Mozilla takes stock of user interest in paid Firefox subscription

Mozilla asks users if they are interested in a paid version of Firefox. For five dollars a month, users would not see any ads, but would also support journalistic media.

Mozilla has put a survey online, in which the company asks users if they are interested in a paid version of browser Firefox. The list consists of only three questions. The company wants to know whether users are interested in such a payment option, whether they would sign up for it, and when they would like to. The questionnaire also serves as a method to receive registrations for a future beta.

The program would cost $4.99 per month. Before that, users would be able to read certain websites without ads. They also get access to audio versions of certain articles, they can create and synchronize bookmarks within articles, and they get an app in which they can read the articles ad-free. It would be a collaboration between Mozilla and Scroll, a journalistic aggregation platform. Mozilla has been toying with the idea of ​​releasing a paid Firefox variant for some time now. The current questionnaire and proposal therefore seem to be a continuation of plans that the company already showed in February. In it, the company already says that the digital advertising model is broken, and that this is harmful to publishers.

For now, it appears that Mozilla is trying to take stock of how many users might be interested in an ad-free browser. Scroll would only be the first partner to join the project. Other platforms may be added in the future. Scroll users can read and support American media such as Slate, The Atlantic, BuzzFeed and Vox.