First focusing on AI and now this, already cancelled my donations, do we have a good fork to move to?
Librewolf
I found its privacy settings too restrictive. I ended up moving to Floorp which is much closer to the Vanilla FF
That bugzilla page says they targeted version 122 for this change. I have Firefox 122 on my PC and when I look at the about:config page, that setting is still set to False. I think y’all are freaking out about a very small thing.
If you use Firefox, and you check your about:config page and you see true for that setting, then just change it to false and go about your day.
Or are we all just talking philosophically about this?
Sure, you can change literally everything about Firefox if you pay a time cost. The defaults do matter because that’s one more thing to fix when installing it. We could say this about any negative feature.
I agree with all of that. 👍
I just didn’t see anyone else addressing where the change lives in the browser and how to un-do it if you want to opt out.
With Firefox sync you only ever have to do it once.
Firefox is a super easy install for me. Install login and all of my settings auto apply.
I remember the last few versions of Netscape Communicator had a “Shop” button.
This was the sign that Netscape had lost the browser war and was giving up.
I remember the Amazon icon on Ubuntu. It is why I initially gave up on Linux after the first install…like WTF I don’t want Amazon in this new to me OS.
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Maybe I’m too much of a goof but I haven’t noticed any ads and I haven’t found any way to turn them off either. Is this only in the desktop version or is it also in the mobile version? Normally I just use the mobile version.
ill be happy to be wrong, but there is no alternative. if we dont support firefox; were all fucked.
Pale Moon is the only alternative I can think of, it’s independent of Gecko and FF
Last I heard, which was admittedly a long time ago, Pale Moon was dangerously out of date with respect to security and web standards and not much more than a meme. I feel like I remember a significant change in leadership relatively recently, but has Pale Moon actually become a viable alternative?
Beyond that, WebKit is still a thing. Ladybird is too though it’s still quite a ways from primetime.
Hence why we need a public option.
Don’t they already do this with Firefox Suggest?
Librewolf on PC.
Mull on Android
librewolf is a fork of firefox, without firefox librewolf also gonna die
That’s not how forks work. A fork can exist independently of its upstream.
Can but how feasible is that?
True, but you really think firefox forks would have the resources to keep up with security updates and such? Mull for one is a fork that only changes the default privacy changes and nothing more
By being a fork it wont die, but its true that its just a few folks running builds of mainstream work mozilla is doing
and same with Mull.
I don’t think this should surprise anyone, given the new CEO they got and the announcement that was made immediately afterwards, followed by the layoffs. Fortunately, there are Firefox forks that we can switch to as a form of protest, provided that the forks keep these changes out of their codebases.
One thing I predict happening is that this move by Mozilla could spur more activities for the Firefox Forks. It would be a good opportunity for the developers of Mull, Librewolf, and Waterfox to think of ways to make their respective browsers stand out or be unique. Maybe we can one day see an Android version of Librewolf or a new web engine get developed in response to all this mess. Just a thought, of course.
New browser engines already exists : servo ( rust), Ladydbird (C++) are actively being developed. Both are still far from being daily driveable, but considering mozilla is apparently shiting the bed it’s better than nothing.
@jherazob I do hope this can be disabled and won’t be transfered to a thing you need to pay monthly for to disable.
Will be hard to find a new browser if Firefox is starting to do something like that.
It says “opt-out” in the title.
This is a weird one. On the one hand, we have Mozilla, the last remaining browser company not sucking at the teat of either Google or Apple and we all expect for Mozilla to somehow generate enough money to pay enough employees to stay competitive on the other hand we have the users who expect them not to do anything to try and leverage their userbase to create financial independence.
The problem with Mozilla remains the same problem that they’ve had for a while. Mozilla doesn’t acknowledge the symbiotic relationship it has with its community and the community always over reacts, which means there’s a chasm where simple things should be easy but they’re not.
Take this for example, Mozilla only had to have a public facing discussion about this and then go and do it anyway.
Sometimes paying lip service works. But since they didn’t, you have people like OP who feel like something nefarious is happening and in the end Firefox users lose out as things like donations being pulled hurt.
Mozilla already shows ads, as do all the other browsers, however unlike the other browsers, you have a fully functioning uBlock that can and will remove anything that the preferences don’t cover.
Mozilla makes hundreds of millions from Google. Every single person could stop donating and they would continue along just fine (Well the CEO might need to take a 10 million yearly pay cut).
What weird is seeing people champion the enshittificstion of FOSS software.
And you don’t see Mozilla’s reliance on financing from its main competitor as a huge issue?
What weird is seeing people champion the enshittificstion of FOSS software.
People keep using this word in places it doesn’t apply. “Enshittification” is specifically about online platforms that are two-sided markets. That’s not the case here. It doesn’t just mean that something is getting worse over time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification
Eh.
The examples Doctorow user when coining the term were two sided markets, but if you actually read the original article for understanding, rather than to “well actually” on the internet, that the process being described is much more general than that, and is one of products or services becoming worse over time so that whatever value they provided becomes increasingly shifted toward shareholders.
This may seem weird in this case, still, because the only shareholder of Mozilla Corp is the Mozilla Foundation, but the principle still stands.
Moreover, you sound like a ridiculous pendant, because what’s actually happening here is that Mozilla is turning Firefox into a vehicle for advertising, which means it’s fucking entering a two-sided market… You’re arguing that the sky isn’t blue because it’s night time at fucking sunrise.
Is mozilla is showing ads, then it is a two-sided marketplace.
Words mean whatever you want them to mean.
Only if you aren’t interested in a conversation where all parties have a clear understanding of what’s being discussed.
My post covers all of your points.
Mozilla works out in the open. They can’t always nicely prepare everything before they head into a user dialogue, especially when people even dig up their Bugzilla tickets.
I would much rather have them continue to work in the open. That does much more for my trust in them than a flawless PR story…
This appears to be an experimental initiative within Mozilla right now. It’s not available to the public and may never be if it doesn’t pass muster for them.
https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/share-your-thoughts-on-how-you-shop-online/td-p/43015 https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/the-future-of-shopping/
I can live with ads but I’d prefer to pay a few dollars a year instead. I already support Mozilla through relay.
The problem is Mozilla started thinking about itself as a company, with its massive revenue from Google.
It isn’t. Firefox was most alive and most growing when it was still a grassroots initiative to build a better web browser.
When they go back to that - or someone forks and creates a charity with one sole focus (a great browser) I’ll start supporting them. I just don’t think Mozilla needs this size of org to build a better browser and and now they’re trying to do a bunch a crap I’m not interested in to justify their org size. They’ve got it back to front.
And I say this as a lifelong Firefox user.
The Mozilla Corporation is a for-profit company founded in 2005 by the Mozilla Foundation. I think part of the problem is more people don’t realize this. It’s the same reason you can’t donate to Firefox development, donations to “Mozilla” go to the Mozilla Foundation, not the company that builds Firefox.
Yes, but the profits of Mozilla Corporation are all owned by the Mozilla Foundation, which has to adhere to all the usual 503.c rules about spending (i.e. it must be in furtherance of the stated mission of the org).
The profits are owned by the Corporation, which is why the Corporation does all the crazy spending and paying millions to executives, because as long as there is enough separation what they do internally does not affect the tax situation of the Foundation. After the for-profit pays taxes, the non-profit can get dividends and other payments from them, but it is not just a way to wash away tax from all the money.
The Corporation acts like a company because it is one. This is different than Konqueror, Epiphany, or most of the Firefox forks.
Is there a picture of what this actually looks / would look like? Honestly, although it is going down a bad path, it isn’t actually all that surprising. Firefox already has sponsored address bar suggestions by default.
I really don’t understand where they are going with Mozilla’s new leadership.
Don’t they already show ads in pinned sites area. Since I am not a regular donor I click on the affiliate amazon link if I am purchasing something to support them. Now I feel like they are taking wrong signal due to this. More advertising enabled by default will make even harder to recommend firefox to new users.
