Firefox Sponsored Tiles

[Corrine]

Firefox Will Soon Get Sponsored Suggested Tiles Based On Your Browsing History | TechCrunch

This move doesn't come as a major surprise. Mozilla has featured sponsored 'Directory Tiles' in Firefox for a few months now, after all, and Suggested Tiles are the logical next step. Unlike Directory Tiles, which are the default tiles that appear for new users without a browsing history, Sponsored Tiles are based on your browsing history. To do this, the advertising service looks at your browsing history to figure out your interests by comparing it to a set of URLs that fit into a given category.

According to the article, there will be some sort of privacy rules about the number and kinds of URLs used to indicate an "interest" -- minimum 5 URLs and the suggested tile cannot be based on a combination of 2 URLs. user's interest.

Fortunately, users of Firefox will be able to uncheck "show suggested sites" and opt for a blank page with a new tab.

[Digerati]

Fortunately, users of Firefox will be able to uncheck "show suggested sites" and opt for a blank page with a new tab.

Unfortunately, not showing does not imply they are not still tracking your every move. :(

[plodr]

My very biased opinion which everyone is entitled to disagree with: It seems like Mozilla is determined to kill what was once a good browser!

Note: FF ESR is one of my backup browsers now. We use Palemoon as our main browser.

[Digerati]

I still use IE having never moved to FF because I didn't believe all the hype and fear mongering over IE6 by the MS and IE bashers and their followers. It was simple to stop them in their tracks by simply asking, "did you stop getting infected only by switching to FF?". I always got one of two answers; (1) I wasn't getting infected before, or (2) they also changed or added security programs, started keeping Windows updated and stopped being click-happy on unsolicited links, downloads, and attachments.

In other words, they started practicing safe computing, the things needed regardless the browser of choice.  :smash:

Any way I do use PM as my secondary browser and like it a lot too.

It seems like Mozilla is determined to kill what was once a good browser!

I think the problem is much, if not most of the world now use smart phones. Plus being open-source, no one is really at the helm. There are no share holders pushing for profits, or investing capital. Open source was great in it's day. Just not sure that is true anymore.

[plodr]

Well, I did not want to use chrome on my Android tablet (81% of phones run Android so that is a huge target)  so I installed FF on there. I wasn't happy with it - only 1 tab at a time visible.

But in the past several weeks, FF must have updated because when I opened my browser last week, I had 4 tabs showing.
I do like FF on Android now.

[Corrine]

Fortunately, users of Firefox will be able to uncheck "show suggested sites" and opt for a blank page with a new tab.

Unfortunately, not showing does not imply they are not still tracking your every move. :(

With the blank tab, users won't see the targeted ads.

My original reason for switching to Firefox was because it was faster than IE with my dial-up connection.  With the addition of extensions, it became all the more useful for my purposes.  As to the switch to Pale Moon. I think, I've worn out giving all the reasons for that.  :D

[Digerati]

With the blank tab, users won't see the targeted ads.

Right. My concern is that FF/Mozilla will still track our surfing habits and in an attempt to get some revenue, sell that information. :(

Before I got cable to my home way back in the early 90's, I was still using Netscape at home and work. It was only after I was threated with disciplinary action at work that I then switched to IE5. And once I got used to it, I liked it and stuck with IE until the present.

But no doubt, FF's greatest strengths has been its add-on support.