A neighbor came to ask for help today. He got locked out of his Facebook account and was getting impatient with their AI, so he Googled "facebook support number" clicked on the first link (almost certainly an ad) and called the number. The person on the other end apparently told him they needed access to his bank accounts to verify his identity and you know the rest of the story.
replyAlso they say they will continue to show Firefox’s sponsored links and ads. So, they’ll continue to show first party ads and google’s ads? And likely they won’t be able to keep up with meta’s anti ad blocking. That’s most ads on the internet. No thanks, I’ll stick to ublock origin lite on safari.
replyThere's no reason to block Firefox's sponsored links because you can just turn those off if you don't want to see them.
replyFirefox on iOS is blocking third-party ads, not first-party ads.
replyThrough network blocking? Or removing elements?
replyStandard webkit content blocking, so it will filter requests and hide elements.
replyIf only we could pay for Firefox so they could get rid of that Google funding…
replyhas any browser ever made that work? Opera has to be the most popular by a mile and even they couldn't keep that business model going
replyNot in my knowledge. It would be hard to have the same amount of funding as they have now from Google.
replyWhat exactly is the problem? I understand a browser is a complex program but is the claim it is impossible to build a browser without continual dependence on advertising toxic dollars?
reply> a browser is a complex program
replyA browser in the class of Firefox or Chrome is for all intents and purposes a full OS constantly exposed to the world.
I understand open source OS development to be sustainable thanks to the the effort put into the server farms. That doesn't work for client side software, with the additional hurdle of needing to be better than the ad funded browser.
Orion (by Kagi) is still new, but seems to be trying.
replyPeople just expect browsers to be free. And there's no way that can be more than Google money.
replyThat's because browsers should be free. They are infrastructure, just like bridges. And nobody wants a bridge troll sitting on the single bridge crossing the internet river, demanding money from everyone.
replyYou pay for bridges with tax. Tax funded browser sounds good in theory, but I don't trust the people managing my tax money to run a tech project like Firefox. Most likely it gets handed to the lowest private sector bidder, with the stipulation that any privacy preserving — sorry, I meant criminal hiding — features be removed.
replyBridges are not free
replyI mean, bridge tolls are absolutely a thing.
replyMy area has roads w/o bridges that have a toll.
replyIf only we could open source it and load it onto the phone with Sideloadly.
reply... if only their donation links would let you specify your donation goes to Firefox development and no other mozilla service ...
reply