Yet another good reason to make sure you're opted out of all Firefox 'studies' and 'experiments' or whatever they're calling them today.
They are not getting better as a company. Somehow these weird, anti-user things just keep happening. Because they're the 'future' apparently.
This is only the future if we continue to tolerate it.
https://testpilot.firefox.com/experiments/advance
https://www.ghacks.net/2018/08/07/firefox-experiment-recommends-articles-based-on-your-browsing/
@natecull I really think the only way MoFo can balance the need for revenue and user privacy is... to offer an option for Firefox to be the product, rather than Firefox users.
That is, pay for each ESR version, get the versions between free.
(You can also download the source and build it yourself without the sell-out stuff, of course, but paid should disable all of that easily.)
@natecull Yes, that looks like the kind of feature I would turn off as soon as it shows up in a browser update.
@natecull As always, just follow the money. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation#Financing
Ultimately, they work for google...
@natecull What browser are you using?
@natecull I have to keep reminding myself to be cautious about non-profit foundations backed by corporations.
@natecull Eww. What is it with Mozilla not even understanding the fact that one of the core reasons people chose their stuff was not having to even worry about things like this?
@natecull Automating recommendations is just not a pressing problem. That's what a "social network" is for. People recommend things to to others they know one-to-one or by broadcasting to the world (hopefully with some trust involved). And we can have "social networks" that don't require surveillance. Why do these things keep coming up? Who are the people that have difficulty finding things to look at? What real value to people are there in these things? :/
@cstanhope @natecull What, you don't want your consciousness continuously shaped by background recommender algorithms?
Guess the idea is to help people find and filter info, which I would be more happy with if it did not result in the companies ending up with detailed profiles of everyone's thoughts and interests.
Better client-side ML could make this possible someday.
I mean 'a personalized feed of quality content' is just nakedly and obviously 'ads'.
And we've seen what that looks like already.
It looks like Taboola / Outbrain / etc. 'Around The Web' sections.
And it looks like Cambridge Analytica, and the election of Donald Trump, and many more Trumps in the future.
Mozilla, of all companies, KNOW BETTER than this.
But they keep trying to make it happen. Will users tolerate it if it looks like THIS? Or THIS?