After I noticed Firefox has removed the Pocket branding but kept the Pocket stories, I also noticed the settings screen on the homepage no longer lets you disable sponsored stories or links.

Firefox 115:

Firefox 139:

You can still remove these advertisements, but you have to leave the homepage and dig through the settings to find that option.

  • federal reverse@feddit.org
    452·
    17 days ago

    Welp, why is Mozilla gradually turning into a shit-show? They’re still better than Google and Microsoft and Brave but :(.

    Once upon a time, people at Mozilla were really good at highlighting how browsers are also known as “user agents”. They do what users want them to do. Or at least they used to do that.

    I can somewhat understand why they do it though — they are extremely worried about the Google search-box deal not renewing or even expiring prematurely.

        • Victor@lemmy.world
          43·
          16 days ago

          This post shows me how it’s fucked?

          1. Removing bullshit from the home page is great. Reduce clutter.
          2. You can still disable it in the settings (where settings belong).

          🤷‍♂️ I don’t see it.

    • MalReynolds@piefed.socialEnglish
      21·
      17 days ago

      I’m enjoying Zen, really gets out of your way nicely. Does a bunch of things I used to hack in userChrome.css better, still reasonably secure as best I can tell, it’s not librewolf but it’s still firefox so I add back the normal privacy add-ons, about:settings etc, but the UX uplift is worth it.

      That said, without the firefox base we’re all fucked, so this, and their general culture, is really quite disturbing.

        • roofuskit@lemmy.worldEnglish
          62·
          16 days ago

          I don’t think you understand, the majority of the heavy lifting browser development is done by the paid devs at Mozilla. If they stop updating the browser none of the down stream forks are going to be able to replace the work they’re doing.

          • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de
            42·
            16 days ago

            Why wouldnt they? The majority of money at Mozilla has been going to worthless management people and side projects nobody wants. Only a tiny fraction of the money Mozilla spends would be required to pay the devs that actually develop Firefox. Im saying Firefox needs to be hard forked and Mozilla can go to shit for all i care. As long as Mozilla exists, nobody will do it so maybe its even necessary for Mozilla to die.

            • oce 🐆@jlai.lu
              1·
              15 days ago

              Would you have a source that details how Mozilla spends money on the software development of Firefox vs other projects? I couldn’t find it in the financial report, so I guess you have another source.

                • oce 🐆@jlai.lu
                  2·
                  15 days ago

                  But how much of their resources did that represent? 1%, 10%, 50%? This being a problem really depends on that number.
                  They are trying to find ways to earn money independent of Google royalties so they can keep making massive FOSS projects, that compete with FAANG technology, independently. For me all the community troubles and failed projects mostly show how hard this is.

              • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de
                11·
                15 days ago

                No, i made it the fuck up. But if you look at how many actual code changes happen on each release and then substract all the shit that nobody wants, there is little left. Firefox is basically in maintainance mode the way i see it. If you then look at all the other stuff mozilla is doing (ad tech, AI garbage, useless cloud features, marketing) you get a picture of where the management is placing priority. Things that lead to monetization. There are a few cool things like Thunderbird and Mozilla Location Service, but the latter has already been killed off sadly.

            • InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world
              22·
              16 days ago

              Why wouldnt they? The majority of money at Mozilla has been going to worthless management people and side projects nobody wants.

              While true, its unlikely the fork devs will fund raise enough.

        • oce 🐆@jlai.lu
          11·
          15 days ago

          Mozilla Corporation, who gets more than 80% of its funds from Google, around $500 millions, who does that to ensure Google search remains the default and to avoid antitrust issue if Chrome because even more dominant.
          Firefox forks will likely not be able to secure such funding and pay the engineers required to further develop a web browser fully independent of Chromium.

  • Fizz@lemmy.nz
    23·
    17 days ago

    I dont get it. Your screenshots show an option to remove stories. What’s the issue here?

  • NRay7882@lemmy.world
    17·
    16 days ago

    I was listening to MKBHD’S waveform podcast last week where they interviewed the CEO of The Browser Company, they make Arc and Dia, a newer AI browser. Never heard of them prior but I feel like Firefox has gotten more clunky slow and loaded up with features I don’t want, this post reminded me that I need to investigate a replacement.

      • pyre@lemmy.world
        3·
        16 days ago

        what, they’re killing arc already? holy shit

        edit: oh my god that article is painful. “i wish I went all in on ai because i enjoyed playing with chatgpt”?

        Webpages won’t be the primary interface anymore. Traditional browsers were built to load webpages. But increasingly, webpages — apps, articles, and files — will become tool calls with AI chat interfaces.

        WHAT THE FUCK LOL this is straight up brain damage from using too much chatgpt

      • NRay7882@lemmy.world
        1·
        16 days ago

        I agree theyre putting effort into their AI branded browser now over Arc, but he did reiterate that Arc would remain in maintenance mode. Security patches, fixes would still get implemented but it’s being facilitated by 2-3 engineers only and no new features will be developed for it. Has no bright future, but I wouldn’t call that dead. He equated it to Safari, essentially.