They did it behind the scenes, not announcing it.
If it’s such a good thing, why didn’t they come out and say so?
Oh, because it’s not.
Because they don’t want to scare advertisers.
Instead of the traditional model of serving ads using identifiable data gathered by your browser, it takes the data and aggregates it to make profile type reports that advertisers can use instead of tracking you personally. It basically makes you anonymous while still serving general data to advertisers. This is a pro consumer experiment they did not need to work on.
Sure it’s not ad-blocking, but it’s better than feeding your personal info indiscriminately like some other browsers I could name…
They did mention it in the change logs, but they didn’t make it opt-out.
Because they don’t want to scare advertisers.
This tells you everything you need to know. If Firefox was acting in the interests of users then they wouldn’t give a fuck what advertisers think.
No it doesn’t. But if they are to be successful, they do need advertisers to be on board.
I get it, we are currently in a polarized “all-or-nothing” cultural revolution. Compromise is the new four-letter word. But look around at other polarized ideologies and tell me they are all working out like people want.
What Firefox is trying to do is a good thing. And yes that means finding a middle ground where nobody gets everything they want, but also gets some things that they want.