sigh
No no, guys Mozilla are the good guys. They never did something nasty like bundling tons of spyware and 3rd party calls with Firefox nor adding unique IDs to every installation. Mozilla also acquired an ad analytics company recently for some reason.
bundling tons of spyware
I couldn’t find any info about this with a quick search. Do you have any links to where I can read more about this?
That is blatantly false. Don’t even waste your time.
I have this in user.js:
// settings user-test-programm user_pref("app.shield.optoutstudies.enabled", false); // dont use me as guinea pig user_pref("app.normandy.enabled", false); user_pref("app.normandy.optoutstudies.enabled", false); user_pref("messaging-system.rsexperimentloader.enabled", false); // side-loading of telemetry-extension user_pref("extensions.systemAddon.update.enabled", false); // disable Mozillas new tracking aggragation thingy user_pref("dom.private-attribution.submission.enabled", false,); // almost only for tracking useful user_pref("beacon.enabled", false); // so webpage can send (tracking) data before you close tab user_pref("browser.send_pings", false); // hyperlink auditing (click-tracking)Note: the last two are more nuanced.
Argument for beacon is that webpages will use a more intrusive way with noticeable delay to upload data on tab close. I personally prefer that, as a warning, but never saw one after years.
Argument for send_pings is, that trackers will use more mean and stealthier ways to track you, if they don’t have that interface (same as in private-attribution). I do know however, that companies who track you have high greed and low morale to begin with, and use all they can get to generate more money.
Just fire up Wireshark and inspect what Firefox calls, a lot of calling home and even if you change all the settings and config parameters to something sane it will still contact a 3rd party analytics company. Mozilla also acquired an ad analytics company recently for some reason.
adding unique IDs to every installation.
I wasn’t familiar with that so I did a quick search. For anyone else interested here is some info about it:
- Each Firefox download has a unique identifier -ghacks, Mar. 2022
“Internet users who download the Firefox web browser from the official Mozilla website get a unique identifier attached to the installer that is submitted to Mozilla on install and first run.”
[…]
“Firefox users who prefer to download the browser without the unique identifier may do so in the following two ways:”
-
Download the Firefox installer from Mozilla’s HTTPS repository (formerly the FTP repository).
-
Download Firefox from third-party download sites that host the installer, e.g., from Softonic.
“The downloaded installers do not have the unique identifier, as they are identical whenever they are downloaded.”
In the comments section someone says:
“It seems that getting Firefox from GNU/Linux repos (Debian, etc.), doesn’t come with unique IDs.”
Must be for ad attribution and install tracking. Only something a major portion of their users are specifically trying to avoid when they’re choosing Firefox.
Wtf happened in the last month? Everyone used to love and jerk off Mozilla and suddenly we hate them?
Nothing, not everyone liked it, the only difference is that my comment would result in a shit show of downvotes last week while not people are starting to realize what Mozilla/Firefox really is. Mozilla was never the “all savior” pained them to be and it only took Wireshark and a couple of minutes to see it.
Even if Mozilla/Firefox was at some point a healthy organization, the shear incredible disparity of power between Google and Mozilla/Firefox means that the probability that Mozilla/Firefox would remain a healthy, functional organization approaches zero over a long enough period of time.
This is a problem that needs legislative action to destroy Google’s incredible power and pseudo-monopoly control of search.
I am not saying Mozilla/Firefox isn’t toxic, but there a million ways that Mozilla/Firefox could end up a toxic entity and billions of dollars that are directly interested in that being the case so shrugs.
…but yeah I agree with you, Mozilla/Firefox definitely didnt turn into a shithole overnight, but until recently criticizing them has been very difficuly to do in a lot of circles.
Are they TRYING to speedrun losing their credibility?
It’s almost like they are intentionally trying to get in trouble.
I feel like the CEO of Mozilla is paid by Google to be as fucking stupid as possible.
To be fair I believe being as fucking stupid as possible is a prerequisite of being a CEO of anything.
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I genuinely believe that the Mozilla board is secretly working for Google. They already get most of their funding from that search engine deal, is a backroom agreement to slowly run the organization into the ground in order to force the last holdouts over to Chrome that hard to believe?
Don’t ascribe intention where incompetence is enough.
It’s better to treat incompetence as maliciousness, than to treat maliciousness as incompetence.
The benefit of the doubt should only apply in the absence of a longstanding pattern of behavior to the contrary.
IMO Mozilla has run out of goodwill.
IMO Alphabet has run out of goodwill by abusing their market dominance in a more overt way.
Looking forward to more aggressive action by FTC, note that tech donors have asked Harris for Lina Khan’s removal as a quid pro quo.
The key point is the courts only generally care about antitrust issues if they’re adversely affecting the consumer, and alphabet is starting to get into that territory.
Lina’s got her radar pointed…
Remember: Mozilla killed mozilla the app long before it killed Mozilla the company.
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It’s because the devs just don’t want to. Not really sure why, would be good to have that kind of interoperability.
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I more so meant Lemmy’s Devs allowing Lemmy itself to interoperate with Mastodon and allowing us to see content from mastodon here. I have no doubt that one could create an app that allows users to login to both Lemmy and mastodon accounts to see data from both, it would require special considerations when building the client though since Lemmy itself doesn’t allow access to Mastodon’s user posted content.
I just canceled my MDN Plus subscription. Man, Mozilla has been so disappointing recently. I have to wonder if Google infiltrated them or something.
Ok wtf is Moxilla doing? They know their company is built on good community perception, right?
I mean they’ve been pedaling AI crap for a while without negative backlash.
Similarly they tried to ride the Blockchain train back in the crypto scam days and also didn’t face any backlash.
They’ve publicly vouched to become an AI company and an advertising company without backlash.
I think most Firefox users don’t care
I think most Firefox users don’t care
Oh we care, but there’s no alternative besides Chrome and Safari and those companies are even worse (Google definitely is, anyway, Apple is debatable)
Luckily there’s still alternatives like Librewolf that unfortunately still use Mozilla’s browser engine.
I do hope the Servo project will be ready to use in a production browser soon.
Apple is definitely just as fucking terrible.
Hard agree. Apple’s ecosystem is primarily completely closed-source. If you abandon them or they abandon you you’re left with nothing. At least with open source-based projects like Chrome/Firefox you can fork the code and not have to start from zero against a goliath. Apple would never give its customers that kind of leverage.
They honestly have a monopoly in the sense that they are the only think not Chrome
If Mozilla really starts to go downhill, what are the chances we get a Linux kernel-style community fork that we can rely on instead? Curious why that hasn’t happened before – perhaps because Mozilla has always toed the line of not-quite-awful enough?
I just hope we can keep an alternative browser engine alive. Would be nice if some rich person would just set up a funding model that can pay a few devs to keep it going indefinitely without ads or spyware.
Check out AlternativeTo
I’ve been thinking of different browsers as well, but not sure which. Probably LibreWolf.
Def not Chrome or Safari though.
It’s one thing to tweak a browser that comes in kit form from Mozilla’s code. It’s another thing altogether to continue maintaining it if Firefox ever dies. I don’t know if any of these clones have the kind of teams needed to do all the work Mozilla have done for them.
Funny enough
Though with a target of 2026…
Its also sadly maintained by transphobic weirdos
The biggest obstacle to people joining Linux is all the Linux stans who don’t shut up about it
Teixeira worked for nearly 14 years at Microsoft in areas including developer tools and technologies, before serving as Facebook’s director of program management and design, and Twitter’s vice president of product.
According to the suit, Teixeira joined Mozilla in August 2022 with the understanding that he would ultimately be positioned to succeed Baker as Mozilla CEO.
[…]
Teixeira, 52, was diagnosed in October 2023 with ocular melanoma, a rare but treatable form of cancer. He took an approved 90-day medical leave through early February under the Family Medical Leave Act, the suit says.
Shortly before Teixeira returned, in early February, Baker stepped down as CEO, returning to the role of executive chairman. Chambers, a Mozilla board member, was named to serve as CEO for the remainder of the year.
So he’s basically fine, he just missed his chance to become CEO.
In the post OP linked from Teixeira, he claims they terminated his employment.
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Jesus isn’t rule number one of an employee suing you is to NOT FIRE THEM?
Seriously Monty Burns did this. Monty fucking burns. A cartoon villain
*Monte Carlo
Season 2 - Bart gets hit by a car. Bart gets hit by Mr Burns while skateboarding. Homer uses Lionel Hutz to sue his employer, Mr Burns for 1 million dollars. On receiving notice, Mr Burns tells Smithers to fire Homer. Smithers asks “Do you think that’s wise, sir? Think of the headlines”
It’s truly wild how hard of a heel turn mozilla has taken. I’m going to cancel my recurring donations to them, and get off all of their products.
Why would you donate to a company? I assume you are talking about the non profit
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holy shit you donated money to these wackos?
with so many OOS projects out there in need of funding, so many devs roughing it up, you donate to the advertising company Mozilla that has zero cash needs, they give million dollar bonuses to their executives every year.
Literally giving money to wacko rich executives
People are digging up a bunch of old shit right now
September 18, 2024 is “old shit”?
Well, it was already posted here, and i just saw an article from 2021 about something bad mozilla allegedly did
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It’s obviously orchestrated
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this week the chat has all been “Mozilla are going in the wrong direction , They’re selling out, they using AI, they’re hiring ad experts”. - all over xitter all over lemmy.
Now someone dug up this old story about teixeira Suing them, because he claims they demoted him because of cancer. A
With the scarcity of facts available at this stage , one thing we know is that both AI and advertising were championed by…. Texeira - ex of Microsoft, twitter and Facebook.
So, an alternate but equally plausible narrative, might be “Teixeira strayed to far into commercialisation, received a shitty performance review, and got moved out of his role”
Yeah especially if you look on reddit, it’s a handful of accounts with a very concerted effort.
Don’t get me wrong it’s shitty behaviour, but it’s also fairly obviously some are getting paid to suddenly do this.
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Right so what browser should I use now??? 😡
I am more and more satisfied with my decision to use Brave years ago despite all the haters.
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I’m not usually one to do this sort of thing but you’re saying the browser created by a guy who got fired from Mozilla in 2014 for donating to orgs against gay marriage is more ethical to use than firefox?
I’m saying using the browser that aims to put privacy first is better than Firefox, yes. I don’t really care about the past personal beliefs of the staff because that doesn’t actually make any difference on the product itself, it’s just virtue signaling. I’ll keep using Brave which values my privacy, you can keep using whatever the hell other browser you want that doesn’t. Simple as that.
Librewolf it is then.
Well considering Brave secretly whitelisted Facebook trackers in the past without telling people I’d say they’re not really the best option when it comes to the whole valuing privacy thing. That’s not about personal beliefs it’s about them doing things that deliberately compromise users’ privacy.
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So brave.
