Mozilla Stops Firefox Fullscreen VPN Ads After User Outrage (bleepingcomputer.com) 68
Firefox users have been complaining about very intrusive full-screen advertisements promoting Mozilla VPN displayed in the web browser when navigating an unrelated page. From a report: The ads popping in Firefox disable the web browser's functionality, denying users access to the interface and graying out everything in the background until they close them. Some users reported on Reddit that the annoying full-screen ads even cause Firefox to become unresponsive for up to 30 seconds, forcing them to terminate the browser's process. [...] BleepingComputer has contacted Mozilla about the matter and received the following statement following the barrage of complaints from Firefox users: "We're continuously working to understand the best ways to communicate with people who use Firefox. Ultimately, we accomplished the exact opposite of what we intended in this experiment and quickly rolled the experience back. We apologize for any confusion or concern."
Re:nooo my free web browser (Score:4, Insightful)
Give it away for free, or, charge for it. One or the other. Make up your mind. You can't have it both ways.
Re:nooo my free web browser (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't pretend that your product is free and then try to slip in shit that people don't want. Give it away for free, or, charge for it. One or the other. Make up your mind. You can't have it both ways.
This ^^ It's one thing to promote services you have in a separate tab after and upgrade relaunch that can easily be closed/dismissed, but intrusively putting up an ad while hindering the use of an unrelated website is totally unacceptable.
Re: (Score:2)
I hate invasive advertisements too. YouTube app on Android TV seems to make my device unresponsive while it plays an ad for 30 seconds. I can't back out until after the first 15-20 seconds either. So if I accidentally get an ad the only thing I can do is mute my TV and wait. I really hate how during my entire lifetime I would watch TV and in the middle of Star Trek or whatever would be a block of ads that sounded louder than the show itself. I can't skip them, but at least I can change the channel. Channel
Re: (Score:2)
Channel surfing while 2 1/2 minutes of ads go by was my family's favorite hobby.
What I've discovered (when at a relative's house, as I've cut the cord well over a decade ago now) is that these "block of ads" always seem to occur pretty much at the same time, across nearly all channels, so you just end up channel surfing through the same ads anyways (yet another reason why I cut the cord in the first place).
Re: (Score:2)
The trick is to switch to HBO :D
Re: (Score:2)
You mean MAX!
Re: (Score:2)
You mean Warner Bros Discovery/CNN/DC .. Hopefully Disney buys them and can then own both Marvel and DC. And all the streaming for MAX and Hulu/Disney/ESPN. There is of course still Paramount/MTV/Viacom but they don't own a superhero franchise so aren't really serious about this business.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
While I agree with you, people have a pretty flexible definition of "free". As for some kind of legal definition, I think if there is no cost and the parties (you and Mozilla foundation) haven't exchanged something of equivalent value, then it isn't a regular sale and probably not even a contract. Most likely your access to a particular releases of Firefox is legally revocable. The source though is a contract (MPL) and can't be revoked as long as you accepted the terms of the MPL.
IANAL - obviously I'm not g
Re: nooo my free web browser (Score:2)
Clue:
If a product ever says its "free", it's not that company's product.
You are.
But hey yeah just plaster ads everywhere I'm sure folks won't mind!
Soon you'll be able to pay for the privilege of watching ads so you can use your "free browser" or you can try this subscription!
Or I can switch to a browser that doesn't pull this stupid shit. That's still that possibility.
Re: (Score:2)
Bullshit. For example Vivaldi, with a likely smaller user-base, finances things by default search engine. And changing it is easy and persistent. If they can do it, you would think others can too.
Re: (Score:2)
TBF Vivaldi is chromium based,
Re: (Score:2)
So? Chromium is a library.
Re: (Score:2)
A default placement of a product is a type of ad. Grocery stores do this on a huge scale. Profit margins are extremely thin on groceries but they take kickbacks from food companies for referred placement on shelves. These slotting fees can be as much as half of a store's annual profits because of how thin the margins are.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: nooo my free web browser (Score:2)
Are they really in need of money, though?
According to their 2021-2022 financial statement, they have over a $1 billion of assets. $650 millions of that being investments (increasing compared to the previous year).
The report is hard to understand for me, but if I'm not mistaken Mozilla spent less than $400 millions in 2021, and if I understand correctly $237 millions was used for salaries. For 750 employees, that's around $300 000 gross annual salaries.
How much of that goes to actual developers and specifica
Re: (Score:2)
Mozilla is in need of money because of mismanagement. Just look at their "strategic" decision of the last few years.
Re: (Score:2)
When something is being provided free by a non-profit, you don't have to annoy the users with ads. Hear that, Jimmy Wales?
Re: (Score:2)
PBS is funded by donations from viewers like you.
Re: (Score:1)
The CEOs bonus is what's unfair.
Firefox has really been loading up the first run (Score:4, Interesting)
I've done a few fresh Firefox installs recently, and the first run keeps getting bigger. There's now like a six-step hassle window, and then it takes another three steps to turn off the assorted suggested content. And this is mostly new over the last month or two.
Since I run Devuan and it comes with Firefox LTS, I install tarballs into a zpool, and take a ZFS snapshot...
Re:Firefox has really been loading up the first ru (Score:4, Interesting)
I've done a few fresh Firefox installs recently, and the first run keeps getting bigger. There's now like a six-step hassle window, and then it takes another three steps to turn off the assorted suggested content. And this is mostly new over the last month or two.
I've noticed this, but only after a fresh update, and in its own window tab, so it hasn't bothered me (besides the extra hassle of ignoring/closing that tab, which I can live with).
But if it ever started randomly showing ads (and worse - block my use of an unrelated website in the process), it would get removed from my system, as it would now be considered unreliable and, hence, useless to me.
Re: (Score:3)
I've noticed this, but only after a fresh update, and in its own window tab
I actually appreciate this, but the only thing I like about it is the changelog link, and frankly I'd prefer if it just loaded the changelog directly.
I've not run into this, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
FF is my main browser, and I've not subscribed to anything, but I've also never run into this - but if I ever did (and in the way it's described - "intrusive" and "random"), it'd be off my drive immediately.
However I wonder if the reason I've not run into it is because I also have uBlock Origin installed (among other add-ons) that might prevent those ads from showing up.
Re:I've not run into this, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
However I wonder if the reason I've not run into it is because I also have uBlock Origin installed (among other add-ons) that might prevent those ads from showing up.
I also use uBlock Origin and haven't seen these ads, so that is probably the explanation.
However, the level of incompetence at Mozilla is disturbing. They are already down to single digit market share but keep doing more and more stupid shit like this.
Re: (Score:2)
I haven't seen in on Debian, installed from the repository. I think all I've got installed is Privacy Badger, I know I haven't got uBlock installed. I know a lot of sites think I've got a blocker installed though, but it so it's only via FireFox limitations on javascript. (I don't really like fussing around with that kind of thing, so I tend to use quick and simple approaches.) I use the FireFox strict privacy setting.
OTOH, I also tend to leave browser windows open for a week or so. So perhaps I just m
Re: (Score:2)
"FF is my main browser, and I've not subscribed to anything, but I've also never run into this - but if I ever did (and in the way it's described - "intrusive" and "random"), it'd be off my drive immediately."
In favor of what? gopher?
Cutting your nose off to spite your face isn't a winning move.
Re: (Score:2)
In favor of what? gopher?
Something else that doesn't pull that shit (duh!)
Re: (Score:1)
It was a serious question. What are you going to switch to?
It's not like there is a whole bevy of modern high quality competitive browsers to choose from that "don't pull that shit"... I mean, you've got Chrome, run by the biggest ad company on the planet, then there's Edge run by Microsoft who desperately wishes they were the biggest ad company on the planet copying everything Chrome does, or Brave ... that browser run by an ad company...
Yeah, the options are endless.
Re: (Score:1)
It was a serious question. What are you going to switch to?
Given how dumb you obviously are, you cannot possibly serious. But I'll bite...
One solution? It's called.... a fork. Holy shit! Yes those things do exist. Go figure! But you're completely oblivious:
you've got Chrome, run by the biggest ad company on the planet, then there's Edge run by Microsoft
Guess what Edge is... go on, just try. Give up? It's a fork of Chromium (what Chrome itself is based on). Holy mother fucking shit!!!!! Does that mean there could be forks of Firefox????. FUCK YEAH! [reddit.com] (these are but a few examples).
You understand what that means, no? It means that anyone could create a fork of Fire
Re:I've not run into this, but... (Score:5, Informative)
I received the message opening a random page yesterday.
However, there is an option to turn this off entirely in the about:config. look for something titled "vpn_promotion" or something similar.
Re: (Score:3)
However, there is an option to turn this off entirely in the about:config. look for something titled "vpn_promotion" or something similar.
browser.vpn_promo.enabled=false
Thanks! I've never seen this behaviour but I've preëmptively set "browser.vpn_promo.enabled" to false.
Re: (Score:2)
I use Ublock Origin, and I still saw this popup ad. Oh, and I turned off "studies" ever since they pulled that stupid shit with the Mr Robot promotion that made it look like malware might have infested my machine. Nope, this was an ad built right into the browser, so of course a plugin is not going to stop it. I only saw it once after I hadn't touched my machine for a while, though.
Seriously, Mozilla management constantly makes such bad decisions, it's not hard to understand why they keep losing marketsh
It's never happening guys, never. (Score:5, Insightful)
They keep thinking they are going to interject their content and what they want right in front of us and prevent us from ignoring it if we're not interested, by shitty tactics to lock the screen and force you to interact with it, and they're always "surprised" when we get pissed or just drop their product.
1000 years from now, assuming humanity survives, some twat is going to think they'll be the ones to pull it off, to finally put ads we have to interact with, so we have to give them attention and money, and it still will not work and get resisted, and they'll be "surprised" too that their method of communication didn't work.
Re: (Score:2)
1000 years from now, assuming humanity survives, some twat is going to think they'll be the ones to pull it off, to finally put ads we have to interact with, so we have to give them attention and money, and it still will not work and get resisted, and they'll be "surprised" too that their method of communication didn't work.
In 1000 years, ads will be pushed into your dreams [youtube.com].
Re: (Score:2)
That was a great episode.
Well we know what people did during great depressions when they suffered great financial loss.
We're experts at refusing to deal with things we refuse to deal with.
Re: (Score:2)
They cribbed the idea though: it's been used more than once in old science fiction stories.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. But the human race will still have plenty of idiots for as long as it exits. For the case at hand, Mozialla management must be among the most stupid and self-destructive now across all the tech industry (except in startups).
The browser is a tool (Score:2)
A browser is a tool, and if it hinders my use of its primary purpose (by randomly locking me out of some website to show me an unrelated ad), it ceases to be a useful tool, and I don't keep useless tools around.
We need to "take back Firefox" (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:We need to "take back Firefox" (Score:5, Interesting)
Nobody wants to put in the resources needed to do it. And there are several alternatives, so probably nobody will. I thought Falkon was a rather decent alternative the last time I checked out alternatives, but that depends on various KDE libraries.
The one that doesn't really have a decent alternative is Thunderbird. There are other email programs, but they don't "act right" in various different ways. (For one think, I want *lots* of nested named folder that received email can be automatically sorted into. ) And even investigating the different programs is dangerous because an important email is likely to end up hideously misfiled, lost, or just unable to be transferred to the system you decide to end up with.
Already happened and it is great (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I mean... interesting, but looking at it it's 4 guys. They're also hosting their shit on mozilla.org
Considering how much just doesn't work at all in Firefox now, and is slowly increasing, I can only imagine it's worse for this.
It's a real shame most of the world doesn't give a fuck that their browser is malware - but it worked for Microsoft and now Google.
Re: (Score:2)
So... fork it?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Firefox is dying (Score:2)
and Netcraft (well maybe not Netcraft) but the stats don't lie. https://www.w3schools.com/brow... [w3schools.com] Usage is at the lowest point ever.
Re: (Score:2)
Fortunately there are now a couple of decent alternatives...and I sure don't mean Chrome.
Looks like they are hell-bent on self destruction (Score:5, Insightful)
Absence of crap like this is _why_ people are using Firefox. Apparently Mozilla management has gotten even more deranged recently.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I fortunately haven't seen this but - what the heck, Firefox?
It's like they feel compelled to shoot themselves in the foot every year or two.
Mozilla Firefox is Dead... (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
1) 5% is actually a statistically significant amount.
2) 5% * the world's browser-using population == Tens of millions of unique users. Ignore that many potential customers at your own risk.
(Do /. commenters even try to think before commenting anymore?)
Tons of websites do the same (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
There is an add-on called "Behind the Overlay" that works well in most instances you describe.
That place needs an enema. (Score:2)
Personally speaking, I've had it with the idea that a statement made in this tone is in any way legitimate. It is leveled at, no one. There's no way a real person (Mister or Miss or Mistress Mozilla, I presume?) could utter that could with a
Firefox browser share says it all. (Score:2)
However there is still plenty of money from Google for "non-profit" Mozilla Foundation to greatly profit its executives who are freed from any pressure to produce a quality product.
Oh Sure an "Experiment" (Score:2)
I wrote a lot of the Firefox VPN iOS app. Sucks to see Mozilla annoying people with ads for it. But I get its an important revenue stream that they need.
I just think its stupid how every company claims something was "just an experiment" if everyone hates it. Insults everyones intelligence.
Firefox? (Score:1)
More words more better (Score:2)
"We're continuously working to understand the best ways to communicate with people who use Firefox."
Apparently, 20+ years hasn't been enough time to figure out how to understand communication.
Sorry, but every time I hear this kind of falsely professional, condescending PR bullshit, I lose all trust in an organization. Why do they even bother making these kind of statements? I switched to a fork of Firefox almost 10 years ago.
AdBlocker (Score:2)
So, do we need an ad blocker to block Mozilla's intrusive ads? Or the existing uBlock is good enough for the task?
What's firefox? (Score:2)
wasn't that a browser once?
Confusion? (Score:1)
We apologize for any confusion or concern."
WTF nobody is "confused" or "concerned". We are Pissed Off, so don't belittle your user base, you arrogant POS.