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Mozilla Advertising Firefox The Almighty Buck The Internet

Mozilla Is Reportedly Going To Sell VPN Subscriptions Within Firefox (trustedreviews.com) 112

Posted by BeauHD from the goods-and-services dept.
Mozilla is reportedly preparing to offer a VPN service for Firefox users to help protect them when surfing the web. According to Trusted Reviews, Mozilla has partnered with the ProtonVPN service, "with a new notification piping-up when the browser detects an unsecured connection, or in a scenario when VPN might be preferable to users." From the report: However, it appears Firefox users will have to pay for the privilege. Austrian site Soeren-hentzschel reports the premium VPN service will be $10 a month, which is what ProtonVPN charges its users. Users will receive a "Firefox Recommends" pop-up when browsing an unsecured wireless network. The pop-up says the VPN service will provide a "private and secure' internet connection. According to the reports, a subset of Firefox 62 users in the United States will begin receiving the pop-up from today. Mozilla will reportedly get a cut of any subscription fee handed over by users to access the VPN service. MSPowerUser points out that this will be the first advertised service that costs money for Firefox users.
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Mozilla Is Reportedly Going To Sell VPN Subscriptions Within Firefox More

Mozilla Is Reportedly Going To Sell VPN Subscriptions Within Firefox

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  • My about:config edit list is about to grow again (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23, 2018 @06:08AM (#57522589)

    How do I disable this popup?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Uninstall Firefox, move to something better.

      Pale Moon is okay but lagging in development. It's got the old performance issues that Firefox used to have. Chromium maybe, at least it's open source although building it yourself is hard work.

      • Probably not even going to happen, but if so I will also be tweaking about:config to turn it off , even though it would only appear if I browsed an unsecured wireless network, which I never do. Firefox is still the best browser overall and they have to try and earn some money somehow. Pale Moon? Really?

        • Probably not even going to happen, but if so I will also be tweaking about:config to turn it off , even though it would only appear if I browsed an unsecured wireless network, which I never do. Firefox is still the best browser overall and they have to try and earn some money somehow. Pale Moon? Really?

          What's wrong with Pale Moon?

  • At least it's not a TV show this time (Score:5, Informative)

    by Bob-Bob Hardyoyo ( 4240135 ) on Tuesday October 23, 2018 @06:18AM (#57522609)

    But they can keep their overpriced VPN ads to themselves.

    Also, ProtonVPN charges their customers $8/month, so the summary is wrong.

    • You get what you pay for? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by goombah99 ( 560566 ) on Tuesday October 23, 2018 @09:16AM (#57523105)

      Yeah there are a lot of free FPNs out there so $8 a month seems outrageous. Thos people offering the free ones must be losing a lot of money if it really costs $8 a month. I wonder how they can afford it.

      When you consider WHY you even want a VPN, then paying for it can seem like a good idea.

        But if you actually are trying to protect yourself from various attacks, people scavenging your browsing patterns, targeted ads linked to your IP, hinkey wifi eavesdropping, certain types of man-in-the-middle attacks or people snooping your messages then a trustworthy VPN seems like a good idea

      But how do you know which one is trustworthy. You might guess from the price. But an endorsement from firefox, and a well known name like proton is probably the best you can do yourself to find a good one.

        If all you are trying to do is violate your employers security firewall blocking you from shopping online during work then a free VPN is a great deal.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by pavon ( 30274 )

      ProtonVPN is $8/month for a yearly subscription, but $10/month month-to-month. Mozilla referred customers get the same pricing.

  • This Proton VPN? (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    That supposedly kept no logs? https://www.zdnet.com/article/hacker-uses-protonmail-vpn-hacker-ddoses-protonmail-hacker-gets-arrested/

  • Technically, they also had ads for Mr. Robot, which is a "paid service".
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • From what getting full speed out of my ISP ?

    When TOR isn't enough you really think someone's for profit VPN service will be ?

    • I have tried these VPN Services. Their biggest problem is they really don't make you much safer, just more inconvenient.
      Sure my IP Address/Geolocation is messed up (so half of my google searches are in German). But other then having targeted adds often for your local small businesses. If you follow safe browsing methods, having your IP Address and your location normally isn't a problem. IPv4 addresses are not that reliable way of tracking things, down. They can be spoofed, and also may be under many laye

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gnick ( 1211984 )

        Their biggest problem is they really don't make you much safer, just more inconvenient.

        If you're pirating, they make you much safer.

        • Their biggest problem is they really don't make you much safer, just more inconvenient.

          If you're pirating, they make you much safer.

          Yeah need to tell that to actual VPN operators

          Our VPN service and VPN services in general are not designed to be used to commit illegal activity. It is very naive to think that by paying a subscription fee to a VPN service you are free to break the law without any consequences. This includes certain hardcore privacy services which claim you will never be identified, these types of services that do not cooperate are more likely to have their entire VPN network monitored and tapped by law enforcement, thus affecting all legitimate customers.

          https://blog.hidemyass.com/en/... [hidemyass.com]

  • as long as (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sad_ ( 7868 ) on Tuesday October 23, 2018 @06:58AM (#57522709) Homepage

    as long as they put a checkbox in that popup to 'never show this again', i'm OK with it.

  • And Mozilla, every time I open Firefox please popup a big annoying message to buy your VPN and subscribe to your fucking newsletter.

  • What for? (Score:3)

    by Artem S. Tashkinov ( 764309 ) on Tuesday October 23, 2018 @08:06AM (#57522849) Homepage

    Why would people use VPN with a web browser which is leaking [eff.org] tons [browserleaks.com] of information and makes your fingerprint totally unique even if you're browsing in incognito mode? Changing your IP address in this case is simply futile and inconsequential.

    Maybe for Netflix/Hulu? But they've long implemented technical measures which makes using them via VPN impossible. I can only think of pr0n/shady websites you don't want your ISP to know about but that's less than 0.1% of people in the world. And those will most likely use Tor browser with VPN.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Zocalo ( 252965 )
      It's really not about the users. It's about cold hard cash flowing from ProtonVPN to the Mozilla Foundation in return for the advertisement and any click throughs it might generate. Ultimately, Mozilla's business model requires they have cashflow to operate, so they need to use partnerships like this or having a search engine paying to be the default for the browser to generate enough of it, albeit with a choice of partnership that is somewhat questionable due to the number of users that will have no inte
  • Users: 'Oh this new chrome thing looks sharp' *users migrate to chrome* Mozilla: 'shit shit shit, people like the new X, quick transform into new X aswell' Users: 'hmm I no longer like new X and want to go back to old X' Mozilla: 'no way josé' Users: gg

  • Isn't this a little bit similar to the case about Microsoft bundling Internet Explorer with Windows?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Zocalo ( 252965 )
      No, because they're not abusing a position of dominance in the market to gain an unfair advantage over their competitors. Same reason why Apple didn't get into legal hot water for doing exactly the same thing as Microsoft at the same time (IIRC they had about 5-10% of the desktop market share at the time); not being a near monopoly gives you a lot more latitude in what you are able to do or, conversely, why Google is being pressured into allowing Android device makers to optionally unbundle Google's own ap

  • Will there be a way this triggers *my* VPN? (Score:3)

    by Herve5 ( 879674 ) on Tuesday October 23, 2018 @08:14AM (#57522887)

    My small and collaborative ISP offers a VPN to its subscribers, that I have to activate and deactivate by hand.
    It would be very nice if Mozilla's detection mechanism allowed autoconnecting through *my* VPN, not just the recommended one... (Even if the recommended is preset by default, which would allow some revenue to Moz...)

  • I am sick of all these monthly fees. And turning Goods (like software) into services.
    Let me pay $2000 for Creative Suite, and I can have the software on my system for as long as I wan't vs charging me $70+ per month.
    Sure the monthly fee is cheaper if I wanted to keep up to date. However I may not need all the features they are currently offering, and the new features I don't need anyways. For that $2000 I could use the software for 8 years before upgrading (Making it worth $20 a month for me).

    There is pri

  • You can get a perfectly serviceable VPN attached to the Opera browser for free. Why would I pay Mozilla for this one?

  • So is Mozilla now an adware driven business? What has the world come to.

  • Mozilla, which has kicked out its co-founder for personal political activities which some disagree with, is looking to instill people with privacy. I guess they know better than most that you can't trust people to behave responsibly when others do things they disagree with.
  • I could see it actually be a net benefit if the Ad was a simple button in the configuration settings or privacy settings called "Get Private VPN" that loaded their partner page. That would be useful: A lot of people may have heard about what a VPN is but don't know exactly how to get it or set it up and if they have that menu opened up they can probably follow instructions to use it.

    However, with Mozilla's track record, it will be some popup on the address bar that will show up every time you visit an u

  • While I'm all for Mozilla trying to make money to stay afloat, I think this feature will lead to scam opportunities.

    I can see it now - other "looks like" VPN services will offer fake popups tricking people to switch. "Firefox recommends VPN for Ru" with a Scooby snack on it.

    It'll probably be a notification subscription scam.

  • The whole VPN thing has grown out of a mistrust in gov't and ISPs. But are the VPNs trustworthy? That's the big assumption.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

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