Technology

Maybe the should replace their CEO wit AI:

https://www.perplexity.ai/search/consider-the-following-you-are-SHB99o4pQHCsG_BgZrbTLw#0

From the Mozilla forums.

I'm curious what "Without it, we couldn’t use information typed into Firefox to perform your searches, for example" means. Like, is that literally just the search I type into the browser bar, or are they talking about scraping data from my browser to improve my searches the way a lot of phone apps do?

I could see some government somewhere passing a data security bill of some kind that makes rules around collecting and using data that redefines what that means in a way that includes something Firefox is already doing. I could also see them using this as a sneaky foot in the door as they plan to ramp up data profiteering like so many companies already have.

It would be nice if they'd clarify their reasoning for doing this a bit more specifically.

You know, at least it's not Brave, throwing in cryptomining bs, getting caught selling data without telling anyone, or using the profits to push COVID conspiracy theories and anti-LGBT activism, or getting their funding directly from Founders Fund (Peter Thiel).

Please panic. There's Librewolf. A deshittified Firefox fork. Would be great to support that project.

I tend to trust Mozilla (more than other browser-owning companies), but they really should just clarify exactly what they do that would be considered as sale of data in any jurisdictions.

They seem to be implying that the data is just metadata that has been abstracted for (presumably ad-targeting) commercial purposes, and there are jurisdictions that consider derived metadata as still being "user data", but in that case just make a blog post laying out what and where you are sharing. If your "partners" are opposed to people knowing about them, or you are scared that people would not like who you're in bed with, that is a problem.

Fuck's sake, might as well be a warrant canary.

And they're peddling the myth of anonymous data. Great.

Are any of those independent browser projects functional yet?

Konqueror, which is Webkit, is still actively developed, though less feature-rich than more popular browsers.

I hope they explain further. Honestly I don’t think the “oh crap I need to know if it’s good or bad right now!” camp is really going to care, but it still feels a little uncomfortable. (As opposed to the “this could be either way, I don’t have enough evidence to decide right now, and I’m ok with holding that uncertainty in my brain until new evidence moves my needle” camp)

Are forked builds possible with third party service references neutered?

Look up browser called Ladybug. It is not based on either WebKit or Chromium.

It's not ready yet but it's coming.

https://discord.gg/ruhpveCz

So .... what is the leading alternative browser then?

One of the reasons Firefox became so popular was that it was an alternative.

Now that they're drifting towards something we don't like ... what is the new alternative?

Maybe they should replace it with Google's former pledge "Don't be evil": it's free for the taking, nobody's using it at the moment.

Never have, never will.

So, here's the funny thing about "never will". It's not a promise you can go back on. "Never will" means "forever won't".

Changing that language is a breech of trust. Getting all "nuanced" and weasel-wordy about it doesn't change that.

Folks should start looking into whether the previous promise is legally binding in any way, and start preparing for a class action suit if it is. Because Mozilla's better dead than it is as zombie smoke screen for this horse shit.