Mozilla bought Anonym

[madires]

Mozilla is doing strange things sometimes. Now they bought Anonym. From their post https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-anonym-raising-the-bar-for-privacy-preserving-digital-advertising/:

Mozilla has acquired Anonym, a trailblazer in privacy-preserving digital advertising. This strategic acquisition enables Mozilla to help raise the bar for the advertising industry by ensuring user privacy while delivering effective advertising solutions.

[SiliconWizard]

If you look at all their investments, this is one of the least weird, actually.

[madires]

As expected, Mozilla wants to become an advertising company:
Improving online advertising through product and infrastructure (https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/improving-online-advertising/)

TL;DR: Firefox users will be used as lab rats for Mozilla's alternative advertising scheme.

[ebastler]

TL;DR: Firefox users will be used as lab rats for Mozilla's alternative advertising scheme.

With less than 3% browser market share, the damage they can do is limited. 

[ZenHombre]

Switched to Chrome, then Brave years ago after I noticed how much memory usage firefox was getting stuck using. 

[AVGresponding]

TL;DR: Firefox users will be used as lab rats for Mozilla's alternative advertising scheme.

With less than 3% browser market share, the damage they can do is limited. 

I suspect most of the damage they can do will be to themselves; I will stop using Firefox if they insert advertising, and I doubt I'll be the only one

[abeyer]

As expected, Mozilla wants to become an advertising company:
Improving online advertising through product and infrastructure (https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/improving-online-advertising/)

TL;DR: Firefox users will be used as lab rats for Mozilla's alternative advertising scheme.

While this is bad for users and bad for Mozilla, I think it also might be the least bad feasible option, too...

Google is neither going to give up on advertising nor give up their stranglehold on browser marketshare and control of future development. If all Mozilla offers as an alternative is "don't advertise", then google will just call them a bunch of dirty hippies who don't understand business and go on with what they want to do. If mozilla proposes something that is actually protecting user choice and privacy while also offering a path forward for advertisers, then it will be a lot harder for google to dismiss them and say that there aren't any options besides their own "just trust us" appproach.

[ebastler]

If mozilla proposes something that is actually protecting user choice and privacy while also offering a path forward for advertisers, then it will be a lot harder for google to dismiss them and say that there aren't any options besides their own "just trust us" appproach.

I am not sure I follow. In which way would Firefox be impacted by being "dismissed by Google", or how would it benefit from non-dismissal? What actions on Google's part would you expect to happen or be avoided?

From what I see, Google's dominance in the browser segment is largely based on providing a fast and memory-efficient browser. (And one which does not create hassles for the user. In my case, what made me drop Firefox were recurring false alerts from Windows Defender which set in after a Firefox version update.)

[Sensorcat]

I am not sure I follow. In which way would Firefox be impacted by being "dismissed by Google", or how would it benefit from non-dismissal? What actions on Google's part would you expect to happen or be avoided?

Google pays Mozilla a lot for being the standard search engine in Firefox. If Google stops paying, it's more or less game over for Mozilla.

[SiliconWizard]

TL;DR: Firefox users will be used as lab rats for Mozilla's alternative advertising scheme.

With less than 3% browser market share, the damage they can do is limited. 

Yes, I for one don't understand:
- How Google can give them so much money when the browser is almost dead. What's the point?
- What the business model of Mozilla is.

I'm a long-time Firefox user, but I don't get what Mozilla is doing and don't like that much, I don't fully grasp what Google is doing either.

I don't want to use Chrome or anything Chrome-based. So I'm kinda stuck.

[abeyer]

I am not sure I follow. In which way would Firefox be impacted by being "dismissed by Google", or how would it benefit from non-dismissal? What actions on Google's part would you expect to happen or be avoided?

Google has been pushing various plans with the web standards bodies for "improving privacy in advertising" that really don't do much in terms of actually addressing real user concerns and are more showpieces to try to distract the people pushing for much more draconian restrictions while preserving their own advertising business. It seems pretty clear to me at this point they are going to go that way eventually, and if their proposals keeps getting shot down without some sort of compromise alternative, they're just going to go their own way and do it regardless. I honestly think the least bad option at this point might be that compromise solution, but designed with the privacy and user control aspect at the core, rather than as a bit of stage dressing.

[dferyance]

Browsers becoming free was the worst thing that could have happened to them. They require money to design and build especially considering how damned complicated they've become. So they have to get the money somewhere. Remember opera browser (the old one, not the new thing)? It was excellent as well as paid. Netscape was good when it was paid software. I hated the switch from the Mozilla suite to firefox so for me firefox was the start of the end.

Even the browsers that aren't totally controlled by an advertising company still have many ties to it. Safari has shared roots to chrome but is also infeasible for most people due to being Apple-OS and Apple-hardware only. And then there are a ton of other chromium based browsers but this means you are still using google software.

We were so afraid of Microsoft Windows controlling everything that we switched software over to "the web" so now Google controls everything. Not an improvement really.

[abeyer]

Netscape was good when it was paid software. I hated the switch from the Mozilla suite to firefox so for me firefox was the start of the end.

Sure, I can see arguing that for the old netscape. And agree that mozilla needs some business model other than "take one giant sponsorship from google."

But suite!? It had become such a bloated buggy pile of crap that made a jillion poor attempts at being everything to everyone by the end of its lifetime that anything would have been an improvement.

[dferyance]

But suite!? It had become such a bloated buggy pile of crap that made a jillion poor attempts at being everything to everyone by the end of its lifetime that anything would have been an improvement.

Everyone has their own preference but I liked having a mail client instead of using webmail. It was nice having one thing to install and you could do any Internet-thing. It is like how Opera had a bittorrent client built-in; nothing to install it was just there. Firefox took out all the features and promised them back via plugins. That's a ton of plug-in vendors you have to trust.

Now we don't have FTP support in browsers anymore. You need to download a separate FTP client. This is the wrong direction.

[madires]

Palemoon still has FTP support.

[SiliconWizard]

Things are not looking good. They just laid off another 30% of their workforce.