Edited to remove erroneous statements about what gets sent to Mozilla based on Matthew Miller’s comment below.

Mozilla’s release last week of in-browser ads has caused quite the discussion on the Fedora development mailing list. Firefox now will show sponsored “tiles” on the default home screen when a new or cleared profile is used. Although Mozilla claims to collect data in such a way that it’s not personally identifiable, there are reasons to be concerned. Sure, this can be disabled, but the default behavior is the only thing most users will experience.

The reactions on Fedora-devel spanned the gamut from indifference to insistence that Firefox be removed from the repository entirely. My own take (which was already represented on the mailing list, so I refrained from “me too”-ing) is that the right answer is to disable this feature in the Firefox build that ships in Fedora, effectively making it opt-in instead of opt-out. Mozilla has a history of being a good actor and I don’t begrudge them trying to make some money. However, I’d prefer that the user have to consciously enable such tracking.

Though I disapprove of the implementation, I find it hard to get very worked up about this. The Internet is awash in tracking. Google and Facebook probably know more about me than I do about myself. But that’s because I decided the value I get from those sites (well, not so much Facebook) is worth the data I give them. I respect the right of others to come to their own decision, which is why opt-in is preferred.

I appreciate the opinion of those who think the only appropriate response is to remove Firefox entirely, but I find that to be a wholly impractical solution. If Fedora wants casual desktop users (and I see no reason to not court that use case), having Firefox is and important part of a welcoming environment. A great deal of casual computing is done in the browser these days and Firefox is a well-known browser (even if some people call it “Foxfire”). Sure, there are other FLOSS browsers (including IceWeasel), but few of them work as well for casual users as Firefox and none of them have the familiarity and name recognition. Given the good Mozilla has done for free software over the years, this hardly seems like a bridge worth burning.