[vegancap]

They're a business, just like anyone else. Unless we all start throwing thousands of donations at them, they have to find ways to monetise to keep up the awesome work they do. If it's both relevant and intuitive, then no harm done. Remember, your browsing history isn't exactly a big secret. That's why incognito modes exist in most browsers.

[dannypgh]

Firefox isn't a business, it's an open source/free software project. Mozilla is a nonprofit entity which pays some people to work on it. This is an important distinction, no?

[gillianseed]

>Mozilla is a nonprofit entity which pays some people to work on it.

Mozilla now consists of the non-profit Mozilla Foundation and the for-profit Mozilla corporation subsidiary.

[lmorchard]

The Corporation isn't really for-profit, either, as it dumps any money it makes back into the Foundation.

[vegancap]

Not particularly, they still have to gain some form of revenue to keep their core ventures. Their revenue in 2012 for example was $311 million.

[dannypgh]

Firefox is not a "they" it is an "it." As a computer program, it has no obligation to Mozilla to make them money.

[vdaniuk]

An organization being for-profit or non-profit is not particularly important distinction? Elaborate please.

[maxerickson]

It's literally just a tax status.

Part of that is that no one owns the Mozilla Foundation, but, for example, the people controlling it can still extract money by paying themselves salary. This is how family foundations can be a tax dodge, the huge legacy is dumped into a non profit and grows without incurring much taxes, meanwhile the family has some meetings and draws comfortable salaries for it.

[melicerte]

I understand nothing is free and my privacy matters. For that reason, I'm willing to make donations, even on a regular basis, instead of having ads.

[lmorchard]

Great, here you go! https://sendto.mozilla.org