Google really needs to be broken up. They've become the Ma Bell of the internet.
this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2025
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https://thehackernews.com/2025/03/mozilla-updates-firefox-terms-again.html?m=1
Apparently they changed it due to backlash.
Glad they clarified. To me the "selling data being defined broadly" argument made sense in the context of Google paying them to be included as a search provider. Because there is an argument that Google paying Firefox, and then the user entering a search and that being sent to Google's servers could be legally seen as Mozilla selling data to Google.
I wonder how much this affects things if you’ve already gone through Firefox’s settings to max out privacy and turn off all telemetry.
I resisted switching to Librewolf because Firefox works great (including M365 in Linux at work) and seemed to have the options you’d want for privacy and security.
This doesn’t feel like an emergency, especially in a chrome/edge dominated world. But it’s back on the list of things to investigate transitioning away from.
Yep. It stinks. We'll see if it was just a fart and it'll go away or if they crapped and we'll have to jump ship.
Anyone still using Firefox after this probably hasn't been keeping up with Mozilla's many controversies. If this is your first time here, I can see why you'd decide to overlook it. I did for a long time, but this is the final straw for me. Luckily, instead of building anything useful over the past decades, Mozilla leadership has been instead focused on enriching themselves. That means deleting my Mozilla account right now was easy.
I've now moved to LibreWolf, because I don't want to support Chromium's dominance, but if that project dies out I'll jump ship. It'll be a real shame if the world gets stuck with Chromium as the only viable browser, but it won't be my fault. It will be Mozilla leadership's fault.
It makes me sad because I'm a donator and supporter to Mozilla - and have been for years. I truly believe the web should be open, free, and not for profit and there are great people at Mozilla which is why I hate seeing the leadership do things like this. I wish there was an active group that shared the same ideals, were ethical, and not full of transphobes and cryptobros that could take up the mantle and fund another fork like Librewolf.
Preferably would love that any group be a collective not a corporation.
I don't like this but it's gonna take more for me to switch. I am very happy with Firefox for my use-case and workflow it works really well. However I think they are shooting themselves in the foot by starting to take away some of the most crucial advantages with Firefox compared to Chrome. I mean if both are awful for privacy then why use Firefox?
Mind you, this is just step one and other steps WILL follow. Mozilla looked at other enshittified products from large companies that make a lot of money and thought "we could have that too!"
It's a pattern I keep seeing, over and over. This is the end of Firefox as we knew it. I'm sure a good fork, run by a non profit foundation will sprout soon enough, but the name for a privacy browser won't be Firefox no more
And what they say about being commercially viable is true, they can't die on this hill. It means death of complete privacy either way.
Mozilla are a non profit organisation. Their recent blog post says that they will invest in advertising to increase short-term revenue that they need to "grow". The blog goes on to talk about the increase in board members, and new leaders being added. The CEO and these new leaders are highly paid...
To me this looks bad. It looks to me that Mozilla's new leaders have pushed out the old; and are now moving towards advertising and selling user data not because they need it to stabilise and survive, but because they need it to pay the people making the decision to burn trust and reputation. It has become a top-heavy organisation, and greed has seeped in.
A few people will be self-enriched by this, and then the orgasation will be weaker as a result.
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so is this them trying to protect its users while adding nuance for the sake of legal protections, or is this them pretending to do that in order to profit off its users?
I moved to LibreWolf a couple of months ago. I'll move further away if I need to.
If Firefox is losing its footing as a privacy focused browser then where do we go? If your on Mac maybe Safari?
Any of the Firefox forks. This is Mozilla not Firefox that is making these decisions.
I don't get how something is allowed to be labeled "free" when the terms of usage make you barter your data.
There are different kinds of free. Free beer, free speech and free weekend are three different kinds of free that software can have, but not necessarily at the same time.
Mozilla posted an update:
Update at 10:20 pm ET: Mozilla has since announced a change to the license language to address user complaints. It now says, "You give Mozilla the rights necessary to operate Firefox. This includes processing your data as we describe in the Firefox Privacy Notice. It also includes a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license for the purpose of doing as you request with the content you input in Firefox. This does not give Mozilla any ownership in that content."
Why they need users ? If they operate Firefox by themselves why they not start paying for power usage for hosting Firefox on my machine.
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At least Ecosia plants trees, and the way those trees produce oxygen and absorb CO2 is a benefit to me.
so long firefox👋
Where are you going?
Tor/Mullvad are the only acceptable options if you genuinely want the best for your privacy. Mullvad browser is a bit less of a hassle than Tor but not by much. If adamant about staying away from Gecko (Firefox) and Chromium browsers then WebKit forked browsers are sort of the last options.
At this point I'm beginning to look at going online as something that is inherently dangerous (for lack of a better word) and that needs to be done with care. There is no meaningful way to stay private anymore, and by connecting and interacting you are always painting a target on your back with long-lasting consequences that we can't imagine yet. It's not looking great right now, my dudes.
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