Hynek SchlawackWow, #Firefox injecting Mozilla VPN ads into web pages… the Chrome team stares jealously over. The question is always: what clueless middle manager thought this could be a good idea? A move that betrays virtually everything Firefox fans value!?
James Bennett@hynek Looking through the related bugs and links, my read is that it was supposed to be one of those "what's new in..." type things that only shows under certain circumstances, but it relied on a buggy API to decide when to show itself, and so started popping up kind of at random.
And then people decided to apply the least charitable possible interpretation (Mozilla is DELIBERATELY MALICIOUSLY INJECTING UNBLOCKABLE ADS in EVERY WEBSITE!!!ZOMGWTFBBQ!!!!!!!!!!), and now will never ever be talked out of that interpretation. It's the same old "If Mozilla screws up 1 time out of 100000, people treat it as a worse thing than Google screwing up 99999 times out of 100000" problem that's always existed.
(obligatory disclaimer: I no longer work for Mozilla, haven't for years, didn't work on the browser when I did, have no inside info, am speaking for myself and giving my own personal opinions, not official stances of Firefox or Mozilla)
@ubernostrum I really don't think that makes it any better and the fact they're peddling VPN snake oil now is the cherry on the cake
@hynek Well, this is kind of what I was getting at -- you already decided that this must be an evil/bad thing, so it doesn't matter if there's a mundane explanation, because you're not really open to having your mind changed about it.
That said, I've read the docs on it and it seems to be as clear as I think mass-market end-user docs *can* be on what a VPN can and can't do and when it might or might not be useful.
I used to run my own VPN to use when I was traveling and didn't want to have to trust random wifi, for example, and that's a use case they hit in the docs. If I still had that use case, I might throw a few bucks at them to solve it for me.
@hynek And to be honest, I am sympathetic to Mozilla's desperate need to have a revenue stream that isn't "Google feels like letting us continue to exist", and experimenting in privacy-related services seems a decent fit for them. I don't think any one of these on its own will solve the issue, but becoming a broader not-just-the-browser provider of privacy tools is at least a step.
@ubernostrum I have not. The thing is I find thirsty “what's new” pop ups that interrupt me while surfing already super obnoxious and it only gets worse from there (→ ad → VPN). And yes, if you build a brand on a certain type of trust and then betray it, of course the damage is bigger than if you’re YOLO the whole time. Apple also gets lambasted for every tiny misstep.
@hynek I don't really see how this is a betrayal of any particular kind of trust.
Did Mozilla promise you they'd never offer a VPN service? That they'd never offer any paid services or products? That they'd never tell you what's new in a latest version? That they'd never tell you about what things they're doing, or what non-browser things they're doing?
@ubernostrum if you don't see a VPN ad the pops up while you're surfing a private(!) server as a perceived betrayal of trust, then we have no common ground in this discussion.
I 100% understand where you're coming from, but it makes no difference. If THIS is you claim, you CAN’T under ANY circumstances inject (VPN!) ads. The reasons why it happened anyway just don't matter. It's like planes mustn’t crash. If they crash due to you negligence, you're fucked (c.f. 737 MAX).
@hynek I think offering a VPN is not inherently an evil thing, and I think letting people know they're offering a thing is not inherently evil.
But even if I didn't think that, I would still try not to jump to the harshest and nastiest and most rage-driven possible conclusions, the way you are doing here.
So I wouldn't try to force a description of this as injecting ads, for example -- it's very clear that's not what they were trying to do, and no matter how angry I might be, they deserve an attempt at my understanding.
But like I said originally, it's very clear that you are not really open to having your mind changed on this, so I'm just going to drop out and mute the conversation.
שי ברגר 
Shai BergerI think offering a VPN, and placing ads more generally, are not inherently evil. But AFAIK Firefox had, for years, a "what's new" tab open besides whatever else you were doing, and that's a proper place for such things -- never in your way; you'll see it at a time when you're not in the middle of other things. Opening a modal ad, forcing a user to stop what they're doing, is wrong -- I cannot imagine any circumstances where it would be acceptable.
@ubernostrum And yes, "what’s new popups" while on a page, are also a breach of my trust to not accost me while trying to do something. There’s plenty other ways to achieve that, interrupting my workflow is sketchy.
@hynek And I guess the Apple comparison is important, because I feel the same way about Apple -- they never promised people "ad-free", that I'm aware of. They promised things like not selling personal/tracking info to third parties, but people *interpreted* that as "no ads on anything ever" and treat it as a betrayal if Apple does ads.
That mismatch between "they promised X" and "I interpreted it as Y" is really important to understanding the dynamic here.
@ubernostrum I was mostly referring to when they accidentally collect some data they shouldn't. Like when spotlight sent every keypress to Apple etc. But yes, whether we like it or not, the Y is what makes a brand. The what people perceive it to be.
Noah K@hynek @ubernostrum IIRC the VPN is white label Mullvad?
*sigh*Ber nard@hynek I've switched to LibreWolf (Firefox fork) on my machines. Lot fewer settings to tweak after install, and no VPN pushing
Paul Wilde 
:dontpanic_nobg:@hynek Too many things over the last few years have shown me Mozilla are less concerned about user acceptance than they used to be
I've been a Firefox user since 2004 but this year I switched to Vivaldi because of these things.
I've been a Firefox user since 2004 but this year I switched to Vivaldi because of these things.
The1goit 
@hynek at least it's just a bug, and not an intended feature (I'm looking at you Microsoft and Google)