>But Mozilla argues advertising is 100% essential.
Citation needed. I realize they get a ton of money (probably most of their funding in fact) from Google, but still have they actually made such a statement? For now at least, they support ad-blockers a lot better than Chrome (because of Manifest v2).
While it doesn't directly say it, their acquisition announcement for Anonym (an ad/tracking company) comes about as close as you can by saying Anonym believes it (and implicitly they support the viewpoint)[0]:
> Anonym was founded with two core beliefs: First, that people have a fundamental right to privacy in online interactions and second, that digital advertising is critical for the sustainability of free content, services and experiences. Mozilla and Anonym share the belief that advanced technologies can enable relevant and measurable advertising while still preserving user privacy.
Which completely ignores non-profit uses of the web, which is interesting since they're a non-profit and all.
They've made similar statements in the past[1]:
> Advertisements pay for all those “free” services you love, as well as many of the products you use on a daily basis — including Firefox. There’s nothing inherently wrong with advertising
Which is of course true because they don't accept donations to fund Firefox despite people complaining that they want to be able to make such donations for years.
Citation needed. I realize they get a ton of money (probably most of their funding in fact) from Google, but still have they actually made such a statement? For now at least, they support ad-blockers a lot better than Chrome (because of Manifest v2).