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submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

Firefox maker Mozilla deleted a promise to never sell its users' personal data and is trying to assure worried users that its approach to privacy hasn't fundamentally changed. Until recently, a Firefox FAQ promised that the browser maker never has and never will sell its users' personal data. An archived version from January 30 says:

Does Firefox sell your personal data?

Nope. Never have, never will. And we protect you from many of the advertisers who do. Firefox products are designed to protect your privacy. That's a promise.

That promise is removed from the current version. There's also a notable change in a data privacy FAQ that used to say, "Mozilla doesn't sell data about you, and we don't buy data about you."

The data privacy FAQ now explains that Mozilla is no longer making blanket promises about not selling data because some legal jurisdictions define "sale" in a very broad way:

Mozilla doesn't sell data about you (in the way that most people think about "selling data"), and we don't buy data about you. Since we strive for transparency, and the LEGAL definition of "sale of data" is extremely broad in some places, we've had to step back from making the definitive statements you know and love. We still put a lot of work into making sure that the data that we share with our partners (which we need to do to make Firefox commercially viable) is stripped of any identifying information, or shared only in the aggregate, or is put through our privacy preserving technologies (like OHTTP).

Mozilla didn't say which legal jurisdictions have these broad definitions.

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[-] drosophila@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 2 months ago

Since we strive for transparency, and the LEGAL definition of “sale of data” is extremely broad in some places, we’ve had to step back from making the definitive statements you know and love. We still put a lot of work into making sure that the data that we share with our partners (which we need to do to make Firefox commercially viable)

So in other words we sell your data and get paid for it, and some countries won't let us lie about it.

[-] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 2 months ago

Yeah, I think it would be very fucking easy to say "we don't sell your data" by any definition... Literally all you need to do is not fucking sell people's data

[-] afk_strats@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Oh for fuck's sake! List of Firefox alternatives:

Windows/Linux/MacOS:

Android:

iOS: ??

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[-] NullHippo@lemmy.today 2 points 2 months ago

They're cash strapped and cash strapped companies are the worst when it comes to being trustworthy. That's all the calculus that needs to be done.

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 months ago

How about asking for money? I'd gladly pay if they stripped out a bunch of the nonsense they do and focus on making a better browser. Or keep that crap and let me donate directly to Firefox development.

[-] grue@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

Mozilla needs to understand that I don't want it to have my data to sell or not in the first place.

[-] OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 months ago

That's the thing that bothers me about all these companies now. My data is my data, not theirs. They shouldn't even be allowed to collect it, let alone sell it or give it to anyone who wants it.

[-] HexadecimalSky@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

I see it said agian and agian. because its true. Firefox is one of, if not the best of the mainstream browsers. (Not included its many forks) but Mozilla is a horrible caretaker of it. Mozilla does not focus on firefox and they dont care/believe in it nearly as much as its users or devs who fork it.

The motivations of a company are extremely important, and has Mozilla does not care for a lightweight, good, privacy centric browser, the enshitification will and has corrupt firefox.

It's only a matter of time until it is as bad as chromium or flat out joins it.

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[-] zecg@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

We still put a lot of work into making sure that the data that we share with our partners (which we need to do to make Firefox commercially viable) is stripped of any identifying information, or shared only in the aggregate,

Fuck off Mozilla. Maybe don't pay CEOs millions and don't force things like Pocket and LLMs on users if you want to be commercially viable, I'd gladly pay for Firefox that doesn't make me dodge new features and services. But it would be a donation towards development of a browser that is commons, since you have no product to sell, only GPL'd code that's mine as much as yours.

You have NO fucking leverage, Firefox is better than Chrome, but there's projects that will gladly repackage your code with no telemetry whatsoever for any platform while you're brainstorming just the right amount of monetization to prevent the frog from jumping.

It's kind of sad I don't use Chrome and therefore never think of it, while I like and use Firefox and am therefore constantly at odds with Mozilla.

[-] lambalicious@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 2 months ago

The screw-ups keep mounting like they want to be Google.

They (and we)'ve got to admit, the solution is not going to come from within their (managerial) ranks.

At this point I'd be happy to offer my services as a BDFL for Mozilla, at but a small fraction of the wages of any of their C-suites.

[-] iAvicenna@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago
[-] Solventbubbles@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago

Son of a bitch I just got back into Firefox.

[-] MITM0@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago
[-] lustyargonian@lemm.ee 0 points 2 months ago

Is there any android port?

[-] popekingjoe@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago

Not at the moment, but the Librewolf folks recommend Ironfox.

[-] lustyargonian@lemm.ee 0 points 2 months ago

Interesting. How's water fox?

[-] Don_alForno@feddit.org 0 points 2 months ago

Switched yesterday, feeling right at home so far.

[-] lustyargonian@lemm.ee 1 points 1 month ago

Me too. Practically 0 difference, works for me!

[-] Zink@programming.dev 0 points 2 months ago

I wonder how much this affects things if you’ve already gone through Firefox’s settings to max out privacy and turn off all telemetry.

I resisted switching to Librewolf because Firefox works great (including M365 in Linux at work) and seemed to have the options you’d want for privacy and security.

This doesn’t feel like an emergency, especially in a chrome/edge dominated world. But it’s back on the list of things to investigate transitioning away from.

[-] rocky1138@sh.itjust.works 0 points 2 months ago

Yep. It stinks. We'll see if it was just a fart and it'll go away or if they crapped and we'll have to jump ship.

[-] Zink@programming.dev 1 points 2 months ago

Maybe we should all throw some kind of support behind https://ladybird.org/ with an eye to the future.

That project isn’t problematic for some reason I haven’t heard about, is it?

(Problematic other than web browsers being gigantic pieces of software, and ladybrid itself not even being in alpha yet)

[-] squire3@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago

If Firefox is losing its footing as a privacy focused browser then where do we go? If your on Mac maybe Safari?

[-] global__warning@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 months ago

zen, ladybird, waterfox are some that i've heard of before. zen is out now. idk about the others. one of my friends uses zen and it's pretty neat.

[-] fishie@quokk.au 1 points 2 months ago

zen is still unstable. random errors and bugs show up very often

[-] ___@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)
[-] fishie@quokk.au 2 points 2 months ago

we should all support ladybird project in hope for accelerated development. alpha in 2026, beta in 2027, stable in 2028. thats a long waiting time

[-] bizzle@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago

I'm about to get my tattoo removed wtf

[-] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 months ago

If it's really you...

Wtf?

[-] HipsterTenZero@dormi.zone 0 points 2 months ago

promises don't count if you delete them. everyone knows that

[-] LMurch@thelemmy.club 0 points 2 months ago

"If I put my wedding ring in my pocket, it's not cheating..."

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[-] zer0bitz@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago

So sad. I have used Firefox since 2006. Today I removed it for good from all of my devices. So long old friend. I cant wait for Ladybird to release.

[-] MeThisGuy@feddit.nl 1 points 2 months ago

what is your current open source / FOSS alternative?

[-] global__warning@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 months ago

zen i heard is good. probably gonna give it a try one of these days

[-] zer0bitz@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

LibreWolf on desktop and Fennec on phone.

[-] FrostyCaveman@lemm.ee 0 points 2 months ago

Gahhhh this is horrible

I spent some time switching to Librewolf this morning but at the end of the day, it having Firefox as the upstream means it’s all fragile and tenuous anyway

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this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2025
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