Heads up, Firefox users. Like it or not, ads are coming to your Web browser.
Mozilla on Thursday announced it is now rolling out ads within the browser on the desktop and mobile. The ads will show up next to the thumbnails of the sites you frequently visit when you open a new tab.
Mozilla is initially launching these sponsored tiles for two companies: CVS Health and Booking.com. The ads, plans for which were first announced in February, are live now in eight languages and 25 different counties.
Mozilla will indicate which tiles are sponsored, lest you think someone has been messing around on your computer and visiting the CVS Health website a lot. If you don't want to see the ads you can turn off the tiles feature by clicking the gear icon in the top right corner of the browser to access your preferences.
The decision to roll out ads comes after Mozilla late last year hired ad tech veteran Darren Herman to explore ways of bringing sponsored content to Firefox. Mozilla spent a year prototyping and experimenting with the feature before rolling it out this week.
"There are many aspects of digital advertising that concern us: from the overall integrity of the advertising system on the Web, to the user having control over what happens to their data, and then to what happens to the data once the user has given their consent," Herman, Mozilla's vice president of content, wrote in a blog post Wednesday. "Tiles are our first iteration on starting to solve these problems."
Mozilla does not allow ad tracking, and will not collect or provide advertisers with data about you, unlike most digital ad networks. As for why it's rolling out ads, Herman said the sponsored tiles help "create a more useful, attractive and dynamic new tab page," (we'll let you be the judge of that) while helping to financially support the browser.
"These sponsorships serve several important goals simultaneously by balancing the benefits to users of improved experience, control and choice, with sustainability for Mozilla," Herman wrote.