Not a good look for Firefox. Third partners and device fingerprinting clearly mentioned in the documents.
The move is the latest development in a series of shifts Mozilla has undergone over the past year.
The gecko engine and Firefox forks, such as Tor, Mullvad, Librewolf, and Arkenfox, are stables of private, open source web browsing.
In fact, Mozilla’s is one of the few browser engines out there, in a protocol-heavy industry that many say only corporate or well-funded non-profits can reliably develop.
What is more, daily driving the more hardened-for-privacy Firefox derivatives can be frowned upon by many sites, including your bank and workplace.
Mozilla’s enshittification leaves the open source community without a good alternative to Firefox, after years of promoting it as a privacy-friendly alternative to spyware-cum-browser Chrome.
I keep Firefox, brave, Librewolf, and Vivaldi All configured and loaded with my plugins and bookmarks.
When Google pulled out of Firefox funding I expected them to go down a dark path.
I don’t know that any of those choices of browsers are going to be significantly better than the others long-term. I’m also hoping for ladybug eventually.
LW doesn’t seem to play nice with some of my sites and some of my plugins. It’s the one I want most to work. The last time I tried it, delivering pass keys out of bitwarden in it didn’t work. And that kind of makes it a no-go for me. I should try it again though it’s been at least a year.
I’m pretty sure brave would sell my kidneys if they could. But they are the only one on the list that’s truly funded and they keep up with the Joneses on YouTube ad blocking. And there also probably the strongest browser for anti-fingerprinting at the moment.
Vivaldi seems to work okay but it’s just a Google clone, they’ve only dedicated to not enforcing manifest V3 for “as long as they could.”
Does using a fork like Librewolf and Ironfox keep you safe from this?
Well it’s been a nice time while it lasted but this should be a lesson that nothing is safe from enshitification and corruption. Fortunately there are a few options till something better arrives. Personally I’m waiting for Ladybug
Which Firefox fork do people recommend? Ideally it should be available as Flatpak, keep the Firefox version number and not have a separate user-agent.
LibreWolf seems to be the best on first glance? https://flathub.org/apps/io.gitlab.librewolf-community
Hm, I might switch to this, this article worried me a bit
Zen seems to have picked up a lot of privacy improvements but it’s a pretty small team doing a lot of ambitious work. I like it, but it’s got a lot of (minor, mostly aesthetic) bugs.
I use mullvad for stuff I really don’t want a record of (for as much as that’s possible)
On the chrome side, Vivaldi (former opera before they sold out to china) is a good browser, but even more ambitious and even more buggy than zen. It has a built in email client. Like, who does that?
It has a built in email client. Like, who does that?
Like Seamonkey! 😂
I switched to LibreWolf after seeing these news. It’s been working just as well as firefox and you can adjust the privacy functions as much or as little as you want.
I appreciate the recommendation. I’ve been using Firefox for many years but I admit it’s time in the sun is over. It hurts to leave it behind but I guess nothing lasts forever.
Goodbye old friend
I wish librefox would come to android
Librewolf is the best ✅
I started using Zen today, it seems fine. If you’re privacy conscious librewolf is definite the best
People are saying it is Bad News
So, uhh, you want to tell us who is saying it’s bad news?
gestures vaguely in a direction
Ehh, people, you know?
I have the feeling people are overreacting to anything Mozilla does these days, just to have an excuse to talk people into using (politically?) worse browsers.
Your mastodon feed might be different that mine, lmao
Can you be more specific than pointing in a vague direction?
This is trolling. It is beyond self-evident that the Open Source fediverse has thoroughly criticized the latest Mozilla move. I myself point out device fingerprinting and third party vendors. You respond to neither approach. You want me to do homework and quantify the sentiment on the trending Mozillla hashtag? Sealioning. Diigressing the topic of conversation? Report and block you sad impotent spook troll.
I was on your side until this message.
Onus probandi.
You make the claims, you serve the proof. You can’t point at a vague, general direction and go “here, proof!”. Especially not a social media feed, that’s the most subjective, volatile “proof” you could provide.
Quote me the text, in its full context, where it says that Mozilla is selling the data they are “now collecting”, or that it was optional for them without degrading services. Because I can’t find it.
All I see is data that Mozilla is required to collect to provide existing services, they are now putting it in black on white. I don’t really care what the “general opinion” is, opinions do not automatically become facts once sufficient people hold them.
I’ve seen Mozilla do bad stuff, this is just a very standard privacy policy update. Let’s criticize them when they actually deserve it, and encourage them the rest of the time.
Also, nice strawman instead of simply answering my question. 🥰
On the contrary, I think this is a responsible way to operate. The terms of use apply to the Mozilla distributed binary, not the open source version and open source forks, and I don’t think additional terms shut them out of that. The privacy policy is clear, concise as can be and links so that people can jump directly to what is being collected.
If Mozilla wants to limit their use of my input, why the do I need to give them a full, non-exclusive license?
Have you considered what is driving this change?
Looking from the sidelines, I think it’s all about money, specifically, how to make the development of Firefox sustainable. Yes, I’m aware of the cynical view that this is about lining the pockets of the CEO, I have no evidence for this.
I think that’s essentially caused by how we have licensed open source software and had limited resources to combat abuse at the industrial scale that silicon valley companies have monetized other people’s work.
Bruce Perens is attempting to erect “Post Open”, but I’m not yet sure if that is going to solve the fundamental issues.
Disclaimer: I’ve worked a little on the community standards document for the post open project.
Being halfway between both sides, I can see the need for a monetary model to sustain development, yet I am challenged by the opacity that this feels like. The OP’s point that it feels like a downward slide toward principles compromise is challenging. Especially in light of the enshittification of everything lately, Mozilla needs to do a better job communicating how this is not going down that path and yet also trying to sustain itself.
Centrism is apathy and sucks
Reductionism is lazy and sucks. You didn’t even read the comment you responded to, you’re just mad that not everyone is upset enough for you.
No, not particularly. I’m not that upset myself, I recently switched to Librewolf. I just get annoyed at what I perceive as statements that ride the fence. Privacy is not a place to give ground on.
I suppose Mozilla should lock the doors and institute slave labor rather than find some way of paying their employees that might be construed by you to be giving up privacy
Now that’s a mental leap to get there.
Oh, I thought we have to take extreme positions
Did it ever occur to you that people can have a mix of views that don’t fully conform to one ideology or another? It’s a spectrum, not riding the fence. Like politics, not everything is a team sport.
That’s an idiotic statement. Realism or understanding what realpolitik is in a political situation is far more likely to allow you find and develop change in an organization, as well keep you from wasting your time on useless leverage points. In this case knowing both frames of reference is valuable so that action can be taken, as opposed to just writing five words.
Privacy and defending it is a worthy thing to have an ideological stance on.
I’m looking into Ladybird browser that everyone here is talking about and I can’t find anything about when they will release something.
Alpha will drop around 2026[site], but they have several contributors so who knows. Compiled it a few months ago at it was just a browser without engine, not sure how much it developed now but I’m hopeful
Keep an eye on it, but it’s not ready yet.
Time for Ladybird to release their first alpha?
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The choice of C++ + Swift feels strange and off-putting to me. Swift, at least, is pretty safe as languages go, but does leave me scratching my head a bit. C++, though, frankly should have no place in a new browser project. For a piece of software whose whole purpose is to essentially download and run untrusted code, C++ is unacceptable.
It’s realistically not gonna happen, but what I’d really like to see is Servo developed into a full browser.
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Yeah, I know the history. And if they fully switch to Swift and manage decent performance, that would be acceptable, just strange. And it would also be fine to use whatever language if it were only a hobby project. I just reject the notion that C++ is an acceptable choice for new projects in security-critical positions.
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Yeah, it was ok when the project started. The issue begins once it transitions from a toy to a potential competitor with Firefox.
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And as I said, if they manage to entirely switch, I won’t have reservations.
As far as security in extant browsers and C++, see here: https://www.chromium.org/Home/chromium-security/memory-safety/
The Chromium project finds that around 70% of our serious security bugs are memory safety problems.
It’s a serious issue.
Correct me if I’m wrong but ladybird is focused on a new browser, and not a new browser that is privacy oriented? Their language is pretty specific about donations and independence, but I didn’t catch anything that specifically denotes privacy.
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Looks like Mozilla has decided they can no longer ignore the money they can gain from having more and more data to sell.
Joining Google on the ad/data sales Evil Side.
🤷♂️ 🤷♂️ 🖕
Will be very sad if they continue down this slippery slope. I guess my last donation will stay just that 🫠
