Back in February, Mozilla announced that it was working on a replacement page for the ‘new tab’ view in its Firefox browser that would suggest content to users as well as offering sponsored sites.
The move was met with considerable backlash from users, with many threatening to drop the browser if the company added advertising to such a fundamental part of the browsing experience.
Mozilla’s VP of Firefox, Johnathan Nightingale posted again today to reassure users that the browser wouldn’t turn into “a mess of logos sold to the highest bidder” and went on to say that it’s “not going to happen, that’s not who we are at Mozilla.”
Nightingale said that the company will continue to experiment, though, and will be running tests on its pre-release channels to make the new tab page more useful. After that is successful, the company will still seek to add sponsored tiles in the next stage, provided that they can provide ‘user value.’
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The move is an attempt to help monetize the not-for-profit company’s browser, similar to how Opera sells ad space on its new tab page.
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