Mozilla is Introducing 'Terms of Use' to Firefox | Also about to go into effect is an updated privacy notice
-
AI is going to fail, and it can't happen soon enough. The Mozilla leadership really needs to pay attention to that reality.
Mozilla leadership needs to be removed
-
AI is going to fail, and it can't happen soon enough. The Mozilla leadership really needs to pay attention to that reality.
It's not going to disappear, it has its place, but its not going to be shoehorned into every single thing.
-
The problem is the inclusion of the feature to begin with. It should be an opt in add install.
I agree to a point, but I look at this similar to how I'd view any feature in a browser. Sometimes there are features added that I don't use, and thus, I simply won't use them.
This would be a problem for me if it was an "assistant" that automatically popped up over pages I was on to offer "help," but it's not. It's just a sidebar you can click a button in the menu to pop out, or you can never click that button and you'll never have to look at it.
It's not a feature that auto-enables in a way that actually starts sending data to any AI company, it's just an optional interface, that you have to click a specific button to open, that can then interface with a given AI model if you choose to use it. If you don't want to use it, then you ideally won't even see it open during your use of Firefox.
-
Well, we had a good run lads, enshitification is here.
Any recommendations for open source alternatives that are convenient and also have an android app supporting ublock origin.
librewolf on pc and ironfox on android. both forks of firefox.
-
librewolf on pc and ironfox on android. both forks of firefox.
Danke danke
-
The actual addition to the terms is essentially this:
- If you choose to use the optional AI chatbot sidebar feature, you're subject to the ToS and Privacy Policy of the provider you use, just as if you'd gone to their site and used it directly. This is obvious.
- Mozilla will collect light data on usage, such as how frequently people use the feature overall, and how long the strings of text are that are being pasted in. That's basically it.
The way this article describes it as "cushy caveats" is completely misleading. It's quite literally just "If you use a feature that integrates with third party services, you're relying on and providing data to those services, also we want to know if the feature is actually being used and how much."
So phone-home telemetry that you can't opt out of. The ghost of Mitchell Baker will haunt us forever.
-
Well, we had a good run lads, enshitification is here.
Any recommendations for open source alternatives that are convenient and also have an android app supporting ublock origin.
Librewolf, Servo looks promising but is very far off and just an engine I think? Idk I keep looking at it and want it.
-
So phone-home telemetry that you can't opt out of. The ghost of Mitchell Baker will haunt us forever.
So phone-home telemetry that you can’t opt out of.
You can opt out of it. You've always been able to opt out of Mozilla's telemetry. Not to mention that if you actually read the Privacy Notice, there's an entire section detailing every single piece of telemetry that Mozilla collects, and if you read the section very clearly titled "To provide AI chatbots," you'll see what's collected:
- Technical data
- Location
- Settings data
- Unique identifiers
- Interaction data
The consent required for the collection to even start:
Our lawful basis
Consent, when you choose to enable an AI Chatbot.
And links that lead to the page explaining how to turn off telemetry even if you're using the in-beta AI features.
-
Hot off the back of its recent leadership rejig, Mozilla has announced users of Firefox will soon be subject to a ‘Terms of Use’ policy — a first for the iconic open source web browser.
This official Terms of Use will, Mozilla argues, offer users ‘more transparency’ over their ‘rights and permissions’ as they use Firefox to browse the information superhighway — as well well as Mozilla’s “rights” to help them do it, as this excerpt makes clear:
You give Mozilla all rights necessary to operate Firefox, including processing data as we describe in the Firefox Privacy Notice, as well as acting on your behalf to help you navigate the internet.
When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox.
Also about to go into effect is an updated privacy notice (aka privacy policy). This adds a crop of cushy caveats to cover the company’s planned AI chatbot integrations, cloud-based service features, and more ads and sponsored content on Firefox New Tab page.
Privacy policies should legally be called surveillance policies.
-
librewolf on pc and ironfox on android. both forks of firefox.
Why IronFox over fennec?
-
Privacy policies should legally be called surveillance policies.
Or "Invasion of Privacy" Policy
-
It's not going to disappear, it has its place, but its not going to be shoehorned into every single thing.
Sorry, I realized I'm using my personal jargon in public again. When I said "AI," I meant this overhyped put-it-in-your-mouse garbage. When I'm talking about the actually useful stuff, I usually call it "ML."
-
Mozilla leadership needs to be removed
100%. I can't decide whether I think the organization being dissolved completely is a good idea or not, but I'm at least open to it.
-
Librewolf, Servo looks promising but is very far off and just an engine I think? Idk I keep looking at it and want it.
Servo isn't a full browser, it's a tech testbed for Mozilla to test out their various rewritten Rust components. I wish they would have promoted it to full browser status, but I think intention was always to take pieces of Servo as they were completed and drop them into Firefox.
-
So phone-home telemetry that you can’t opt out of.
You can opt out of it. You've always been able to opt out of Mozilla's telemetry. Not to mention that if you actually read the Privacy Notice, there's an entire section detailing every single piece of telemetry that Mozilla collects, and if you read the section very clearly titled "To provide AI chatbots," you'll see what's collected:
- Technical data
- Location
- Settings data
- Unique identifiers
- Interaction data
The consent required for the collection to even start:
Our lawful basis
Consent, when you choose to enable an AI Chatbot.
And links that lead to the page explaining how to turn off telemetry even if you're using the in-beta AI features.
It says they're going to collect usage data. Nothing about opting out.
-
librewolf on pc and ironfox on android. both forks of firefox.
+1 for LibreWolf. Dialy driver and not looking back.
Ice Raven on Android.
-
Why IronFox over fennec?
More privacy related defaults. Essentially the about:config is more or less filled out for you on Ironfox.
-
+1 for LibreWolf. Dialy driver and not looking back.
Ice Raven on Android.
This is my pair as well
-
Servo isn't a full browser, it's a tech testbed for Mozilla to test out their various rewritten Rust components. I wish they would have promoted it to full browser status, but I think intention was always to take pieces of Servo as they were completed and drop them into Firefox.
Damn, maybe I can't read but I didnt find that info on their page.
-
Yeesh. So what's an alternative?
As I understand it, these changes don't affect browsers that use FF as a base, so Zen Browser might not be affected.
I've been trying it out this week, and it's good. And can still use all the FF extensions.
