23h ago

Android is now warning of Firefox sharing data

Found this notification this morning on my pixel 6.

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205 comments

Even if this isn't entirely true, you know Google wouldn't pass up the opportunity to reduce Firefox market share to scare everyone back to Chrome.
- Firefox? You mean the company they give several hundred million dollars/year? Yeah I don't think they're too worried. They need some number of users on Firefox to prevent anti-trust issues. Which they're on the brink of right now.
- There's no need to reduce Firefox marketshare. Most people don't even consider using anything else than whatever is default in their device.
  Also, it's not a Google scare tactic or a flex. Every application on the Play Store must disclose the general outlines of their data policy, including the sharing of data. Lying with those checkbox is not a good idea but they are completely informative and put there by the publishing party, so the people responsible for publishing Firefox on mobile just updated these, and this is what is shown when an app publisher say their app is sharing data with third parties.
  tl;dr: it's very likely that not a single soul at Google even looked at this, as this is just the regular behavior of the Play Store with apps that changes their data policy or indicate sharing user data with third parties.
  
  Why the dichotomy between the chrome listing on the store then?
  
  No idea, I'm not that obsessed with it. But do note that "The developers of these apps provided info about their data sharing practices to an app store. They may update it over time." and "Data sharing practices may vary based on your app version, use, region, and age."
  The recent changes to Firefox terms of use (well, their introduction really) was supposedly meant to appease some regional lawmakers. Maybe it is a regional thing. Maybe they changed it again. Maybe it's, as often with store page update, rolled out progressively to people (in either direction, whether it's adding or removing these terms).
  The point is, that's neither a "Google" operation to put Firefox in a bad light, nor a Mozilla operation to… do whatever it is they're doing these days. It's just a regular message. Which, reading a lot of the replies here, is something that have to be said.
- There isn't to much to reduce. I don't think Google is scared or afraid by Firefox, like at all.
- Like chrome does something different?
  
  It integrates into the Google ecosystem well, and if that has value to a person it may just be enough to bring them back to chrome.
  
  Who would use the Google ecosystem? Yuck. 🤮
  
  Yes, chrome is doing something different. It is even worse!
  
  That's not the point they're trying to make I think. It's more of an attack on perfection. Like "the alternative is not perfect either so why not just stay with Chrome". It's not a very strong argument in general but it might be enough to keep people from switching.
  
  the alternative is not perfect either so why not just stay
  It does work for a lot of people. Seeing they need to change and adapt if they do change, and it seemingly seems to be as bad as what they're using now, why change and face headaches and hassle.
  
  exactly, when confronted with cognitive dissonance people look for any shitty excuse to avoid changing their minds.
  
  No but where are you going to go. The options are shrinking.
  
  Fennec on mobile. LibreWolf on desktop.
  
  Waterfox works great on Android.
  
  Iron fox is another option.
  
  Zen browser is great on desktop
  
  Zen, at least from the few times that I've tried it, also has some major issues that I personally find to be deal-breakers. Like forgetting tabs in a window that has just been closed. If you accidentally close a window that you're working, without quitting the browser, you lose everything in it. As someone who is prone to doing that when closing a tab, it's not ideal.
- Lol if Google really wanted to kill FF they would just stop paying them half a billion a year.
- I wonder if they say people should be careful with Chrome 😂
  
  they don't have to! they microsoft explorered that shit
- So you're advocating that Google shouldn't broadcast that firefox is broadcasting your current location? Even though they do this for every other app available on Android, you're saying they shouldn't do this for firefox?
  Why?
  
  This notice is effectively added by the Firefox developers when they select the ability to enable location services and also tick a box thay they collect data.
  
  They want to scare people to stay on Chrome now that they discontinued support of uBlock (not that it was ever supported on Chrome for Android anyway)
  
  So they do this for all apps. Every single app that is in the Android ecosystem. But in your mind they're specifically targeting firefox with this to make people "scared" huh?
  Must be nice to live in denial.

205 comments