Firefox @lemmy.world LWD @lemm.ee 1w ago

Firefox 139 hides homescreen option to disable ads

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.

32 comments

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.
You use the firefox homepage? Pfft.

Blank Page gang where you at
- 👋
U should really switch to a firefox fork. The official version is fucked.
- Is it really fucked? Like, it works great IMO... What's wrong with it?
  
  Personally, I think it's fucked that Mozilla slowly transformed Pocket from a standalone article collecting extension, to a mandatory chunk of code built into the browser, to a feed of Mozilla-selected stories and ads with the label filed off.
  
  Meanwhile, the browser isn't losing the one piece of bloat that (AFAIK) the original Pocket users never wanted anyway.
  
  i love how you comment under a post showing you an example
- Which one do you recommend and why?
  
  Librewolf and Waterfox are good.
  
  Waterfox isn't bad. https://www.waterfox.net/
  
  I like floorp, it's very customisable!
- 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.
- What are you going to do when the paid Firefox dev team stops developing it?
  
  Donate to the hopefully less greed driven and user data hungry people that will take up the development.
  
  Paid by who
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.
- arc is dead.
  
  if you use an AI powered anything, privacy is not a concern of yours.
- Wow. I'm not blaming you for not knowing, but you got BSed.
  
  TBC announced the killing-off of their Arc browser on May 26.
  
  Marques Brownlee brought the CEO on for a podcast released on June 2, where the CEO claims they (still) make Arc.
  
  This is disinfo. It's getting peddled by either Marques or the CEO of The Browser Company, or both — and either way, somebody should feel ashamed of it.
  
  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
  
  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.

32 comments