

Mozilla rolls out sponsored tiles to Firefox Nightly’s new tab page - rukshn
http://thenextweb.com/apps/2014/08/28/mozilla-rolls-sponsored-tiles-firefox-nightlys-new-tab-page/

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Sir_Cmpwn
The sponsored tiles are defaults, and they're replaced by sites you actually
use over time. This is a good, unobtrusive way for Firefox to get funding.

~~~
Alupis
I find these even more bothersome than the standard "previously visited"
tiles. At least in FF you can turn the tiles off -- Chrome... nope! The
thumbnail can even be a security problem in some settings.

~~~
sp332
As noted in the bug report, there are plenty of extensions if you want to
change the New Tab page. Here's one you might like:
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/new-
tab/adcpijkmbe...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/new-
tab/adcpijkmbecohfalcbafjgadfnpchhlg)

~~~
Alupis
I'd prefer to not have to load some 3rd party of who-knows-what-quality-or-
what-else-it's-doing extension or plugin.

It serves google no purpose in Chrome -- why not just let me turn it off?
Especially in an enterprise environment like at the office...

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praneshp
I get around this by having a work profile on chrome (in case you didn't know
that already). I know it's still bad when you do some lunchtime browsing, etc,
but after about a year, my work profile cannot even auto-suggest facebook when
i type 'fac'.

~~~
Alupis
Good point - I usually just wipe all history regularly now (which is a pita)
... but, this doesn't save my other (less savvy) users at the office.

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doe88
As most people, I'm not a big fan of Ads, but in this case I'm making an
exception, provided it helps Mozilla diversify its source of incomes (at least
a bit), I'm all for it.

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scrollaway
> Instead of seeing blank tiles when a new Firefox user opens a new tab,
> Mozilla thought it would be best that they see “content.”

I don't care much about this sponsored tab fuss but that is some serious BS
logic.

Feels like UX goes in circles. The web of the 90s was "Show as much content as
possible". Google came around and it became "show only the absolutely crucial
stuff". Then facebook came around and we're back to shoving as much crap down
the monitors as possible.

Feels like we jump from one extreme to another all the time. And yet, the
Google.com homepage remains clean and uncluttered (yes, there's more stuff
than there used to, but its still 90% whitespace).

Take it this way: When you create a new folder, a file manager won't show the
contents of other folders you often access just because it's "best that you
see content". Or when you empty your inbox, gmail won't show some random
popular emails. So on.

Showing popular sites is a good idea at its core but if you're on a fresh
profile, well you're on a fresh profile. Make money off firefox of course, you
need it, but "it's best you see content" is bullshit justification.

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mmastrac
How is that bullshit? You've got a page of your commonly-visited sites that
would be empty if not pre-populated. Mozilla has offered up a balanced way to
pre-populate it: put popular sites up for free and offer a handful of spots to
other people who will pay for it.

I've got a Samsung SMART TV that comes with something called "Smart Hub". In
the same way as Mozilla they've pre-populated a number of applications that
could be useful. This means that Netflix and Youtube are now a single click
away for me and usable as soon as the TV is powered on. If they hadn't pre-
populated something in the Smart Hub, I'd have to dig through the catalog for
to find the apps I want to use, and I'd be staring at an empty screen trying
to figure out what I need to do on that page, which is probably the same sort
of experience that new users might feel trying to navigate the web.

Defaults help you get started fast, and having "something" rather than
"nothing" doesn't automatically mean "cluttered".

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prawn
I have a Samsung SMART TV too and I find Smart Hub to be extremely annoying in
that there are prominent app spots that cannot be deleted. They're just there
for Samsung to promote whatever partner it likes and it's the sort of thing
that makes me regret buying Samsung.

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dblohm7
In this case they can be deleted, and furthermore are eventually replaced by
tiles containing thumbnails from your own browsing history, just as they are
now.

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phpnode
it's really surprising to see how strongly people here oppose the idea of
Mozilla making money. Mozilla is arguably one of the most important tech
companies, committed to FOSS, transparency and providing a much needed counter
balance to much larger tech giants that would steamroller all over the web
without them. This is probably the least obtrusive change they could have
made, how do you expect them to survive without revenue?

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xorcist
Really? Because I can't count to even one post in this thread opposed to
Mozilla making money. I can count to more than a dozen that even suggests
methods of doing so.

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3rd3
I'd rather like to see a progress bar for donations (just like on Wikipedia,
reddit and Kickstarter) and I wouldn't mind if it was boldly integrated into
the user interface (for example next to the address bar). Advertisement does
not feel right for a company like Mozilla.

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wodenokoto
Ads are currently their only real form of income. If you use the search bar to
look for Amazon items and buy something, Mozilla receives money, if you search
Google with it and click an ad, Mozilla receives money.

Mozilla may be a non-profit, but they are in the advertisement business
already.

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tetrep
> For users with existing tiles (History Tiles) in their new tab page, Firefox
> replaces the default screenshot with a better image. The Enhanced Tile is
> displayed only for sites that would have appeared on a user's new tab page
> based on their browsing history. The improved image is supplied by the site
> or partner and can include a logo plus a rollover image.[1]

This could very conceivably be used to display ads, e.g. Company X pays site Y
to have an ad as part of site Y's tile.

[1][https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-do-sponsored-
tiles-...](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-do-sponsored-tiles-work)

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burgers
When the tiles first rolled out with Facebook etc a little while back I
thought it was going to feel cheap or annoying, but I haven't really noticed.
Because of that, I'm not really sure how this is going to generate much
revenue either. The go away so quickly after a few minutes of browsing that I
almost feel like at some point they'll need to start mixing in a couple ad
tiles on each view to generate any meaningful revenue.

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mlinksva
If I remove all the tiles on new tab page, I just have a bunch of empty tiles
(using just updated Nightly). Is there a page showing all sponsored tiles that
I can go to user/browser-independent?

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dbbolton
I (hopefully) assume this will get removed in Iceweasel and Icecat.

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Natriceus
Good thing I have my own new tab page.

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pera
So Firefox is now Adware?

~~~
zz1
Firefox costs money. If it doesn't get it from the users (like it never was)
or from Google (like it could soon be), it needs to find some way to fund
anyway. This kind of advertising worries me a little but I find it acceptable.
If you disagree, please do so by donating and saying it out loud and calling
everyone to do like you.

~~~
whyenot
> If it doesn't get it from the users (like it never was)

But early Mozilla was supported by its users, through donations of both code
and money. Volunteers also spearheaded the hugely successful "get Firefox"
campaign. Thanks to Google money, Mozilla can now afford to pay top dollar for
engineers and prime office space on the Embarcaderro. That is not necessarily
a bad thing, but I sometimes wonder if it may have made Mozilla a less focused
and user-centric organization than it used to be.

~~~
wodenokoto
No, the Mozilla Organization was kept alive by Netscape, with some other major
corporation sponsoring full-time engineers. When Netscape bailed completely
and the Mozilla Foundation was founded on a grant from Netscape, they started
having to find their own revenue sources. And they did with Google.

The Mozilla Corporation was founded in 2005 because Mozilla was generating so
much cash (mainly from Google search), that they got in trouble with the IRS.
That was only 2 years after the Mozilla Foundation was created!

The bulk of their revenue has always been advertisement.

As for code, they still very much rely on the open source model for new code.

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whyenot
Meh. Mozilla has to do this because they have become fat and bloated thanks to
Google money. They should go back to their roots and shrink back down to the
scrappy little organization that depended on its users for donations and
promotion. _That_ Mozilla would never have turned to adware.

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eponeponepon
Unfortunately, _that_ Mozilla would, in all likelihood, have long since sunk
without trace.

Not that I like this development, but I think it basically is what it is, in
the absence of a genuine alternative.

(edit after 25 mins: actually, someone mentioned Iceweasel and Icecat up the
page a way, neither of which I thought of - I guess there are genuine
alternatives after all.)

~~~
TheLoneWolfling
I've given up and switched to Pale Moon.

For me, Firefox reached its peak just before it switched from the classic
download window and has been going downhill ever since.

It's now rapidly going in the direction of too many formerly promising open-
source projects - the core developers feeding back on each other until they go
the way of the fashion industry - "This is what you need. Everything that came
before is useless and must be discarded", repeating every so often.

