Firefox now has Terms of Use! This'll go over like a lead balloon.
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.
mozilla.org/en-US/about/legal/…
Update: See below in the thread for their clarification.
This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
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TransitBiker
in reply to Taggart • • •Taggart
in reply to Taggart • • •reshared this
tante, Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦, DeterioratedStucco, Khrys, Coralie Mercier, Drew Naylor, Sensitivityi and dianea 🏳️⚧️🦋🌱 reshared this.
Vieil Ogre
in reply to Taggart • • •Tissa The Artista
in reply to Taggart • • •Nathan A. Stine
in reply to Tissa The Artista • • •@_tissa_ it can't. There is not an EULA to run the code. If you download and run Firefox through an installer, yeah it does affect you, because you're presented (I assume) the EULA.
Any forks or people who compile it themselves aren't subject to it.
@mttaggart
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Elyse M Grasso reshared this.
NotARobot
in reply to Nathan A. Stine • • •Nathan A. Stine
in reply to NotARobot • • •@TruelyNotARobot I'm not a lawyer but I don't see how. You were never presented with these conditions. If Mozilla thinks that they can say "this is available under a free software license but oh there's this other website where we take away your rights that you were never notified about" that's uhhhhh not the way it works.
@_tissa_ @mttaggart
NotARobot
in reply to Nathan A. Stine • • •Nathan A. Stine
in reply to NotARobot • • •Hobson Lane
in reply to Nathan A. Stine • • •Has anyone forked the sync host software? I know there's Pocket, or used to be, but I'd love to send my bookmarks elsewhere.
@TruelyNotARobot @_tissa_ @mttaggart
these machines will destroy US.
in reply to Hobson Lane • • •xBrowserSync - Browser syncing as it should be: secure, anonymous and free!
www.xbrowsersync.orgreshared this
Hobson Lane and Elyse M Grasso reshared this.
Hobson Lane
in reply to these machines will destroy US. • • •I like my books live syncing from my phone to my laptops desktops. Anywhere I want.
@stinerman @TruelyNotARobot @_tissa_ @mttaggart
RejZoR
in reply to Taggart • • •DB Schwein
in reply to RejZoR • • •Does it? The fact that the bolding ends before the end of the statement does not delete the "to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate" part.
P Stewart
in reply to DB Schwein • • •Sean Blinn 🇺🇦
in reply to DB Schwein • • •@deirdrebeth @rejzor And suppose people say no thanks, I can navigate on my own? I somehow doubt Firefox will have that as a selectable option.
The advertising industry corrupts everything it touches.
jz.tusk
in reply to DB Schwein • • •Who decides what helps?
DB Schwein
in reply to jz.tusk • • •"You indicate"?
RejZoR
in reply to DB Schwein • • •DB Schwein
in reply to RejZoR • • •No disagreement there. It is vague.
I'm holding out hope that it's vague in a good way (it seems like they're trying to be cute), rather than jumping to the conclusion that it's vague in a bad way.
Nacho
in reply to Taggart • • •Taggart
in reply to Nacho • • •sll - un kien avec un capiau
in reply to Taggart • • •And how is such language even possible in temrs of use?
@nachof
Aaron Williamson
in reply to Taggart • • •Taggart
in reply to Aaron Williamson • • •F4GRX Sébastien reshared this.
Aaron Williamson
in reply to Taggart • • •Oliver Geer
in reply to Aaron Williamson • • •Matt Palmer
in reply to Oliver Geer • • •@WebCoder49 the problem with things that can be interpreted differently is that if your interpretation doesn't match Mozilla's, and they do a snatch and grab of all your stuff, your only recourse is an expensive lawsuit, which no matter which way it is finally decided, the only parties that win are the lawyers.
@copiesofcopies @mttaggart
Taggart
in reply to Matt Palmer • • •Matt Palmer
in reply to Taggart • • •F4GRX Sébastien
in reply to Oliver Geer • • •F4GRX Sébastien
in reply to Aaron Williamson • • •Dick Telder
in reply to F4GRX Sébastien • • •@f4grx @copiesofcopies
Today you send your reqest to the website. Perhaps they plan for the comm to go through their servers?
(Like emails in outlook)
F4GRX Sébastien
in reply to Dick Telder • • •Saphkey 🕊️
in reply to Aaron Williamson • • •@copiesofcopies Yeah, that seems more correct.
The last line is pretty telling "..as you indicate with your use of Firefox".
If you didn't indicate that you wanted Firefox to take your artwork then Mozilla doesn't get that permission. They only get the permissions to do what you "indicate".
The other important part is "When you upload or input information through Firefox"
Basically it's just saying that if you indicate that you want to upload a photo to x website, by for example dragging an image into Firefox, then you give Firefox permission to send it to that website you are on.
To rephrase, when you upload through Firefox, you give Firefox the permission to do what you indicated, i.e. uploading.
The true meaning of the quote seem to have blown over @mttaggart 's head like a helium balloon.
Taggart
in reply to Saphkey 🕊️ • • •Aaron Williamson
in reply to Taggart • • •rsp
in reply to Saphkey 🕊️ • • •Aaron Williamson
in reply to rsp • • •Saphkey 🕊️
in reply to rsp • • •@rspfau @copiesofcopies The lawsuit environment in USA is quite insane. People file lawsuits over any small thing.
And lawsuits are expensive. Often it just turns into a battle of attrition by money.
A terms of use document is cheap way to stand stronger in those battles.
Its not something that is required, but one day you might wish your company had one.
Just go have a look at the page, its mostly just textbook things like "You Are Responsible for the Consequences of Your Use of Firefox",
if you eat Firefox you are responsible for your tummy-ache
mozilla.org/en-US/about/legal/…
Firefox: About Your Rights
MozillaLeeloo
in reply to Aaron Williamson • • •@copiesofcopies There is no "them" involved in uploading, this is not Gmail, Firefox is software running on your local machine.
Unless you are predicting that Firefox will become a cloud service, running in your Chrome browser...
jandi
in reply to Leeloo • • •@leeloo @copiesofcopies They ARE a cloud service, including but not limited to Firefox Sync, the ReadItLater watchamathing (Pocket), Firefox Relay and a VPN.
Still my browser.
Leeloo
in reply to jandi • • •@jandi @copiesofcopies We are talking about Firefox, not Pocket, Sync or all the other things Mozilla is doing.
Firefox is not a cloud service running in your Chrome browser.
blausand 🐟
in reply to Leeloo • • •If they were serious and sober at #Mozilla, you could install your Sync instance on your NAS since 15(!) years - and use it with Thunderbird, Nandroid, whatever.
What we have is a failed proof of concept of self hosting.
What we could have had, is a blooming garden of free modules for Sync.
Artemis
in reply to Taggart • • •1. This is required for their new advertising initiative. Mozilla wants to collect (presumably anonymous) data about shown ads and conversion.
2. This can be used for some kind of AI thingy. Like, imagine a local neural net that'll get trained on sites your visit and images you upload.
Kristin (vis.social Admin)
in reply to Taggart • • •davd
in reply to Taggart • • •DJ🌞
in reply to Taggart • • •F4GRX Sébastien
in reply to DJ🌞 • • •DJ🌞
in reply to F4GRX Sébastien • • •F4GRX Sébastien
in reply to DJ🌞 • • •@infosecdj thats completely depressing. the web was bad enough now the last standing browser is pissing on its users.
people in the thread talk about librewolf. never tried yet.
DJ🌞
in reply to F4GRX Sébastien • • •F4GRX Sébastien
in reply to DJ🌞 • • •@infosecdj Sure. I hope we find something.
From this toot it looks like they embed some additional crap in their binaries. Maybe we're safe with a rebuild from source.
infosec.exchange/@mttaggart/11…
Taggart
2025-02-26 20:31:41
DJ🌞
in reply to F4GRX Sébastien • • •Sam Sinclair
in reply to DJ🌞 • • •@infosecdj @f4grx It's not out yet, but #LadyBirdBrowser is perhaps the only real alternative that we have when it's released. It's open source of course. I'm begrudgingly sticking with Brave until then
ladybird.org
Ladybird
ladybird.orgF4GRX Sébastien
in reply to Sam Sinclair • • •Sam Sinclair
in reply to F4GRX Sébastien • • •F4GRX Sébastien
in reply to Sam Sinclair • • •Taggart
in reply to Taggart • • •This clause explicitly separates the information they claim license over from the data collected in the Privacy Notice. This clause is more expansive—"information uploaded through Firefox" is basically anything in a HTTP request or a websocket.
mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/fire…
Firefox Privacy Notice
Mozillareshared this
Amber, tante, Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦, Khrys and Bela Lugosi's Red reshared this.
Taggart
in reply to Taggart • • •Introducing a terms of use and updated privacy notice for Firefox
Kristina Bravo (The Mozilla Blog)reshared this
nova (they/them) and Ehay2k reshared this.
Taggart
in reply to Taggart • • •Vivaldi End User License Agreement | Vivaldi Browser
Vivaldi Technologiesreshared this
Cliff, spiegelmama, beardedtechguy@infosec:~$, nova (they/them), Drew Naylor and Sensitivityi reshared this.
Taggart
in reply to Taggart • • •tante reshared this.
George Saich
in reply to Taggart • • •M. Neifer
in reply to Taggart • • •witch_t *lizzy likes this.
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Paul_IPv6
in reply to Taggart • • •⚠️CYBER⚠️katze ⚡
in reply to Taggart • • •mav
in reply to ⚠️CYBER⚠️katze ⚡ • • •@schrottkatze
much like the Cylons, this has happened many times before, and will probably happen again a bunch more times.
I think LibreWolf is the most popular, there's also one called Floorp I remember usually because it sounds like a meme.
Xenotar
in reply to Taggart • • •Cykonot
in reply to Taggart • • •vivaldi is chromium based, which has it's own risks
Maybe I'll use librewolf or some-such 🤔
Taggart
in reply to Taggart • • •I have spent my night reading browser Terms and Privacy Policies. Why? Because I love you and hate myself, apparently.
So here's the deal: that "non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license" you're granting to Firefox/Moz when you upload data through it? It is boilerplate language. Pretty common actually!
But not in browsers. In fact, not a single browser ToS has anything resembling this provision.
Know what does?
Facebook
X
Instagram
I wonder why Mozilla would want to use the same language those platforms do.
X Terms of Service
twitter-comreshared this
Taggart, jules / cowbell as fuck, Zazzoo 🇨🇦, Bill Hooker, JW Prince of CPH, Radicalized, CatSalad🐈🥗 (D.Burch), Thom, United Europe 🇪🇺, Simon Brooke, Seachaint, skribe 🇺🇦, lucie digitální, Glyn Moody, sotolf, gwendolenau, Sensitivityi, CaveDave, Ash 🏳️⚧️, rob, SuperMoosie, Ω 🌍 Gus Posey, Morgan, Bob Thomson, Adam H. Sparks, John Wilker 👨🏽💻, Parade du Grotesque 💀, Roy #EatTheRich Pardee 🇺🇸, Elyse M Grasso, Florence Maraninchi, fanf42, Cthulku, Jess👾 and the esoteric programmer reshared this.
Taggart
in reply to Taggart • • •Mozilla has updated their press release with the following clarification:
blog.mozilla.org/en/products/f…
That is good to hear, but their reasoning makes no sense given that no other browser uses that language.
Introducing a terms of use and updated privacy notice for Firefox
Kristina Bravo (The Mozilla Blog)reshared this
Taggart, Zazzoo 🇨🇦, F4GRX Sébastien, Svenja, Sander van Kasteel, Glyn Moody, lj·rk, GunChleoc, Thibaultmol 🌈, Ash 🏳️⚧️, Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦, rob, Drew Naylor, El Duvelle and Steph 🇨🇦 reshared this.
Irenes (many)
in reply to Taggart • • •sotolf reshared this.
Taggart
in reply to Irenes (many) • • •Irenes (many)
in reply to Taggart • • •Irenes (many)
in reply to Irenes (many) • • •> that it's one of two things:
reshared this
Svenja and Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦 reshared this.
Steve Foerster 🌐
in reply to Irenes (many) • • •Jens Finkhäuser
in reply to Taggart • • •@ireneista That is bullshit.
I mean, no, I am not a lawyer, either. But the *language* clearly states that you grant Mozilla license, and if in doubt, the legal language counts.
It would also be the first time in decades of Internet and copyright that this language was necessary.
You know what makes this necessary? AI training.
If the feature they're referring to is a machine learning system, they need license to train it on your data. But that has little to do with the base...
Irenes (many)
in reply to Jens Finkhäuser • • •Irenes (many)
in reply to Irenes (many) • • •Jens Finkhäuser
in reply to Irenes (many) • • •Jens Finkhäuser
in reply to Jens Finkhäuser • • •@ireneista ... functionality of a browser, so should terms you may have to agree to to use such a feature.
But it's opt-out, isn't it?
And that's where the GDPR and DSA matter; the former require e.g. "informed consent", and you cannot by definition be informed enough of the consent they assume in an opt-out scenario. And the latter prohibits the use of deceptive patterns like e.g. cookie banners to convince users to grant consent against their best interests.
I'm seriously...
Jens Finkhäuser
in reply to Jens Finkhäuser • • •Simon Lucy
in reply to Jens Finkhäuser • • •@jens @ireneista
Then the licence cannot be a blanket one but specific to the purpose. Given search terms are currently used without licence and search results are storable and reusable without a specific licence it simply puts a barrier between the user and Mozilla that wasn't there before.
Given that search behaviour has not needed to be licenced up to now and it's a necessary feature of a browser enforcing one now is bound to fail without consideration.
Simon Lucy
in reply to Simon Lucy • • •@jens @ireneista
I think the objections to these changes are going to be much deeper and wider than just 'information' type usage, they change the whole relationship between Mozilla and the User.
The User can avoid a lot of this by never updating or removing the Firefox account and never logging in. Licences with unidentified users cannot be relied upon by the Licensee as a defence for use.
It essentially destroys the point of FOSS.
🪨
in reply to Taggart • • •Irenes (many)
in reply to 🪨 • • •🪨
in reply to Irenes (many) • • •Irenes (many)
in reply to 🪨 • • •Irenes (many)
in reply to Irenes (many) • • •Irenes (many)
in reply to Irenes (many) • • •We have a privacy joke, but don't worry, it's not targeted at you specifically. -- Leaves Given to the Wind
irenes.space🪨
in reply to Irenes (many) • • •Irenes (many)
in reply to 🪨 • • •Irenes (many)
in reply to Irenes (many) • • •gunstick
in reply to Taggart • • •Next: "we have the right to copy all your data as needed" (to put it into a network packet)
Advanced Persistent Teapot
in reply to Taggart • • •@ireneista Mozilla the company is not transmitting the data. It provides the means to do so to me. -I- cause my data to be transmitted.
That's like saying Bosch heats my water for me, or Citroen drives me to work.
Irenes (many)
in reply to Advanced Persistent Teapot • • •Advanced Persistent Teapot
in reply to Irenes (many) • • •Taggart
in reply to Advanced Persistent Teapot • • •Irenes (many)
in reply to Advanced Persistent Teapot • • •Bloodaxe
in reply to Taggart • • •zl2tod
in reply to Taggart • • •Tariq
in reply to Taggart • • •That clarification doesn't help. To me it doubles down.
I've already deleted Firefox.
Real shame as I've been using it as my primary or second browser for 20 years, since it first came out.
Merovius
in reply to Taggart • • •IMO it would be easy to argue that "training an AI model on it" is "helping you yadayada". Like… yeah, they can't sell it to data brokers. But almost anything else they *might* want to do with it can be justified with that clause. And most of it I don't want.
Zazzoo 🇨🇦
in reply to Taggart • • •What I find troubling is the vagueness about 'upload' - to me, an upload is anything at all sent in the upstream, including personal logins and private identity data you may be sharing with a secure system. If this is what they mean, then they need to break down exactly what data is being collected. Is it everything you send to a site via the browser?
Or is this whole thing just about basic telemetry that you can disable in privacy settings?
drs1969 (David Smith)
in reply to Taggart • • •Francis 🏴☠️ Gulotta
in reply to Taggart • • •pettter
in reply to Taggart • • •FOSStastic
in reply to Taggart • • •It appears that #Mozilla wants us to read the ToS a certain way.
But if in doubt, the only thing that counts is the actual legal document, not a random blog post from Mozilla. This is actually a common tactic from companies to calm the crowds without actually reverting controversial changes.
As long as the Terms of Service stay like that, I can not agree to them, as they are way too broad and vague in my opinion.
John Wilker 👨🏽💻 reshared this.
Leeloo
in reply to Taggart • • •That doesn't clarify anything.
Not that it matters, because a blog post is marketing, and when their own legal department says a company is doing questionable or morally corrupt stuff, be assured they are not admitting to a crime they aren't going to commit, no matter what marketing says
Brodie Robertson
in reply to Taggart • • •DJ🌞
in reply to Taggart • • •Thibaultmol 🌈
in reply to Taggart • • •- It's indeed still really weird phrasing
Paulo Renato
in reply to Taggart • • •F. Maury ⏚
in reply to Taggart • • •We might need a description of said "basic functionalities". For instance, is spying on us to display targeted ads a basic functionality?
I'm not convinced one bit.
Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦
in reply to Taggart • • •> We need a license to allow us to make some of the basic functionality of Firefox possible.
Which basic functionality, exactly?
How, exactly, would it be impossible without the license?
> Without it, we couldn’t use information type into Firefox, for example.
Use *how*, exactly?
Can we please be more specific here, @mozillaofficial ?
Taggart
in reply to Taggart • • •Ope! Got one browser that does.
Thanks to @Schouten_B for uncovering the license language in the extended Google Terms of Service for Chrome.
reshared this
GunChleoc, Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦, ghostdancer and Drew Naylor reshared this.
Taggart
in reply to Taggart • • •Found another! Arc has worldwide license language.
But its language is clearly-scoped and explains the purpose.
start.arc.net/terms-of-use
Terms of Use
Terms of UseFritz Adalis
in reply to Taggart • • •Fredrik N.
in reply to Taggart • • •Could this be a precursor to rolling out Privacy-Preserving Attribution (PPA)?
noyb.eu/en/firefox-tracks-you-…
Firefox tracks you with “privacy preserving” feature
noyb.euDavid
in reply to Taggart • • •librewolf.net/
LibreWolf Browser
librewolf.netTaggart
in reply to David • • •@deFractal Sorry, I have none. Unlike many here, I do not require my browser to be FOSS. I use Vivaldi quite happily, and have never felt the need to explore the Firefox forks.
Talk to me when Servo makes it into something.
David
in reply to Taggart • • •My priority criteria are full @ublockorigin compatibility and support for all my user scripts and user styles for fragile or consent-contemptuous sites requiring something more complex than uBlock Origin filters. Tab containers are also important.
Essentially, I care about ensuring I can eat my cake and still have it: block each part of every site that doesn't serve my purpose, and still make the parts which do serve my purpose work despite that.
Elizenery
in reply to Taggart • • •paulasimoes reshared this.
mountain
in reply to Taggart • • •Ein Köhler
in reply to Taggart • • •sorry, in case i'm answering rhetorical questions, but those platforms have that license thing because they publish your content.
So that would mean mozilla wants to publish my browsing behavior?
AI training could be kind of seen as publishing, but the license seems to be too heavy for that.
I think gmail has that clause as well, so advertising?
Well once it goes into effect we should be able to DSGVO it.
RejZoR
in reply to Taggart • • •lupus_blackfur
in reply to Taggart • • •@tante
Pfft...
Bunch of lawyer-speak drivel designed to obfuscate that Mozilla has simply decided they can't ignore the cash they stand to gain from having more and more data to sell.
Joining Google on the ad/data sales evil side.
🤦♀️🤷🫏🤡🖕
jordan
in reply to Taggart • • •TransitBiker
in reply to Taggart • • •Taggart
in reply to TransitBiker • • •Tamsyn Ulthara 🏳️⚧️⛧🎃🐈⬛
in reply to Taggart • • •like this
Kevin Bowersox and tivasyk like this.
reshared this
Rupert, Hugs4friends ♾🇺🇦 🇵🇸😷 and kcarruthers reshared this.
si2mev
in reply to Tamsyn Ulthara 🏳️⚧️⛧🎃🐈⬛ • • •@TamsynUlthara And what do I use on Android? Which is not Chrome based....
Damn, Europe really needs a European browser and engine.
Tamsyn Ulthara 🏳️⚧️⛧🎃🐈⬛
in reply to si2mev • • •#IronFox!
github.com/ironfox-oss/IronFox
GitHub - ironfox-oss/IronFox: IronFox is secure, hardened and privacy-oriented browser based on Firefox. This is read-only mirror of gitlab.com/ironfox-oss/IronFox.
GitHubTamsyn Ulthara 🏳️⚧️⛧🎃🐈⬛
in reply to Tamsyn Ulthara 🏳️⚧️⛧🎃🐈⬛ • • •I should've linked to the original repo, not a mirror:
gitlab.com/ironfox-oss/IronFox
IronFox OSS / IronFox · GitLab
GitLabHenrik Pauli
in reply to si2mev • • •Tamsyn Ulthara 🏳️⚧️⛧🎃🐈⬛
in reply to Henrik Pauli • • •As far as Waterfox, I'm not crazy about some of this:
waterfox.net/docs/policies/pri…
Privacy Policy
WaterfoxErik
in reply to si2mev • • •Mull,if you can stomach the forced 60Hz and other quality of life things that are disabled because of privacy.
Natasha Nox 🇺🇦🇵🇸
in reply to Erik • • •F4GRX Sébastien
in reply to si2mev • • •KnowAttitude
in reply to si2mev • • •duckduckgo has an android browser
no brain no pain
in reply to KnowAttitude • • •João Tiago Rebelo (NAFO J-121)
in reply to si2mev • • •f-droid.org/packages/org.mozil… ) seems to be the less bad option since Mull Browser went the way of the dodo. It has telemetry removed, still calls Mozilla and Google though. There's also Tor Browser ( torproject.org/download/#andro… ), which has its idiosyncrasies.
@TamsynUlthara @mttaggart
Fennec F-Droid | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository
f-droid.orgTamsyn Ulthara 🏳️⚧️⛧🎃🐈⬛
in reply to João Tiago Rebelo (NAFO J-121) • • •David M. Kelly
in reply to Tamsyn Ulthara 🏳️⚧️⛧🎃🐈⬛ • • •Tamsyn Ulthara 🏳️⚧️⛧🎃🐈⬛
in reply to David M. Kelly • • •Ahri Enby
in reply to Tamsyn Ulthara 🏳️⚧️⛧🎃🐈⬛ • • •Tamsyn Ulthara 🏳️⚧️⛧🎃🐈⬛
in reply to Ahri Enby • • •Leeloo
in reply to Tamsyn Ulthara 🏳️⚧️⛧🎃🐈⬛ • • •What telemetry are you talking about? Details?
Tamsyn Ulthara 🏳️⚧️⛧🎃🐈⬛
in reply to Leeloo • • •By their own admission, they do tracking upon installation.
vivaldi.com/we-respect-your-pr…
We Respect Your Privacy | Vivaldi Browser
Vivaldi TechnologiesLeeloo
in reply to Tamsyn Ulthara 🏳️⚧️⛧🎃🐈⬛ • • •@TamsynUlthara @David_Kelly_SF
That's weird, there was a huge uproar a few years ago, and I clearly recall that they got rid of that unique id. Did they forget to update their privacy policy?
@Vivaldi
Tamsyn Ulthara 🏳️⚧️⛧🎃🐈⬛
in reply to Leeloo • • •help.vivaldi.com/desktop/priva…
How we count our users | Vivaldi Browser Help
Tony is helping (Vivaldi Browser Help)Frost「｜霜の狼｜人面獣心」
in reply to Tamsyn Ulthara 🏳️⚧️⛧🎃🐈⬛ • • •@TamsynUlthara Librewolf is cool in theory but kind of Opinionated™. Seriously, deleting all your history when you close the browser??? That should NOT be on by default, what the actual fuck. (I knew there was something I didn't like about its defaults last we tried it, but couldn't remember what, so I looked it up just now and found its settings docs and..yeah.)
Is there something like it that's less... *waves paw* yeah?
Kinda sucks because I'm a wolf and I would love a Wolf Browser that's actually good. But yeah.
Tamsyn Ulthara 🏳️⚧️⛧🎃🐈⬛
in reply to Frost「｜霜の狼｜人面獣心」 • • •I agree that the LibreWolf defaults are ... not the best for people using it as a standard browser. The idea is to make it as secure and private as possible by default, and let the user scale that back as necessary.
The one thing I find the most annoying is having it always open its window to certain dimensions on startup, to reduce fingerprinting, with no way (that I've found) in the settings to disable it. It doesn't matter in my tiling window manager, but on other machines I've had to use an extension to work around this.
Frost「｜霜の狼｜人面獣心」
in reply to Tamsyn Ulthara 🏳️⚧️⛧🎃🐈⬛ • • •Tamsyn Ulthara 🏳️⚧️⛧🎃🐈⬛
in reply to Frost「｜霜の狼｜人面獣心」 • • •Sikorski Arkadiusz
in reply to Taggart • • •Taggart
Unknown parent • • •2xfo
in reply to Taggart • • •They spent too much money on CEOs to have any sense left
Taggart
Unknown parent • • •vkc (Veronica Explains)
in reply to Taggart • • •tivasyk likes this.
Taggart
in reply to vkc (Veronica Explains) • • •aburka 🫣
in reply to Taggart • • •Leeloo
in reply to aburka 🫣 • • •Yes and no. Vivaldi is built on top of a Chromium fork with the surveillance-crap ripped out.
Taffer 🇨🇦
in reply to aburka 🫣 • • •@aburka @vkc Vivaldi is a Chromium fork, but the company seems OK. Servo isn’t ready yet.
I hate current tech so very much.
florian_a
in reply to aburka 🫣 • • •Flaki
in reply to Taggart • • •(I love Vivaldi for what they do but I don't think there is a single browser out there who isn't getting the bulk of its revenue from search companies..?)
Rocketman (en pause)
in reply to Taggart • • •@scottwilson My heuristic is that Mozilla, while somewhat aimless, isn’t daft.
So the only possible conclusion is that they’re screwing over their users, and want to cash out selling user data to AI companies.
Gabriel N
in reply to Taggart • • •Taggart
in reply to Gabriel N • • •@wtrmt No. From the Terms:
reshared this
F4GRX Sébastien and Drew Naylor reshared this.
P. S. F.
in reply to Taggart • • •F4GRX Sébastien
in reply to P. S. F. • • •Woefdram
in reply to Taggart • • •Leeloo
in reply to Taggart • • •Which indicates that the "they need that for Firefox to be able to speak http" excuses is bullshit, the open source version does that just fine. It's for the parts that are not included in the source code, i.e. the AI and advertising.
davidhanzlik
in reply to Taggart • • •anyone know what the previous terms were?
(Going to be so sad when this turns out to be AI related)
Taggart
in reply to davidhanzlik • • •Mozilla is Introducing ‘Terms of Use’ to Firefox
Joey Sneddon (OMG! Ubuntu!)Taggart
Unknown parent • • •cR0w
Unknown parent • • •Taggart
Unknown parent • • •Solblack
in reply to Rocketman (en pause) • • •Taggart
Unknown parent • • •Taggart
Unknown parent • • •Qper
in reply to Taggart • • •these machines will destroy US.
in reply to Taggart • • •Taggart
in reply to these machines will destroy US. • • •PedroMJ
in reply to Taggart • • •aburka 🫣
in reply to Taggart • • •aburka 🫣
in reply to aburka 🫣 • • •Taggart
in reply to aburka 🫣 • • •soc
in reply to Taggart • • •Laura
in reply to Taggart • • •soc
in reply to Taggart • • •Martin Boller 🇺🇦
in reply to Taggart • • •Thomas Lobig
in reply to Taggart • • •Kim
in reply to Taggart • • •Taggart
Unknown parent • • •da_667
Unknown parent • • •@scottwilson @cR0w youtubers were promoting it, like they promoted operaGX, like they promoted NordVPN, like they promoted ---
RAID SHADOW LEGENDS!
assume anything that's a paid bit is probably awful.
Scott Wilson
Unknown parent • • •@cR0w @da_667 What do the 3 of ya'll think about Brave?
I keep trying to like it, and I admire Yan Zhu, but I'm really turned off by Brendan Eich and his shenannigans. I'm trying to use software that aligns with my values... I just don't know.
da_667
in reply to Scott Wilson • • •tivasyk likes this.
Oliver Geer
in reply to Taggart • • •Francis 🏴☠️ Gulotta
in reply to Taggart • • •James_inthe_box
in reply to Taggart • • •Paul Orlando Caggegi
in reply to Taggart • • •Malus is here now
in reply to Taggart • • •is this not the same boilerplate language used in almost every website that hosts user content?
Like, no doubt it’s weird for a browser to do this but that wording is typically for allowing websites to publicly host your content on their service/equipment and allow things like image cropping/ re-sharing etc.
Makes me wonder if they’re going to start like, hosting servers as intermediaries between the user and whatever site they’re uploading to. I can’t see why that’d be worth it though except maybe in situations where the end site is unstable. Even if it is at the end of the day for training purposes, I can’t imagine they’d not have some kind of cover story to justify it.
Taggart
in reply to Malus is here now • • •Malus is here now
in reply to Taggart • • •did they do some sort of press release to go with the change in policy?
Taggart
in reply to Malus is here now • • •Introducing a terms of use and updated privacy notice for Firefox
Kristina Bravo (The Mozilla Blog)Herman 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇾🇪🍋
in reply to Taggart • • •Nicole Parsons
in reply to Taggart • • •#TranslatedFromTheRepublican
newsweek.com/gops-war-abortion…
"Your rights don't exist" is Firefox's new Terms of Use.
politico.com/news/2024/04/09/i…
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
theregister.com/2025/02/25/chi…
newyorker.com/news/daily-comme…
hipaajournal.com/republicans-f…
politico.com/newsletters/playb…
nytimes.com/2017/03/29/opinion…
pbs.org/newshour/politics/lame…
freepress.net/blog/gop-lawmake…
therecord.media/data-privacy-l…
Tech authoritarianism relies on voyeuristic invasions of voter's privacy for profit & control.
cnn.com/2024/10/21/politics/el…
Xi know what you did last summer: China was all up in Republicans' email, says book
Jessica Lyons (The Register)tivasyk likes this.
reshared this
No Gods , no Masters! RESIST and Hugs4friends ♾🇺🇦 🇵🇸😷 reshared this.
Bill
in reply to Taggart • • •B-rad 🏳️🌈👨💻
in reply to Taggart • • •huntingdon
in reply to Taggart • • •cR0w
in reply to Bill • • •Hot Dog Water, NotZee Squasher
in reply to Taggart • • •T
in reply to Taggart • • •Andres Salomon
Unknown parent • • •smeikx
in reply to Taggart • • •I guess it is time to throw some money at @servo.
#Mozilla #enshitification
MegatronicThronBanks
in reply to Taggart • • •F4GRX Sébastien
Unknown parent • • •cR0w
Unknown parent • • •@da_667 vivaldi.com/blog/manifest-v3-u…
Manifest v3 update: Vivaldi is future-proofed with its built-in functionality | Vivaldi Browser
Team Vivaldi (Vivaldi Technologies)eryk
in reply to Taggart • • •Leeloo
in reply to Taggart • • •The built in ad blocker was created as a response to MV2 being deprecated, so I'd expect them to have built it in a way that doesn't depend on MV2.
Gurleen K
in reply to Taggart • • •Leeloo
in reply to Rocketman (en pause) • • •Mozilla IS an AI company these days.
Blake C. Stacey
in reply to Taggart • • •Mx. Eddie R
in reply to Blake C. Stacey • • •I worry that means they can use whatever you upload through Firefox to train their own "ai" models. That seems at first like an unimaginably expansive interpretation, but that is basically what the whole LLM industry is based on.
Leeloo
in reply to Mx. Eddie R • • •@silvermoon82 @bstacey No, that seems like the obvious interpretation.
It's either that or their new advertising thing.
George Saich
in reply to Taggart • • •Mx. Eddie R
in reply to Taggart • • •So, folks, what are we recommending for a Firefox fork on Android?
Waterfox from BrowserWorks is on the Google Play store, but it kinda looks sketchy. Do we know anything about BrowserWorks or their practices?
I don't see LibreWolf on F-Droid either.
I already use Vivaldi as my daily, but I prefer to have a Firefox family browser as well.
Cregg
in reply to Mx. Eddie R • • •corbeau
in reply to Mx. Eddie R • • •Jonas
in reply to Taggart • • •jack 💥
in reply to Taggart • • •lb
in reply to Taggart • • •Dopes The Frogman
in reply to Taggart • • •Analogico
in reply to Taggart • • •Ditch Firefox, use #Librewolf or #Floorp
Bálint Magyar
in reply to Taggart • • •Ruben Schade 🇦🇺🇸🇬
Unknown parent • • •They have such potential to be the Good People given how everything is going. So frustrating they’re fumbling the opportunity… again. :/
Helma
in reply to Taggart • • •Vash
in reply to Taggart • • •Morre
in reply to Taggart • • •Esther 🌱🐾🍋 #fcknzs
in reply to Taggart • • •狐ヴィクシー
in reply to Taggart • • •Mike Taylor 🦕
in reply to Taggart • • •zl2tod
in reply to Taggart • • •Dear @mozillaofficial
No, you fucking don''t.
Thibaultmol 🌈
in reply to Taggart • • •I want to believe this is just being misintrepted somehow.... but I keep saying that each time Firefox does something.....
Anyways, not regretting switching from Firefox to @zenbrowser (also firefox based)
Alexandre Ladeira
in reply to Taggart • • •Shark Attak
in reply to Taggart • • •Iker
in reply to Taggart • • •Taggart
in reply to Iker • • •Quarky
in reply to Taggart • • •Morgan ⚧️
in reply to Taggart • • •Dan
in reply to Taggart • • •Thomas Brand
in reply to Taggart • • •Zen Heathen 🇨🇦🇲🇽🇺🇦🇵🇸🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
in reply to Taggart • • •Tumahab_Nogard
in reply to Taggart • • •Welp, off to something else. Gonna have to check out Vivaldi. Thanks for that @mttaggart, always appreciate a recommendation.
chris actually
in reply to Taggart • • •mountain
in reply to Taggart • • •The part about gathering data “to prevent harmful, unauthorized or illegal activity”worries me even more…
mastodon.social/@sarahjamielew…
Sarah Jamie Lewis
2025-02-26 21:35:43
benjamin melançon
in reply to Taggart • • •OK e-mailed legal-notices@mozilla.com
(Note it is a lot more than this one clause where they expand their claimed right to spy on you, and i encourage your e-mails to reflect this where i did not. See Sarah Jamie Lewis' thread, social.coop/@sarahjamielewis@m… )
Anyway what i wrote, before i read that:
Firefox does not have any right to information i enter into the URL address bar or forms on websites
My feedback and suggestion here, absolutely you can use for free.
social.coop
social.coopbenjamin melançon
in reply to benjamin melançon • • •Which is that this clause is wildly unacceptable, and you need to make very clear that you do not and will not ever spy on people while they browse:
"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."
benjamin melançon
in reply to benjamin melançon • • •Sounds like a ridiculously overbroad claim so that you can stick "AI" down our throats and advertisements, but with this start you will hand over our private data to a fascist government, too.
And again, that sentence is making a claim to data that was never intended to be shared with Mozilla, that is and must remain solely the private personal communication between the person using Firefox and the website being visited.
Seth Galitzer
in reply to Taggart • • •The Turtle
in reply to Taggart • • •📷 🖋 ~hyde
in reply to Taggart • • •ondrase
in reply to Taggart • • •Sensitive content
Peter
in reply to Taggart • • •Moved to https://mk.absturztau.be/@Linux
in reply to Taggart • • •Vivaldi Browser is everything Firefox should have been.
Yes, it is Chromium based, but it does not follow everything Google says or does. For example, Vivialdi has a built-in ad-blocker, but also worked with uBlock to ensure their extension could compliment and work with v3 support in Vivaldi.
You want a good browser? One that works everywhere and is not trying to screw its users. A browser that does not include AI and does not keep calling home like a lost child wanting their mother. You want to use, Vivaldi Browser.
Moved to https://mk.absturztau.be/@Linux likes this.
Dan Shuman
in reply to Taggart • • •Metalglasses
in reply to Taggart • • •Chris Hayes
in reply to Taggart • • •Reminds me of Chrome's "Enhanced ad privacy" in the way this seems to be a form of privacy washing.
Source: ghacks.net/2023/07/01/all-chro…
All Chrome users will see popups in the coming weeks: here is why - gHacks Tech News
Martin Brinkmann (Ghacks Technology News)Lorry
in reply to Taggart • • •the elder sea
in reply to Taggart • • •how is this possible? anything i write, upload, input...is basically everything i do in a browser. this includes passwords, media, etc.
fuck ALL the way off, mozilla. now to find some browser that has decent extensions and isnt a right assbag.
Pamela Barroway – Biz Editor
in reply to Taggart • • •mav
in reply to Taggart • • •I'm surprised to see you spreading FUD like this.
How is this license different than any other license for any other web-based application?
You know how many things your browser interacts with to display what it does and you also know that there are a handful of tools like Firefox Sync or Pocket built into it that interact with backend services that Mozilla runs, and those things probably already had terms like this so....
I'm straining to see any way in which this is an issue other than the fact that everybody in the entire universe is going to make it an issue, because we go through this fucking dance every single time everyone ever sees this language, even though it's used in like every EULA ever and you'd think people would get it by now.
sigh
Taggart
in reply to mav • • •@mav I want you to think carefully about the difference between the means of access—the browser—and the site that you choose to access. The language at the browser layer is much more concerning.
Also, I take exception with the "FUD" framing. I have linked only primary sources here. We can disagree about interpretation, but that's not the same thing as FUD..
mav
in reply to Taggart • • •So is the issue you're taking here that the EULA is not sufficiently granular, in that it doesn't distinguish between usage for data provided for standard browsing versus data transmitted to built-in services like Sync?
I'm calling this FUD specifically because I think your interpretation of this language, which we really do see almost everywhere, is particularly uncharitable (to put it nicely.)
I'm as frustrated with Moz' governance as everyone else, but I do not think this EULA is some great evil. I think this is probably them trying to have one standard EULA instead of separate EULAs for every damn thing they do, plus they didn't have one at all AFAIK for the data they exchange to provide standard things like CRL lookups and safe browsing checks.
mav
in reply to mav • • •I guess if you want to say that your beef with it is that this could be stretched to say that every time you submit data to a site you're giving Mozilla a license to use it, but I don't think that's what they intended at all. Moreover, Firefox IS using your data, and if you use Sync, may very well be saving stuff about what you did (depending on what kind of access you did.)
Asking them to clarify is certainly not unreasonable, but this is hardly a "panic lets all switch to Chrome" kind of scenario.
Taggart
in reply to mav • • •@mav Respectfully, you are imputing intent where there is none in the language. For one thing, "Sync" shows up nowhere in this paragraph. The language is "When you upload or input information through Firefox." That is broad, and I must assume intentionally broad.
Look, we can disagree on intention, but think defensively. Let's assume Mozilla does want to do gross stuff with my HTTP requests. With this tacit contract, I've agreed to that usage, and any attorney worth a damn could argue so in front of a judge or jury. It's not what they will do; it's what the language could let them do.
Taggart
in reply to Taggart • • •mav
in reply to Taggart • • •I think that the smartest attorney in the world would have a difficult time crafting a EULA for a browser that, under these terms, you would be willing to accept. I'm not a lawyer (or even a particularly good approximation of one) but it sounds like to me the only way to satisfy the thing you're asking for is to spell out in detail inside the EULA itself what services they are talking about and when they are used.
(Mozilla's site does spell out in significant detail what they acquire and what they do with it, but unless there's something specific to link each section with its corresponding role in the EULA, I can't imagine anyone being sufficiently happy about it.)
From a defensive point of view, you're using a tool you didn't make to access servers and services you don't control. If any one of the pieces of this puzzle decide to go full evil, everyone interacting with that layer is fucked.
And it's quite clear by the discussion here that the primary remedy for this is seen as other browsers. Which, fine, use whatever browser you want, but there's one engine in t
... show moreI think that the smartest attorney in the world would have a difficult time crafting a EULA for a browser that, under these terms, you would be willing to accept. I'm not a lawyer (or even a particularly good approximation of one) but it sounds like to me the only way to satisfy the thing you're asking for is to spell out in detail inside the EULA itself what services they are talking about and when they are used.
(Mozilla's site does spell out in significant detail what they acquire and what they do with it, but unless there's something specific to link each section with its corresponding role in the EULA, I can't imagine anyone being sufficiently happy about it.)
From a defensive point of view, you're using a tool you didn't make to access servers and services you don't control. If any one of the pieces of this puzzle decide to go full evil, everyone interacting with that layer is fucked.
And it's quite clear by the discussion here that the primary remedy for this is seen as other browsers. Which, fine, use whatever browser you want, but there's one engine in the world left that runs uBO and it ain't Chrome. (I'm not in any way happy about this, but that's what happens when you put the world's largest ad company in charge of the world's most widely used browser engine.)
This is like the 9,185,046th time we've had the exact same license use terms discussion and I feel like I wanna just wail for a while and then do a shot for every one of them and expire in an alcohol-induced coma.
Taggart
in reply to mav • • •@mav This is a very confusing claim, given that I above linked Vivaldi's Terms, which do not include this seemingly intentionally-vague or expansive language. And those terms satisfy me just fine. So I guess it is possible to satisfy me!
If by "what they acquire," you are referring to the enumerated data in the Privacy Policy, the paragraph in question in the new terms is clear that they are referencing a set of data including, but not limited to, that data. Combined with the expansive "Uploaded through Firefox" language is neither normal nor particularly comforting.
Now, your points on defensive tooling are pure goalpost-moving. Yes, any service can decide to "go evil," as you put it. But look at how Mozilla has been behaving. Why the hell would I give them the benefit of the doubt now?
As far as what's been hashed and rehashed, I cannot recall a time when a web browser, much less an open source one meant to be a paragon of privacy, has included language like this.
I could be entirely wrong! But look at the pattern and tell me I shouldn't be wary.
mav
in reply to Taggart • • •I think you should definitely be wary. Mozilla has a long and storied history of looking exactly at what their users want them to do and then pulling out a gun and peppering us all with bullets. And then being like "Whoops!" It's infuriating.
There's no other real options. There's no other browser out there that's worth a fuck in the long run; it's all Chromium. As much as I like Vivaldi, it's just Chromium.
I also still think this is the same damn boilerplate text that's in every goddamn license agreement on Earth so I don't understand why it matters.
You say this is the kind of license agreement that you see in creepy social media, which is true. It's also the same license agreement you see for any other piece of software that has to transmit, store, or display your data anywhere. I just don't think this is that big of a deal and I do not understand why everyone is freaking out about it. I'm also genuinely shocked that other browsers don't have this kind of license. I imagine the reason why Chrome can get away with it is because All of the services tha
... show moreI think you should definitely be wary. Mozilla has a long and storied history of looking exactly at what their users want them to do and then pulling out a gun and peppering us all with bullets. And then being like "Whoops!" It's infuriating.
There's no other real options. There's no other browser out there that's worth a fuck in the long run; it's all Chromium. As much as I like Vivaldi, it's just Chromium.
I also still think this is the same damn boilerplate text that's in every goddamn license agreement on Earth so I don't understand why it matters.
You say this is the kind of license agreement that you see in creepy social media, which is true. It's also the same license agreement you see for any other piece of software that has to transmit, store, or display your data anywhere. I just don't think this is that big of a deal and I do not understand why everyone is freaking out about it. I'm also genuinely shocked that other browsers don't have this kind of license. I imagine the reason why Chrome can get away with it is because All of the services that would need this kind of license are all automatically covered by the Google EULA you have to agree to to get an account. I'm quite surprised that neither Firefox previously nor Vivaldi nor any other browser with a sync tool have this kind of license either. Or maybe they just pushed off the license into the sync tool so you didn't have to agree to it until you used it.
The weird psrudonymous advertising thing is just so much bigger of a deal. And yet we're still stuck with this damn browser because - for the moment - it still exists. Considering the speed at which horrors are flying at us these days, I wouldn't be surprised if tomorrow Mozilla got wholly acquired by Alphabet and there became one browser on all of Earth. Especially considering that antitrust law is now dead.
Anyway, I hope this all works out the way you want, that would be good for all of us. I'm going to keep using the only browser on the planet in which ublock origin continues to work, and see what godawful nightmares tomorrow brings.
Robert [KJ5ELX]
in reply to Taggart • • •mav
in reply to Scott Wilson • • •@scottwilson
@cR0w @da_667
No.
I also quite admire yan and to be honest am surprised they're still involved.
Brave is a crypto scam with a browser wrapped around it, run by a bigot.
Vivaldi is just as good and has none of the creepy baggage.
Tariq
in reply to Taggart • • •Tuckers Nuts Resist! 🇺🇦
in reply to Taggart • • •Eli Wallach's favorite Bass
in reply to Taggart • • •Neal Gompa (ニール・ゴンパ)
in reply to Taggart • • •DMV Weather
in reply to Taggart • • •Ritchie
in reply to Taggart • • •I can't think of any respectful reason to expect me to grant non-exclusive wordwide rights to my browsing data of any kind, what the
does konqueror support chrome or firefox extensions
Justin
in reply to Taggart • • •yoasif
in reply to Taggart • • •I blogged about this for a wider audience: quippd.com/posts/2025/02/26/mo…
Also open to feedback!
Mozilla’s New Terms of Use are out of step with Firefox’s Direct Competition
Asif YoussuffArtemis
in reply to Taggart • • •Heck, they have already abandoned Servo.
Kevin Russell
in reply to Taggart • • •I actually read the tagline as this;
MOZILLA
Forget: About Your Rights
Rachel Rawlings
in reply to Taggart • • •Sudrien
in reply to Taggart • • •nospaceman
in reply to Taggart • • •Here we go again. I've had enough with IE ages ago and moved to Chrome. Then to Firefox. Now I'm trying LibreWolf, a fork of Firefox hosted on Codeberg.
Phillip HAS MOVED INSTANCES
in reply to Taggart • • •Jens Finkhäuser
in reply to Taggart • • •GDPR removal request sent, with the addition that this seems to violate the digital services act in a number of ways. Fun.
I mean, I'm not a lawyer... but @noybeu might want to look into this?
bananabob
in reply to Taggart • • •Raven Luni
in reply to Taggart • • •Doug Nix likes this.
Syn-(t)ACK.sys
in reply to Taggart • • •Taggart
Unknown parent • • •@Polychrome @lispi314 Yours is a very charitable reading of the clause. But let's consider Mozilla's recent behavior, and ask how much good faith is due. Can you imagine no more expansive interpretation of this language?
I've spent the night reading browser Terms. Not a one includes a clause like this. They do explicitly call out GDPR, which this oddly does not (the Privacy Policy does have appropriate EU affordances). You know what does use this language?
Facebook.
Polychrome
in reply to Taggart • • •looks like it means they're giving themselves the right to upload the data to the web server that you're choosing to upload the data to.
In other words, they're covering their butt as to their right to do what you're actually intending to do and nothing else but.
What am I missing here?
tipjip
in reply to Taggart • • •My credentials on websites. Everything I upload to the cloud. My browsing and search histories.
WTF?
Dr Know
in reply to Taggart • • •LibreWolf Browser
librewolf.netTaggart
Unknown parent • • •@Schouten_B I do not agree.
This means the set of data to which the "license" applies includes, but is not limited to, the data defined in the Privacy Policy. That's why the "when you upload or input information through Firefox" clause is so concerning to me. We don't know the bounds of that expanded set, only that it is expanded.
oakward
in reply to Taggart • • •Taggart
Unknown parent • • •Gabriel Rodríguez
in reply to Taggart • • •Taggart
Unknown parent • • •Taggart
Unknown parent • • •I am certainly not EU law expert, but Article 5, section 1 of 2001/29/EC would seem to obviate this concern:
Taggart
Unknown parent • • •Rachel Lawson
in reply to Taggart • • •Janeishly
in reply to Taggart • • •Taggart
Unknown parent • • •Taggart
Unknown parent • • •Taggart
Unknown parent • • •Taggart
Unknown parent • • •Senior Scab Apologetics Consultant for The Atlanti
in reply to Taggart • • •Taggart
in reply to Senior Scab Apologetics Consultant for The Atlanti • • •Taggart
Unknown parent • • •Taggart
Unknown parent • • •Panda San
in reply to Taggart • • •github.com/ironfox-oss/IronFox
GitHub - ironfox-oss/IronFox: IronFox is secure, hardened and privacy-oriented browser based on Firefox. This is read-only mirror of gitlab.com/ironfox-oss/IronFox.
GitHubJens Finkhäuser
Unknown parent • • •London Eastfield 🇵🇸
in reply to Taggart • • •Mani and the Nonos
in reply to Taggart • • •Taggart
in reply to Mani and the Nonos • • •jelte
in reply to Taggart • • •sotolf reshared this.
Marc 🌱 🇵🇸 🍉 🇺🇦
in reply to Taggart • • •Another US company you can't trust.
More reasons to use EU apps/services like @Vivaldi
boiert
in reply to Taggart • • •NH4ClO4
in reply to Taggart • • •Sensitive content
The Vampire Fish Queen
in reply to Taggart • • •Socel: Social for the Animation Arts
socel.netMilly
in reply to Taggart • • •#servo
Servo aims to empower developers with a lightweight, high-performance alternative for embedding web technologies in applications.
ServoHerisson Rose
in reply to Taggart • • •Thanks for this.
(FFS I've *just* de-googled / set up FF as my business browser, and started migrating to Protonmail.
To find both are now enshitticorps. Oh well..)
Anyone, how does that fly with EU privacy and data protection laws?
I'm not seeing anything yet. Slow rollout, or highly illegal here??
Derek McAuley
Unknown parent • • •Colin Cogle
in reply to Taggart • • •Preston Maness ☭
in reply to Colin Cogle • • •Thunderbird: Free Your Inbox
in reply to Preston Maness ☭ • • •Patrick $8
in reply to Taggart • • •Taggart
Unknown parent • • •corbeau
in reply to Taggart • • •Taggart
in reply to corbeau • • •João Tiago Rebelo (NAFO J-121)
Unknown parent • • •@joeyh in the thread:
infosec.exchange/@mttaggart/11…
@gnometsunami @mttaggart
Taggart
2025-02-27 06:19:31
treefit
in reply to Taggart • • •the clarification is in a blog post, that may not be legally binding. so in my eyes any clarification outside of the ToS is worthless.
If #Mozilla wants to offer AI services or collect and use their users data, this should be a separate opt-in ToS in my opinion, not the terms of the base application.
But TBH #Mozilla is doing too much dumb management decisions these days, so I'm considering to stop recommending it. (colorways, firing #rust and #servo teams, ads for temu and so on)
Kevin Freitas
in reply to Taggart • • •Looks for addresses to block with my #PiHole…
#Mozilla #Firefox
John Deters
in reply to Taggart • • •I think it might have been intended to mean "if you upload copyrighted data using Firefox we're not responsible for any license fees just because you passed it through our software and services."
But I'm sure a good lawyer could twist this in just about any direction they want.
generationX
in reply to Taggart • • •Jens Finkhäuser
Unknown parent • • •@Schouten_B Licensing terms do not require a rationale, they require the correct language. The language in these terms is unambiguous with regards to those terms.
The specifically worded rationale is fluffy. "As indicated by the user's behavior" (TL;DR) is wide open to interpretation with respect to which behavior implies what intent or requirements. In other words, Mozilla has all the legal leeway to grant itself semi arbitrary uses.
So, no, the abstract "privacy" rationale is...
Jens Finkhäuser
in reply to Jens Finkhäuser • • •@Schouten_B ... a smoke screen at best.
It's "will nobody think of the children??!" in techbro lingo. Creepy as fuck, and very much a reason to treat Mozilla as the enemy in the battle for the open web.
The Vampire Fish Queen
Unknown parent • • •Jens Finkhäuser
Unknown parent • • •Jens Finkhäuser
Unknown parent • • •@Schouten_B The precise wording is "to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox"
"indicate" is not "state" or "give consent to". "use" may mean simply starting the browser without interacting with it. "experience" is, by the very nature of the word, subject to interpretation.
This collection of words may mean that by starting Firefox, I "indicate" that I opt into AI training, which an assistant..
Jens Finkhäuser
in reply to Jens Finkhäuser • • •@Schouten_B ... can use to enhance my "experience" of search results, without my ever agreeing to this specific use of any data I upload.
It's beautiful, really, if one admires manipulative language which gives you near arbitrary leverage.
Jens Finkhäuser
in reply to Jens Finkhäuser • • •@Schouten_B Note also that the privacy notice is referred to as "... including processing data as we describe in the Firefox Privacy Notice, as well as acting on your behalf to help you navigate ..."
So a) it includes processing data as described in the privacy notice, b) it also includes acting on my behalf to *help* me navigate, not to translate my express navigation instruction into practice, but c) the key word is the first, "include".
It's pretty standard US legalese to list...
The Vampire Fish Queen
Unknown parent • • •@neil Also agree, I don't think they plan to sale everyone data (atleast not so blatantly), have exclusive rights to any material you upload via Firefox or ban adult content.
Any of that would kill them over night.
Jens Finkhäuser
in reply to Jens Finkhäuser • • •@Schouten_B ... known uses ahead of time (done here), but keep the door open for other uses.
The next part about the copyright license notably does not explicitly refer to any specific such use, but stands alongside the previous listed uses. Which is great, because you *infer* it refers only to those, but that's not actually stated there.
Plus, they're open to amendment anyway.
Taggart
in reply to The Vampire Fish Queen • • •@TheVampireFishQueen @neil There are a couple of weirdnesses here that I am willing to chalk up to carelessness. But when writing your contracts, that's uh, not awesome as a defense.
But we must consider the alternative, which is that the vagaries in this policy are wiggle room they wanted for one reason or another.
David Raygoza Gómez
in reply to Taggart • • •Jens Finkhäuser
Unknown parent • • •Jens Finkhäuser
Unknown parent • • •Jens Finkhäuser
Unknown parent • • •@Schouten_B The digital services act prohibits deceptive patterns. That means when I click a "search" button, a manufacturer may legitimately infer that I wish to search for something. It would be a deceptive pattern (or worse) to also send those search terms for analysis somewhere else *even if* this would improve future searches. Here, explicit and informed consent is required.
So nobody claims a browser should ask for consent of everything, just the shady shit.
Jens Finkhäuser
Unknown parent • • •Jens Finkhäuser
Unknown parent • • •Taggart
Unknown parent • • •@Schouten_B @jens Sorry to hop in, but since I've been poring over this for a day now, I think I see where you both are coming from.
The language seems to distinguish what you are licensing and what is covered by the Privacy Policy. That distinction lies in the "as well as" clause. Bas, your gloss is that because they only claim to process data listed in the Privacy Policy, whatever may be in the "as well as," (maybe nothing, maybe something someday) is out of Mozilla's reach. Jens, I think you're reading that to mean the "as well as" data can be processed, uncovered by the Privacy Policy.
Let's leave aside the blog update, which is for all intents not part of the contract.
Functionally, I suspect Bas is close to correct for now. However, it's difficult to imagine that, in drafting, no one read this with the suspicions voiced over the last 24 hours by the public. If we assume the vagueness is intentional, there is a space created for more opt-out (we hope) shenanigans down the road.
Jens Finkhäuser
in reply to Taggart • • •What I see is that there is no grammatical connection between the privacy policy stuff and the copyright stuff, and there is no implicit legal connection between processing of PII and licensing copyrightable material. The only connection there is is proximity in the text, and *that* in no way implies the interpretation that Bas is insisting on. Proximity is to logical connection as correlation is to causation.
@Schouten_B
Taggart
Unknown parent • • •Terms of Use
Terms of UseAndreas Schantl
in reply to Taggart • • •Taggart
in reply to Andreas Schantl • • •The Mozilla Cycle, Part I
taggart-tech.comAndreas Schantl
in reply to Taggart • • •Taggart
Unknown parent • • •Taggart
Unknown parent • • •alexx
in reply to Taggart • • •Time for more Opera in my life.
Taggart
Unknown parent • • •Taggart
Unknown parent • • •I mean straight up there's a material difference in how the collection policies are framed here. Arc's Privacy Policy opens with the guarantees about what they won't collect from you. Mozilla's has no such guarantee. Moreover, Moz explicitly states that "Browsing data" is collected for marketing purposes, and consent is "as required by law."
Now, back to the new Firefox Terms. Let's say Mozilla decides browser activity like time on site or even search data is important to train an advertising ML model.
Even if your read of the Terms is correct, that kind of processing would be covered under that section of the Privacy Policy. But if Jens is correct, uh oh, we're still covered for that and more because it could be an unenumerated data type that the broad license language now covers. By contrast, Arc's clear guarantees about what won't be collected, combined with the specific license language, remove this risk.
Privacy Policy
arc.netJens Finkhäuser
Unknown parent • • •@Schouten_B See, I think that's the crux of our problem: you again try to interpret this as somehow related to PII, because in the first part they talk about privacy. I haven't even looked into the privacy question.
The second part, which is explicitly not about PII but copyright, and so wholly separate from the first, literally grants Mozilla "a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information" - which refers to anything I upload whatsoever - with no other...
@mttaggart
Jens Finkhäuser
in reply to Jens Finkhäuser • • •@Schouten_B... limits in place.
One simple attack scenario here is if I were to e.g. use a web-based editor to write code. It does not matter if I generally publish this code under a FLOSS license, for example, because Mozilla already has permission to that code *but without* any possible extra clauses such as e.g. copyleft related ones.
Any other copyrightable intellectual property I upload they also have rights to. Automatically.
@mttaggart
Jens Finkhäuser
in reply to Jens Finkhäuser • • •@Schouten_B This is because copyright is not particularly concerned with fluffy clauses.
"use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox."
This part reads like a copyright license restriction, but as I painstakingly laid out before, "as you indicate by your use of Firefox" has quite literally arbitrary headroom for interpretation, and the other parts aren't much better.
FLOSS licenses, which...
@mttaggart
Jens Finkhäuser
in reply to Jens Finkhäuser • • •@Schouten_B... thanks to OSI have embraced "we won't tell you what to do" style absolute libertarianism read similarly fluffy, so perhaps you're just used to that.
But more generally speaking, copyright terms can be very precise. I can quite literally restrict the license to use only within five metres of my home, from midnight to 0:13h on the condition that you copy my stuff only in your own blood on parchment made from birch bark, and anything else would not be permitted.
@mttaggart
Jens Finkhäuser
in reply to Jens Finkhäuser • • •@Schouten_B So for license terms to be this broad - yes, it does protect Mozilla from litigation, but it also means Mozilla has pretty much all the interpretative power in the world to do with my (copyrightable) intellectual property as they see fit. And it is *not* typical of copyright, which this part leans on, quite the contrary.
So the best possible interpretation I have is that they are currently concerned with collecting AI training data, with no specific use in mind. And...
@mttaggart
Jens Finkhäuser
in reply to Jens Finkhäuser • • •@Schouten_B... that is OK, in principle, but this is the part where associating this with non-copyrightable PII by virtue of proximity is highly disingenuous. It suggests that your granting of those broad rights is in your interest, when your interest is nowhere defined here.
Plus, this kind of association by proximity seems like a clear DSA-violating deceptive pattern. It certainly isn't "informed consent" if you were to accept those terms.
Which makes them unenforceable, but..
@mttaggart
Jens Finkhäuser
in reply to Jens Finkhäuser • • •@Schouten_B... shifts the burden to the consumer, i.e. Mozilla in practice receives broad usage rights with little chance of seeing them challenged.
@mttaggart
Jens Finkhäuser
in reply to Jens Finkhäuser • • •@Schouten_B Copyright is phrased in terms of restrictions and limitations, because you first grant the right to copy, and then specify how.
Already the phrase "in order to" deviates from how licenses are termed. A decent replacement might be "limited only to uses directly implementing", e.g. navigation.
Maybe this kind of example helps clarify just how open to interpretation those terms are. Because I can most certainly claim that my goal in taking your wallet is to *actually*...
@mttaggart
Jens Finkhäuser
in reply to Jens Finkhäuser • • •@Schouten_B... help you protect your money ("in order to"), but it becomes much harder to defend this in the second phrasing unless it's demonstrably and only followed by putting it into a safe.
@mttaggart
Taggart
Unknown parent • • •@Schouten_B @jens This is a highly Eurocentric discussion, which is fine, but I gotta tell ya, US jurisprudence is fairly hostile to the consumer in cases such as these. To make it more complicated, depending on what Circuit the case is tried in, it may be contract law or copyright law that holds sway.
natlawreview.com/article/end-u…
With End-User License Agreements, Which Will Prevail: Copyright Rights or Contract Rights?
Jaci L. Overmann (National Law Review)Jens Finkhäuser
Unknown parent • • •@Schouten_B "use" in copyright is broader than "reproduce".
It doesn't have to be limited to Firefox, because the license text doesn't specify.
@mttaggart
Jens Finkhäuser
Unknown parent • • •Jens Finkhäuser
Unknown parent • • •@Schouten_B It's already well established that caching content, while technically copying, isn't reproduction under copyright law.
It becomes reproduction if the cached content is reproduced/sent elsewhere, but the case law allows this as far as I understand, not in terms of "legitimate interest" (that is business interest), but in terms of "fair use". I'd have to dig up relevant cases, but that discussion is about as old as Napster and settled.
Basically, there is zero need for..
@mttaggart
Jens Finkhäuser
in reply to Jens Finkhäuser • • •@Schouten_B... browsers to reserve any usage rights because normal operations such as copying bits to/from a network interface, in-memory in a software or to/from caches is already permitted.
If you note, GPL does not include clauses that you must grant the makers of grep usage rights for sifting through your documents.
It just makes this set of clauses extra weird.
@mttaggart
Jens Finkhäuser
Unknown parent • • •@Schouten_B Again, though, that's the point I was already making: it may be the case that if challenged in court, users would always be given preference.
But *until* such a thing happens, there is nothing preventing Mozilla from doing whatever the hell they want. This shifts the burden away from Mozilla to take care to be legally compliant with their use of information over to the consumer. At best, it's irresponsible and and worst it's a deliberate backdoor.
With how much...
@mttaggart
Jens Finkhäuser
in reply to Jens Finkhäuser • • •@Schouten_B... legal advice Mozilla can get, this again means at best it's gross negligence not to phrase this stuff better based on legal advice, and at worst it's downright malicious.
There is no option from the consumer side to treat this other than absolutely hostile, and the "clarification" they posted yammers on about "we didn't mean it badly" without retracting those changes or working them over.
It's abundantly clear that the intent is not to change, but to convince...
@mttaggart
Jens Finkhäuser
in reply to Jens Finkhäuser • • •@Schouten_B... consumers the changes are in their best interest when they're not. "I didn't mean to hit you, babe, please forgive me". Fuck that abuser logic.
Mozilla at this point is not to be trusted.
Sad, but but wasn't me who made all those dodgy decisions the community has been documenting over the years, so I'm also unable to shed a tiny tear over it.
@mttaggart
Taggart
Unknown parent • • •@Schouten_B @jens Serious question: unless you have some insider knowledge, what leads you to think Mozilla, an organization that just stated its intent to develop its AI business/strategy, and is incorporated in the US, built its Terms with EU laws at the top of mind? So far as I know, nobody in the EU was gunning for Firefox because of a lack of Terms.
Conversely, taking the more adversarial reading, this opens the door to potential use of user data down the line. I don't know what the rationale was, but I've seen no evidence to support your interpretation.
picofarad
Unknown parent • • •@grillchen that.. looks... normal? firefox does a lot of stuff on your behalf, and explicitly saying so seems alright.
what's the alternative? I use brave too but that's got the same problem, developing a browser is really expensive if you want it to be used by real people instead of nerds.
Taggart
Unknown parent • • •@Schouten_B @jens I'm gonna challenge that the scenarios laid out are "mostly legal" in the US. I would describe the use of user data for model training especially as "mostly unlitigated." There are ongoing suits that may establish precedent one way or another, but they have not been decided. And indeed, those cases tend to base their complaints in copyright law, such as the New York Times case against OpenAI.
I'm also gonna push back on the framing that the US government is friendly to corporations here. At the moment, this regime's relationship with tech is fraught at best, with essentially a protection racket holding sway to maintain tech's fealty. But that is distinct from how aby given federal judge may rule.
Now, given all this, I don't think it's crazy to imagine an AI-focused Mozilla taking steps to ensure that any future disputes about model training on user data fall in the realm of contract law rather than copyright law.
Taggart
Unknown parent • • •Taggart
Unknown parent • • •@Schouten_B @jens Both, really, since neither are spelled out. But tbh it's weird that they haven't said they won't train on user data. Hell, Zoom says so. Notion says so. On the other hand, Meta quietly slipped into their Terms that you license your content for training by using their platforms.
Yes this is speculative. But I have plenty of reason for skepticism, and "No," is not an argument to the contrary.
Taggart
Unknown parent • • •@Schouten_B @jens I see plenty of reason to add those terms now.
Let's take as read that neither of us knows what Moz's plans re: AI in Firefox actually are. That also means we don't know their timeline. So from a threat modeling perspective, this language introduces the risk of a dark pattern kind of opt-out consent for the use of user data, similar to how they've handled:
If my concern is the use of my data in ML processes of any kind, I would say I have ample reason to view these Terms as a potential threat vector.
Taggart
in reply to Taggart • • •Taggart
Unknown parent • • •Jens Finkhäuser
Unknown parent • • •Jens Finkhäuser
Unknown parent • • •@Schouten_B Language form mental patterns, mental patterns form language.
It's very much in line with the development a lot of tech companies have undergone in the last few decades, with increased enshittification in tow.
To see this having reached Mozilla is to be expected, but still a blow.
And yes, the hit has been made: you do not take my IP rights under the guise of privacy protection and get to offer a lukewarm "just a misunderstanding" reframing attempt. Sorry, but no.
@mttaggart
Taggart
Unknown parent • • •@Schouten_B @jens Come onnnn
wired.com/story/google-respons…
Google Lifts a Ban on Using Its AI for Weapons and Surveillance
Paresh Dave (WIRED)Jens Finkhäuser
Unknown parent • • •@Schouten_B Yeah, please untag me from this conversation.
@mttaggart
Jens Finkhäuser
Unknown parent • • •@Schouten_B Oh yes, they are, and your insistence that the terms say something different from what the words say is starting to piss me off. As long as I can chalk this up to opinion or lack of understanding, I'm fine.
But you keep just repeating your faith in the good intent and optimal interpretations. You're fine to have those beliefs, of course, but I wouldn't consider them actual arguments.
So perhaps it's best to close this conversation here.
@mttaggart
Jens Finkhäuser
Unknown parent • • •