Please do criticise #Mozilla – we need an independent, privacy-preserving, feature-rich web browser, not another tracking-infested piece of garbage software.
However, the frequently expressed opinion that “Firefox should be abandoned because Mozilla is the worst bullshit company” is not helpful. Without #Firefox, all your favourite forks (Tor, LibreWolf, Zen…) would struggle to survive and the Google-Apple complex would fully control the browser market.
New Mozilla TOS diff. This is what they just removed:
* Does Firefox sell your personal data?
> 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.
The purpose of the new TOS appears to be to enable them to do this - such as for their advertising and AI sidelines.
"When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox."
so, let it be clear:
I DO NOT CONSENT to Mozilla Corp. accessing or using ANYTHING i type in my browser, whether to serve ads, train LLMs or ANYTHING.
On Wednesday, Mozilla introduced legal updates to users of Firefox, and something feels off. I read, and re-read the new Terms of Use and while much of it reads like standard boilerplate from any tech company, there’s a new section that is unexpected…
Of course, this doesn't make sense, it couldn't be just like that... so I went on and read the terms. The trick is specifically on this bit:
"These Terms only apply to the Executable Code version of Firefox, not the Firefox source code."
So sure, Firefox is still the Free Software codebase you were used to, only now if you want to use not the code but Mozilla's distributed binaries, you'll do so while also agreeing to some Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
The trick is, of course, to not use their binaries. In practice, things are a bit trickier. Ubuntu, for instance, was more than happy to ditch their self-compiled Firefox packages and use Mozilla-provided snaps instead.
But trickier or not... well, Mozilla has just made an unhappy user base unhappier - and I hope they reap what they are sowing.
General rule of thumb: Every time an organization updates their terms of service and/or privacy policy, it is never because they have your best interests at heart.
Setting aside the "worldwide license" bullshit, the privacy policy appears to have broadened both the classes of data Mozilla aims to collect, and the situations in which they collect them.
These are not the actions of an org that cares about your privacy.
I'm using #zenbrowser as a casual replacement to Firefox atm. The native customization options are a big feature plus for me. #arkenfox user.js can be applied to any #firefox fork.
In the future #ladybird could be a good option, lets see...
Vivaldi with uBlock Origin Lite and the built-in blockers turned on works well, and overall, I trust the company, even if I don't prefer their browser. At least they're a European company with all the protections included.
Firefox, on the other hand, does have the reputation. I'm concerned about their direction though, and I have concerns about AI. If they develop it for localized translations, that's not too bad. As for advertising, I understand they need to find an income stream that's not Google, and if the ads are based on the site being visited, not on user browsing history, that's fine. I expect to see ads for beer and trucks when I watch sports, so why not ads for music-related companies if I visit a music website.
I've been using #Firefox derivative #Zen #browser for a couple of months, and am very happy with it. As a refugee from #Arc, I love the similar tab UI and the split-screen view. And it has all of the #privacy features of Firefox, with none of the #chromium
Gestern habe ich erfahren, dass #Mozilla in "privatsphäre-respektierende" Werbung investiert. Ich bin da etwas skeptisch; #Privatsphäre und #Werbung stehen sich irgendwo diametral gegenüber. Darum habe ich mich mal nach Alternativen umgelesen. Dabei bin ich auf #librewolf gestossen, ein Fork von #Firefox, mit dem Schwerpunkt auf Privatsphäre und Sicherheit. #UBlock und weitere Features sind standardmässig mit an Bord. Werde ich wohl die Tage mal antesten...
I'm baffled about the myriad of @mozillaofficial structures, amount of directors / C-level people & how to rhyme 'investing in privacy-respecting advertising; with 'draw a bigger circle of supporters over the long run.'
As a long time Mozilla supporter, I was already unhappy about the direction of the last years & this does certainly not bode well for the future. 😞 😩
Unfortunately, this year I could not join nor organize any in-person celebration, BUT of course I want to share my gratitude to the many, countless #FreeSoftware services I don’t merely use, but actually depend on.
Last year, I decided to focus only on #YunoHost, because it would have been crazy to list all the projects I use and I love.
This time, even if I will most certainly forget someone, I am challenging myself to mention all the #LibreSoftware my life is powered by.
#Obtainium, for making me directly download apps on my phone, and @fdroidorg for distributing them
#AuroraStore, for proxying the download of apps I am doomed to get from Google Play
@element, for developing #Synapse, even though the new proprietary Synapse Pro is VERY PROBLEMATIC AND DISAPPOINTING
#Fractal, for being the most beautiful and awesome #Matrix client ever
@signalapp, for keeping me connected with the people I love
@Mastodon, for also maintaining a feature-packed experimental fork (#GlitchSoc), that is what Pan runs
#Tuba and #Moshidon, for being the most beautiful and awesome #Mastodon clients ever
#Firefox, for still remaining the best possible #browser choice, despite #Mozilla’s governance messiness
@openstreetmap, for allowing us to find the right path, both literally and metaphorically!
@organicmaps, for being the simplest, cleanest, yet feature-rich #OSM client and navigation app
@protonvpn, for making me browse safely from/to anywhere in the planet and @protonprivacy #ProtonMail, for hosting my email, despite the latest alarming political statements…
@libreoffice, for allowing me to draft documents with ease, the last of which was my #CV
#LanguageTool, for preventing me from making embarassing spelling mistakes
@photoprism, for safely storing and indexing all my photographic memories, on Aby, and for providing stellar and friendly support too!
#Actual, for moderating the very likely risk of ending up completely broke, since it forces me to manage my finances consciously and coherently
@readeck, for storing and sorting ALL my varied and overwhelming inputs
@nextcloud, for storing and synchronizing my data, for its #calendar, its #tasks, and all its awesome apps
#Rustdesk, for preventing my friends and family members from going crazy, by allowing me to remotely connect to their devices and directly address the issues they have
@forgejo, for giving us a chance to truly control and collectively develop the sources of our software, but most importantly @Codeberg, for RESISTING, RESISTING, RESISTING, despite the hatred and attacks nazi assholes throw at them
@musicbrainz for keeping music knowledge open and free, and @ListenBrainz for scrobbling the crazy music I listen to
The @fsfe, for promoting this celebration and fighting the good fight!
Lastly, but most importantly, the biggest thank you goes to all the free software libraries and dependencies the above mentioned #software are made of/built with, including #C, #JavaScript, #Python, #Rust, and all community-maintained programming languages.
It may be late, but combined with CRLite (and its other Web PKI progress), it may soon be the browser with the most robust Web PKI support.
While I would still say that Chromium generally wins on the security front, I’m happy to see the gap narrow with time and to see Firefox occasionally inch ahead in some areas.
Firefox 136 looks poised to enforce Certificate Transparency. It may be late, but combined with CRLite (and its other Web PKI progress), it seems to now be the
Muss jetzt mal #NextCloud lobpreisen 🙌 . Betreibe seit einigen Monaten eine Instanz und bin relativ begeistert. Die Apps bieten echt ne große Vielfalt an Funktionen, Sync von Kontakte, Kalender, und #Firefox Lesezeichen, alles kein Problem. Und die Kosten von so einer Strato #LinuxVM sind auch sehr überschaubar.
Mit der beliebtesten selbst gehosteten Kollaborationslösung für Millionen von Benutzern, eingesetzt von mehreren Tausend Unternehmen auf der ganzen Welt
This RAM consumption test between Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Opera browsers demonstrates which one consumes the least memory. Spoiler alert: Firefox won by a mile.
Common knowledge holds that Google Chrome will chew up your computer's RAM and spit it out, but is that true? We put four popular browsers to the test.
Fewer people than ever use the once popular web browser, but Mozilla remains profitable thanks to Google. How long can that trend continue with the Department of Justice coming after Google?
Even huge company like #google sucks in #UX so much. This is an embeded video on a random page. Yeah, I use #firefox containers, and everything google related is opening in one specific container to limit their spying on me. I opened the page in different container, thus I am not signed in. Well ok, give me the link to the youtube video and I will watch it there? In the right container? Youtube UX: no link to the video, but here you can watch some different stuff...
The Joy of Coding returns today with Episode 378! Come join me while I #livehack on #firefox !
In this episode, we're going to continue to document a fairly complex chunk of code - the code that powers the customization state of the toolbars and overflow panel!
So... #Signal and #Wire, which both have issues, but not #Matrix / #XMPP? And for video, 2 #YouTube front ends and a proprietary YouTube clone, but no direct mention of #Peertube? And for Translation, the proprietary #Deepl, but no mention of the local and #Privacy respecting #Firefox #translate
I appreciate the intent of this post, but the research is... outdated at best.
Sagt mal, #Firefox testet ein lokal laufendes #KI-Modell , um #Alternativtext generieren zu lassen – ein Feature, nach dem niemand gefragt hat, insbesondere darauf Angewiesene nicht, und das #Inklusion eher verschlechtern wird, weil warum dann noch als Mensch Alternativtexte schreiben?
Are you sick and tired of websites, especially technical ones that have complicated commands or code snippets, preventing you from copy/paste? Here's a fix that website owners HATE!
Open Firefox (because you shouldn't be using anything else), and in the Awesomebar, type in "about:config" and press enter. Accept the warning. Search for the option "dom.event.clipboardevents.enabled" and set that sucker to FALSE.
Wait a damn minute, look at that pull request discussion and the diff as committed… the CTO of #Firefox has amended #Mozilla's "Neutral" position regarding #JPEGXL to indicate that their "cost" concerns are mainly about the security risks of a decoder being 100k lines of C++, and that they would be "open to shipping" a memory-safe decoder that meets their requirements?
And some folks at Google are going to write that implementation in Rust?!
｢ the world's largest websites are owned by the same company, which also owns the world's most popular browser and search engine. Coincidentally, they are also the world's largest advertising company. And people are wondering why they can't block ads on YouTube anymore ｣
"Google snažil uzavřít dohody s mobilními operátory, aby získal silné výchozí pozice ve smartphonech a ovládl v nich vyhledávání. Tvrdí také, že #Google platil deset miliard dolarů ročně bezdrátovým společnostem, jako je AT&T, výrobcům zařízení, jako je Apple, a výrobcům prohlížečů, jako je #mozilla aby se zbavil konkurentů a udržel si podíl na trhu s vyhledávači."
Jestli to projedou tak to možná bude poslední hřebíček do rakve pro #firefox :D
