Can someone remind me why we stopped using Firefox a while back? There was some piece of news that broke everyone’s trust, but I can’t remember what Mozilla did. Was it a change in their user agreement?
Who is this “we” you talk of?
Who is this “we”? I still use it, never stopped.
Can’t come back to Firefox if you never leave in the first place
I come back to it every morningwait no, I don’t close my 1000+ tabs or shut down my Windows. Never mind.
The thing is, I never have. Chrome is absolute hot garbage and spyware, all the Chromium forks are all flawed and bugged and still feed into Google’s dominance because of engine and stupid Manifest bullshit. Firefox, despite all the stupid things Mozilla did and still does just works the best and is not Chromium.
Can you elaborate on the manifest bullshit thing?
New Chromium framework for browser extensions that severely limits their functionality. It neuters adlockers.
Here, this should help. tl;dr: Google updated how Chrome security works and it broke apps like every adblocker at the time.
It didn’t break adblockers “at the time”. It broke them intentionally. That was by design. Google is an advertising company dabbling in other areas. They don’t want a browser that can properly block their primary revenue.
It was intentional to block/break adblockers. Google is worlds largest advertiser…
Understood, that’s something to be expected by Google, but complete shit.
However, adblockers still work these days - see Vivaldi, so they found a workaround?
There is no workaround as most browsers download extensions from Google’s extension repository and they don’t allow extensions that don’t follow their bullshit manifest. Ironically, only Opera has its own extensions repository/store that can do that. Others rely on their own built in adblockers.
Google sells it as an updated extension framework to improve security, privacy, and performance of extensions… But it also nerfs adblockers ability to block all ads.
There are some forks from chrome that haven’t implemented the new manifest thing. So if you really need to, look for those.
Any suggestions?
Honestly, as a “non-power” Firefox user, the only issues I’m experiencing is when Google purposely slows down or messes with me simply because I use Firefox (e.g., YouTube).
Dunno, Youtube works fine for me, watching without account. I don’t use anything else from Google, so can’t say if anything else is shit.
When? There have been a few times people stopped using Firefox in large numbers.
One of them was when Chrome first came out. Firefox (and every other browser) at the time ran every site in one process. As sites became more reliant on Javascript, which was usually poorly written, that meant any one tab having a problem made other sites and even the browser’s own UI unresponsive, or sometimes crashed the whole browser. Chrome’s multiprocess model was a revelation. Firefox didn’t get its own implementation until 2016.
Recently, there’s been some movement away from Firefox due to Mozilla making decisions people don’t feel align with open source, the open web, and privacy. The one that has me looking at forks is the planned addition of terms of use to the browser. Terms of use are for an ongoing relationship between a service operator and a user; Firefox is local software I’m operating myself on a computer I own. Its fine for optional online services like Sync to have terms of use, but the browser should work without those.
That’s what I was remembering, the terms of use.
I asked ChatGPT is similar question earlier this week. This was the answer.
While Mozilla has not been found to sell user tracking data in the conventional sense, the introduction of features like PPA (Privacy-Preserving Attribution) and changes in privacy policy language have understandably caused concern among users. These developments suggest a shift towards balancing user privacy with the need to support advertising models. Users prioritizing privacy should stay informed about these changes and adjust their browser settings accordingly.
Can’t write your own comments?
but why? why did you do that?
I asked a fox that was actually on fire. It said “AIYEEEEEEE!” I trust it’s answer more than chatgpt.
How much of that is true? What did they sell? Is the conclusion even valid, given the (popular) alternatives?
I did a little checking and it all agrees with the reporting.
We did?
I believe you’re thinking of a ToS change where the wording was incredibly vague, leading to some outlets to claim they were selling browsing data to 3rd parties and AI modelers. They changed it right after to specify that the data they were using wasn’t browsing data, and the data they did gather wouldn’t be used for AI. They are not as invasive as google, but you’re subject to Google on Firefox because of the ubiquity of their telemetry and search optimizations across websites. Firefox with an add-on such as noscript is much better than Chrome still, in my opinion. At the very least, it’s nice to have a browser that doesn’t work to undermine its own add-on functionalities.
This. It has been everywhere here around, if someone denies it, is lying! It was nothing in the end but in the meantime I tried Zen (based on FF) and it’s aesthetically more pleasing to me
Still using it here
deleted by creator
That was overblown drama. They didn’t change anything in practice. They clarified things by writing it down. You disable some defaults and have no issue. Even if you don’t, it’s not nearly as bad as other popular platforms.
I never stopped using Firefox.
If you want I can look for a comment I made quoting the relevant terms a while back. Or you can look for it yourself.
Simple forks still depend on upstream. I’d rather support Mozilla than not, given no better sustainable alternative. They do some good stuff like Firefox, Thunderbird, and mdn.
Small suggestion: if you’re over 21 stop blindly doing what others do. Start questioning things and do what you think is best.
The world in general switched from Firefox to Chrome several years ago because at that time (when just released) Chrome was new, shiny, and fast (much faster than Firefox). And at that time everyone loved Google (they still had their infamous “be no evil” motto). And Google also promoted their browser, and, given their web resources are immensely popular, that helped tremendously.
That switch had nothing to do with recent concerns about privacy in Mozilla products.
Changing to opt-out telemetry from opt-in is the one I remember people fussing over
Firefox used to have a “we’re a browser that won’t sell user data” promise. Then they changed their TOS and removed the promise, adding:
When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox."
When people reacted to their TOS they said it was an accident, it’s just boilerplate, don’t take it seriously.
Or in other words: an entity with a team of lawyers claimed ownership of all your data, and then downplayed it, and then has acted good since.
Personally I stick my head way into the alligators mouth and still use Firefox.
Because Librewolf exists and Mozilla became an adware vendor.
Firefox is better than most but still smugly makes anti-user changes which are complete dog shit.
Remember when they turned off your ability to choose to load extensions that weren’t signed, because fuck you?
Fuck Pepperidge farm, I remember that shit.
Or how about DNS over https, because fuck you, user, why should you have any say over name resolution when you might use that power to block ads and malware?
DNS over https
Wait, can you explain that? I think I have it toggled on.
