I put enormous effort into blocking as much advertising and marketing from my life as is humanly possible. I have written my own browser plugins and scripts, I have created network-wide blockers, I do not listen to the radio, I do not watch television, I do not look at billboards.<p>I use Firefox to protect my privacy from advertisers and to block ads. So you may be able to imaging my rage when Firefox updated and automatically loaded this full-page ad from Our Dark Lord Disney:<p><a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/98.0/whatsnew/?oldversion=97.0.1" rel="nofollow">https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/98.0/whatsnew/?oldvers...</a><p>It's no secret that Mozilla needs cash. But I imagine this move is counter-productive as a lot of people like me, who support them monetarily as much as I can by purchasing their various apps and services, are driven away by loathsome ads.<p>you_have_become_the_very_thing_you_swore_to_destroy.meme
This is very sad. I understand WHY Mozilla is here. But this is an act of absolute degradation: "Every once in a while, something comes along that we can totally get behind."<p>When Mozilla "gets behind" something, I tend to think of the ethics they state here:<p><a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/" rel="nofollow">https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/</a><p>Of course, no one believes for a second that Mozilla gives a shit about Disney's latest disposable childhood friend. The words on the page are completely meaningless and insincere, and the copy was probably not even written by someone who's ever worked at Mozilla. They're in front of us because Disney sends armies of marketeers, each with wheelbarrows of money, to promote each of their movies. Everyone knows that. But it's still embarrassing to see.<p>I feel even worse about this than I would if they had a big Facebook ad up. Say what you will about the likes of Meta, but Disney is some sort of ancient Lovecraftian horror manifested in corporate form.
I updated my browser and when it finished I was greeted by this ad. Now I'm figuring out how to disable notifications that an update is available and prevent checking for them entirely so that I don't get shown an ad because I made the mistake of updating a piece of software.<p>Doesn't this sort of endorsement require disclosure? Not a lawyer but I would expect there to be something marking the content of the page as an advertisement. Some cursory browsing of what looks like relevant FTC pages (I and Mozilla are both American) seems to support this[1].<p>[1] <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/ftcs-endorsement-guides-what-people-are-asking#productplacements" rel="nofollow">https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/ftc...</a>
It's depressing how it's becoming almost impossible to avoid inbuilt advertising in web browsers.<p>I still am annoyed at Google for adding ads onto the new tab page of Chrome. Yes, it's possible to use an extension to replace the new tab page, but I don't <i>want</i> a new new tab page, I want the stock one without ads.
The submitted title ("Mozilla Now Hitting Us with Full Page Ads") broke the site guideline against editorializing.<p>"<i>Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize.</i>" - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html</a><p>If you want to say what you think is important about an article, that's fine, but do it by adding a comment to the thread. Then your view will be on a level playing field with everyone else's: <a href="https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22level%20playing%20field%22%20by:dang" rel="nofollow">https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...</a>
Mozilla is clearly circling the drain, as stunts like this show they are desperate for cash. Worse, stunts like this drive away the core users who love and promote Firefox.<p>The world will be a lot poorer when Firefox light is extinguished, which seems all but inevitable, unless Mozilla can get back to delighting users instead of abusing them.
And an official announcement about this: <a href="https://whatsondisneyplus.com/mozilla-announces-new-campaign-with-pixars-turning-red/" rel="nofollow">https://whatsondisneyplus.com/mozilla-announces-new-campaign...</a>
On the one hand Mozilla needs to make money somehow, on the other hand, this does feel tacky. What other alternative is there that would actually be sustainable for them?
This is just shown once after a browser upgrade right? And not even baked into the browser? And for a first party product?<p>Are we really complaining about something as little invasive as that?
Firefox V89 was last 'not actively terrible' version in my opinion. I've disabled updates and I'll continue using it until it breaks or becomes too insecure. At that point I'll jump ship to Waterfox or another browser.<p>Disabling updates was not straightforward. Settings in about:config and GPO are ignored, I had to create a policies.json as described here, <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1304175" rel="nofollow">https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1304175</a>.