Introducing a terms of use and updated privacy notice for Firefox • Hacker News Board

Re: Introducing a terms of use and updated privacy notice for Firefox

#101

Post by Daril » Thu, Feb 27, 2025, 4:26 PM UTC

quesera wrote: post #85

Daril wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, I agree. In fact they declare : "You give Mozilla all rights necessary to operate Firefox, including processing data as we describe in the Firefox Privacy Notice, as well as acting on your behalf to help you navigate the internet. 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,…

> It means they read and collect every bit of information we input in the browser It does not mean that. It means some lawyer is concerned that Mozilla is in possession of some kind of data that is subject to other regulatory claims in some country. This could easily be trivial, benign, or wrong. I'll be shocked if a clarification/correction is not issued within 24 hours. And I'll be shocked if some portion of HN doe…

"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."

Why should I give them the right to read the input I type or the upload I submit through Firefox (for example to a private web application) and use it to help me to do what exactly ?

They want collect the data we insert (private and personal) and sell them to the advertisers or to AI engines.

Re: Introducing a terms of use and updated privacy notice for Firefox

#102

Post by igor47 » Thu, Feb 27, 2025, 4:30 PM UTC

folks, this is NOT good. i guess we're generally at the mercy of big tech day to day, but with firefox in particular -- i use it almost more than any other software, and these terms seem particularly nasty.

i do think we can exert some pressure on mozilla here -- HN users are like 60% of the firefox user base. i recommend writing to legal-notices@mozilla.com to object to this policy. do it right now.

here's what i wrote, feel free to use it as a template:

Dear Mozilla,

I'm not just a long-time user of Firefox -- I'm a Firefox promoter. I've been recommending Firefox to all my friends, esp. since the Chrome privacy fiasco. I even pay for Mozilla Monitor just to support your organization.

I ABSOLUTELY object to your new Firefox terms of use. I DO NOT grant Mozilla any soft of license to information I "upload or input [...] through Firefox". This change is alarming and hostile. If you insist on rolling it out, there should be a clear opt-out in the browser itself. I strongly urge you to reconsider. Otherwise, I will be moving to forks, and urging others to do the same.

Sincerely,

Re: Introducing a terms of use and updated privacy notice for Firefox

#103

Post by Daril » Thu, Feb 27, 2025, 4:39 PM UTC

quesera wrote: post #85

Daril wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, I agree. In fact they declare : "You give Mozilla all rights necessary to operate Firefox, including processing data as we describe in the Firefox Privacy Notice, as well as acting on your behalf to help you navigate the internet. 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,…

> It means they read and collect every bit of information we input in the browser It does not mean that. It means some lawyer is concerned that Mozilla is in possession of some kind of data that is subject to other regulatory claims in some country. This could easily be trivial, benign, or wrong. I'll be shocked if a clarification/correction is not issued within 24 hours. And I'll be shocked if some portion of HN doe…

> It means some lawyer is concerned that Mozilla is in possession of some kind of data that is subject to other regulatory claims in some country.

Well ... they posses our data indeed ? And what ? The passwords should be encrypted and not available to them, Pocket is only a collection of links ... our bookmarks ? If they posses some other data it means they act as a middle man between the keyboard and the site we are visiting ...

Re: Introducing a terms of use and updated privacy notice for Firefox

#104

Post by horsawlarway » Thu, Feb 27, 2025, 4:39 PM UTC

aucisson_masque wrote: post #91

firefox is an open source software, i know it's great to bash it with the many questionable decisions they take but at the end it's still the least worst web browser and no one is entitled to having a free, ads free and privacy respecting web browser. the author shows that mozilla royalty-free, worldwide license TOS change is now similar to what google always had with chrome. To me as long as i understand the busines…

I think this argument is tired.

Mozilla is making decisions in lockstep with Google around privacy in the browser.

Chromium is also open source software, and you'll note that several forks of that codebase don't have this "we're going to train AI models on literally everything you do online" clause.

Hell - Firefox itself has several forks which are also less invasive.

---

> but at the end it's still the least worst web browser and no one is entitled to having a free, ads free and privacy respecting web browser.

No one is entitled to this - yet there are a good number of people who go out of their way to make this available. Use one of their tools instead of pretending that Mozilla is being "the good guy" here. They absolutely are not.

Re: Introducing a terms of use and updated privacy notice for Firefox

#105

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF » Thu, Feb 27, 2025, 4:48 PM UTC

mozball wrote: post #35

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case anyone is unaware... https://librewolf.net/

Genuinely asking : Who is behind librewolf and why should i trust them? They don't seem to be available in any official repos yet other than ones they self-published

> Who is behind librewolf and why should i trust them?

https://librewolf.net/#core-contributors

They also have links to join other community spaces so you can probably ask them yourself.

> They don't seem to be available in any official repos yet other than ones they self-published

The only official repos are the ones which the community decides are so. https://codeberg.org/librewolf They've been around long enough that if they're not on github (for example), it's probably intentional. (One can imagine why this particular community might prefer to avoid directing people to Microsoft-owned github.)

Re: Introducing a terms of use and updated privacy notice for Firefox

#106

Post by lenerdenator » Thu, Feb 27, 2025, 4:55 PM UTC

drpossum wrote: post #84

lenerdenator wrote: post #66

Mozilla needs to learn that when you're an operation running honestly as a non-profit and no one's getting rich (comfortable != rich, btw), there's nothing wrong with the donate nag in a blank new tab. Wikipedia figured that out long ago. They probably wouldn't be around without that nag box asking for donations.

There is something deeply wrong with the donate nag: The money goes to funding Mozilla-branded nonsense (e.g. misguided adventures into the VPN space), overpaid executives and bloated administration (as they actively shed developers [1][2]), and not the browser. I would considering donating except I can't donate to support what I would like to support. [1] https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-leadership-growt.…

That's the other problem:

Mozilla just needs to focus on Firefox.

Something about doing one thing and doing it well...

Re: Introducing a terms of use and updated privacy notice for Firefox

#107

Post by ryandrake » Thu, Feb 27, 2025, 5:14 PM UTC

lenerdenator wrote: post #106

drpossum wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is something deeply wrong with the donate nag: The money goes to funding Mozilla-branded nonsense (e.g. misguided adventures into the VPN space), overpaid executives and bloated administration (as they actively shed developers [1][2]), and not the browser. I would considering donating except I can't donate to support what I would like to support. [1] https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-leadership-growt.…

That's the other problem: Mozilla just needs to focus on Firefox. Something about doing one thing and doing it well...

Firefox needs to be its own thing. At this point all the "Mozilla Foundation" and "Mozilla Corporation" stuff and all the side quest software everyone seems to be rat-holing on, have nothing to do with making a great alternative browser.

Re: Introducing a terms of use and updated privacy notice for Firefox

#108

Post by hayst4ck » Thu, Feb 27, 2025, 5:24 PM UTC

ziddoap wrote: post #45

rightbyte wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is really unfortunate. My Firefox install lately added links to what could be considered not so nice sites for grandmas like amazon.com and hotels.com to the start screen. It is quite clear they see it as their program not mine program. I dunno for how long I will stick to using the least worst alternative. To go for custom builds would be giving up on Mozilla. edit: Toned down language

> scam sites like amazon.com Since when is Amazon a scam site ? I don't like em' either, but hyperbole doesn't help. For what it's worth, it can be removed in about 4 seconds.

Scam site was probably not very precise.

They have enshittified, and they don't have a quality anti-abuse team so many items, while not directly fraudulent are fraud-u-lish.

Commingled inventory means you can't expect the item you get to be the item you ordered because there is no supply chain integrity.

Honestly, after typing that out, I don't think scam was as wrong as it first seemed. I frequently feel deceived when using amazon.

Re: Introducing a terms of use and updated privacy notice for Firefox

#109

Post by ryandrake » Thu, Feb 27, 2025, 5:25 PM UTC

nh2 wrote: post #48

> You give Mozilla all rights necessary to operate Firefox Wait, now Mozilla operates Firefox for me and I can just lean back while they do the browsing? https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/legal/terms/firefox/ > When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license Really the whole document looks like it was copy-pasted from some SaaS template. Does…

> Wait, now Mozilla operates Firefox for me and I can just lean back while they do the browsing?

Yea, this is the root "shitty attitude:" This idea that programs 1. running on my computer, 2. loaded from my hard drive, 3. into my RAM, 4. outputting to my monitor, are, in reality "Operated by [COMPANY]." Fuck that. Just because you wrote the software, doesn't mean you're "operating" it. I don't want an ongoing relationship with my products' vendors. Their role is to make it and distribute it to me, from that point on, butt out!

Re: Introducing a terms of use and updated privacy notice for Firefox

#110

Post by drpossum » Thu, Feb 27, 2025, 5:42 PM UTC

Mozilla's messaging for the last few months has really reminded me of the old anti-smoking ads from the 2000s. Technically performing their responsibility, but actually extremely obnoxious because the people behind the funding didn't agree with its existence and actively degraded it for their own survival.