Found this notification this morning on my pixel 6.
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Even if this isn’t entirely true, you know Google wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to reduce Firefox market share to scare everyone back to Chrome.
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Yes, chrome is doing something different. It is even worse!
That’s not the point they’re trying to make I think. It’s more of an attack on perfection. Like “the alternative is not perfect either so why not just stay with Chrome”. It’s not a very strong argument in general but it might be enough to keep people from switching.
the alternative is not perfect either so why not just stay
It does work for a lot of people. Seeing they need to change and adapt if they do change, and it seemingly seems to be as bad as what they’re using now, why change and face headaches and hassle.
No but where are you going to go. The options are shrinking.
Waterfox works great on Android.
Fennec on mobile. LibreWolf on desktop.
Zen browser is great on desktop
Zen, at least from the few times that I’ve tried it, also has some major issues that I personally find to be deal-breakers. Like forgetting tabs in a window that has just been closed. If you accidentally close a window that you’re working, without quitting the browser, you lose everything in it. As someone who is prone to doing that when closing a tab, it’s not ideal.
There isn’t to much to reduce. I don’t think Google is scared or afraid by Firefox, like at all.
There’s no need to reduce Firefox marketshare. Most people don’t even consider using anything else than whatever is default in their device.
Also, it’s not a Google scare tactic or a flex. Every application on the Play Store must disclose the general outlines of their data policy, including the sharing of data. Lying with those checkbox is not a good idea but they are completely informative and put there by the publishing party, so the people responsible for publishing Firefox on mobile just updated these, and this is what is shown when an app publisher say their app is sharing data with third parties.
tl;dr: it’s very likely that not a single soul at Google even looked at this, as this is just the regular behavior of the Play Store with apps that changes their data policy or indicate sharing user data with third parties.
I wonder if they say people should be careful with Chrome 😂
they don’t have to! they microsoft explorered that shit
Lol if Google really wanted to kill FF they would just stop paying them half a billion a year.
So you’re advocating that Google shouldn’t broadcast that firefox is broadcasting your current location? Even though they do this for every other app available on Android, you’re saying they shouldn’t do this for firefox?
Why?
This notice is effectively added by the Firefox developers when they select the ability to enable location services and also tick a box thay they collect data.
They want to scare people to stay on Chrome now that they discontinued support of uBlock (not that it was ever supported on Chrome for Android anyway)
God damn why’s the world so shit
i know, thats some really late stage capitalism bullshit.
It really is. Literally everything is shit and I’m so fucking over it.
God damn why’s the world so shit
Society empowers and encourages shitty people that only care about their own kind/tribe, is why.
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FWIW I’m not seeing this on the Play Store for Firefox 136.0.1 on my Pixel 8a, and I’m not seeing any warnings on Beta or Nightly either:
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I know, right, the fucking balls of Google to fucking say this
Because they are legally obligated to mention it?
This is not at all a pot kettle situation, there is no reason to warn about Firefox.
That’s a regular notification, which would happen for any application whose data policy is changed on the Play Store page. These policy are as declared by the app publisher. This would be the same for any application that didn’t check that “sharing data with third party” box earlier, then checked it later on.
As of the latest Chrome update on PC, they have dropped support for uBlock. You can still technically enable it, but they disabled it by default once you update.
That got me back to Firefox with breakneck speed.
Hopefully soon Librewolf, Fennec F-droid and other forks will become mainstream.
I haven’t switched to Librewolf on pc yet; hoping that turning off the telemetry/etc options in ff is enough, but I’m starting to think it might not be long.
Pretty easy to disable the location app permission or set it to ask every time. Firefox hasn’t asked me to enable it since turning it off.
Yeah I’m pretty sure Firefox won’t ask for or use your location, unless a website wants it for some reason (which is almost never a good one).
and even then, for me at least, the dialog that pops up is broken and lot of times the “Allow” button literally does nothing
Didn’t they also elude to collecting telemetry recently? I know it’s up for some debate but, if true, I’m not sure that’s a thing we can turn off.
So if Mozilla wants to monetize location data, what does this mean for all the custom ROMs that use Mozilla’s location provider instead of Google’s?
This might mean that we would have no true free location provider left.
Edit: just was thinking, what does this mean for Firefox forks that also use Mozilla’s location service?
Fork it, split it off, share it.
wait, mozilla has a location provider? maybe there is open street map, idk what’s the difference between a map and a location provider
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fennec vs ironfox opinions?
I’ve not heard of ironfox before this thread! Could you possibly link it? Doesn’t seem like it’s on FDroid or IzzyOnDroid
You have to add IronFox’s repo in F-Droid before you can install it from there. This is their Github link.
Thanks
In addition to what others have said, it can be downloaded from the Accrescent app store:
Never heard of that, what’s the benefit over F-Droid?
its for android, mobile.
Duh
Friendship ended with Firefox. Waterfox is my new best friend ❤️
Do they share location data without asking though? Google has an incentive to exaggerate.
use ironfox or fennec
Do they mean “Firefox can get your location data to pass on to pages you give permission to, who we cannot guarantee won’t share it with advertisers” or “Firefox reserves the right to do a deal to monetise the tantalising firehose of location data coming from your device unless you specifically opt out”?
I had already downloaded and installed Ironfox (FF Android fork) on my phone and have been using it for a week or so. It works identically to FF for android. Ublock Origin is working in Ironfox too.
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Mullvad is really for anonymous sessions. It’s meant to blend in with every other Mullvad instance on the Net so it helps make users harder to identify. It’s not geared towards daily use.
On desktop, I switched to Librewolf and installed the Dark Reader add-on.
I will continue using Firefox on Android because I have absolutely no illusions about my privacy on this fucking thing.
GrapheneOS is pretty good, as a more private alternative to Android, though the downside is that it’s only available for Pixel phones. I bought a used one on ebay.
I wonder if Square would still work, for example? I haven’t flashed open source ROMs on my phone since like 2012.
Honestly though, I just consider the phone a lost cause when it comes to privacy & use it accordingly. Uncle Googs is always watching, even when the damn thing is turned off.
