In an interview with “The Verge”, the new Mozilla CEO, Enzor-DeMeo, IMHO hints that axing adblockers is something that, at the very least, was on the table in some form and at some point. From the article:

He says he could begin to block ad blockers in Firefox and estimates that’d bring in another $150 million, but he doesn’t want to do that. It feels off-mission.

It may be just me, but I read this as “I don't want to 😜 😜 but I'll kill AdBlockers in Firefox for buckerinos 😂”. This disappoints and saddens me a lot, and I hope I'm wrong. I've been using Firefox before it was called that. Heck, I even used the Mozilla Application Suite back in the day. It was its commitment to open standards and the open web, and its powerful add-on system, that attracted me to its software.

Honestly, that's what's been keeping me. I think that's also what's been keeping their loyal base of users with the project, the geeks and nerds that care about privacy. It's the same group of people who helped it get very popular at one point.

Killing one of its advantages over the Chromium engine, being able to have a fucking adblocker that's actually useful, and that nowadays is a fucking security feature due to malvertising, will be another nail in the coffin, IMHO. The core community will feel disenfranchised, and this may have negative consequences for the project. You know why? Because these are some of the people that the normies turn to when they want tech advice.

For fuck sake, for-profit side of Mozilla, get a damn grip!

Update, since this is getting traction on Reddit

I'm not against Mozilla making money. Like a regular citizen needs to make money, companies and even nonprofits need it too. That's the world we live in, whether we like it or not.

What bothers me is how the new CEO mentions something that he could do but doesn't want to. If he doesn't want to, why say it? It has the potential to cause bad PR, and it has.

Of course, I know I may not be interpreting this correctly.

Right now, I'm on the fence. His statement leads me to believe that the option is still very much on the table; otherwise, he wouldn't mention it.

#Mozilla #Firefox #AdBlocker #OpenSource #FOSS

Mozilla’s new CEO is doubling down on an AI future for Firefox

Anthony Enzor-DeMeo says he thinks Mozilla and Firefox still have a role to play in the web, even as things shift toward AI.

^{David Pierce (The Verge)}