Mozilla has fired Chief Product Officer Steve Teixeira after cancer diagnosis : firefox

[–] [email protected] 26 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Wtf happened in the last month? Everyone used to love and jerk off Mozilla and suddenly we hate them?

[–] [email protected] 21 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Nothing, not everyone liked it, the only difference is that my comment would result in a shit show of downvotes last week while not people are starting to realize what Mozilla/Firefox really is. Mozilla was never the "all savior" pained them to be and it only took Wireshark and a couple of minutes to see it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Even if Mozilla/Firefox was at some point a healthy organization, the shear incredible disparity of power between Google and Mozilla/Firefox means that the probability that Mozilla/Firefox would remain a healthy, functional organization approaches zero over a long enough period of time.

This is a problem that needs legislative action to destroy Google's incredible power and pseudo-monopoly control of search.

I am not saying Mozilla/Firefox isn't toxic, but there a million ways that Mozilla/Firefox could end up a toxic entity and billions of dollars that are directly interested in that being the case so shrugs.

....but yeah I agree with you, Mozilla/Firefox definitely didnt turn into a shithole overnight, but until recently criticizing them has been very difficuly to do in a lot of circles.

[+] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (3 children)

[removed by mod]

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

That is blatantly false. Don't even waste your time.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Just fire up Wireshark and inspect what Firefox calls, a lot of calling home and even if you change all the settings and config parameters to something sane it will still contact a 3rd party analytics company. Mozilla also acquired an ad analytics company recently for some reason.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I have this in user.js:

// settings user-test-programm
user_pref("app.shield.optoutstudies.enabled", false);

// dont use me as guinea pig
user_pref("app.normandy.enabled", false);
user_pref("app.normandy.optoutstudies.enabled", false);
user_pref("messaging-system.rsexperimentloader.enabled", false);

// side-loading of telemetry-extension
user_pref("extensions.systemAddon.update.enabled", false);

// disable Mozillas new tracking aggragation thingy
user_pref("dom.private-attribution.submission.enabled", false,);

// almost only for tracking useful
user_pref("beacon.enabled", false); // so webpage can send (tracking) data before you close tab
user_pref("browser.send_pings", false); // hyperlink auditing (click-tracking)

Note: the last two are more nuanced.

Argument for beacon is that webpages will use a more intrusive way with noticeable delay to upload data on tab close. I personally prefer that, as a warning, but never saw one after years.

Argument for send_pings is, that trackers will use more mean and stealthier ways to track you, if they don't have that interface (same as in private-attribution). I do know however, that companies who track you have high greed and low morale to begin with, and use all they can get to generate more money.

[+] [email protected] 32 points 5 months ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (2 children)

[removed by mod]

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

Must be for ad attribution and install tracking. Only something a major portion of their users are specifically trying to avoid when they're choosing Firefox.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

Yeah repositories and FTP don't include that, but it is kind shady that the first way to get it (website) for the majority of regular users (Windows/macOS) has a unique ID - after all this is the company that goes all in for privacy...