In a sense, yes. At an undisclosed time, Firefox will begin showing "new" users sponsored tiles on the tabpage. source One poster in the forum argues that Mozilla folks have to eat, too. But they already eat quite well from the money the receive from Google. But the problem for isn't that browser is monetized. This shows a decline in integrity on Mozilla's part.

Now why the quotes around "new?" In the developed world, there aren't too many people without internet. For example, as of Dec 2011, the internet penetration in the US was 78.3% of the population, which is actually less than most of the developed world. How many of the remaining 22.7% are young children or the elderly. The US does have more children as percentage of the population than say, the EU or Japan. I believe the internet penetration of emerging market economies such as Mexico ("officially" only only 29.4% as of Dec 10) is vastly under-reported, with the place being littered with crowded internet cafes and the continued growth of 3 and 4G wireless networks as well more deployment of cable and DSL internet. So again, what new users?

Not quite pleasant news.
However, the move was made public and not in secrecy. Besides, everybody can disable this 'feature' in "about:config"

.

Will the more relevant, dynamic content also be advertising? Or will a DnD also have a chance of appearing there?

I've never seen anything that doesn't sound paid for.

Besides, everybody can disable this 'feature' in "about:config"

The new users this supposedly is meant to help won't know such a thing exists.

Every time I install Opera on a "new" PC, I get such tiles of commercial sites on the default speed dial.

Opera ASA has never made any bones about being a for profit corporation, and such monetization is not unexpected in freeware of this type. Mozilla, on the other hand, is meant to be free of ads, spam, etc as well as being open source. Many users see a darker path ahead for Fx. Maybe not chromatically dark; Chrome is a shiny metal isn't it?

I've never seen anything that doesn't sound paid for.

Or much in the way of such "relevant" content that's actually relevant to me. Get curious about something one night and read some sites about it, get ads about it for months :p

ׂ

Firefox is doing the opposite with the whole "user experience" idea.

They've become self-deluded wankers. 

The about:config page isn't exactly easy to browse or commented. Some valid options aren't even included on it.

You can find references even so they aren't up to date. Same would apply to "opera:config".
Not to mention Chropera with its Konami Code. They would have better renamed it to "Tsunami Code"

The more market share Google will get with its browser the less revenue from Google searches for other browsers.
Without money, no serious competition to Google.
I'm not trying to defend Mozilla's move but it's a fact worth to be taken into consideration.

With Chropera, Opera ceased to be a competitor. What has left? Microsoft and Apple? 

Yes, but Chrome's dominance is overstated.

http://www.favbrowser.com/january-2014-desktop-market-share-google-chrome-up-internet-explorer-firefox-safari-opera-down/#more-14582

Google Chrome is trying to reverse its downtrend and managed to at least slow it down, up from 16.22% to 16.28% (0.08 point increase).

Firefox on the other hand continues to lose more and more market share, last month it saw a 0.27 decrease, from 18.35% to 18.08%.

Behaviour like this will this will only cost Firefox more users.  Time will tell if Australis will cost Fx users, but Chropera seems to have lost users every month since the abomination was rolled out.

Here's an opinion piece http://my.opera.com/LorenzoCelsi/blog/2014/02/14/even-worse-at-mozilla

Reading this makes me feel like puking:
http://www.zdnet.com/mozilla-clarifies-defends-firefox-ad-position-7000026335/

In short, Mozilla needs money to develop FirefoxOS.

And here's a translation of some of the words in the announcement for those of us who don't speak the language.

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/firefox-directory-tiles.html

Sometimes, things are so utterly simple. Honesty is the bread and butter of success, wherever you need interaction with users. Down the road, it's what makes the difference. Microsoft is learning this the hard way with their Faildows 8.X. Mozilla, you cannot afford to go down the same road as Redmond, you don't have the resources to sustain such a large fiasco. You might manage to be profitable for a while, but you will bleed loyalty dry, and you will eventually shove yourself into obscurity as another boring, visionless corporate wannabe. You know I'm right. I always am. Take heed.

http://softsolder.com/2014/05/20/firefox-accounts-total-fail/

So, the new Firefox Sync requires a Firefox Account that doesn't do anything I need done and, in order to sync my 13.10 settings into the 14.04 box, I must have a new Firefox Account and make both Firefox installations less secure.

Silliness beyond FF Sync. At first I thought I had inadvertently installed some extension. But no, it's worse.

Neither something I'll ever use nor something I'm keen to be implemented in the browser.
Something that is meddling with Windows' firewall settings just like Unite in Opera Presto.
However there will be users who will use that feature, the same way Unite was something great for some.
The only 'good' thing is that you can disable those features.

Luckily there are lightweight alternatives to FF, such as Seamonkey. Even though Seamonkey releases updates to the rendering engine at the same pace as FF, it has otherwise a conservative updates policy, no fishy new features.

I don't understand why everybody cares so much about browsers. This browser this, that browser that...
All the internet is a trap, any browser included.

I don't understand why everybody cares so much about browsers. This browser this, that browser that...
All the internet is a trap, any browser included.

There's a difference whether you are in a mouse trap or a bear trap.

Firefox is dropping their extension model, apparently. Dedoimedo put it succinctly, in a way that I think applies to every post-3.6 version of Firefox.

Morons, if I wanted to use Chrome, I would.

Well, luckily we still have Otter and Vivaldi's starting to get fairly usable as well...

Well, luckily we still have Otter and Vivaldi's starting to get fairly usable as well...

"We" sounds to me like an exaggeration. Some of us, for sure.
As for "fairly usable", any browser out there is fairly usable at some point. It only depends on the angle you are looking at it.
For my 'taste' neither Otter nor Vivaldi come close to Opera Presto or even Firefox at its actual stage.

The obvious reality that these are all just grasps at what Opera was notwithstanding -- although to me in some ways Otter, Vivaldi, and Opera/Blink are superior to Firefox -- Maxthon might also be worth a look if it's even half the browser MyIE2 was. Unfortunately it doesn't scale with DPI, at least on Linux.

although to me in some ways Otter, Vivaldi, and Opera/Blink are superior to Firefox

"To me in some ways"
I assume that not only for you but for many other people in many ways.

Don't get me wrong Frenzie. It's not my hobby to argue just for the sake of arguing.
All I want to make clear is that priorities and ways of using a browser can (and mostly does) differ from user to user.
Some handy features a browser might offer can be very important to you while less important to me and vice versa.
Theoretically at least, the more options and features a browser will offer, the better the chances to attract users with different priorities.
Theoretically because theory doesn't apply always to real life. Most used browser is (was?) Internet Explorer which probably will be (allready is?) surpassed by Chrome. The wide usage of these two browsers has little to nothing to do with options and features. Neither with users' priorities but rather with the lack of them.
However Opera Presto is a good example for attracting both of us despite of different priorities.

Speaking of priorities
Some of the vital and very basic features for me and probably of less or no importance to you (correct me please if I'm wrong):
- Access on the fly for toggling cookies
- Access on the fly for toggling scripting
- Access on the fly for toggling proxy
These are just the very basic ones.

AFAIK there are only 3 browsers offering these very basic features. Opera Presto, K-Meleon and Firefox (with the respective extensions).
Among these 3 browsers only 2 can instantly stop scripts on a page: Opera Presto and K-Meleon.
Among these 3 browsers there is only 1 browser where you can set up different proxies for different tasks and switch between them: K-Meleon.

Since one picture tells more than thousand words: screenshot
The way I've customised K-Meleons GUI to fit my needs. (no extensions involved, all buttons are optional you can remove them or add other ones for other tasks, almost no limits for customising the UI)

Granulated options for settings, rendering speed and resource usage might be some features which both of us are caring about.

I have always liked K-Meleon integration with the OS. To bad they don't have a Mac OS and Linux version. Since Camino and Galeon are no longer active.

@d4rkn1ght
K-Meleon was itself sort of deadish too for a while. It's a miraculous resurrection we have now.

Speaking of priorities
Some of the vital and very basic features for me and probably of less or no importance to you (correct me please if I'm wrong):
- Access on the fly for toggling cookies
- Access on the fly for toggling scripting
- Access on the fly for toggling proxy
These are just the very basic ones.

AFAIK there are only 3 browsers offering these very basic features. Opera Presto, K-Meleon and Firefox (with the respective extensions).
Among these 3 browsers only 2 can instantly stop scripts on a page: Opera Presto and K-Meleon.
Among these 3 browsers there is only 1 browser where you can set up different proxies for different tasks and switch between them: K-Meleon.

Surely more browsers can do this, but they are obscure and it's obscure to configure them. For example, it should be possible to graft (most?) FF extensions to Seamonkey and to FF clones like Palemoon.

In Elinks it's possible to toggle cookies, scripting and proxy by means of lua extension, but lua is obscure and scripting in Elinks is incomplete. Qutebrowser, Conkeror and such are more complete.

It's a good overall rule of thumb: Make everything a toggle wherever possible.

Speaking of priorities
Some of the vital and very basic features for me and probably of less or no importance to you (correct me please if I'm wrong):
- Access on the fly for toggling cookies
- Access on the fly for toggling scripting
- Access on the fly for toggling proxy
These are just the very basic ones.

Well, my keyboard.ini says this:

- Shift + c for cookies
- j for UserJS, Shift + j for JS
- proxy... well, that's mostly true I suppose. It's too much of a hassle editing the damn thing all the time so I just don't bother. You'd need multiple proxies like in K-Meleon or FoxyProxy for it to have any use. In Opera this'd fit in with site preferences, except there you can only choose yes/no. Otter fixes this flaw by allowing you to set up proxy settings in site preferences, although I'm not sure about what to do if you want to switch to a different proxy for the same site.

My indicators are for Opera Link, Opera Turbo (it's a proxy, btw), images, CSS, UserCSS, Referrer, UserJS, JS, cookies, and fit to width.

However, it's also true that for the most part I prefer site preferences.

AFAIK there are only 3 browsers offering these very basic features. Opera Presto, K-Meleon and Firefox (with the respective extensions).

Ever try F12 in Otter? Works just like in Opera. As does site preferences. But yes, the Windows-only browser K-Meleon is very good. I didn't know it had risen from the dead.

Anyway, from your short list Otter not only suffices, but actually surpasses Opera to fall more or less in line with K-Meleon and Firefox with FoxyProxy, while Vivaldi and Opera/Blink do not. And that's really more of an objective than a subjective fact, anyway.

Me, I think the idea of needing an extension like NoScript to switch off JS is a travesty.

Edit: oh, I see the F12 setting is inactive for some reason in Otter? Or perhaps you have to set up a proxy before you can use it. Worst case scenario part of it is a work in progress, eh?