Firefox - New Terms of Service

Head_on_a_Stick · 2025-03-11 14:57:34

^ The firefox-esr package isn't sending usage data. Wait until the next version bump, the fun will start then.

Sector11 · 2025-03-11 16:59:47

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

^ The firefox-esr package isn't sending usage data. Wait until the next version bump, the fun will start then.

Yup, figured that out.
Have thread bookmarked.
Thanks HoaS

Pirx · 2025-03-11 23:31:32

In the last episode of Late Night Linux the guys are discussing the current Firefox drama and it looks like things are not necessarily as bad as some think.

DeepDayze · 2025-03-12 02:32:42

Hopefully this hoo-ha would die down.

DeepDayze · 2025-03-12 02:35:26

I've been trying out Brave Browser, and turned off as much of the Brave-ry stuff as I could.

johnraff · 2025-03-12 02:57:59

Pirx wrote:

In the last episode of Late Night Linux the guys are discussing the current Firefox drama and it looks like things are not necessarily as bad as some think.

My impression too FWIW. Software developers are getting more and more nervous about legal liability, and potential hostile litigants are getting smarter and smarter.

Döbbie03 · 2025-03-12 05:32:24

Pirx wrote:

In the last episode of Late Night Linux the guys are discussing the current Firefox drama and it looks like things are not necessarily as bad as some think.

No, it's probably not, but from my perspective, I have just lost trust in Firefox and Mozilla. It's just easier to not bother with them and just use something else.

Sure this whole ToS might be something that they have needed to in a while, but in a world where everywhere you turn someone or something is trying to get your personal data, movements, habits and sell it, the smallest cock up such as this one from Mozilla set alarm bells off. Along with their shenanigans of the last few years and the impending loss of their annual bribe from Google, it just makes me feel uncomfortable.

Especially as Firefox tout themselves as the "privacy" browser.

Maybe I'm being paranoid, I don't care.

johnraff · 2025-03-12 05:46:56

Döbbie03 wrote:

I have just lost trust in Firefox and Mozilla. It's just easier to not bother with them and just use something else.

It's not easy at all. All the serious alternatives are either forks of Firefox or Chromium.

Döbbie03 · 2025-03-12 06:10:01

johnraff wrote:

Döbbie03 wrote:
I have just lost trust in Firefox and Mozilla. It's just easier to not bother with them and just use something else.
It's not easy at all. All the serious alternatives are either forks of Firefox or Chromium.

I'm comfortable with LibreWolf. So far, I haven't come across a reason not to use LibreWolf.

johnraff · 2025-03-12 06:38:26

LibreWolf is a fork of Firefox. If future (hypothetical) changes to the Firefox code base make it untrustworthy, then LibreWolf will inherit those changes, unless the LW devs patch it. That's the tricky part of forks - you're dependent on a possibly small team to keep on top of all the issues.

But if you're comfortable with it, use it.

Döbbie03 · 2025-03-12 06:51:49

johnraff wrote:

LibreWolf is a fork of Firefox. If future (hypothetical) changes to the Firefox code base make it untrustworthy, then LibreWolf will inherit those changes, unless the LW devs patch it. That's the tricky part of forks - you're dependent on a possibly small team to keep on top of all the issues.
But if you're comfortable with it, use it.

I understand that, I try to follow Firefox development as much as possible. In the meantime, LibreWolf it is.

Pirx · 2025-03-12 08:17:47

Döbbie03 wrote:

I understand that, I try to follow Firefox development as much as possible. In the meantime, LibreWolf it is.

There will be no LibreWolf if Firefox is gone. And Firefox will be gone if everybody decides to use its forks, instead. Mozilla is doing 99.99% of the work necessary for the forks to exist. Bashing Firefox while praising Librewolf is unfair. Following Firefox developement is not gonna help Mozilla to survive (using Firefox possibly will). I understand that people are not happy about changes in Firefox, but the whole situation is a little bit more complex than "I can switch to Librewolf".

EDIT Corrected spelling.

Last edited by Pirx (2025-03-12 14:18:23)

eightysixed · 2025-03-12 17:29:35

Just a heads up, I've been following Floorp 12. It might be worth keeping an eye on, too.

Ablaze has released Floorp 12 beta, a privacy-focused web browser based on Firefox. It features a separate settings page, enhanced workspaces, and a rebranded Panel Sidebar. It's now available for Linux and Windows, with a macOS version coming soon.

Last edited by eightysixed (2025-03-12 17:30:29)

Pirx · 2025-03-12 23:51:01

There were two great opportunities in the past that have been wasted:

When Opera's developers decided not to use their own engine, they could have moved to Gecko instead of Blink.
When people responsible for Vivaldi decided to create the old Opera's replacement, they could have chosen Gecko instead of Blink.

Both choose the easy route that turned out to be a dead end.

Last edited by Pirx (2025-03-12 23:51:55)

johnraff · 2025-03-13 02:39:24

This might possibly become an alternative to Gecko or Blink in the future:
https://servo.org/

...or not of course.

johnraff · 2025-03-13 04:14:15

By the way, this seems to indicate that the new TOU only apply to Mozilla's binary builds, but not to the source code, from which the Debian packages are built:
Firefox Terms of Use

Mozilla wrote:

These Terms only apply to the Executable Code version of Firefox, not the Firefox source code.

Döbbie03 · 2025-03-14 04:44:20

Pirx wrote:

Döbbie03 wrote:
I understand that, I try to follow Firefox development as much as possible. In the meantime, LibreWolf it is.
There will be no LibreWolf if Firefox is gone. And Firefox will be gone if everybody decides to use its forks, instead. Mozilla is doing 99.99% of the work necessary for the forks to exist. Bashing Firefox while praising Librewolf is unfair. Following Firefox developement is not gonna help Mozilla to survive (using Firefox possibly will). I understand that people are not happy about changes in Firefox, but the whole situation is a little bit more complex than "I can switch to Librewolf".
EDIT Corrected spelling.

Quite possibly, though we don't know that for sure. Never underestimate a passionate community.

(next morning edit, I'm not trying to be a dick here, so please don't take it that way)

I wasn't bashing Firefox, being unhappy with their decisions isn't bashing. As a consumer, regardless of the cost of a product, I have every right to be unhappy with the direction and changes a company takes.

Just because they produce a tool that I use doesn't give them invulnerability to criticism.

I have used Firefox almost exclusively from the beta days, I have been an extremely loyal user. I have every right to not agree with the direction or changes that Mozilla/Firefox make that impact the privacy of any user.
Everyone I know uses Firefox because of me, I have been a champion of their product since the beginning.

If LibreWolf is providing the privacy that Firefox say they do but actually don't without user interaction, then doesn't that speak for itself?

but the whole situation is a little bit more complex than "I can switch to Librewolf".

Explain to me how it is more complex and why I should stick with Firefox. I completely understand that if Firefox goes away tomorrow we have one choice. I get that, but for now, that isn't a reality.

What has Firefox done to restore faith in their intentions and products (other than some bulldust marketing speak)?

Do you not find it odd that their change of direction coincides with the DOJ investigation into Google?

Considering the insane amount of money Google gave to Mozilla every year "to keep Google as the default search engine". I use quotes for a reason, even if the annual payout isn't for the reason I believe it is, this alone speaks volumes to me.

I'm not interested in helping a company that seems to move through CEO's like I do a change of underwear, all the while paying them crazy amounts of money while losing user share at a consistent rate.

I'll leave it at that for now. Feel free to flick me an email if you want to chat more.

Pirx · 2025-03-14 21:21:53

Döbbie03 wrote:

Explain to me how it is more complex and why I should stick with Firefox.

I'm not in a position to tell anyone on this forum what they should or should not do. I'm just pointing out to a flaw in your logic. If Debian's developers announced that they start to implement telemetry and sell some of the users' data (or Debian is not gonna survive till next year) then moving to BunsenLabs or Sparky wouldn't be a solution. The solution would be supporting Debian. Nothing else would save Debian, BunsenLabs, Sparky and many other distros.

Döbbie03 wrote:

I completely understand that if Firefox goes away tomorrow we have one choice. I get that, but for now, that isn't a reality.

Firefox is in a bad place, because it has lost majority of its users. I still believe that the main reason for that is the fact that other browsers have giant tech corporations behind them. If Firefox was more popular then it would be easier to find money to fund its development. By quitting Firefox you're contributing to its decline and you're helping to make tech world without Firefox a reality. Ironically, you're making tech world without LibreWolf a reality (no, a project as big as a web engine can't be run by a group of enthusiasts). That's why moving from Firefox to LibreWolf is more complex than moving from Firefox to Brave or Vivaldi.

Last edited by Pirx (2025-03-14 21:42:49)

Döbbie03 · 2025-03-14 23:31:25

Firefox isn't going any where, it's not my job or anyone else's other than Mozilla's to save Firefox. They have seen a steady decline of users for years and have seemed to have doubled down on moves to alienate and force users away.

If Mozilla really cared they would have done something about this already.

Firefox was massively popular back in the day and I completely disagree with your reasoning as to why they have lost user base.

To say, "Firefox is in a bad place, because it has lost the majority of its users" isn't a valid argument, you need to look at why they have lost user base.

Firefox is in a bad place because of Mozilla's choices, that is all, plain and simple. People don't leave good software for worse software simply because they choose to or the fancy takes them. There has to be more of an overriding reason.

Add that to the annual Google bribe, the reliance on that income which has now ended and the failure to build upon what they had. It's not solely because Edge has MS or Google has Chrome, sure that adds an aspect of loss but it's not the only reason.

Shit, Edge is default on countless Windows PC's so working on that logic they would far outnumber the opposition, they don't.

Yes, MS use dirty tactics, which they need to be punished for, to make it very difficult for the average user to change default browsers but still....

Yes, Chrome has the Google ecosystem, but so does Safari with the Apple ecosystem so with all the Apple users out there why isn't Safari higher on the charts?

So many of the decisions made by the company were head scratching to say the least, the huge number of developers they have let go over the years, rolling their political view out for us all, installing and enabling addons we didn't need or ask for, sponsored links in the URL bar, opt-out not opt-in telemetry, the ever increasing salary of their CEO's with an ever failing user base, the infamous Mr Robot incident, Firefox having the ability to enable or disable addons on websites they choose, and that's the tip of the cock-up iceberg. All of those things wear thin over time.

Anyway, we could be just going in circles, I don't believe FF is going anywhere and I really don't care that I'm adding to the loss or impact to FF. If FF happens to go away, well shit happens, hopefully Ladybird browser will be up and running by then.

I prefer to use a browser that I don't have to check the settings and research after each update to see what may have been enabled or added without my permission on my personal computer. I still want most of what Firefox offers, I just don't want it to be Firefox.

Just to be clear, I never said I was using logic here, it's all about how I feel

Pirx · 2025-03-15 09:04:00

I'm not the biggest fan of Mozilla, too. They've made many stupid decision and done many stupid things, but Firefox decline started with Google introducing Chrome. Everybody was invited to try it while using Google's search engine. And then there was Android with Chrome installed out of the box. Microsoft doesn't have its mobile platform and, since smartphones are much more popular than laptops or desktops, Edge can't compete with Chrome. Of course, I'm talking about personal computing. Usage of Edge in business sector is much higher, as Microsoft is pushing for Edge to be used with all its online services and business loves Microsoft services.

Döbbie03 wrote:

I still want most of what Firefox offers, I just don't want it to be Firefox.

Maybe I'm to pesimistic, but I'm not sure that anyone else will step in if Mozilla is gone or becomes completely insignificant. As long as it exists it can change for better. When it's gone it's gone. Fifteen years ago no one would believe that Firefox will have 2.62% market share. Today some may say "Firefox is not going anywhere". Only time will tell.

I'm using Waterfox on my mobile, LibreWolf and Brave on one laptop and Firefox ESR on my second laptop and I'm not getting paranoid about it. The whole drama was blown out of proportion, it's been stated that anounced changes will not affect builds provided by Debian, but people are jumping ship without thinking. I've read tons of comments like "F...k Firefox, I'm moving to Librewolf!" on many tech sites. Well, there is nothing to argue with "F...k Firefox, I'm moving to Brave/Vivaldi/...!", but the move to a browser that 100% depends on Firefox is a slightly different (more complex? ) story.

Last edited by Pirx (2025-03-15 09:21:14)

#41 2025-03-11 14:57:34

Re: Firefox - New Terms of Service

#42 2025-03-11 16:59:47

Re: Firefox - New Terms of Service

#43 2025-03-11 23:31:32

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#44 2025-03-12 02:32:42

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#45 2025-03-12 02:35:26

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#46 2025-03-12 02:57:59

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#47 2025-03-12 05:32:24

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#48 2025-03-12 05:46:56

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#49 2025-03-12 06:10:01

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#50 2025-03-12 06:38:26

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#51 2025-03-12 06:51:49

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#52 2025-03-12 08:17:47

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#53 2025-03-12 17:29:35

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#54 2025-03-12 23:51:01

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#55 2025-03-13 02:39:24

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#56 2025-03-13 04:14:15

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#57 2025-03-14 04:44:20

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#58 2025-03-14 21:21:53

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#59 2025-03-14 23:31:25

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#60 2025-03-15 09:04:00

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