HN Explorer

Google has added ads on both its search page and Chrome://newtab

423 points by Nephx ↗ HN
Users are reporting banner ads such as "New! Track your health and fitness with the..." below the search box on both google.com and chrome://newtab.

Google has historically been protective of their front page, why now?

329 comments

[ 0.20 ms ] story [ 281 ms ] thread
pcsalad
Have you seen this banner by yourself? Tried from a few different locations with no luck
Nephx
Yep, Fitbit smartwatch ad for us in Sweden, no Chrome plugins (even shows up in incognito).

Might be exclusive to a portion of users or locations.

N19PEDL2
> Might be exclusive to a portion of users or locations.

Probably they are testing on a selected range of users.

brettdong
Also see the Fitbit ad from Singapore.
rany_
I've had something similar happen to me before. Google showed me an advert for Pixel 6a on the bottom of the search bar in both the new tab and Google.com main page
zinekeller
Can confirm (https://i.ibb.co/ygp2x49/Fitbit-Ad-Google-com.png).

It actually reminds me of old Google announcing "New! You can now search for images" or such except repurposed for things outside of Search. The first one is reasonable (there are people that do want to search for images or research papers), but the current incarnation reminds me of a corporation solely running on inertia.

exikyut
I think I've been seeing ads for things like the Nest and Pixel phones in AU for a few months now.
TheAlchemist
Seen it too !

It's strange how our brains work - I actually never look there, but somehow I did notice it.

BiteCode_dev
It was inevitable, you gotta get the infite growth from somewhere. Ane the next move will +1 this and so on, until google becomes less attractive than leaner competition. Because of inertia, legacy and people benefitting from the status quo, they won't be able to correct course.

This is textbook "how empire falls" and why things that seem indestructible eventually dies like anything else.

This will be the mile stone people will remember as the first sign of google decline.

glcheetham
If this harms their business then why would they keep doing it
ceejayoz
Because it helps in the short term, and Wall Street doesn’t mind destroying companies over the long.
Bootvis
Why blame this on Wall Street?

This idea is the idea of someone at Google, it was implemented by someone at Google, the decision to go ahead was approved by someone at Google.

ceejayoz
The someones at Google are compensated significantly by shares of the company, traded on Wall Street, and some of them are compensated with even more shares if those shares do well.

Pretending the two are at arms length is a bit silly.

Bootvis
Seems to me that the individuals involved would care more about getting extra shares than the expected increase in share price from this change.

The bonus might be significant, the increase in share price might be a percent or 2. Google dishes out this bonus, not Wall Street.

bombcar
Harms it long term, makes money short term.
rixthefox
Long term, systemic damage to both product and company reputation.

Google Stadia case in point. Nobody serious backed Stadia because almost everyone expected Google to kill it off so nobody jumped to it and then it was inevitably killed off because it didn't bring in the cash Google was expecting. Even when the stars had aligned for them with the pandemic and supply shortages that should have given them tons of players Google just couldn't convince enough people to go for it.

I wouldn't be surprised if there are high level talks going on about the sustainability of some of this exact lines of thinking. Chasing growth organically is fine. Artificially generating it by shifting costs or cutting corners elsewhere to maintain the illusion of growth eventually sinks the whole ship.

thereddaikon
Nobody cares though. Investors only care about short term. When it stops making money they will just move their money somewhere else. When you can get out of the game at any time there is no incentive to think long term for those at the top. The Executives are told to make money today. And why not? They will leave soon too. To run another company for a few years doing the same thing. The only people who are interested in long term viability are customers and low level employees. And their opinions don't matter.
marcus_holmes
Say you're a decision-maker at Google (or Any Large Corp). You have a KPI to increase revenue by 5% this year. If you hit this KPI, then you get a bonus. If you get the bonus, then you can afford the thing that your partner has been wanting forever (or that will make your neighbours jealous, or whatever), and you get a happy life.

You know that doing X will harm the company in the long term (defined as anything past your likely tenure in this role, so usually 2 years max). But doing X will bump revenue in the short term, and get you your bonus and your happy life.

WDYD? Given that to get to a level where you have the power to make this decision, you had to have a particular personality type and set of priorities, it's extremely likely that you decide to do the thing that helps you and hurts everyone else.

public_defender
And it's turtles all the way down. Every single incentive and system is optimized for some goal like periodic revenue increase. It's not one personality type and the desire to buy a new car, it's the intentional structure of a public corporation. We have high minded ideas about sustainability and corporate citizenship, but those views don't drive decisions in the bear market.
ecuaflo
or in the bull market. techies are greedy
public_defender
Yes that's true. I just think it's particularly easy to forget how your company actually works--e.g. what puts the bread on the table--when the markets are high. Therefore we see more monetization strategy in this type of financial cycle.
JohnJamesRambo
How do we fix this loop in companies? It is a very serious problem for humanity’s future. It exists in government too. How do we reward long-term thinking and decisions?
kaushikc
Short term rewards would need to be less enticing than the long term ones. Doing so would involve restricting many rights and privileges and people would hate that.
Jensson
That only works if leadership can spot the difference between long term and short term, and more importantly that they even cares about it.

"Reward long term" is easier to say than to do.

JohnJamesRambo
We are restricting our long term rights and privileges though...I know it is hard to get people to see that, but that is what is happening.
kaushikc
We know the problems, would like to see workable solutions.
Jensson
This is essentially what corruption is. Fixing corruption is extremely hard, especially when it is less overt like this. The main thing you can do is to teach people how to spot bad apples and push them out, fire them or in other ways punish them and reduce the damage they can do. It shouldn't be culturally acceptable to be a bad apple, but that requires a cultural change and those are really hard to do.
MarkPNeyer
Private ownership of businesses, so long term consequences fall on someone with the authority to steer them right.
TheRealDunkirk
A lot of the most egregious, society-warping behavior by monstrous-sized companies is due to paying execs with stock. It was a salary tax avoidance maneuver that started in the 80's, and has led to 1) absolute fixation on short-term stock price, and 2) (also to that end) stock buybacks. Many of our largest corporations have used recent stimulus moneys to fund buybacks like it was sex or something. All it has been is a transfer of tax dollars to the oligarchy, and has "stimulated" nothing. We need some laws that do away with the loophole somehow, either by not allowing companies to pay people in stock, or by taxing the stock on its nominal value when given, making it much less attractive as a shell game.
MarkPNeyer
Or we need money they can’t be created via debt.

Issuing debt to buy back shares is a strategy that works great when interest rates are very very low.

But when the money supply is scarce, only so much leverage can exist, so issuing debt to buy shares would be far far riskier.

coredog64
RSUs are taxed as income according to their value on the day they vest. Companies can offer employees below-market grants, but the difference is recognized as a cost and (eventually) has to be approved by shareholders.

Stock options with a strike price below market also have tax implications for both the company and the employee.

Equity based compensation essentially comes out of the hides of shareholders: As long as they are happy (and people aren’t playing Thiel-type games), it’s not as terrible as you make it out to be. There’s a limit to what buybacks can do to juice prices and equity generally puts people into a long term mindset.

marcus_holmes
This has also completely messed with startup stock options. Because large companies used options to award execs with tax-free incentives, and the tax authorities didn't like that, we now have to pay tax on the options when we get them rather than on the capital gains we actually make. And it doesn't solve the problem - execs get paid some other way and options are still fubar'd
pfooti
That's the neat part, you don't.

The problem, ultimately, cannot be solved without disassembling neoliberal capitalism. It is more or less endemic to the system. To a large extent that short termist, get returns and move on before the cost is due, mode of being is how we managed to run an economy that requires constant growth (rather than stability) to function. It's also why we won't solve any of our climate or many social issues.

There's no way to change this without drastically restructuring the utility function people apply to decisions, and that just won't happen until the aftermath of whatever collapse is inevitably going to happen when the planet floods.

jjoonathan
Yeah. It's wild to see sibling comments thinking that it's an exec incentive "problem." No, exec incentives align to GOOGL shareholder incentives and GOOGL shareholders are pursuing returns at your expense, as is their right under capitalism. In theory, competition keeps this in check, but we either need to get much more serious about encouraging competition or we need to figure out a different way to organize control.

Personally I'm a bigger fan of "encourage competition" than "reorganize control," at least in the search engine market, but I fully agree with you that what we see here is the system working exactly as designed.

achenet
build better systems.

Easier said than done, but the basic idea would be something like what the Founding Fathers of the US did with the Constitution - make a system where incentives are set up in such a way as to align success for the individual and the group.

If you start a company, you can experiment with alternatives to the current "increase da KPI" style of organization that is so prevalent nowadays.

I think Steve Jobs was a good example of someone who governed by pointing people to a beautiful vision, rather than mindless "ya, numbers go up" type thinking prevalent amongst investors nowadays.

SanjayMehta
Family owned/controlled businesses think in terms of "what will the next generation inherit?"
BiteCode_dev
Nature solved it for us: obsolete things die and are replaced by better, new things. Google dying is not a bad thing, it's how it's supposed to work. Same for countries, religions, and so on. On a different scale.
visarga
It's the alignment problem, but for people.
zeroxp
You have to align the long term growth and wellbeing of the company with the long term prosperity of the employee. This is why stock options with a long term vesting period have become an attractive choice.
MarkPNeyer
Why do you care if you harm the company long term? It’s not like you are tied to it’s performance forever. When equity and labor markets are liquid, why wouldn’t you make decisions that help you now, and cause long term hurt something you have no long term stake in? If you don’t, your peers will.
marcus_holmes
Because as an executive officer of a company, I am supposed to have the shareholder's interests as my main priority.

I totally get your point, and I understand the "me first!" attitude that it comes from. But we can't have nice things if everyone does this.

matheusmoreira
Corporations are meant to improve our lives sustainably. If all these people can do is extract short term value for themselves instead of providing long term value to the world, then there's no reason to allow this corrupt system to continue. It's pretty screwed up that executives can go around chasing infinite short term growth and awarding themselves golden parachutes so they can jump ship when the problems inevitably start to surface. How much destruction can they cause before society stops them?
Josteniok
I know people that do this very thing but none of them admit to themselves that they "know that doing X will harm the company in the long term". Instead they create a narrative that says "This time it will be different" so they don't have to be bothered by any kind of pesky conscience. I don't even know if they do this consciously, it just seems to happen.
rolph
you kinda described sociopathy
becquerel
You are assuming that capitalism pushes individual actors to act in their own best self-interest. It does not. It pushes people to serve capital
public_defender
I agree with this statement, but it's pretty academic. At this stage of the game (metastatic capitalism), people aren't generally allowed to have interests that don't serve capital. Like, there may be some philosophical "best self interest" which is beyond the capture of capital markets, but it's not part of our culture.

Besides, look at context. We are talking about what a company does and the agents of the company. Of course it all collapses to serving capital. I read GP as "why would company take short money over long?"

refurb
People serve their own self interests in general.

You don’t need capitalism for that (as non-capitalist systems have clearly shown).

is_true
The incentives they have are not sustainable
jhoechtl
These days Bing is increasingly my goto search engine, my switching costs are essentially zero
lukas099
Why not duckduckgo?
julianlam
Because hating on Micro$oft (ha! Remember that?) is a 2000s thing.
berkes
Sure. But that does not answer the question. Which is "why not duckduckgo?"
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
ugjka
98% of time DDG fulfils my needs
moffkalast
That's just yahoo and bing search merged, with some graphics to tell you how much they love privacy every 2 seconds.

It also has a stupid name.

yjftsjthsd-h
> That's just yahoo and bing search merged,

Given that we're in a thread underneath someone endorsing Bing as a good option, that sounds like a plus.

> with some graphics to tell you how much they love privacy every 2 seconds.

That is their differentiator, yes.

> It also has a stupid name.

As... Opposed to Google or Bing? This is your argument?

moffkalast
> Given that we're in a thread underneath someone endorsing Bing as a good option, that sounds like a plus.

Yeah, but why not just cut out the middleman?

> As... Opposed to Google or Bing? This is your argument?

I'm half kidding, but seriously "duck duck go"? What kinda goofy ass name is that? No wonder nobody takes it seriously.

The equivalent there would be GoGoBaby for Google or RingADingDing for Bing. I guess GoDaddy is a thing, but that doesn't make it any less weird.

yjftsjthsd-h
> Yeah, but why not just cut out the middleman?

Because DDG acts as a privacy screen and doesn't tell Microsoft what I personally search for. They are, as you note, fairly pointed about this being their purpose.

> I'm half kidding, but seriously "duck duck go"? What kinda goofy ass name is that? No wonder nobody takes it seriously.

It's a play on a commonly-known phrase (duck duck goose), and while this is all subjective I don't see how it's any weirder than anything else in the space.

olyjohn
People just gotta have excuses to love their favorite corp products. People should just own it, but they feel a little guilty so they have to find an excuse.

It's like Firefox haters, they find one little bug or one negative thing happens, and "Welp, just might as well use Chrome." If Firefox isn't 100% absolutely perfect, then people say they're clearly just as bad as Google.

They say DuckDuckGo is just Bing, and has a dumb name, so it's clearly no better than Google. The truth is that they fucking love Google's products, integration and ecosystem...

PeterisP
Isn't duckduckgo web search pretty much bing with tiny tweaks?
unstatusthequo
I finally got fed up and pay for Kagi. Very happy so far. Cents per day is worth it
DesiLurker
I looked it up. honestly $10/month is stupid level pricing for un-established product with free competitors. the pricing needs to be what can slip below average users pain threshold (IMO thats like $2.99/mo but whatever). there is a reason most techies have not heard of it yet.
colinmhayes
I'm guessing that going from free to $0.01 is the biggest hurdle. Once people agree to pay they're willing to pay a decent amount.
DesiLurker
actually .01 would not be a problem at all, remember initial pricing for whatsapp? the main issue here is its value is not yet established. They need to remember that they are competing with powerful search engines like google and bing so they must rise to the quality first. Starting with low price with even just the indication that we will charge you more later is good enough, but it is imperative that they show value first.
nmstoker
I'm pretty happy with them too. For me it's the boosting of sites i respect and the suppression of sites I dislike that swung it for me.
beej71
Bing won't index one of my online programming books (original content, no ads, no SEO, all ages, free) for unspecified TOS violations that I can't determine. Their algorithm is broken. It makes me wonder what other legitimate content they don't index.
marcus0x62
How would they +1 this? Require users to watch two ads Youtube-style before rendering a website? Place a persistent banner ad along the bottom of the browser window?
culturestate
> Place a persistent banner ad along the bottom of the browser window?

No, they’ll place it at the top, just like Amp.

matheusmoreira
I hope nobody at Google sees your post... The web is obnoxious enough as it is.
Euphorbium
The first sign was when they killed google reader, like 10 years ago.
jjoonathan
It was obvious to the founders of google before they founded google:

> The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users.

- Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page, The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine

glcheetham
They are changing their natural listing results to be multi media photos and video content will be prioritised on search results, it is going to be released in America first this month I believe

They are also seeing the results will be far more varied and scrolling down will likely give you a result that you are looking for, and the traditional way of looking with the top result, being the one that you wanted may not be the case anymore

I think they are maybe trying to replicate the TikTok experience when looking for a result, you will end up scrolling different content relative to your search keyword

All of this will benefit content creators. If you have an ability to create video content, this will give you a competitive edge.

mysterydip
> All of this will benefit content creators.

Could they do something to benefit the users instead?

fxtentacle
Rest assured, it'll hurt both equally. Or do you think Google would treat content creators as equals?
LoganDark
Here's a reminder to everyone in the thread that Google owns YouTube. Content creators are, literally, the product. YouTube would not exist without them. They are not equals.
avian
I hope this means that all the SEO bullshit will move to videos and the textual web will become usable again.
whywhywhywhy
> They are changing their natural listing results to be multi media photos and video content

I’ve been unfortunate enough to see this, it’s absolute hot garbage and made it way harder to find what I wanted.

Is this a knee jerk response to TikTok kids using TikTok as their generations google?

I don’t think many understand how much Google land is up for grabs right now. Google Images is right there for the taking if you just supply the same experience as 10 years ago Google Images.

senko
Notably, this is not Google showing random search/display ads.

Those look like ads for Google's own product.

I don't think this is the first time. IIRC, Google used to show an ad for Chrome if you used the search from any other browser.

londons_explore
I'm surprised they advertise their own product in those places... It's such an obvious thing for the EU to go after. "Google has a monopoly position in Browsers/Search, and (ab)used their homepage to advertise their entry into a new field of business, immediately giving it free advertising the competitors could never access."

If I were Googles legal team, I would immediately put an end to such cross-product advertising (at least from Search/Chrome/Android).

Euphorbium
Google does not have a monopoly in browsers or search.
eckza
We've always been at war with Eastaisa.
throwaway09223
The poster above you said "monopoly position," which is defined in the EU as more than 25% of the market. Google unquestionably has a monopoly position in both areas.

The US similarly defines monopoly as having significant control over a market, not as a literal 100% stake.

infinityio
To my knowledge, Google has 90% of search engine traffic in some regions, and Chrome makes up the majority of Web browsers, even disregarding Chromium
colinmhayes
Anti trust requires market power abuses, not a monopoly.
ren_engineer
I've said the same, how is doing that any different from Microsoft using their OS to push their own products in the past when they got sued?

Having that stuff in Chrome would cost millions in terms of normal display ads for the number of impressions they would get

NayamAmarshe
The difference is, these anti-competitive tactics bring them more value than the penalty the receive, at this point, it's more of a slap on the wrist and nothing else.
shadowgovt
Or the legal team has advised them that the legality is unclear and management has decided the easiest way to resolve murky law is to see the other side in court.

There's a lot of law like that, and Google has the war chest to ask the question when merely that act alone could bankrupt smaller companies.

mrweasel
While slightly dirty, I got the ad for Chrome, that made sense in the context. Advertising for Fitbits is weird and seems desperate.

My sense is that it's a test. If Google decides it went well we'll see ads for other Google products. That's a dangerous path though, at some point some one will make a nice offer for that spot, and I'm not sure the current management at Google have enough integrity to say no.

Side note: It might be Fitbits, because Fitbit is a subsidiary of Google LLC, and not Alphabet directly.

netsharc
Google on Android has already been stupid for a long time. You can swipe right from the home screen of a Pixel phone to get to Google search, which is a Yahoo!-style portal with news, etc under the search bar. And then you click on the search input field, and you get suggestions based on trending searches (a week or 2 ago one of them was something about King Charles). Luckily both idiocies can still be disabled, and I use DDG for my searches anyway.
imadj
It looks like they're testing it on a small portion, but not sure what's the pattern
bertman
This is not "unprecedented" at all, see e.g. here: https://www.reddit.com/r/chrome/comments/lf9egy/comment/iivz...
spoiler
I am not sure why you're being downvoted. Both the newtab (at the bottom of the page) and the search page have had subtle "ads" for google's new product launches. I remember seeing it for Stadia, and I remember seeing it for "Google One"
londons_explore
They also use it for non-google products.

For example the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II had a hyperlink to "See todays events" on both places.

inerte
I believe* the first ad ever under the search bar at google.com was to download Firefox. They've been doing it for that long...

* I think I read that in some book about Marissa Mayer and her decisions around the homepage.

omgmajk
That thing on the google.com page is really annoying. Google is probably trying this out but I am really hoping that this is some behind the scenes look at the fact that google might be a dying company and are grasping for straws. Not that I think that is really real, but because it would be glorious.
cr3ative
Annoyingly, the new tab page used to have an exclusion for these "announcements". The flag was removed.

I've ended up installing one of those "inspirational new tab page" extensions, just so I don't see an ad. I am sure that means someone else is siphoning my data.

sensanaty
I use one that just lets me use some custom HTML, I just have some plaintext bookmark type links
LoganDark
Both in Chrome and Firefox, I always set my new tab page to `about:blank`, or in other words, absolutely nothing. Why? Because the address bar is all I need to get where I'm going. I type faster than I click.
okasaki
There's no setting to set the new tab page in Chrome - not even in the policies json.
tyingq
There is a setting for what the home icon does, and it defaults to new tab...but is settable. Maybe that's what was meant?

Edit: See https://imgur.com/a/wQhvFF9

Olphs
There is no home icon in Chrome, at least I don't see it. Or is that also some setting?
abraham
It's a setting. You can enable the home button and then set it to be a custom address.
LoganDark
The home icon only appears next to the refresh button when you have a "home page" configured. It is separate from the New Tab page.
LoganDark
On Chrome, I had to use an extension that redirects it. It's annoying, and overrides the content of the address bar if you start typing too quickly -- but it's better than ads.

I switched to Firefox earlier this year, but the blatant memory leaks are making me strongly consider switching back to an old version of Chrome (v70 or so), which did not require a monstrous page file to run days or months without crashing.

ghotli
It's a tiny amount of code to write your own new tab page. I like mine, it's nice, it's custom to me. This whole story made me feel like it's great that I control what makes it to my eyes when I open a browser or a new tab
bla3
It's not unprecedented, they did that when Google+ launched too.
sjaak
Stop using Chrome
sp332
Firefox has ads too. At least you can turn them off, until they add another category and you have to go figure out how to turn off the new ones.
contravariant
It's times like these that I'm glad I use about:blank as my new tab page.
darkwater
Having an Amazon and Nike sponsored links in the new tab page is having ads strictly speaking but they are nor intrusive nor targeting you specifically, so they can be "tolerable". To be honest my mind just skip them. The day they change this for worse, then I'll complain as well.
sensanaty
I don't think I've ever seen a single ad on Firefox (including on any website thanks to uBlock working better on FF than anywhere else), what ads are you talking about?
bbarnett
There are ads in the urlbar, ads on the newtab page, ads, ads, ads!

This is on desktop.

sp332
I was mainly thinking of the ones on the new tab page. Years ago they had "tiles" or something and I turned those off, then they added "suggestions" and they're not different but the old setting doesn't apply to them.
LoganDark
Pocket.
sp332
Mozilla owns Pocket.
Nextgrid
I think his point is that Pocket is the piece of shit that pushes the "sponsored" articles people refer to as ads.
chlorion
Google owns the product that they are advertising in Chrome as well I think.

That doesn't make it any better really!

Afaik both Firefox and Chrome are advertising their own products in the browser at this point in time, so there isn't a whole lot of options to escape this. Maybe Linux distros could patch some of this stuff out or disable it via default settings at least.

bennyp101
I have never seen ads on Firefox?
monlockandkey
The entire internet discourse is filled with "Chrome evil, use Firefox". Go to any browser discussion on the internet and 99% of the thread is "just use Firefox or Firefox is the best". You would think that everyone uses Firefox.

The internet is a bubble. Reality is Firefox usage is pathetic. 32 MILLION people have *STOPPED* using Firefox in the past 4 years. The browser only has a 3.16% market share.

https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity

https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share

Chrome is a good browser. Can be considered objectively better than Firefox given its superior performance, equivalent if not slightly better resource usage, web compatibility and integration with the Google ecosystem (which the vast majority of internet population use (excluding niche tech circles)).

I have no vendetta against Firefox. At the end of the day, it is just a browser and that is a personal preference. But people act like it is some sort of saviour that will bring them to the light. There is such an aggressive tribal mentality with browsers. It makes no sense as all browsers look the same, feel the same and have the same functionality. Just a matter of preference given your needs, and for 70% of the population, Chromium delivers.

sjaak
I know that everything you say here is true.

The niche tech circle you speak of /is/ the audience here on HN. If we can’t be bothered to stop using Chrome then all is lost.

monlockandkey
All is indeed lost!

Browsers are incredibly expensive technologies to produce. If Microsoft of all companies could not find success with Edge classic, a browser that they wrote from scratch. Added with the ability to advertise and bundle with the worlds most popular OS, then Firefox has no chance to be the bastion against Chromium.

One part of me is curious what a realistic web landscape would look like if it was all Chromium (including Firefox). I guess at first it would be great to see cool new browser APIs, but then something will be added would cause an uproar.

pacerier
Microsoft...? Like, did you see their OS? I don't even.

In any case the type of people joining Firefox is very different from that of other companies.

recursive
Internet explorer used to be the objectively best browser in the same way. The problems start happening after one browser so thoroughly beats all the others that sites start getting locked into proprietary stuff. I was around the last time. And I remember saying similar glowing things about IE at the time.
dzikimarian
It was exactly the same 20 years ago with IE. It was ok, delivered for 70% of the population. There were even browsers built on IE engine, which were awesome at the time (Maxthon had add-ons, ad blocker, tabs).

All was fine until Microsoft didn't start to add their own standards, without any regard for everyone else. If they succeeded, web today would be mess of ActiveX controls and other propertiary extensions.

Web is simply way too important to allow it to become walled garden controlled by single corporation. This is about a lot more than tribalism.

mort96
I woke up to ads in my new tab page in Firefox yesterday; sponsored links to Amazon and Nike.

Browsers don't seem to serve users anymore. They, like everything else, are mostly ad delivery mechanisms.

sophrocyne
Annoying, yes. But you can turn them off in the settings page.
mort96
You can, but it's not about that. Ads don't belong in browser UI, full stop.
laundermaf
Browsers used to be paid software.
hk__2
> Browsers used to be paid software.

AFAIK the big ones have always been free, except for Netscape between 1995 and 1998.

laundermaf
IE 1.0 was included in a "Windows 95 Plus!" which was sold for $50 in 1994; However it was short-lived and it was included in later releases of Windows [1]

Netscape was sold for $50 [2]

Opera was sold (can't find the price) [3]

  [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Plus!#Microsoft_Plus!_for_Windows_95
  [2]: https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/netscape-navigator-2-0-hits-the-streets/
  [3]: https://web.archive.org/web/20081013235150/http://my.opera.com/Rijk/blog/2006/02/15/rendering-engines-and-code-names
hk__2
Thanks. I don’t think this really changes the point that no big browser have ever been paid for except Netscape. The "paid for" period of IE is insignificant (and it was barely used at the time) and Opera never had more than 3% of market share when it was free [1], let alone when it was paid for.

[1]: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/internet-browser-market-sha...

folmar
And Opera 1995-2005 (ads alternative to money since 2000).
pas
why? there's no standard or moral law that says this.

there have been countless examples of watch-ads-get-X schemes. I remember back in the dialup era it was seen as a way to get online. (then fortunately technology and the market progressed and these died out.)

also, let's not forget that the browser market was always fucked up.

gilrain
The browser is traditionally the “user agent”. An agent operating in my interests does not advertise to me.
LoganDark
I personally believe that the goal of ads should not be to hook you on new products just because they can. They should not be to sell you on a problem that you don't have. They should not be to pile on tons of "marketing" and look professional and presentable and whatever.

Ads should show you things that you needed anyway; things you wouldn't have known to look for, or didn't find when you did. Things that actually solve problems that you actually have, where you see the utility as soon as you see them.

For example, 45drives has their ads down. They contain nothing more than a little joke, a product image, and a link to their website. You'll know if you need it; they're not trying to market to you or convince you of anything. They know you will come when you're ready.

Advertising culture is currently extremely hostile and I hate it.

dsomers
Funny you say that, I just opened Safari, no ads.
tfsh
Safaris default new tab page is the Apple store and most don't know how to change that.

edit: turns out I was wrong.

2nd edit: this used to be the case many years ago, thanks for those who confirmed

johnklos
The first part is correct, but the second certainly isn't.
adamking
I'm not even sure the first part is. I logged into a Guest Account on my Mac and the default for 'New tabs open with:' is the 'Start Page', which is a blank page with history, bookmarks, frequently visited, etc.
tfsh
Oh forgive me, I've just checked are you're right. The new tab page is now frequently visited sites.

Our family Mac we got in ~2011 did show Apple as the new tab page, or at least the start page when you opened Safari after booting. However this must have changed in the last few (read: >5-7) years.

null_object
> Our family Mac we got in ~2011 did show Apple as the new tab page, or at least the start page when you opened Safari after booting

Pretty certain this is also incorrect.

My recollection seems to accord with the Wikipedia page on the history of the Safari browser which (although it doesn’t itemize the default StartPage for each version) doesn’t cite any inclusion of an AppStore link, as far as I can see.

[O] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safari_(web_browser)

yreg
Not the "Apple Store", but apple.com

I believe it is correct. It was back when we didn't call it a new tab page, but 'homepage' and it was set to an actual website.

Of course Safari defaulted to apple.com, what else was it supposed to default to?

cpsns
It is correct, back in the Panther days when Safari was new the default home page was Apple.com.

I’m not sure how long they did that for, but like you said, what else were they supposed to do? It was a different time, homepages were treated differently.

account42
> what else was it supposed to default to?

about:blank until the user sets something else.

[deleted]
(comment deleted)
xattt
Having a home page set to something isn’t the same as having ads that you can’t disable.
shawnz
You can disable the ads in Firefox though
xattt
Not in Chrome apparently.
null_object
> Safaris default new tab page is the Apple store and most don't know how to change that.

There are a list of alternatives in Safari that the user themselves can choose from, including Favorites, Frequently visited, and so on.

None of the choices are the Apple AppStore.

null_object
> 2nd edit: this used to be the case many years ago, thanks for those who confirmed

No - what other posters 'confirmed' is that www.apple.com was one of the choices that could be made for a new tab or homepage - absolutely not the Apple store as you said.

Worth correcting yet again because of what's become a knee-jerk 'but whatabout Apple?' in comment threads about Google on HN.

tfsh
I'd say they are analogous. If I go to apple.com it is the definition of an online store, there are a number of call to action "buy" buttons with pictures of various Apple devices.

I think you're being pedantic if you say apple.com is not the apple store. If I wanted to go to the apple store I'd go to apple.com.

nicbou
Software still serves its users... to advertisers.
HKH2
Well that's a new low for Firefox. I'm a little surprised because I didn't think it'd be that quick.
wintermutestwin
Whenever I open a new tab in Firefox it is a blank tab because I set New Tabs to Blank.

Wake me when I can't do that anymore (and point me to a decent fork).

marcosdumay
I'm on 105.0.1 on Linux, and just checked because of this discussion. Firefox announced ads on the new tab a while ago, and I used about:blank by that time, but I saw the switch to turn them off in the settings. Now there are no ads and the switch is gone.

Firefox seems to be going everywhere at once, so it wouldn't surprise me to discover there is a 105.0.2 with ads, or that ads exist on a few regions only. But at least for me, the trend seems to be on the other way, they are backing down from that decision.

mort96
This is the screenshot I took this morning: https://p.mort.coffee/0Yy.png -- note the sponsored Amazon and Nike. It wasn't like that yesterday. I might not have restarted Firefox in a little while though, so it might be from an update which was released some time in the past week or two.
neurostimulant
Click the gear icon on the top right corner of the new tab screen and uncheck the "sponsored shortcuts" checkbox.
dsign
I see the ad, and I'm not amused. I would be more at ease if the line said "You know what? We need money after all this browser-making. Give us yours and we will let you go on with your day."
atesti
It's notoriously difficult to have a new tab page without ads/Google connections, but still keep the 8 thumbnails. One can change the search engine and then an alternate new tab page appears which is the right one: Only thumbnails. Unfortunately there is code in chrome to detect the search engine one confiured and activate the matching new tab page. I think they have one for ddg?

Even creating a custom search engine in chrome settings, pointing at google does not work, they detect the google url.

I have yet to create my own "search engine" url which would redirect to google, to put this search engine in the chrome settings!

It's very annoying, because despite it being Chrome from google, chrome is quite reasonable with data protection and settings in many areas and can be tamed with group policies. In our company GPO we have to turn off the new tab page, but my goal is to have one without ads.

RektBoy
Or don't use Chrome? Lol
ama5322
Firefox had/has "snippets" for a while. You can turn them off, but the point still stands.
vehemenz
There has been a blank new tab extension in Chrome for ages.
atesti
But I like the 8 thumbnails, I only want to get rid of the "new tab promo". Chrome contains a complete new tab page which is adfree, but it's only enabled for obscure search engines
traveler01
It's their own product ads though... It's not very problematic, you're using their product and they're announcing they have more products for you.
hulitu
Stupidity is contagious. If MS does it, why should't Google ?
twawaaay
I wouldn't say it is stupidity.

MS seems to have stopped innovating and exploit as much of their business before it dies.

Possibly Google realised the same?

bbarnett
If IBM is any indication, it takes decades for big corp to die.