[Touche]

This is sort of unfortunate news to me, as I take this as a sign that they won't do adblocking by default. I think this is a mistake; users want ads to be blocked. Especially on mobile, where it's more important from a perf perspective. Brave has ads blocked, Opera has ads blocked. If Firefox wants to follow the lead and be a privacy focused company like they say, then they need to block ads.

[detritus]

I don't necessarily want ads blocked, especially on sites that I regularly enjoy that I don't pay for with money.

I do want to block the underlying tracking/fingerprinting/profiling etc.

This is why I'm very much against Brave - I don't really see why they have the right to edit or censor other people's revenue models and replace them with their own. That seems.. unethical.

[jetrink]

It is the users who are censoring the pages by choosing to use an ad blocking browser. I don't think the fact that Brave is offering an alternative revenue stream taints their browser's ad blocking capabilities. It is a feature that is available on almost all other browsers, natively or through a plugin.

[brians]

They don’t. You, the end user, do. They’re selling you a tool to do that.

[detritus]

They provide an entire replacement economy from which they profit 5% of transactions, I don't see them as being innocent bystanders here.

[Touche]

"Innocent" implies there is an injustice / crime of some sort taking place, but there is not in this case.

[detritus]

I didn't mean to imply 'crime' but I'll accept 'injustice' in the context of the post I was responding to.

[Touche]

What's the injustice?

[speg]

I may be in the minority, but I've never used an ad blocker. Content makers need to make a living and cutting off their ad revenue seems sleazy.

That said, they may have gone too far with tracking and other excessive bloat that I might just start using one.

[smt88]

"Other excessive bloat" often includes malware. Less seriously, it also includes autoplay video and scams.

If ads were safe (i.e. text-only, no JavaScript, no video) and the publishers actually vetted the products, I wouldn't block them. I don't care that a physical NYT has ads. It's the algorithmic sale and distribution of ads that broke the model.

[ddalex]

> publishers actually vetted the products

I work in ad technology for a publisher. We put in a lot of effort to make the tech fast, lightweight and secure for our visitors - we hate bad ads too. We screen our partners, use whitelists and monitor what JS is running on the site.

This being said - things sometimes slip through the cracks. Somebody with a browser-based 0-day will pay huge CPMs to insert their ad and own thousands of machines. We can't prevent this - if you have any ideas on how, I'd love to hear it.

[smt88]

I don't think reviewing code for malware scales, especially in a competitive industry like online ads. You have to automate it, and automation isn't foolproof.

You can either: 1) disable JS in ads entirely, or 2) give all users an option to pay for an ad-free site.

Since few publishers do either, I'll continue to use my adblocker and simultaneously pay the publishers I think we can't do without (e.g. ProPublica).

[ddalex]

I agree that getting directly payed by users is a much better outcome. But the reality is that people don't want to pay us directly (in the US markets; we charge directly in other markets and it's working beautifully)

[aznumeric]

Perhaps Javascript ads should be banned by law. It would be easier to enforce compared to investigating what the corporation actually does with the info that it collected from the user.

[dwild]

> often includes malware.

Can you define often? It seems quite rare actually for a malware to be distributed online without user intervention, with the recent Firefox 0-day being one of theses cases and only touched a small proportion of people.

The web is quite secure already and sure ads network is a good vector but so is Hacker News, Reddit and Facebook, which nobody cares about (have you ever not clicked on a link on any of theses platforms and looked at the URL first?).

I seriously hate that argument of security, it's just wrong.

[Tomte]

When you visit a serious web site, like t-online.de or spiegel.de, with an up-to-date iPad and you're getting popups with porn or gambling offers that cannot be closed (they can, but reopen instantly), when you cannot use the back button anymore, and the only way to regain control of your browser is to either reboot the iPad (that's what many normal people do) or you force-close Safari... then you've caught malware from a big ad network that t-online.de or spiegel.de use.

Happened regularly about a year or two ago, certainly more often than every month, haven't seen it since, though.

> have you ever not clicked on a link on any of theses platforms and looked at the URL first?

That's not what happens.

> I seriously hate that argument of security, it's just wrong.

Maybe you should contemplate the possibility that you're wrong.

[dwild]

> to regain control of your browser is to either reboot the iPad (that's what many normal people do) or you force-close Safari...

That's seems more like a browser issue, but none the less, any links on Hacker News could do the same.

I don't consider that malware to have to close an application, just like I don't consider a malware a link that rick roll me (which still force me to close a tab ;) unless I want to stay on Youtube).

> That's not what happens.

Aren't we talking about running malicious JS? Any link you click can contains malicious JS, yet you click on that link without thinking about it, but when it's an ad that may contains malicious JS, you block it altogether.

I don't understands really what you means by not what happens.

> Maybe you should contemplate the possibility that you're wrong.

I contemplate each time I'm discussing with someone about it. I still haven't got any evidence about it.

Each time I ask someone that does it for "security purpose", when they don't answer by "do your own research" (which I always try when they say that even if it's absurd to have nothing to defends yourself), the best example they always have is either link to some report with stats that doesn't define malware, or the Forbes case of when one of their ad was a fake Java update. If that's malware, then here we go, HN now serve malware too: Click on that URL to update Java: https://forbes.com

If we were arguing blocking Javascript for security purpose, now that does make sense (still pretty unlikely, but based on news, it seems to happen much more).

[Tomte]

With ad networks you didn't click on some shady link. You just get the malware Javascript served. Without clicking or visiting anything shady. Reputable sites deliver malware through their embedding of ads.

That's not theoretical (like your "but HN could deliver malware, too), that's reality.

[smt88]

> Can you define often?

It doesn't matter. It could be 1 out of every million hits, but it's still a source of malware. Most of us don't upgrade to the latest browser version the minute it's released, which makes us vulnerable.

> ads network is a good vector but so is Hacker News

Uhh... what are you talking about? HN has minimal JS, and they wrote it. Some ad networks are injecting JavaScript into your browser that they have never seen before and didn't write themselves.

I may trust, let's say, NYT not to serve me malware with code they wrote in their offices, but NYT is not the entity that wrote the JavaScript delivered in their ads.

> have you ever not clicked on a link on any of theses platforms and looked at the URL first?

You seem to be arguing that hyperlinks are an attack vector, which assumes such a broad interpretation of "attack vector" that the word becomes meaningless. It's like saying that an airplane is an attack vector because it can fly you into a war zone. Yes, it can... but I get to choose where I'm going.

Regarding that choice: these platforms show you the domain you're clicking through to, so you have a chance to bail. And with an ad blocker, you don't have to be as afraid to visit a malicious site. I have JS and ad blocking on by default, and I whitelist a site when it seems trustworthy enough.

[dwild]

> It doesn't matter.

It does matter, you used the word often, that word has a meaning.

> Uhh... what are you talking about? HN has minimal JS, and they wrote it. Some ad networks are injecting JavaScript into your browser that they have never seen before and didn't write themselves.

You never click on the article link? That page can be anything, thus include any JS.

> I get to choose where I'm going.

Thus you check every link before clicking on it? I feel like that's not the case, but I would applaud you to be consistent if you do.

> And with an ad blocker, you don't have to be as afraid to visit a malicious site.

Ad blockers only block ads, not malicious JS. If you visit a website which include malicious JS, it's just as bad as an ad that contains malicious JS.

> I have JS and ad blocking on by default

Blocking JS that's a good way to stop malicious JS. Blocking ads then is redundant, what does it give you more?

[luckylion]

I consider ad blockers a security issue: too many ad servers in recent history have been used as malware distributors, including Google Adsense. Since publishers don't secure their systems (Google's vulnerability here is known for years and they don't fix it but instead opted to kick out malicious advertisers if/when they catch them), adblockers offer protection.

[dwild]

Same for me, if your website cause excessive bloat with their ads, then I'll just avoid it (unless that content is worth the excessive bloat, like Youtube ads).

As soon as I can pay for the content instead, I do it.

Ads is just another way to pay... if it's too bloated (thus too expensive) you just don't get it, or go find something less bloated (aka less expensive), that's it.

[CannisterFlux]

I use an ad-blocker on Firefox but I think if Firefox started blocking adverts by default it could find itself in a dangerous situation. A lot of sites would feel justified blocking Firefox in that case, which would do more damage to the already-shrinking user base. I know many sites have "turn off your ad-blocker" currently and I usually just leave at that point, but I could imagine a movement to more actively crush Firefox if it had ad-blocking baked in.

Although maybe long term this will happen anyway, so Mozilla has nothing to lose. I mean Chrome will have its ad-tech-friendly blocking-lite, Firefox will be the only real ad-blocking available, and sites will start to make moves to directly discourage Firefox use ("I see you're using Firefox, switch to Chrome to view our crappy site").

[sergiosgc]

Successful ad blocking would kill the advertisement revenue stream. This revenue stream is what pays for the content you enjoy, so ad blocking kills content.

I like content, and I don't mind paying for it. I'd prefer to pay with money, not via ads. Give me that option.

Further, I don't want a subscription. I want to pay as I go, at the rates ads pay. 50¢ per thousand pages sounds ok to me.

[C4stor]

Ads pay a lot more than that on quality websites such as the Scroll ones. 50c per thousand page is so low I can't see how you find it fair. We're talking lets say 1000h of work, and your fair price is 50c ?

[stevenwliao]

If they read 3 articles a day, they've decided that quality journalism across multiple publishers should cost 50 cents a year.

[dwild]

> I want to pay as I go, at the rates ads pay. 50¢ per thousand pages sounds ok to me.

You often get a ecpm of 50 cents? That seems quite awful, even more so from the US. It should be closer to 10x that.

[Scoundreller]

In my experience, US$5/CPM is about right for general content focused on an industrialized market, but:

1) it’s based on page views where ads are rendered. So ad-blocked users aren’t in the denominator.

2) most of that revenue is driven by clicks, not ad views. So users like me, that rarely click on ads, ever, probably earn publishers about 50cents/cpm.

[dwild]

Sure but that price that you suggest is for everyone, not only ad-block users or people that doesn't click on ads.

At the end of the day, if it cost them more than an ecpm of 0.50$ to produce that content (and I'm pretty sure it does, because most ad-based website never made ton of profit and that was the case even before adblocking became popular), than that just doesn't make sense either to have a price that low.

[alkonaut]

I'm happy to pay by seeing ads or by paying money. I'm not happy to have my personal info floating around on the servers of the ad-industry in order to deliver targeted ads.

Subscriptions risk making silos. Once you have paid $5 for site-group-A (one million sites) it's annoying to find that the site you are reading belongs to site-group-B which belongs to some other subscription. This is the HBO-vs-Netflix problem.

[Touche]

Keep in mind that Firefox is a "user agent", their job is not to make websites happy, it's to make their users happy.

Ad-blocking is a lot like using a DVR, or a VCR. Someone sends you data and you have the right to not view all of that data. The company has the right not to send you the data if you don't pay for it, but they don't have the right to tell you that you must view all of it.

[faissaloo]

>This revenue stream is what pays for the content you enjoy, so ad blocking kills content.

Content that is funded by ads is often not content I particularly care about. If it matters enough people will be willing to fund it, if not, let it die.

[dwild]

Seriously? You never use StackOverflow? You never enjoyed anything on Youtube?

You are definitely in a tiny minority if that's actually the case.

[faissaloo]

I don't mind ads on SO so much since they're not trying to get you to buy stuff. I might enjoy YouTube but it's definitely overrated as a platform.

[abainbridge]

I agree, but the problem here is that not all pages are of equal value. The Guardian ought to be able to charge me more per page if it was written by one of their full time employees. I can't see how Mozilla will ever be able to figure out how to apportion the money, without just exposing my "balance" and the cost of visiting each page.

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

People once said the same thing about pop-up blockers.

[nerdwaller]

This is just a data gathering link for Mozilla to validate some ideas for added revenue sources, they are also doing a VPN one.

Clicking the button brings you to a survey where they seem to indicate the intent is to be ad free:

> You clicked a button to possibly subscribe to Firefox Ad-Free Internet for $4.99

[tomp]

I take it as a sign they're exploring other options. If this takes off, I would expect them to more seriously consider including adblocking as a default.