After I noticed Firefox has removed the Pocket branding but kept the Pocket stories, I also noticed the settings screen on the homepage no longer lets you disable sponsored stories or links.
Firefox 115:
Firefox 139:
You can still remove these advertisements, but you have to leave the homepage and dig through the settings to find that option.
Welp, why is Mozilla gradually turning into a shit-show? They're still better than Google and Microsoft and Brave but :(.
Once upon a time, people at Mozilla were really good at highlighting how browsers are also known as "user agents". They do what users want them to do. Or at least they used to do that.
I can somewhat understand why they do it though โ they are extremely worried about the Google search-box deal not renewing or even expiring prematurely.