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Mozilla teases “Firefox Ad-free internet” for $5 per month

Online advertising is often described as the “original sin of the Internet.” We’ve become used to getting content for free, but ad tech has emerged in ways that many feel violate their privacy and sometimes even safety (advertising has been used to deliver malware). Anyone that’s ever used an ad blocker also knows that most […]

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Future Firefox Builds May Purge Annoying In-Page Popups

Google and a host of other major players in the online advertising business have started working toward “better ads.” You won’t find Mozilla on the membership list of the Coalition for Better Ads, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t concerned with advertising annoyances. One particular problem they’re looking to tackle is in-page popups, like the […]

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Mozilla experiments with sponsored Pocket Recommendations in Firefox new tab page

It’s been a few years since Mozilla scrapped its program to show sponsored tiles on the new tab page of the Firefox web browser. Now it looks like the organization is giving the idea another try. Things are a little different this time around though. When you open a new tab in Firefox you see […]

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Some mobile games use your phone’s mic to hear what TV shows you’re watching

Contrary to popular belief, Facebook doesn’t use your phone’s microphone to listen to your conversations and then show you targeted ads. But it turns out that some other mobile apps are doing something pretty close. The New York Times reports that there are more than 250 Android games, and some iOS apps as well, that […]

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Google Chrome’s ad blocker for sites with annoying ads starts working on February 15th, 2018

Google announced in June that it was building an ad blocker into the Google Chrome web browser and the company outlined plans to use it to block ads on sites with annoying ads starting next year. Now we have a firmer start date: February 15th, 2018. That’s when Chrome will stop showing any ads on […]

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Wileyfox drops its smartphone prices… in exchange for ads on the lock screen

Amazon may have been the first major company to offer customers a chance to save money on a smartphone by purchasing models with advertisements on the lock screen. But Amazon Prime Exclusive phones aren’t the only models available with lock screen ads anymore. British phone maker Wileyfox has announced it’s now selling versions of its […]

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Google Chrome will block annoying ads by default starting next year

Ads pay for the vast majority of free content found on the web. That’s pretty much how the modern web evolved. But some ads are really annoying, potentially blocking the content you’re trying to read and probably making you less likely to have warm, fuzzy feelings about the products being advertised. For that reason, and many […]

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Facebook plans to show ads even if you’re using an ad blocker

There’s a lot of free, ad-supported content on the internet. You can search the web, read the news, and watch cat videos for free. And even though Hulu is moving to a subscription-only service, you can still (legally) watch plenty of TV shows and movies without paying a penny. But according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, […]