- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- privacyguides@lemmy.one
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- privacyguides@lemmy.one
Firefox maker Mozilla deleted a promise to never sell its users’ personal data and is trying to assure worried users that its approach to privacy hasn’t fundamentally changed. Until recently, a Firefox FAQ promised that the browser maker never has and never will sell its users’ personal data. An archived version from January 30 says:
Does Firefox sell your personal data?
Nope. Never have, never will. And we protect you from many of the advertisers who do. Firefox products are designed to protect your privacy. That’s a promise.
That promise is removed from the current version. There’s also a notable change in a data privacy FAQ that used to say, “Mozilla doesn’t sell data about you, and we don’t buy data about you.”
The data privacy FAQ now explains that Mozilla is no longer making blanket promises about not selling data because some legal jurisdictions define “sale” in a very broad way:
Mozilla doesn’t sell data about you (in the way that most people think about “selling data”), and we don’t buy data about you. Since we strive for transparency, and the LEGAL definition of “sale of data” is extremely broad in some places, we’ve had to step back from making the definitive statements you know and love. We still put a lot of work into making sure that the data that we share with our partners (which we need to do to make Firefox commercially viable) is stripped of any identifying information, or shared only in the aggregate, or is put through our privacy preserving technologies (like OHTTP).
Mozilla didn’t say which legal jurisdictions have these broad definitions.
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They’re cash strapped and cash strapped companies are the worst when it comes to being trustworthy. That’s all the calculus that needs to be done.
The screw-ups keep mounting like they want to be Google.
They (and we)'ve got to admit, the solution is not going to come from within their (managerial) ranks.
At this point I’d be happy to offer my services as a BDFL for Mozilla, at but a small fraction of the wages of any of their C-suites.
Google really needs to be broken up. They’ve become the Ma Bell of the internet.
https://thehackernews.com/2025/03/mozilla-updates-firefox-terms-again.html?m=1
Apparently they changed it due to backlash.
I don’t like this but it’s gonna take more for me to switch. I am very happy with Firefox for my use-case and workflow it works really well. However I think they are shooting themselves in the foot by starting to take away some of the most crucial advantages with Firefox compared to Chrome. I mean if both are awful for privacy then why use Firefox?
Mind you, this is just step one and other steps WILL follow. Mozilla looked at other enshittified products from large companies that make a lot of money and thought “we could have that too!”
It’s a pattern I keep seeing, over and over. This is the end of Firefox as we knew it. I’m sure a good fork, run by a non profit foundation will sprout soon enough, but the name for a privacy browser won’t be Firefox no more
Maybe. I’ll certainly check out alternatives, but I’m not panicking just yet. It’s not hard to switch browsers, so I’ll just test out options while seeing how things shake out.
And what they say about being commercially viable is true, they can’t die on this hill. It means death of complete privacy either way.
Mozilla are a non profit organisation. Their recent blog post says that they will invest in advertising to increase short-term revenue that they need to “grow”. The blog goes on to talk about the increase in board members, and new leaders being added. The CEO and these new leaders are highly paid…
To me this looks bad. It looks to me that Mozilla’s new leaders have pushed out the old; and are now moving towards advertising and selling user data not because they need it to stabilise and survive, but because they need it to pay the people making the decision to burn trust and reputation. It has become a top-heavy organisation, and greed has seeped in.
A few people will be self-enriched by this, and then the orgasation will be weaker as a result.
Another decade and we’ll be back inside libraries, let’s stock up on epubs while we still have internet browsing.
If you’re going to a Chromium browser, at least go to Vivaldi since it’s a) based on Chromium not Chrome and b) not based in the US.
The only bad thing it has going for it is that it uses the Chrome web store for extensions.
VIvaldi is cool, but its not open source. If you worry about the trustworthiness of you browser, picking an open source one would be best IMO. Among the chromium-based, there are chromium itself, brave, …
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Man, this is very disappointed news. Thanks though, good to know.
McKinsey is honestly scarier. They may not be a household name like the others, but look them up. They are frightening.
McKinsey, you forgot that, whatever the fuck it is
shit no i shouldn’t pretended. i do NOT want to learn more. but yes, thanks for the link.
I’ve been “laid off” by a McKinsey sweep twice in my Silicon Valley career and both times the stated reason was basically for making working software instead of lying and scamming.
sorry i did try to pretend McKinsey doesn’t exist. First I heard of them was pete butigieg.
Look, being gay and married is the most pro family values position conceivable
Stanford too
Stanford is very corporate much like their counterparts
As an Australian.Do not trust us when it comes to privacy, security especially in tech or the digital space.
We are not a nation descendant of ‘convicts’ but of prison guards and other colonial boot lickers.
We are US lite or US 10years ago or maybe their tearing ground. Can’t figure it out.
Yeah don’t trust us, we’ve gutted all forms of STEM that aren’t directly related to digging shit out of the ground for Gina Rinehart and co
Serious intellectual brain drain in this country now, we really are the US 10 years ago, hopefully the US explodes enough to stop all our idiots blindly following their jingoism to our doom
Yea I would say Usa stem is pretty neglected in some ways too, mostly the lack of career development in uni, sure you can find internships but those are rare and often hard to get for stem, additionally wet lab work is a must before graduation, and often times professors re refuse to even talk about it, because they have burned by flakey students. And it’s very limited space as well. Let’s not get started at the MS and PhD levels, whole another can of worms. You might have a better chance at a more prestigious university with more resources. Ever noticed the only successful stem are mostly foreign or/and rich people.
Glad you shared this. I hate to be That Tin Foil Hat Person but it seems really convenient that a Musk and Thiel tied CEO happens to take over the one browser base that isn’t Chromium just before people start moving to it for privacy in escalating numbers.
This whole thing does not matter if you are living in the US anyway become of the Third-party doctrine that holds that people who voluntarily give information to third parties have "no reasonable expectation of privacy in that information.
I wonder how much this affects things if you’ve already gone through Firefox’s settings to max out privacy and turn off all telemetry.
I resisted switching to Librewolf because Firefox works great (including M365 in Linux at work) and seemed to have the options you’d want for privacy and security.
This doesn’t feel like an emergency, especially in a chrome/edge dominated world. But it’s back on the list of things to investigate transitioning away from.
Anyone still using Firefox after this probably hasn’t been keeping up with Mozilla’s many controversies. If this is your first time here, I can see why you’d decide to overlook it. I did for a long time, but this is the final straw for me. Luckily, instead of building anything useful over the past decades, Mozilla leadership has been instead focused on enriching themselves. That means deleting my Mozilla account right now was easy.
I’ve now moved to LibreWolf, because I don’t want to support Chromium’s dominance, but if that project dies out I’ll jump ship. It’ll be a real shame if the world gets stuck with Chromium as the only viable browser, but it won’t be my fault. It will be Mozilla leadership’s fault.
Jump ship to what? It seems like going to Tor browser full time might be the answer?
I’m just not sure what the steps are from Librewolf to More private.
It makes me sad because I’m a donator and supporter to Mozilla - and have been for years. I truly believe the web should be open, free, and not for profit and there are great people at Mozilla which is why I hate seeing the leadership do things like this. I wish there was an active group that shared the same ideals, were ethical, and not full of transphobes and cryptobros that could take up the mantle and fund another fork like Librewolf.
Preferably would love that any group be a collective not a corporation.
I moved to LibreWolf a couple of months ago. I’ll move further away if I need to.
I don’t get how something is allowed to be labeled “free” when the terms of usage make you barter your data.
There are different kinds of free. Free beer, free speech and free weekend are three different kinds of free that software can have, but not necessarily at the same time.
I was thinking more along the lines of “install and play this free unity game while it siphons personal data off your computer and sends it back to epic servers”
They’re specifically getting something of value in return for the good or service and then claiming it’s free and that customers are not customers, merely “users.”
but all of those taste better with free beer
I remember a time when Google wrote “Don’t be evil” all over their stuff…
dude i worked in a buncha different college libraries around the time of google’s initial ascension. Google slayed. it was awesome, in 2000.
now? google is a drippy search engine.
There’s a phrase that is still very close to that in some company statement still, I sort of view it as pointless to talk about. We know they’re evil by their actions, and they were evil before they removed it in sure. If the statement is what matters, it’s still basically there, just not the motto. It’s just not worth worrying or talking about. They do so much worse shit. A friend of mine was recently let go after protesting about their response to the genocide in Gaza.
I’m about to get my tattoo removed wtf
Just get “RIP” tattooed under it.
If it’s really you…
Wtf?
It is lmfao it was my first one 🥲
Would you like to see my tattoo of Tom from MySpace I got on my left testicle? Hey man, in 2005 it seemed like MySpace Tom would be in our lives forever. Why WOULDN’T you get his profile picture inked into your body with needles on the most painful part of your body? It made sense in 2005!
But noooooooooo! Facebook had to be a dick. And now whenever I pull my pants down in front of some hot 20 year old with daddy issues, she’s like “Is that your uncle or something?”
Meanwhile Tom sold my MySpace for hundreds of millions of dollars, and now does photography of bikini models on his yacht! While I have to explain who Tom is to Gen Z…
sigh
Honestly at this point, I wouldn’t be embarrassed having a tattoo of Tom from MySpace.
For a second I thought Tom did photography and bikini models on his yacht. We’ll he probably does, but I just read your comment wrong.
I mean, he’s worth hundreds of millions, on a yacht that he owns with hotties in bikinis hoping to get discovered as their own ticket to fame from the photos being taken of their oiled up sexy bodies.
The sex was implied.
You’re a good friend
Edit: also the style shows through, not everyone can get a watercolor vibe without the water
It’s actually not watercolor, I’m just old and I don’t wear sunscreen 😂 take care of your ink, kids
They can’t just promise they “never will” and then get rid of it. People who used the service under the original agreement should still be able to claim that benefit since it was promising to never sell it.
There’s also Servo by the Linux Foundation and Ladybird.
These are actual different browsers and engines all together compared to FF spin-offs.
I’m still super waiting for Lady Bird. I cannot wait to give it a try, but it’s gonna be like 2026 before they start rolling out builds for general use.
I’m excited for these to mature but they are still developing and would not recommend them for regular use
I read somewhere that Librewolf is not recommended because they are a small team and slow to patch vulnerabilities / integrate security fixes from Firefox.
Is it true? (Sincere question)
Valid concern as I use their browser often. From their FAQ (link):
No User Tracking
We don’t collect personal information from users. We don’t track users. We don’t sell user data. We have no affiliation with any advertising companies.
I’m giving Waterfox a test drive and like it so far. No issues.
I’m considering adding it to the alternatives list I posted. Can anybody else validate their privacy policy? Seemd ok but I’m a bit iffy regarding their use of telemetry. Maybe I’m overthinking it
No telemetry, allegedly.
Ironfox for Android?
Too new to recommend, IMO.
Added
iOS browsers are all just skins around the safari engine.
Also Zen Browser
Added
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iOS: Safari with Wipr 2 is my current way to go. Every other browser is WebKit under the hood.
Why wouldn’t they be optional? Every other change like this has been before.
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Terms of Service (ToS) are regularly not upheld in court, and their terms are worded so poorly that as written, it would not be a difficult case to defeat.
The Firefox specific terms for the precompiled binary link to a more general terms page meant to be additional parts, but the additional parts they link to specify that the additional terms only apply to use of Mozilla “services” (sync, vpn, etc). The concerning shit on the ToS lies in the terms for their services.
It’s a clear contradiction of scope, and unfortunately not Firefox’s first fuckup of this kind. So far, with a multi decade history, none of these contradictions have been used to fuck over their users.
They already have separate terms for use of the source code. Those are what making forks, and what compiling the source yourself, fall under. They do not make any reference to the services ToS. Use of the source is not effected by any of this so far, on a technical (can the bad shit be removed) and on a legal (are forkers allowed to remove) level.
Hacker News has some deeper discussion about the finer points of the ToS mess.
And apparently Mozilla has clarified that the wording changes in their summary (not the actual ToS) are because California’s definition of “sale” of information includes just communicaring it to a third party as part of normal operations support. Thanks again to Hacker News discussion of Mozilla’s latest statement.
Brave is fine with for iOS with build in adblocker
Isn’t Librewolf tied to Firefox’ TOS?
No.
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I’m checking right now, but it’s kind of unclear. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems like Librewolf picks and chooses what to use from Firefox, yeah?
I’m also looking into the TOR browser.
All the forks pick and choose but features can be enabled or disabled, or removed entirely. Telemetry is always removed, whereas DRM or cookie settings can be turned off by default.
If you want some kind of Tor browser without all the Tor thing, Mullvad has its fork too from Tor (like the fixed display as a rectangle to prevent fingerprinting).
It’s free and open-source but it’s probably a bit annoying to use daily and it’s barebones: https://mullvad.net/en/browser
Mullvad needs to make an android version.
absolutely, all these hardened firefox forks on android are just as easy to fingerprint as the original. if you try creepjs, they are unique and easy to follow between visits. mullvad browser is also identified even if you clean identity and restart, but it at least blends in with some others. interestingly, i found out that cromite on android can fool creepjs. every time you refresh, it’s back to 1 visits. it doesn’t blend in like mullvad, but it seems like a different unique visitor every time.
The thing about open-source software is that if you fork the software, then your fork can have its own rules.
You can even make the fork of the software fully closed source except for the open source software that you used to originally develop it.
You can sell open source software as if it were proprietary.
You can basically do anything you want with it as long as you respect the original source from the code that you have taken.
Once the software is no longer in Mozilla’s hands, then Mozilla’s portion of the license no longer applies.
That’s what I thought, but there are many people in this very thread saying the opposite. From what I read on Librewolf’s site, it seems to back up what you are saying.
What @bizarroland@fedia.io is saying is not correct, because it depends on the license. For example, GPL software requires that ALL the source code that uses some GPL code to be released as GPL too. That’s why some people avoid GPL at all costs.
Other licenses, such as LGPL allow you to link your proprietary code with open source parts and only release the code of the open source part (along with any modifications you did to it).
So what license does librewolf have?
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Oh look, that’s four.
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Five.
