this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2024
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PSA (?): just got this popup in Firefox when i was on an amazon product page. looked into it a bit because it seemed weird and it turns out if you click the big "yes, try it" button, you agree to mandatory binding arbitration with Fakespot and you waive your right to bring a class action lawsuit against them. this is awesome thank you so much mozilla very cool

https://queer.party/@m04/112872517189786676

So, Mozilla adds an AI review features for products you view using Firefox. Other than being very useless, it's T&C are as anti-consumer as it possibly can be. It's like mozilla saying directly "we don't care about your privacy".

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[–] nia_the_cat 120 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (6 children)

~~Hot take and I can guarantee this will be downvoted but I think people are putting way too much blind trust into Mozilla for this.~~ (edit: Apparently not here, pleasantly surprised at that)

They just purchased an advertising company, they made the T&C waive your right to a class action lawsuit. They keep giving their CEO raises and laying off their workers. Mozilla is actively enshittifying but people don't react until it's too late because it's a boiling frog situation.

Whether you think the feature is useful or not, Firefox is unfortunately shifting away from being a privacy-focused user-focused browser. The saving grace is that it is open source and forks can be made of it, "Firefox" itself can survive anything as long as there's enough interest to keep it alive.

I think that Mozilla does great work, but they've lost sight of their goals, and are changing focus. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but this needs to be looked at objectively instead of with brand-loyalty. At the end of the day, they're just another company with financial interests prioritized over user interests.

[–] [email protected] 74 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Hot take

Thats not a hot take anymore. A lot of people in privacy communities are moving to forks of Firefox that disable Mozilla's bullshit.

[–] Professorozone 20 points 4 months ago (3 children)
[–] nia_the_cat 39 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (5 children)

On desktop I've been using Librewolf, Mullvad Browser is good too. There's also some forks on Android, Mull and Fennec, of those I prefer Mull

Edit: Waterfox is another fork on desktop that had some controversy when bought by an advertising company, but they're independent again as of last year

[–] ApollosArrow 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Do the same browser plugins work on librewolf?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

Yes. Out of the box, it has uBlock Origin installed.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

What would you recommend for Android?

Also, have you found anything that works well with Firefox Sync? I use Sync for my bookmarks but it doesn't seem to be able to sync with LibreWolf

[–] nia_the_cat 8 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I'd recommend Mull, it's pretty much Librewolf for Android

As for the syncing I'm not sure

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Fennec

isn't fennec a 1:1 rebuild? I believe it still has everything turned on

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

What even would be the purpose of such software?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

rebuild for distribution on fdroid as not to violate trademarks

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

It has some of the proprietary stuff and telemetry removed

[–] Professorozone 2 points 4 months ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Commenting to check these out later

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

I'm actually trying IceRaven right now

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Mullvad Browser (Tor Browser without onion network), Librewolf, Arkenfox (not a fork, just hardes regulär Firefox and disables mozilla's telemetry)

[–] Professorozone 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I downloaded it but the option to come back to where I left off when I close the program was greyed out. I'm a tab-a-holic and I don't like that. Any comments about that?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

I think mullvad browser uses always icognito so it does not save any site data to disk. I think it is not adapted to your use case.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)
[–] Professorozone 2 points 4 months ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

You can opt out of it?

[–] laughterlaughter 23 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

What irks me is that they proudly announce that these features are baked in directly in the browser. Why the FUCK would they do that? I want my browser to be a browser only. Everything else must be relegated to an optional add-on.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 months ago

they made the T&C waive your right to a class action lawsuit

Fakespot did already have that before they got acquired. Which doesn't mean it's not worth changing, of course.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 months ago (1 children)

man why do people always label the most cold-ass takes in the universe as hot takes

[–] nia_the_cat 19 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Depending where you are it is. On some Mozilla communities you're downvoted into oblivion or dogpiled on for saying this. I was pleasantly surprised here that it wasn't

A lot of them are very fanboy heavy

[–] sozesoze 15 points 4 months ago (1 children)

until it’s too late because it’s a boiling frog situation.

That's a common misconception. If frogs are thrown into boiling water they almost die instantly, if they are placed in a pot that's slowly beginning to boil, they desperately try to escape after a while

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

Huh, that is a surprising new revelation.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago

They are burning money