I outlined my thoughts around Waterfox’s decision to work with StartPage and whitelist their adds further down in this thread. I don’t see an issue with this.

You keep making bombastic statements, but when anyone calls you out and asks for specifics, you either ignore or try and change the subject.

How do search suggestions in Firefox integrate advertising? Is it tied to a specific search script and what is advertisement display logic?

The on-hover provider sponsorship notice is indeed an ad. That’s fair. Definitely not an example of “Firefox is bursting at the seams with ads.” and you know it.

As I said in another post, Mozilla has massive issues, there is no question about that. But you clearly have some sort of weird agenda and have no qualms with being deceptive and promoting misinformation.

I am done here.

You’re again being deceptive and even contradicting yourself. I suspect the reason for this you don’t actually know whether:

This is more secure than an extension

You just said that because you thought it was something easy to pitch.

Even the Waterfox team don’t use the “improved security” argument in their write-up on integrating Brave’s content blocking code.

And your “It is more safe to trust one group than two groups.” statement doesn’t even add up in terms of a count of groups in involved under different scenarios. At any rate, this is a clear tautology and not a real argument.

It’s not a matter of the size of the codebase; this is a reputational thing.

And if it’s such a tiny fraction, why not write it themselves?

We are not discussing Mozilla, you’re just trying change the topic when you get called out. The points I made have nothing to do with Mozilla, they can be worse than the LRA or be literal representatives of the devine in earth, my point stands.

And how is a in-built blocker inherently more secure than an extension? If it’s clear, it should be easy to answer in one sentence.

I believe it depends on how you use Ecosia.

For French and German languages, they have been experimenting with their own search index. I wish someone would do an in-depth article on how this is going. I know for a fact that Google can be less competitive in other languages compared to their dominance in the English language internet.

For English, it seems to be a combination of Google and Bing, with the main source being Google (this is true for me, but Wikipedia states that this was true as of 2023 in general).

The article below suggests some countries (languages) are mostly serviced by Bing:

https://support.ecosia.org/article/579-search-results-providers

I am assuming if you get Bing results, Bing gets the IP associated with the query. But Google does get IPs tied to a given query via Ecosia.

This means that when you search through Ecosia, we work with either Microsoft Bing or Google to provide you with search results and ads. In order to do this, we automatically collect data required by search partners to prevent bot attacks and ad fraud - which includes your IP address and search terms.

Yeah, Bing also gets IPs associated with a query.

https://www.ecosia.org/privacy

By relying on Brave?

That doesn’t make sense.

You can that say it makes them less reliant on the Firefox extension engine, you can say that it is faster. Those are fair points.

But you’re not hedging your bets by relying on Brave, a gang that secretly engaged in link hijacking and referral re-writing.

I am genuinely curious, how is an in-built content blocker inherently more secure than an extension? Assuming you trust both the browser developer and the extension developer.

I can see it being faster and better integrated, but how is it more secure?

Come on! Brave de facto engaged in advertising re-direction, specifically capturing and re-writing referral codes for their own commercial benefit without telling the user that this was being done (until they got caught?).

You don’t see why it’s an issue to rely on code (open source or otherwise), for content blocking no less, from a gang that is comfortable with secret link hijacking for their own profit?

What do ethics have to do with this? Irrespective of your position (with respect to author vs their code or more broadly), it is reasonable to question engagement with what is essentially a criminal organization.

https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2020/06/06/the-brave-web-browser-is-hijacking-links-and-inserting-affiliate-codes/

They even try to delete any threads about it until it became more widely known.

I used to use StartPage in the late 2010s, it was a good Google search proxy.

They got bought out by an online marketing company called System1 (that recently went public), I dropped StartPage and switched back to mainline Google.

They say that the StartPage team is seperate, which is almost certainly true, but that’s not a guarantee of anything. They do use contextual ads, but that’s a massive step up compared to behavioural advertising.

StartPage even states that:

“Startpage submits your query anonymously, then returns the results to you privately. Google and our results providers never see you and do not know who made the request, seeing only Startpage.”

However, they don’t provide specifics; what does “never see you and do not know who made the request” mean? Does Google not get the IP of the query? How do they manage Google security requirements?

I am now on Ecosia for a few years for Google proxy search. They unfortunately send Google your IP with your queries.

I think it’s fine that Waterfox has this deal with StartPage and their in-built blockers has the ads whitelisted. This is not that big of deal.

IMO, you should never use in-built blockers made by the browser, it’s simply better to have this feature managed by a separate extension. A browser maker shouldn’t make the call around what and how you block, there is a fundamental conflict of incentives and even goals in this area.

I.e. Only use UBO! UBO is well respected, last time that I checked the UBO project doesn’t even accept donations.

Search engine placement isn’t that big of a deal as long as you can change the search engine list. If anything as a user you would want this to be leveraged to provide stability for something as critical as a browser as it doesn’t undermine privacy or user flexibility (it can lead to undesirable incentives as with Mozilla, but that’s the true of almost everything that concerns money).

I have a heavily customized Firefox, so I may have missed new developments in the baseline profile (I see none of the things you mention on Windows and Android), but how are search suggestions ad?

Wouldn’t this feature depend on which search script you are using? And isn’t the search suggestion logic for paid placement search engines still explicitly tied to their search systems? Can you explain how this works in terms of specifics?

Or are you saying that one of the default paid placement search engines places an ad on the first row of the search suggestion list?

I was curious about the weather widget (as I said, I often miss certain baseline profile features), I actually thought they decided to add a Android widget for weather which seemed strange. Are you sure this is an ad? It may well be, I’ve never seen it or used it, but a quick search suggests this isn’t true. Happy to be corrected.

Mozilla has a lot of issues, but I don’t think it is helpful to muddy the water in this way.

I honestly can’t formulate what I think about US/Israeli’s mass scale assault on Iran. I don’t support it, but the alleged religious dictatorship is a fucking embarrassment for modern society. And it doesn’t seem the regime will end, but who knows. They unfortunately might even come out stronger after active combat is over.

It may well turn into an invasion, but Trump is too much of a coward deep down and lacks attachment to anything real to make tough choices (even if they are bad and disasterous)

He is all about fucking around and acting out. I don’t think he has the capability to have a strong belief or commitment about anything (his love for himself notwithstanding).

Israel would only agree to send Americans to do the dirty work and get killed as living shields for targeted Israeli special forces attacks. But I don’t see them choosing a path to any measure of risk to try and absolutely maximize the likelihood of the end of pig feet kissing theocratic dectatorship.

On one hand, I am really happy that Khamenei got killed in an air strike in his own compound. Shit stain had it coming, my only regret is that his turd son didn’t get turned into mince meat two weeks before Khamenei. But at least he achieved the cosmic balance by reincarnating into a pig turd that keeps coming out of a pigs asshole; he has become part of the circle of life, a very special part. I says this as an atheist.

It’s been a while since I was contact with Iranians from Iran, but I am willing to be bet many in Iran also share my views on Khamenei, if not my colourful language.

One could say, well at last the American oligarch got a taste of reality; I don’t get that impression and I don’t think anyone is seriously saying that. Their perspective is probably more along the lines of extreme weather in far away country adding two to six basis points of negative sentiment to T2.3 adjusted revenue forecast for a period for 6 to 9 months. Microsoft valuation is defacto nominal, $400 B valuation gain one year $1.1 B loss another 6 weeks.

They own Red Hat and IIRC, it’s their fastest growing (if not largest) business unit.