Interesting choice over there to close the issue so quickly rather than asking for more info, although you didn't give them much to go on.
I wonder what was the resolution of the previous problem that frequently caused this sort of thing? Was the error handling improved such that we might reasonably expect the processing to keep going when it hits something it doesn't like, or was it just a quick fix for the one specific thing that happened to be breaking it at the time? Did that one make it to the github tracker?
If they manage to do it by 2029 it will have been roughly one quarter of a century since it became obvious to anyone who cared to look into it that it needed doing.
Right, no doubt it's something like that. So in short it's sending information about your web browsing habits to Mozilla so that they can better inform their advertisers of who they'll be reaching with their sponsored url bar suggestions.
Sometimes I forget that there are people who would have no problem with that. But after all, billions of people are happy to use Chrome.
They cannot aggregate or anonymise the data locally on your device, because that requires combining it with data from other devices. They can only water it down a little, just like google does with Floc or whatever they call it now.
The difference between this and the minor act of selling out that is their main source of income is enormous and seems too obvious to need commenting on. The difference between this and something more comparable such as sponsored links in Pocket is indeed that they are starting to collect audience data to enable it. It's a small start, but it's a major departure from the already somewhat distasteful situation people were accustomed to.
It really isn't. Today's unpowered gliders are astoundingly capable compared to anything the Wright brothers lived to see, and that they're not suitable for replacing all of commercial aviation as it exists today should not be taken as a slight against them.
Most of it will need to be replaced by ground-based transport.
If you don't think that's about advertising, then I guess they've managed to sneak "Firefox Suggest" in there without you noticing that its main purpose is to show you ads unless you take the time to find out how to opt out.
"Firefox Suggest results may also include contextual suggestions from the Web and occasional sponsored suggestions from Mozilla's partners, which are also on by default."
They extract sensitive data from the users, but simply promise not to keep it except in anonymized aggregate form. They talk about and acquire a venture that specializes in collecting such data for advertisers but promises to keep to it only in a super-secret encrypted computing enclave. It's the sort of thing Mitchell Baker often talked about wanting to do, in various interviews. They are aiming to turn Firefox into an ad platform.
I imagine they'll probably fail and give up eventually, but who knows how much more damage will have been done by then.
It's more appealing to everyone, irrespective of age. Wikipedia suggests that it's been popular since the 19th century at latest. It was flavoured cigarillos that were the first tobacco products that tempted me, at a young age but not a child. Later, when I was much old, if pleasingly-flavoured vapes had been unavailable I would've had a much more difficult time quitting the nicotine.
But anyway, it's the misguided notion that enjoying things which taste good is childish that I find offensive. Advocate for banning all tobacco and I can't really say you're wrong to suggest it, but don't fall for that nonsense.
Oh, it's a flight school. Perhaps it's not a scam, then. Places where electric planes might make commercial sense: Pretty much anywhere you could use an unpowered glider.
If anyone's claiming that any of these things is equivalent to another it isn't me, but marketing campaigns aimed at children (for tobacco and in general) are also something we'd be better off without.
What a joke politics has become. Since the 1990s "protect the children" has become a perennial excuse for absurd legislation that does nothing of the sort, and not one party has learned how to stand firm against the calumnious deceit of the people who habitually abuse it. The Liberals feel confident enough to oppose this bill only because they have their own which is almost as bad.
Strange to think that only a few generations ago Canada was known for "good government."
How to free the rest of the web from advertising is not Mozilla's problem. They are not even asking the right questions.
As for how they should deal with finances, in my opinion they should've taken some of the many hundreds millions of dollars they're paid annually in excess of what it costs to maintain a web browser, and used that money to build up an endowment that would suffice to keep them funded for eternity. Mozilla Corp is said to be organized as a for-profit corporation in order to give it freedom from the legal restrictions that govern how non-profits can spend their money, so I don't see why it wouldn't be allowed to do that.
There are of course many other possible ideas. Trying to collect data about Firefox users in order to better target ads at them — while preserving everyone's privacy of course — is fairly close to the worst one I can think of. It thoroughly undermines their brand identity, and will only accelerate the loss of market share. Not being an ad company has until recently been the number one advantage they had over the competition, and they're slowly throwing it away piece by piece. Aside from the considerable technical challenges in actually doing privacy-preserving surveillance advertising, saying "we'll collect data about you for advertising purposes but never invade your privacy" is also practically impossible to convince people of. Nobody without an MBA is buying it, and I don't blame them.
