There’s quite a lot of discussion about Mozilla finally losing Google money soon, then this:
So maybe chasing the latest FF version is counterproductive? Seems like Mozilla finally went off the deep end? Thoughts?
So maybe chasing the latest FF version is counterproductive? Seems like Mozilla finally went off the deep end? Thoughts?
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I will start to worry when the source code will not anymore be available, buildable, hackable.
SailfishOS browser is equivalent to Libre wolf or other forks of Firefox. The layout and rendering engine won’t make any calls to mozilla anytime soon (although I did wish for a while that it would use their push servers, and we did enjoy their AGPS ones).
So, yeah, situation is FUBAR, but not yet for us.
(also, I don’t think “the deep end” means sinking or even going crazy these days. Can a native elaborate:p?)
I think Mozilla’s moves to get money are somehow equivalent to Jolla’s moves to get money: we don’t like subscriptions, nor do we like AI and why are they overselling the Reeder phone etc. Mozilla is like - we are testing if ads, or maybe AI, or maybe TOS changes,…
Situation is not very clear. Not sure of the alternatives - are the aforementioned moves just required to live longer instead of shutting down? What would you prefer if that would be the case?
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I think they were heading towards the cliff when they fired their security team (2020), but never the DEI (70% of mozilla foundation are women YAY Diversity & Inclusion at Mozilla: 2022 Results — Mozilla 30% to go, https://foundation.mozilla.org/pl/blog/a-gender-action-plan-to-make-voice-technology-more-inclusive/, http://mzl.la/GenderActionPlan, Mozilla Foundation Data Futures Lab Infrastructure Fund - ResearchConnect 2023 (The Mozilla Foundation is especially interested in receiving applications from project teams that include members of the communities their project aims to serve, and from members of the Global Majority or Global South; Black, Indigenous, and other People of Colour; women, transgender and/or gender diverse applicants; migrant and diasporic communities; and/or persons coming from climate displaced/impacted communities.) it goes on and on, they wasted so much money on this bs) then devs were always the cost cutting measures while keeping up their DEI initiatives, surely google bux are best spent virtue signalling and when the cash runs out just sell your users’ data, simple. Yeah, they were off the deep end long ago, but now it’s in a git commit (edit: and believe me as a 20+ years firefox user it pains me to say, but I believe it’s time to fork, chrome is not an option for main browser as googol is still probably worse in the grand scheme of things)
editXth yeah that really hits the spot https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/update-on-terms-of-use/:
The reason we’ve stepped away from making blanket claims that “We never sell your data” is because, in some places, the LEGAL definition of “sale of data” is broad and evolving. As an example, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) defines “sale” as the “selling, renting, releasing, disclosing, disseminating, making available, transferring, or otherwise communicating orally, in writing, or by electronic or other means, a consumer’s personal information by [a] business to another business or a third party” in exchange for “monetary” or “other valuable consideration.”
Yes, they are literally in the business of selling user data now (but it’s evolving kek)
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There’s no “kek”, she literally just explained the legal reasons why the phrasing needed to be changed.
Personally I’d like to see source links for the screenshot(s) provided before I trust anything I see here.
There’s been so much FUD about what - as far as I can ascertain myself - comes down to a change in phrasing in their privacy policy.
And if people really think Firefox was the most private browser until just now, well it hasn’t been for a long while. But it’s still the best major alternative, lends itself to forking, customising, extanding, add-oning… SFOS being a case in point.
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I wish people would stop spreading the FUD and supporting the FF smear campaigns that have been going on for a while.
FF and Mozilla are the last bastion against the WWW becoming a Google-only propriertary protocol.
Fight this.
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Who knows how many other enabled by default ‘features’ await in the next update, but it’s clear it’s coming from people who no longer promise to never sell your data
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Luckily its still easy to disable.
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You worry like we ever had FF (full blown) running on SFOS.
PS.
Yes it would be great to have firefox running on SFOS
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The list of about:config options to disable grows with each release and we do not have proper UI to turn these on/off, also big warning before you get to them, so it is hacky at best. Ironic that it seems hiring ex-Meta execs and ad-metrics company is what caused them to finally correct blatantly false statements. Maybe applying patches from librewolf is the way to go, they are using FF source and do quite a lot of work in identifying all these sneaky ‘features’, so some work could probably be saved this way, not sure if feasible or just better to apply some about:config overwrite on top
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Yes, it’s opt-out instead of opt-in.
But that stuff has been in all major browsers for years. Suddenly people get interested in this.
Can you disable it on Chrome or IE Edge etc?
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Dude, I know there are FUD campaigns and all, but reality is we went from:
We will never sell your data, it’s a promise!
To:
Ooops, our latest ad manager noticed we actually broke this promise loooong ago, who knows when heh, we try to strip PII, that’s all you get instead and we’re hopefully not gonna get sued if we fail, transparency be damned
Reality is sad and alternatives are worse, fully agreed, all we can do is acknowledge it and adapt to the current situation (and again agreed chrome forks from M$ etc are most likely even worse)
Edit: and yes, claiming a law from 2020 is ‘evolving’ definition of selling data that is forcing them to change wording is a PR statement, that definition is as standard as it can get, someone high up enough noticed they were lying for a while now and could get sued, oh no Mozilla removing a promise is FUD not fact, ehhh, don’t be evil fiasco 2.0
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I realized I’d have to reply to that exactly what I already wrote earlier.
Some people are just determined to be outraged by this no matter the facts.
No more, on ignore.
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I’m not very familiar with Firefox’s privacy settings (except the GUI ones), so could someone please post a list of the :config entries you should review?
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https://codeberg.org/librewolf/settings/src/branch/master/librewolf.cfg is probably a good source, some 30 settings in just telemetry section (though most are probably newer than esr91), worth also having a look at their privacy enhancements
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Personaly from about:config I have disabled everything that matches “tele” (telemetry).
I searched also for “tracking” etc.
Jolla however could review these and set them by default off ?
@Jolla could we have a statement on this? Is there anything in some agreement preventing setting the relevant configs to off by default?
Personally I believe its a good thing people discuss these, they become more visible and it means they are actually taking care of their own data.
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And also remove them from about:config, I assume?
Because I find Jolla Browser a bit crippled, in that part, compared to my desktop FF. Even considered that my desktop runs 128.*ESR.
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No, they should stay just with sane defaults (false/disabled), at least until a proper privacy/telemetry options are available under sfos browser settings to control them where you set up your default search engine etc (oh and just to be clear, I’m not even sure the telemetry is functional in our browser build, but even if it is currently broken an update could accidentally fix it, so at least sane defaults I think are in order, at least as long as no proper way to control these is in place)
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Disabling the telemetries really speeds up browser! Thanks a lot for this hint!
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Agree, Firefox is needed. Thanks to Mozilla Firefox I have an internet experience that is bearable. Can’t believe how people see and accept to experience the web. Including links I forward them that I wouldn’t forward if I knew how uggly their end’s experience is.
Strange that back in the days Altavista search overdid it, opening door for Google.
Microsoft also overdid it opening door for Mozilla.
Nowadays people are numbed by nervous crap overload it seems.
Fine for computer work but not when it projects onto medical solutions.
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Another source for informed decisions about about:config switches is the venerable Arkenfox config. Here’s the release for FF 91.
Important to note the existence of user.js (vs. prefs.js) in the profile directory. Read about how that works
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