Found this notification this morning on my pixel 6.

  • @[email protected]
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    235 months ago

    Firefox engines have telemetry since old ages. Do you know what even crazier ??? even other firefox browser like fennec has Mozilla telemetry.


    PSA : disable it with Blocker (ROOT) for more privacy

    • JohnEdwa
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      5 months ago

      It has a mozilla telemetry component, but that doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily reporting to mozilla - which wouldn’t make much sense anyway - nor that it actually functions at all. Most telemetry components in Firefox can’t simply be deleted because it causes stuff to break, so they are replaced with stubs that don’t actually do anything.

    • @[email protected]
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      35 months ago

      For a novice, what exactly is Blocker (ROOT)? Is it an app, a setting, or a configuration?

      • @[email protected]
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        15 months ago

        Its app that you can downloaded in F-Droid, basically it’s a app that can control other app components. But before that you must Root/Unlock bootloader

    • JackbyDev
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      185 months ago

      Sending telemetry like crashes and what features you use/don’t use isn’t really in the same category as using location data for marketing purposes. It’s a very important distinction to draw.

      • @[email protected]
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        5 months ago

        There is: default search results on FF have always legally been sold to Google, the public didn’t know since there were no terms of service or mention by FF whenever they uploaded the android version on the playstore that their users data would be collected and some be sold. Position is one of the data that may be sold as it could be used by Google to dermine which localised version of the search result is the best one to serve

        And it’s not going to be Google in the future: it could be Bing, startpage, ecosia, qwant etc… As long as someone pays, then the results are sold and there needs to be a warning to users.

        • @[email protected]
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          5 months ago

          the public didn’t know

          That’s not true, for many years Firefox was basically financed by Google for being the default search engine, because Google didn’t want Microsoft to monopolize Internet Browsers. Everybody who had the slightest interest knew that.

          But that’s completely irrelevant, it’s a very marginal source of revenue today, and Firefox does not sell user info to Google. So it’s on Google to warn about using Google search.
          The only reason for the change in Firefox privacy terms was for clarification. For instance any information given to Firefox, does not grant Firefox ownership of it. (opposite of for instance Facebook)
          That’s a guarantee of user protection, not the opposite. Firefox has a very limited scope of “using” user data, like for instance storing links with Firefox, so they work across multiple devices.
          There is no “harvesting” of user behavior or information.

          https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/03/mozilla-rewrites-firefoxs-terms-of-use-after-user-backlash/

  • @[email protected]
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    75 months ago

    Are you aware of Firefox’s changes to their privacy policy that has been in the news the past 2 weeks? If not you can easily find articles and youtuve videos on it.

  • BetterNotBigger
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    4515 months 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.

    • Ulrich
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      5 months 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.

      • @[email protected]
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        15 months ago

        you’re right Google’s not worried.

        as for anti-trust, they’re already in sentencing phase.

        • Ulrich
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          15 months ago

          Given the current administration, I’d be very unsurprised if that disappears.

    • Engywook
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      5 months ago

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

    • Balder
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      315 months ago

      I wonder if they say people should be careful with Chrome 😂

      • @[email protected]
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        495 months 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.

          • @[email protected]
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            5 months 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]

            • @[email protected]
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              115 months 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.

              • @[email protected]
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                135 months 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.

                • @[email protected]
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                  45 months 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.

        • @[email protected]
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          85 months ago

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

      • @[email protected]
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        235 months 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.

    • @[email protected]
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      225 months 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.

        • @[email protected]
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          35 months 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.

    • @[email protected]
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      55 months ago

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

      • snooggums
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        5 months ago

        Yes, chrome is doing something different. It is even worse!

      • @[email protected]
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        5 months 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.

          • @[email protected]
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            5 months ago

            Zen, at least from the few times that I’ve tried it, also has some major issues that I personally find to be deal-breakers. Like forgetting tabs in a window that has just been closed. If you accidentally close a window that you’re working, without quitting the browser, you lose everything in it. As someone who is prone to doing that when closing a tab, it’s not ideal.

      • @[email protected]
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        935 months 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.

        • @[email protected]
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          45 months ago

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

        • JayGray91
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          185 months 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.

    • @[email protected]
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      95 months 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?

      • @[email protected]
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        45 months 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)

        • @[email protected]
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          25 months 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
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        235 months 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.

      • @[email protected]
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        25 months ago

        Society empowers and encourages shitty people that only care about their own kind/tribe themselves, is why.

    • @[email protected]
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      15 months ago

      My understanding is this is due to regions broadening the definition of “sell” to include any form of personal data transfer. So Mozilla giving location info (with consent if you enable “ask every time” in the permissions) to websites to look up local store hours or whatever is “selling data.”

      AFAIK, nothing has changed in Firefox.

    • piezzo
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      515 months ago

      i know, thats some really late stage capitalism bullshit.

    • Dynamo Maus
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      175 months ago

      It’s closed source and chrome(ium)(?) based. I’m not entirely convinced by Vivaldi.

    • Dojan
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      395 months ago

      Nope. That’s still chromium based and further serves Google’s monopoly on the web platform.

    • ORbituary
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      85 months ago

      No, it’s really not. Fuck chromium of all flavors.

      • @[email protected]
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        5 months 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
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      55 months 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

          • @[email protected]
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            45 months 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.

            • MaggiWuerze
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              35 months ago

              So Accrescent is more like the classic play store or Obtainium?

              • @[email protected]
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                5 months 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
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                  15 months ago

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

            • @[email protected]
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              35 months 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.

              • @[email protected]
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                15 months 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.

  • 52fighters
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    15 months ago

    Does anyone know if Blockada mitigates this problem on Android?

    • ORbituary
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      15 months ago

      Fine. I preferred Fennec over the two for quality of life and ease of use balanced with privacy.

    • @[email protected]
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      5 months 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.

      • @[email protected]
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        15 months 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.

        • @[email protected]
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          5 months 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.

          • @[email protected]
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            5 months ago

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

            • @[email protected]
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              5 months ago

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

                • @[email protected]
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                  15 months 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.