Found this notification this morning on my pixel 6.

    • utopiah@lemmy.worldEnglish
      12·
      3 days ago

      Genuine question to see if the downvotes are justified or not : are you implying Chrome is a good browser and if so, why?

    • thisjustin@lemm.eeEnglish
      4·
      3 days ago

      I personally don’t want there to be only one browser engine - Chrome. All other browsers use their engine, or the one powering Firefox. That’s actually my main concern. I don’t know about you, but Chromium being the only web browser in the world is pretty fuckin scary.

      • venotic@kbin.melroy.org
        12·
        3 days ago

        Where did I ever say or imply that Chrome is the only option? A lot of you just misinterpret me on purpose, downvote parade galore just to stomp all over someone to make yourselves feel good about it. God, people really are this fucking stupid.

  • umbraroze@lemmy.worldEnglish
    504·
    3 days ago

    Wait a second. You’re expecting Google to not FUD? Ha ha ha oh wow. I mean I didn’t actually expect them to do so, but yeah.

  • BetterNotBigger@lemmy.worldEnglish
    45113·
    3 days ago

    Even if this isn’t entirely true, you know Google wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to reduce Firefox market share to scare everyone back to Chrome.

      • blind3rdeye@lemm.eeEnglish
        241·
        3 days ago

        terrible choice of link. There was a stack of reporting from various tech-news sites and blogs; but you’ve given as the nazi site.

      • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        491·
        3 days ago

        The story I heard was that by of California’s definition of selling data, doing anything with user data that could benefit the company was considered selling data. So they updated their FAQ to be in line with that definition. But I could be wrong, if someone could point me to a good article I’d appreciate it.

        • solrize@lemmy.worldEnglish
          83·
          3 days ago

          You’re saying “exploiting” user data might have been more precise than “selling”. Either way I don’t want them doing it.

          • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            14·
            3 days ago

            Thanks! Sounds like limiting risk from the California bill is a plausible reason, but it isn’t confirmed.

            Legal Definitions of “Selling Data” Under the CCPA Are Broad: As noted above, the CCPA’s definition encompasses many data-sharing practices that may not align with common understanding of “selling data”.[16] Even if Mozilla was not directly selling user data, its search partnerships, telemetry data sharing, & sponsored content could have been interpreted as data sales if Mozilla received any financial benefit from them, all of which were actions that Mozilla has already been transparent & upfront about.

            Mozilla’s Search Engine Deals Could Be Considered Data Sales: As mentioned earlier, these partnerships could legally qualify as data sales under the CCPA definition, despite being an existing part of Mozilla’s business model that consumers are already aware of.[1]

            Sponsored Content in Firefox’s New Tab Page Involves Data Exchange: Mozilla dReferencesisplays sponsored content and ads on the Firefox New Tab page, which may involve user interaction data being shared with advertisers.[11] Even if the data is anonymized, the CCPA considers certain types of aggregated data as personal information if it can be linked back to users.[16]

            • bearboiblake@pawb.socialEnglish
              1110·
              3 days ago

              It sounds like a bullshit excuse, to me.

              If they wanted to cover their ass, they could have changed their ToS any number of different ways than what they went with.

              Let’s not be naïve. All corporations are the enemy, including Mozilla.

              • devedeset@lemm.eeEnglish
                131·
                3 days ago

                To be fair they are a company with bills to pay and they have to shield themselves from being fined or sued. At this point I assume almost everything has been backdoored to hell and I’d rather use the product from the company with better overall terms and principles.

                • bearboiblake@pawb.socialEnglish
                  41·
                  3 days ago

                  i’m a person with bills to pay, but if i paid those bills by endangering people, i’d be a bad person.

                  corporations exist to protect people from the financial and legal repercussions of their business activity.

                  they should not exist, and so, I will celebrate if Mozilla goes into bankruptcy.

                  we do not need them. control of firefox should be in the hands of a not-for-profit group, not a company.

    • cley_faye@lemmy.worldEnglish
      22·
      3 days ago

      There’s no need to reduce Firefox marketshare. Most people don’t even consider using anything else than whatever is default in their device.

      Also, it’s not a Google scare tactic or a flex. Every application on the Play Store must disclose the general outlines of their data policy, including the sharing of data. Lying with those checkbox is not a good idea but they are completely informative and put there by the publishing party, so the people responsible for publishing Firefox on mobile just updated these, and this is what is shown when an app publisher say their app is sharing data with third parties.

      tl;dr: it’s very likely that not a single soul at Google even looked at this, as this is just the regular behavior of the Play Store with apps that changes their data policy or indicate sharing user data with third parties.

        • cley_faye@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          3 days ago

          No idea, I’m not that obsessed with it. But do note that “The developers of these apps provided info about their data sharing practices to an app store. They may update it over time.” and “Data sharing practices may vary based on your app version, use, region, and age.”

          The recent changes to Firefox terms of use (well, their introduction really) was supposedly meant to appease some regional lawmakers. Maybe it is a regional thing. Maybe they changed it again. Maybe it’s, as often with store page update, rolled out progressively to people (in either direction, whether it’s adding or removing these terms).

          The point is, that’s neither a “Google” operation to put Firefox in a bad light, nor a Mozilla operation to… do whatever it is they’re doing these days. It’s just a regular message. Which, reading a lot of the replies here, is something that have to be said.

      • ThunderWhiskers@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        3 days ago

        It integrates into the Google ecosystem well, and if that has value to a person it may just be enough to bring them back to chrome.

      • pycorax@lemmy.worldEnglish
        931·
        3 days ago

        That’s not the point they’re trying to make I think. It’s more of an attack on perfection. Like “the alternative is not perfect either so why not just stay with Chrome”. It’s not a very strong argument in general but it might be enough to keep people from switching.

        • JayGray91@fedia.io
          18·
          3 days ago

          the alternative is not perfect either so why not just stay

          It does work for a lot of people. Seeing they need to change and adapt if they do change, and it seemingly seems to be as bad as what they’re using now, why change and face headaches and hassle.

        • acosmichippo@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          3 days ago

          exactly, when confronted with cognitive dissonance people look for any shitty excuse to avoid changing their minds.

    • Xanza@lemm.eeEnglish
      910·
      3 days ago

      So you’re advocating that Google shouldn’t broadcast that firefox is broadcasting your current location? Even though they do this for every other app available on Android, you’re saying they shouldn’t do this for firefox?

      Why?

      • devedeset@lemm.eeEnglish
        47·
        3 days ago

        They want to scare people to stay on Chrome now that they discontinued support of uBlock (not that it was ever supported on Chrome for Android anyway)

        • Xanza@lemm.eeEnglish
          2·
          3 days ago

          So they do this for all apps. Every single app that is in the Android ecosystem. But in your mind they’re specifically targeting firefox with this to make people “scared” huh?

          Must be nice to live in denial.

      • The Octonaut@mander.xyzEnglish
        231·
        3 days ago

        This notice is effectively added by the Firefox developers when they select the ability to enable location services and also tick a box thay they collect data.

    • morrowind@lemmy.mlEnglish
      5·
      3 days ago

      Lol if Google really wanted to kill FF they would just stop paying them half a billion a year.

    • Engywook@lemm.eeEnglish
      142·
      3 days ago

      There isn’t to much to reduce. I don’t think Google is scared or afraid by Firefox, like at all.

    • Ulrich@feddit.orgEnglish
      4·
      3 days ago

      Firefox? You mean the company they give several hundred million dollars/year? Yeah I don’t think they’re too worried. They need some number of users on Firefox to prevent anti-trust issues. Which they’re on the brink of right now.

  • Inf_V@kbin.earth
    21·
    3 days ago

    does anyone actually have a good privacy in mind alternative with sources to back it up?

  • partial_accumen@lemmy.worldEnglish
    182·
    3 days ago

    I had already downloaded and installed Ironfox (FF Android fork) on my phone and have been using it for a week or so. It works identically to FF for android. Ublock Origin is working in Ironfox too.

  • SynonymousStoat@lemmy.worldEnglish
    453·
    3 days ago

    Pretty easy to disable the location app permission or set it to ask every time. Firefox hasn’t asked me to enable it since turning it off.

    • Monstrosity@lemm.eeEnglish
      37·
      3 days ago

      Didn’t they also elude to collecting telemetry recently? I know it’s up for some debate but, if true, I’m not sure that’s a thing we can turn off.

    • Ghoelian@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      17·
      3 days ago

      Yeah I’m pretty sure Firefox won’t ask for or use your location, unless a website wants it for some reason (which is almost never a good one).

      • kuneho@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        3 days ago

        and even then, for me at least, the dialog that pops up is broken and lot of times the “Allow” button literally does nothing

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        1·
        2 days ago
        • Fennec - Firefox build with some proprietary stiff removed; repo
        • IronFox - Firefox fork (forked from Mull) with a bunch of hardening changes (notably resistFingerprinting enabled); repo

        IronFox is more ambitious, which means higher maintenance load and more likely to fall behind. Fennec is much simpler, so less likely to fall behind, but also doesn’t change much from Firefox.

    • Mr. Camel999@programming.devEnglish
      5·
      3 days ago

      I’ve not heard of ironfox before this thread! Could you possibly link it? Doesn’t seem like it’s on FDroid or IzzyOnDroid

          • sem@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
            41·
            3 days ago

            The main difference is of philosophy of trust. With F-droid you trust F-droid to build the binary from the developers’ source code. With Accrescent, you trust the developers to build the binary from the source code.

            • carrylex@lemmy.worldEnglish
              3·
              3 days ago

              With F-droid you trust F-droid to build the binary from the developers’ source code

              Not when using a self-hosted F-Droid Repo - which is the case for Ironfox.

              • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
                1·
                2 days ago

                I wish more projects hosted their own F-droid repo and kept it up to date. FUTO has one for their stuff (Grayjay, FUTO Keyboard, etc), but it’s frequently outdated, whereas Bitwarden and a few others I use do a good job.

                Maybe Accrescent is what I’m looking for. I just want a store that:

                • automatically updates when devs push a release
                • checks signatures
                • has a good selection of FOSS apps

                I basically want fdroid, but faster updates.

              • sem@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
                3·
                3 days ago

                In the play store you’re trusting Google and the developer.

                I’m not sure how obtainium works. But if you download binaries from GitHub, you’re trusting the developer to accurately build their source code into the binary without adding anything. You’re also trusting GitHub implicitly – way back when, source forge was sometimes adding malware to downloads iirc.

                F-droid is kind of cool in that they are saying, “we will ensure for you that the code you execute is the same as the open source code you can read”. But this added level of insurance comes with downsides – like sometimes it’s harder for the developer to make their code build properly, or maybe updates take longer.

                • MaggiWuerze@feddit.orgEnglish
                  1·
                  3 days ago

                  And here I’m trusting Accrescent to actually deliver me an executable that has not been tampered with

  • adenoid@lemmy.worldEnglish
    31·
    3 days ago

    How is Mullvad Browser? I know it’s based on Firefox but wouldn’t imagine they would tolerate this.

    • Monstrosity@lemm.eeEnglish
      12·
      3 days ago

      Mullvad is really for anonymous sessions. It’s meant to blend in with every other Mullvad instance on the Net so it helps make users harder to identify. It’s not geared towards daily use.

      On desktop, I switched to Librewolf and installed the Dark Reader add-on.

      I will continue using Firefox on Android because I have absolutely no illusions about my privacy on this fucking thing.

      • bearboiblake@pawb.socialEnglish
        1·
        3 days ago

        GrapheneOS is pretty good, as a more private alternative to Android, though the downside is that it’s only available for Pixel phones. I bought a used one on ebay.

        • Monstrosity@lemm.eeEnglish
          2·
          3 days ago

          I wonder if Square would still work, for example? I haven’t flashed open source ROMs on my phone since like 2012.

          Honestly though, I just consider the phone a lost cause when it comes to privacy & use it accordingly. Uncle Googs is always watching, even when the damn thing is turned off.

          • moe90@feddit.nlEnglish
            5·
            3 days ago

            the thing about degoogled OS is lack of SafetyNet support and it is important for banking apps.

                • bearboiblake@pawb.socialEnglish
                  1·
                  3 days ago

                  The bank doesn’t need to manually support GrapheneOS, the app just needs to behave appropriately - which, as you can see from that list, the overwhelming majority of them do.

                  If my bank stops supporting it, then I will move banks. But I doubt it will ever really become an issue.

            • Monstrosity@lemm.eeEnglish
              2·
              3 days ago

              Thx, that’s exactly my concern as I remember it being an issue when I was flashing ROMs in the past.