this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2025
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Privacy

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The answer to "what is Firefox?" on Mozilla's FAQ page about its browser used to read:

The Firefox Browser is the only major browser backed by a not-for-profit that doesn’t sell your personal data to advertisers while helping you protect your personal information.

Now it just says:

The Firefox Browser, the only major browser backed by a not-for-profit, helps you protect your personal information.

In other words, Mozilla is no longer willing to commit to not selling your personal data to advertisers.

A related change was also highlighted by mozilla.org commenter jkaelin, who linked direct to the source code for that FAQ page. To answer the question, "is Firefox free?" Moz used to say:

Yep! The Firefox Browser is free. Super free, actually. No hidden costs or anything. You don’t pay anything to use it, and we don’t sell your personal data.

Now it simply reads:

Yep! The Firefox Browser is free. Super free, actually. No hidden costs or anything. You don’t pay anything to use it.

Again, a pledge to not sell people's data has disappeared. Varma insisted this is the result of the fluid definition of “sell” in the context of data sharing and privacy.

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[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 4 points 4 hours ago

It also now is against the terms of service to use Firefox for illegal activity or to use it to watch porn.

[–] JulyTheMonth@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 hours ago

Does this actually surprise anyone?

The split between non-profit and for profit corporation and the amount the ceo earns should have warned anyone that they are not saints and will sell out their community if it makes them money.

Until now it was just smart for them to be the wolf in disguise. I guess selling the data makes them more money than keeping false front.

[–] qwerty@discuss.tchncs.de 20 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Soon the only private option left will be to curl the website, read the html and picture it in my head.

[–] ruplicant@sh.itjust.works 13 points 14 hours ago

stallman was right

[–] letsgo@lemm.ee 21 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Are there any specifics about this? It all seems fairly theoretical to me. What do they [want to] do that contradicts "doesn't sell your personal data" within the context of the fluid definition of "sell"? Do they sell my personal data or don't they? What definitions of "sell" are relevant here?

It's all sounding a bit Bill Clinton to me: "it depends on your definition of 'is'."

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 points 4 hours ago

They get access to everything to do in Firefox

[–] taanegl@lemmy.world 25 points 1 day ago

The ambiguity is the smoking gun.

[–] HappyTimeHarry@lemm.ee 3 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

One thing to keep in mind is thar mozilla is now an ad company and can use this data itself for whatever advertising it wants to sell, so they dont even need a third party they can just sell targeted ads directly to companies while not technically "sharing" the info they gather to anyone.

Basically, why sell the data to other people when you can profit from using it directly?

[–] Avenging5@sh.itjust.works 20 points 1 day ago (8 children)

Now that Mozilla's fucked. What's the next option that's not Chromium?

[–] wittycomputer@feddit.org 2 points 13 hours ago

Librewolf, degoogled chromium, private windows. If you don't want your data to be sold, don't give out your data.

[–] blind3rdeye@lemm.ee 37 points 1 day ago (1 children)
  • Mozilla is sliding down a slippery slope to enshitification; but they're still near the top of that slide. The bad stuff hasn't actually come yet. So Firefox is still top-tier in the short term.
  • In the medium term, we can look towards a fork such as Librewolf or Waterfox.
  • And in the long term, we'll probably turn to a new project using Ladybird or Servo.
[–] AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 6 points 20 hours ago

It do be a slippery slope though

[–] dai@lemmy.world 17 points 1 day ago

Ladybird in a few years, forks of Firefox for now.

[–] free@lemmy.ml 3 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

Disable tor in tor browser.

[–] SirHery@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago (4 children)

A different fork from firefox like librewolf

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[–] RejZoR@lemmy.ml 108 points 1 day ago (35 children)

In Firefox, type about:config in address bar, search for "sponsored" and "telemetry" and set all the paremeters you see from TRUE to FALSE. Done.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 126 points 1 day ago (10 children)

We shouldn't have to do workarounds like that in the first place. It's getting to be like the Stockholm syndrome people have about Windows abuses. I didn't put up that shit, and I'm not gonna put up with this either.

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[–] stringere@sh.itjust.works 2 points 21 hours ago

How can ome do this on mobile? Doesn't run search on the terms or load a config page.

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