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Mozilla drops new Privacy Note and Terms of Service; People are saying it is Bad News (blog.mozilla.org)

submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Not a good look for Firefox. Third partners and device fingerprinting clearly mentioned in the documents.

The move is the latest development in a series of shifts Mozilla has undergone over the past year.

The gecko engine and Firefox forks, such as Tor, Mullvad, Librewolf, and Arkenfox, are stables of private, open source web browsing.

In fact, Mozilla's is one of the few browser engines out there, in a protocol-heavy industry that many say only corporate or well-funded non-profits can reliably develop.

What is more, daily driving the more hardened-for-privacy Firefox derivatives can be frowned upon by many sites, including your bank and workplace.

Mozilla's enshittification leaves the open source community without a good alternative to Firefox, after years of promoting it as a privacy-friendly alternative to spyware-cum-browser Chrome.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Have you considered what is driving this change?

Looking from the sidelines, I think it's all about money, specifically, how to make the development of Firefox sustainable. Yes, I'm aware of the cynical view that this is about lining the pockets of the CEO, I have no evidence for this.

I think that's essentially caused by how we have licensed open source software and had limited resources to combat abuse at the industrial scale that silicon valley companies have monetized other people's work.

Bruce Perens is attempting to erect "Post Open", but I'm not yet sure if that is going to solve the fundamental issues.

Disclaimer: I've worked a little on the community standards document for the post open project.

[–] tomatolung 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Being halfway between both sides, I can see the need for a monetary model to sustain development, yet I am challenged by the opacity that this feels like. The OP's point that it feels like a downward slide toward principles compromise is challenging. Especially in light of the enshittification of everything lately, Mozilla needs to do a better job communicating how this is not going down that path and yet also trying to sustain itself.