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Firefox, the open-source browser that prioritizes user privacy above other things, has been delivering ads on the New Tab page. The ads aren’t crazy intrusive or anything. In fact, they’re just tame banner ads with no animation, sound, or pop-ups. That said, it’s the only popular browser that shows ads and users are not happy. Mozilla has made a statement claiming it was only an experiment but that doesn’t make much difference. The good news is you can disable ads on the New Tab page in Firefox.
Disable ads on New Tab page
You can disable ads on the New Tab page from Firefox’s settings. Open a new tab and click the cog wheel button at the top right of the page.
On the Options page, select Home from the column on the left and scroll down to the Snippets option. Disable the Snippets option and you will no longer see ads on the New Tab page. You don’t need to restart Firefox.
Firefox New Tab page ads
These ‘ads’ have been showing up on the New Tab page in Firefox for a while now. They appeared as helpful snippets suggesting useful Firefox features or additional Mozilla services that users could enable/use to get more out of the browser. The ads didn’t look like ads at the time. They appeared to be an on-boarding experience for new users and a simple way to show existing users what features they were missing out on.
What finally gave them away was when the snippets began to promote services that Mozilla didn’t own or that weren’t integrated with Firefox in any way.
Mozilla, in addition to saying the ads are experimental also said it didn’t receive money in exchange for promoting the services and it’s missing the point. The company could have benefited from paying attention to how users reacted when Microsoft began promoting OneDrive on Windows 10.
Windows 10 and Microsoft Edge do not pass up any opportunity to promote either OneDrive or the browser. In fact, if you visit the Microsoft website from Windows 10 in any browser other than Edge, you will see a banner at the top suggesting you try Edge instead. Microsoft has stuck with promoting only its own apps and services and Windows 10 users never took it well. Mozilla got away with more than Microsoft ever could since it didn’t just develop the browser it was promoting but also the OS it was promoting it on.
