So wtf happened at Mozilla for this 180 degree course change? This literally goed against everything it was supposed to stand for
this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2025
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They removed this:
{
"@type": "Question",
"name": "Does Firefox sell your personal data?",
"acceptedAnswer": {
"@type": "Answer",
"text": "Nope. Never have, never will. And we protect you from many of the advertisers who do. Firefox products are designed to protect your privacy. That’s a promise. "
}
},
I hate that they had "never will" in there. Seems like a broken promise.
They broke a promise and they broke my heart 💔💔💔
Dat want seem like it, it IS
At a time when they could actually be pushing the Manifest issue and try to finally get a foothold, instead it feels like they have scattered rakes around the yard in the middle of the night and decided to go for a jog.
it's not like anyone who cares hasn't pulled up stakes tbh
i still like mozilla (and I donate to them monthly because i believe in the mission of an open internet) and, unlike most people, i don't think this is a very big deal.
however, i don't want to put all my eggs in one basket so... are there any other ethical pro open internet evangelist groups i should start to follow or contribute to? preferably an ethical foundation that isn't cryptofash or bigoted. i know there's the eff but they're not really focused on an open and free internet, they're more privacy (nothing against them; i love them).
bonus if they're not hq'd in the us.
Besides the privacy issue, the TOU is ridiculous. They supply a tool (the browser) and you use it. It's not a collaboration between you and them. You can use it whatever way you want.
Doing some digging, this is what has been added to the privacy notice:
You have the option to use a third-party AI chatbot of your choice to help you with things like summarizing what you’re reading, writing and brainstorming ideas, subject to that provider’s terms of use and privacy notice.
If you choose to enable a chatbot in the sidebar and/or through a shortcut, Mozilla does not have access to your conversations or the underlying content you input into the selected chatbot. We do collect technical and interaction data on how this feature is used to help improve Firefox, such as how often each third-party chatbot provider is chosen, how often suggested prompts are used, and the length of selected text.
In other words, there will be opt-in LLM functionality that can be tied to third party providers. When you submit information to them... they have that data... the data falls under their privacy policies, not Mozilla's.
on to duck duck go?
that's effectively be a more low-level reskin of whatever browser engine your system bundles, which would be chromium's on non-apple systems
The DuckDuckGo browser and search engine have been free to use since day one. We make money from privacy-respecting ads, not by exploiting your data. When you search for “car” we show you a car ad — it's that simple.
i fw that tbh
Mozilla ai really isn't that great stop getting caught in the wave. We don't want another dogshit ai company we want a Foss promoting web browser
You might not be using functions that require data to work. Are you using the AI options? Image to text? Translation? Saving passwords? Using search suggestions? Then you don't need to send any data.
Like it or not, most browsers do most of those things now. FireFox is no exception.
This seems like a lot of smoke and no fire to me.
Even writing a post, you're entering data through Firefox into the post box. We just don't consider that data. It would be pretty quiet around here if you couldn't do that...
Well shoot if Firefox goes I guess we’re back to carrier pigeons and smoke signals.
How about Orion?
Or just make NetSurf good enough?
NetSurf updates are very slow
NetSurf needs more developers, which is one of the reasons for the development pace, and I'm happy for every occasion to help them get more, so here's today's one.
(Mature software needs fewer updates than fresh software too, but that's probably not the most critical aspect here.)
I have really high hopes that Ladybird picks up the slack
Or make NetSurf good enough? It's mature (and lacking developers), Ladybird is not.
Time to switch to the Mullvad browser!
An alternative browser (not based on the Chromium) should be driven by the community (vide Proton).
Please pardon my ignorance on the matter, how does Mullvad compare to Brave?
The Mullvad browser is based on the gecko engine while Brave is based on chromium.
I dont trust Brave much because the ceo Brendan Eich is into right-wing politics and bitcoin.
Used FF forever, even though the birth and rise of Chrome.
We're done. The company I IT for therefore is also done. As are friends and family I sort computers for.
The shit now stinks and must be taken out.
Reading through their privacy policy, it seems pretty normal stuff to me... Even ensuring that more data stays local than other browsers.
This sounds like bad communication more than bad software.
This isn’t really even bad communication. This is idiots with a platform screaming FUD for attention.
WHY DO YOU NEED MY DATA TO MAKE FIREFOX WORK???
They don't care about your actual data, they care about how Firefox is used. That's an incredible important piece of information every developer needs to know.
How else do you get to know, what's working right and what doesn't? How do you plan development for the next years if you don't know what to develop?
This is about throwing millions of $ at the right thing. If you miss you are fucked.
If data can be abused it will be abused.
You use your own software and read bug reports.
That only gives you a biased and incomplete insight.
Oh no, does this mean that Mozilla doesn't give a damn about the privacy of their last twelve users? I.e. those who did not see that coming a decade ago?