vaguerant

And worst of all, Rob Schneider is there.

I'm just joking about the headline saying "One Click Stops It", because realistically it takes at least five.

Where's the Settings > Apps > View All Apps > Android System SafetyCore > Uninstall button? Having trouble getting there in one click.

I see your point but think it's also valid to use Lemmy or other social media to engage only with memes or whatever else people enjoy. Absolutely, everybody should stay informed and passionate about the rapidly crumbling world, but there's no rule that they specifically must do that via Lemmy. If someone chooses to use their social media as a haven from the real-world issues they encounter everywhere else, then unless Lemmy is their entire life, I don't see that as a problem.

I think the part I'm unclear about is what definition of selling Mozilla was using before. Here's the update they posted to clarify the changes: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/update-on-terms-of-use/

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. We changed our language because some jurisdictions define “sell” more broadly than most people would usually understand that word. [...]

The reason we’ve stepped away from making blanket claims that “We never sell your data” is because, in some places, the LEGAL definition of “sale of data” is broad and evolving. As an example, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) defines “sale” as the “selling, renting, releasing, disclosing, disseminating, making available, transferring, or otherwise communicating orally, in writing, or by electronic or other means, a consumer’s personal information by [a] business to another business or a third party” in exchange for “monetary” or “other valuable consideration.”

I'm not trying to be a dick or anything--that comes naturally--but yeah, Mozilla. Exchanging a good or service for money is called selling it. Since this has already been Mozilla's practice for a while and they're only now removing the promise because the definition of "sell" has apparently become so muddied, I don't follow how Mozilla was describing it before now.

In order to make Firefox commercially viable, there are a number of places where we collect and share some data with our partners, including our optional ads on New Tab and providing sponsored suggestions in the search bar. We set all of this out in our Privacy Notice. Whenever we share data with our partners, we put a lot of work into making sure that the data that we share is stripped of potentially identifying information, or shared only in the aggregate, or is put through our privacy preserving technologies (like OHTTP).

I think this is really the important part and Mozilla is burying the lede by focussing on the word "sell". I think there's an argument to be made that "your data" is no longer "your data" once it has been de-identified. I don't agree with that argument, but I find it more convincing than this Clinton-esque "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'sell' is" stuff. Mozilla isn't selling "your data" in the sense of your name and phone number, but they are selling "all data types", de-identified, anonymized, pseudonymized and/or in aggregate, about you.

I would still argue that that is your data and that by selling it, Mozilla is and has been selling your data. It's nice that Mozilla isn't blasting anybody's actual personal biographical details to all their advertising partners, but it's misleading to say that's the only way "selling data" is understood.

If all you're doing is "unchecking" then there's more you're missing:

https://github.com/K3V1991/Disable-Firefox-Telemetry-and-Data-Collection

The whole advanced configuration settings in about:config are probably never seen by the majority of users. Ultimately though, you're right: for the most part, privacy-focussed forks aren't offering anything that you couldn't manually configure for yourself in mainline Firefox, assuming you have the time, energy and interest.

Certainly, if you're in the habit of policing all of these relatively undocumented flags with each update to be sure you haven't been opted in to any telemetry you don't know about and assuming that all of it remains optional, you're absolutely unaffected. However, they now have a license to everything you do within Firefox which they state they will only use to "help" you. Does training their AI model to make targeted suggestions to users count as "helping"?

On another note, taking back a promise not to sell users' data, even if your personal data is protected because you rigorously police the about:config page, is not something many people are enthusiastic about. Just because I'm safe, doesn't mean everybody else is.

There's no technical reason why you need to be using the same-named fork on desktop and Android; they will all communicate via Firefox Sync. e.g. I'm running LibreWolf (desktop) and IronFox (Android) with my data synced, but you could just as easily sync Zen Browser (desktop) and Fennec F-Droid (Android), etc.

That said, if you want to get both browsers from the same team/with the same branding, I think Waterfox is probably your best bet. It doesn't have quite as strong a privacy focus as LibreWolf/IronFox, which both ship with very strict privacy-focussed defaults, which many users will likely roll back. For example, the default setting in LibreWolf is to delete all history and cookies on exit. Even so, Waterfox is more privacy-focussed than upstream Firefox and has released a statement on the Mozilla license changes if you want to get a feel for their perspective.

Oh, that's really cool! Do they have a Docker image for that?

Yep, a Docker image, instructions in the readme: https://github.com/mozilla-services/syncstorage-rs#running-via-docker

I've heard nothing negative about PaleMoon either, as far as privacy. I do think it's a bit tougher to recommend to the average user due to its single-process architecture.

The memory footprint is great, but everybody is kind of used to the performance and stability gains from multi-process browsers. I would feel weird recommending somebody coming off Firefox jump to PaleMoon.

Waterfox and IronFox are both on Android. I'm not aware of any Firefox forks for iOS, but I've never really looked into it, either. All Firefox forks that I'm aware of are compatible with Firefox Sync. If you don't trust Mozilla's Firefox Sync service (and personally, I think it's fine: being end-to-end encrypted, Mozilla can't see what you have in Sync regardless), you can also self-host your own Firefox Sync server.

Firefox is open-source. Certainly, you're out of options in terms of "name-brand" browsers, but there's a number of Firefox forks. On desktop, LibreWolf is the closest thing to mainline and on Android, IronFox is the equivalent.

If you want something more than just "Firefox minus the branding and tracking", some of the deeper forks are Zen Browser and Floorp.

How many have you been in now?