on corporate sponsoring in other forms than the Google search deal will just mean Firefox will become like Chrome even faster, with more and more exceptions for “allowed” ads and additional roadblocks for adblockers to try and work around. In essence, I strongly believe that it is impossible to both earn money from online ads and make a good browser. It’s one or the other – not both.

    There’s basically no competition in the browser space, and if we lose Firefox,
    the only other option is Chrome and its various skins. Not a future I’m looking
    forward to.

    Links:
    [1]: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-leadership-growth-planning-updates/ (link)

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  • From D@21:1/5 to Retrograde on Mon Feb 24 10:42:54 2025
    This message is in MIME format. The first part should be readable text,
    while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools.

    On Mon, 24 Feb 2025, Retrograde wrote:

    From the «browser game is lost?» department:
    Title: Mozilla once again confirms it’s all about ads and “AI” now Author: Thom Holwerda
    Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2025 00:42:27 +0000
    Link: https://www.osnews.com/story/141757/mozilla-once-again-confirms-its-all-about-ads-and-ai-now/

    It is very sad. They should remove the current CEO. Maybe it is time for
    me to step in, and drag Mozilla back to basics. Do a browser, fund it with donations, and that's it. Let's say I take 200k USD per year for the job,
    just the savings on CEO salary alone could fund an army of developers!


    We’ve recognized that Mozilla faces major headwinds in terms of both financial growth and mission impact. While Firefox remains the core of what we do, we also need to take steps to diversify: investing in privacy-respecting advertising to grow new revenue in the near term; developing trustworthy, open source AI to ensure technical and product relevance in the mid term; and creating online fundraising campaigns that will draw a bigger circle of supporters over the long run. Mozilla’s impact and survival depend on us simultaneously strengthening Firefox AND finding new sources of revenue AND manifesting our mission in fresh ways. That is why we’re working hard on all of these fronts.
    ↫ Mark Surman on the Mozilla blog[1]

    None of this is new to anyone reading OSNews. I’ve been quite vocal about Mozilla’s troubles and how it intends to address those troubles, and I’m incredibly worried and concerned about the increasing efforts by Mozilla to push advertising and “AI” to somehow find more revenue streams. I think this is
    the wrong direction to take, and will not make up for the seemingly inevitable
    loss of the Google search deal – and my biggest fear is that Firefox will get a
    lot worse before Mozilla realises advertising and “AI” just aren’t compatible
    with their mission and the morals and values of the last few remaining Firefox
    users.

    I don’t have any answers either, of course. Making a competitive browser is hard, and clearly requires a lot of people and a lot of time. Donations are fickle, nobody will pay for a browser, and relying on corporate sponsoring in other forms than the Google search deal will just mean Firefox will become like
    Chrome even faster, with more and more exceptions for “allowed” ads and additional roadblocks for adblockers to try and work around. In essence, I strongly believe that it is impossible to both earn money from online ads and make a good browser. It’s one or the other – not both.

    There’s basically no competition in the browser space, and if we lose Firefox,
    the only other option is Chrome and its various skins. Not a future I’m looking
    forward to.

    Links:
    [1]: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-leadership-growth-planning-updates/ (link)


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  • From D@21:1/5 to Marco Moock on Mon Feb 24 11:14:59 2025
    This message is in MIME format. The first part should be readable text,
    while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools.

    On Mon, 24 Feb 2025, Marco Moock wrote:

    On 24.02.2025 03:51 Uhr Retrograde wrote:

    Title: Mozilla once again confirms it’s all about ads and “AI” now

    Confirms again that my choice of Pale Moon was a good decision.

    This is the truth! But it has the weakness of being a fork of FF, so when
    FF dies, so will Pale moon. =(

    I hope the ladybug browser will really take off! That could be exactly
    what we are all looking for! I do hope that ublock origin and privacy
    badger will be the two first extensions to be able to get to run on
    ladybug. ;)

    Ladybug also had the wisdom to not cave in to demands from political
    activists to turn it into a DEI project. They said that they focus on technology and not on politics. I think this was a very wise move from
    them.

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  • From Marco Moock@21:1/5 to All on Mon Feb 24 10:23:13 2025
    On 24.02.2025 03:51 Uhr Retrograde wrote:

    Title: Mozilla once again confirms it’s all about ads and “AI” now

    Confirms again that my choice of Pale Moon was a good decision.

    --
    kind regards
    Marco

    Send spam to 1740365475muell@stinkedores.dorfdsl.de

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  • From Marco Moock@21:1/5 to All on Mon Feb 24 14:30:20 2025
    On 24.02.2025 11:14 Uhr D wrote:

    On Mon, 24 Feb 2025, Marco Moock wrote:

    On 24.02.2025 03:51 Uhr Retrograde wrote:

    Title: Mozilla once again confirms it’s all about ads and “AI” now >>

    Confirms again that my choice of Pale Moon was a good decision.

    This is the truth! But it has the weakness of being a fork of FF, so
    when FF dies, so will Pale moon. =(

    It diverged that much that the current FF is almost irrelevant for it.

    I hope the ladybug browser will really take off! That could be
    exactly what we are all looking for!

    I hope too, but I have serious doubt.

    Ladybug also had the wisdom to not cave in to demands from political activists to turn it into a DEI project. They said that they focus on technology and not on politics. I think this was a very wise move
    from them.

    A wise choice for every software.

    --
    kind regards
    Marco

    Send spam to 1740392099muell@stinkedores.dorfdsl.de

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  • From D@21:1/5 to Marco Moock on Mon Feb 24 23:12:14 2025
    This message is in MIME format. The first part should be readable text,
    while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools.

    On Mon, 24 Feb 2025, Marco Moock wrote:

    On 24.02.2025 11:14 Uhr D wrote:

    On Mon, 24 Feb 2025, Marco Moock wrote:

    On 24.02.2025 03:51 Uhr Retrograde wrote:

    Title: Mozilla once again confirms it’s all about ads and “AI” now >>>>

    Confirms again that my choice of Pale Moon was a good decision.

    This is the truth! But it has the weakness of being a fork of FF, so
    when FF dies, so will Pale moon. =(

    It diverged that much that the current FF is almost irrelevant for it.

    That's great news! Then there is hope!

    I hope the ladybug browser will really take off! That could be
    exactly what we are all looking for!

    I hope too, but I have serious doubt.

    Ladybug also had the wisdom to not cave in to demands from political
    activists to turn it into a DEI project. They said that they focus on
    technology and not on politics. I think this was a very wise move
    from them.

    A wise choice for every software.

    This is the way!

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  • From Theo@21:1/5 to Marco Moock on Mon Feb 24 22:29:00 2025
    Marco Moock <mm+usenet-es@dorfdsl.de> wrote:
    On 24.02.2025 11:14 Uhr D wrote:

    On Mon, 24 Feb 2025, Marco Moock wrote:

    On 24.02.2025 03:51 Uhr Retrograde wrote:

    Title: Mozilla once again confirms it’s all about ads and “AI” now >>

    Confirms again that my choice of Pale Moon was a good decision.

    This is the truth! But it has the weakness of being a fork of FF, so
    when FF dies, so will Pale moon. =(

    It diverged that much that the current FF is almost irrelevant for it.

    How is Pale Moon funded?

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Salvador Mirzo@21:1/5 to nospam@example.net on Mon Feb 24 21:07:27 2025
    D <nospam@example.net> writes:

    On Mon, 24 Feb 2025, Retrograde wrote:

    From the «browser game is lost?» department:
    Title: Mozilla once again confirms it’s all about ads and “AI” now
    Author: Thom Holwerda
    Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2025 00:42:27 +0000
    Link:
    https://www.osnews.com/story/141757/mozilla-once-again-confirms-its-all-about-ads-and-ai-now/

    It is very sad. They should remove the current CEO. Maybe it is time
    for me to step in, and drag Mozilla back to basics. Do a browser, fund
    it with donations, and that's it. Let's say I take 200k USD per year
    for the job, just the savings on CEO salary alone could fund an army
    of developers!

    Well said.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Marco Moock@21:1/5 to All on Tue Feb 25 17:13:06 2025
    On 24.02.2025 22:29 Uhr Theo wrote:

    Marco Moock <mm+usenet-es@dorfdsl.de> wrote:
    On 24.02.2025 11:14 Uhr D wrote:

    On Mon, 24 Feb 2025, Marco Moock wrote:

    On 24.02.2025 03:51 Uhr Retrograde wrote:

    Title: Mozilla once again confirms it’s all about ads and “AI” >> now

    Confirms again that my choice of Pale Moon was a good decision.


    This is the truth! But it has the weakness of being a fork of FF,
    so when FF dies, so will Pale moon. =(

    It diverged that much that the current FF is almost irrelevant for
    it.

    How is Pale Moon funded?

    By its users
    (https://ko-fi.com/palemoon) and by refunds for using DuckDuckGo with the URL parameter.

    --
    kind regards
    Marco

    Send spam to 1740432540muell@stinkedores.dorfdsl.de

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  • From Jim Jackson@21:1/5 to Marco Moock on Sun Mar 2 12:31:28 2025
    On 2025-02-24, Marco Moock <mm+usenet-es@dorfdsl.de> wrote:
    On 24.02.2025 03:51 Uhr Retrograde wrote:

    Title: Mozilla once again confirms it???s all about ads and ???AI??? now

    Confirms again that my choice of Pale Moon was a good decision.

    Quick question: do you know if I switch to palemoon will it pick up and
    use my existing profiles etc?

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  • From anthk@21:1/5 to Retrograde on Mon Mar 10 07:59:08 2025
    On 2025-02-24, Retrograde <fungus@amongus.com.invalid> wrote:
    From the «browser game is lost?» department:
    Title: Mozilla once again confirms it’s all about ads and “AI” now Author: Thom Holwerda
    Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2025 00:42:27 +0000
    Link: https://www.osnews.com/story/141757/mozilla-once-again-confirms-its-all-about-ads-and-ai-now/


    We’ve recognized that Mozilla faces major headwinds in terms of both financial growth and mission impact. While Firefox remains the core of what we do, we also need to take steps to diversify: investing in privacy-respecting advertising to grow new revenue in the near term; developing trustworthy, open source AI to ensure technical and product relevance in the mid term; and creating online fundraising campaigns that will draw a bigger circle of supporters over the long run. Mozilla’s impact and survival depend on us simultaneously strengthening Firefox AND finding new sources of revenue AND manifesting our mission in fresh ways. That is why we’re working hard on all of these fronts.
    ↫ Mark Surman on the Mozilla blog[1]

    None of this is new to anyone reading OSNews. I’ve been quite vocal about Mozilla’s troubles and how it intends to address those troubles, and I’m incredibly worried and concerned about the increasing efforts by Mozilla to push advertising and “AI” to somehow find more revenue streams. I think this is
    the wrong direction to take, and will not make up for the seemingly inevitable
    loss of the Google search deal – and my biggest fear is that Firefox will get a
    lot worse before Mozilla realises advertising and “AI” just aren’t compatible
    with their mission and the morals and values of the last few remaining Firefox
    users.

    I don’t have any answers either, of course. Making a competitive browser is hard, and clearly requires a lot of people and a lot of time. Donations are fickle, nobody will pay for a browser, and relying on corporate sponsoring in other forms than the Google search deal will just mean Firefox will become like
    Chrome even faster, with more and more exceptions for “allowed” ads and additional roadblocks for adblockers to try and work around. In essence, I strongly believe that it is impossible to both earn money from online ads and make a good browser. It’s one or the other – not both.

    There’s basically no competition in the browser space, and if we lose Firefox,
    the only other option is Chrome and its various skins. Not a future I’m looking
    forward to.

    Links:
    [1]: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-leadership-growth-planning-updates/ (link)

    As Dillo 3.2 supports MathSVG, I don't need any bloated browser at all.

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  • From yeti@21:1/5 to anthk on Mon Mar 10 09:21:52 2025
    anthk <anthk@openbsd.home> wrote:

    As Dillo 3.2 supports MathSVG, I don't need any bloated browser at all.

    \o/ _____( Yayyyyy Dillo! )

    Dillo reliably makes me smile.

    The other browser I currently keep an eye on is Chawan. Guess why!

    Hint: It's not only about SVG. I just tried MathSVG today, but this
    cutie has some other hidden qualities too:

    <https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?pid=54845#p54845>

    --
    Fact checking died. Now we can call Trump smart without fearing
    consequences?

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  • From yeti@21:1/5 to yeti on Mon Mar 10 09:31:12 2025
    yeti <yeti@tilde.institute> wrote:

    <https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?pid=54845#p54845>

    Upsi....!

    <https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?pid=54846#p54846>

    --
    I do not bite, I just want to play.

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  • From Tristan Wibberley@21:1/5 to Retrograde on Sun Apr 13 16:21:34 2025
    On 24/02/2025 03:51, Retrograde wrote:
    Making a competitive browser is
    hard, and clearly requires a lot of people and a lot of time. Donations are fickle, nobody will pay for a browser,
    Does the browser need to be changed much now?

    Service providers need to provide apps, so:

    (1) they do not need to give cookie popups
    (2) they can certify and take responsibility for compatibility with
    their server-side interfaces, because the users can't (not even by commissioning their interaction devices with strong warranties).

    So they could pay for whatever and the firefox developers don't need to
    care. The rest of us only need good-old web (if only the informative
    content still existed or could be found).

    The big problem is providing for sandboxed installation at real-world locations, so I can get the app direct at a bank location without
    involving a 3rd party distributor who may control my activities or
    shoe-horn themselves into a stronger position against me and my
    preferred service providers.

    Really, I want to go back to the 1990s game console interaction concept
    using a wallet-sized card like a cartridge. Computing declarative UI instructions and network messages in a credit-card format could be done
    in the 1990s. small message encryption can be done now, surely? Let me
    slot my bank card into my interaction device and get the bank app
    on-screen without it having meaningful control or access to the device
    and have my banking secure against all but infiltration of the
    interaction device.

    Aren't we even reaching the point where the card has the touchscreen and
    needs only a battery and radio to be pressed against it so it can be the
    whole app? If it's not a really important app, or it's just another
    calendar and ticket buying app they can just become plugins to a well-generalised app anyway.

    The full turing-complete app is a huge problem, amazon is presenting
    one-click buying for £2000 purchases as an up-sell on £0.00 product
    pages in a web-format where buttons jump around the screen as pages load
    and dangling USB cables click all over your screen while you sip your
    tea so something's got to give to take browsers back away from the
    trading coal-face.

    --
    Tristan Wibberley

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