Mozilla responds after terms of usage, privacy policy change
www.theregister.com
: Open source browser maker ties itself up in legalese and explanations

The answer to “what is Firefox?” on Mozilla’s FAQ page about its browser used to read:

The Firefox Browser is the only major browser backed by a not-for-profit that doesn’t sell your personal data to advertisers while helping you protect your personal information.

Now it just says:

The Firefox Browser, the only major browser backed by a not-for-profit, helps you protect your personal information.

In other words, Mozilla is no longer willing to commit to not selling your personal data to advertisers.

A related change was also highlighted by mozilla.org commenter jkaelin, who linked direct to the source code for that FAQ page. To answer the question, “is Firefox free?” Moz used to say:

Yep! The Firefox Browser is free. Super free, actually. No hidden costs or anything. You don’t pay anything to use it, and we don’t sell your personal data.

Now it simply reads:

Yep! The Firefox Browser is free. Super free, actually. No hidden costs or anything. You don’t pay anything to use it.

Again, a pledge to not sell people’s data has disappeared. Varma insisted this is the result of the fluid definition of “sell” in the context of data sharing and privacy.

  • Technotica@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    2 months ago

    Soo… where do we go now? What open source alternative exists that is on the side of its users?

    • Lena@gregtech.euEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

      Just keep using Firefox. Nothing in the code has changed, and if it does you can switch to forks. You all are evangelizing about how important FOSS is to prevent this exact scenario and yet you keep switching browsers for no need at all.

      Note: I love Foss, I just think this is an overreaction

  • RejZoR@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1·
    2 months ago

    In Firefox, type about:config in address bar, search for “sponsored” and “telemetry” and set all the paremeters you see from TRUE to FALSE. Done.

    • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      We shouldn’t have to do workarounds like that in the first place. It’s getting to be like the Stockholm syndrome people have about Windows abuses. I didn’t put up that shit, and I’m not gonna put up with this either.

      • RejZoR@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        I’m running Linux and neither Waterfox or LibreWolf are present in repository of one of the most popular distros. Come on?!

        • s38b35M5@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          0·
          2 months ago

          If you are using a debian flavor, you can likely add extrepo that searches a central repo of repositories and can add them as needed.

          sudo apt update && sudo apt install extrepo -y

sudo extrepo enable librewolf

sudo apt update && sudo apt install librewolf -y
          • RejZoR@lemmy.mlEnglish
            01·
            2 months ago

            Why always this Terminal bullshit? Why can’t I just find it and click Install like a normal user and not like a fucking caveman?

  • qwerty@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    1·
    2 months ago

    Soon the only private option left will be to curl the website, read the html and picture it in my head.

  • Optional@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    2 months ago

    said Ajit Varma, veep of Firefox Product

    Pack up your shit, and get the FUCK out. You’re a fucking disgrace.

    • blind3rdeye@lemm.eeEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago
      • Mozilla is sliding down a slippery slope to enshitification; but they’re still near the top of that slide. The bad stuff hasn’t actually come yet. So Firefox is still top-tier in the short term.
      • In the medium term, we can look towards a fork such as Librewolf or Waterfox.
      • And in the long term, we’ll probably turn to a new project using Ladybird or Servo.
  • rumba@lemmy.zipEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    Given that this is a privacy community, I would think that it would go without saying, But I just like to point out, We should probably disable Firefox sync if were using it. Log out of Firefox accounts in the browser. Even if you’re not giving them telemetry they have all that data.

    You can use the x bookmarks sync plugin, Don’t make an account with them just use the un-logged in plugin to backup and restore your bookmarks between browsers. On the upside it’ll even let you copy bookmarks from Firefox derivatives to Chrome derivatives.

    Go down a comment or two and use Floccus, Just converted it’s wonderful

    at their location. However the want it