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Mozilla deletes promise to never sell Firefox data. (github.com)
from Tea@programming.dev to firefox@fedia.io on 28 Feb 2025 08:54
https://programming.dev/post/26136291

Mozilla has just deleted the following:

“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. "

Source: Lundke journal.

#firefox

threaded - newest

gon@lemm.ee on 28 Feb 2025 09:23 next collapse

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

OK, Mozilla, I'll use a damn fork, since you insist! WTF...

fartsparkles@lemmy.world on 28 Feb 2025 10:34 next collapse

I’m kind of worried about the knee jerk reactions from people that haven’t read the full communications from Mozilla or looked into their approaches to anonymise data (which they’ve done for years as part of analyzing new feature tests).

Building an application as complex as Firefox requires full-time developers. It’s similar in scale to the Linux Kernel.

To keep building a competitive browser and continue to challenge the ubiquity of Chromium, Firefox needs to exist. Mozilla need to figure out how to make money (their previous attempts at additional services like VPN etc didn’t have much impact). If Google pull the rug from under them regarding their payments to be the default search engine, Mozilla could swiftly fall under.

Advertising, done in a privacy preserving way which they’ve an awful lot of experience at doing, in the near term gives them additional revenue streams to keep the ship afloat.

If we lose Firefox, Google owns the internet. We need to keep talking with Mozilla, not abandon them.

anyhow2503@lemmy.world on 28 Feb 2025 10:58 next collapse

We need Mozilla corp to be better and there is currently no good way of forcing that to happen.

Carighan@lemmy.world on 03 Mar 12:47 collapse

What control does Mozilla have over people quoting parts of a merge request in a misleading way so as to make it appear in a specific way?

gon@lemm.ee on 28 Feb 2025 11:22 next collapse

That's fair, but I think not totally right.

I think Firefox is a great browser, which is why I'm using forks, not ditching it entirely. I still use Mozilla services, and I will continue to keep tabs on and support the development of the browser. However, I will not sacrifice the little privacy I can scrape up by agreeing to terms of use that gather my data, even if anonymized, for use in serving me ads, regardless of whether I think the company behind these practices needs to exist or not---and in this case, I do think Mozilla, and Firefox as a project, must remain strong if we want a free internet for all.

This implicit trust you seem to have in Mozilla, however, is not something I share. First, AI integration, then it's the terms of use, then it's the language around data privacy... Google used to say "Don't Be Evil." I don't believe Mozilla will stay good because it's Mozilla and it's been good. I don't like the recent steps they've been taking, and so I'll stop using Firefox; that's as far as it goes.

Maybe I'm being unreasonable, but I don't want to compromise on this.

fartsparkles@lemmy.world on 28 Feb 2025 12:03 next collapse

I don’t think you’re being unreasonable and in truth I share your concerns. Forks are doing a good job at refining the experience but should the Firefox project collapse, I doubt any fork can meaningfully continue the development needed for such a huge and complex project without the full-time and experienced development team who have been working on the project for an incredibly long time.

I wish Mozilla could figure out a more powerful way to generate revenue that doesn’t require advertising in any form.

I wonder if a yearly fundraising drive like Wikipedia could help. They generated $250Mil+ last time they did.

gon@lemm.ee on 28 Feb 2025 12:30 collapse

should the Firefox project collapse, I doubt any fork can meaningfully continue the development

Yeah, that's probably right, unfortunately.

I wonder if a yearly fundraising drive like Wikipedia could help.

I doubt it would hurt, at least! They do get some money, <$20M... Which isn't close to being enough, of course, but it does prove there's at least some interest in supporting Mozilla financially, on the users' side.

Zacryon@feddit.org on 01 Mar 2025 02:36 collapse

for use in serving me ads

You use(d) FF without an adblocker?

gon@lemm.ee on 01 Mar 2025 09:38 collapse

Of course not, but it's the principle of the thing. I don't want my data to be in anyone's hand, if I can help it, but certainly not used for ads, regardless of whether I can actually see the ads or not.

Carighan@lemmy.world on 03 Mar 12:47 collapse

Don't bother, Firefox's community is all conspiracy+rage+kneejerk. That's all they are, there is nothing on top of that.

They're probably still salty how many users Firefox lost over the years from their "hardening" Firefox "pro tips", and have to project that anger outwards instead of reflecting on it.

This thread, too. Scroll just a tiny bit through the actual change of the MR, and you realize how OP intentionally constructs things to appear sinister, which says more about them than Mozilla.

RedSnt@feddit.dk on 28 Feb 2025 11:48 collapse

That's a good way of putting it. I feel like some of us might return to monkey and just use gopher again, reject the corpo bullshit ways of siphoning every ounce of data out of our existence.

jonesy@aussie.zone on 28 Feb 2025 09:36 next collapse

I've been using Mozilla since version 1.0, and have gone through the highs and lows. This is the point where I get off, what a shame.

basic_user@lemmy.world on 28 Feb 2025 10:11 next collapse

Get off to what? Everything else is chromium based. Or do you have a tip?

jonesy@aussie.zone on 28 Feb 2025 10:41 next collapse

A more privacy focused fork of Firefox, I haven't decided which yet.

the_beber@lemm.ee on 28 Feb 2025 10:52 next collapse

Ladybird looks promising, but unfortunatly it‘s far from a release any time soon.

stoy@lemmy.zip on 28 Feb 2025 10:57 collapse

Back when Australis dropped I dropped Firefox like a stone in favour of Pale Moon which kept the old UI, then I switched back to Firefox when the current UI dropped.

homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world on 28 Feb 2025 14:10 collapse

Same.

Willy@sh.itjust.works on 28 Feb 2025 09:47 next collapse

looks to me like they just changed the phrasing. am I misreading it?

Dave@lemmy.nz on 28 Feb 2025 10:03 collapse

To some extent they have changed the wording, as clarified here: https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/commit/d459addab846d8144b61939b7f4310eb80c5470e#commitcomment-153095625

Saying the new wording is:

"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)."

Which seems to be because of the legal definition of selling data. Note this quote is now live on their privacy FAQ: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/faq/

However, this part:

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)

Sounds an awful lot like straight up selling our data. It would be nice to have specifics. The privacy FAQ page doesn't seem to actually provide clarity.

Vincent@feddit.nl on 28 Feb 2025 11:06 collapse

Yeah, specifics would be great. "Someone clicked this ad", or potentially even "someone in Germany clicked this ad" is a big difference from "a 20-year old man who likes blahaj in Hamburg has opened a new tab".

Don_Fika_Del_Prima@lemmy.world on 28 Feb 2025 09:48 next collapse

Unbelievable

ghurab@lemmy.world on 28 Feb 2025 10:03 next collapse

~~They removed that question from the FAQ, but it still states in multiple other sections, in the same link, that they do not sell user data~~

~~Am I reading this wrong?~~

Edit: New FAQ

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).

dojan@lemmy.world on 28 Feb 2025 10:07 next collapse

Marked as deprecated and will be removed outright not to be replaced.

ghurab@lemmy.world on 28 Feb 2025 10:31 collapse

Oh, thanks.

TheObviousSolution@kbin.melroy.org on 28 Feb 2025 10:36 next collapse

Ah, so it's not that they sell data, it's that they share data in order to achieve commercial viability. I don't sell items on ebay, I share them in a commercially viable way!

ghurab@lemmy.world on 28 Feb 2025 10:48 next collapse

Yeah, this kind of semantic gymnastics is what makes them so suspicious.

kibiz0r@midwest.social on 28 Feb 2025 13:29 collapse

“You’re gonna make a lot of money?”

“Yep.”

“And the data’s not yours?”

“Well, it becomes ours.”

Applicable to so many tech things

Vincent@feddit.nl on 28 Feb 2025 11:04 next collapse

I feel like it would’ve been really helpful if it had provided an example of something that legally counts as “selling your data”, but that any sane person would not define as such.

Carighan@lemmy.world on 03 Mar 12:53 collapse

I mean, yeah.

Although it's not difficult.

Take online hosting. Say you run a sync service - fully encrypted - and you upload to a hosting provider. Now I'm not an expert on when you pay for it, I'd intuitively assume this no longer applies but it can get messy with complementary services. Say you rent an AWS system and you get a file upload space as an "extra".

Anyhow, you just exchanged non-anonymized user data (that it's encrypted is irrelevant because you knew when uploading what it is it, so it was intentifyable and in fact that's how you even knew what to upload and what not to) for a service (hosting) that can be constructed as payment for the data.

Sounds absurd? It is. That's why lawyers cost so much money. 😂

Croquette@sh.itjust.works on 28 Feb 2025 14:40 collapse

I am so fucking tired of PR speak. This is removed now so that they can sell your data later. That and the ToS change is the canary in the coalmine.

"We akchually don't sell your data because it isn't the legal definition everywhere". Fuck you

Carighan@lemmy.world on 03 Mar 12:53 collapse

Interesting, did you go check the merge request? Because I quote:

We believe the internet is for people, not profit. Unlike other companies, we don’t sell access to your data. You’re in control over who sees your search and browsing history.

Yes, that's from post-change.

Croquette@sh.itjust.works on 03 Mar 18:02 collapse

Have you looked through the proposed PR linked in this post?

It doesn't matter that Mozilla has backtracked after the backlash. It matters that they've shown us where they want to go, and its not good. They will try to push the change again until it works.

Carighan@lemmy.world on 03 Mar 19:24 collapse

Yeah I quote from that PR, in fact. That's where I got that from.

Croquette@sh.itjust.works on 04 Mar 00:14 collapse

Then you are obtuse on purpose because the PR removed the part where they explicitly say they won't sell your data.

zecg@lemmy.world on 28 Feb 2025 10:04 next collapse

So, it's Librewolf and IronFox on mobile.

RedSnt@feddit.dk on 28 Feb 2025 11:51 collapse

IronFox

Dang, I was out of the loop, I'm still on Mull. Guess I'll be moving to IronFox.

Jerti@lemm.ee on 28 Feb 2025 11:13 next collapse

What a shame. I tried waterfox for the first time and I got a good first impression. Will probably switch to it.

IDew@lemm.ee on 28 Feb 2025 11:55 collapse

In December 2019, System1, an advertising (paid notice) company that claims to be focused on privacy, bought Waterfox. In July 2023, Alex Kontos said that Waterfox is an independent and separate project again.

I'm rather unsure about what is truly going on behind the scenes, but my trust in them is far to find...

Source

Jerti@lemm.ee on 28 Feb 2025 21:27 collapse

I appreciate the info. Guess I'll try Librewolf and look into Ironfox.

casmael@lemm.ee on 28 Feb 2025 11:42 next collapse

Yanks gonna yank to be honest

BetaBlake@lemmy.world on 28 Feb 2025 14:56 collapse

Cambridge Analytica

teri@discuss.tchncs.de on 28 Feb 2025 12:52 next collapse

If everybody would as a consequence use Librewolf, Mozilla would be forced to change minds.

stray@pawb.social on 28 Feb 2025 13:35 next collapse

Does LibreWolf not have a mobile client? The ability to sync with my desktop will unfortunately keep me on Firefox, unless I'm just missing it.

Cheradenine@sh.itjust.works on 28 Feb 2025 14:40 next collapse

Ironfox has Firefox sync

https://gitlab.com/ironfox-oss/IronFox

kandoh@reddthat.com on 28 Feb 2025 15:15 next collapse

This is where not understanding how to use GitHub becomes a problem for me

atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works on 28 Feb 2025 15:47 next collapse

Usually you want to look for the “releases” tab.

Here.

kandoh@reddthat.com on 01 Mar 2025 01:59 collapse

Nods knowingly, oh yeah these are some links alright

morbidcactus@lemmy.ca on 01 Mar 2025 02:48 collapse

Apk is a package file, grab the one that matches the architecture of your device, probably the arm64 one unless you know otherwise.

They have an f-droid repo on the main page, would recommend installing that way

stray@pawb.social on 28 Feb 2025 16:04 next collapse

GitHub is so effing confusing, I can't even. You'd think I'd get the hang of it as often as I need to use it. I feel like UIs for the last like 20 years just get harder and harder for me to follow as everything is condensed into wordless little icons and countless images tile across my screen.

Cheradenine@sh.itjust.works on 01 Mar 2025 03:45 next collapse

I copied this from my other reply in case you don't see it

You can use Obtanium to pull from Github, Gitlab, and a few others, it has a search function. So you can search 'Ironfox' and it will find it on Gitlab, then Obtanium will ask if you want to install it.

Obtanium is available on F-Droid, or from Github...

https://github.com/ImranR98/Obtainium

TechLich@lemmy.world on 01 Mar 2025 03:57 collapse

I was thinking the same thing but then I realised that 20 years ago, most software UI was completely built from even tinier wordless images crammed into obtuse tiny buttons or hidden options in nested drop-down menus but we didn't really have much trouble with it back then. Maybe we're all just getting old and our brains don't want to learn new things anymore. Curse you lack of neuroplasticity!

Images not mine but shamelessly stolen from a web search.

stray@pawb.social on 01 Mar 2025 12:30 collapse

Nested drop-down menus are exactly what I miss though. In most of your screenshots there are text menus and little icons that are duplicates of menu options. I love that design, especially because I recall most programs allowing you to customize the menu bars so that you could hide whichever ones you didn't like. Little icons only is okay on desktop because you can hover over them to get more info, but on mobile your only option is to tap them.

Another feature I've been reminded of is keyboard shortcuts which can be referenced in the drop-down menus, but are otherwise not taking up any screen space at all. I love that design for people who can use it, but for myself, if the button isn't on the screen as an option, I forget it exists. This is a huge problem for me as gestures take over things, particularly on Apple products. There's no scroll bar or right click on the laptop mice; you have to use multiple fingers. And on ipads you have to double-press the one button instead of just having a hamburger button, which is a nightmare for me because I often just hold it in or end up hitting it three times. At least on Android you have the option of gestures and buttons to customize as you like.

Gimp has never not been confusing as fuck, but I think that's probably due to me not having any education in image editors in the first place. I'm lucky I can work with layers.

Cheradenine@sh.itjust.works on 01 Mar 2025 01:59 collapse

Obtanium is available on F-Droid, or from Github...

https://github.com/ImranR98/Obtainium

Ledericas@lemm.ee on 02 Mar 2025 06:51 collapse

i have obtanium, but the searches is not finding anything? is there a mehtod of using it, im not a techie person. i was able to somehow download it from the github under app-arm64-v8a-fdroid-release.apk list?

Cheradenine@sh.itjust.works on 02 Mar 2025 07:57 collapse

When you go to "Add app" you can either add the direct URL (if you know it) or the next option down is "search". When you tap search it takes you to another page that says "select source" and has check boxes for Github, Gitlab, etc. Make sure they are ticked then tap "select 4".

When it follow those steps I see results from multiple sources.

Ledericas@lemm.ee on 03 Mar 07:46 collapse

it says could not find suitable releases, since i already have it is thats why its causing that message?

Cheradenine@sh.itjust.works on 03 Mar 08:45 collapse

I don't know, sorry, I have not had that issue.

stray@pawb.social on 28 Feb 2025 16:00 collapse

Thanks. <3

Ledericas@lemm.ee on 02 Mar 2025 06:48 collapse

no it doesnt, use fennec, or ironfox.

Poem_for_your_sprog@lemmy.world on 28 Feb 2025 13:40 next collapse

Is it on Android with ublock?

YarHarSuperstar@lemmy.world on 28 Feb 2025 14:14 next collapse

In addition to this, can I use my other plugins with it, including side loaded ones? And sync my ff profile with it? I am not okay with having my data used for any reason other than the intended function of the app, and I use ff android a lot.

Cheradenine@sh.itjust.works on 28 Feb 2025 14:38 collapse

No, you want the fork of Mull called Ironfox https://gitlab.com/ironfox-oss/IronFox

Droid-ify just added it to their list of repos in the latest update

towelie@lemm.ee on 28 Feb 2025 14:36 collapse

The LibreWolf Debian repository was down all of last week. I peeked over at their forum and it looks like the team is really struggling to maintain the project since a key member left. Its struggles to keep up with security updates is why its no longer being recommended by Privacy Guides. I’m trying out Mullvad browser right now to see how it fairs

teri@discuss.tchncs.de on 28 Feb 2025 19:18 next collapse

Oh no, that's sad to hear. Society really needs to start doing more clever decisions. A project like Librewolf could be so incredibly useful for most of people. Somehow should find a way to foster those efforts.

FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.org on 28 Feb 2025 19:26 collapse

Hey can you link me to a source where it shows that privacy guides doesn’t recommend it due to security updates slowing down? I cannot find it.

I was going to use mullvad browser instead, however it wants you to use DoH. If you turn it off, you’re now fingerprintable. This is rough since i use network filter tools and it’ll bypass it if i use doh. So i was gonna try librewolf.

towelie@lemm.ee on 01 Mar 2025 00:56 collapse

Here’s the forum discussion on including Librewolf as a recommended browser:

discuss.privacyguides.net/t/…/148

It’s quite long as the topic has been open since 2022; all other posts about Librewolf are closed by mods and the discussion is redirected here.

FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.org on 01 Mar 2025 03:13 collapse

Thanks. I looked through this and a few threads. It seems like they did lose a key member. But it also seems like they've kept up with Firefox security updates, which is the most important part. It's still concerning though but it seems perfectly fine to use. What do you think?

As for mullvad browser, like i said, I'd use that but unfortunately I can't use DoH which is rhe default in that browser. It will bypass my network filtering.

Jack@lemmy.ca on 28 Feb 2025 15:34 next collapse

"never will"
"promise"

I do not think these words mean what you think they mean.

onlinepersona@programming.dev on 28 Feb 2025 18:02 next collapse

It's about time the community throws its weight behind a hard Firefox fork. Mozilla has been blinded by Google's money for more than a decade consistently doing the bare minimum to stay an alternative.

Anti Commercial-AI license

Ledericas@lemm.ee on 02 Mar 2025 06:47 collapse

they became content from the money.

RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works on 28 Feb 2025 19:39 next collapse

Honest question for people in this thread:

Would you pay a subscription to use Firefox, and if no, what would you propose as a means of sustaining Firefox's professional development budget if they lose Google's Monopoly money?

stardust@lemmy.ca on 01 Mar 2025 02:54 next collapse

I pay for email so I'd be fine paying for a version of Firefox that is stripped of AI and other shit to support them.

Blazing8215@fedia.io on 01 Mar 2025 07:00 next collapse

I don't have the money to pay for every project, but I would be fine with ads respecting my privacy. I don't understand where Anonym came from while EFF DNT policy has existed for ages and they could just have bundled https://www.eff.org/files/effdntlist.txt like the AdNauseam extension does and I have been using the list with uBlock Origin for ages without issues.

Ledericas@lemm.ee on 02 Mar 2025 06:46 collapse

they are going to need ads, and that would mean anti-adblocking down the line.

Harbinger01173430@lemmy.world on 28 Feb 2025 21:36 next collapse

Welp, back to chrome

Carighan@lemmy.world on 03 Mar 12:45 collapse

Uh, isn't your quote a bit misleading?

While it's true that the specific line you quote is deleted, that's from a part of the FAQ.
But if you look further up, the line is still there just elsewhere on the page (you can see it before the re-format just above the part I linked to).

I quote:

We believe the internet is for people, not profit. Unlike other companies, we don’t sell access to your data. You’re in control over who sees your search and browsing history.