Your use of Firefox must follow Mozilla’s Acceptable Use Policy, and you agree that you will not use Firefox to infringe anyone’s rights or violate any applicable laws or regulations.
Acceptable Use Policy links to https://www.mozilla.org/about/legal/acceptable-use/ which says "You may not use any of Mozilla’s services to[...]Upload, download, transmit, display, or grant access to content that includes graphic depictions of sexuality or violence"
It's against the Terms of Use to use Firefox to... watch porn?
Either their legal team made a mistake, in which case they should correct it and issue an apology ASAP, or they really do intend to own you, in which case I recommend switching to an alternative browser which is only a browser, like Dillo, Ladybird, or Netsurf.
So only bookmarks of porn sites if you have Sync active, sending porn tabs to a Firefox instance on another device, browsing porn while on the Mozilla VPN, or using Firefox Relay to sign up to a porn website with an anonymous email address
Fine by me since I don't use a Mozilla account, but sounds to me like I shouldn't get a Mozilla account either
Bookmarks and tab URLs don’t contain porn, generally? References are not typically considered explicit, though certainly their language isn’t clear enough about that.
If you bookmark a collection of data: / blob: links then that would be the outlier scenario where you shouldn’t use any third-party server-involved bookmark syncing service, as presumably they’ll all either break or ban you once they find you using their bookmark table space for data storage.
It seems like they might be "use[d]...to...[u]pload, download, transmit, display, or grant access to content that includes graphic depictions of sexuality"
Bookmarks and tabs hinge on how you interpret "grant access". Do URLs to publicly available websites grant you access, or does the phrase only apply to cookies, passwords, login-urls, etc.? I'm pretty certain it would apply to login-urls, email-confirmation emails, password-reset emails, etc, but for normal URLs I could see it either way
It's pretty odd if you aren't allowed to use their VPN to watch or share porn
- send unsolicited communications (for example cold emailing an employer about a job)
- Deceive or mislead (for example inviting your brother over for a surprise party under false pretenses)
- Purchase legal controlled products (for example sending the pharmacy a refill for your Xanax)
- Collect email addresses without permission (for example putting together a list of emails to contact public officials)
look, i'd have similar clauses if I ran such a service. Porn gets very messy very quickly. Revenge porn, porn of generally unconsenting parties etc. are all to common and people who share know it is wrong and so try to use things like vpns to hide. The problem for you as a vpn provider is proving they're doing the wrong thing with your service, so it is much easier to simply say there is a blanket ban and then selectivly enforce.
The upside for users in general is such a vpn service tends not to be associated with underbelly behaviour and so isn't blocked from 90% of the web.
Do hammer manufacturers required you to sign an agreement at the hardware store with a bunch of legalese so they aren't held liable if you use the hammer to beat someone to death?
Do alcohol companies get shut down when people drink and kill someone with their car?
Did you know that a nonzero percentage of child molesters wear Nike sneakers when they kidnap children? Why doesn't Nike actively try to prevent this?!
So why should a VPN provider need to explicitly dissuade its customers from breaking the law with their service? Why should a web browser be afraid of being on the hook when someone breaks the law via the web?
They might clarify that in the agreement. I doubt many people are intimately familiar with Mozilla, Firefox, 'services', etc. to distinguish. I am and I didn't think of it in a brief reading (which is all I have time for).
Its against the ToS to watch most PG rated movies. It objects to graphic depictions of violence as well, and has no exception for brief graphic depictions of sexuality.
TomK32:
You treacherous cowards! Is thy mind void of any knowledge or are you driven by a devil that you deny the existence of this programming language?
And yet these terms of service—for Firefox—specifically apply the AUP to “your use of Firefox,” no?
The entire AUP is prefixed “You may not use any of Mozilla’s services to:”. There’s nothing in the AUP that doesn’t refer to “Mozilla’s services.” When the Firefox TOS explicitly includes this AUP, how could it make sense unless they think of Firefox as one of their services?
At the risk of restating the gp’s quote:
> Your use of Firefox must follow Mozilla’s Acceptable Use Policy, and you agree that you will not use Firefox to infringe anyone’s rights or violate any applicable laws or regulations.
Mozilla VPN is a service Mozilla provides though. White-labelled Mullvad or not, it a contract between Mozilla and the user and therefore presumably covered by this terms of use.
I would say porn is probably in the top 3 if not number 1 use for VPNs
I wouldn’t expect the bookmark to run afoul of this clause, since the bookmark isn’t the content. Now it’d be a curious case if the bookmark contained a base64-encoded pornographic image.
You seem to be assuming competence on the part of the author. But, as is common with documents that lawyers generate, they probably don't care if it's reasonable or if practically every one of their users violates it. Like when you get an employee contract that claims your new company owns every idea you ever had. Some people will claim it's just "lawyer stuff" and is somehow okay. It's really not okay.
If you're syncing a bookmark that is somehow illegal content, it would come to rest on their servers and they'd potentially be liable for it. (IIRC they encrypt everything at rest, so this is a speculative risk)
> Either their legal team made a mistake, in which case they should correct it and issue an apology ASAP
I don't think it is a mistake but more the translation of a vision and strategy that took hundreds of meetings to be laid down very precisely.
I have nothing to back what I am gonna say but I am wondering if their strategy might be to truly become the default browser of governments who are uncomfortable having Chrome or Edge as the default browser. Especially since now they get augmented by a lot of AI.
Firefox has it largest market share in Europe and Germany it seems and with the concerns with are hearing over there about Big tech I wouldn't be surprised at some point some govs try to make their workstations Firefox only.
Also some governments are trying hard to restrict access to porn, violence and social media for children but we know it is almost impossible to do it at the network level. So they might try at the browser level with the help of Mozilla and some "sanctioned Internet AI safety" inside the browser?
I really don't know but think about it, Mozilla is a dead man walking with it's 2% market share and huge cost of maintaining one of the most complex piece of software. They have to do something about it.
What just tipped me off is reading on Wikipedia [0]:
> On February 8, 2024, Mozilla announced that Baker would be stepping down as CEO to "focus on AI and internet safety"[2] as chair of the Mozilla Foundation.
I'm pretty sure this is about Mozilla services. AFAICT, Firefox itself is licensed under the https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Public_License and as such doesn't put any restrictions on how you use the software.
I don't think they use a separate EULA for the binaries. I've found this:
> Mozilla software is made available to you under the terms of the Mozilla Public License 2, a free software license, which gives you the right to run the program for any purpose, to study how it works, to give copies to your friends and to modify it to meet your needs better. There is no separate End User License Agreement (EULA).
Welp, they stopped being open source, then. From the OSD:
6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.
The applicable laws of North-Korea might differ than the applicable laws of Russia which may differ from the law of Qatar, etc. It might be even impossible to uphold this world wide even if you tried.
So i guess it's more a 'we at Mozilla don't want any trouble' thing.
The squeeze on any content that religious people find 'yucky' is double-pronged in the US - encouraged both by governments and businesses. Paypal, Visa, Mastercard et al are given complete discretion over what transactions they can block, and they have already extensively used this to deprive legal NSFW platforms and creators of their income.
So, on one end, state governments are trying to strongarm NSFW services by imposing draconian requirements that ask users to submit their private data to some random opaque 'benevolent' third party business - and on the other, payment processors are using their legal right to refuse whatever transaction for any reason so they can starve them of income.
I dont think the pressure from payment processors is because of puritanism, but rather payments in this space tend to come with a much higher % of fraud and chargebacks and they've decided it's not worth the risk.
The Puritans have been trying to ban porn here since the concept has existed, it's never stopped, and it's never going to stop. They're miserable and they want everyone else to be too. That's like most of their religion. Going to church, being ashamed of bodies, and judging people.
Yes, I'm working on cutting every addiction, that's a big part of being a practicing Orthodox Christian. My biggest weaknesses are video games but I have wasted plenty of time on shows as well and I haven't done either as much in the past month or so.
But sexuality is a big part of our lives and while wasting time on any addiction like doomscrolling and binge watching is not good for us, porn can taint our relationship with the opposite sex and that's worst in my opinion
Sorry if I may have sounded judgemental and good luck with your self-improvement trip. Orthodox Christianity can be helpful with tackling self-moderation issues. Just make sure you don't pay much attention to any extreme guilt-tripping moralisms you may hear along the way. (I am of Orthodox Christian background myself, and I have heard my fair share of them.)
Do you think pornography is harmful to you, and can it be inferred that pornography is also harmful to others?
This is the reason why your viewpoint is not accepted by others
If you search YouTube for "effects of porn addiction" you will find mostly clips from secular sources. A lot of scientists/psychologists say it's harmful
> If you search YouTube for "effects of porn addiction" you will find mostly clips from secular sources.
This is not an argument. You can find sources saying anything you want on YouTube. If you want to be taken seriously, you need more than random videos or a Wikipedia article.
> A lot of scientists/psychologists say it's harmful
Are you seriously saying porn is being suppressed? It's a bigger industry than it has ever been.
Visa has the option to do business with whomever they like or dislike and I'm not even sure they don't support them because of religious reasons.
I'm not saying it should be banned but saying the people who are against it or don't want to do business with such entities are miserable is twisted given it is an industry where most of the actors are victims of abuse, the viewers learn a distorted view of sexuality and younger generations have less respect for each other because of it.
> I'd say porn makes people miserable not happy/ fulfilled.
Yes. And no.
It depends on a lot of other things: what porn you're looking at [1]; what stage you are in; how fulfilled you are with your life; etc.
The addiction to porn is like any addiction: a symptom of something else not going well; addiction which you won't get out of if you don't find a way to fix the issue. That isn't to say that you shouldn't treat the symptom as well, if/when it hurts you too (and any addictive behaviour can quickly hurt).
The very tricky thing is that, the same thing (alcohol, sex, drugs, porn, sport, work, food) can be addictive to someone, and just recreational to another; beneficial and harmful.
The key is understanding why, for each and every one. Not to shame.
[1] porn is not necessarily the most extreme, garbage, inhuman stuff; although those are very liberally used by most porn websites. Some stuff are definitely harmful, to anyone, on either side of it. Some are well thought-out and promote educational, healthy, loving behaviour - guess why, those of most often written and produced by women.
Confused. What do Firefox's terms of service have to do with puritanism ? Have Firefox developers become puritanist or something ? That would be extremely surprising if true. Any evidence (anecdotal or otherwise) to this ?
"You may not use any of Mozilla’s services to[...]Upload, download, transmit, display, or grant access to content that includes graphic depictions of sexuality“
I don't think that's the problem here, as I don't want to see porn on e.g. Mozilla's forums either. There's a place and time for that content and Mozilla shouldn't be the one to decide for others. The problem is whether Firefox is a Mozilla "service" or not, and the way the terms is linked implies that it is.
I'm all down to write off contract law as "puritanism" but the rot is far deeper than an aesthetic (and frankly I'm unclear how puritanism applies to this situation at all).
EDIT: I'm not sure why porn is particularly interesting here when most internet activity seems to be potentially against terms of service.
It's gonna be a weird few years that's for sure. I'll leave it to the historians to decide when the actual tipping point was but the shift in the GOP from being run by Republicans with a few bones thrown to Conservatives every now and again when it's time to drum up votes to the show now being run by Conservatives is going to be the point between two political eras.
It's by far not the first time
this has happened but it's kinda surreal to be alive for one.
I'd say it was the decline and fall of the Soviet block. Without the external pressure to remain competitive, the balance shifted from realism towards ideology.
The U.S. still has competition from Europe and China, no? I'm not convinced that the puritanical fanatics would ever make the rational decision to ease up on their efforts for the sake of the economy. For non-Western examples, see Iran and Afghanistan since the mid 20th century.
At least in the US, slavery is alive and well. 13th amendment abolishes slavery except as punishment for a crime, and prisoners all over the country perform forced labour for a small fraction of federal minimum wage.
My conspiracy theory is that gears are slowly turning to revamp the culture, redefine what’s acceptable/not acceptable and eventually suggest that if you won’t have kids you’re not accepted in the society. Basically a funky way to reverse the population decline, as the governments are realizing this problem won’t be fixed by free markets and etc.
First of all, US population has been steadily growing, so I don't get why big business (whose interests current administration represent) would need to engage in long-term culture engineering for steady supply of new workers.
Second of all, majority of US population is urban. People in NY or Bay Area can't elect a president who represents their interests due to how Electoral College is designed but attempting to change their opinions on having children by banning porn is a pipe dream.
Again, it's just a fun conspiracy theory in my head, and no, it doesn't have to be big business. Like you realize churches have been pouring money in ads, apps, and etc. right? They're actively trying to get back all the lost memberships.
US population is growing for a combination of immigration and just slightly better birth rates than others. It's nowhere close to above-replacement levels (2.1). Just check out the population pyramid, and you can see there are less younger kids than older ones.
People aren't having kids because of stagnant real wages and soaring home prices. In the US, the median home price is now $450k. In Canada, it's $650k. And when people do have children, they're on average having fewer, later in life (with a greater risk of complications): https://www.northwell.edu/news/the-latest/geriatric-pregnanc...
I doubt banning porn or abortion or engaging in cultural engineering will fix this.
And then there's this phenomenon, discussion of which was once verboten in goodthink circles (like HN) due to its anti-feminist and "incel" optics, but has since grown enough in strength and scale to shove its way through the Overton Window so that even respectable, MSM sources cover it: https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/3868557-most-yo...
Top income brackets aren't really having more than 2 children either, which is a requirement for growing population. Like most studies has shown that, in general, educated women, freedom of choice and etc. will negatively impact birthrates. It's the same thing everywhere. Sure, income, less social pressure and etc. affects it somehow, but there's just no real need in general to have 3 kids in this day and age. Asking a woman to give away at the bare minimum 6 years of their youth won't cut it nowadays. And honestly, I don't blame them, I think exactly the same way.
I have no idea why people keep saying it's monetary reasons. Why would anyone have 3 kids nowadays? There are no real incentives, other than "I want a big family". Society actively discourages large families as well. The amount of people in their 20s aiming for that is getting smaller and smaller too.
The best way to have more kids, unironically, is making everyone as poor as possible, removing any other method of entertainment, and making "having kids" the only choice. That's how it worked for the eternity, and some people want a percentage of people to go back to it, so it would support the current established system.
I don't think creating the illusion of an imaginary middle class ever helped anything. I believe it only makes things worse, as now a lot of people think they are not working class, just because they have an above median wage. Snap it, even some even hold to the illusion that they are rich, just because they have a house with a mortgage and a private pension.
What you need to have a modern, western country instead of a dog-eat-dog wild west is welfare, including universal health care.
But welfare is considered as an evil communist plot in the US and the people who are led to believe that they are somehow above the working masses keep voting against their own interests. Not just in the US, unfortunately.
It seems like not so much a conspiracy theory as something totally transparent and out in the open. There's a huge political push to birth as many babies as possible. Major political parties have it as part of their platform. Their spokespeople talk derisively of "childless cat ladies" and how you're not a real contributor to society unless you produce babies.
The "Birth" lobby is a stool composed of several legs:
1. Attack abortion
2. Attack contraception
3. Attack porn
4. Attack education
5. Attack "women in the workforce"
All of these things are seen as contributing to declining birth rates, so they're opposed by Big Birth. You can see the same politicians tend to go after these things in lock step.
I don't think they can succeed though, because the 5. is the crucial step, as being a baby-making machine is a full-time job, and no lobby is going to get a lot of following from the business with the premise to cut the available workforce by half.
If the plan is to have most people out of job soon-ish, then big population with bunch of young people without good prospects is a recipe for disaster.
Pretty much, yeah. Like everything is factually right, but I completely disagree with their method. So far, they’ve failed at each step.
There’s a very obvious “pro-religion” push going on across all social media as well, but it’s hard to pinpoint when/how it started. Not sure how far they’ll have to roll back women’s rights to get where they want to, but it’s incredibly sad to watch. Not sure how fathers with daughters are going to watch this happen in real time as well.
Firefox-the-browser isn't a service, it's a product. Their services are things like profile syncing. It makes sense to me that they wouldn't want content on their servers that they could get in legal trouble for hosting.
Mozilla's ToS applies for Firefox's use, and this is literally written by Mozilla themselves:
“Your use of Firefox must follow Mozilla’s Acceptable Use Policy”
There's no distinction between the browser and Mozilla's online services here.
---
And even if it were referring only to features such as “profile syncing” (and it doesn't refer only to that), does this mean that people can't have bookmarks to porn? And why would Mozilla care about how people use profile syncing at all? I thought it was e2e encrypted.
> Mozilla software is made available to you under the terms of the Mozilla Public License 2, a free software license, which gives you the right to run the program for any purpose, to study how it works, to give copies to your friends and to modify it to meet your needs better. There is no separate End User License Agreement (EULA).
So, as someone else pointed out, saving bookmarks of porn and using their bookmarks sync service would be a problem.
It's easy to laugh and dismiss that. But what if you're a journalist covering war? You're going to have plenty of bookmarks of graphic violence, and therefore run afoul of this license.
Title is a complete lie/misleading. They get a license, not ownership.
Let's dissect what it actually says, and we do it backwards, because given the discussion around this subject it seems like people space out or have their mind clouded by outrage before they get to the end of the sentence:
> help you [do things] as you indicate with your use of Firefox.
So this already only covers things that you indicate you want to do with your use of Firefox. Meaning that if you hit some button, Mozilla now has a license to process the data they need to make that button work and nothing more. That means unless you give them additional permission somewhere, they can't, for example, also store and process that information to train some AI model or whatever. All they're allowed to use it for is making whatever you interacted with work. Seems pretty reasonable.
> to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content
This further narrows the scope to websites and such you interact with (online content). It also says that license only covers "helping" you with these things. The part we looked at previously narrows this to your intent.
> you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license
So just a license. No transfer of ownership is happening.
> When you upload or input information through Firefox
Note that this says "through". They're clearly only trying to cover their butt as an intermediary by obtaining a license to process your information to act as such an intermediary. Explicitly nothing more.
Putting it back together we get:
> 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.
I don't have to grant Word a license to what I type in it. This is a highly unusual clause that other software doesn't have.
When software has to "phone home" to deliver the functionality you requested, then two things happen: One, a number of privacy regulations kick in, and they need to get you to agree to send your data to them. Two, they now get to move your data out of your control. I mean, you trust them today, so here's hoping they don't ever get hacked or hire someone untrustworthy?
It's sad when even to use the basic features of a web browser, you need to agree to send them your data. It's not fundamentally necessary to send your data to Mozilla or their partners in order to load and render a website. It's a dark pattern to obtain consent to collect your data "when it's necessary", and then rewrite your app to make it necessary.
> I don't have to grant Word a license to what I type in it.
Yes you do.
From Microsoft's Services Agreement [1]:
> To the extent necessary to provide the Services to you and others, to protect you and the Services, and to improve Microsoft products and services, you grant to Microsoft a worldwide and royalty-free intellectual property license to use Your Content, for example, to make copies of, retain, transmit, reformat, display, and distribute via communication tools Your Content on the Services.
Which for the record they absolutely need, for example if you write something in word, click the share button, copy the link and publish it in this forum. Microsoft is now publishing whatever you wrote in the document, and their lawyers want to make sure they are allowed to do that.
Word versions that predate the share button probably wouldn't need the license grant. But since MS likes to limit the number of different licenses it was probably still in there to cover SharePoint and OneDrive
"Hey, here are my car keys - can you move my car to a different parking space?"
"I cannot - I do not have a royalty-free non-exclusive license to access or operate your vehicle."
I realize lawyers have been wildly successful in making a parody of our societies and legal systems, but permission is implied in clicking the "share" button, it does not require obtuse and overreaching legal language to grant.
The Microsoft Services Agreement applies to your use of their online services, like OneDrive and SharePoint, as you say, and there's an explicit consent in the app and a giant off switch there. They employ dark patterns to push you strongly to use their online services, but it's still optional.
It should be readily obvious that choosing to use online sharing or storage features or submit reviews require the data you enter to be sent, shared, or stored thusly...
In that case I stand corrected. Apparently you could use Word without accepting an agreement potentially granting Microsoft a license to what you write.
No offense, I'm aware of how complex laws can be, but... Shouldn't that be obvious?
Or do you think you also grant a license to any pen manufacturer to help you write whatever it is that you are writing?
I went looking for old Microsoft Word EULAs but didn't find any on google. I did find this fun tidbit, though:
> Performance or Benchmark Testing. You may not disclose the results of any benchmark test of either of the Windows 95 Software Components to any third party without Microsoft’s prior written approval.
Wasn't that an Oracle sin? I guess Microsoft didn't want to miss out on the dickery.
A license grant like this is common in the context of review systems or forums or the like. For example if I go to addons.mozilla.org and post a review for an addon, Mozilla arguably needs a license grant like this to allow them to publish the review. And preferably they would want to word it in a way that then allows them to use the same review in print or a super bowl spot.
The weird thing is that a) I don't think this license grant covers any of that, since publishing a review doesn't improve my experience, it improves other's experiences, and b) Mozilla Websites like addons.mozilla.org have a completely different TOS [1], with a completely different license grant.
I have no idea what this license grant is supposed to accomplish, or what it would even allow that requires a license grant in the first place
Thinking about this a bit more: the most likely use for this specific license grant I can come up with is a 3rd party partnership similar to pre-acquisition Pocket.
Imagine if on first startup Firefox offers you to show website recommendations. Maybe a prechecked checkbox. If you don't say no, they send anything you type in the address bar to some third party, that third party throws that in a recommendation system and spits out websites you may want to visit, which Firefox then shows in the new-tab page. This license grant would cover that. They would be using a license on content I input (all my keystrokes in the address bar) to help me experience online content (recommendations for new content) as I indicate (they asked). In principle recommending me websites based on all images I upload with Firefox would also be covered, though that's a bit far fetched.
Of course in the EU you'd probably have pretty strict consent requirements because of the GDPR, same with other jurisdictions with strong privacy protections. But in places with weak privacy protections the grant in question should cover all bases to pull something like this
I don't believe that dissection is a good way to understand the implications of this clause.
>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.
Rather than go over this word-by-word, please tell me: what limits exactly does this place on Mozilla? What rights does it give to the user? One way to express such a limit is by construction, that is, construct hypothetical acts A, B, and C that would be allowed under these terms, but actions D, E, and F would not be allowed (and be a cause for action by a user). I assert that the first set includes literally anything you can imagine (modulo a sophists ability to morph "help you" into anything they want), and the second set is empty.
To steel-man this concept, let us say that Mozilla wants to store and use your password to your bank to check your balance regularly. I assert that this action is allowed by there terms. Why? First, you used Firefox and therefore enabled the clause. Second, your authentication details are entered through Firefox, and this constitutes "input" or "upload", to which they assert ownership (which I will use as shorthand for a "nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license"). One thing they could do with your financial data is show it to you (least harm). Another thing is to aggregate it with other's data (medium harm). Yet another application would be to pool it into a database to be sold to the highest bidder (maximum harm). In the latter case, you could make the argument that such a move "helps you" by giving Mozilla a reliable revenue stream that helps fund continued development of the browser.
Needless to say, I am appalled and feel bad for all the many people I've told about Firefox over the years, described it as a bastion of fairness and privacy in an all too often sinister world. And now that they've assert these extraordinary rights over user data, I feel ashamed of my advocacy. I daresay that even if they rescind this incredible overreach, I will not come back. My trust has been broken and cannot be easily (if ever) repaired.
Mozilla is bound to only use the content to help the use navigate, experience and interact with online content as the user has indicated.
> One thing they could do with your financial data is show it to you (least harm).
Yes - this is what the user indicated.
> Another thing is to aggregate it with other's data (medium harm).
And the user has not indicated that this would be a permitted use of the data - thereby revoking the license of the first clause. If the data is used outside of the final clause of the license, that is unlicensed use of data. This would be a material breach of the contract by the corporation. This could open them up to massive legal penalties.
I think that's just a cover-all and they also have a privacy policy [1] which is explicit about how they use it and how they don't, for example:
"the data stays on your device and is not sent to Mozilla’s servers unless it says otherwise in this Notice."
... "When you perform a search in Firefox, your search query, device data and location data will be processed by your default search engine"
... "Mozilla derives the high level category [...] from keywords in that query [...] privacy preserving technologies such that Mozilla only learns that someone, somewhere, performed a search relating to a particular category, without knowing who."
... Review Checked, AI Chatbots, advertising on new tab page, etc.
So yea Firefox does so much they pretty much have to use your data, but it's not a blank cheque to do what they want.
> First, you used Firefox and therefore enabled the clause.
I believe your confusion stems from a misreading of "as you indicate with your use of Firefox". You're reading it like "by using Firefox, you indicate".
Contemplate the difference between
"The car is allowed to move as you indicate with the controls."
versus
"By using the controls, you indicate the car is allowed to move."
The former explicitly only allows the car to realize your intent, whereas the latter gives the car license to do whatever it pleases.
You have now edited your comment at least 3 times. I find it hard to take this argument seriously, and indeed struggle to understand how it isn't trolling. At best this language is ambiguous; at worst it is misleading. It certainly ignores the core point of my comment, which is to construct hypothetical actions by Mozilla that would NOT be permitted by the clause. I strongly feel that your purpose in defending Mozilla here would be better served by providing those examples.
> You have now edited your comment at least 3 times.
Yes. I reworked the example a few times. I think the third rewrite made it pretty clear.
> It certainly ignores the core point of my comment, which is to construct hypothetical actions by Mozilla that would NOT be permitted by the clause.
The hypothetical action you gave is not permitted, because the user would not have indicated they wanted Mozilla to do that. Firefox/Mozilla is only allowed to use your data as indicated by you.
The phrase is "...as you indicate with your use of Firefox"! It is NOT "...as you indicate with your Firefox user preferences." Using Firefox is what indicates your agreement, similar to how using your credit card indicates your agreement with the card terms. I take it back - the meaning is not ambiguous at all.
I'm at a loss as to how to proceed from here, given that we seem to have different ideas of how the English language works.
However there's more that also precludes such use as in your example:
> license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact
Mozilla phoning home your bank account details is not helping you do that in any way, so it is not covered. The next part, that we seem to disagree on, only further narrows that down to actual user intent.
You're not indicating that they can have a license to do anything, you're specifically giving them a "license [..] to help you [..] as you indicate".
The statement is clear and simple and would not benefit from a TOS rewrite. What you really want are clearer processing directions built into the Firefox UI, not a longer or different TOS.
Something like, a popup over the execute button on the search bar disclosing the specific processing instruction you are providing by pressing that button, and by whom.
Or, when you use a vertical scroll bar, a confirmation that no processing is occurring outside your local machine.
These things would satisfy some more detail-minded people, but ultimately would provide no significant value to either Mozilla or the marginal user, so it's really no mystery why Firefox does not do this.
Ok, so you read it to say that at some later point they will ask, and that point the language will matter.
What was the purpose of mentioning it now? And why write in such an ambiguous way that it could be interpreted otherwise? And that still doesn’t give me confidence about what they will do at a later time. I don’t like it at all, these are used car dealership tactics.
Given that Mozilla updated their site a couple days ago to remove any wording along the lines of "Firefox will never sell your data to advertisers" when a flag associated with the new Firefox terms of use is enabled (see https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/commit/d459addab846d8144b...), I'm not so sure that this is a CYA about standard web browser usage.
<p>Firefox is independent and a part of the not-for-profit Mozilla, which fights for your online rights, keeps corporate powers in check and makes the internet accessible to everyone, everywhere. We believe the internet is for people, not profit. You’re in control over who sees your search and browsing history. All that and exceptional performance too.</p>
{% else %}
<p>Firefox is independent and a part of the not-for-profit Mozilla, which fights for your online rights, keeps corporate powers in check and makes the internet accessible to everyone, everywhere. 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. All that and exceptional performance too.</p>
{% endif %}
> remove any wording along the lines of "Firefox will never sell your data to advertisers"
You mean wording like this?
""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 believe the internet is for people, not profit. Unlike other companies, we don’t sell access to your data.
and instead there's vague weaseling
> doesn’t sell data about you (in the way that most people think about “selling data“)
I'm not like most people, I am a bit stupid and have a very low threshold for what selling my data is.
> 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.
You can either have 2.5% of users who know why they are using your browser and are willing to make a donation or you can have nothing while we use a fork with your telemetry ripped out.
> 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)
So they are sharing your data with partners, commercially. but only in "anonymized" form so its OK?
My ISP doesn't need a license to everything I do online to facilitate the transfer of bits from my home to the wider internet, so why should Mozilla need that? How about the transit providers, they certainly don't have a license to anything I do.
Assuming that everything is HTTPS, what are they actually licencing? My encrypted data?
This is some Mozilla legally idiot that went WAY to far in a "cover our ass" legal document and nobody stopped to think about the potential damage this would to the Mozilla and Firefox reputation, which already isn't doing so well. They didn't even stop to think if MAYBE this needed some clarification, to avoid unwarranted speculations. It's getting increasingly clear that the people running Mozilla has absolutely no idea what they are doing, nor do they have any respect for the project they've are in charge of. At this point I wouldn't be surprise to learn that the Mozilla CEO uses Edge.
Do you have expertise, for example as an IP attorney? I don't meant to disqualify what you say; at the same time people would benefit from knowing what your analysis comes from.
I am not an expert in this field, and I think the meaning is ambiguous. It could be interpreted as you say; it could be interpreted otherwise.
Mozilla's current intent isn't relevant to what they do later or its legality or enforceablility.
> 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.
So basically they can track everything I upload or type on my keyboard while in Firefox?
My guess is the first phrase is lawyer-brain for "we send the words you typed in the search bar to the search engine for you."
(Yes, they need your express permission to do that, because copyright law is really fucking dumb and makes absolutely no sense if you're approaching it from engineer-brain.)
My browser sent a request that starts with “POST” in order to tell this website to create this comment but it includes the words that I wrote and therefore “own” as far as copyright is concerned. Mozilla requests a license to send such data to websites in similar contexts as, in this case, I “indicate” by clicking the “reply” button.
Other uses of that data are not licensed. For example, using that data in an unrelated request they send to themselves, not indicated by clicking reply, is not licensed.
Mozilla isn't sending that data. You're sending that data.
These terms are common on webapps because, well, they're webapps. You send your data to the webapp and they store it on their own servers.
Web apps, operated by individuals or organisations, are very different to local apps which are operated by you. Just because the Firefox app is running on your device doesn't mean that Mozilla is operating it.
By granting Mozilla the right to access and use your data, you're agreeing to give them data which they never had previously - instead of just sending the POST to xyz.com you're now sending it to Mozilla as well who can do whatever they like with it, sell it to ad networks, whatever.
And the means of realization are up to Mozilla. In other words they can do whatever they want. If my intent is to type something into the searchbar and get redirected to the search engine website, there is no reason why Mozilla would need to know about this.
If you want to claim otherwise, show where it says that and elaborate. This style of "argument" leads nowhere. You're stringing together vague statements and claims, leaving it to the imagination of the reader to tie them into the matter at hand. Maybe you want to do your own dissection of the sentence we are arguing about to make your reading of it clear.
No, I'm not. I'm interpreting it precisely as written using the rules of the English language. Lawyers get paid good money to word them very precisely.
I appreciate your candor and good-faith, benefit-of-the-doubt reading of this clause.
However,
> Lawyers get paid good money to word them very precisely.
This is true, but not in the way you are presenting. The precision is often to provide unilateral freedom under the guise of protection. They will "lawyer" you.
"As indicated by you" is a grossly broad phrase. An indication is not an express, enthusiastic consent.
(FWIW browsers have a lot of lessons to learn from sexual misconduct training, but I digress).
Importantly, you are making an implicit assumption that actually is not protected by the statement. And that is when the intention was shared.
If you accept the terms of a Mozilla service elsewhere that indicate you are amenable to, for instance, being served ads in exchange for using the browser a certain way --it can now be argued that the data can be exfiltrated.
So, there are two points of failure with your assessment.
1. "Indicated by you" is subjective and Mozilla can solidly argue implicit consent or action
2. The indication need not be contained to the same operation which which the information in question is being sent.
I had to vouch for your comment, which given that yours is the first and only comment responding with something substantive in this entire comment tree is rather... interesting. Thank you for actually engaging in the discussion about the matter at hand using well laid out arguments.
> "As indicated by you" is a grossly broad phrase. An indication is not an express, enthusiastic consent.
I agree that by itself "indicate" could be interpreted very broadly, however in context it is decidedly less so: "to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox". So in order to be licensed use, it has to serve to help the user "navigate, experience, and interact" in the way the user indicated.
> If you accept the terms of a Mozilla service elsewhere that indicate you are amenable to, for instance, being served ads in exchange for using the browser a certain way --it can now be argued that the data can be exfiltrated.
You're right. It absolutely could be argued. As long as they obtain consent/a communication of intent somewhere - for instance by you leaving a "yes, serve me ads" checkbox ticked somewhere - they arguably could now have license to use your data for that.
However the point is that something on top of your agreement to the TOS is necessary to make that happen. Just agreeing to the TOS and browsing the web normally doesn't give Mozilla license to do much at all.
If I could make a change to the sentence, I would modify it to include "license [..] to the extent necessary to [..]":
> When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to the extent necessary to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox.
I don't think that change is strictly... necessary, but it makes it very clear that Mozilla doesn't have license to do all sorts of other unrelated things with your data beyond what is absolutely necessary to realize the user's intent.
You have been nitpicking on minutiae while blatantly ignoring the broader context. What is your stance on Mozilla removing the "we don't sell your data" clause as indicated in other comments? You have been latching on wordings and dragging people in clarification contests, but have been carefully avoiding to respond to this not at all vague statement/fact.
Here, let me repeat some of the comments you ignored:
ndiddy 4 hours ago | unvote | parent | prev | next [–]
Given that Mozilla updated their site a couple days ago to remove any wording along the lines of "Firefox will never sell your data to advertisers" when a flag associated with the new Firefox terms of use is enabled (see https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/commit/d459addab846d8144b...), I'm not so sure that this is a CYA about standard web browser usage.
theturtletalks 4 hours ago | unvote | root | parent | next [–]
> {% if switch('firefox-tou') %}
<p>Firefox is independent and a part of the not-for-profit Mozilla, which fights for your online rights, keeps corporate powers in check and makes the internet accessible to everyone, everywhere. We believe the internet is for people, not profit. You’re in control over who sees your search and browsing history. All that and exceptional performance too.</p>
{% else %}
<p>Firefox is independent and a part of the not-for-profit Mozilla, which fights for your online rights, keeps corporate powers in check and makes the internet accessible to everyone, everywhere. 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. All that and exceptional performance too.</p>
{% endif %}
> You have been nitpicking on minutiae while blatantly ignoring the broader context. What is your stance on Mozilla removing the "we don't sell your data" clause as indicated in other comments?
Why do you care about my stance?
I'm just here trying to correct a misreading of a specific instance of "lawyerspeak" and am not interested in joining some ideological battle where you believe me on the opposing side. It's not my kind of past time. I'm more interested in making sure I fully understand a matter, often by bouncing my interpretations off other people. I could not care less about joining some online brawl and making my side seem right by any means necessary.
What you're bringing up has no bearing on this conversation - it doesn't change the meaning of the sentence people were confused about at all.
That's why I was ignoring these kinds of replies. I just don't care for it.
This definition of helping me (a user} navigate could be interpreted in many ways, from the obvious all the way through to sending Mozilla my data so they can "improve Firefox" and therefore help me through giving them my information. This signals intent against my interest, regardless of whether that actually is there intent. The 'help' in particular is extremely suspicious and ambiguous
I think everyone is unsettled about the fact that Mozilla was able "to help you ... as you indicate" for twenty years before today without the need of a license agreement. And so we ask: what's changed?
The change removing "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." makes it pretty clear that the intention in the changes is NOT just covering their bums for using your input to provide the webpage you wanted. They are positioning to sell your personal data.
That promise to never have, never will sell your personal data was highly valued by many Firefox users and Mozilla must be pretty desperate to break it.Particularly given online privacy is suddenly crucial for many out-groups in the US - and pretty much everyone outside the US. The biggest marketing opportunity for years just landed in Mozilla's lap, and they spilled it.
Full context, from the link YOU provided: ""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."
There is no reasonable way to read this as an attempt to sell your data. This quote is also reiterated in the linked Privacy FAQ on their official site: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/faq/
> 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).
So they share data with partners, which helps to make Firefox commercially viable, meaning those partners pay them for that data. Or in other words, Mozilla sells user data. Even when anonymized or aggregated, it's still selling data.
I disagree. I definitely editorialized it to make it attention-grabbing and point out the essence, because I wanted to raise awareness and spur discussion.
But they do own it in the digital sense (i.e. "piracy is not stealing" sense). You get to keep your own copy, but they also get a copy and they own that copy.
> help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content
These terms are vague enough to allow pretty much everything. Google would argue that tracking your information so they target ads is "helping you navigate" ("you see, sponsored links are more relevant!"). As well as "lets train an AI model that helps users experience the internet!"
Maybe Mozilla doesn't own that information legally, but they grant themselves practically unlimited rights to do what they want, as the restriction they imposed to themselves ("to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox.") couldn't be more wishy-washy.
No difference to me. Goodbye Firefox.
By the way, what alternatives are there for Thunderbird?
The main problem with the "important part in cursive" is that it's Mozilla execs who decide what is actually a "to help you". There is no way to opt-out of "help".
I think you are bending the meaning of the word license to the breaking point here. What your analysis implies, is that Mozilla needs permission to store and process your data in order to carry out the services implied by your use of Firefox. Obtaining a "nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license" is definitely an excessive move in that context.
In EU user can not legally give up ownership of their personal data, artwork, or intelectual property. "Giving license" is a legal workaround to get ownership.
That'd be a matter for the privacy policy. The section in question is whether they can then go ahead and publish a list of all the buttons you pressed. Which according to this license grant they can, but only if it "helps you navigate, experience, [or] interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox". What does that mean? I have no clue. It's a really strange restriction and I can't decide if that's wide open or so narrow that it is basically never met
Long answer: Unless the button says "phone home my information to Mozilla", this license wouldn't cover that. This license only covers whatever is necessary to make the button itself work - whatever is necessary to realize the user's intent.
From the link that was already provided, and which is repeated in their Privacy FAQ: "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."
That seems like a pretty reasonable justification to me
Honestly I'm surprised that a research technician is more interested in this style of "argument" rather than figuring out the meaning of a (very precisely worded) sentence to for its own sake.
"(BTW there are opt-outs linked from each chapter/category of data, like sponsored content in new tab experience etc. that should lead you through settings to disable such telemetry. Nothing has changed about that, and you can always find it in the privacy center. The changeset you're looking at here is just to remove things that are unfortunately not that simple, and need explaining in the full legal documents instead.)"
It's fascinating how any Firefox thread here inevitably devolves into accusations that Mozilla has abandoned users and a push to switch to alternatives, despite Mozilla working in the interest of users to a infinitely greater degree than any other major browser vendor.
Indeed. Talking about privacy and having spyware and ads activated by default and now this probably to legally safeguard this and more speak a very clear language.
The only reason to still use FF is indeed, that the competition is worse in this regard.
But that will change, once Ladybird becomes mature enough.
Pinging a Mozilla server to see if there is an active and usable internet connection is not spyware, let's stop with these useless accusations.
It's a product which optionally does accept some help from the users, e.g. opt-in error reports, which is a huge help.
Certain people consider that a blatant violation of their rights for some reason, and they would apparently rather see the last bastion of a non-chrome internet die.
" Firefox also shares information with our marketing partners to measure and improve these campaigns; what information is specifically shared varies (depending on how you discovered Firefox and your operating system) but generally includes how you were referred to our download page and whether you actively use Firefox. Where Firefox is pre-installed on your device, technical and interaction data (your device type and whether Firefox is used) will be sent to our marketing partners, and shared with Mozilla."
Lots of words and details to hide the kind of important detail, that they do sell the data by default how you browse the internet. What websites you use, how long etc.
It’s about expectations. In very simple language: people expect Microsoft and Google to track the hell out of them. But Mozilla says they are your friend and respects privacy, but then their actions speak the opposite.
A betrayal from a friend is harder to handle than a blow from an enemy.
Mozilla's goals are still much more aligned with my own than any other browser vendor. Not even close. It's not a betrayal, it's a difference of opinion between friends.
Edit: If that. I personally think this Terms of Use thing is a storm in a teacup.
Are they? Their incentive is to maintain their revenue stream, almost all of which currently comes from Google. That source is now under threat so, to continue being able to pay the bills, they need to find another. And it's a big hole to fill.
> Edit: If that. I personally think this Terms of Use thing is a storm in a teacup.
You may be right, yeah. I don't actually use Firefox, there was something else they did like this before which spooked me off. I was mainly explaining the seemingly odd response people have about this, and why they created a storm.
It's like a friend who says they are your friend, but then don't act like it. As opposed to say a known asshole being an asshole, people don't make a big deal about that any longer.
The same effect applies to political parties. The people that care about X focus their complaints to the party that is trying to address issues with X.
Yeah, pretty much. If you look historically, it's always that traitors and betrayers get the most severe punishment. It just wakes up something very basic in humans.
Relative to Mozilla: on the advertising front I can't judge whether Apple is worse or about the same. On most other fronts I don't think there's much of a question. Others disagree, the extent to which Apple's actions are user-hostile is an often debated topic I'm not particularly interested in re-threading.
Google and Microsoft aren't really a comparison, both have been openly anti-user on many fronts for many years.
No, I stand by my statement. I consider Apple extremely user-hostile and in many ways worse than Microsoft and Google. Those ways are just less broadly agreed upon.
It's disheartening to see people playing villification of users when it is the companies (yeah, mozilla CORPORATION) that went back on their words. Just cos you did something good in the past isn't and shouldn't be an excuse to do bad things now.
Also, why are we talking as if we haven't seen these same things happening to favourite products/companies over and over again? You don't need to be an analyst to put things together.
Tell me why I should care when they gave up Rust and MDN to competitors with the excuse of no money and then gave the boss a heft hike with an ever decreasing userbase? Would any company give a hike of this margin to it's employee when their product is doing bad in the market?
They kept doing things against the community. And then they bought an ad company, then this change. ENSHITTIFICATION IS WRITTEN ON THE WALL IN BOLD LETTERS. Let them backtrack.
Still very very disappointed. We are supposed to be a community who should be thinking through things. This isn't a new scenario. We have seen this so many times.
I am, unfortunately, looking at alternative browsers because of this. Firefox was the best fit. Big enough that they could reasonably keep up but not one of the corporate browsers that I have 0 trust in. It wasn't perfect but it was better than chrome for sure.
Browsers are like cars now. It is becoming impossible to buy a new(er) car and have your privacy respected, but it is unreasonable to expect any normal life (at least in most of the US) without using cars or browsers. So, things like cars and browsers should have strong protections because there is no avoiding them. Unfortunately that is obviously not the case. You should never be forced to sign an adversarial TOS to earn a living or live a normal life, but here we are. TOS that are effective without you even reading them, that say they own you, everything you type, everything you do, that change and bind you without your consent or knowledge and what are you going to do about it? Given any reasonable choice I will take it, but the reasonable choices are dwindling.
I switched to LibreWolf over this, and it's good so far. A couple of things:
* I had to switch off the fingerprinting protection. For me, running at 60 FPS and without automatic CSS dark mode detection isn't worth whatever fingerprint resistance it provides. Sadly, you don't have granular control over RFP, you have to turn it off entirely.
* It doesn't have Google Search available by default, but it turned out to be fairly straightforward to add. DuckDuckGo is just too slow to load for me compared to Google, and their AI integration is stupid. Google doesn't have AI answers and text fields like DDG does in my region.
* Their implementation of container tabs don't seem to support automatically opening certain URLs in certain containers, which is annoying. Maybe I can get the official container tabs extension working, but I kinda wish LibreWolf either had proper container tabs or left it out in favour of the Mozilla extension.
Otherwise, it seems great. I found it hard to pick between all the different Firefox forks and rebrands, but LibreWolf seemed like one of the more serious ones and I don't regret going with it.
I agree, which is why I used vanilla Firefox until now. I don't want or need the additional privacy features LibreWolf (or other forks) offer.
But I don't want to use a browser from a company which gives themselves a broad license to do whatever they want with whatever data I enter into the browser. It's probably just a matter of time until Mozilla exercises this right to send stuff I enter into Firefox back to Mozilla for ad targeting and AI training purposes, and I don't want that. I have some faith that the LibreWolf team will notice such features and rip them out when they appear.
"But I don't want to use a browser from a company which gives themselves a broad license to do whatever they want with whatever data I enter into the browser"
As this discussion made abundantly clear, that's not what it says at all.
Nothing I have seen makes that clear at all. In fact, from what I can see, the ToS makes it very clear that they are giving themselves a license in the way I describe:
> 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.
Mozilla is clearly planning to do something which requires them to have given themselves this license, and I'd rather not be on Firefox when we figure out what that is.
I've been using LibreWolf as my daily driver for a couple of years. Highly recommended!
Available for Windows, MacOS and Linux. Ranked as the highest for privacy protection in a 2022 study: https://www.ghacks.net/2022/06/15/privacytests-reveals-how-y...
Occasionally, you might get a broken website but to fix it you just click on the shield icon and lower the privacy settings.
> Mozilla can suspend or end anyone’s access to Firefox at any time for any reason, including if Mozilla decides not to offer Firefox anymore.
On what planet is that free, open source?
Can you imagine: "The Free Software Foundation (FSF) can suspend anyone's access to GNU Emacs at any time for any reason, including if the FSF decides not to offer GNU Emacs any more".
If that was the intention, the correct term would have been "Mozilla's services". The very first sentence of that document defines Firefox: "Firefox is free and open source web browser software".
Yes, it seems like Mozilla has long had a problem of marketing getting in the way of communication. This keeps happening over and over gain. They make changes for marketing reasons, and then people are confused when they make policy changes because they've solidified their naming so much in the pursuit of brand recognition that their audience (rightly) is confused about what they're actually saying when they use that brand name to refer to a singular component of their offerings.
Mozilla is quite adept at own goals when it comes to privacy. If I were a Mozilla executive reviewing this policy, I'd send it back to the lawyers to make a lot more effort to be clear about what Mozilla will and will not do for stuff, in a way that is actually readable and understandable by lay people.
I have enough legal knowledge to know that most of this is basically necessary legal boilerplate because holy crap does the legal system suck, but Mozilla tries to pitch Firefox as a privacy-favoring alternative, and looks-like-everybody-else legal boilerplate absolutely undermines that pitch and more.
The problem is more that they actually do want to sell user data (albeit anonymized and/or aggregated), and they want to present themselves as a privacy-favoring alternative.
They literally say:
> 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).
Sharing data with partners and getting money in return (that's what "to make Firefox commercially viable" means) is selling user data. They want to change the definition of selling data to exclude what they want to do, but they don't get to decide what the meaning of words is.
So they're not as privacy-friendly as they want to appear, and that's a difficult position, and that's why this policy allows them more access to data than a naive reading would indicate.
What’s wrong with transparency for advertisements? If you take offense to the “boosting” of news sites, I see the point but now we have Elon arbitrarily boosting his own content on X.
Not sure how you end up solving that issue other than perhaps a more transparent system like the original Birdwatch.
> If we decide to suspend or end your access, we will try to notify you at the email address associated with your account or the next time you attempt to access your account
It seems like this is not about the browser itself, but rather about Firefox accounts. The wording is pretty ambiguous, though.
This likely refers to Firefox-the-product, not Firefox-the-open-source-project since there's no functional way to revoke your access to a mercurial checkout on your PC.
It's not unprecedented to have an open source license with revocation or termination clauses, either. I recall seeing ones that basically say "If you file a patent suit around this open software, your rights to use it are gone".
> It's not unprecedented to have an open source license with revocation or termination clauses, either. I recall seeing ones that basically say "If you file a patent suit around this open software, your rights to use it are gone".
Trying to take back the license based on use of the software, however, would make it not "open source", since that would be use restriction.
Mozilla has had their own dedicated license - the Mozilla Public License - for as long as I remember. My understanding is that FF and Thunderbird's source code are both still under this license.
Whether or not the MPL counts as 'open source' is a question for the people who steward that term, I guess. But they've not been using a Standard Open Source License for a while.
- "It's not unprecedented to have an open source license with revocation or termination clauses,"
Yes, but aside from jokes[0] it's unprecedented for an OSS license to attempt to restrain the purposes for which end-users use software. That's incompatible with the definition of free software ("free", as in "freedom").
- "Before that, the JSLint license[4] was a derivative of the MIT License.[5] The sole modification was the addition of the line "The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil."
- "According to the Free Software Foundation, this previous clause made the original license non-free."
This made me look into Firefox forks/alternatives:
Librewolf [1] seems to be fairly active (last commit on Codeberg was last week) and up-to-date with the latest upstream releases (mirrors FF's versioning scheme and matches their latest). Has a nice focus on privacy and no-telemetry.
Floorp [2] also looks active (last commit last week), also claims focus on privacy. Based off FF's extended support releases so it may lag behind in latest features.
Waterfox [3] is also active (last commit a few hours ago), also big focus on privacy, but it uses a custom versioning scheme so I can't tell how closely it follows FF's releases.
GNU IceCat's [4] latest release was in November 02023, so it looks like it may be abandoned.
Does anyone have any experience with any of these, good or bad? With all of them more or less promising the same things it's hard to tell which one may be the better option.
Try going to gitlab.com with librewolf, you'll see a white page with no content. Librewolf is blocked off from half the internet that uses cloudflare, so it's kind of a useless browser.
Every browser that's not a majority browser will be associated with these kind of blocking risk. I can't risk access to my financially important accounts, nobody can. So to me this is not a feasible alternative.
The only way to build a browser is to act like one of the others, and to behave like one of the others. Can't use brave, given their history, but farbling approach is the most sustainable solution in my opinion.
My remaining hope is that ladybird will actively deny implementing web standards that can be used for fingerprinting.
Something as simple as overflow:hidden is used on every website to force people to get tracked by having to activate JS, and things like this should be something a web browser should protect its users from.
We need a CSS engine that denies setting these kinds of things, because JS fingerprint prevention isn't enough if every website breaks because of it.
If you want a headstart, I tried forking webkit and do exactly this. Project is unmaintained because couldn't work fulltime on it without funding. Maybe somebody else picks it up? [1]
This is purely FUD per my experience. I use librewolf on websites behind cloudflare and with plenty of js. They all work just as well as they did in Firefox.
Librewolf sends Firefox in the user agent, and you can toggle Firefox "features" on if a website you use requires them.
Not trying to convince you to switch to it--you do you. Just sharing with someone who might be reading this thread and that hasn't tried librewolf.
I use librewolf as my daily driver after the Firefox "privacy preserving ad measurement" SNAFU last year [1,2]. The fingerprint resistant and anti-canvas functions were different, but I got used to them and I really appreciate the added features.
With that, having everything turned on can break some sites. If a site wasn't all that important and isn't respecting privacy, I just won't visit it. Otherwise, I'll keep another browser around just in case I absolutely must for business or something else.
When Firefox began opting people in by default to leak data to advertisers, it felt like the beginning of the end to me. After looking into canvas and other fingerprinting capabilities, it's somehow still surprising and alarming to me how far companies go to invade our privacy.
thanks for the research. I just quickly tried them all. I have an older mac with older FF. Results: librewolf and waterfox wont run (10.15 min) and the floorp (react) website crashes. IceCat runs! and seems to use LibreJS for javascript, so my first few tests failed because you have to individually allow scripts per site. I quite like that idea! although my quick test of breakout (HN yesterday) runs slow/stuttery. A couple other sites are throwing up js console errors, so I need to play around with it more. It did enable me to access the floorp website, but also 10.15 min. I guess this helps me migrate faster to my asahi setup, although I've been trying to keep that one away from daily browsing and the little web of horrors.
I wonder if this FF change is pre AI infection, which might end up affecting these other builds too. Pretty disappointing after such strong privacy promises for so long, whatever the reason for these changes.
you should add zen browser[1] too, i tried some from your list, librewolf breaks some websites (online banking doesn't work) floorp is a good one, but in my experience zen is better.
Oh, I thought IceWeasel had been renamed to IceCat, but the repo you linked to has recent activity and calls it IceWeasel, now I'm a bit confused. Glad to see it's active though.
Compiling Firefox without telemetry is just a flag, as we discovered while doing something over the debugging interface not available in the Windmill Test Framework. Tip: running profiles off a ram drive reaches ludicrous speeds.
"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."
This is a license to use, not ownership. If Mozilla owns the information then it does not need a license.
> 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.
It's bad that it says that, because the "us" in this sentence should absolutely not be doing anything that requires such a license, and should not have a copy of it in order to do so; but "Mozilla owns" is also not a correct summary of it.
- nonexclusive, because they're not demanding exclusive rights to your content. If they did, there's no way this would fly.
- royalty free, because otherwise you could charge them money for doing anything with your data, even things you've asked them to do.
- worldwide, because you may ask them to communicate with servers in other countries. i.e. you are using Firefox Sync to sync your bookmarks and you travel overseas, your bookmarks are now traveling between two countries.
The question is "why do they need a license at all", IMO. The qualifiers on the license all make sense to me. It's possible additional qualifiers like 'short-term' could make it less scary.
Not true. I was under the impression that Firefox was a privacy-oriented browser until these Terms were published today. I'm now posting this from LibreWolf, which I have just now installed for the first time.
Lately I've been working on strategies to use software in unusual enough ways that I'm essentially off the radar of, well, anyone looking. The dark forest approach to the internet.
To avoid interacting with the web directly, I'm thinking of running some AI software in a container on a home server that would be a translation layer between me and the real web. All webpages would be converted to a simple, and secure, format. Gopher, gemini, asciidoc, or maybe just static html.
Is that a tractable problem with modern AI tools?
The only way to win is not to play, but I'd like to have my cake and eat it too.
I think this probably isn't as big of a deal as people are making it out to be. But I find a certain kind of joy in Mozilla being judged on the worst possible interpretation of their terms of service, since they do that to others _all the time_ [1].
I tend to agree with you, but I’d hope that given how badly this has been received, Mozilla finds some better writers to put some better thought into the contents of their ToS and issue some corrections in the near future.
How much of a financial effort would it be to have some non-profit take a fork of Icecat and Fennec F-Droid, and just maintain a browser for the actual free world (akin to codeberg for example)?
i.e. if we strip down all the corporate overhead what would be the annual cost of maintaining a European sane version of 'land of the free' Firefox?
Clickbait title. I have read what is linked there and it claims no such thing.
At best, if you read through the notices, input data can be used to train personalised AI chatbots (running locally) IF you give your consent at the time of activation.
There's a lot of vitriol in the comments below but nobody seems to have read what is linked here.
The only inaccuracy in the title is that it used the word "owns" as short-hand for "gets a broad license to use". Which isn't unheard of: we talk about owning a copy of a piece of software or music for example even though what we have is a perpetual and broad license to use it.
I wish the title didn't use such hyperbole, but it's closer to true than to false.
> 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.
Secondly, text typed into the search/address bar is sent to them for "suggestions" and to broadly categorize the search ("travel"). Turn this off if you don't want it.
Thirdly, they'll be notified if you click an advert on the new tab page. Again, this can be turned off
> 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.
The fact that this surprises me must be an indicator that Mozilla still had a good reputation with me. No longer. Starting the search for an alternative browser now.
This is very frustrating. It becomes impossible to use the web in a privacy conscious way. I know that Firefox wasn't perfect, but it was the best we had, and I have been a loyal user, despite minor quirks and annoyances. And now this… Guess will have to find another browser.
Vivaldi is probably the most ethical company making a for-profit browser now. But note that because it is a for-profit it tracks your installation, with an anonymous but unique id, and phones home every time you use the browser. There were complains about this in the forum, but Vivaldi said they had to do that to know how many unique users they have, to make browser deals with other companies. They refused to change that and instead suggested that interested parties could use an application firewall to block those connections from Vivaldi.
Please correct me if I'm wrong but isn't it still an issue that due to Chromium not supporting the V2 manifest, adblockers like Ublock Origin won't function in Vivaldi?
Mozilla is going down the path of enshittification. I don't really care what the exact AUP, ToS and other legalese tomes boil down to, I should not need to agree to nothing but the license to use a piece of free software. If they only wanted this shit to apply to the online services, they should state it as such.
I am sad to state this, but this is likely the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I am convinced that there is a huge silent majority of users here that care about the erosion of privacy and data abuse because that's why we were using Firefox in the first place. If I don't have any assurance of my rights, privacy, anonymity and the general assurance of virtues that a capital F - Free Software- should exhibit. If I have to settle for a solution that doesn't respect my rights, I will use something more complete, well supported and user-friendly.
Firefox performance has been trash for years, for many reasons. I still stick with it because it was included in my Ubuntu 8.04, which was the first OS I installed by myself, and more recently because of its stand regarding privacy. Now I might as well bite the bullet and move to Chrome or Edge, performance is much much better.
That's simply not true. I regularly find Firefox to be faster than Chromium. And the opposite is also true, but the difference isn't big. None of the two browsers has a clear advantage, and neither gets in the way of normal usage, nor in the way of heavier usage (I do some light data crunching and 2D convolution in the browser).
There's chromium, and then, for those who take their privacy more seriously than the average VPN customer that just wants to do piracy, there's ungoogled-chromium.
It's like chromium, just without feeding heaps of your personally-identifying metadata directly to Google, who give it directly to the NSA, who give it directly to Elon Musk and DOGE.
Remember, ALL mass surveillance by ALL intelligence agencies is ALWAYS a threat to your freedom, because you don't get to revoke it. You weren't consenting to sharing your information with the Obama administration, you were consenting to sharing your information with all future administrations, no matter how far removed from your own worldview those future administrations may be.
There is one solution. We the people demand an end to ALL government surveillance as well as severe legal consequences for all US government employees who ever helped build such systems, even if they were "just following orders", because neither following orders nor ignorance of the larger picture is an excuse for facilitating moral atrocities.
A few years ago Google came under fire for sending extra identifiers to Google's websites in a header named X-Client-Data[0]. I don't remember how many identifying bits that includes or whether they still do it, but it was the tipping point for me.
- Extensive evidence provided by brave national heroes and civil rights legends like Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, including training materials for specific named NSA programs like PRISM that offer explicit lists of cooperating partners, including Google, Microsoft, Apple - basically every big tech company, but also smaller but popular ones, such as Skype (pre-Microsoft acquisition); this is well known among technology's civil rights advocates, and isn't hard to find discussion of by credible technologists, including the folks behind Protonmail¹
- Elon & DOGE: see literally every major American news network besides Fox pretty much since the inauguration, large swathes of the internet, several prominent discussions on HN. It's not just illegally mass-surveilled stuff either, they're going through all sorts of classified stuff right now!
I think what was being asked is if there's something like Brave that doesn't use a webkit derived back-end. Good defaults and a good stance on privacy is one reason to use Brave and historically Firefox, but another is that it keeps the browser ecosystem from being too homogeneous. Firefox is the last browser with over sub-percent market share, and even then it's less than 3%, so it's almost gone.
A case can be made that many of the browsers split from webkit (or split from things that split from webkit) long enough ago that there is competition, but IMO that's a far cry from a fully independent solution.
I’m kind of addicted to tab containers right now and I have them set up in a way where I can proxy specific containers out different socks proxies that go through different VPN tunnels. Niche I know but it’s keeping me on FF.
The text leaves way too much up for shady interpretation. At that point I might as well fully switch to Chrome, even at home. Privacy was the single last reason for sticking with firefox, and these terms do not sound like privacy anymore.
Chrome is absolutely not a step in the right direction if this is pushing you away from Firefox. Look at the number of forks that strip out this nonsense and behave functionally identically instead.
I'm not going to go out of my way to fetch a modified build for a functionally worse browser. I only use FF at home due to privacy, but since that is no longer covered by Mozilla I might as well use the browser I've already been using for web dev for years at work.
where does it say "own"?
it says: "nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content"
type something - it's "used" to get what "you" want - how is that "own"?
I pay for Relay... I'm sure it's a mistake though bc it'll get ended sometime soon and I'll have to figure out how to transfer all my email aliases elsewhere...
My god people, what a nothing burger. Try clicking the link and reading the actual terms:
> You give Mozilla all rights necessary to operate Firefox, including processing data as we describe in the Firefox Privacy Notice, as well as acting on your behalf to help you navigate the internet. 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.
Most of the comments here are in bad faith or just people jumping on the hype train. Sad.
It is. The data exfiltration is more through telemetry vectors as they currently use. A VPN can't help you with that and while they can't see your bookmarks stored in the sync service because they don't have the encryption key, they technically could do what they like once that is decrypted and in memory.
Librewolf can use Mozilla's existing Firefox Sync and because of the end-to-end encryption you get the privacy you wanted that way [1].
It is unenforceable by YOU, since Mozilla has reserved all rights to all the data you put through your browser. Which is why I'm currently using LibreWolf for the first time.
{
"@type": "Question",
"name": "Does Firefox sell your personal data?",
"acceptedAnswer": {
"@type": "Answer",
"text": "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. "
}
},
I think it's time to bring this to the attention of the EU. The browser race to the bottom may be somewhat acceptable for entertainment, but it is my firm opinion that accessing online government services and banking infrastructure necessary for a modern life shouldn't require me to accept such terms.
I agree but unfortunately very few see this as an issue.
For browsers, they kind of soft-lock-out established niche browsers due to heavy use of JS.
But this is deepter: more and more banks and public institutions' services imply everyone and their grandma possesses G/A-owned device so they start to require these to access their web services (either through exclusive app access via A/G app ecosystem or by enforcing 2FA (T)OTP which implies using such device for non-devlopers).
Some countries force kids to use apple/google-owned devices in class.
All of this requires citizens to accept and agree to (possibly changing) TOS and privacy rules (self) of A+G and opting out is hard often times and sometimes impossible.
very sad
> You agree to indemnify and hold Mozilla and its affiliates harmless for any liability or claim from your use of Firefox, to the extent permitted by applicable law.
Yikes. Good thing i was never informed or agreed to this nonsense.
only if: there was a firefox module that could run continious scatelogical searches in the background , and repost randon grabs to
a bot only forum, and mozilla would own, a lot of **
I'm in two minds about this. On the one hand I just want Firefox to keep being a free software web browser that I can trust. But on the other hand I realise Firefox isn't some hobby project and competing with Google isn't cheap. They already take money from Google and this could be shut off at any time. How can Firefox be independent if it doesn't have some revenue?
Unfortunately they've been stupid and blurred the lines between Firefox the browser and Firefox the "web platform". I don't think anyone would be too concerned if this was clearly about the web platform bit.
Maybe we need a smaller GPL browser that doesn't have the fancy stuff but can actually be maintained by the community. Yeah it won't with with a bunch of "web apps", but it will still provide access to information. This is also why if you are making websites you need to make sure it works without js etc. Otherwise you're basically forcing people to use adware.
They could have had an enormous amount of good will and they do nothing but burn it. Weird how they get a lot of money from google and then, while technically meeting their mission by providing a browser alternative, seem to do a lot of self-sabotage in google's favor.
I honestly think the best thing that could happen to Firefox would be for Mozilla to exactly have their funding removed, have the foundation die, and a better entity focused just on Firefox, perhaps with more earnest and honest fundraising efforts and not a multimillion CEO salary, fills the vacuum.
Interesting that in this thread discussing a new Mozilla EULA/AUP (among other things) banning pornography, not one person has mentioned that their image library was once called libpr0n: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=66984
If you're not blocking your mozilla process from accessing firefox.com, mozilla.com/.org, and mozgcp.net, as well as turning telemetry settings off after every update and keeping a tight policy.json file - then firefox is just as bad as Edge or Chrome re: tracking
Also they actively take down extensions that unfuck websites without notice
Append all Mozilla services and telemetry to Pi-hole? What are the other ways this can be quietly mitigated and, the possible workarounds to exceptions created by DoH?
The license does not say that Mozilla owns information that the user inputs through Firefox. But the HN title does. If Mozilla owns the information then it would have no need for a license. Further, the license does not specify that it is perpetual. A Firefox user does not grant Mozilla perpetual rights to use the information. These rights can be terminated.
The other WTF is here:
Your use of Firefox must follow Mozilla’s Acceptable Use Policy, and you agree that you will not use Firefox to infringe anyone’s rights or violate any applicable laws or regulations.
Acceptable Use Policy links to https://www.mozilla.org/about/legal/acceptable-use/ which says "You may not use any of Mozilla’s services to[...]Upload, download, transmit, display, or grant access to content that includes graphic depictions of sexuality or violence"
It's against the Terms of Use to use Firefox to... watch porn?
Either their legal team made a mistake, in which case they should correct it and issue an apology ASAP, or they really do intend to own you, in which case I recommend switching to an alternative browser which is only a browser, like Dillo, Ladybird, or Netsurf.
> It's against the Terms of Use to use Firefox to... watch porn?
Firefox isn't a Mozilla service. The Mozilla services are things like account sync, or the review tool they use.
So only bookmarks of porn sites if you have Sync active, sending porn tabs to a Firefox instance on another device, browsing porn while on the Mozilla VPN, or using Firefox Relay to sign up to a porn website with an anonymous email address
Fine by me since I don't use a Mozilla account, but sounds to me like I shouldn't get a Mozilla account either
Bookmarks and tab URLs don’t contain porn, generally? References are not typically considered explicit, though certainly their language isn’t clear enough about that.
If you bookmark a collection of data: / blob: links then that would be the outlier scenario where you shouldn’t use any third-party server-involved bookmark syncing service, as presumably they’ll all either break or ban you once they find you using their bookmark table space for data storage.
Good point about Relay.
It seems like they might be "use[d]...to...[u]pload, download, transmit, display, or grant access to content that includes graphic depictions of sexuality"
Bookmarks and tabs hinge on how you interpret "grant access". Do URLs to publicly available websites grant you access, or does the phrase only apply to cookies, passwords, login-urls, etc.? I'm pretty certain it would apply to login-urls, email-confirmation emails, password-reset emails, etc, but for normal URLs I could see it either way
> Bookmarks and tab URLs don’t contain porn, generally?
Do URL stubs of porn titles count as explicitly sexual? They can get pretty raunchy
Blob URL is also just a reference to a (local) resource. I guess another valid example would be something like javascript:document.write(<data>)
Do you know any other?
I think Mozilla VPN is a Mozilla service?
It's pretty odd if you aren't allowed to use their VPN to watch or share porn
- send unsolicited communications (for example cold emailing an employer about a job) - Deceive or mislead (for example inviting your brother over for a surprise party under false pretenses) - Purchase legal controlled products (for example sending the pharmacy a refill for your Xanax) - Collect email addresses without permission (for example putting together a list of emails to contact public officials)
look, i'd have similar clauses if I ran such a service. Porn gets very messy very quickly. Revenge porn, porn of generally unconsenting parties etc. are all to common and people who share know it is wrong and so try to use things like vpns to hide. The problem for you as a vpn provider is proving they're doing the wrong thing with your service, so it is much easier to simply say there is a blanket ban and then selectivly enforce.
The upside for users in general is such a vpn service tends not to be associated with underbelly behaviour and so isn't blocked from 90% of the web.
Do hammer manufacturers required you to sign an agreement at the hardware store with a bunch of legalese so they aren't held liable if you use the hammer to beat someone to death?
Do alcohol companies get shut down when people drink and kill someone with their car?
Did you know that a nonzero percentage of child molesters wear Nike sneakers when they kidnap children? Why doesn't Nike actively try to prevent this?!
So why should a VPN provider need to explicitly dissuade its customers from breaking the law with their service? Why should a web browser be afraid of being on the hook when someone breaks the law via the web?
"If you're doing it you have to give us the data, and btw you can't do it either"
> Firefox isn't a Mozilla service.
They might clarify that in the agreement. I doubt many people are intimately familiar with Mozilla, Firefox, 'services', etc. to distinguish. I am and I didn't think of it in a brief reading (which is all I have time for).
> Your use of Firefox must follow Mozilla’s Acceptable Use Policy
The fact that Firefox isn't a "Mozilla Service" seems irrelevant.
Imagine using Mozilla Sync to ensure you have the same horse porn on your phone as your laptop out of spite.
It's against ToS to watch R rated movies.
Its against the ToS to watch most PG rated movies. It objects to graphic depictions of violence as well, and has no exception for brief graphic depictions of sexuality.
But python-rated movies are ok I guess? :)
I C what you did there.
You're #
I'm going to need another cup of Java to get through these.
Well you may Go do that.
These TOS really are a complete brainfuck.
No doubt. Just thinking about it turns my brain to rust.
It's time we get clojure on this topic
This thread has more dependencies than an npm package with left-pad
It has been quite the bash.
This conversation is a total Racket
Enough with the smalltalk.
No more genius lines from you, Shakespeare?
[Enter TomK32] [Enter Downvote] [Enter Downvote]
TomK32: You treacherous cowards! Is thy mind void of any knowledge or are you driven by a devil that you deny the existence of this programming language?
[Exit TomK32]
PS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare_Programming_Langua...
And yet these terms of service—for Firefox—specifically apply the AUP to “your use of Firefox,” no?
The entire AUP is prefixed “You may not use any of Mozilla’s services to:”. There’s nothing in the AUP that doesn’t refer to “Mozilla’s services.” When the Firefox TOS explicitly includes this AUP, how could it make sense unless they think of Firefox as one of their services?
At the risk of restating the gp’s quote:
> Your use of Firefox must follow Mozilla’s Acceptable Use Policy, and you agree that you will not use Firefox to infringe anyone’s rights or violate any applicable laws or regulations.
Mozilla VPN is a service Mozilla provides though. White-labelled Mullvad or not, it a contract between Mozilla and the user and therefore presumably covered by this terms of use.
I would say porn is probably in the top 3 if not number 1 use for VPNs
So what about synced bookmarks?
I wouldn’t expect the bookmark to run afoul of this clause, since the bookmark isn’t the content. Now it’d be a curious case if the bookmark contained a base64-encoded pornographic image.
You seem to be assuming competence on the part of the author. But, as is common with documents that lawyers generate, they probably don't care if it's reasonable or if practically every one of their users violates it. Like when you get an employee contract that claims your new company owns every idea you ever had. Some people will claim it's just "lawyer stuff" and is somehow okay. It's really not okay.
And synced history.
If you're syncing a bookmark that is somehow illegal content, it would come to rest on their servers and they'd potentially be liable for it. (IIRC they encrypt everything at rest, so this is a speculative risk)
Depictions of sexuality or violence are legal in most places, even if said depictions are graphic
Porn is not illegal, either are the Rambo movies.
> Either their legal team made a mistake, in which case they should correct it and issue an apology ASAP
I don't think it is a mistake but more the translation of a vision and strategy that took hundreds of meetings to be laid down very precisely.
I have nothing to back what I am gonna say but I am wondering if their strategy might be to truly become the default browser of governments who are uncomfortable having Chrome or Edge as the default browser. Especially since now they get augmented by a lot of AI.
Firefox has it largest market share in Europe and Germany it seems and with the concerns with are hearing over there about Big tech I wouldn't be surprised at some point some govs try to make their workstations Firefox only.
Also some governments are trying hard to restrict access to porn, violence and social media for children but we know it is almost impossible to do it at the network level. So they might try at the browser level with the help of Mozilla and some "sanctioned Internet AI safety" inside the browser?
I really don't know but think about it, Mozilla is a dead man walking with it's 2% market share and huge cost of maintaining one of the most complex piece of software. They have to do something about it.
What just tipped me off is reading on Wikipedia [0]:
> On February 8, 2024, Mozilla announced that Baker would be stepping down as CEO to "focus on AI and internet safety"[2] as chair of the Mozilla Foundation.
- [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Baker
I'm pretty sure this is about Mozilla services. AFAICT, Firefox itself is licensed under the https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Public_License and as such doesn't put any restrictions on how you use the software.
That is what I expected to see, but the title of the page is "Firefox Terms of Use"
I think its a good argument for using a Firefox fork.
That's the Firefox source code though, not necessarily the Firefox binary. A Visual Studio Code situation, basically.
I don't think they use a separate EULA for the binaries. I've found this:
> Mozilla software is made available to you under the terms of the Mozilla Public License 2, a free software license, which gives you the right to run the program for any purpose, to study how it works, to give copies to your friends and to modify it to meet your needs better. There is no separate End User License Agreement (EULA).
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/legal/eula/
Dillo is only sporadically developed. They even lost control of the dillo.org domain a long time ago, which pretty much spells amateur hour.
Ladybird would be a better choice, but it's not even fully baked yet. Coming sometime in 2026, supposedly.
I'd recommend the Brave browser for people concerned about recent bad news from Mozilla.
Welp, they stopped being open source, then. From the OSD:
6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.
AFAICT there is no restriction on the application itself: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/legal/eula/
> I recommend switching to an alternative browser which is only a browser, like Dillo, Ladybird, or Netsurf.
Did not know any of those alternatives thanks for sharing.
After a quick online search, I see they could work for casual browsing and it's great that they don't rely on Chromium
But do you think these can be a full browser replacement without extension ecosystems like ublock origin et al.?
If you're on macOS, then Kagi's Orion seems good:
https://kagi.com/orion
It's been working fine for me anyway.
The applicable laws of North-Korea might differ than the applicable laws of Russia which may differ from the law of Qatar, etc. It might be even impossible to uphold this world wide even if you tried.
So i guess it's more a 'we at Mozilla don't want any trouble' thing.
We are under an attack by Puritanism that is quite astounding actually. And no one is doing anything. Everyone just keeps bending the knee.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1hqqpbt/newest_ver...
Some of the things that are happening are just from the threat of “something bad might come down from the new administration”. It’s so ridiculous.
The squeeze on any content that religious people find 'yucky' is double-pronged in the US - encouraged both by governments and businesses. Paypal, Visa, Mastercard et al are given complete discretion over what transactions they can block, and they have already extensively used this to deprive legal NSFW platforms and creators of their income.
So, on one end, state governments are trying to strongarm NSFW services by imposing draconian requirements that ask users to submit their private data to some random opaque 'benevolent' third party business - and on the other, payment processors are using their legal right to refuse whatever transaction for any reason so they can starve them of income.
I dont think the pressure from payment processors is because of puritanism, but rather payments in this space tend to come with a much higher % of fraud and chargebacks and they've decided it's not worth the risk.
That is half truth that gives them cover.
The Puritans have been trying to ban porn here since the concept has existed, it's never stopped, and it's never going to stop. They're miserable and they want everyone else to be too. That's like most of their religion. Going to church, being ashamed of bodies, and judging people.
[flagged]
It's about imposing your view of the world on others. That's the problem here with the puritanians.
> ...had access to the best porn tracker in the world where I could find almost anything I wanted and trust me it did not fulfill me.
Why does everything have to be about fulfillment and enrichment?
> ...Watching porn is like eating junk food or doing cocaine. Next dose you need something stronger, or more novel.
Did you similarly cancel all your streaming services? How is binge-watching a Netflix show different than binge-watching porn?
Yes, I'm working on cutting every addiction, that's a big part of being a practicing Orthodox Christian. My biggest weaknesses are video games but I have wasted plenty of time on shows as well and I haven't done either as much in the past month or so.
But sexuality is a big part of our lives and while wasting time on any addiction like doomscrolling and binge watching is not good for us, porn can taint our relationship with the opposite sex and that's worst in my opinion
Sorry if I may have sounded judgemental and good luck with your self-improvement trip. Orthodox Christianity can be helpful with tackling self-moderation issues. Just make sure you don't pay much attention to any extreme guilt-tripping moralisms you may hear along the way. (I am of Orthodox Christian background myself, and I have heard my fair share of them.)
Do you think pornography is harmful to you, and can it be inferred that pornography is also harmful to others? This is the reason why your viewpoint is not accepted by others
If you search YouTube for "effects of porn addiction" you will find mostly clips from secular sources. A lot of scientists/psychologists say it's harmful
> If you search YouTube for "effects of porn addiction" you will find mostly clips from secular sources.
This is not an argument. You can find sources saying anything you want on YouTube. If you want to be taken seriously, you need more than random videos or a Wikipedia article.
> A lot of scientists/psychologists say it's harmful
Sources? A lot of studies show it’s fine.
So because you did X and had a problem, it means it should be banned for everyone, including people whp dont have a problem with X?
Are you seriously saying porn is being suppressed? It's a bigger industry than it has ever been.
Visa has the option to do business with whomever they like or dislike and I'm not even sure they don't support them because of religious reasons.
I'm not saying it should be banned but saying the people who are against it or don't want to do business with such entities are miserable is twisted given it is an industry where most of the actors are victims of abuse, the viewers learn a distorted view of sexuality and younger generations have less respect for each other because of it.
> I'd say porn makes people miserable not happy/ fulfilled.
Yes. And no.
It depends on a lot of other things: what porn you're looking at [1]; what stage you are in; how fulfilled you are with your life; etc.
The addiction to porn is like any addiction: a symptom of something else not going well; addiction which you won't get out of if you don't find a way to fix the issue. That isn't to say that you shouldn't treat the symptom as well, if/when it hurts you too (and any addictive behaviour can quickly hurt).
The very tricky thing is that, the same thing (alcohol, sex, drugs, porn, sport, work, food) can be addictive to someone, and just recreational to another; beneficial and harmful.
The key is understanding why, for each and every one. Not to shame.
[1] porn is not necessarily the most extreme, garbage, inhuman stuff; although those are very liberally used by most porn websites. Some stuff are definitely harmful, to anyone, on either side of it. Some are well thought-out and promote educational, healthy, loving behaviour - guess why, those of most often written and produced by women.
Confused. What do Firefox's terms of service have to do with puritanism ? Have Firefox developers become puritanist or something ? That would be extremely surprising if true. Any evidence (anecdotal or otherwise) to this ?
"You may not use any of Mozilla’s services to[...]Upload, download, transmit, display, or grant access to content that includes graphic depictions of sexuality“
I don't think that's the problem here, as I don't want to see porn on e.g. Mozilla's forums either. There's a place and time for that content and Mozilla shouldn't be the one to decide for others. The problem is whether Firefox is a Mozilla "service" or not, and the way the terms is linked implies that it is.
I'm all down to write off contract law as "puritanism" but the rot is far deeper than an aesthetic (and frankly I'm unclear how puritanism applies to this situation at all).
EDIT: I'm not sure why porn is particularly interesting here when most internet activity seems to be potentially against terms of service.
IIRC, terms like that have been in agreements for many years. It's boilerplate, almost.
"We"? Do we live in the same first world where people fuck like animals and promiscuity is the overwhelming norm?
It's gonna be a weird few years that's for sure. I'll leave it to the historians to decide when the actual tipping point was but the shift in the GOP from being run by Republicans with a few bones thrown to Conservatives every now and again when it's time to drum up votes to the show now being run by Conservatives is going to be the point between two political eras.
It's by far not the first time this has happened but it's kinda surreal to be alive for one.
I'd say it was the decline and fall of the Soviet block. Without the external pressure to remain competitive, the balance shifted from realism towards ideology.
The U.S. still has competition from Europe and China, no? I'm not convinced that the puritanical fanatics would ever make the rational decision to ease up on their efforts for the sake of the economy. For non-Western examples, see Iran and Afghanistan since the mid 20th century.
wait till you unlock 1984 esque reality they are beta testing on us rn
when you see slavery is still very alive im sure this will seem like just a playful moment
At least in the US, slavery is alive and well. 13th amendment abolishes slavery except as punishment for a crime, and prisoners all over the country perform forced labour for a small fraction of federal minimum wage.
I want to entertain you but use a caps lock and some punctuation from time to time. It gives your comments more credence.
My conspiracy theory is that gears are slowly turning to revamp the culture, redefine what’s acceptable/not acceptable and eventually suggest that if you won’t have kids you’re not accepted in the society. Basically a funky way to reverse the population decline, as the governments are realizing this problem won’t be fixed by free markets and etc.
First of all, US population has been steadily growing, so I don't get why big business (whose interests current administration represent) would need to engage in long-term culture engineering for steady supply of new workers.
Second of all, majority of US population is urban. People in NY or Bay Area can't elect a president who represents their interests due to how Electoral College is designed but attempting to change their opinions on having children by banning porn is a pipe dream.
“The population growth rate is projected to slow from 0.6% per year between 2024 and 2034 to 0.2% per year between 2045 and 2054.”
And almost all growth is immigration, the fertility rate hits new lows constantly.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2024/...
“U.S. Fertility Rate Drops to Another Historic Low”
So what?
Again, it's just a fun conspiracy theory in my head, and no, it doesn't have to be big business. Like you realize churches have been pouring money in ads, apps, and etc. right? They're actively trying to get back all the lost memberships.
US population is growing for a combination of immigration and just slightly better birth rates than others. It's nowhere close to above-replacement levels (2.1). Just check out the population pyramid, and you can see there are less younger kids than older ones.
People aren't having kids because of stagnant real wages and soaring home prices. In the US, the median home price is now $450k. In Canada, it's $650k. And when people do have children, they're on average having fewer, later in life (with a greater risk of complications): https://www.northwell.edu/news/the-latest/geriatric-pregnanc...
I doubt banning porn or abortion or engaging in cultural engineering will fix this.
And then there's this phenomenon, discussion of which was once verboten in goodthink circles (like HN) due to its anti-feminist and "incel" optics, but has since grown enough in strength and scale to shove its way through the Overton Window so that even respectable, MSM sources cover it: https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/3868557-most-yo...
Top income brackets aren't really having more than 2 children either, which is a requirement for growing population. Like most studies has shown that, in general, educated women, freedom of choice and etc. will negatively impact birthrates. It's the same thing everywhere. Sure, income, less social pressure and etc. affects it somehow, but there's just no real need in general to have 3 kids in this day and age. Asking a woman to give away at the bare minimum 6 years of their youth won't cut it nowadays. And honestly, I don't blame them, I think exactly the same way.
The best way to have more kids is to increase the size of the middle class, while lowering housing, food and childcare costs.
I have no idea why people keep saying it's monetary reasons. Why would anyone have 3 kids nowadays? There are no real incentives, other than "I want a big family". Society actively discourages large families as well. The amount of people in their 20s aiming for that is getting smaller and smaller too.
The best way to have more kids, unironically, is making everyone as poor as possible, removing any other method of entertainment, and making "having kids" the only choice. That's how it worked for the eternity, and some people want a percentage of people to go back to it, so it would support the current established system.
I didn't say 3. Perhaps I should have said, any.
I don't think creating the illusion of an imaginary middle class ever helped anything. I believe it only makes things worse, as now a lot of people think they are not working class, just because they have an above median wage. Snap it, even some even hold to the illusion that they are rich, just because they have a house with a mortgage and a private pension.
What you need to have a modern, western country instead of a dog-eat-dog wild west is welfare, including universal health care.
But welfare is considered as an evil communist plot in the US and the people who are led to believe that they are somehow above the working masses keep voting against their own interests. Not just in the US, unfortunately.
It seems like not so much a conspiracy theory as something totally transparent and out in the open. There's a huge political push to birth as many babies as possible. Major political parties have it as part of their platform. Their spokespeople talk derisively of "childless cat ladies" and how you're not a real contributor to society unless you produce babies.
The "Birth" lobby is a stool composed of several legs:
1. Attack abortion
2. Attack contraception
3. Attack porn
4. Attack education
5. Attack "women in the workforce"
All of these things are seen as contributing to declining birth rates, so they're opposed by Big Birth. You can see the same politicians tend to go after these things in lock step.
I don't think they can succeed though, because the 5. is the crucial step, as being a baby-making machine is a full-time job, and no lobby is going to get a lot of following from the business with the premise to cut the available workforce by half.
With the absolutely massive investment in (and push for) AI, I assume the belief is that the the reduction of workforce will have less of an impact.
If the plan is to have most people out of job soon-ish, then big population with bunch of young people without good prospects is a recipe for disaster.
If 1. and 2. are done, 5. falls very easily. It's no surprise they started with attacking Roe vs. Wade.
Pretty much, yeah. Like everything is factually right, but I completely disagree with their method. So far, they’ve failed at each step.
There’s a very obvious “pro-religion” push going on across all social media as well, but it’s hard to pinpoint when/how it started. Not sure how far they’ll have to roll back women’s rights to get where they want to, but it’s incredibly sad to watch. Not sure how fathers with daughters are going to watch this happen in real time as well.
Firefox-the-browser isn't a service, it's a product. Their services are things like profile syncing. It makes sense to me that they wouldn't want content on their servers that they could get in legal trouble for hosting.
Comments such as yours are missing the point.
Mozilla's ToS applies for Firefox's use, and this is literally written by Mozilla themselves:
“Your use of Firefox must follow Mozilla’s Acceptable Use Policy”
There's no distinction between the browser and Mozilla's online services here.
---
And even if it were referring only to features such as “profile syncing” (and it doesn't refer only to that), does this mean that people can't have bookmarks to porn? And why would Mozilla care about how people use profile syncing at all? I thought it was e2e encrypted.
How do you square this with the following:
> Mozilla software is made available to you under the terms of the Mozilla Public License 2, a free software license, which gives you the right to run the program for any purpose, to study how it works, to give copies to your friends and to modify it to meet your needs better. There is no separate End User License Agreement (EULA).
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/legal/eula/
So, as someone else pointed out, saving bookmarks of porn and using their bookmarks sync service would be a problem.
It's easy to laugh and dismiss that. But what if you're a journalist covering war? You're going to have plenty of bookmarks of graphic violence, and therefore run afoul of this license.
Legal trouble for sexuality and violence? I am sorry, in what jurisdiction are their servers? Iran or North Korea?
Porn bans get proposed in the US on a regular basis.
Got to love the (oblivious) american moral superiority
If they're worried by what might be in the profile data they're syncing they should just make it e2e encrypted so they can't know what's in it
But they clearly want to collect and sell that data
TOS has always been a mark of arbitrary service and ownership of all products. None of this is new or surprising.
Title is a complete lie/misleading. They get a license, not ownership.
Let's dissect what it actually says, and we do it backwards, because given the discussion around this subject it seems like people space out or have their mind clouded by outrage before they get to the end of the sentence:
> help you [do things] as you indicate with your use of Firefox.
So this already only covers things that you indicate you want to do with your use of Firefox. Meaning that if you hit some button, Mozilla now has a license to process the data they need to make that button work and nothing more. That means unless you give them additional permission somewhere, they can't, for example, also store and process that information to train some AI model or whatever. All they're allowed to use it for is making whatever you interacted with work. Seems pretty reasonable.
> to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content
This further narrows the scope to websites and such you interact with (online content). It also says that license only covers "helping" you with these things. The part we looked at previously narrows this to your intent.
> you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license
So just a license. No transfer of ownership is happening.
> When you upload or input information through Firefox
Note that this says "through". They're clearly only trying to cover their butt as an intermediary by obtaining a license to process your information to act as such an intermediary. Explicitly nothing more.
Putting it back together we get:
> 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.
Important part in cursive.
So broadly what is the license for?
> license [..] to help you [..] as you indicate
I don't have to grant Word a license to what I type in it. This is a highly unusual clause that other software doesn't have.
When software has to "phone home" to deliver the functionality you requested, then two things happen: One, a number of privacy regulations kick in, and they need to get you to agree to send your data to them. Two, they now get to move your data out of your control. I mean, you trust them today, so here's hoping they don't ever get hacked or hire someone untrustworthy?
It's sad when even to use the basic features of a web browser, you need to agree to send them your data. It's not fundamentally necessary to send your data to Mozilla or their partners in order to load and render a website. It's a dark pattern to obtain consent to collect your data "when it's necessary", and then rewrite your app to make it necessary.
> I don't have to grant Word a license to what I type in it.
Yes you do.
From Microsoft's Services Agreement [1]:
> To the extent necessary to provide the Services to you and others, to protect you and the Services, and to improve Microsoft products and services, you grant to Microsoft a worldwide and royalty-free intellectual property license to use Your Content, for example, to make copies of, retain, transmit, reformat, display, and distribute via communication tools Your Content on the Services.
That's broader than what Mozilla is asking for.
[1] https://www.microsoft.com/en/servicesagreement
Which for the record they absolutely need, for example if you write something in word, click the share button, copy the link and publish it in this forum. Microsoft is now publishing whatever you wrote in the document, and their lawyers want to make sure they are allowed to do that.
Word versions that predate the share button probably wouldn't need the license grant. But since MS likes to limit the number of different licenses it was probably still in there to cover SharePoint and OneDrive
> Which for the record they absolutely need
"Hey, here are my car keys - can you move my car to a different parking space?"
"I cannot - I do not have a royalty-free non-exclusive license to access or operate your vehicle."
I realize lawyers have been wildly successful in making a parody of our societies and legal systems, but permission is implied in clicking the "share" button, it does not require obtuse and overreaching legal language to grant.
The software license terms for Word and all the other desktop apps does not include such a clause, no. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/useterms
The Microsoft Services Agreement applies to your use of their online services, like OneDrive and SharePoint, as you say, and there's an explicit consent in the app and a giant off switch there. They employ dark patterns to push you strongly to use their online services, but it's still optional.
It should be readily obvious that choosing to use online sharing or storage features or submit reviews require the data you enter to be sent, shared, or stored thusly...
In that case I stand corrected. Apparently you could use Word without accepting an agreement potentially granting Microsoft a license to what you write.
No offense, I'm aware of how complex laws can be, but... Shouldn't that be obvious? Or do you think you also grant a license to any pen manufacturer to help you write whatever it is that you are writing?
My Word 95 never asked for this though? Clearly it’s not necessary to provide me a word processor.
My CS4, as far as I recall, has never asked for it either.
It seems a fairly recent thing that companies want to harvest your personal information.
I went looking for old Microsoft Word EULAs but didn't find any on google. I did find this fun tidbit, though:
> Performance or Benchmark Testing. You may not disclose the results of any benchmark test of either of the Windows 95 Software Components to any third party without Microsoft’s prior written approval.
Wasn't that an Oracle sin? I guess Microsoft didn't want to miss out on the dickery.
A license grant like this is common in the context of review systems or forums or the like. For example if I go to addons.mozilla.org and post a review for an addon, Mozilla arguably needs a license grant like this to allow them to publish the review. And preferably they would want to word it in a way that then allows them to use the same review in print or a super bowl spot.
The weird thing is that a) I don't think this license grant covers any of that, since publishing a review doesn't improve my experience, it improves other's experiences, and b) Mozilla Websites like addons.mozilla.org have a completely different TOS [1], with a completely different license grant.
I have no idea what this license grant is supposed to accomplish, or what it would even allow that requires a license grant in the first place
1: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/legal/terms/mozilla/
Thinking about this a bit more: the most likely use for this specific license grant I can come up with is a 3rd party partnership similar to pre-acquisition Pocket.
Imagine if on first startup Firefox offers you to show website recommendations. Maybe a prechecked checkbox. If you don't say no, they send anything you type in the address bar to some third party, that third party throws that in a recommendation system and spits out websites you may want to visit, which Firefox then shows in the new-tab page. This license grant would cover that. They would be using a license on content I input (all my keystrokes in the address bar) to help me experience online content (recommendations for new content) as I indicate (they asked). In principle recommending me websites based on all images I upload with Firefox would also be covered, though that's a bit far fetched.
Of course in the EU you'd probably have pretty strict consent requirements because of the GDPR, same with other jurisdictions with strong privacy protections. But in places with weak privacy protections the grant in question should cover all bases to pull something like this
>Let's dissect what it actually says
I don't believe that dissection is a good way to understand the implications of this clause.
>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.
Rather than go over this word-by-word, please tell me: what limits exactly does this place on Mozilla? What rights does it give to the user? One way to express such a limit is by construction, that is, construct hypothetical acts A, B, and C that would be allowed under these terms, but actions D, E, and F would not be allowed (and be a cause for action by a user). I assert that the first set includes literally anything you can imagine (modulo a sophists ability to morph "help you" into anything they want), and the second set is empty.
To steel-man this concept, let us say that Mozilla wants to store and use your password to your bank to check your balance regularly. I assert that this action is allowed by there terms. Why? First, you used Firefox and therefore enabled the clause. Second, your authentication details are entered through Firefox, and this constitutes "input" or "upload", to which they assert ownership (which I will use as shorthand for a "nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license"). One thing they could do with your financial data is show it to you (least harm). Another thing is to aggregate it with other's data (medium harm). Yet another application would be to pool it into a database to be sold to the highest bidder (maximum harm). In the latter case, you could make the argument that such a move "helps you" by giving Mozilla a reliable revenue stream that helps fund continued development of the browser.
Needless to say, I am appalled and feel bad for all the many people I've told about Firefox over the years, described it as a bastion of fairness and privacy in an all too often sinister world. And now that they've assert these extraordinary rights over user data, I feel ashamed of my advocacy. I daresay that even if they rescind this incredible overreach, I will not come back. My trust has been broken and cannot be easily (if ever) repaired.
> what limits exactly does this place on Mozilla?
Mozilla is bound to only use the content to help the use navigate, experience and interact with online content as the user has indicated.
> One thing they could do with your financial data is show it to you (least harm).
Yes - this is what the user indicated.
> Another thing is to aggregate it with other's data (medium harm).
And the user has not indicated that this would be a permitted use of the data - thereby revoking the license of the first clause. If the data is used outside of the final clause of the license, that is unlicensed use of data. This would be a material breach of the contract by the corporation. This could open them up to massive legal penalties.
What is the definition of "help"? Is it showing ads to help you discover the products or services?
I think that's just a cover-all and they also have a privacy policy [1] which is explicit about how they use it and how they don't, for example:
"the data stays on your device and is not sent to Mozilla’s servers unless it says otherwise in this Notice."
... "When you perform a search in Firefox, your search query, device data and location data will be processed by your default search engine"
... "Mozilla derives the high level category [...] from keywords in that query [...] privacy preserving technologies such that Mozilla only learns that someone, somewhere, performed a search relating to a particular category, without knowing who."
... Review Checked, AI Chatbots, advertising on new tab page, etc.
So yea Firefox does so much they pretty much have to use your data, but it's not a blank cheque to do what they want.
[1] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/
Not so say I like some of those things - advertising and categorizing searches. But still, it's finite and explicit.
> First, you used Firefox and therefore enabled the clause.
I believe your confusion stems from a misreading of "as you indicate with your use of Firefox". You're reading it like "by using Firefox, you indicate".
Contemplate the difference between
"The car is allowed to move as you indicate with the controls."
versus
"By using the controls, you indicate the car is allowed to move."
The former explicitly only allows the car to realize your intent, whereas the latter gives the car license to do whatever it pleases.
You have now edited your comment at least 3 times. I find it hard to take this argument seriously, and indeed struggle to understand how it isn't trolling. At best this language is ambiguous; at worst it is misleading. It certainly ignores the core point of my comment, which is to construct hypothetical actions by Mozilla that would NOT be permitted by the clause. I strongly feel that your purpose in defending Mozilla here would be better served by providing those examples.
> You have now edited your comment at least 3 times.
Yes. I reworked the example a few times. I think the third rewrite made it pretty clear.
> It certainly ignores the core point of my comment, which is to construct hypothetical actions by Mozilla that would NOT be permitted by the clause.
The hypothetical action you gave is not permitted, because the user would not have indicated they wanted Mozilla to do that. Firefox/Mozilla is only allowed to use your data as indicated by you.
The phrase is "...as you indicate with your use of Firefox"! It is NOT "...as you indicate with your Firefox user preferences." Using Firefox is what indicates your agreement, similar to how using your credit card indicates your agreement with the card terms. I take it back - the meaning is not ambiguous at all.
I'm at a loss as to how to proceed from here, given that we seem to have different ideas of how the English language works.
However there's more that also precludes such use as in your example:
> license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact
Mozilla phoning home your bank account details is not helping you do that in any way, so it is not covered. The next part, that we seem to disagree on, only further narrows that down to actual user intent.
You're not indicating that they can have a license to do anything, you're specifically giving them a "license [..] to help you [..] as you indicate".
Mozilla should consider rewriting their statement for clarity, unless of course the ambiguity is the point.
The statement is clear and simple and would not benefit from a TOS rewrite. What you really want are clearer processing directions built into the Firefox UI, not a longer or different TOS.
Something like, a popup over the execute button on the search bar disclosing the specific processing instruction you are providing by pressing that button, and by whom.
Or, when you use a vertical scroll bar, a confirmation that no processing is occurring outside your local machine.
These things would satisfy some more detail-minded people, but ultimately would provide no significant value to either Mozilla or the marginal user, so it's really no mystery why Firefox does not do this.
Ok, so you read it to say that at some later point they will ask, and that point the language will matter.
What was the purpose of mentioning it now? And why write in such an ambiguous way that it could be interpreted otherwise? And that still doesn’t give me confidence about what they will do at a later time. I don’t like it at all, these are used car dealership tactics.
Given that Mozilla updated their site a couple days ago to remove any wording along the lines of "Firefox will never sell your data to advertisers" when a flag associated with the new Firefox terms of use is enabled (see https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/commit/d459addab846d8144b...), I'm not so sure that this is a CYA about standard web browser usage.
> {% if switch('firefox-tou') %}
The proof is in the code, great work.> remove any wording along the lines of "Firefox will never sell your data to advertisers"
You mean wording like this?
""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."
Which is contained in both the link you provided, and on their official Privacy FAQ: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/faq/
I'm really confused how you can possibly claim that they removed the wording when it's right there for you.
Are we reading the same thing? They removed:
> We believe the internet is for people, not profit. Unlike other companies, we don’t sell access to your data.
and instead there's vague weaseling
> doesn’t sell data about you (in the way that most people think about “selling data“)
I'm not like most people, I am a bit stupid and have a very low threshold for what selling my data is.
> 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.
You can either have 2.5% of users who know why they are using your browser and are willing to make a donation or you can have nothing while we use a fork with your telemetry ripped out.
Here is the next sentence from that FAQ:
> 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)
So they are sharing your data with partners, commercially. but only in "anonymized" form so its OK?
The only thing they need to do to make Firefox commercially viable is to have me pay them for the browser.
I'd pay $50 yearly if they're willing to just work on the browser and remove their added value services and any telemetry.
Are lawyers OK with a client doing things like this? Or is this a client you fire?
My ISP doesn't need a license to everything I do online to facilitate the transfer of bits from my home to the wider internet, so why should Mozilla need that? How about the transit providers, they certainly don't have a license to anything I do.
Assuming that everything is HTTPS, what are they actually licencing? My encrypted data?
This is some Mozilla legally idiot that went WAY to far in a "cover our ass" legal document and nobody stopped to think about the potential damage this would to the Mozilla and Firefox reputation, which already isn't doing so well. They didn't even stop to think if MAYBE this needed some clarification, to avoid unwarranted speculations. It's getting increasingly clear that the people running Mozilla has absolutely no idea what they are doing, nor do they have any respect for the project they've are in charge of. At this point I wouldn't be surprise to learn that the Mozilla CEO uses Edge.
Do you have expertise, for example as an IP attorney? I don't meant to disqualify what you say; at the same time people would benefit from knowing what your analysis comes from.
I am not an expert in this field, and I think the meaning is ambiguous. It could be interpreted as you say; it could be interpreted otherwise.
Mozilla's current intent isn't relevant to what they do later or its legality or enforceablility.
> 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.
So basically they can track everything I upload or type on my keyboard while in Firefox?
Yes they can and will, they are a add company now, the money from google will stop flowing so they do everything to make money with your data.
No, they cannot.
You're replying to a comment where I've broken the sentence down into smaller parts. It's the best I can do.
How is "to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content" different from "to do anything we want with it"?
My guess is the first phrase is lawyer-brain for "we send the words you typed in the search bar to the search engine for you."
(Yes, they need your express permission to do that, because copyright law is really fucking dumb and makes absolutely no sense if you're approaching it from engineer-brain.)
> navigate, experience, and interact with online content
I can do all of those things just fine without Mozilla also experiencing my online content.
My browser sent a request that starts with “POST” in order to tell this website to create this comment but it includes the words that I wrote and therefore “own” as far as copyright is concerned. Mozilla requests a license to send such data to websites in similar contexts as, in this case, I “indicate” by clicking the “reply” button.
Other uses of that data are not licensed. For example, using that data in an unrelated request they send to themselves, not indicated by clicking reply, is not licensed.
Mozilla isn't sending that data. You're sending that data.
These terms are common on webapps because, well, they're webapps. You send your data to the webapp and they store it on their own servers.
Web apps, operated by individuals or organisations, are very different to local apps which are operated by you. Just because the Firefox app is running on your device doesn't mean that Mozilla is operating it.
By granting Mozilla the right to access and use your data, you're agreeing to give them data which they never had previously - instead of just sending the POST to xyz.com you're now sending it to Mozilla as well who can do whatever they like with it, sell it to ad networks, whatever.
This is nonsense. Does curl need a license to send HTTP requests for me?
The last part of the sentence narrows it down, as does the first part.
It doesn't narrow anything down unless they say specifically what they do.
They only have license to use the data in order to realize the intent of the user, how much more specific than that can it get?
"The intend of the user is to experience the best browsing experience hence we upload and sell all data for training to improve that experience"
This is why broad "boilerplate" agreements are unacceptable especially from a self proclaimed savior of online privacy such as Mozilla.
They didn't need a license before. Why should they need one now?
Do they need to secure a license in such a way? Probably not.
Would that fact at all change what the sentence in their TOS means? Nope.
Whether or not the sentence needs to be there has no bearing on its meaning.
That's a wonderful non-answer. It's really showing how much leeway you're giving Mozilla for this overreach.
What changed? Why do they need it now?!
I'm not here to defend or attack Mozilla.
See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43205587
Law degress are expensive
And the means of realization are up to Mozilla. In other words they can do whatever they want. If my intent is to type something into the searchbar and get redirected to the search engine website, there is no reason why Mozilla would need to know about this.
> there is no reason why Mozilla would need to know about this.
Precisely. That's why it's not covered by the license.
> That's why it's not covered by the license.
It says it is.
No. It doesn't say that.
If you want to claim otherwise, show where it says that and elaborate. This style of "argument" leads nowhere. You're stringing together vague statements and claims, leaving it to the imagination of the reader to tie them into the matter at hand. Maybe you want to do your own dissection of the sentence we are arguing about to make your reading of it clear.
I think you're interpreting "as you indicate with your use of Firefox." in some weird charitable way. Law doesn't work like that.
No, I'm not. I'm interpreting it precisely as written using the rules of the English language. Lawyers get paid good money to word them very precisely.
I appreciate your candor and good-faith, benefit-of-the-doubt reading of this clause.
However,
> Lawyers get paid good money to word them very precisely.
This is true, but not in the way you are presenting. The precision is often to provide unilateral freedom under the guise of protection. They will "lawyer" you. "As indicated by you" is a grossly broad phrase. An indication is not an express, enthusiastic consent. (FWIW browsers have a lot of lessons to learn from sexual misconduct training, but I digress).
Importantly, you are making an implicit assumption that actually is not protected by the statement. And that is when the intention was shared. If you accept the terms of a Mozilla service elsewhere that indicate you are amenable to, for instance, being served ads in exchange for using the browser a certain way --it can now be argued that the data can be exfiltrated.
So, there are two points of failure with your assessment.
1. "Indicated by you" is subjective and Mozilla can solidly argue implicit consent or action 2. The indication need not be contained to the same operation which which the information in question is being sent.
I had to vouch for your comment, which given that yours is the first and only comment responding with something substantive in this entire comment tree is rather... interesting. Thank you for actually engaging in the discussion about the matter at hand using well laid out arguments.
> "As indicated by you" is a grossly broad phrase. An indication is not an express, enthusiastic consent.
I agree that by itself "indicate" could be interpreted very broadly, however in context it is decidedly less so: "to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox". So in order to be licensed use, it has to serve to help the user "navigate, experience, and interact" in the way the user indicated.
Also see the steering wheel example here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43200940
> If you accept the terms of a Mozilla service elsewhere that indicate you are amenable to, for instance, being served ads in exchange for using the browser a certain way --it can now be argued that the data can be exfiltrated.
You're right. It absolutely could be argued. As long as they obtain consent/a communication of intent somewhere - for instance by you leaving a "yes, serve me ads" checkbox ticked somewhere - they arguably could now have license to use your data for that.
However the point is that something on top of your agreement to the TOS is necessary to make that happen. Just agreeing to the TOS and browsing the web normally doesn't give Mozilla license to do much at all.
If I could make a change to the sentence, I would modify it to include "license [..] to the extent necessary to [..]":
> When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to the extent necessary to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox.
I don't think that change is strictly... necessary, but it makes it very clear that Mozilla doesn't have license to do all sorts of other unrelated things with your data beyond what is absolutely necessary to realize the user's intent.
You have been nitpicking on minutiae while blatantly ignoring the broader context. What is your stance on Mozilla removing the "we don't sell your data" clause as indicated in other comments? You have been latching on wordings and dragging people in clarification contests, but have been carefully avoiding to respond to this not at all vague statement/fact.
Here, let me repeat some of the comments you ignored:
ndiddy 4 hours ago | unvote | parent | prev | next [–]
Given that Mozilla updated their site a couple days ago to remove any wording along the lines of "Firefox will never sell your data to advertisers" when a flag associated with the new Firefox terms of use is enabled (see https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/commit/d459addab846d8144b...), I'm not so sure that this is a CYA about standard web browser usage.
theturtletalks 4 hours ago | unvote | root | parent | next [–]
> {% if switch('firefox-tou') %}
The proof is in the code, great work.> You have been nitpicking on minutiae while blatantly ignoring the broader context. What is your stance on Mozilla removing the "we don't sell your data" clause as indicated in other comments?
Why do you care about my stance?
I'm just here trying to correct a misreading of a specific instance of "lawyerspeak" and am not interested in joining some ideological battle where you believe me on the opposing side. It's not my kind of past time. I'm more interested in making sure I fully understand a matter, often by bouncing my interpretations off other people. I could not care less about joining some online brawl and making my side seem right by any means necessary.
What you're bringing up has no bearing on this conversation - it doesn't change the meaning of the sentence people were confused about at all.
That's why I was ignoring these kinds of replies. I just don't care for it.
> to help you navigate
This definition of helping me (a user} navigate could be interpreted in many ways, from the obvious all the way through to sending Mozilla my data so they can "improve Firefox" and therefore help me through giving them my information. This signals intent against my interest, regardless of whether that actually is there intent. The 'help' in particular is extremely suspicious and ambiguous
I think everyone is unsettled about the fact that Mozilla was able "to help you ... as you indicate" for twenty years before today without the need of a license agreement. And so we ask: what's changed?
Look at what they are ACTUALLY doing:
https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/commit/d459addab846d8144b...
The change removing "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." makes it pretty clear that the intention in the changes is NOT just covering their bums for using your input to provide the webpage you wanted. They are positioning to sell your personal data.
That promise to never have, never will sell your personal data was highly valued by many Firefox users and Mozilla must be pretty desperate to break it.Particularly given online privacy is suddenly crucial for many out-groups in the US - and pretty much everyone outside the US. The biggest marketing opportunity for years just landed in Mozilla's lap, and they spilled it.
Full context, from the link YOU provided: ""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."
There is no reasonable way to read this as an attempt to sell your data. This quote is also reiterated in the linked Privacy FAQ on their official site: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/faq/
That text continues with this:
> 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).
So they share data with partners, which helps to make Firefox commercially viable, meaning those partners pay them for that data. Or in other words, Mozilla sells user data. Even when anonymized or aggregated, it's still selling data.
Is there an actual genuine legal threat or something that prompted this change, or is it just some bored lawyer.
> complete lie
I disagree. I definitely editorialized it to make it attention-grabbing and point out the essence, because I wanted to raise awareness and spur discussion.
But they do own it in the digital sense (i.e. "piracy is not stealing" sense). You get to keep your own copy, but they also get a copy and they own that copy.
> help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content
These terms are vague enough to allow pretty much everything. Google would argue that tracking your information so they target ads is "helping you navigate" ("you see, sponsored links are more relevant!"). As well as "lets train an AI model that helps users experience the internet!"
Maybe Mozilla doesn't own that information legally, but they grant themselves practically unlimited rights to do what they want, as the restriction they imposed to themselves ("to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox.") couldn't be more wishy-washy.
No difference to me. Goodbye Firefox.
By the way, what alternatives are there for Thunderbird?
The main problem with the "important part in cursive" is that it's Mozilla execs who decide what is actually a "to help you". There is no way to opt-out of "help".
I think you are bending the meaning of the word license to the breaking point here. What your analysis implies, is that Mozilla needs permission to store and process your data in order to carry out the services implied by your use of Firefox. Obtaining a "nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license" is definitely an excessive move in that context.
> Title is a complete lie/misleading. They get a license, not ownership.
I completely agree. Saw the HN title, clicked through to the page and saw nothing relevant to the title. I've flagged the topic now.
https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/commit/d459addab846d8144b...
This commit says that they can know sell your data as well, which does look beyond using them for improving their software
In EU user can not legally give up ownership of their personal data, artwork, or intelectual property. "Giving license" is a legal workaround to get ownership.
That varies between EU countries.
I still don't get it. Is Mozilla phoning home the fact that I pressed the button?
That'd be a matter for the privacy policy. The section in question is whether they can then go ahead and publish a list of all the buttons you pressed. Which according to this license grant they can, but only if it "helps you navigate, experience, [or] interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox". What does that mean? I have no clue. It's a really strange restriction and I can't decide if that's wide open or so narrow that it is basically never met
Short answer: No.
Long answer: Unless the button says "phone home my information to Mozilla", this license wouldn't cover that. This license only covers whatever is necessary to make the button itself work - whatever is necessary to realize the user's intent.
They didn't need a license to your data before. Why should they need it now?
From the link that was already provided, and which is repeated in their Privacy FAQ: "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."
That seems like a pretty reasonable justification to me
Let me guess: chmod775 will not reply to this comment.
See my reply to you here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43205587
Honestly I'm surprised that a research technician is more interested in this style of "argument" rather than figuring out the meaning of a (very precisely worded) sentence to for its own sake.
It's an apt username for naively giving read access
And how do I deny Mozilla this request to grant them a license “to help me”?
Firefox is dead. What do I use now?
From the link that was already provided:
"(BTW there are opt-outs linked from each chapter/category of data, like sponsored content in new tab experience etc. that should lead you through settings to disable such telemetry. Nothing has changed about that, and you can always find it in the privacy center. The changeset you're looking at here is just to remove things that are unfortunately not that simple, and need explaining in the full legal documents instead.)"
Thank you sir.
It's fascinating how any Firefox thread here inevitably devolves into accusations that Mozilla has abandoned users and a push to switch to alternatives, despite Mozilla working in the interest of users to a infinitely greater degree than any other major browser vendor.
Actions speak louder than words. Firefox (including derivatives) is by far the most fingerprint resistant and adblock friendly webbrowser there is.
In terms of features, it's very rich and always improving.
Mozilla also maintains arguably the best web development resource there is, which is MDN.
Mozilla's internal problems aside, some people really don't appreciate how successful Firefox, Thunderbird and MDN have been and still are.
"Actions speak louder than words. "
Indeed. Talking about privacy and having spyware and ads activated by default and now this probably to legally safeguard this and more speak a very clear language.
The only reason to still use FF is indeed, that the competition is worse in this regard.
But that will change, once Ladybird becomes mature enough.
Pinging a Mozilla server to see if there is an active and usable internet connection is not spyware, let's stop with these useless accusations.
It's a product which optionally does accept some help from the users, e.g. opt-in error reports, which is a huge help. Certain people consider that a blatant violation of their rights for some reason, and they would apparently rather see the last bastion of a non-chrome internet die.
"Pinging a Mozilla server to see if there is an active and usable internet connection is not spyware, let's stop with these useless accusations."
No, but have you checked your firefox settings lately?
Meaning in the last 5 years or so? (Probably has been longer by now)
Some updates brought "allow firefox to install and run studies".
That sounded like experimental features, but were in reality spyware to study the user behavior to sell that data to ad companies.
It is still there. And a more blatant checkbox by default also arrived lately. (I think just in forefox mobile)
And then there are ads activated by default.
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/#health-report
"How is your data used?"
... lots of seemingly innocent technical blabla
and then
" Firefox also shares information with our marketing partners to measure and improve these campaigns; what information is specifically shared varies (depending on how you discovered Firefox and your operating system) but generally includes how you were referred to our download page and whether you actively use Firefox. Where Firefox is pre-installed on your device, technical and interaction data (your device type and whether Firefox is used) will be sent to our marketing partners, and shared with Mozilla."
Lots of words and details to hide the kind of important detail, that they do sell the data by default how you browse the internet. What websites you use, how long etc.
If all of these 'phone home' features are as benign as you say-- why isn't there a clear, exposed, and stable user setting to disable them?
At best there is maze of about:config which incompletely prevent firefox from phoning home and are regularly undermined by new additions.
> Firefox (including derivatives) is by far the most fingerprint resistant
Do you have a source? The fingerprint detectors [0] as well as reddit's banned/duplicate account system suggests otherwise.
Maybe at one point Firefox stopped the fingerprinting, but the tools have quickly found other ways to uniquely identify me.
[0] - https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/kcarter?aat=1 https://firstpartysimulator.org/kcarter?&aat=1&a=11&t=11&dnt...
Try Mullvad Browser or Librewolf, both of which are derived from Firefox.
These projects are made possible because of Firefox's customizability and feature set.
Firefox has a fingerprint resist toggle that may not be on when using vanilla Firefox.
Worth noting is that many of these features come from the Tor Uplift project[0]. I'm not sure if they'd exist if it weren't for Tor's work.
[0]: https://blog.torproject.org/tor-browser-advancing-privacy-in...
It’s about expectations. In very simple language: people expect Microsoft and Google to track the hell out of them. But Mozilla says they are your friend and respects privacy, but then their actions speak the opposite.
A betrayal from a friend is harder to handle than a blow from an enemy.
Mozilla's goals are still much more aligned with my own than any other browser vendor. Not even close. It's not a betrayal, it's a difference of opinion between friends.
Edit: If that. I personally think this Terms of Use thing is a storm in a teacup.
Are they? Their incentive is to maintain their revenue stream, almost all of which currently comes from Google. That source is now under threat so, to continue being able to pay the bills, they need to find another. And it's a big hole to fill.
Google's goals were once noble.
> Edit: If that. I personally think this Terms of Use thing is a storm in a teacup.
You may be right, yeah. I don't actually use Firefox, there was something else they did like this before which spooked me off. I was mainly explaining the seemingly odd response people have about this, and why they created a storm.
It's like a friend who says they are your friend, but then don't act like it. As opposed to say a known asshole being an asshole, people don't make a big deal about that any longer.
The same effect applies to political parties. The people that care about X focus their complaints to the party that is trying to address issues with X.
Yeah, pretty much. If you look historically, it's always that traitors and betrayers get the most severe punishment. It just wakes up something very basic in humans.
>despite Mozilla working in the interest of users to a infinitely greater degree than any other major browser vendor.
Obviously not anymore, it's a add company now.
But at least they have "cool" party's in Zambia.
> it's a add company now
Note that "any other major browser vendor" is a short list of ad companies with a much worse track record.
I don't think Apple (Safari) is a ad company.
They are[1][2]. It makes them billions every year[3]
[1]: https://ads.apple.com [2]: https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/control-how-apple-del... [3]: https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/06/15/apple-ad-business...
Ah ok, but do they have a worse track-record then Google Microsoft or Mozilla?
Relative to Mozilla: on the advertising front I can't judge whether Apple is worse or about the same. On most other fronts I don't think there's much of a question. Others disagree, the extent to which Apple's actions are user-hostile is an often debated topic I'm not particularly interested in re-threading.
Google and Microsoft aren't really a comparison, both have been openly anti-user on many fronts for many years.
So let's correct your statement then to >>most other major browser vendor
;)
No, I stand by my statement. I consider Apple extremely user-hostile and in many ways worse than Microsoft and Google. Those ways are just less broadly agreed upon.
It's disheartening to see people playing villification of users when it is the companies (yeah, mozilla CORPORATION) that went back on their words. Just cos you did something good in the past isn't and shouldn't be an excuse to do bad things now.
Also, why are we talking as if we haven't seen these same things happening to favourite products/companies over and over again? You don't need to be an analyst to put things together.
Tell me why I should care when they gave up Rust and MDN to competitors with the excuse of no money and then gave the boss a heft hike with an ever decreasing userbase? Would any company give a hike of this margin to it's employee when their product is doing bad in the market?
They kept doing things against the community. And then they bought an ad company, then this change. ENSHITTIFICATION IS WRITTEN ON THE WALL IN BOLD LETTERS. Let them backtrack.
Still very very disappointed. We are supposed to be a community who should be thinking through things. This isn't a new scenario. We have seen this so many times.
The shiniest of two turds is still shit.
I am, unfortunately, looking at alternative browsers because of this. Firefox was the best fit. Big enough that they could reasonably keep up but not one of the corporate browsers that I have 0 trust in. It wasn't perfect but it was better than chrome for sure.
Browsers are like cars now. It is becoming impossible to buy a new(er) car and have your privacy respected, but it is unreasonable to expect any normal life (at least in most of the US) without using cars or browsers. So, things like cars and browsers should have strong protections because there is no avoiding them. Unfortunately that is obviously not the case. You should never be forced to sign an adversarial TOS to earn a living or live a normal life, but here we are. TOS that are effective without you even reading them, that say they own you, everything you type, everything you do, that change and bind you without your consent or knowledge and what are you going to do about it? Given any reasonable choice I will take it, but the reasonable choices are dwindling.
LibreWolf? It's Firefox without the Mozilla branding
I switched to LibreWolf over this, and it's good so far. A couple of things:
* I had to switch off the fingerprinting protection. For me, running at 60 FPS and without automatic CSS dark mode detection isn't worth whatever fingerprint resistance it provides. Sadly, you don't have granular control over RFP, you have to turn it off entirely.
* It doesn't have Google Search available by default, but it turned out to be fairly straightforward to add. DuckDuckGo is just too slow to load for me compared to Google, and their AI integration is stupid. Google doesn't have AI answers and text fields like DDG does in my region.
* Their implementation of container tabs don't seem to support automatically opening certain URLs in certain containers, which is annoying. Maybe I can get the official container tabs extension working, but I kinda wish LibreWolf either had proper container tabs or left it out in favour of the Mozilla extension.
Otherwise, it seems great. I found it hard to pick between all the different Firefox forks and rebrands, but LibreWolf seemed like one of the more serious ones and I don't regret going with it.
honestly, at this point it makes sense to use vanilla Firefox for you, that offers exactly what you need and it's still quite good about privacy.
I agree, which is why I used vanilla Firefox until now. I don't want or need the additional privacy features LibreWolf (or other forks) offer.
But I don't want to use a browser from a company which gives themselves a broad license to do whatever they want with whatever data I enter into the browser. It's probably just a matter of time until Mozilla exercises this right to send stuff I enter into Firefox back to Mozilla for ad targeting and AI training purposes, and I don't want that. I have some faith that the LibreWolf team will notice such features and rip them out when they appear.
"But I don't want to use a browser from a company which gives themselves a broad license to do whatever they want with whatever data I enter into the browser"
As this discussion made abundantly clear, that's not what it says at all.
Nothing I have seen makes that clear at all. In fact, from what I can see, the ToS makes it very clear that they are giving themselves a license in the way I describe:
> 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.
Mozilla is clearly planning to do something which requires them to have given themselves this license, and I'd rather not be on Firefox when we figure out what that is.
I've been using LibreWolf as my daily driver for a couple of years. Highly recommended! Available for Windows, MacOS and Linux. Ranked as the highest for privacy protection in a 2022 study: https://www.ghacks.net/2022/06/15/privacytests-reveals-how-y...
Occasionally, you might get a broken website but to fix it you just click on the shield icon and lower the privacy settings.
Any recommendations for an Android Firefox replacement?
I am using IronFox (on GrapheneOS). But I don't really use my phone for browsing the internet very often.
Icecat is the GNU build of the open-source base of Firefox. I think that's the best bet until Ladybird is ready for daily diving.
Fennec on Android.
You can always buy old cars. Can’t use old browsers unless you really like getting pwned.
Brave is fantastic.
[dead]
> Mozilla can suspend or end anyone’s access to Firefox at any time for any reason, including if Mozilla decides not to offer Firefox anymore.
On what planet is that free, open source?
Can you imagine: "The Free Software Foundation (FSF) can suspend anyone's access to GNU Emacs at any time for any reason, including if the FSF decides not to offer GNU Emacs any more".
Judging from nearby wording, this is primarily geared towards the Firefox account stuff as opposed to the Firefox browser.
(I'm not happy with Mozilla's decision to name everything Firefox, it makes things like this confusing.)
If that was the intention, the correct term would have been "Mozilla's services". The very first sentence of that document defines Firefox: "Firefox is free and open source web browser software".
As a non-legal word of advice: when reading legal text, always read defensively. Never assume good will when legal matters are concerned.
Yes, it seems like Mozilla has long had a problem of marketing getting in the way of communication. This keeps happening over and over gain. They make changes for marketing reasons, and then people are confused when they make policy changes because they've solidified their naming so much in the pursuit of brand recognition that their audience (rightly) is confused about what they're actually saying when they use that brand name to refer to a singular component of their offerings.
Mozilla is quite adept at own goals when it comes to privacy. If I were a Mozilla executive reviewing this policy, I'd send it back to the lawyers to make a lot more effort to be clear about what Mozilla will and will not do for stuff, in a way that is actually readable and understandable by lay people.
I have enough legal knowledge to know that most of this is basically necessary legal boilerplate because holy crap does the legal system suck, but Mozilla tries to pitch Firefox as a privacy-favoring alternative, and looks-like-everybody-else legal boilerplate absolutely undermines that pitch and more.
The problem is more that they actually do want to sell user data (albeit anonymized and/or aggregated), and they want to present themselves as a privacy-favoring alternative.
They literally say:
> 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).
Sharing data with partners and getting money in return (that's what "to make Firefox commercially viable" means) is selling user data. They want to change the definition of selling data to exclude what they want to do, but they don't get to decide what the meaning of words is.
So they're not as privacy-friendly as they want to appear, and that's a difficult position, and that's why this policy allows them more access to data than a naive reading would indicate.
Let's not forget this post: https://web.archive.org/web/20210109032814/https://blog.mozi...
What’s wrong with transparency for advertisements? If you take offense to the “boosting” of news sites, I see the point but now we have Elon arbitrarily boosting his own content on X.
Not sure how you end up solving that issue other than perhaps a more transparent system like the original Birdwatch.
[dead]
This post was what finally pushed me to switch after years of growing dissatisfaction.
Here's the remaining paragraph:
> If we decide to suspend or end your access, we will try to notify you at the email address associated with your account or the next time you attempt to access your account
It seems like this is not about the browser itself, but rather about Firefox accounts. The wording is pretty ambiguous, though.
This likely refers to Firefox-the-product, not Firefox-the-open-source-project since there's no functional way to revoke your access to a mercurial checkout on your PC.
It's not unprecedented to have an open source license with revocation or termination clauses, either. I recall seeing ones that basically say "If you file a patent suit around this open software, your rights to use it are gone".
> It's not unprecedented to have an open source license with revocation or termination clauses, either. I recall seeing ones that basically say "If you file a patent suit around this open software, your rights to use it are gone".
Trying to take back the license based on use of the software, however, would make it not "open source", since that would be use restriction.
Mozilla has had their own dedicated license - the Mozilla Public License - for as long as I remember. My understanding is that FF and Thunderbird's source code are both still under this license.
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/MPL/
Whether or not the MPL counts as 'open source' is a question for the people who steward that term, I guess. But they've not been using a Standard Open Source License for a while.
It's OSI approved which is about as official as 'open source' gets: https://opensource.org/license/mpl-2-0
- "It's not unprecedented to have an open source license with revocation or termination clauses,"
Yes, but aside from jokes[0] it's unprecedented for an OSS license to attempt to restrain the purposes for which end-users use software. That's incompatible with the definition of free software ("free", as in "freedom").
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSLint#License
- "Before that, the JSLint license[4] was a derivative of the MIT License.[5] The sole modification was the addition of the line "The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil."
- "According to the Free Software Foundation, this previous clause made the original license non-free."
[dead]
This made me look into Firefox forks/alternatives:
Librewolf [1] seems to be fairly active (last commit on Codeberg was last week) and up-to-date with the latest upstream releases (mirrors FF's versioning scheme and matches their latest). Has a nice focus on privacy and no-telemetry.
Floorp [2] also looks active (last commit last week), also claims focus on privacy. Based off FF's extended support releases so it may lag behind in latest features.
Waterfox [3] is also active (last commit a few hours ago), also big focus on privacy, but it uses a custom versioning scheme so I can't tell how closely it follows FF's releases.
GNU IceCat's [4] latest release was in November 02023, so it looks like it may be abandoned.
Does anyone have any experience with any of these, good or bad? With all of them more or less promising the same things it's hard to tell which one may be the better option.
1: https://librewolf.net/
2: https://floorp.app/en
3: https://www.waterfox.net/
4: https://icecatbrowser.org/
Try going to gitlab.com with librewolf, you'll see a white page with no content. Librewolf is blocked off from half the internet that uses cloudflare, so it's kind of a useless browser.
Every browser that's not a majority browser will be associated with these kind of blocking risk. I can't risk access to my financially important accounts, nobody can. So to me this is not a feasible alternative.
The only way to build a browser is to act like one of the others, and to behave like one of the others. Can't use brave, given their history, but farbling approach is the most sustainable solution in my opinion.
My remaining hope is that ladybird will actively deny implementing web standards that can be used for fingerprinting.
Something as simple as overflow:hidden is used on every website to force people to get tracked by having to activate JS, and things like this should be something a web browser should protect its users from.
We need a CSS engine that denies setting these kinds of things, because JS fingerprint prevention isn't enough if every website breaks because of it.
If you want a headstart, I tried forking webkit and do exactly this. Project is unmaintained because couldn't work fulltime on it without funding. Maybe somebody else picks it up? [1]
[1] https://github.com/tholian-network/retrokit
> Try going to gitlab.com with librewolf, you'll see a white page with no content.
> If you want a headstart, I tried forking webkit and do exactly this
> [1] https://github.com/tholian-network/retrokit
I just opened that page on LibreWolf without any problems.
Lab and hub are different words.
> gitlab.com with librewolf, you'll see a white page with no content
It works fine, even with JS disabled.
This is purely FUD per my experience. I use librewolf on websites behind cloudflare and with plenty of js. They all work just as well as they did in Firefox.
Librewolf sends Firefox in the user agent, and you can toggle Firefox "features" on if a website you use requires them.
Not trying to convince you to switch to it--you do you. Just sharing with someone who might be reading this thread and that hasn't tried librewolf.
The amount of re-edits of your comment are a bit off the charts.
Why do you think I have a personal stake in this? Why do you feel personally attacked by my comment?
I am sorry if I somehow personally offended you!? Not sure how I could've phrased my comment differently.
Yeah, I thought it was unnecessarily confrontational and tried to make it clear that's not my intent.
I'm not offended in the slightest, just a very happy user who wants to encourage other people to try librewolf for themselves.
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I use librewolf as my daily driver after the Firefox "privacy preserving ad measurement" SNAFU last year [1,2]. The fingerprint resistant and anti-canvas functions were different, but I got used to them and I really appreciate the added features.
With that, having everything turned on can break some sites. If a site wasn't all that important and isn't respecting privacy, I just won't visit it. Otherwise, I'll keep another browser around just in case I absolutely must for business or something else.
When Firefox began opting people in by default to leak data to advertisers, it felt like the beginning of the end to me. After looking into canvas and other fingerprinting capabilities, it's somehow still surprising and alarming to me how far companies go to invade our privacy.
1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40971247 2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40974112
thanks for the research. I just quickly tried them all. I have an older mac with older FF. Results: librewolf and waterfox wont run (10.15 min) and the floorp (react) website crashes. IceCat runs! and seems to use LibreJS for javascript, so my first few tests failed because you have to individually allow scripts per site. I quite like that idea! although my quick test of breakout (HN yesterday) runs slow/stuttery. A couple other sites are throwing up js console errors, so I need to play around with it more. It did enable me to access the floorp website, but also 10.15 min. I guess this helps me migrate faster to my asahi setup, although I've been trying to keep that one away from daily browsing and the little web of horrors.
I wonder if this FF change is pre AI infection, which might end up affecting these other builds too. Pretty disappointing after such strong privacy promises for so long, whatever the reason for these changes.
you should add zen browser[1] too, i tried some from your list, librewolf breaks some websites (online banking doesn't work) floorp is a good one, but in my experience zen is better.
1: https://github.com/zen-browser/desktop
Iceweasel has been around for sometime:
https://github.com/adonais
https://sourceforge.net/projects/libportable/files/Iceweasel...
Forks can be healthy for a number of reasons =3
Oh, I thought IceWeasel had been renamed to IceCat, but the repo you linked to has recent activity and calls it IceWeasel, now I'm a bit confused. Glad to see it's active though.
The Gnu Icecat is still active as well.
Compiling Firefox without telemetry is just a flag, as we discovered while doing something over the debugging interface not available in the Windmill Test Framework. Tip: running profiles off a ram drive reaches ludicrous speeds.
Tor Browser also works: https://www.torproject.org/download/languages/
Best of luck =3
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HN title: "Mozilla owns "information you input through Firefox"
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/legal/terms/firefox/
"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."
This is a license to use, not ownership. If Mozilla owns the information then it does not need a license.
> 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.
It's bad that it says that, because the "us" in this sentence should absolutely not be doing anything that requires such a license, and should not have a copy of it in order to do so; but "Mozilla owns" is also not a correct summary of it.
why does this require "a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license"?
Speculatively:
- nonexclusive, because they're not demanding exclusive rights to your content. If they did, there's no way this would fly.
- royalty free, because otherwise you could charge them money for doing anything with your data, even things you've asked them to do.
- worldwide, because you may ask them to communicate with servers in other countries. i.e. you are using Firefox Sync to sync your bookmarks and you travel overseas, your bookmarks are now traveling between two countries.
The question is "why do they need a license at all", IMO. The qualifiers on the license all make sense to me. It's possible additional qualifiers like 'short-term' could make it less scary.
Discussions
(100 points, 1 day ago, 30 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43187423
(132 points, 10 hour ago, 106 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43194536
Since it's mostly just people who care about this privacy who still use Firefox, these changes seem particularly tin eared.
People who care about privacy have already moved on to LibreWolf or some other Firefox alternative.
Not true. I was under the impression that Firefox was a privacy-oriented browser until these Terms were published today. I'm now posting this from LibreWolf, which I have just now installed for the first time.
Lately I've been working on strategies to use software in unusual enough ways that I'm essentially off the radar of, well, anyone looking. The dark forest approach to the internet.
To avoid interacting with the web directly, I'm thinking of running some AI software in a container on a home server that would be a translation layer between me and the real web. All webpages would be converted to a simple, and secure, format. Gopher, gemini, asciidoc, or maybe just static html.
Is that a tractable problem with modern AI tools?
The only way to win is not to play, but I'd like to have my cake and eat it too.
The more unique your habits, the easier to fingerprint. That said, with those habits, you may be a less attractive audience.
My dream team of execs would send lawyers back to the drawing table on at least one of these clauses.
"Imagine that someday we get taken over by bad people. Write this as if our today selves want to protect everyone against our future selves."
Relevant discussion: https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/information-about...
It's times like these I look forward to the likes of the Ladybird browser [1] making progress.
[1] https://ladybird.org/
I think this probably isn't as big of a deal as people are making it out to be. But I find a certain kind of joy in Mozilla being judged on the worst possible interpretation of their terms of service, since they do that to others _all the time_ [1].
[1] https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/
They sell your data now. Their strings are pulled.
I tend to agree with you, but I’d hope that given how badly this has been received, Mozilla finds some better writers to put some better thought into the contents of their ToS and issue some corrections in the near future.
> being judged on the worst possible interpretation
That's the correct way-- contract terms must be read defensively.
The first few steps on a slippery slope never do seem like a big deal, do they?
So since last year's debacle with Mozilla being an add-on company plus this ToU was the boiling point for me:
-Removed Firefox from all machines, replaced with LibreWolf.
-Deleted my Mozilla account.
-Changed to brave on mobile
Took about 15 minutes.
When evil shows it's real face and wants to tell me how and for what I can use my software, that's a goodbye Mozilla....so much for your ethics.
How much of a financial effort would it be to have some non-profit take a fork of Icecat and Fennec F-Droid, and just maintain a browser for the actual free world (akin to codeberg for example)?
i.e. if we strip down all the corporate overhead what would be the annual cost of maintaining a European sane version of 'land of the free' Firefox?
Clickbait title. I have read what is linked there and it claims no such thing.
At best, if you read through the notices, input data can be used to train personalised AI chatbots (running locally) IF you give your consent at the time of activation.
There's a lot of vitriol in the comments below but nobody seems to have read what is linked here.
The only inaccuracy in the title is that it used the word "owns" as short-hand for "gets a broad license to use". Which isn't unheard of: we talk about owning a copy of a piece of software or music for example even though what we have is a perpetual and broad license to use it.
I wish the title didn't use such hyperbole, but it's closer to true than to false.
> 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.
Secondly, text typed into the search/address bar is sent to them for "suggestions" and to broadly categorize the search ("travel"). Turn this off if you don't want it.
Thirdly, they'll be notified if you click an advert on the new tab page. Again, this can be turned off
> 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.
The fact that this surprises me must be an indicator that Mozilla still had a good reputation with me. No longer. Starting the search for an alternative browser now.
This is very frustrating. It becomes impossible to use the web in a privacy conscious way. I know that Firefox wasn't perfect, but it was the best we had, and I have been a loyal user, despite minor quirks and annoyances. And now this… Guess will have to find another browser.
I see this thread pop up about once every 3 months for a different service. Its always the same license term that spooks people.
Switched to Vivaldi long time ago. For reasons like this, ToS, Mozilla changing their mission, etc.
Vivaldi respects your privacy, supports Chrome extensions, and all the customizations you'd ever need.
Vivaldi is probably the most ethical company making a for-profit browser now. But note that because it is a for-profit it tracks your installation, with an anonymous but unique id, and phones home every time you use the browser. There were complains about this in the forum, but Vivaldi said they had to do that to know how many unique users they have, to make browser deals with other companies. They refused to change that and instead suggested that interested parties could use an application firewall to block those connections from Vivaldi.
Please correct me if I'm wrong but isn't it still an issue that due to Chromium not supporting the V2 manifest, adblockers like Ublock Origin won't function in Vivaldi?
Mozilla is going down the path of enshittification. I don't really care what the exact AUP, ToS and other legalese tomes boil down to, I should not need to agree to nothing but the license to use a piece of free software. If they only wanted this shit to apply to the online services, they should state it as such.
I am sad to state this, but this is likely the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I am convinced that there is a huge silent majority of users here that care about the erosion of privacy and data abuse because that's why we were using Firefox in the first place. If I don't have any assurance of my rights, privacy, anonymity and the general assurance of virtues that a capital F - Free Software- should exhibit. If I have to settle for a solution that doesn't respect my rights, I will use something more complete, well supported and user-friendly.
Anyone using a fork? I'm thinking on migrating to https://floorp.app
I've been using Zen (https://github.com/zen-browser) for a while now, it's still in beta but is very cool.
Firefox performance has been trash for years, for many reasons. I still stick with it because it was included in my Ubuntu 8.04, which was the first OS I installed by myself, and more recently because of its stand regarding privacy. Now I might as well bite the bullet and move to Chrome or Edge, performance is much much better.
How do you define performance? For my use case I don't see any difference in speed compared to say, Safari.
Simple: Performance is defined as what Firefox does not have.
That's simply not true. I regularly find Firefox to be faster than Chromium. And the opposite is also true, but the difference isn't big. None of the two browsers has a clear advantage, and neither gets in the way of normal usage, nor in the way of heavier usage (I do some light data crunching and 2D convolution in the browser).
that may be great for stand up comedy, but on HN we tend to expect slightly more substantiated discussions.
There's Chromium
There's chromium, and then, for those who take their privacy more seriously than the average VPN customer that just wants to do piracy, there's ungoogled-chromium.
It's like chromium, just without feeding heaps of your personally-identifying metadata directly to Google, who give it directly to the NSA, who give it directly to Elon Musk and DOGE.
Remember, ALL mass surveillance by ALL intelligence agencies is ALWAYS a threat to your freedom, because you don't get to revoke it. You weren't consenting to sharing your information with the Obama administration, you were consenting to sharing your information with all future administrations, no matter how far removed from your own worldview those future administrations may be.
There is one solution. We the people demand an end to ALL government surveillance as well as severe legal consequences for all US government employees who ever helped build such systems, even if they were "just following orders", because neither following orders nor ignorance of the larger picture is an excuse for facilitating moral atrocities.
> metadata directly to Google, who give it directly to the NSA, who give it directly to Elon Musk and DOGE
Source?
A few years ago Google came under fire for sending extra identifiers to Google's websites in a header named X-Client-Data[0]. I don't remember how many identifying bits that includes or whether they still do it, but it was the tipping point for me.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22236106
sources:
- Google's own privacy policy
- Extensive evidence provided by brave national heroes and civil rights legends like Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, including training materials for specific named NSA programs like PRISM that offer explicit lists of cooperating partners, including Google, Microsoft, Apple - basically every big tech company, but also smaller but popular ones, such as Skype (pre-Microsoft acquisition); this is well known among technology's civil rights advocates, and isn't hard to find discussion of by credible technologists, including the folks behind Protonmail¹
- Elon & DOGE: see literally every major American news network besides Fox pretty much since the inauguration, large swathes of the internet, several prominent discussions on HN. It's not just illegally mass-surveilled stuff either, they're going through all sorts of classified stuff right now!
¹ Here's one such example literally on the front page as of the time of writing this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43201732
Is there a “brave” browser that uses Firefox?
Yes, though I've never used it: https://librewolf.net/
I've had good luck with LibreWolf on Windows
IceCat, maybe?
I too am looking for alternatives.
Official site: https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/
Binary build available here but not official:
https://icecatbrowser.org/index.html
edit:
I linked to a non-official site first, added the official site and made clear that the site offering binarys is non-official.
For which OS? Waterfox is nice https://waterfox.net
There is a Brave browser.
I think what was being asked is if there's something like Brave that doesn't use a webkit derived back-end. Good defaults and a good stance on privacy is one reason to use Brave and historically Firefox, but another is that it keeps the browser ecosystem from being too homogeneous. Firefox is the last browser with over sub-percent market share, and even then it's less than 3%, so it's almost gone.
A case can be made that many of the browsers split from webkit (or split from things that split from webkit) long enough ago that there is competition, but IMO that's a far cry from a fully independent solution.
This exactly! Apologies for not being more clear.
I'd go with Ungoogled Chromium at that point.
I’m kind of addicted to tab containers right now and I have them set up in a way where I can proxy specific containers out different socks proxies that go through different VPN tunnels. Niche I know but it’s keeping me on FF.
Tab containers are a godsend when managing multiple AWS accounts as well.
OMG do you have a writeup on how you do that?
Zen browser https://zen-browser.app/
The text leaves way too much up for shady interpretation. At that point I might as well fully switch to Chrome, even at home. Privacy was the single last reason for sticking with firefox, and these terms do not sound like privacy anymore.
Chrome is absolutely not a step in the right direction if this is pushing you away from Firefox. Look at the number of forks that strip out this nonsense and behave functionally identically instead.
I'm not going to go out of my way to fetch a modified build for a functionally worse browser. I only use FF at home due to privacy, but since that is no longer covered by Mozilla I might as well use the browser I've already been using for web dev for years at work.
Does using Firefox now force you to use some Mozilla services?
On Android, Fennic isn't bad. Is there a desktop version of Fennec?
where does it say "own"? it says: "nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content" type something - it's "used" to get what "you" want - how is that "own"?
The title of the article is "Firefox terms of use." Why are we allowing the editorializing of the title?
Why not? The author of the post wanted to point to a specific part of the terms. How would they do it otherwise?
Is there another browser that can do "container tabs" really the only thing that's keeping on Firefox now
LibreWolf can do it.
Does Chrome have a similar policy that says that it owns a license to your data?
This is not your computer. This is not your operating system. This is not your browser.
ignore the rage-bait and learn contract law and terminology.
IANAL - does that mean if I, in the UK, get arrested for wrong think on X I can redirect the police to Mozilla?
Urgh Mozilla needs to focus on being a good web browser, Id even pay, but you cant
I pay for Relay... I'm sure it's a mistake though bc it'll get ended sometime soon and I'll have to figure out how to transfer all my email aliases elsewhere...
My god people, what a nothing burger. Try clicking the link and reading the actual terms:
> You give Mozilla all rights necessary to operate Firefox, including processing data as we describe in the Firefox Privacy Notice, as well as acting on your behalf to help you navigate the internet. 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.
Most of the comments here are in bad faith or just people jumping on the hype train. Sad.
I thought Firefox sync and VPN was end to end encrypted.
That is a far bigger wtf than dumb unenforceable tos text.
It is. The data exfiltration is more through telemetry vectors as they currently use. A VPN can't help you with that and while they can't see your bookmarks stored in the sync service because they don't have the encryption key, they technically could do what they like once that is decrypted and in memory.
Librewolf can use Mozilla's existing Firefox Sync and because of the end-to-end encryption you get the privacy you wanted that way [1].
[1] https://librewolf.net/docs/faq/#can-i-use-firefox-sync-with-...
>dumb unenforceable tos text
It is unenforceable by YOU, since Mozilla has reserved all rights to all the data you put through your browser. Which is why I'm currently using LibreWolf for the first time.
What choice do we have then?
I guess Brave is the best we have until something more complete comes out of this crop of new browser engines like ladybird.
Chromium and a bunch of its forks, all the Firefox forks, Gnome Web (Epiphany), Falkon, Ladybird, probably a bunch of others I don't know about...
Well that clearly sucks. Does anyone know alternatives for firefox sync?
https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/commit/d459addab846d8144b...
They removed this:
They bought an ad company back in November I think, so this is not a surprise to me. Boiling frogs
> "That’s a promise."
That always has been a lie, ever since they accepted Google's money.
Now due to the anti-trust lawsuit, 'principles' don't pay the bills. Now you are seeing that Firefox doesn't care about the privacy of its users.
I think it's time to bring this to the attention of the EU. The browser race to the bottom may be somewhat acceptable for entertainment, but it is my firm opinion that accessing online government services and banking infrastructure necessary for a modern life shouldn't require me to accept such terms.
I agree but unfortunately very few see this as an issue. For browsers, they kind of soft-lock-out established niche browsers due to heavy use of JS. But this is deepter: more and more banks and public institutions' services imply everyone and their grandma possesses G/A-owned device so they start to require these to access their web services (either through exclusive app access via A/G app ecosystem or by enforcing 2FA (T)OTP which implies using such device for non-devlopers). Some countries force kids to use apple/google-owned devices in class. All of this requires citizens to accept and agree to (possibly changing) TOS and privacy rules (self) of A+G and opting out is hard often times and sometimes impossible. very sad
> You agree to indemnify and hold Mozilla and its affiliates harmless for any liability or claim from your use of Firefox, to the extent permitted by applicable law.
Yikes. Good thing i was never informed or agreed to this nonsense.
only if: there was a firefox module that could run continious scatelogical searches in the background , and repost randon grabs to a bot only forum, and mozilla would own, a lot of **
I'm in two minds about this. On the one hand I just want Firefox to keep being a free software web browser that I can trust. But on the other hand I realise Firefox isn't some hobby project and competing with Google isn't cheap. They already take money from Google and this could be shut off at any time. How can Firefox be independent if it doesn't have some revenue?
Unfortunately they've been stupid and blurred the lines between Firefox the browser and Firefox the "web platform". I don't think anyone would be too concerned if this was clearly about the web platform bit.
Maybe we need a smaller GPL browser that doesn't have the fancy stuff but can actually be maintained by the community. Yeah it won't with with a bunch of "web apps", but it will still provide access to information. This is also why if you are making websites you need to make sure it works without js etc. Otherwise you're basically forcing people to use adware.
I'm of one mind about this because
> Unfortunately they've been stupid
They could have had an enormous amount of good will and they do nothing but burn it. Weird how they get a lot of money from google and then, while technically meeting their mission by providing a browser alternative, seem to do a lot of self-sabotage in google's favor.
I honestly think the best thing that could happen to Firefox would be for Mozilla to exactly have their funding removed, have the foundation die, and a better entity focused just on Firefox, perhaps with more earnest and honest fundraising efforts and not a multimillion CEO salary, fills the vacuum.
Interesting that in this thread discussing a new Mozilla EULA/AUP (among other things) banning pornography, not one person has mentioned that their image library was once called libpr0n: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=66984
If you're not blocking your mozilla process from accessing firefox.com, mozilla.com/.org, and mozgcp.net, as well as turning telemetry settings off after every update and keeping a tight policy.json file - then firefox is just as bad as Edge or Chrome re: tracking
Also they actively take down extensions that unfuck websites without notice
Nice picture-in-picture implementation tho
Append all Mozilla services and telemetry to Pi-hole? What are the other ways this can be quietly mitigated and, the possible workarounds to exceptions created by DoH?
To the people that forced their friends and family to switch to Firefox be sure to schedule the tech support visit.
[dupe] earlier and related:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43187423
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43194536
Title is inaccurate. Mozilla get a nonexclusive license. That is different from ownership.
The license grant in these terms does not specify the license is irrevocable. The licensor, i.e., the Firefox user, reserves the right to revoke.
The license does not say that Mozilla owns information that the user inputs through Firefox. But the HN title does. If Mozilla owns the information then it would have no need for a license. Further, the license does not specify that it is perpetual. A Firefox user does not grant Mozilla perpetual rights to use the information. These rights can be terminated.