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Introducing a terms of use and updated privacy notice for Firefox

blog.mozilla.org

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

#381

Post by DoingIsLearning »

userbinator wrote: post #151

The other WTF is here: Your use of Firefox must follow Mozilla’s Acceptable Use Policy, and you agree that you will not use Firefox to infringe anyone’s rights or violate any applicable laws or regulations. Acceptable Use Policy links to https://www.mozilla.org/about/legal/acceptable-use/ which says "You may not use any of Mozilla’s services to[...]Upload, download, transmit, display, or grant access to content that…

> I recommend switching to an alternative browser which is only a browser, like Dillo, Ladybird, or Netsurf.

Did not know any of those alternatives thanks for sharing.

After a quick online search, I see they could work for casual browsing and it's great that they don't rely on Chromium

But do you think these can be a full browser replacement without extension ecosystems like ublock origin et al.?

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

#382

Post by rich_sasha »

It's all so strange. I would happily buy Firefox, either as a one off, or as an annual license, and be done with all the weird license nonsense - presumably they want to sell data to pay the bills.

But instead the choice, realistically, seems to be between giving all my browsing data to Google and to Mozilla. And Chrome works marginally better... :/

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

#383

Post by mzajc »

yupyupyups wrote: post #377
itake wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Firefox (including derivatives) is by far the most fingerprint resistant Do you have a source? The fingerprint detectors [0] as well as reddit's banned/duplicate account system suggests otherwise. Maybe at one point Firefox stopped the fingerprinting, but the tools have quickly found other ways to uniquely identify me. [0] - https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/kcarter?aat=1 https://firstpartysimulator.org/kcarter?&aat=…

Try Mullvad Browser or Librewolf, both of which are derived from Firefox. These projects are made possible because of Firefox's customizability and feature set. Firefox has a fingerprint resist toggle that may not be on when using vanilla Firefox.

Worth noting is that many of these features come from the Tor Uplift project[0]. I'm not sure if they'd exist if it weren't for Tor's work.

[0]: https://blog.torproject.org/tor-browser-advancing-privacy-in...

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

#385

Post by mort96 »

ivolimmen wrote: post #302
jmward01 wrote: post #299

I am, unfortunately, looking at alternative browsers because of this. Firefox was the best fit. Big enough that they could reasonably keep up but not one of the corporate browsers that I have 0 trust in. It wasn't perfect but it was better than chrome for sure. Browsers are like cars now. It is becoming impossible to buy a new(er) car and have your privacy respected, but it is unreasonable to expect any normal life (…

LibreWolf? It's Firefox without the Mozilla branding

I switched to LibreWolf over this, and it's good so far. A couple of things:

* I had to switch off the fingerprinting protection. For me, running at 60 FPS and without automatic CSS dark mode detection isn't worth whatever fingerprint resistance it provides. Sadly, you don't have granular control over RFP, you have to turn it off entirely.

* It doesn't have Google Search available by default, but it turned out to be fairly straightforward to add. DuckDuckGo is just too slow to load for me compared to Google, and their AI integration is stupid. Google doesn't have AI answers and text fields like DDG does in my region.

* Their implementation of container tabs don't seem to support automatically opening certain URLs in certain containers, which is annoying. Maybe I can get the official container tabs extension working, but I kinda wish LibreWolf either had proper container tabs or left it out in favour of the Mozilla extension.

Otherwise, it seems great. I found it hard to pick between all the different Firefox forks and rebrands, but LibreWolf seemed like one of the more serious ones and I don't regret going with it.

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

#386

Post by DoingIsLearning »

How much of a financial effort would it be to have some non-profit take a fork of Icecat and Fennec F-Droid, and just maintain a browser for the actual free world (akin to codeberg for example)?

i.e. if we strip down all the corporate overhead what would be the annual cost of maintaining a European sane version of 'land of the free' Firefox?

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

#387

Post by noirscape »

kennysoona wrote: post #168
noirscape wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh interesting, I'll check it out. Searching around a bit, this fork does seem to meet the criteria I was looking for (plus a few hidden ones like project age; it's a couple years old and still being updated, which means the dev is willing to put the work in as opposed to abandoning it when they get bored). The blocker on widevine being Googles fault (while still supporting L3 out of the box) rather than deliberate "…

> The blocker on widevine being Googles fault (while still supporting L3 out of the box) rather than deliberate "we're not even going to try" is much more acceptable than the Librewolf one. I don't know, I think not caving in to support some proprietary BS is pretty justifiable.

Proprietary or non-proprietary isn't something I particularly care for (maybe 10 years ago I'd have cared, but I'm just a good deal more cynical these days I suppose). I just want a browser that works and doesn't actively try to screw me over.

There's nothing stopping Mozilla's current descent into stupidity just because Firefox is non-proprietary free software; they have enough engineers and manpower on their end to overtake any forks in development speed (which limits any forks to trying to stay in sync with either upstream or ESR.) Chromium is as a browser non-proprietary too, but that didn't stop Google from getting rid of declarativeNetRequest, leaving the forks mostly powerless to do anything about it because they can't hard fork Chromium.

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

#389

Post by lukan »

gf000 wrote: post #379
lukan wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Actions speak louder than words. " Indeed. Talking about privacy and having spyware and ads activated by default and now this probably to legally safeguard this and more speak a very clear language. The only reason to still use FF is indeed, that the competition is worse in this regard. But that will change, once Ladybird becomes mature enough.

Pinging a Mozilla server to see if there is an active and usable internet connection is not spyware, let's stop with these useless accusations. It's a product which optionally does accept some help from the users, e.g. opt-in error reports, which is a huge help. Certain people consider that a blatant violation of their rights for some reason, and they would apparently rather see the last bastion of a non-chrome inter…

"Pinging a Mozilla server to see if there is an active and usable internet connection is not spyware, let's stop with these useless accusations."

No, but have you checked your firefox settings lately?

Meaning in the last 5 years or so? (Probably has been longer by now)

Some updates brought "allow firefox to install and run studies".

That sounded like experimental features, but were in reality spyware to study the user behavior to sell that data to ad companies.

It is still there. And a more blatant checkbox by default also arrived lately. (I think just in forefox mobile)

And then there are ads activated by default.

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/#health-report

"How is your data used?"

... lots of seemingly innocent technical blabla

and then

" Firefox also shares information with our marketing partners to measure and improve these campaigns; what information is specifically shared varies (depending on how you discovered Firefox and your operating system) but generally includes how you were referred to our download page and whether you actively use Firefox. Where Firefox is pre-installed on your device, technical and interaction data (your device type and whether Firefox is used) will be sent to our marketing partners, and shared with Mozilla."

Lots of words and details to hide the kind of important detail, that they do sell the data by default how you browse the internet. What websites you use, how long etc.

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

#390

Post by mort96 »

tpoacher wrote: post #376

Clickbait title. I have read what is linked there and it claims no such thing. At best, if you read through the notices, input data can be used to train personalised AI chatbots (running locally) IF you give your consent at the time of activation. There's a lot of vitriol in the comments below but nobody seems to have read what is linked here.

The only inaccuracy in the title is that it used the word "owns" as short-hand for "gets a broad license to use". Which isn't unheard of: we talk about owning a copy of a piece of software or music for example even though what we have is a perpetual and broad license to use it.

I wish the title didn't use such hyperbole, but it's closer to true than to false.

> 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.

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