Why there's no inbuilt adblocker in Firefox yet: Mozilla CEO

Help more people find out about this story
Del.icio.us StumbleUpon

Dan Warne07 May 2007, 7:37 AM

Users love them, so why hasn't Firefox got inbuillt adblocking capabilities yet? The CEO of the Mozilla Foundation, Mitchell Baker, is circumspect as to the reason why...

Users love them, so why hasn't Firefox got inbuillt adblocking capabilities yet? The CEO of the Mozilla Foundation, Mitchell Baker, is circumspect as to the reason why...

Dan Warne (APC): So speaking of add-ons I'm sure a lot of people are curious to know why you guys haven't built an ad blocker into Firefox?

Mitchell Baker: I don't know I would have to ask actually!

Dan Warne (APC): Really okay? I hypothesised while thinking of the question list that the reason is that the web more or less survives on ad revenue and you wouldn't want to piss off every publisher out there. But I have no idea really which is why I was curious.

Mitchell Baker: I don't know actually. It may be that they are too technically complex, but I would have to ask.

Dan Warne (APC): No worries. I was just curious because there are popular add-ons that do it.

Mitchell Baker: Right and I guess some of those add-ons are pretty complex. When I look at them, they ask you what element you want to block and so on. How many ordinary users would be able to do that, I wonder.

Dan Warne (APC): I think most people just download the automatic list that has everything that has been pre‑populated by someone else.

Mitchell Baker: Right maybe that's it maybe that would be a better extension. Still, I actually don't know what the answer to that would be without looking into it further.

Read more of the interview with Mitchell Baker:

Reader Comments

RSS feed

Email alert

Eddie:

Nice interview, good read. I had to laugh about how she acts clueless when she is asked about built-in ad-blocking.

report abuse Send to a friend

be:

Lack of knowledge of Adblock (Plus) and filter lists I found a bit jarring...

If one were cynical, one could say she's deliberately avoiding the question...

Adblock (or Adblock Plus), for many, is the very reason they use Firefox over other browsers.

report abuse Send to a friend

Castulo Guerra:

I can't decide if she's dodging the questions or that she simply has no clue about anything beyond business school topics. Hey, we all need a numbers person to keep a business on the rails, but maybe she was the wrong person for this interview.

report abuse Send to a friend

Kyle:

I was on-board with her up till now, quite a good interview. But unfortunately this: "Mitchell Baker: I don't know I would have to ask actually!" is a lie.

report abuse Send to a friend

Justray:

Does she really think we will shallow that lie, she does actually knows the extensions (AdBlock and plus) 'cause she later says "Right and I guess some of those add-ons are pretty complex. When I look at them, they ask you what element you want to block and so on. How many ordinary users would be able to do that, I wonder."
So... she HAS used adblock, she knows how it works and knows the benefits and pleasure of kicking ads asses and do nothing about for the million of people using FF without Adblock, DAMN, I can't believe she said "When I look at them, they ask you what element you want to block and so on." How hard can be click the BLOCK tab above the flash ad, she may think people using FF are stupid or retarded (sorry if I really offended anyone) and not be able to right click an image and select BLOCK, she damn pisses me off. She can't be honest and say "We really don't want to ad and adblocker in FF cause the ads pays a lot of internet bandwith (pages of free content). She should fake ignorance 'cause ignorance is a sin to one and mankind

report abuse Send to a friend

G:

Easy!!!
Install the addon Adblock Plus. Make sure the icon is on your toolbar someplace. Drag the offending ad onto the icon, the box opens with the rule added. Click "create new rule"& you are finished. How good is that??
Then you can sort the rules - click the "rule" heading - and make your rules more general.
eg ads.loveme/facecream : delete "facecream" to block anything from ads.loveme/ . Then keep it clean by deleting the other superfluous rules.
God love them!

report abuse Send to a friend