this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
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Technology

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sorry, this is a terrible and senseless pontification. They could have always bundled an ad-blocker without having it enabled out-of-the-box.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sure they could have.

But why would they?

Just because you, clearly, disagree with my opinion doesn’t make it terrible or senseless.

The strength of your conviction, or in which you convey it, isn’t a stand-in for rational arguments and logic based debate.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

But why would they?

Because it would be one very interesting marketing point? For a browser that promotes itself as "focused on protecting users" and "not selling you out", having a built-in (even if not enabled by default) ad-blocker would make a lot more sense than adding integration with Pocket.

rational arguments and logic based debate.

There is nothing logical about claiming "Firefox is a browser and browser need to render the page as is". First, even that were true it does not require them to enable the ad-block by default. Second, this definition is contrived and seems picked up just to give a rationalization that gives them some moral ground about their omission. We could just as easily say something like "a web browser is the user agent to access the www and as such it can always modify the web page in favor of the user". Why is that you choose to go for a definition that just happens to favor the business of their biggest source of revenue?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I dislike that you used quotes to misrepresent what they said by making them sound like a cartoon caveman. Poor form.

Also I remember why I and, presumably, a lot of others moved to chrome in the first place. Firefox started getting really bloated and adding a bunch of default features that people either didn't want or already used an extension for, the main selling point of firefox back then was extensions and customising your own browsing experience. Adding a first party ad blocker just seems like a waste of time when third party ones likely do a better job.

I get your point, though, I can definitely see why a default one might be a nice marketing note, but no need to be rude about someone disagreeing with your speculation.