Look at this chud video here.

It’s just complaining about DEI, but why now? Apparently, Firefox has a “license” to all your data now. How much is that true? Is he just cherry-picking here, in this case? Librewolf or whatever it’s called might be a better option. There’s also Zen browser.

I got this in my YouTube feed and didn’t know it was more anti-DEI slop and now I’m not sure what to believe. Wish they didn’t have to make it so political like they accuse others of doing. Ah well. But what is this I hear about Firefox having a “license” to all your data?

I guess that’s like a lot of browsers, tbh, but I suppose Firefox has higher standards, or did…

  • markinov@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    5·
    23 hours ago

    some months ago they introduced “privacy friendly ad”, now they removed “we never sell your data” also their ToS says you give them license to use the data “to improve web navigation” (can be interpreted into anything in court).

  • Horse {they/them}@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    27·
    2 days ago

    Ignoring the probably worthless chud video, the actual problem that there is uproar about is that firefox has now introduced a terms of service, which appears to walk back their old statement of “we will never sell your data”
    Firefox was the browser of choice for people who were moderately privacy conscious but not enough to go to a restrictive browser
    There are some good firefox forks which are not subject to mozilla’s decisions, like waterfox which i am currently using

  • davel [he/him]@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    241·
    2 days ago

    Mozilla has been going the wrong way for a long time now, as documented by jwz, who was the instigator for the formation of Mozilla 27 years ago.

  • darkcalling@lemmygrad.ml
    154·
    1 day ago

    Hot take: Mozilla/Firefox has been controlled opposition run by Google or it’s acolytes (in-directly of course) in secret for many years. Their only purpose being to take regulatory heat off Google and to do so by making a browser but not one that seriously competes, one that oopsie’s itself into constant self-owns and mistakes and things that can be waved off as bad judgement but which allow Google to concentrate total control of the web more or less, to have major sway over web standards, to have only Apple standing in the way of them just deciding by themselves what standards are going to be as Microsoft tried to do in the 90s/early 2000s with websites that only work with Chrome, etc.

    Part of this is obviously misallocation of resources, lavishly paying a CEO for a small company more than makes sense, pouring millions into dead end projects that no one wanted and which get killed off or flop hard.

    It’s just that that bargain no longer makes sense for Google, the regulators went after them anyways but by cozying up to Trump they’ve probably saved themselves from being broken up but clearly there’s little point to funding Mozilla anymore. Whether my little conspiracy theory about Mozilla being controlled oppo is correct or not, one thing is certain and it is that they are in panic mode because their major funding from Google stands to be cut, there is no replacement and so they’ve decided to sell out, to do ads, to siphon data, to introduce incredibly privacy unfriendly terms of use and service that users are rightly skeptical of and to lie about it all, to say oh it’s business as normal they just need to do this for hand wave some sort of legal reasons, reasons that magically never existed until this moment for many years and which cannot be detailed to users.

    The scary thing is once Firefox goes down, once it alienates its core privacy-conscious userbase and turns into spyware and then implodes, there will be no way for the downstream privacy conscious forks to maintain their code-bases, to maintain a secure, standards compliant web-browser. At that point Google needs only push a large ream of new complex standards through web bodies to bury the corpse of Firefox by overwhelming those maintainers at which point only Chrome and Safari/webkit will exist.

    Apple is never going to make a browser for Windows or Linux, they’d rather sell you the hardware and ecosystem lock-in in order to give you some privacy compared to Google. So at that point everyone not on a Mac will be stuck with Chrome and Chrome derivatives. At which point Google can if they wish get more hostile, start burying privacy-invasive features deeper into the code of Chrome, making it more tedious to remove for privacy forks without breaking things and even go nuclear and close-source the code if they wish or attach some license demanding people that fork from it not remove certain mandatory spying components at which point they can just sue anyone who gets big enough to threaten their share of the pie and allow a few obscure privacy fanatic forks to linger on the periphery invisible to 98% of people.

    It’s all part of a larger power-grab by the bourgeoisie and corporations I think, part of the larger boot coming down as the west’s unipolar hegemony unravels and they desperately try to maintain control while letting the mask and pretensions slip.

    • Makan@lemmygrad.mlOPEnglish
      7·
      2 days ago

      I’m not sure if we have applicable or adequate proof that they’re “controlled” opposition, well, at all, at least at this juncture. I mean, I believe in conspiracies, but I ain’t “conspiracist.” I believe in conspiracies, not “conspiracism.” I don’t believe the world hinges on them. I believe in the bourgeois ruling-class, not the “deep state.” I believe that corporations are capable of conspiratorial action, but not willy-nilly. A lot of what they do is out in the open, just coated with a glossy veneer.

      You make other valid points, though, and it does seem that if Firefox alienates core users, they will just be more “inspired” to cozy up to certain actors that are bad-faith. Even so, I’d like to have more hardcore proof beyond just circumstantial stuff. What are they thinking and planning? The Terms of Use may point to a direction that they’ll take, but only may.

      Still, better to be safe than sorry, and so I will consider switching to a Firefox fork instead.

    • kredditacc@lemmygrad.ml
      4·
      1 day ago

      I don’t know why your comment has downvotes, probably from Firefox fans. I use Firefox out of necessity (I need a feature-complete uBlock Origin as well as the ability to spoof user agent), but Firefox UX is not polish at all:

      • Unstyled web forms (input elements) don’t work well with dark themed gtk.
      • Context menu usability issues that were ignored for years up to now and the future.
      • No WPAs.
      • Incomplete Web standard implementation.
      • and many more.

      Now, I understand that maintaining a big project such as Firefox is a lot of work for a small company, but the company themselves don’t focus on Firefox at all. Instead, they venture into BS businesses that they are not good at and do not make sense (such as their latest attempt at AI trend).

      Anyway, is Brave still a good browser for my use cases? Maybe I will consider switching. Or perhaps I will pray to the gods and Buddha from the 4 directions to make China make another truly FOSS browser.

      • darkcalling@lemmygrad.ml
        5·
        1 day ago

        Right now? Use firefox forks or a hardened firefox and keep a close eye on future developments. It’s just a bad situation all around. But such is life in late capitalism as the empire crumbles.

  • yet_another_commie@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    2·
    1 day ago

    Do we even need web anymore? Prolewiki and grad will work on Netscape Navigator. Web search is shit anyway, and most banks are already going app-only. For youtube I use privacy apps

    • FuckBigTech347@lemmygrad.ml
      7·
      1 day ago

      The current “web” is utter trash. It’s so complex that compiling any browser that supports at least most web standards from source takes a lot more time and memory than compiling the entire Linux Kernel or even the mesa userspace drivers. The only way to “fix” the web is to throw it in the dumpster and start over. A web browser should only be a document viewer that can load and display interactive documents from a remote location and nothing more.

      Web search is shit anyway

      Yeah. It’s getting less and less usable even with FOSS frontends. I’m working on my own web search off and on. I’m so sick of wrangling with search engines just to get useful results for my query.

      • Horse {they/them}@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
        3·
        23 hours ago

        It’s so complex that compiling any browser that supports at least most web standards from source takes a lot more time and memory than compiling the entire Linux Kernel or even the mesa userspace drivers

        i made the mistake of clean building ungoogled chromium once
        it took over 5 hours on my pretty beefy machine lol

        • FuckBigTech347@lemmygrad.ml
          2·
          16 hours ago

          Firefox isn’t much better in that regard. Bootstrapping alone takes many minutes, which is no surprise since their build system is not only huge but also written in Python of all things. Even if you use gcc instead of clang to compile the corporate spaghetti, the tons of rust in the codebase will make up for all that time gained lol. On my 2014 Xeon workstation where a generic Linux Kernel takes less than an hour, FF takes 6+ hours to build.

        • FuckBigTech347@lemmygrad.ml
          3·
          1 day ago

          I’m aware of FreeTube but unforutnately it’s yet another Electron App, which is just Chromium w/ NodeJS. I host my own personal Invidious instance for YouTube.

    • Makan@lemmygrad.mlOPEnglish
      3·
      23 hours ago

      A web? Like, “do we even need web anymore” in what way? As in, Google searches or the whole thing?🤣

  • Nate Cox@programming.devEnglish
    8·
    2 days ago

    Mozilla updated their terms of service to include very concerning language that made it seem like they were taking ownership of any data that you input into their browser for whatever purpose they choose, now and into perpetuity. This caused panic for reasons that should be obvious in the age of enshitification.

    They have since amended the terms to clarify that they only take ownership of it for the explicit purposes they lay out in the privacy policy… which is slightly less concerning but at least not a total mystery.

    I didn’t watch the video because your description is enough to want it off my feed, but I of course accept that there are going to be bigot assholes making it about something it totally isn’t, because that seems to be the status quo now.

  • sunbleachedfly@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    6·
    2 days ago

    The first half of that video is honestly not bad. If he cut it off there it would have been fine & pretty much true.

    In my experience Firefox gives you more privacy than the mainstream browsers (chrome, edge, safari) & is a good way to move away from them, but it’s a non-profit in Silicon Valley so that comes with limitations. The new privacy policy is certainly concerning & I’m personally to the point where I’m ready to try something else.

    • Makan@lemmygrad.mlOPEnglish
      2·
      2 days ago

      These are fair points and, yeah, the video is fine up until the DEI and race stuff.