back to article Mozilla's 'Tiles' ads debut in new Firefox nightlies

The Mozilla Foundation's controversial plan to bring ads into the Firefox browser has commenced, with new nightlies of the Firefox browser now including the Directory Tiles feature that users hated in its last implementation. Directory Tiles have now morphed into “Sponsored Tiles”, the distinction being that the former are …

  1. aregross
  2. Longrod_von_Hugendong
    FAIL

    Fail. Fail. Fail.

    Fail, fail fail fail, epic fail, fail fail, do not want. More epic fail.

    FFS - that is totally shit.

    1. Adam 1

      Re: Fail. Fail. Fail.

      So your saying there's a chance.

      1. Captain DaFt

        Re: Fail. Fail. Fail.

        "So your saying there's a chance."

        There's always a chance. In this case I'd say about the time pigs flying through hell start crashing due to snowball barrages.

  3. dan1980
    Meh

    I don't see the problem - my FF v3.6.28 (just checked) works brilliantly. Wake me when there's a good reason to upgrade . . .

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      WAKE UP! *** Security updates *** WAKE UP!

      1. dan1980
        Happy

        Or, just don't go to dodgy websites : )

        . . . and use NoScript and Flash Blocker. Well, that's me anyway.

        1. dan1980

          Downvoted for honesty presented with mild, self-deprecating humour - I didn't realise we had so many PPE undergrads here. Carry on, I suppose.

    2. BillG
      Holmes

      I don't see the problem - my FF v3.6.28 (just checked) works brilliantly. Wake me when there's a good reason to upgrade . . .

      I have an older laptop running FF 3.6.28. It's the perfect browser for a slower computer. Fast, reliable, never crashes. I have a firewall and an antivirus and never had a problem. I dare anyone to infect it - go ahead, I dare you.

      On my more recent laptops I'm running FF27 and FF28. FF28 constantly shows nag screens to upgrade. I laugh maniacally as I close those nag windows.

  4. John Tserkezis

    At the first trial: "That’s not going to happen. That’s not who we are at Mozilla."

    Today: How quickly they forget, when you drive a dumptruck full of money onto their doorstep...

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge

      I'm sure Mozilla would love to pay their employees with hugs and pats on the back but they need money and the money's got to come from somewhere. How would you do it?

      1. Vic

        How would you do it?

        Not like that.

        Firefox is Free Software. It can be forked.

        This Sponsored Tiles idea is *so* bad that we will see large-scale adoption of IceWeasel. And then Mozilla will get *nothing*.

        There will be a U-turn. Mozilla usually comes to its senses eventually (albeit usually way too late...)

        Vic.

        1. FIA Silver badge

          How would you do it?

          Not like that.

          But how would you do it? The donations model has proved time and again to be insufficient for funding large scale projects such as this. Also, Opera's move from their own renderer to a fork of another open source backend would suggest the pay model isn't really sustainable either.

          Firefox is Free Software. It can be forked.

          But any fork would still have to tackle the ongoing development of an up to date web browser, which is probably not feasible on a purely voluntary spare time basis, so would still require some kind of funding for the developer time?

          This Sponsored Tiles idea is *so* bad that we will see large-scale adoption of IceWeasel. And then Mozilla will get *nothing*.

          But then IceWeasel would have to change from being a modification of an existing codebase to a full on continuation of it.

          Also, what is so bad about it? They're not forcing adverts down your throat, it's a tile on a rarely seen page? I've personally been using FF since the 0.6 days, and have never paid them a penny. If the continual development of a browser is conditional on me seeing a link for youtube in a page I barely ever look at then that's a price I'm happy to pay. Is it just some idealisitc objection that I genuinely don't understand? (While I accept I'm technically 'freeloading' I suspect my funding approach mirrors a large amount of FF users).

        2. dan1980
          Happy

          @Vic

          Mate - you've earned your silver badge; you can deploy the might of HTML tags. What's all this "*"?

          1. Vic

            What's all this "*"?

            Works, doesn't it?

            Vic.

            1. dan1980

              Upvoted for truth.

        3. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

          This Sponsored Tiles idea is *so* bad that we will see large-scale adoption of IceWeasel.

          I very much doubt that. People love to complain about changes to Firefox - I've done it more than once myself - but few bother to switch. I haven't; I just beat it about the head and shoulders with extensions until I get something that's more or less what I want, and then I get on to doing other things. The benefits of switching to one of the FF forks aren't compelling enough to get me to spend half an hour downloading and installing it.

          Though I've had tiles disabled since they first appear, because I find them obnoxious and unnecessary, so this particular change doesn't bother me.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        > I'm sure Mozilla would love to pay their employees with hugs and pats on the back

        Mozilla Foundation employees: 1598+, $27.5M in assets, $1.5M revenue

        Wikisomething Foundation employees: 200+, $45M in assets, $48.5M revenue

        Linux Foundation employees: about 30, $15M assets, $17M revenue

        KDE Foundation employees: none to my knowledge, no significant assets, €190K revenue

  5. Liam2

    Firefox is still at least an open-source browser with an extension mechanism. Someone will develop an extension to block sponsored tiles. Heck, it might even become a feature of AdBlock Plus.

    1. big_D Silver badge

      Or you can just turn them off in the settings, as explained in the article...

      1. stucs201

        I think Liam's point was to turn off just the sponsored ones. The settings turn of all tiles, including non-sponsored. As explained in the article...

        1. Neil Barnes Silver badge

          Which is exactly what is required, no? Tiles offer nothing that the drop down from the address bar doesn't, with the added bonus that nosy co-workers, children, or the missus can't see what you've been up to.

        2. big_D Silver badge

          The tiles are a waste of time either way...

          "We have a blank page, what can we do to slow the machine down and make it ugly?"

    2. The First Dave

      I currently use "New Tab Pro 0.3.2"

      I hate that they just added a Google search bar to it, but presumably that will prevent this abomination.

  6. LaeMing

    Interested to see if

    IceWeasel* strips this functionality or lets it stand.

    *Debian's trademark-stripped-for-licencing-reasons version of FF.

  7. Purple-Stater

    Never understood the appeal, nor usefulness, of a very limited number of random "shortcuts" appearing on the new tab page in the first place. I just turned mine on again, just to see what it would display; I have the nine tiles displaying only three different shortcuts. Four of them are a Gmail logon screen.

    But I'm still locked on FireFox 27. The last user-friendly version that lets me put my tabs underneath my shortcut bar, and to allow an add-on bar.

    1. LaeMing

      I wasn't aware you could turn them off. Now I have.

    2. /\/\j17

      "But I'm still locked on FireFox 27. The last user-friendly version that lets me put my tabs underneath my shortcut bar, and to allow an add-on bar."

      Or you could update to Firefox 31 and just install the "Classic Theme Restorer" add-on like everyone else... Fixes both your gripes in one.

      1. DropBear
        Thumb Down

        Or you could update to Firefox 31

        No, you couldn't. CTR Might be close enough for what some people had their FF set up to look like, but it's not even on the same continent as "allowing everyone to set up their FF to look just as they were having it before".

      2. Purple-Stater

        "Or you could update to Firefox 31 and just install the "Classic Theme Restorer" add-on like everyone else... Fixes both your gripes in one."

        No, it won't. Because several of the add-ons I use, that display on the add-ons bar, are no longer supported and will not install on versions newer than #27.

  8. Zola
    Go

    I don't have a problem turning off tiles

    I don't use them anyway, as my shortcuts are added to the bookmarks toolbar or in a menu and therefore they are precisely where I know they will be, not moving around appearing and disappearing in a randomly organised collection of "shortcut" tiles.

    I won't mourn the loss of tiles when I turn them off and will welcome a blank "new tab" page in future.

    1. Michael Habel

      Re: I don't have a problem turning off tiles

      I won't mourn the loss of tiles when I turn them off and will welcome a blank "new tab" page in future.

      Or in about:config -- search for "browser.newtab.url" and then replace "about:newtab" with "http://www.google.com/firefox?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official"

      Same thing with "browser.startup.homepage"

      Well thats One problem solved!

  9. tempemeaty

    Stick a Fork in it!

    Netscape all over again. Time to begin yet again as a another browser and with a new name. One that no longer involves the Mozilla.

    1. LaeMing
      Joke

      Re: Stick a Fork in it!

      Konqueror!!! (see icon)

      1. Havin_it
        Unhappy

        Re: Konqueror

        ...or not. Which is a bit of a shame really, as I've always been rather fond of it. Dolphin still can't touch it for versatility and features.

  10. Zap

    The last update of Firefox announced itself as a "security update" but was a major change in UI that pissed me off, but this does not worry me.

    I never use tiles, I hate them, it is just clutter.

    If Mozilla mess up there will be a fork and that will be that, or there will be a plugin to fix it.

    I do wish Mozilla would stop copying Chrome, I hate Chrome, it is another example of Goggle's inability to design any decent UI for their software.

    The last update would have killed Firefox for me except for a Plugin Called Colorful Tabs which put back the tabs as I like them. I has to piss about putting my icons on the menu bar but they are tiny.

    I have no problem with Mozilla trying to earn a few pennies, most of us will disable the feature but idiots will leave it on and that is just who advertisers want.

    I already have Better Privacy, adbock, FlashBlock and Ghostery, I expect there to be an option to disable this crap OR ELSE!

  11. SundogUK Silver badge

    Thank god for Pale Moon...

    1. Mark Allen
      Facepalm

      When I installed Pale Moon it set the Home Page to http://start.palemoon.org/ which is a collection of links to Gmail, Twitter, LinkedIn, BBC, Facebook, etc.

      So Pale Moon by default points to a page which links to way MORE than just a few tiles. And has that same "advert" idea to it.

      But just like with my copy of Firefox, I just change the Pale Moon home page.

      At least with the Firefox Tiles you can turn off the ones you don't want, unlike that Pale Moon start page.

      Doesn't every change their home page to what *they* want?

      1. Michael Habel

        At least with the Firefox Tiles you can turn off the ones you don't want, unlike that Pale Moon start page.

        Again the secret is to bang the Rocks together guys!

        about:config -- (search for) "browser.startup.homepage" and change it back to... "http://www.google.com/firefox?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official"

        Same thing with "browser.newtab.url" replace "about:newtab" with "http://www.google.com/firefox?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official"

        Now was that soooo difficult?!

  12. Paul Crawford Silver badge

    Public key pinning?

    It appears that web sites will be using some HTTP extension to declare by whom their SSL certificate should be issued, but surely in a MITM attack you would just advertise the 'other' compromised issuer used for the web-access morphing attack?

    Have I missed something here?

    I applaud the attempt to deal with the mess that is SSL issuing, but it seems to need far more than that to deal with a well-executed MITM attack (along the lines of noticing cert changes and validating with several geographically/politically separate entities that such a change is correct).

    1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Re: Public key pinning?

      It's not the public key that's "pinned"; it's the server certificate.

      There are a couple forms of pinning (that I'm aware of). Sometimes an application - that would be the HTTP User Agent1 in this case - has built-in rules for certain domains. When a server presents a certificate for one of those domains2, the UA takes an additional validation step3 of confirming that the issuer4 matches the hard-coded rule. Google does this with Chrome, so that Chrome will not accept a certificate for any google.com domain that's not been signed by the appropriate root. It doesn't permit the whole set of trusted signers for that purpose.

      In the other form of pinning, the first time a client connects to a server and validates the received server certificate, it makes a record of who signed that certificate, and subsequently rejects (or raises an alert) if it gets a new certificate for that server that was issued by someone else. The idea there is to make it harder to mount a MITM attack because the attack has to be in place the first time the client connects to that server. There are various problems (as should be obvious), and it's really mostly useful for users who are comfortable with SSL/TLS PKI5, but it's potentially a useful defense.

      1"Browser", for the noobs.

      2That is, a certificate that claims to identify an entity that matches one of these rules, whether that's determined by subject DN or subjAltName extension or whatever.

      3In addition to all the other ones: signature check, validity-dates check, CRL/OCSP check, blah blah blah.

      4That is, the signing entity - a CA or intermediary signing certificate.

      5That is, almost no one.

  13. Dave K

    Glad I left Firefox

    Not content with ruining the interface and customisability with "Australis", now they're doing this as well. That's why after using Firefox as my main browser since it was Firebird 0.6 I removed it recently and migrated to Pale Moon. FF classic interface, supports FF addons and no Australis or sponsored tiles nonsense!

  14. Roger B

    I'll give them a chance...

    If it means Firefox can keep up with development and pay for the developers, if its just one maybe 2 tiles, I don't think I have a problem with this. I think I'll wait until I actually see it running before jumping on my high horse and emailing in my complaints.

  15. MJI Silver badge

    But they are wasting money so it doesn't matter

    Australis for a start, why waste all that time for a UI Firefox users dislike?

    1. Havin_it
      Boffin

      Re: But they are wasting money so it doesn't matter

      Australis was a third-party theme off AMO, so not much really.

      *NB for the nitpickers: Yes, the UI upheaval that arrived at the same time seems to be collectively lumped together as "Australis", but in light of the above that's kinda a misconception.

  16. webbypride

    Haha... is everything alright here?

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Just use another extension....

    Never seen any tiles in FireFox as I use "Speed Dial 0.9.6.16" and this allows you to set it as the home page on a new tab. Then you get to add in the links you want and they populate a small "tile" to show the page it links to. Allows for Groups (think tabs in tabs) so that you can set-up a Work page of links, a Home page of links, etc. This new Tile option in FireFox will never see the light of day on my screens.

  18. Adam Inistrator

    domain pinning

    nice and about time!!!

  19. Mark Allen

    Confused

    So... you open the new Firefox and see a bunch of tiles you don't like the look of. You hit the X on each of these naff tiles until the sponsored ones are gone. And you are then back with your own tiles.

    Or am I missing something? Are these sponsored tiles locked and undeletable?

    I don't get what the fuss is about. Surely the average user of Firefox can hit an X?

    What is more interesting is that the tiles that are being pinned up are ones that Mozilla have chosen. Which implies to me that no one is buying these sponsored tiles yet. That's when it could get interesting. Lets see who Mozilla will take cash from.

    1. Silver

      Re: Confused

      So... you open the new Firefox and see a bunch of tiles you don't like the look of. You hit the X on each of these naff tiles until the sponsored ones are gone. And you are then back with your own tiles.

      You don't even have to hit the X, just browse to a bunch of sites and they will start to replace the promotional tiles. After you've visited 9 different websites, they all will be gone. A feat that can probably be achieved in no more than about 30 minutes of normal usage.

      If you're upgrading from an existing version then you won't see the sponsored ones at all.

      There is the potential for Mozilla to do dodgy things in the future (like with any product from any company since ... well ... ever) but, as it currently stands, it's just lots of people making a mountain out of a molehill...

      1. Mark Allen

        Re: Confused

        Yeah, I realised this. My sarcasm font didn't stick correctly.

        What I find odd with these tiles is that they keep wanting to change around. Would make more sense if they could just be pinned up there permanent, but then that is what the StartPage add-on does as mentioned earlier.

        I find it funny when people let their web browsers tell 'em what to do. Even more comical is when a forum like El Reg has people complaining about something which they can easily fix themselves. I thought this place was inhabited by geeks and technical people? Or doesn't anyone look into the options and plug-ins any more?

        1. DropBear
          WTF?

          Re: Confused

          Even more comical is when a forum like El Reg has people complaining about something which they can easily fix themselves.

          Just because I might be able to fix something it does not follow that I feel like having to fix it, or that it working in a shitty manner (or, say, someone arbitrarily proclaiming what I may or may not be irritated by) does not annoy me sufficiently to voice that feeling.

          1. Jos

            Re: Confused

            Yep.

            And never mind the neighbours, friends, parents, sisters, whoever abuse you as their personal helpdesk.

  20. damian fell

    Adverts I don't have an issue with - I'll be interested though to understand how it selects the tiles it displays to me, and what that may mean about some form of hueristic analysis of my browsing habits.

    At the moment I believe that all the analysis is client-side and is simply just your top recently most visited sites (I'm happy to be corrected but I don't think my browser is sending details of my browsing traffic to a central location.).

    To effectively target adverts (which is what sponsored tiles are), you would need to have some form of algorithm to identify the msot appropriate people to target, it's how they do that selection process that might result in privacy concerns, rather than the presence of adverts themselves (after all we have to pay for our free software somethow).

    *edited for spelling and grammer - why the hell doesn't my IE browser at work have basic functionality such as a spell checker like my FF browser at home does!!

  21. Mark Simon

    Shaky Ground

    Firefox is a great browser, but it’s losing market share for various reasons.

    Pissing off your users is not an obvious strategy for enhancing loyalty.

  22. Graham Marsden
    Meh

    "only if you turn off all Tiles"

    Tiles? What are they?

    Oh, yeah, those things that I turned off as soon as they were introduced, so when I open up a new tab I get a nice clean blank screen which I can fill with a web page I *choose* from my Bookmarks list.

  23. Tannin
    FAIL

    Dumb and dumber

    Horrible idea. First Australis, now this. If Microsoft really need some talented new people to comprehensively bork the next generation of Office and Windows products (now that MS no longer has the moronic design "skills" of Sinofsky on hand), the fruitcakes in charge of Firefox are very well-qualified.

    Meanwhile, the elephant in the room is Firefox's existing tiles page, which was brain-dead at birth and hasn't improved so that anyone would notice.

    (1) You can't set it to be your start page, which is pretty much the whole point in the first place. (OK, OK, there is doubtless some obscure extension or an about:config hack. The point stands.)

    (2) It isn't under direct user control like a proper tiles page. Firefox sticks stuff on it without your permission and moves stuff around when you don't want it to, and can't even figure out that it shouldn't spam the page with multiple instances of the same site.

    (3) It breaks the back button. try it: click on a tile, decide that you don't want that one and click "back" to return to the tiles page and go somewhere else, it doesn't work.Sorry, that's just brain-dead.

    The really stupid part is that they didn't even need to think hard and invent something to get it right, they could have simply copied the original (and by far the best) speed dial / tiles page design, which was invented by Opera years ago and was part of that browser right up until Opera was replaced by a third-rate Chrome clone and everybody stopped using it.

    1. phil dude

      Re: Dumb and dumber

      I am sensing things are improving (using 31 as one of my many browsers..). I think that Electrolysis will be a real plus when it finally gets stable, not just because it allows per-process tabs. I read some of the blurb and it apparently will allow multiple content mangers too, which I think would help stability.

      As to these "panels", my only complaint is that I want to limit unnecessary code running in my browser. First reduce chance of really sneaky ad deployed malware, but also not steal cpu cycles!!!

      P.

    2. Mark Simon

      Re: Dumb and dumber

      “(1) You can't set it to be your start page, which is pretty much the whole point in the first place.”

      about:newtab

  24. djnapkin

    Tiles? What tiles?

    New Tab Homepage

    - by Ben Basson

    Been using it for yonks. Even paid the guy a donation. Might be time to do so again.

    "A very simple tabbed browsing extension that loads your homepage when you open a new tab. If you have multiple homepages, the first is chosen."

  25. Michael Habel

    Will somebody please think of the Elderly

    and, please fork the Firefox 3 builds into a new safe browser that doesn't get all uppity at you?

    I guess I could settle for a continuation of Firefox ESR24... But, even this is now on borrowed time. I'm of the understanding that Pale Moon, may still support that Build for a while longer. Which is I guess partly good news. But, at this point Mozilla is imploding faster then MicroSoft. As far as pushing unwanted, and unasked for Tripe is concerned.

    Who knew that Browser Plug-ins would come to define a Browser. It makes me wonder if AdBlock Pro can't eventually filter out this Crap, or if Mozilla will bury it so deep into the Code that ADP can't get to it?

    I guess I'd ought to download that Pale Moon Browser and see how far I can tweak it up to look like Firefox. Before I get saddled down with this Australis Crap. That I too had somehow never asked for, or knew I ever needed.

    1. Tannin

      Re: Will somebody please think of the Elderly

      Michael, Pale Moon pretty much works just like Firefox. Real Firefox, I mean, not this psudo-Chrome Australis thing. Just install it and use it; it works the way you expect it to work. The hardest thing to get used to is that the icon is a different colour.

      The guy responsible for Pale Moon has expressed a very clear intention to retain the current UI. The only thing likely to derail that is the possibility that the Sinofsky-clone Australis zealots at Mozilla.org will figure out a way to cripple the underlying codebase in future versions such that the UI can no longer be fixed without an unreasonable amount of effort and lots of difficult-to-maintain third-party code. So far, that isn't a problem. Keep your fingers crossed.

      1. Michael Habel

        Re: Will somebody please think of the Elderly

        I guess I'm just unduly concerned by the fact that Pale Moon uses (or is currently using), the same codebase as Firefox ESR24.7 at the moment. One of the saddest things I've learnt here recently is that Firefox ESR24.8 will be the last Update for the 24ESR from Mozilla before getting the Axe on October 14, 2014.

        I addressed that concern over on their Forums, it would seem that they'd wish to continue such support as possible after that date. So bye bye Firefox. Hello Pale Moon then...

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Paliative Measure for the Ads: Use about:config

    I can't check right now, but the URLs where the spam and stuff is pulled from should be in about:config (I've seen them, but don't recall their names, and it wasn't my installation so I can't go back and check).

    1. Hunt around about:config for the right config keys (prob. a search for "url" / "uri" might help narrow things down a bit).

    2. Blank the shit out them.

    3. Enjoy absence of Mozilla-inflicted spam.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Paliative Measure for the Certs

    If you haven't done so already, go to Preferences, Advanced, Certificates, Authorities, and go "Delete or Distrust" on everything you don't like (they can also be physically removed from disk).

    I just have about half a dozen CAs (VerySign, Comodo, Network Solutions, ...) which are used by about everyone in the planet. The rest are just a pwning waiting to happen.

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