Firefox to include advertising
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We all need money to one extent or another. I'm not going to sit in judgment upon the Mozilla organization if they're making the claim that money from advertising is needed. Guess my attitude would be: if it offends someone's sensibilities, use another browser.
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@booBot:
As a related topic: Adware vendors buy Chrome Extensions to send ad- and malware-filled updates.
This is also relevant to FF and, I suppose, to Chropera too.I knew Extensions were quite dangerous but…
(屮゚Д゚) Oh Mother of Ad-related horror stories...
Dammit, imagine what those guys could do to you...On topic: Well if it's necessary for mozilla to continue making a great Browser, then that little bit of ads is OK. From what I have read up until now, it's basically nothing more than what Opera has done for years.
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I wonder what might be possible if people could somehow accept the concept of a paid-for web browser, free of all ads and tie-ins and favored vendor placements, privacy-respecting, top-notch in terms of performance and compatibility with web protocols, highly user-configurable, always up-to-date with security issues, and well-staffed by good developers. Such a browser would "owe no company anything" in terms of conflicts with user-interests. All the current "market wisdom" seems to argue such a thing would fail… but I still can't help wondering: both whether it might succeed in the fast-developing atmosphere of user privacy concerns, and how much it might cost per year.
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What? Pay for a browser? LOL… I paid for Netscape. I even paid for one version of IE before the "war" started and they decided to give it away and bury Netscape. I paid for one version of Opera to rid myself of the ads at that time. My guess is that it wouldn't fly with today's demanding, younger users. They want everything free and yet everything conformed to their own wants and perceived needs. Free security suites. Free online photo albums. Free firewalls. And certainly, free browsers. BUT no ads, mind you. And while it is true that someone will have to pay for all of this, it sure won't be them.
Tell me, blackbird. Would you be willing to pay $100 for such a browser annually?
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What? Pay for a browser? … My guess is that it wouldn't fly with today's demanding, younger users. They want everything free and yet everything conformed to their own wants and perceived needs. ... And while it is true that someone will have to pay for all of this, it sure won't be them. Tell me, blackbird. Would you be willing to pay $100 for such a browser annually?
Actually, I would if it was top-notch. I already pay for a number of "subscriptions" and "licenses" annually. Everything from newspapers, technical journals, and magazines (both online and paper) to my AV products; I pay monthly for my ISP connection and the power to run my computer. My applications programs and operating system, I "buy" every so many years, depending on the current state of their art and needed support - but it averages out to a recurring annual cost of "x"-dollars, whether it's embedded in the cost of a necessary new computer or outright software re-"purchases". I accept that there a lot of various carrying costs for using the computers and the Internet the way I want and need to.
The problem, as I see it, is that in our understandable pursuit of "free", we as users are giving up a lot more than we realize - one thing being a true voice in the market place. If something costs money in order to be made, there is no way it can be continually given away for free: TANSTAAFL. The folks making it eventually have to recover their operating costs somehow. If not from users, then they have to sell something to 3rd parties - and that will be user-related data or placements. That sets up an immediate conflict of interest between user privacy/preferences/security and software-developer financial solvency. It's an ancient reality: in a marketplace, the payer ultimately sets the rules for how the market operates. If 3rd parties are paying the bills, they will ultimately set or influence the rules for what is delivered to users - and how - in a "free" browser. This, in large measure, is one of Opera's 'dilemmas', and now it is showing up as Firefox's 'dilemma'.
I honestly believe that until users are willing to pay for the browser (or any other major software), they will not be able to meaningfully "call the shots" on user privacy, tracking, data disemination, ads, tie-ins, or preferred default placements - all of which are intimately related to browser configurability. The guys offering to pay the bills (the beneficiaries of all those elements) are the ones who will end up in control and influence - as we are seeing on an increasing basis.
I'm under no illusions that these thoughts about browsers remotely approach being widespread, nor that they can be made to suddenly overcome the current thrust of the 'free' browser markets. However, as the commercial-driven, 3rd-party elements become ever more pervasive and intrusive into browser behavior and lack of user-configurability, I do believe that somebody somewhere will finally respond with something well-built on a different paradigm : that of the user paying for and getting what he really wants. And I believe that eventually a growing user frustration over their diminishing real say in browser design and behavior will create a viable market for that 'somebody' who actually provides what such a user needs. But for that 'somebody' to come up with that kind of a browser, users will almost certainly have to pay him for it… otherwise the same sad "free" cycle will repeat itself as that "somebody's" bills come due.
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I'm under no illusions that these thoughts about browsers remotely approach being widespread, nor that they can be made to suddenly overcome the current thrust of the 'free' browser markets. However, as the commercial-driven, 3rd-party elements become ever more pervasive and intrusive into browser behavior and lack of user-configurability, I do believe that somebody somewhere will finally respond with something well-built on a different paradigm …
I'm more cynical about things (not a good thing; I know). To produce a browser that would please everybody would be nigh to impossible. Do you put everything including the kitchen sink into it? You don't want extensions so it has to come feature complete and that is going to open up disagreement as to what should and should not be included. People are already balking at paying subscription fees for Office 365 (even though it's an incredible deal) and Adobe PS. They figure they should be able to buy it and own it…period. And I can see the same thing happening with a paid-for browser. If you buy it outright, do you then pay for upgrades both security-wise and feature-wise? Or do you pay an annual subscription fee? The group that says they would pay for such would likely be an exceedingly small group and one has to wonder how loyal they would be to the maker. To me this is a gimme, gimme generation that doesn't want to be inconvenienced (i.e. won't even accept a few ads for crying out loud) and demands that everything be exactly the way he believes it should be or the complaints start.
Bottomline: it's not going to happen. There was a chance of this way back in the mid-90's but MS pretty much put the nail in that coffin. Furthermore, the world of mobile is becoming far more pervasive than that of desktop users. It's all changing (email, browsers, gaming) and yet a small group insists upon clinging to things remaining the way they were. Again, I don't see that happening; certainly not on a wide scale. Geeze, we now browse with our Xbox, blackbird. Who would have thought that your gaming system would provide a platform to the internet, to YouTube, to Netflix....? And I would guess that at least 1/4 of my internet activity is now via the smart phone. I would honestly give up my brand new ultrabook before I would surrender my phone. Things, they are a'changin... and fast!
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… I'm more cynical about things (not a good thing; I know). To produce a browser that would please everybody would be nigh to impossible. Do you put everything including the kitchen sink into it? You don't want extensions so it has to come feature complete and that is going to open up disagreement as to what should and should not be included. ... If you buy it outright, do you then pay for upgrades both security-wise and feature-wise? Or do you pay an annual subscription fee? The group that says they would pay for such would likely be an exceedingly small group and one has to wonder how loyal they would be to the maker. To me this is a gimme, gimme generation...
Bottomline: it's not going to happen. ... Things, they are a'changin... and fast!
I think Opera 11.xx was close to the mark in many ways. Put a lot of configurability and native features into the browser, but also put in the hooks for extensions if users want something beyond. But it has to be built on a maintainable engine, and either Presto wasn't or Opera lost the "want to". The concept of paying x-dollars for a piece of software and an additional less-than-x-dollars for ongoing annual security patching and decent support seems to me a reasonable alternative to a larger initial z-dollar outlay for a product with free updating.
IMO, product loyalty would be determined by how well the product performed and the value a customer perceived he had obtained with it… exactly like any other product we currently buy in a marketplace. I agree that we're in the midst of a gimme, gimme culture - but it's one we all had a hand in creating. By flocking to "free" instead of paying a reasonable price for software, we have all reinforced an atmosphere of "free at any price" over "you get the quality you pay for". Is it any surprise the number of companies offering paid software is declining rapidly whilst the number of companies offering "free" software (but with lots of advertising, privacy, and security caveats) is exploding? In the end, we get what we seek. The consistent habit of choosing "free" over "quality" increasingly is removing quality from the range of choices. And it matters little whether that's in a mobile, desktop, or X-box world.
Over the generations, there is a reason wise people as a whole have always come to value personal privacy, security, even secrecy in their affairs. The "whys" of that are many and varied, but the current generations have not learned them from first-hand experience... yet. They will. All the past generations have, often through the hard knocks of unexpected circumstances. At some point, I expect that this generation will look back at their wholesale trading of personal privacy for a mess of "free" software pottage and "convenience" as having been a very poor trade...
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Well said.
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It's a bit like what Opera itself did with Speed Dial. They describe their concept on their webpage: http://www.operasoftware.com/content-partners
This was part of O12 and is also part of Opera 15+.
So that is why Opera introduced Speed Dial which I always considered unnecessary - and switched off!
I don't think the SD unnecessary, but what they are doing with the SD nowadays is far away from the original concept, and I don't like it. They became that in bookmarks but this doesn't have half of the bookmark manager tools/options from Opera 12. And I didn't say about the Speed Dial extensions. How will I see them with many many SD entries. This doesn't have an special category for them. Bad plan.
@booBot:
I wonder what might be possible if people could somehow accept the concept of a paid-for web browser, free of all ads and tie-ins and favored vendor placements, privacy-respecting, top-notch in terms of performance and compatibility with web protocols, highly user-configurable, always up-to-date with security issues, and well-staffed by good developers…
I think we can be back to it, but I hope not.
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