Starting in Firefox 138, Mozilla started gating Firefox Labs features behind data collection.
Mozilla had announced that some new Firefox features would be released via Firefox Labs.
It is now a few hours since I posted, and there is reason to celebrate – Mozilla is updating Firefox Labs to let people access features without needing to enable data collection.
A gentle reminder that the Firefox Binary is no longer open source. It is source-available. You license the binary under their own proprietary Terms of Use, which explicitly grants Mozilla to use your data in a manner they seem fit to “operate Firefox”.
They say they are using your data for research purposes but they also say they can modify the license at any time.
Still better than Chrome.
I wonder if you will get excoriated for this opinion, since I had to respond to people in my last post with an update because people were adamant that Firefox was open source. 😼
There are two "Firefox"s:
- Firefox, the code base.
- Firefox, the compiled binary of that code base.
The codebase remains open source under the MPL while the binary explicitly, by Mozilla’s own admission, is not. They are source available.
From the very brief skim I did of your post, it looks like we’re on the same page. I had a few people who don’t understand open source licenses come at me in my Lemmy replies when this was first unfolding. Ultimately it’s on them to understand their agreements.
Lol, how many times have they done this now? They are obsessed.
It’s clear that Mozilla’s priorities have shifted. The damage is done. I get the same vibe as a frat boy that keeps getting turned down but won’t stop trying until the girl is drunk enough for him to get his way. The ethical reputation of the company is forever tarnished.
non-european firms are not to be trusted no more. they continously stomp on our privacy-rights.
European companies and governments regrettably aren’t better, they simply don’t have that many eyes on them because, well, they don’t have much to show for to begin with. Name a production-ready made-in-Europe browser/browser-engine. Name a widespread European messenger. A European smartphone platform? European Facebook or Twitter? Anything?
Even the few small scale European examples that you might come up with had an absurd amount of controversy to them. Remember that Tutanota thing? Remember Chat Control?
The reason people believe that Europe is so much more privacy respecting than the US is simply because there aren’t many services to exercise the same level of invasive, authoritarian control over than in the US. If 60% of the world however would be using a Nokia minäPuhelin you would see the same, if not worse, privacy-invasive regulation and controversy popping off every other week.
I know everyone likes to bash ff, but it’s still a great project.
It’s still much better than chrome and most other mainstream browser and it works.
All the “better” options require serious effort to use. Sites will break, features you used will be removed, and so on.
The computer world is fracturing in a weird and annoying way
Agree about the fracturing. I’ve been using Librewolf for months and it’s basially Firefox without the telemetry nonsense. Most sites work fine and it’s not that hard to setup. Just import your bookmarks and your good to go.
