AI Summary:
Overview:
- Mozilla is updating its new Terms of Use for Firefox due to criticism over unclear language about user data.
- Original terms seemed to give Mozilla broad ownership of user data, causing concern.
- Updated terms emphasize limited scope of data interaction, stating Mozilla only needs rights necessary to operate Firefox.
- Mozilla acknowledges confusion and aims to clarify their intent to make Firefox work without owning user content.
- Company explains they don’t make blanket claims of “never selling data” due to evolving legal definitions and obligations.
- Mozilla collects and shares some data with partners to keep Firefox commercially viable, but ensures data is anonymized or shared in aggregate.
Brodie thinks that they still left themselves some wiggle room for ““selling”” user data.
Brodie thinks that they stiww weft themsewves some wiggwe woom fow ““sewwing”” uwsew data.
This modified version of your comment has been licensed under the GPLv3
Wauve a wice way.
I didn’t sell your shit, I collected it and shared it to keep myself comercially viable.
Surprise Mechanics 🤗
Great, but a web browser still does not need terms of service. There’s no ongoing relationship between the user and the creator of the browser, at least, there shouldn’t be unless the user signs up for additional optional services.
It’s great if Mozilla wants to offer some optional services users can opt in to, and those services probably need terms. I use Firefox Sync, though I’ve started to reconsider that given the recent fuss. The browser itself? I’ll move to a fork first, and stop recommending Firefox to others.
What’s the best alternative on Mac?
You could try zen browser
It looks like Arc but built on Firefox’s engine? That’s sick. I’ll give it a look.
I downloaded it and signed into to Sync and i gotta be honest it’s a little half baked. I think I’ll stick with Firefox for now until it leaves beta.
Nah, it’s abandoned as the company turned to ai stuff
Are you referring to Arc or to Zen?
Arc. The browser company is continuing security updates, but has otherwise stopped all development
Zen had its latest release 5 days ago, and arc 4 days ago, so I have no idea what they’re talking about.
Arc. They are only continuing security updates and necessary maintenance. No more feature work, no more bug fixes.
Do you have a source for that? I can’t seem to find anything on their website, though judging by the past few release notes you’re absolutely right.
Edit: found this video. Kinda feel like this should be a big red banner on the front page though.
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Too late for me personally, I’ve gone ahead and moved over to Zen.
People hate whenever Brave is mentioned… But when it comes to privacy, I have not regretted my decision to use it
I mean if you are already ok with using a Chrome reskin from a crypto ad company your standards are already set too low.
People who use Firefox are concerned that Firefox is slowly shifting into what Brave is now. Aka an ad company.
I swear to god Brave browser is a cult. People who are into it a really into pushing it. No, I don’t want your crypto-bro, ad company run, chrome reskin.
But you have no problem with the paid-for-by-Google, ad company influenced, whittle away at the few protections they used to have, browser?
This is literally better in every way.
This being said, better in every way does not mean good. It’s just hard to be worse than a crypto bro run, literal ad company, who’s browser is a reskin of chrome.
Hot off the presses, in addition to the CEO being queer-phobic, he literally is now ranting about how George Soros, and leftists are treating him unfairly.
Installed DuckDuckGo browser as soon as I saw the news the other day.
Installed DuckDuckGo browser as soon as I saw the news the other day.
Oh cool, yet another Chromium variant. That’s going to be an actual change for the better.
Balls.
Anyone have a decent Android alternative? Updated my phone last night and this morning got a notification that Firefox had full permissions for accessing my location data. I’d like to move away from Firefox before enshitification is in full swing.
Try out Ironfox. It can be installed through F-Droid.
Dope, I’ll give it a go 👍
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Did you give it to it?
It can be a pretty nice feature for using map-based apps in the browser.
I haven’t used such websites for a while and I don’t see Firefox in the recent users of the location API, even though I use Firefox Android all the time. (Info available in Android under Settings/Location.)
Absolutely not. There’s not a single app on my phone that I willingly give unrestricted access to my location data. At most I allow “while using the app” and have my phone set to ask for permission for background running.
I use Fennec
Righto, pop that on the list. Thanks 👍
I switched to waterfox. Looks pretty much the same, no issues so far.
The simple way to deal with this is through extensions. Collect anonymized data through an extension, let the user decide to opt-out if they want.
A FOSS browser has and never will require collecting user data.
This should not happen at all.
What do you think a browser does?
The browser manufacturer doesn’t need a license to my inputs to process them and give them to the server it’s supposed to give them to. If you type a text in Libre office, does it ask you for a license to the text in order to save it?
No, but that’s a local program processing and saving data entirely on your system. It’s a world of difference from what a web browser does, which is oversee a whole suite of protocols connecting you to remote servers and transmitting data back and forth in requests that build on and reference each other. With the complexity of modern web interactions, there’s a ton of reasons why a browser might need to store your data and share it with others, even ignoring profit-seeking motives.
And let’s remember that the last thing Mozilla got heat for was the introduction of a method to anonymize bulk user data for sharing & selling purposes, as opposed to the granular, extremely invasive tracking that 99% of websites are doing these days.
I see a company that needs to make a decent amount of money in a crazy competitive environment, that’s trying their best to do so in the way least destructive to user privacy and choice.
Not even the lemmy instance you’re on needs a license to your content, and it is stored there and displayed for the world to see. Why is that? Because storing and displaying your posts is the very thing you want it to do. That is the service it is providing for you, and you declare that you want it to do that by clicking “send”. They would need a license if they wanted to do anything else with your stuff, which doesn’t directly have to do with displaying your posts in the fediverse.
The browser is supposed to take my requests and inputs, carry them to the server that I’m talking to and bring back the answer. The mail doesn’t need a license to my letters. That only changes if they want to open them and do something I originally had not intended.
But you know who claims a license to your content? Meta. Because you’re the product there, not the costumer.
And let’s remember that the last thing Mozilla got heat for was the introduction of a method to anonymize bulk user data for sharing & selling purposes,
as opposedin addition to the granular, extremely invasive tracking that 99% of websites are doing these days.Ftfy. It’s never going to replace more invasive tracking and just constitutes yet another party collecting my data.
I see a company that needs to make a decent amount of money
Mozilla already makes Enougn money from passive Investment income. They don’t need to make any money from Firefox at all (but they do, it’s from google). They also don’t need to pay their CEO 6 Million a year.
Certain features certainly could be considered as doing that, such as:
- Firefox sync
- crash reporting
- add-on store
I certainly want those. And then there are others that I don’t want:
- telemetry
- studies
- AI
My understanding is that this change is primarily motivated by a recent law change in California that has a pretty broad definition of “selling user data” and this is less likely to be a fundamental change in how Mozilla operates. However, let’s see what they come back with.
That second list should also include
- Ads
Because ads in the search bar results are one of the things Mozilla cited as precipitating the need for ToS.
Is that a pocket thing? Because I disable pocket and changed the default search engine.
If they laid out precisely which features result in data collection by Mozilla and how to disable them, I’d be pretty happy with it. However, if they’re unilaterally collecting data and not really separating concerns, then I’ll need to find something else.
Mozilla collects and shares some data with partners to keep Firefox commercially viable
How hard is it to be specific? People are concerned about this, can they not tell us the exact data they share and with whom, or is doing so going to make people more concerned so they are avoiding telling us?
They can’t be specific in the legal note because that would close their options and prevent them from auctioning off every month to the new highest bidder.
They certainly could keep a page of what they’re currently selling to whom, but even if it was innocuous (doubtful) that would again put them in the news every time they changed it.
Tried and true
legalPR strategy: say nothing and hope the attention goes away
Pornhub now remembers what sort of porn you like while browsing incognito. Is this also happening with other browsers? I just don’t wanna have my wife know what kid of bdsm I really like. It keeps things fun that way. Fun, gun, hun, nun, are all too close on the keyboard. Autocorrect can’t fix that.
Pornhub now remembers what sort of porn you like while browsing incognito.
Are you sure? All incognito windows run in the same memory space. If you open one window and do something in it, that session data is available to any other open incognito window open. To clear this ALL incognito windows need to be closed. Once they are all closed, you should be able to open a single new one and have no remnants of the previous sessions left over for the website to know you. The exceptions to this are if they are tracking activity from your IP address or if they are using Browser Fingerprinting on your session so they know even if you come from a different IP they know its your computer.
I run into the IP tracking sometimes. The wife will be doing searches for some specific thing, and I’ll see youtube recommendations show up on those topics even though I’m running youtube via incognito on completely different hardware (but we’re both using the same public IP).
I’m pretty sure there’s something even more perverse happening maybe IP tracking. Maybe phone location tracking. Like when I search for stuff on Google here at home on my phone that stuff appears on my work Google (where I have never actually logged in to Google with any account). It maybe a server side user profile tracking system that we haven’t seen before. Instead of tracking a user via IP, you look at a location… Then you look at what people are searching for in that location and you develop a profile for that particular hardware ID.
Maybe this?
reddit does the same thing to, to identify ban evaders, except reddit turned it up a notch in doing this. i think only anti-detect browsers can alleviate that
yet you missed the elephant in the room.
kid
Too late, I switched to Floorp.
Because of privacy stuff? No. Because of repeated drama? Yes.
I don’t have time for this stuff. I don’t have time to track every minute twist of the knife that Google’s funding drives Mozilla to embark on.
I’m bored of using software and watching it go through “death by a thousand minor dramas”
So now I use a web browser that has a name so stupid I don’t even recommend it to other people. Brilliant.
Truly an outstanding move
Floorp isn’t recommended for its privacy features anyway, it’s recommended by users for the amount of customization you can do. It’s got some features that Firefox has that I don’t want to do without.
Floorp is a new Firefox based browser from Japan with excellent privacy & flexibility.
💀
The magic of forking!
✨
Try zen browser. It’s just like floorp but has that Arc browser aesthetic.
I was a floorp user until I tried zen browser. You should give it a try too.
Never heard of this one before. too bad it doesn’t have a mobile version as well.
Even if the name sounds stupid, you should still recommend it to other people :D
Have been doing so for a few months and haven’t had any negative feedback.
The drama isn’t exactly their fault. There are a lot of rich organizations that want them to cease to exist. Most of which want track you online and/or shove ads down your throat.
A fair amount of drama is exactly their fault. Mozilla chose to increase management pay and fire people, Mozilla chose to flirt with ai, Mozilla bought an ad firm, and so on. It’s not like someone was holding a knife to their throat.
Ruh roh. Too late though.
Friendship ended with Firefox,❎ Librewolf is my new best friend. ✅
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I need a gif where Scooby Doo removes the Librewolf logo and there’s a Firefox logo underneath.
You must recognize that there is no Librewolf without Firefox, right? In fact, Librewolf even says in their privacy policy that you should also refer to the Firefox Privacy Policy because they can’t be certain that their browser won’t ever try to send data to Mozilla.
I’m not saying this to deter you from using Librewolf. If it works for you then that’s awesome. It just made me chuckle when you said that you ended your friendship with Firefox and ran into the warm embrace of… Firefox with different default settings.
In any case, all I’m trying to communicate is that Firefox and all of its many forks are fundamentally reliant on Mozilla and its ability to continue updating Firefox. That means Mozilla needs a sustainable business model, and that we can’t all simply abandon our relationship with Mozilla for a tool that is dependent on the work that Mozilla does.
Friendship ended with Firefox,❎ Librewolf is my new best friend. ✅
A big problem with such forks (same with packages made by Linux distributors) is that there is a delay between official FF release and the release of the corresponding update of the fork. 99% of the time this doesn’t matter much but when there is a severe security issue, the patch needs to be available ASAP.
Past enshittifications of Firefox could be disabled by users. Users who know what to disable don’t need such forks then.
I’m not yet clear what Mozilla even intends. Is it just an adjustment of language of things that are already in FF and can be disabled easily? If so, I just keep the following shit disabled and benefit from earlier update releases.
A big problem with such forks (same with packages made by Linux distributors) is that there is a delay between official FF release and the release of the corresponding update of the fork.
That’s called a patched downstream, not a fork.
LibreOffice was a fork of OpenOffice. OpenBSD was a fork of NetBSD.
I have not dug too deep into it for now (especially if I end up changing browser), but even with everything in the preferences disabled, examining the content of about:config gives a lot of telemetry.whatever.enabled left to true, sometimes with names that do not seem to match any option given to the user. That’s not a good look either.
And you cannot change those in the default mobile Firefox since about:config is disabled (by their claim that it may break stuff in the ui)
The issue is that Mozilla is actively hiding these settings. There’s one (I forgot which one) that you can’t find by searching for the title in the FF settings, you have to scroll to it yourself.
The issue is that Mozilla is actively hiding these settings.
They are under “Privacy”, just as I expected where they would.
There’s one (I forgot which one) that you can’t find by searching for the title in the FF settings, you have to scroll to it yourself.
🤷
Yes, you can disable the settings that are exposed to you with a checkbox. How about all the other that have no checkboxes and you can find by snooping around in either the code or about:config ?
How about all the other that have no checkboxes and you can find by snooping around in either the code or about:config ?
Which are? Genuine question. I’m not aware of those either.
I’m not going to enumerate them, mostly because I did not keep track of which one was on and which one was off before messing all of them up. If you’re curious, open “about:config” and search for “survey*.enabled”, “collect*.enabled”. Even with all settings disabled, some of them remains on, and they do cause traffic to the (documented) endpoints.
Someone else in this thread mentioned that going to
about:configand typingtelemetrywill apparently show that some things are still set totruedespite unchecking the settings in the Privacy section.Note: I’m not the guy you originally replied to, and I haven’t personally tested this. Just pointing out where you can allegedly find those settings if you’re interested. (I personally don’t care and think this whole thing is overblown by the community, for what it’s worth)
Dude, I’m not talking about the specific settings you’ve shown. There’s more settings you should set regarding privacy, and (at least a couple of months ago) one of them wasn’t appearing when searching for it.
There’s more settings you should set regarding privacy
Please be more specific.
I’ve already moved most of my stuff to forks or different software altogether.
Firefox -> LibreWolf and Waterfox
Thunderbird -> Evolution
I’m still trying to decide if I want to move off k9mail on mobile to something else. I probably will but I’m not sure what at this point.
I thought Thunderbird was a separate entitiy from Mozilla these days? And K-9 isn’t owned by Thunderbird either? Am I mistaken?
My understanding is that they are all under Mozilla and they’re all in danger of the same business decisions.
If that’s not the case I’d be more than happy if someone could prove me wrong.
Technically Firefox is operated by the Mozilla Foundation, and thunderbird by its subsidiary, MZLA Technologies Corp. This subsidiary also took over K-9 a while ago iirc.
Already uninstalled everywhere. Better luck next time, Mozilla.
