Hot off the back of its recent leadership rejig, Mozilla has announced users of Firefox will soon be subject to a ‘Terms of Use’ policy — a first for the iconic open source web browser.

This official Terms of Use will, Mozilla argues, offer users ‘more transparency’ over their ‘rights and permissions’ as they use Firefox to browse the information superhighway — as well well as Mozilla’s “rights” to help them do it, as this excerpt makes clear:

You give Mozilla all rights necessary to operate Firefox, including processing data as we describe in the Firefox Privacy Notice, as well as acting on your behalf to help you navigate the internet.

When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox.

Also about to go into effect is an updated privacy notice (aka privacy policy). This adds a crop of cushy caveats to cover the company’s planned AI chatbot integrations, cloud-based service features, and more ads and sponsored content on Firefox New Tab page.

  • Ledericas@lemm.ee
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    1 month ago

    sometimes bound to give, if firefox isnt taking in money from having no ads, to having ads. they are going to need tons of ads, and the ability to sell your browser info for money, much like chrome is doing. surprised its taken this long to finally say “private donations isnt enough”

    • the_q@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      Ladybird has a platinum sponsorship on their homepage from Shopify so not a good look already.

        • the_q@lemm.ee
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          1 month ago

          What’s that saying about sitting at a table with a Nazi?

      • dan@upvote.au
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        1 month ago

        Building a browser from scratch is going to cost well over a million dollars in development costs. I don’t think they’d be able to achieve it without sponsors.

        • the_q@lemm.ee
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          1 month ago

          I’m not saying they shouldn’t seek funding, but maybe not from companies that hosted and sold literally Nazi tshirts.

  • ilinamorato@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    AI is going to fail, and it can’t happen soon enough. The Mozilla leadership really needs to pay attention to that reality.

  • Viri4thus@feddit.org
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    1 month ago

    Well, we had a good run lads, enshitification is here.

    Any recommendations for open source alternatives that are convenient and also have an android app supporting ublock origin.

    • MoonlightFox@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Not really open source, but want to mention it anyways. Take a look at the Norwegian browser Vivaldi. I made the switch recently and am really happy with it. Their privacy policy seems good, and they have a clear no AI stance. Their android browser is by far the best android browser from a UX standpoint in my opinion.

      I might be biased as a Norwegian 😉

      • SayCyberOnceMore@feddit.uk
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        1 month ago

        Yeah, I’ll +1 Vivaldi - great tool with (mostly) useful features

        Not sure how it will do with the Chrome / Chromium v3 addon API thingie - just not looked into that at all. Hope it’s not relevant

    • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Librewolf, Servo looks promising but is very far off and just an engine I think? Idk I keep looking at it and want it.

      • orclev@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Servo isn’t a full browser, it’s a tech testbed for Mozilla to test out their various rewritten Rust components. I wish they would have promoted it to full browser status, but I think intention was always to take pieces of Servo as they were completed and drop them into Firefox.

          • orclev@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            Hmm seems like it’s only partially true these days. Looking at their webpage they have a screenshot of their Wikipedia entry (why they didn’t just link to it I have no idea) that provides some more up to date info. It was a testbed and they mention a project Quantum where the tech was added into Firefox’s Gecko engine. In 2020 Mozilla laid off all their Servo devs and handed the project over to Linux Foundation Europe. It seems like since then they’ve reenvisioned the project as an embeddable rendering engine similar to WebKit or V8.

            • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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              1 month ago

              Oh, well thank you for the info. I guess its a good thing Librewolf already exists.

  • DFX4509B@lemmy.org
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    1 month ago

    Good thing LibreWolf and other forks exist, including hard forks like the Goanna browsers.

  • mesa@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Man all this makes me want to just use Links2 for everything and being a luddite. Complete with cabin in the woods. So frustrating.

    • tabular@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      In the good/bad old days a web page was just text and images but now a browser is a platform for running software. Each website can do useful computing for the user but the software author is in control and always tempted to make it run for them at the expenve of the user.

      Crazy idea, maybe we shouldn’t use web browsers.

    • DominicJ@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Soon other web engine will coming, first LadyBird browser and two is Servo Browser. But they’re still along way to go

      • mostlikelyaperson@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        I am still waiting desperately for a servo based browser, mozilla kicking it out was one of the reasons I lost all hope in Mozilla a while back.

      • adub@programming.dev
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        1 month ago

        Am I missing something on Servo Browser? Because when I went to check it out and seems more like next-gen browser engine that looks to be an improvement on Firefox’s Gecko. If so then we will need to wait for a browser team to adopt it.

    • Bogasse@lemmy.ml
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      1 month ago

      Well I suppose LibreWolf (or some other de-branded Firefox) will become more mainstream. Similar to what chromium is to chrome 🤷

      • Kilgore Trout@feddit.it
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        1 month ago

        That’s not a real equivalence.

        Chromium is the basis for Google Chrome, while Librewolf is nothing more than a leech to Firefox. It’s just Firefox, rebranded.

        • cley_faye@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          Rebranded, pre-cleaned of all the forced stuff from mozilla, with the built-in integration of more privacy-enhancing features.

          So, not “just firefox, rebranded” at all.

          • scholar@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            They aren’t developing or maintaining the core browser though, they depend on Firefox still being looked after.

    • DFX4509B@lemmy.org
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      1 month ago

      LibreWolf, or if you can tolerate some breakage, PaleMoon or Basilisk (I say ‘if you can tolerate some breakage’ because Goanna is hard-forked from old ESR code, and PaleMoon and Basilisk are both Goanna-based).

    • garretble@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      As I understand it, these changes don’t affect browsers that use FF as a base, so Zen Browser might not be affected.

      I’ve been trying it out this week, and it’s good. And can still use all the FF extensions.

      https://zen-browser.app/

    • masterofn001@lemmy.ca
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      1 month ago

      To add to the list:

      Mullvad browser (pc only) (removes blobs,proprietary crap, telemetry, and is otherwise hardened and was developed in partnership with the tor org. Some prefs are fine to change but you’re best off by leaving as is.

      Tor browser - nuff said. If you want anonymity use this. Don’t change any prefs.

      Arkenfox has a nodded user.is file you can simply drop into your current ff profile dir. It includes many hidden prefs and settings and allows you to customize for your needs/threat model.

      Arkenfox’s mods are used by other privacy friendly browsers. As are some tor mods.

      If you can find your way around about:config and don’t mind some learning, you can achieve most of the results of hardened broswers.

      There are guides to further harden your ff. Search for Hardened Firefox.