The whole firefox controversy was overblown. Hardened firefox is still the way to go.
this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2025
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It's mostly overblown. You can watch here or read here. The internet is overreacting again, but Mozilla has done fuck all to grasp why just yoinking understandable language and expecting people to understand legalese and draw lines to their Privacy Policy is making people upset or confused.
Imo, people jumping ship is justified, because a company that makes $37M just on investments should do better about being vocal and prescient champions of privacy. Even if their actual privacy policy is the same as it was a year ago, their failure to communicate with their supporters in a way they can understand should have consequences.
It may be overblown but I am seriously tired of the way Mozilla is being run. The CEO has a $7 million salary. Big red flags always appear each time they increase the salary also. May be a bit hyperbolic but that’s why I’m just using another fork after 20 years
Yeah, and while I don't have any technical qualms about the direction of Mozilla with regard to Firefox, I'm personally switching for peace of mind and because of the aforementioned inability to communicate well. I don't like working with or supporting people that can't just say what they mean. I mean, how hard would it have been to have a human-readable version for stupid people like me and have a legalese version for the lawyers?
Regardless, as people make decisions, they deserve to be informed. It would be stupid to decide to leave Firefox if all you knew was the uninformed outrage of the internet.
Yup. I’ve been using Firefox for 16 years and I just switched to LibreWolf the other day.
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I'm skeptical about Ladybird, that's why I have such high hopes for Servo
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as well as disabling anti-freedom features like DRM
Do they just try to remove DRM from media as it comes down, or can you not watch any DRM media at all on it?
They disable it by default, because it requires the execution of proprietary code, but you can reenable it.
I still recommend it with a little asterisk:
Disable a bunch of shit in it or download a privacy focused fork of it (like Librewolf)
That asterisk is a problem though, having to go through and make it secure is an issue. What if you miss a setting? What if you misunderstand a setting? None of it is particularly upfront and easy. It doesn't ask you when you first install it to set this stuff up, it encourages you to just get stuck in and start using it straight away.
It's not too complicated for a nerd whose hobby is computers or someone who has studied computers, but for the layperson it's too much.
That's why Librewolf is so good. It's secure by default, with all the settings toggled to privacy and you can ease that off if you wish, for convenience or whatever.
Firefox essentially can't seem to decide if they want to be FOSS or capitalist, that's an issue.
The other fun part is when it updates and changes your privacy settings.
You're talking about security, but really, none of the privacy questions are about technical security of the product.
"What if you miss a setting?" Then they'll give you article recommendations or send your search query to the search engine you're targeting in the first place. They're really a long way from what you can call a security issue, or sharing personal data with random third parties or data brokers.
if they want to be FOSS or capitalist
I really don't see any basis for this take. It's not about picking one of two extremes, and the most extreme niches in those.
They create FOSS, and look for privacy respecting partnerships and investment so they can keep it going.
They added ToS because they're integrating services, like their synced/backed up browser data and other respectful integration.
That's all a long way from malice, or significant problematic behavior. And you still have more choice than on the other biggest alternatives.
I don't think it is the best we could have, I would like it a bit different too, but the way you make it out to be is way overblown if not wrong.
I mean yeah. I'm not a fan of the changes but there's no way in hell anything Chromium based will fare any better... do they even have uBlock still???
Probably turn off the telemetry, try a fork like LibreWolf or maybe the Arkenfox user.js if you'd rather stay close to upstream.
I mean Chromium is an open source project, developers don't have to do whatever Google demands.
I know Brave still supports it alongside their own ad-blocker, but apparently the CEO is a dick so people don't want to use it for that reason.
Switched to Zen and Mullvad
It seems the alternatives are worse but I'm definitely trying out one of the Firefox forks
well Firefox may enshittify, it's still the best option imo, certainly better than chrome or anything chrome based. even better if you use a privacy focused fork like librewolf.
there are other options out there, you can look into qt browsers, those were the basis for webkit browsers. hopefully soon things like servo/verso become more useable.
The UX of Librewolf sucks ass though. Want to change this setting? Well you can't, too bad.
It doesn't suck, it's just not intended for casual users, which is why I chuckle when I see it recommended. That and Mullvad browser. I'd pretty much just recommend TOR over those, if you're really going for strict privacy.
For something that strikes a good balance, I use Zen.
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I've been using LW & Mull/IF before the outrage-TOU update and while they're great for me I wouldn't recommend them to everyone. I still keep FF as a backup and many ppl should continue to use FF for the time being as it was JUST A TOU update....for now.
The browser project dedicated to open web standards steered by a compromised non-profit or the browser project dedicated to undermining the traditional web browsing experience steered by the largest advertising company on Earth ... Let me think ...
It's incredible unfunny to read people here on Lemmy (or in the Fediverse in general) talk about dropping Firefox for Chrome or a Chromium browser. it's like complaining that your country is going wrong by voting Trump.
and predictions saying Firefox is going downhill fast and that their forks won’t be maintained for much longer.
Possibly true, but abandoning ship is only bringing us closer to that timeline. People seem to be completely ignorant/delusional about how much work these forks will require to maintain if Mozilla's full time employees stop working on Firefox. If you have a practical reason to use another fork (like maybe a feature Firefox doesn't have) then I totally understand using that instead, but if you are simply making some kind of ethical protest change like all the new LibreWolf users who are so loudly virtue signalling at the moment then you need to think seriously about whether this course of action will ultimately end up hurting your ideals. Mozilla definitely has a big communication problem and I understand the desire to distance oneself from an organisation that repeatedly disrespects its supporters and never learns from its mistakes, as it is very fatiguing to endure their constant failures and the massive fall-outs from them, but ultimately I feel like switching away from Firefox is still an emotional decision rather than a rational one.
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Yea sticking with firefox , but with arkenfox hardening.. bugfixes are more important than fear of some wordings , at least for now. Vanadium in GOS on the phone.
i wasn't as plussed as everyone else over it, though i am concerned. i still donate to mozilla as, ultimately, i believe they're still good for those who champion an ethical, open, and not for profit internet.
i have switched to librefox, though, just because i like their developers and the fact that they've embraced mastodon and the fediverse. i also have firefox and nightly (though i use fennec on android because it comes through f droid)
Is Fennec trustable? They had that one vulnerability incident I can't name and that's when I first heard about them.
I switched to https://librewolf.net/ on Desktop and https://gitlab.com/ironfox-oss/IronFox on Android.
Same, I’m done with Firefox / Mozilla…
Librewolf, Waterfox, Floorp seem like viable options.
Let me add FireDragon, a Floorp fork with librewolf and other changes.
Using this as an opportunity to promote the LibreWolf community on Lemmy: !librewolf@lemmy.ml as well as their new Mastodon account: @librewolf@chaos.social
I'm not affiliated with them btw
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