this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2024
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Privacy is great and we all make sacrifices to achieve it. But there's privacy and there's malicious paranoia.
Let's look at Mozilla and Firefox. Once upon a time they were doing well, really well in fact, to the point that they toppled a hegemon. They were a breath of fresh air in a formerly Internet Explorer world.
However things didn't last. A new competitor came forward and abused its new monopoly to get skin in the game, but for the most part actually made a better browser.
Mozilla asked its fanbase what it should do and a vocal minority spoke up. Mozilla focused on those things and people left for what had become a better browser.
Mozilla looked at how the competitor improved and realised the value of data driving decisions, they had said data as opt-in and hardly anyone opted in. Though this is something commonly known. Eventually Mozilla, in order to stay competitive, made it opt out and as a result, with tonnes more data and a better understanding, started making changes that improved Firefox and once more made it competitive.
Unfortunately for Mozilla, there are some organizations that abuse telemetry and so the connotations are of a giant privacy nightmare. Mozilla enables users to see all the data that is sent, but connotations are hard to overcome.
Now with all that in mind, Mozilla's the last bastion of freedom. It's in charge of the last non Google or Apple major rendering engine and some of the same people that acknowledge its vitally important, are unwilling to do their part to ensure its survival.
The goal of Mozilla is a free Internet and in order to provide that, they need an important browser. But there are people that refuse to contribute their telemetry, so said rendering engine doesn't register. The browser can't improve, it looks like they're not using the rendering engine and they don't donate. They're essentially just being leeches, but they're protecting their privacy while sacrificing everyone else's.
It's like shooting everyone that walks on your road in order to protect your family.
I appreciate your detailed description of the probable benefits of telemetry. While I acknowledge there are benefits, however, before accepting a given set of telemetry, I would like to know with sources and in exact terms (not just 'improved UI') what enhancements were made to Firefox that couldn't be achieved without telemetry. I want to decide for myself if those features are truly important enough to justify sending my personal data to the developers. Only then can I make an informed decision, and it still wouldn't necessarily mean agreement. It's not paranoia; it's simply refusing telemetry for any reason given.
I hear and understand you. There's absolutely no way you should just blindly accept Telemetry. But there are companies that deserve your faith until they fuck up. Mozilla is one of them. It's also worth noting that they only keep Telemetry data for 1 year: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/telemetry-clientid#:~:text=Firefox%20collects%20telemetry%20data%20by,interaction%20data%20and%20technical%20data.
Curious, do you have some extension that makes Firefox support #:~:text?
Did the link not work for you?
The link always works but doesn't navigate to the text fragment. Not until October's Firefox 131, at least.