this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2024

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Privacy

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Mozilla wants you to love Firefox again (www.fastcompany.com)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

56 comments fedilink hide all child comments

"Last month, Mozilla made a quiet change in Firefox that caused some diehard users to revolt..."

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[–] [email protected] 114 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I am doubly pissed off:

Mozilla opts me into an analytics scheme without requiring my permission. That's bad.
Mozilla partners with fucking FACEBOOK to spring this shit on me? Now THAT takes the cake!

But... I would be pissed off if I used straight Firefox, and I don't: I use LibreWolf, and I have no doubt they'll strip this latest round of Mozilla nonsense from the LibreWolf browser.

I don't know... I have a love/hate relationship with Mozilla: on the one hand, they're pretty much the only thing that stands between the final overrun of the web by the Google monoculture and still having some kind of a choice what you use to hit the internet, and they make one of the only email clients worth its salt in Linux. On the other hand, every time they decide to do something, it's always a screw-up, and it's been like that for decades. Surely in their position, they should know what not to do to piss off everybody all the time, and yet... What a weird bunch.

[–] barsquid 18 points 2 months ago

LibreWolf is great as long as they're able to pull out malicious advertising.

I hope some of the completely independent projects start taking off. Chrome is cancer. Manifest V3 is metastasized cancer. Mozilla is basically taking up smoking.

I miss the days when we had functioning software without telemetry whenever we wiggle a mouse and ads in every corner.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

I like to think the behind the scenes is just a decades long game of dare in Mozilla's leadership that slowly got out of control but they've all gotten too deep in it now to give up and just call it a tie.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

I've been mostly using Mullvad, and so far it worked pretty well out of the box. Few sites break, and for that I have LibreWolf, but other than that, I'm enjoying Mullvad more.

[–] [email protected] 69 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Mozilla wants us to love Firefox again? Ok, well, it's actually pretty simple: treat us like ~~customers~~ users, instead of products again. Make the product for us, not for the corpos. Strange how betrayal turns a friend into a foe, isn't it...

E: changed customers to users, as another user here suggested the difference between them. (thanks, fellow lemming!)

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago (3 children)

The problem is in our current society it's simply not possible for something to get very popular without being taken over by a corporation or government, who are usually driven by profits because we live in a capitalist world whether you like it or believe it or not.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

it's simply not possible for something to get very popular without being taken over by a corporation

Please don't excuse unethical and exploitative behavior by pretending that it's unavoidable.

There are examples of other funding models available; for example, what the Blender Foundation does. It turns out, if a FOSS effort focuses on their community, makes users feel involved and important, asks in good faith for contributions and suggestions, treats people with respect, maintains funding and organizational transparency, and has consistent ethical standards.. it can work out very well for them. No selling out required. No data harvesting required. No shady deals with Google required.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

For the purposes of my argument I don't consider blender to be "very popular" in the same way that Chrome or even Firefox is. Blender has less than 2% of the number of users that even Firefox has. I think if Blender were to get Firefox-level popular (for example, over 100 million users), then it too would succumb to greedy corporate interests.

If you know of this funding model working successfully at the scale of 100 million users/customers or more, I would be interested to learn about it though.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Your statement did leave some wiggle room to quibble over what exactly "very popular" means, though I don't see how popularity is a useful metric when we're talking about free software which doesn't rely on user purchases for revenue. Ultimately it comes down to how funding the development of each software is accomplished, and whether that can be done effectively without selling out.

However, if we must compare funding strategies based on popularity, then we can. I'm not sure where you got your usage numbers from, but I'll use your percentage to normalize for the number of employees paid through the funding strategies of both examples to compare the effectiveness of the approaches:

Mozilla Corporation and Mozilla Foundation together have roughly 840 employees as of 2020 (the latest numbers available on Wikipedia). I'm not sure how they split up who does what for developing the software, but I seriously doubt the vast majority of those 840 employees are developers.
Blender Foundation has a team of 31 people (as of 2022). Most of them are developers/engineers/designers directly involved with improving the software.

For purposes of discussion, I'll assume that you are correct that Blender has 2% of the popularity of Firefox. Normalizing that for comparison, 2% of 840 Mozilla employees is 16.8 employees (round down because you can't have 0.8 of a person).

In other words, if Firefox were only 2% as popular as it is now (thus making it equally as popular as you say Blender is), Mozilla would be paying 16 developers with it's funding strategy.

Conversely, Blender is able to pay 31 developers using their funding strategy. This means that, even when accounting for popularity, Blender's funding strategy is 2x more effective than Mozilla's at paying developers to work on their software.

Again, I don't agree that popularity is an important metric to compare here, but even when we do so, it's clear that it is entirely possible to fund software without resorting to tired old capitalistic funding models that result in the increasingly objectionable violations of user privacy that Mozilla engages in lately. They could choose to do things differently, and we ought not to excuse them for their failure of imagination about how to fund their business more ethically. Especially when perfectly workable alternative funding models are right there in public view for anyone to emulate.

[–] vaderaj 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Its been a long time since I came acorss such a calm and composed discussion, this is just an appreciation comment. I do not have anything valid to add to this conversation

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

I agree. This is has been an absolute pleasure to read. Like a proper structured debate, where neither side is wrong, but they're both right.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

They could choose to

I think what I was really trying to articulate is that eventually it seems to happen to everyone when they get big enough.

I could totally be wrong and I might be drawing unfair conclusions like most people, sure I will admit, but this is just how I feel about it. Maybe I shouldn't have said it so matter-of-fact because no I don't have any evidence that this always happens. A company might never get "too big", that's entirely possible too.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

In a capitalist world, it is possible (and prudent) to treat your customers like customers. Your line will still go up, and for longer. Yes, if you treat them like products, your line will go up faster, until it won't.

E: if they made this ad network an opt-in with a proper explanation, many people would have opted in. Not everyone, but many would have. And their reputation would not have been sullied.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

if they made this ad network an opt-in with a proper explanation, many people would have opted in. Not everyone, but many would have. And their reputation would not have been sullied.

Bingo!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

I don't want to throw the word enshitiffication around, especially when I'm not sure if I can spell it, but the platforms that people jump ship to when that happens are probably especially vulnerable to people jumping ship again.

I can't imagine Mozilla effectively marketing Firefox as anything but the bullshit free browser, and when they lose that, people will just move to the next actual bullshit free option.

[–] [email protected] 48 points 2 months ago

The first part actually reads slightly optimistic.

Modern tabs management, web apps making a comeback, more money for the Browser instead of useless side projects, etc.

We still need to turn of tons of telemetry and user tracking, but its nice to see some movement.

Let's hope that this isn't just new CEO bla bla.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Laura Chambers, who stepped into an interim CEO role at Mozilla in February, says the company is reinvesting in Firefox after letting it languish in recent years,

It's sort of amusing to me that Mozilla would let the Firefox browser languish. Is that not the raison d'etre of your entire organization? What are you doing with your time and effort if you are allowing your core product to languish? What would people say if Microsoft said "yeah, we've allowed windows to languish in recent years." What an insane notion.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (2 children)

They've got thunderbird which is as far as I know the only serious alternative to outlook.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

And I wouldn't call it serious, the performance is atrocious.

It's so bad I went and installed outlook from 2016

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You're not arguing from a position of strength if your personal anecdote is performance issues, 8 years ago.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I think you misread that. This poster's experience isn't from 2016. They installed a program called "Outlook 2016" recently.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

You may be right, but they literally wrote "from 2016". So yeah, I read that as "Since 2016 onwards..."

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Kinda but Thunderbird is community driven, and spun out into an independent subsidiary.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 months ago

The could learn from Librewolf

[–] kuneho 14 points 1 month ago (3 children)

If I understand all this correctly, Mozilla teamed up with Meta to create a method that helps advertisers in a user privacy-friendly way. Aside from the initial trigger people have here reading the word "Meta" or by just the existence of ads, is there any problematic with this, without going really deep into tinfoil hat territory?

Also, am I understanding it correctly that the outrage is mainly because this feature is enabled by default? So again, a function that helps protecting your privacy, is enabled by default? Because, it seems most people just offended by only this fact alone.

But I'm maybe missing something here.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

Yeah, they failed to communicate it. Which people chose to interpret in the most uncharitable way. "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." - Hanlon's razor

Misconceptions about Firefox's Privacy Preserving Ad Measurement – Andrew Moore

Of course people who complain about this loudly are most likely people who block all ads and tracking anyway so it doesn't even affect them. My ideal would be the total ban of all advertising. Then let the free market sort it out lol.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Because Mozilla promised us privacy, and "privacy-friendly" ad tracking is still worse privacy than not baking ad tracking into the browser in the first place.

And they tried to sneak it in under the radar because they knew they were being sketchy.

[–] kuneho 3 points 1 month ago

Because Mozilla promised us privacy, and “privacy-friendly” ad tracking is still worse privacy than not baking ad tracking into the browser in the first place.

I don't think "privacy" works in a way you snap your fingers, and bam, you have privacy, without any progress or stations in your way. Especially in today's web. Also, it's not just on Mozilla. On the contrary. I feel like Mozilla is the only "bigger name" in this market who tries to navigate in this shitstormy sea that is the web now.

Tho, it's just me, but it sounds much better if my browser handles all the tracking and data sharing business in a controlled manner with advertisers in a "privacy-friendly" way than no control overall (especially since it's Firefox and not Chrome/Edge), hoping only the other side would respect my preferences and requests.

But in the end, as I read other comments here, the problem is just the default state of the checkbox, got it. Feels a bit silly - in this particular case - but I can understand it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Does not "help protecting privacy", that is marketing. It's a system for ads that track you in a more privacy-friendly way then other alternatives.

Peoples are mostly angry at the fact that they just silently slipped this system in without asking for consent.

[–] kuneho 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Peoples are mostly angry at the fact that they just silently slipped this system in without asking for consent.

But why? Does it expose more data? More sensitive data than before?

What I don't get, but maybe because of the lack of information I have on the topic is that if it's better in terms of data privacy than before, or is it better if it's turned on than off, why is it such a great problem, if it's turned on by default? In this case, not turning it on would be something that one should be noted. Any technical, real-world reasons why not giving my consent to enable this feature gives reason to get mad, or is this really just about "not having a choice", regardless the outcome?

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

What I don't get, but maybe because of the lack of information I have on the topic

Exactly. That's also the issue there. It was opt-out by default AND didn't seemed to give enough info to the end-user about what it does, and why it would be better to keep it enabled. Most people, complain about the forced default decision without any notice, and without any appropriate info to understand if it was a decent change or not. You should only enable it, IF you understand and ablige to what it does.

[–] kuneho 1 points 1 month ago

I understand this, thanks. But still feels way too overreacted. But now, that's just what I think about this.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I'm gonna move to LadyBird as soon as it gets released.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

I never stopped.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

All I need is mozilla on android to be able to load local html files.

It's the only reason I left.

It's the only reason I will return.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It doesn't? I need to see this (not) in action. Will be back.

[–] Dicska 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I made a very simple HTML page to count the money for my work. I've tried everything and I ended up hosting it just to be able to access it from Firefox. It might work with Android, I don't know, but on this internet aids MIUI it's impossible. But MIUI is just some pimped Android so chances are it's the same.

I managed to open it locally in chrome (spits), but the URL didn't even say the usual file path but some sus looking mi.com address, so I'll stick with just hosting it.

[–] AncientFutureNow 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Did Fennec do all this privacy nonsense too?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Yes, but there are forks that are more private and have saner defaults like Mull, however some privacy guides warn against using anything firefox-based on android at all due to lack of process isolation and I think a couple other things.

https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/revise-statements-on-gecko-browsers-android-to-make-security-shortcomings-clear/17840

Friendly reminder to define your own threat model and do what makes the most sense for you personally, as many privacy opinions in communities and guides like this might be seen as too extreme to some people... I'm just relaying information I have seen that probably most people haven't.

[–] AncientFutureNow 3 points 2 months ago

Thanks for the insight. I deleted Fennec and migrated over to Mull.

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