378
Mozilla drops new Privacy Note and Terms of Service; People are saying it is Bad News
(blog.mozilla.org)
Lmao, this is fascism behavior
this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2025
378 points (94.2% liked)
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Doesn't using tor or librewolf fingerprint you from the standpoint of using a rare browser?
Not an exhaustive list on the Gecko engine or its forks:
- Mozilla Firefox (Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS)
- LibreWolf (Windows, macOS, Linux)
- Waterfox (Windows, macOS, Linux)
- Tor Browser (Windows, macOS, Linux, Android)
- Pale Moon (Windows, Linux)
- Basilisk (Windows, Linux)
- K-Meleon (Windows)
- Midori (Windows, macOS, Linux)
- SeaMonkey (Windows, macOS, Linux)
- Floorp (Windows, macOS, Linux)
- CometBird (Windows)
- IceDragon (Windows)
- Flock (Windows, macOS, Linux)
- Capyloon (Windows, macOS, Linux)
- Ladybird (Windows, macOS, Linux, Android)
- QupZilla (Windows, macOS, Linux)
- Zen Browser (Windows, macOS, Linux)
- Comodo IceDragon (Windows)
- Otter Browser (Windows, macOS, Linux)
I keep Firefox, brave, Librewolf, and Vivaldi All configured and loaded with my plugins and bookmarks.
When Google pulled out of Firefox funding I expected them to go down a dark path.
I don't know that any of those choices of browsers are going to be significantly better than the others long-term. I'm also hoping for ladybug eventually.
LW doesn't seem to play nice with some of my sites and some of my plugins. It's the one I want most to work. The last time I tried it, delivering pass keys out of bitwarden in it didn't work. And that kind of makes it a no-go for me. I should try it again though it's been at least a year.
I'm pretty sure brave would sell my kidneys if they could. But they are the only one on the list that's truly funded and they keep up with the Joneses on YouTube ad blocking. And there also probably the strongest browser for anti-fingerprinting at the moment.
Vivaldi seems to work okay but it's just a Google clone, they've only dedicated to not enforcing manifest V3 for "as long as they could."
I thought Mullvad was the best in anti-fingerprinting. Anyone can check their own configuration with EFF's "cover your tracks" site.
They slightly edge out brave on vanilla. Once you load all of your plugins and stuff braves a little better at lying about it. To be fair they're both close enough it doesn't matter either one will get the job done. I usually think of mull as a leave it vanilla and use it when you need to leave no trace.
Note just to be sure, Mull is a different thing than Mullvad. What you wrote makes sense for Mullvad, but I am not so sure if this is the case with Mull, the mobile app.
I'm only dealing with desktop browsers in this and trying to type with autocomplete from an uncomfortable position. I'm fairly certain privacy doesn't really exist in OTC Android.
Does using a fork like Librewolf and Ironfox keep you safe from this?
I don't think we understand very well the threat model here. Are we talking about having a Mozilla account or the web engine itself. If you have an account they will probably start doing mining shit with it. What about activists researching certain topics then? The content browsed can be visible to Mozilla if they use their account for syncing bookmarks. That should be a dealbreaker right there. No different than Meta user-profiling the fuck out of your engagement behaviors. Now if this is NOT the case and you haven't a Mozilla account, I assume that the version of the web engine available back at the time of the fork is exactly the same. So far so good.
The problem is that browsers are hard, and there is a ton of web protocols to be implemented, various fixes for security, support extensions and other QOL features. WORD ON THE STREET is that tasks like these cannot be undertaken as solo/hobby projects, that funding and an organization structure is essential. The teams behind LibreWolf, Waterfox, etc have a track record of already lagging behind Firefox's version updates. Same goes with user-profile and configuration sets like Arkenfox (if I am not wrong). You may tweak the conf all you want, but if privacy and anonymity is compromised at the web engine level, these forks will be left with little to do about it. Then the only option will be to keep using an old version of the web engine (sacrificing security and quality of life extensions), or ditching the gecko web engine altogether.
That is why people are looking for genuine alternatives to the web engine.
Well it's been a nice time while it lasted but this should be a lesson that nothing is safe from enshitification and corruption. Fortunately there are a few options till something better arrives. Personally I'm waiting for Ladybug
Ladybug xD
People are saying it is Bad News
So, uhh, you want to tell us who is saying it's bad news?
gestures vaguely in a direction
Ehh, people, you know?
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(8 replies)
Which Firefox fork do people recommend? Ideally it should be available as Flatpak, keep the Firefox version number and not have a separate user-agent.
LibreWolf seems to be the best on first glance? https://flathub.org/apps/io.gitlab.librewolf-community
Zen seems to have picked up a lot of privacy improvements but it's a pretty small team doing a lot of ambitious work. I like it, but it's got a lot of (minor, mostly aesthetic) bugs.
I use mullvad for stuff I really don't want a record of (for as much as that's possible)
On the chrome side, Vivaldi (former opera before they sold out to china) is a good browser, but even more ambitious and even more buggy than zen. It has a built in email client. Like, who does that?
Unfortunately Vivaldi is proprietary, so it's not an option for me.
I mean it's source available, but sure I guess
I switched to LibreWolf after seeing these news. It's been working just as well as firefox and you can adjust the privacy functions as much or as little as you want.
I appreciate the recommendation. I've been using Firefox for many years but I admit it's time in the sun is over. It hurts to leave it behind but I guess nothing lasts forever.
Goodbye old friend
Yeah, I've been using firefox for as long as I can remember. Sad to see it go this way.
Librewolf is the best ✅
I wish librefox would come to android
I'm using Fennec on mobile and it seems to be working fine.
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(6 replies)
On the contrary, I think this is a responsible way to operate. The terms of use apply to the Mozilla distributed binary, not the open source version and open source forks, and I don't think additional terms shut them out of that. The privacy policy is clear, concise as can be and links so that people can jump directly to what is being collected.
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