Almost all the links in my front homepage are sponsored now. What's next, a few ads in the bookmark bar? How about when I enter a URL, I then have to type "McDonald's" before I can actually navigate there?
Remember when most sites had simple banner ads, and there was no widespread outcry about how much they sucked and we needed ad blocking software? Then they started flashing, then the popups and pop-unders came, then vids started autoplaying, and now here we are.
If advertisers hadn't gotten greedier than banners on the sides of sites, maybe no one would've gotten around to blocking all their shit.
Instead they cosplayed as a startup, chasing product dreams of "growth hacking", with Google's ad money as their stand-in for a VC-funding firehose, with absolutely predictable and tragic results.
And those dreams of growth and market penetration failed catastrophically anyway.
(Except for the C-suite, who made out quite well. And Google, who got exactly what they paid for: a decade of antitrust-prosecution insurance. It was never about ad revenue. The on-paper existence of Firefox as a hypothetical competitor kept the Federal wolves at bay, and that's all Google cared about.)
Now hear me out, but What If...? browser development was in the hands of some kind of nonprofit organization?
As I have said many times:
In my humble but correct opinion, Mozilla should be doing two things and two things only:
Building THE reference implementation web browser, and
Being a jugular-snapping attack dog on standards committees.
Let's say you run a nonprofit animal shelter. And for some reason, some people feel you should be seeing hockey-stick growth, but the donations aren't covering it.
So you decide to start up a side-line of selling kittens for meat.
Then you will inevitably have someone stroking their chin and saying, 'Yes, yes, but how could they afford to stay open if they weren't selling kitten deli slices?"
Some might say -- maybe you aren't an animal shelter any more. Some might say.
It's a real shame what's happened to Mozilla. Maybe Trump will add browser software to the list of sanctions on China and we'll end up with a Deepfox in a year or two.
While this analysis is somewhat convincing, let's not forget that for now Firefox is all we have. Important not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
In my ideal scenario, Mozilla becomes like the Wikimedia Foundation. Which has somehow also accumulated "Scrooge McDuck amounts" of cash but seems to be on a firmer footing and better managed.
Okay but you mean which is harder?? Both projects rely on a bunch of salaried professionals supervising an army of volunteers. Firefox is a web browser, i.e. notoriously the space shuttle of software. But the Wikipedia is doing some surprisingly innovative and cutting-edge stuff with its own codebase too, as I understand it. Whichever is costlier, I'm not sure we're talking about an order of magnitude of difference.
I'm not an expert on either codebase but I believe the main driver of complexity with developing a browser engine is the sheer number of standards and how fast they change and multiply. Wikipedia has to update articles and maintain the server backend, which is no small task with such a global and comprehensive website, but Firefox has to do similar things on top of vastly more complex code with much more churn. There's a reason Mozilla developed Rust as well.
Wikipedia has to update articles and maintain the server backend
Firstly, updating the articles is the one thing Wikipedia doesn't do, the army of unpaid volunteers does that.
But as for "just maintaining the backend", the Wikimedia Foundation does far more than that. It created and maintains and constantly iterates a huge pile of ever-complexifying frontend code - the wiki itself, discussion software, media tools etc - not just for Wikipedia but for a whole bunch of peer sites. Much of it is pretty cutting-edge, it's used daily by many thousands of editors and there's also the accessibility requirement. I know from personal experience that there's nothing harder than front-end when you have to tick the accessibility box. No doubt Firefox's technical challenge is greater but really the difference is not night and day.
It's amazing what you can pull off with free labour and CIA funding. I also find it funny how that donation banner still shows up every year when they've already accumulated so much capital.
Mozilla already has Scrooge McDuck amounts of money
no. they don't.
the google money that they rely too heavily on, may not always be there. they need more diverse funding. these paid placements, which can be turned off, are one way to do that.
turn off and delete the sponsored stuff at install, never see 'em again. it's not like they're microsoft or something, constantly turning that kind of shit back on with every-other-update.
on mobile, too, it looks like. on pc, i've only ever seen half that many, plus google pops in there if you switch your search default. click-dismiss and they're gone. toggle a couple settings, done. they don't come back.
nah in firefox those ads can be disabled by unchecking a checkbox, in windows it's probably not just an easy to find checkbox and i bet after removing the ads they'll just come back after an update.
I think the downvoters can’t hold these two thoughts in their mind at the same time: 1. Firefox is the best browser. 2. Firefox has serious problems because Mozilla is a terrible steward of it.
Let the people downvote. These points don't matter. I turned off the visibility of points. I am immune, my morale is unbreakable. The downvoters have no power here!
Again, not really. Mozilla wants to bring in as much money as they can. They are really bad at actually making useful products but that's a separate issue.
Also, not being able to set the home button to a custom URL is fucking crazy. I want the home button to take me to my selfhosted dashboard that has all my services and links on it. I don't want the home button to take me to the dumbass firefox page and have to click another link to get to it.
Been using Kiwi instead for this sole reason but now Kiwi is dead. I'm not willing to concede this workflow and make an extra click because Mozilla is braindead and can't implement a functional home button like every single browser since the beginning of time.
I think they mean on mobile as opposed to PC. I can't find any option besides the dashboard-style homepage offered by default. I can customize it, but I can't make it a specific URL.
Download Firefox extensions and themes. They’re like apps for your browser. They can block annoying ads, protect passwords, change browser appearance, and more.
Actually, I would gladly pay for a browser that is just doing its job. I need one for macOS and iOS, preferrably one solution for both. Could you point me in the right direction, please?
It’s worth noting that presently mozilla earns $0 from my not using google, and not seeing sponsored tabs.
I thought Google pays (or paid?) Mozilla just to be the default engine out the box, regardless of whether you change it or not.
Another point is that it's so easy to turn those things off (the sponsored shortcuts too) that I wonder if it would be worth the cost of launching an alternate version behind a paywall while making sure it works only for people who pay (which could be seen as DRM anyway, with potentially massive backslash). So I imagine the end result would not be that profitable (whether they decide to paywall it properly or not). Those who wanna donate and have no ads can do that already, those who want a cleaned up version of Firefox can have that and from neutral and independent third parties which I'd argue is better than if it were Mozilla who did it (and you can donate to Mozilla while using those too).. so I'm not sure it would make sense.
But it would make sense to have a donation pool specifically to fund Firefox development. That would be something interesting, considering Mozilla does other things besides Firefox. But I expect they don't do that because they probably fear all donations will move there and they don't want to lose funds for other things. We might need to create a separate organization if we want an independent fund for Firefox-based browsers.
You might be right about Googles agreement with Mozilla. I had assumed it would be based on the number of searches performed with a mozilla user agent but that's just a guess.
I'm not sure why exactly but I just feel very uncomfortable with the idea of donating to Mozilla. I absolutely believe in the importance of Firefox' existance, and if I felt I was contributing to that then I would donate. I think with the situation as it is making a donation would feel a bit like voting - my own contribution isn't going to effect the outcome, and I don't really agree with mozilla's behavior anyway.
On the other hand, if Mozilla declared that they were going to spin off a separate org exclusively to develop and maintain firefox, and would have no ongoing relationship with google nor advertising of any kind, would focus on privacy, and were going to survive entirely on subscriptions, I feel like that's something I could get behind and feel happy to contribute.
I was okay with the sponsored links, but now this is affecting the functionality of the app. My phone is shit and I have a hard time sliding to the next page.
Eh, the criticism isn't invalid - those are still ads being added on the front page. What does irk me is people talking about how something breaks their workflow, yet they don't even try to fix the issue.
but now this is affecting the functionality of the app
This shit irks me so much, because it keeps happening!
There's this feature that makes your address bar randomly auto complete sponsored URLs instead of your actual history. Pretty fucking annoying to type n and have Netflix pop up, even though I don't use it.
When you disable this "feature", it still breaks your autocomplete! Now instead of suggesting Netflix, it just sometimes doesn't suggest anything before I continue typing.
If you must add these anti-features to pay for your CEO, at least don't break the app when it's disabled!
Ads are one thing, but this seems excessive and probably unintentional. Looks like someone just filed this bug, which is another sign that it might be an unintentional problem: bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.…
So how exactly were you planning on them making money if they don’t take money from Google to be the default search engine and they don’t take money to place advertisements on the default home page?
Open source projects shouldn't have "making money" on their priority list. I would donate to Mozilla if I had some guarantee that my money would actually fund Firefox development
I'm not one of those people, and to be clear I support for-profit companies open sourcing code. Mozilla is a unique case where donations are a tiny fraction of their income and Firefox development is a tiny fraction of their expenses. I just want to donate directly to the parts I care about (Firefox, MDN).
Almost all the links in my front homepage are sponsored now. What’s next, a few ads in the bookmark bar? How about when I enter a URL, I then have to type “McDonald’s” before I can actually navigate there?
Don't give them new ideas, Sony might jump in and patent that too.
The browser itself is free, and they have to make money somehow to keep the company running (if the CEO didn't keep most of it for themself). If you don't like it, you can turn it off or download an ad-free fork.
Absolutely, it's just the browser extensions most end-users want/need that would cause them distress in that regard. It's simply not as user friendly from what I can recall, it's been a while since I last used it so it may have improved since then
One could posit an ideal public sector development studio that takes grants from the state/federal government to produce useful Open Source software. Think public radio or public broadcasting, but for apps.
Hell, it isn't even wild in the current moment. Modern day AWS and Azure subsidize much of its small/new user client base with the massive public sector clientele. OpenAI and DeepSeek are both the product of giant state-sponsored initiatives to develop AI that is free at point of service. Plenty of the original internet architecture was the product of public investment and grants, as was the university-centric ARPNET that would eventually be commoditizated into the commercial World Wide Web.
Look up the history of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and the pioneering of Mosaic, the first widely available GUI-based web browser. It was the foundation for both Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator, which licensed the original design for the tiniest fraction of what it would ultimately generate in future revenues.
subtext
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •mögen das
chookity und TVA mögen das.
BombOmOm
Als Antwort auf subtext • • •mögen das
chookity und TVA mögen das.
tigeruppercut
Als Antwort auf BombOmOm • • •Remember when most sites had simple banner ads, and there was no widespread outcry about how much they sucked and we needed ad blocking software? Then they started flashing, then the popups and pop-unders came, then vids started autoplaying, and now here we are.
If advertisers hadn't gotten greedier than banners on the sides of sites, maybe no one would've gotten around to blocking all their shit.
mögen das
chookity und TVA mögen das.
Gork
Als Antwort auf tigeruppercut • • •mögen das
TVA mag das.
lemmeBe
Als Antwort auf tigeruppercut • • •mögen das
chookity mag das.
UltraGiGaGigantic
Als Antwort auf BombOmOm • • •_stranger_
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •Settings -> Homepage:
Uncheck everything "sponsored".
Done.
mögen das
chookity mag das.
UltraGiGaGigantic
Als Antwort auf _stranger_ • • •Elgenzay
Als Antwort auf BombOmOm • • •Kushan
Als Antwort auf subtext • • •zoostation
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •mögen das
chookity und TVA mögen das.
davel
Als Antwort auf zoostation • • •Mozilla already has Scrooge McDuck amounts of money. It doesn’t need any more to maintain a browser and an email client.
From jwz, who founded Mozilla & Firefox:
- 2020: This is a pretty dire assessment of Mozilla
- 2023: Remember when Mozilla made a web browser?
- 2024: Mozilla is an advertising company now
- 2024: Mozilla's Original Sin
.
Mozilla CEO pockets a packet, asks biz to pick up pace the 'Mozilla way'
Richard Speed (The Register)davel
Als Antwort auf davel • • •jwz.org/blog/2024/06/mozilla-i…
mögen das
TVA mag das.
o_d [he/him]
Als Antwort auf davel • • •sudoer777
Als Antwort auf o_d [he/him] • • •JubilantJaguar
Als Antwort auf davel • • •While this analysis is somewhat convincing, let's not forget that for now Firefox is all we have. Important not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
In my ideal scenario, Mozilla becomes like the Wikimedia Foundation. Which has somehow also accumulated "Scrooge McDuck amounts" of cash but seems to be on a firmer footing and better managed.
tempest
Als Antwort auf JubilantJaguar • • •mögen das
TVA mag das.
JubilantJaguar
Als Antwort auf tempest • • •verdigris
Als Antwort auf JubilantJaguar • • •JubilantJaguar
Als Antwort auf verdigris • • •Firstly, updating the articles is the one thing Wikipedia doesn't do, the army of unpaid volunteers does that.
But as for "just maintaining the backend", the Wikimedia Foundation does far more than that. It created and maintains and constantly iterates a huge pile of ever-complexifying frontend code - the wiki itself, discussion software, media tools etc - not just for Wikipedia but for a whole bunch of peer sites. Much of it is pretty cutting-edge, it's used daily by many thousands of editors and there's also the accessibility requirement. I know from personal experience that there's nothing harder than front-end when you have to tick the accessibility box. No doubt Firefox's technical challenge is greater but really the difference is not night and day.
o_d [he/him]
Als Antwort auf JubilantJaguar • • •adarza
Als Antwort auf davel • • •no. they don't.
the google money that they rely too heavily on, may not always be there. they need more diverse funding. these paid placements, which can be turned off, are one way to do that.
turn off and delete the sponsored stuff at install, never see 'em again. it's not like they're microsoft or something, constantly turning that kind of shit back on with every-other-update.
mögen das
TVA mag das.
lowleveldata
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •paequ2
Als Antwort auf lowleveldata • • •adarza
Als Antwort auf paequ2 • • •Stovetop
Als Antwort auf adarza • • •festnt
Als Antwort auf Stovetop • • •superkret
Als Antwort auf lowleveldata • • •lemmeBe
Als Antwort auf superkret • • •davel
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •1. Firefox is the best browser.
2. Firefox has serious problems because Mozilla is a terrible steward of it.
mögen das
chookity mag das.
sugar_in_your_tea
Als Antwort auf davel • • •comfy
Als Antwort auf davel • • •It's only real competitors, in my eyes, are Firefox forks.
UltraGiGaGigantic
Als Antwort auf davel • • •Scipitie
Als Antwort auf davel • • •No it's the complaint about one of the few transparent revenue flows Mozilla managed to pull off.
It's disabled one step deep on the settings
There is a shitload of stuff going wrong with the Mozilla foundation and this doesn't even make the top 10.
That's the reason for my down vote: it's nothing I want this community to focus on. It's basically engagement bait with the topic "ads bad".
LWD
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •Firefox Suggest FAQ | Firefox Help
support.mozilla.orgUltraGiGaGigantic
Als Antwort auf LWD • • •Was trying to reference this
Maybe I should have added a paragraph somewhere in there. Was typing fast because I only get so much time on my break at work.
LWD
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •FooBarrington
Als Antwort auf LWD • • •And even if you disable this, your address bar still randomly breaks, but instead of suggesting an ad it just doesn't suggest anything.
Fuck you, Mozilla.
Gingerlegs
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •Artyom
Als Antwort auf Gingerlegs • • •Ephera
Als Antwort auf Gingerlegs • • •UltraGiGaGigantic
Als Antwort auf Gingerlegs • • •mögen das
Thoralf Will mag das.
Jimmycakes
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •mögen das
TVA mag das.
Possibly linux
Als Antwort auf Jimmycakes • • •Ephera
Als Antwort auf Possibly linux • • •Possibly linux
Als Antwort auf Ephera • • •Jimmycakes
Als Antwort auf Possibly linux • • •tritonium
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •Also, not being able to set the home button to a custom URL is fucking crazy. I want the home button to take me to my selfhosted dashboard that has all my services and links on it. I don't want the home button to take me to the dumbass firefox page and have to click another link to get to it.
Been using Kiwi instead for this sole reason but now Kiwi is dead. I'm not willing to concede this workflow and make an extra click because Mozilla is braindead and can't implement a functional home button like every single browser since the beginning of time.
alekwithak
Als Antwort auf tritonium • • •???
stray
Als Antwort auf alekwithak • • •TrickDacy
Als Antwort auf tritonium • • •mögen das
TVA mag das.
Possibly linux
Als Antwort auf tritonium • • •Fennec F-Droid | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository
f-droid.orgstevedice
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •TxTechnician
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •festnt
Als Antwort auf TxTechnician • • •unfinished | 🇵🇸
Als Antwort auf festnt • • •festnt
Als Antwort auf unfinished | 🇵🇸 • • •support ff development: thats called donating
premium access to mozillas services: that's already a thing but you subscribe to each one, like their vpn, pocket, etc
cosmetics in browser: thats just addons.mozilla.org
Add-ons for Firefox (en-US)
addons.mozilla.orgTrickDacy
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •mögen das
TVA mag das.
figjam
Als Antwort auf TrickDacy • • •TrickDacy
Als Antwort auf figjam • • •mögen das
TVA mag das.
stevedice
Als Antwort auf figjam • • •figjam
Als Antwort auf stevedice • • •festnt
Als Antwort auf stevedice • • •lemmeBe
Als Antwort auf stevedice • • •Felling_High_Horses
Als Antwort auf stevedice • • •ingentaconnect.com/content/sbp…
Oh noooo. Sounds like you're about to off yourself. What a huuuuge* loss. Anyway.
Edit because I didn't write enough mourning u's.
EGOCENTRISM AND DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMATOLOGY IN YOUNG ADULTS
Hanna, JayneGenderNeutralBro
Als Antwort auf figjam • • •figjam
Als Antwort auf GenderNeutralBro • • •Teepo
Als Antwort auf figjam • • •No problem!
Firefox Desktop: Settings - Home panel - uncheck "Sponsored shortcuts" box.
Firefox Mobile: Settings - Homepage - uncheck "Sponsored shortcuts" box.
Possibly linux
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •Fennec F-Droid | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository
f-droid.orglemmylurkaround
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •Sees paid version, "how dare they"
Development costs time and money, pick your poison.
mögen das
TVA mag das.
Thoralf Will
Als Antwort auf lemmylurkaround • •I need one for macOS and iOS, preferrably one solution for both.
Could you point me in the right direction, please?
Firefox hat dies geteilt.
lazylion_ca
Als Antwort auf Thoralf Will • • •Pay how much and how often?
$20 a month? $50 a month.
fine_sandy_bottom
Als Antwort auf lazylion_ca • • •I'm not really sure what you're getting at?
I understand that my circumstances are unusual but I would absolutely pay $20 a month without a moment's hesitation.
I would pay $50, but I'd really have to believe in the project.
It's worth noting that presently mozilla earns $0 from my not using google, and not seeing sponsored tabs.
Ferk
Als Antwort auf fine_sandy_bottom • • •I thought Google pays (or paid?) Mozilla just to be the default engine out the box, regardless of whether you change it or not.
Another point is that it's so easy to turn those things off (the sponsored shortcuts too) that I wonder if it would be worth the cost of launching an alternate version behind a paywall while making sure it works only for people who pay (which could be seen as DRM anyway, with potentially massive backslash). So I imagine the end result would not be that profitable (whether they decide to paywall it properly or not). Those who wanna donate and have no ads can do that already, those who want a cleaned up version of Firefox can have that and from neutral and independent third parties which I'd argue is better than if it were Mozilla who did it (and you can donate to Mozilla while using those too).. so I'm not sure it would make sense.
But it would make sense to have a donation pool specifically to fund Firefox development. That would be something interesting, considering Mozilla does other things besides Firefox. But I expect they don't do that because they probably fear all donations will move there and they don't want to lose funds for other things. We might need to create a separate organization if we want an independent fund for Firefox-based browsers.
fine_sandy_bottom
Als Antwort auf Ferk • • •You might be right about Googles agreement with Mozilla. I had assumed it would be based on the number of searches performed with a mozilla user agent but that's just a guess.
I'm not sure why exactly but I just feel very uncomfortable with the idea of donating to Mozilla. I absolutely believe in the importance of Firefox' existance, and if I felt I was contributing to that then I would donate. I think with the situation as it is making a donation would feel a bit like voting - my own contribution isn't going to effect the outcome, and I don't really agree with mozilla's behavior anyway.
On the other hand, if Mozilla declared that they were going to spin off a separate org exclusively to develop and maintain firefox, and would have no ongoing relationship with google nor advertising of any kind, would focus on privacy, and were going to survive entirely on subscriptions, I feel like that's something I could get behind and feel happy to contribute.
Lena
Als Antwort auf Thoralf Will • • •CarrotsHaveEars
Als Antwort auf Thoralf Will • • •Orion Browser by Kagi
kagi.comUltraGiGaGigantic
Als Antwort auf lemmylurkaround • • •KubeRoot
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •Fecundpossum
Als Antwort auf KubeRoot • • •KubeRoot
Als Antwort auf Fecundpossum • • •FooBarrington
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •This shit irks me so much, because it keeps happening!
There's this feature that makes your address bar randomly auto complete sponsored URLs instead of your actual history. Pretty fucking annoying to type
nand have Netflix pop up, even though I don't use it.When you disable this "feature", it still breaks your autocomplete! Now instead of suggesting Netflix, it just sometimes doesn't suggest anything before I continue typing.
If you must add these anti-features to pay for your CEO, at least don't break the app when it's disabled!
Churbleyimyam
Als Antwort auf FooBarrington • • •FooBarrington
Als Antwort auf Churbleyimyam • • •mvirts
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •Vincent
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •1944704 - 8 sponsored shortcuts on homepage
bugzilla.mozilla.orgReddfugee42
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •figjam
Als Antwort auf Reddfugee42 • • •Nastybutler
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •Kbobabob
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •Then turn it off?
potustheplant
Als Antwort auf Kbobabob • • •greedytacothief
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •zante
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •geneva_convenience
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •a9cx34udP4ZZ0
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •themusicman
Als Antwort auf a9cx34udP4ZZ0 • • •P4ulin_Kbana
Als Antwort auf themusicman • • •themusicman
Als Antwort auf P4ulin_Kbana • • •MangoPenguin
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •krolden
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •Vincent
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •This was a bug
And looks like it's been fixed :)
1944704 - 8 sponsored shortcuts on homepage
bugzilla.mozilla.orgZeroOne
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •Why is this an issue ??
Meanwhile Let's discuss on how we can make Mozilla Great again (as in independent)
Aeri
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •Yeah but you can literally just turn this off with no fuss.
1.Firefox for Android.
2.Tap the menu button.
3.Tap. Settings.
4.Tap Homepage.
5.Deselect Sponsored shortcuts under Shortcuts.
BarbecueCowboy
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •Don't give them new ideas, Sony might jump in and patent that too.
Old_Yharnam
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •ColdWater
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •SoftestSapphic
Als Antwort auf ColdWater • • •Nonmi
Als Antwort auf SoftestSapphic • • •TotalCourage007
Als Antwort auf Nonmi • • •NudeNewt
Als Antwort auf TotalCourage007 • • •itslilith
Als Antwort auf NudeNewt • • •NudeNewt
Als Antwort auf itslilith • • •UnderpantsWeevil
Als Antwort auf SoftestSapphic • • •Korhaka
Als Antwort auf SoftestSapphic • • •superglue
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •UnderpantsWeevil
Als Antwort auf superglue • • •One could posit an ideal public sector development studio that takes grants from the state/federal government to produce useful Open Source software. Think public radio or public broadcasting, but for apps.
Hell, it isn't even wild in the current moment. Modern day AWS and Azure subsidize much of its small/new user client base with the massive public sector clientele. OpenAI and DeepSeek are both the product of giant state-sponsored initiatives to develop AI that is free at point of service. Plenty of the original internet architecture was the product of public investment and grants, as was the university-centric ARPNET that would eventually be commoditizated into the commercial World Wide Web.
Look up the history of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and the pioneering of Mosaic, the first widely available GUI-based web browser. It was the foundation for both Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator, which licensed the original design for the tiniest fraction of what it would ultimately generate in future revenues.
cally [he/they]
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •skizzles
Als Antwort auf cally [he/they] • • •Yup, you can turn it off.
It's not overly difficult to get to the setting either.
ghen
Als Antwort auf skizzles • • •Redex
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •carrylex
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •There are some more privacy friendly forks of "Firefox for Android", which have sponsored shortcuts disabled or minimized by default. For example:
* gitlab.com/relan/fennecbuild
* gitlab.com/ironfox-oss/IronFox
Feel free to give them a try :)
relan / fennecbuild · GitLab
GitLabpotentiallynotfelix
Als Antwort auf carrylex • • •Paul
Als Antwort auf UltraGiGaGigantic • • •Sorry about that, not quite what is expected to happen. I understand that it has been looked into and has now been resolved.
#fxhelp