Mozilla release a Firefox extension to help you discover new sites without Facebook

The Mozilla Foundation has released a new plugin for Firefox user under their experimental Testpilot program.

The plugin uses your web browsing history to recommend websites to visit, conceptually similar to how Amazon would recommend products to buy based on your Amazon shipping history and what you are looking at at present.

The plugin in callled Advance and delivers real-time recommendations to your Firefox sidebar while you browse. Advance uses your current browsing to suggest related news and similar pages to read next, and uses your browsing history to create a personalized feed of quality content.

The plugin includes privacy controls allowing you to pause data collection or simply delete everything collected.

Mozilla notes:

For example, you’re just browsing the internet, and come across a page with a list of the hottest restaurants. Advance starts to recommend similar content around the most popular restaurants so that you can start comparing without having to do all the research on your own. These are based on the trusted sites you’ve already visited, new sites are recommended for you to explore. If there’s a recommendation you don’t want, you have the option to flag it as “Not interesting, off topic/spam, block sites,” or give direct feedback. The recommendations are personalized for you.

Mozilla notes the plugin is a throwback to the early days of the web when it was all about discovering new sites to enjoy, a role that has now largely been usurped by Facebook, which tends to favour larger sites rather than the more quirky web.

Read more and try out the plugin at Mozilla here.