AI Summary:
Overview:
- Mozilla is updating its new Terms of Use for Firefox due to criticism over unclear language about user data.
- Original terms seemed to give Mozilla broad ownership of user data, causing concern.
- Updated terms emphasize limited scope of data interaction, stating Mozilla only needs rights necessary to operate Firefox.
- Mozilla acknowledges confusion and aims to clarify their intent to make Firefox work without owning user content.
- Company explains they don’t make blanket claims of “never selling data” due to evolving legal definitions and obligations.
- Mozilla collects and shares some data with partners to keep Firefox commercially viable, but ensures data is anonymized or shared in aggregate.
Already uninstalled, I went with duckduckgo
Too late. That wasn’t a typo, Terms are going downhill from here. I’m gone.
Anyone have a decent Android alternative? Updated my phone last night and this morning got a notification that Firefox had full permissions for accessing my location data. I’d like to move away from Firefox before enshitification is in full swing.
I use Fennec
Righto, pop that on the list. Thanks 👍
Did you give it to it?
It can be a pretty nice feature for using map-based apps in the browser.
I haven’t used such websites for a while and I don’t see Firefox in the recent users of the location API, even though I use Firefox Android all the time. (Info available in Android under Settings/Location.)
Absolutely not. There’s not a single app on my phone that I willingly give unrestricted access to my location data. At most I allow “while using the app” and have my phone set to ask for permission for background running.
I switched to waterfox. Looks pretty much the same, no issues so far.
Try out Ironfox. It can be installed through F-Droid.
Dope, I’ll give it a go 👍
Mozilla collects and shares some data with partners to keep Firefox commercially viable
How hard is it to be specific? People are concerned about this, can they not tell us the exact data they share and with whom, or is doing so going to make people more concerned so they are avoiding telling us?
They can’t be specific in the legal note because that would close their options and prevent them from auctioning off every month to the new highest bidder.
They certainly could keep a page of what they’re currently selling to whom, but even if it was innocuous (doubtful) that would again put them in the news every time they changed it.
Tried and true legal strategy: say nothing and hope the attention goes away
they were effectively owning everything you fo in firefox, how is that nothing
this is them rolling it back cause of the outcry, they don’t want to admit it worked
The terms were never actually bad. This is them responding to the backlash, yes, but that’s just because everyone freaked out over nothing. They’re not “rolling back” anything, and this comment is just more disinformation.
The proof that even techies can confuse « rollback » and « fix ».
What’s the alternative for Android? Fuck Chrome I want to move off this shit onto something that actually gives half a shit about me.
Boy have i got a treat for you, Ironfox! the continuation of Mull
Will check it out, thanks.
Tor. Anything short is freely giving your data away. If you’re looking for something that isn’t based on Gecko or Chromium there is the DuckDuckGo browser, which is WebKit. I can’t attest to how good their privacy policy is though as I have no idea.
Tor Browser doesn’t include uBo (on Android at least) and their ad blocking is abysmal. Its great that no one can trace your IP but completely useless since it doesn’t do anything to block trackers.
Anything short is freely giving your data away.
Misinformation.
IronFox
Fennec on F-Droid, which is Firefox fork
A FOSS browser has and never will require collecting user data.
This should not happen at all.
What do you think a browser does?
The browser manufacturer doesn’t need a license to my inputs to process them and give them to the server it’s supposed to give them to. If you type a text in Libre office, does it ask you for a license to the text in order to save it?
No, but that’s a local program processing and saving data entirely on your system. It’s a world of difference from what a web browser does, which is oversee a whole suite of protocols connecting you to remote servers and transmitting data back and forth in requests that build on and reference each other. With the complexity of modern web interactions, there’s a ton of reasons why a browser might need to store your data and share it with others, even ignoring profit-seeking motives.
And let’s remember that the last thing Mozilla got heat for was the introduction of a method to anonymize bulk user data for sharing & selling purposes, as opposed to the granular, extremely invasive tracking that 99% of websites are doing these days.
I see a company that needs to make a decent amount of money in a crazy competitive environment, that’s trying their best to do so in the way least destructive to user privacy and choice.
Not even the lemmy instance you’re on needs a license to your content, and it is stored there and displayed for the world to see. Why is that? Because storing and displaying your posts is the very thing you want it to do. That is the service it is providing for you, and you declare that you want it to do that by clicking “send”. They would need a license if they wanted to do anything else with your stuff, which doesn’t directly have to do with displaying your posts in the fediverse.
The browser is supposed to take my requests and inputs, carry them to the server that I’m talking to and bring back the answer. The mail doesn’t need a license to my letters. That only changes if they want to open them and do something I originally had not intended.
But you know who claims a license to your content? Meta. Because you’re the product there, not the costumer.
And let’s remember that the last thing Mozilla got heat for was the introduction of a method to anonymize bulk user data for sharing & selling purposes,
as opposedin addition to the granular, extremely invasive tracking that 99% of websites are doing these days.Ftfy. It’s never going to replace more invasive tracking and just constitutes yet another party collecting my data.
I see a company that needs to make a decent amount of money
Mozilla already makes Enougn money from passive Investment income. They don’t need to make any money from Firefox at all (but they do, it’s from google). They also don’t need to pay their CEO 6 Million a year.
They have no business collecting any data in the first place. If I wanted my data collected I’d be using Chrome like everyone else. I’m not choosing to use their buggy ass inferior and slower browser for any of Mozilla’s services, I’m choosing it because I want to support non-Chromium browsers and regain my privacy.
There’s no point whatsoever to using Firefox if it’s just a worse Chrome.
Telemetry benefits everyone, knowing which features are getting used, knowing what parts are causing crashes… It lets developers target what to improve and fix instead of going in blind. I get that collecting data can be scary, because so far everyone has been busy selling that data. But there’s a reason why data is so valuable, if it’s properly handled and anonymized it benefits everyone using firefox.
It lets developers target what to improve and fix instead of going in blind.
I’m sure they’ll make do
I think it’d be less creepy if there was an easily accessible public dashboard displaying this telemetry. E.g. like counters showing how many people hide the bookmark bar. If you can instantly see what data your browser is sending in an easily digestible format (ie not a dump of JSON in a submenu), it’s easier to gain a quick understanding of the benefits vs minimal privacy tradeoffs.
But it really depends on trust: trust that they’re not collecting more than they claim, and trust that the data is properly anonymized. Mozilla has lost that trust.
No, fuck that and quit bootlicking. Software makers did just fine without telemetry for decades; your supposed justification is nothing but a bullshit lazy excuse.
Software makers did just fine without telemetry for decades
They actually did not, almost every software out there is mining your information. Software developers rely on and need data, you can’t guess what people want. Whether it’s from studies, testers, surveys, or telemetry, developers need information about what users like, what they don’t, how they interact with the software… This is what makes data so valuable, and why businesses like Google can exist. Denying open source software telemetry is shooting yourself in the foot.
. Software developers rely on and need data, you can’t guess what people want.
Why would I want software developers (particularly web browser) to guess what I want? I will tell them what I want, otherwise they have no business serving it to me.
If I’m not offering that data, it means I don’t want you to have it. Simple as that.
I will tell them what I want
You might, but 99% of users will never take a step towards giving any feedback whatsoever.
Yes, which means they don’t want anything from them. Rather than seeing those people as nothing more than potential profit, just move on.
Yes, which means they don’t want anything from them.
And yet they’re using the application. Don’t you want the applications that you use to work better? This is what telemetry enables, the ability to give feedback without jumping through 10 hoops, creating an account, responding to a survey, or whatever other method you’re thinking of to give feedback.
Me looking at Mozilla like: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GHShUPtagAANgks.jpg
Mozilla is soo stupid!
Most Firefox users use it only because of the values it upholds, and now they decided to destroy it. MF wouldn’t even have any any revenue once they betray their little existing users!
If they’re throwing away their values, then there is no reason to use Firefox anymore, BECAUSE OBJECTIVELY FIREFOX IS INFERIOR TO CHROMIUM.
And hopefully this accelerates development and support to fully alternate browsers.
You’re not totally wrong here, but the fact is that these updates are a complete non-issue that has only resulted in so much backlash because of the self-selected Firefox audience of people who know enough about tech and privacy to care, but not enough to understand what’s actually threatening. The updates were a minor change in language that didn’t change the status quo, but idiots like the guy who thinks that incognito mode somehow stops a site from gathering information on you flock to these articles and start crying doomsday.
Mozilla is the only big web company that’s even close to on the side of consumers and it’s sad to see them eat shit for no reason.
Too late for me personally, I’ve gone ahead and moved over to Zen.
cool, sounds good. (the Community gif where Troy walks into the room with Pizza, Pierce has been shot, and there’s fire everywhere)
Is there a way to generate fake data to feed to Firefox with an addon?
You’re probably just better going with a fork of FF that has all that nonsense stripped out.
maybe with anti-detection browser, there are with free-bee version, dont know if that will help . which basically lets you use proxies as well, and spoofs your fingerprinting. people who made of accts, or advertise on reddit uses these to evade reddit ban(until reddit made it harder to do so currently)
I’m eagerly awaiting the new version but I already like it. They now admit that they are sharing and sometimes selling private data (anonymized or not, same thing).
