[rightbyte]

It is really unfortunate.

My Firefox install lately added links to what could be considered not so nice sites for grandmas like amazon.com and hotels.com to the start screen.

It is quite clear they see it as their program not mine program.

I dunno for how long I will stick to using the least worst alternative. To go for custom builds would be giving up on Mozilla.

edit: Toned down language

[ziddoap]

>scam sites like amazon.com

Since when is Amazon a scam site?

I don't like em' either, but hyperbole doesn't help.

For what it's worth, it can be removed in about 4 seconds.

[sevensor]

Considering how hard it is to avoid dodgy counterfeit merchandise in certain product categories, that seems like an apt description.

[DrBenCarson]

https://www.onlyamazingseller.com/us.html

[sevensor]

I’m not clear on how this solves the problem. Counterfeits can be hard to detect. Counterfeit food, toiletries, and electronics can poison you or start a fire. And my redress is a generous return policy?

[DrBenCarson]

Amazon receives inventory directly from manufacturers. Third party sellers are significantly more likely to sell counterfeit products

Same reason you’re not likely going to find counterfeit goods on the shelves of a Target or Costco

[jamesdwilson]

they have a history of "comingling" goods that claim to be from the manufacturer but sometimes are not.

[nosioptar]

I've still received counterfeits that were sold and shipped by amazon.

[avgd]

Inventory commingling ruined any respect I had for them. They've done that for a long time but I still am beyond pissed by the trend they started of being a front for third party sellers, all French retailers copied them (darty, fnac, cdiscount etc) and searching for products sold by trustworthy entities on the internet is now a nightmare.

Everyone imitates the market leader so it really feels as if competition doesn't exist as an alternative to amazon here. They're all as bad, and sometimes worse.

[nosioptar]

I think the worst is when you spend extra to buy from someone that isn't amazon and the item shows up in an amazon box with an amazon receipt.

[DrBenCarson]

Damn, really? That’s very troubling

[renewedrebecca]

> For what it's worth, it can be removed in about 4 seconds.

Sure, but why should anyone have to?

[ziddoap]

Look, I hate ads as much as the next person.

But Firefox also needs to generate money somehow, right? A small advert to amazon/hotels/whatever that can be removed basically permanently with a small change in the settings is about the best balance I can think of.

If you donate to Mozilla, I have more sympathy for you. Perhaps they could make it so that if you have a Firefox account linked to a donation that they remove this, or something.

[happymellon]

I have struggled to find methods as an individual to donate to Firefox.

[imagetic]

Same.

They should have offered us monthly services that made sense. Long long ago.

[_Algernon_]

https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/donate/

[diggan]

I'm fairly sure that's for donating to Mozilla, where the funds go who knows where (kidding, it goes to the executives and marketing).

Is there anywhere I can donate to Firefox, specifically the development and the maintenance of the browser itself, and only the browser? Maybe donating directly to developers working on Firefox would be the best approach here.

[e2le]

That's for donations to the Mozilla foundation, they aren't used to fund development of Firefox. Mozilla corporation and Mozilla foundation are distinct entities.

[yjftsjthsd-h]

Nope! In fact, last I heard, donations to the Mozilla Foundation could not be used at all for the browser, which is developed by the Mozilla Corporation.

[throwup238]

> But Firefox also needs to generate money somehow, right?

WHY? They get hundreds of millions a year to place Google as the default search engine. That’s a shit ton of money. At that level they could even put some away every year for an endowment. Why does a nonprofit need to generate even more money by violating its users?

[bmn__]

Money is drying up because Google is being ordered to terminate the deal, and they refused to save it and rather spend it on flights to Zambia to make a festival session about "feminist AI alliance for climate justice" "centering on LGBTQIA+ individuals". Their words, not mine.

See videos 4 months old or younger: https://www.youtube.com/@Lunduke/search?query=mozilla

[diggan]

Never hear of that person before, but before listening to anyone, I like to go through their material to see if they at least give the impression of a balanced and impartial person.

> The company made popular by making modular laptops now makes a desktop with soldered-on RAM. Bonus: They appear to support targeting children with Trans cartoons.

https://lunduke.substack.com/p/framework-unveils-2000-non-up...

> Leftist Extremists Leave Linux Kernel, Demand Conservatives Be Banned

> Leftist Linux developers demand those with wrong politics "be removed". "Right-wing people are not welcomed," says one. "You can [CENSORED] right off from my projects," the other.

https://lunduke.substack.com/p/leftist-extremists-leave-linu...

In this case, it seems they are neither balanced nor impartial, so beware people who chose to engage with that. It seems Lunduke is yet another culture-warrior masquerading like "The last bastion of truly independent Tech Journalism". I'm sure they get lots of traffic from it, but it's not really a reliable source for facts.

[account42]

Firefox is supposedly owned by a nonprofit organization that's expected to act in the user's interest.

Nonprofits are supposed to raise funds from donations and grants, not via enshittification for the primary subject of their mission.

The problem is that besides being a supposed nonprofit (Mozilla foundation), the same people also want to larp as a sillicon valley tech business (Mozzilla corp which largely shares leadership with the org) with insanely high saleries funded anti-user bullshit.

[account42]

It's hardly hyperbole at this point:

- Letting sellers replace listings with completely different products while keeping the ratings.

- Not providing any way to filter dodgy chinese sellers that spam search results with duplicates of the same cheap shit.

- Comingling inventory so that even if you take care to select a trustworthy seller you might get stuff from a dodgy one.

And no, being able to remove the scam ads is not good enough.

[buckle8017]

Amazon has been a scam site for years.

Counterfeit products sold by Amazon.

Most reviews are purchased.

Stolen product pages.

Product pages where the reviews are for totally different products

If you report any of these things to Amazon, they do nothing about it.

[hayst4ck]

Scam site was probably not very precise.

They have enshittified, and they don't have a quality anti-abuse team so many items, while not directly fraudulent are fraud-u-lish.

Commingled inventory means you can't expect the item you get to be the item you ordered because there is no supply chain integrity.

Honestly, after typing that out, I don't think scam was as wrong as it first seemed. I frequently feel deceived when using amazon.

[bigfatkitten]

Amazon doesn't even particularly care whether the items they sell are even legal in the country where they sell them.

FRS radios for example. Fine in the USA, not fine in Australia where those frequencies are used for public safety radio systems, and where they are illegal to possess because they don't comply with the applicable EMC standards.

[fc417fc802]

It's a bit off topic I guess, but I actually see that as a fringe benefit as opposed to a drawback. Other than some exceptional edge cases I'm opposed to item possession itself being illegal - it all comes down to usage. (To be clear, I'm not opposed to strict ID recording requirements in some not-quite-as-exceptional edge cases.)

[kbelder]

Honestly, I regard that as a plus.

[bigfatkitten]

Causing a mess for legitimate users of the radiofrequency spectrum, and exposing unwitting customers to prosecution is a plus?

To be clear, you can buy equivalent products on UHF CB frequencies locally, that you can use without interfering with ambulance services for the same price.

This is legislation that exists for a very good reason.

[serf]

buying the thing doesn't do that.

abusing the thing in the wrong region does.

question : why isn't this a matter of national import/export control? Why is that duty falling onto Amazon?

if Amazon was selling black-tar heroin I would have more questions than "Why is Amazon selling this? How dare they."

[rightbyte]

That is debatable if that is hyperbole but I might be moving the discussion a bit too much off topic so ye maybe more neutral language would have been preferable.

[manbart]

Use LibreWolf. It's just firebox rebuilt and released with better defaults (no suggestions/spying)

[winkelmann]

Yeah, it's annoying, but also nothing particularly new I believe. There seem to be two types of garbage links added by default:

1. "Sponsored shortcuts" that can be "easily" turned off in `about:preferences#home`

2. I guess "non-sponsored" shortcuts? I believe they pointed to Facebook, eBay, and something else (Pinterest maybe). Those have to be removed/"blocked" individually. I think they end up in `browser.newtabpage.blocked` after doing so.

I don't like that this is a thing I have to do whenever I set up a new Firefox install. It's not often, to be fair, but it still sucks nonetheless.

[rightbyte]

Ye that feels like trying to unmess a Windows install.

I have like 6 Firefox installs I need to do this on. And then they add the next thing to block in 2 years.

I think the old premade bookmarks are as far as you can go with these kind of things. Takes like 2s to remove and you know how instinctivly.