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.
Too late for me personally, I’ve gone ahead and moved over to Zen.
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.
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Are you referring to Arc or to Zen?
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Zen had its latest release 5 days ago, and arc 4 days ago, so I have no idea what they’re talking about.
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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.
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.
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Mozilla is soo stupid!
Most Firefox users use it only because of the values it upholds, and now they decided to destroy it. MF wouldn’t even have any any revenue once they betray their little existing users!
If they’re throwing away their values, then there is no reason to use Firefox anymore, BECAUSE OBJECTIVELY FIREFOX IS INFERIOR TO CHROMIUM.
And hopefully this accelerates development and support to fully alternate browsers.
You’re not totally wrong here, but the fact is that these updates are a complete non-issue that has only resulted in so much backlash because of the self-selected Firefox audience of people who know enough about tech and privacy to care, but not enough to understand what’s actually threatening. The updates were a minor change in language that didn’t change the status quo, but idiots like the guy who thinks that incognito mode somehow stops a site from gathering information on you flock to these articles and start crying doomsday.
Mozilla is the only big web company that’s even close to on the side of consumers and it’s sad to see them eat shit for no reason.
Wait, you think using Firefox somehow results in them getting money?…
Yes, that’s why google is paying millions to be the default.
No, using Google makes Google money. That’s why they pay mozilla to be the default.
And they’re not going to pay millions to be the default for a browser that no one uses.
OK I think I see what you’re saying now:
If everyone leaves Firefox because of this, Google would probably stop paying them to be the default search engine.
I don’t see that as the biggest issue though. Once people are leaving, my guess is they’re just going to stop maintaining firefox regardless of how much money they get from Google. Cause why maintain a browser literally no one uses, instead of figuratively.
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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.
does this affect any fork of firefox? Like floorp?
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.
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.
I use Fennec
Righto, pop that on the list. Thanks 👍
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.
Try out Ironfox. It can be installed through F-Droid.
Dope, I’ll give it a go 👍
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I switched to waterfox. Looks pretty much the same, no issues so far.
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.
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this is them rolling it back cause of the outcry, they don’t want to admit it worked
The terms were never actually bad. This is them responding to the backlash, yes, but that’s just because everyone freaked out over nothing. They’re not “rolling back” anything, and this comment is just more disinformation.
The proof that even techies can confuse « rollback » and « fix ».
they were effectively owning everything you fo in firefox, how is that nothing
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.
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
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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.
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.
Truly an outstanding move
Never heard of this one before. too bad it doesn’t have a mobile version as well.
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.
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.
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.
Floorp is a new Firefox based browser from Japan with excellent privacy & flexibility.
💀
The magic of forking!
✨
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
