It's unclear to me what the mobile Firefox homepage even is. It doesn't increase the tab count, it just sort of hovers over your screen. And you can get to it by either pressing the Home button or the New Tab button; both of these do almost the same thing.
What are you talking about? This is the Firefox community, not many people are going to stop mid-post to say "BTW I hate Google more"
... BTW, I hate Google more.
And you're incorrect: the community for leaving Google is more than four times the size of the community about Google.
As of August 2024, diaspora* is the only actively developed project classified under the tradition fediverse term that doesn't support ActivityPub.
The effectiveness of the internet as a public resource depends upon interoperability (protocols, data formats, content), innovation and decentralized participation worldwide.
- Mozilla Manifesto, Principle 6, emphasis mine
The one Mozilla executive who agrees with you (that employees should be put ahead of profit) is currently embroiled in a lawsuit with Mozilla over that.
Like all products, Firefox still maintains a small core of uncritical, devoted fans. To them, Mozilla can do no wrong.
The problem is, up until a few months ago, Mozilla advocated for privacy and other public facing values that lined up with their manifesto. Now, they are breaking away from that, and the true believers are shifting too: becoming hostile to privacy.
The people who liked Firefox because of its privacy stance, or because they were looking for an alternative to Big Tech, on the other hand, aren't 100% likely to become a true believer, and those people are the critics. Often, those critics have been around for years going on decades.
If Mozilla doesn't discontinue a Mastodon server with under 300 people, how will it continue funding the $65 million AI and venture capital investments they've been making?! 😬
Just a little comment on 2021: It seems disingenuous, from their perspective. Steve Teixeira, In a lawsuit, is claiming that not only did Mozilla try to get him to fire employees who were disproportionately minorities, but they were within a group that was producing a profit for Mozilla.
In other words, Mozilla might have been preaching inclusivity publicly while practicing exclusivity privately.
You're right, I may have over generalized. To me, this looked like pandering...
As with over things I dislike, seeing queer representationin it is better than queer exclusion from it. Rainbow capitalism, in general, is better queer-excluding capitalism, for example... but I just found this particular workshop to be rather tasteless, especially when nothing came out of it.
(When I say nothing, I mean for at least 3 years there was no output... The people behind this workshop created a road map, then released a collection of NFTs, and then the supposed AI model that would be created from it never materialized AFAICT.)
What's the language I used? I'd be happy to edit my post.
This session is facilitated by Emily Martinez, Ben Lerchin Show on schedule About this session Come interact with the first iteration of Queer AI, a conversational chatbot trained on queer literature. The bot currently engages in a variety of conversations around intimacy and relationships, but we...
On Valentine's Day 2024, Mozilla came out with a piece critical of AI chatbots titled "Creepy.exe: Mozilla Urges Public to Swipe Left on Romantic AI Chatbots Due to Major Privacy Red Flags."
But before they found red flags, back in 2019, Mozilla promoted a workshop on a creepy, rainbow-washed, chatbot ecosystem where people identified as "queer" were required to bare their most intimate sexual thoughts.
From the post:
> your... interactions will be recorded... you will occasionally be prompted with random survey questions
What kinds of questions did they randomly ask the people who would "queer the AI"? Creepy stuff like
> Have you ever sexted with a stranger? > Have you ever sexted with a machine? > Do you remember the first time you were aroused by language? > Do you think an artificial intelligence could help fulfill some of these... needs?
The workshop providers guided people into establishing an intimate, sexual connection with the chatbot they could create.
> How might we build trust with an AI? > How might we give it its own sense of desire?
Even the consenting participants in the workshop complained about the AI's creep factor:
> it feels like the A.I. is gas-lighting you. > Seems like a noncommittal sexting bot. It should at least be clear about what it’s trying to do.
The startup that Mozilla fostered for this panel ended up crashing and burning, but its creepier, worse brethren live on inside of Firefox 130, displayed as first-class options within Mozilla's chatbot options. I just thought it would be fun to take a trip down memory lane to see how many creepy red flags AI companies could get within Mozilla's view without ever concerning them.
Compare to what Mozilla shows their users in a pop-up tab after the update:
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/130.0/whatsnew/
Isn't it strange that it doesn't mention anything from the release notes on this page?
The only thing it does mention, Close Duplicate Tabs, isn't mentioned on the release notes.
I don't think it's anyone's fault for being confused or misinterpreting what's in the article, because even Mozilla calls it blocking:
And starting in 2024, all our users can look forward to Firefox blocking even more third party cookies.
The linked page is even more confusing, because it provides a link back to this page for clarification about which third party cookies are being blocked.
So the update is, Firefox now blocks all third party cookies by default?
That's great and new news... I just wish this post reflected that, so I wouldn't have to dig through comments to figure out what changed between 2022 and today.
I was confused enough when they initially announced Total Cookie Protection in 2021 and then re-announced it as rolled out to all users in 2022.
I wasn't thinking about that one, although it is hilarious Mozilla thinks it can claim it isn't scraping private data by using a business collaborator as an intermediary.
It's about their FakeSpot subsidiary.
Also not what I said.
Mozilla started selling private data to advertising companies in 2023.
Mozilla became an advertising company in June, 2024.
Isn't it curious that they've suddenly become much less outspoken about ad blocking after 2022?
You keep posting things that agree with me. I don't think you understand that.
The only way to find a contradiction is to find new articles that trumpet their ad blocking capabilities, not old ones from years ago.
Do you understand, years ago?
404 media deserves your money IMO. They're former Vice Motherboard writers, so more of your money is going to journalism and not marketers
FWIW Floorp already has vertical tabs and is a more mature project, if that's worth considering.
Optionally enabling Sidebery has been enough for me), but I appreciate the competition.
Now that Google and Microsoft each consume more power than some fairly big countries, maybe it's time for 2024 Mozilla to take heed of 2021 Mozilla's warnings.
There seems to be minimal information about this online, so I'm leaving this here so cooler heads can prevail in discussion.
Link to filing: https://archive.org/details/jyjfub
Notable portions:
Teixeira was hired as Chief Product Officer and was in line to become CEO.
> Mr. Teixeira became Chief Product Officer (“CPO”) of Mozilla in August, 2022. During the hiring process, Mr. Teixeira had conversations with executive recruiting firm, Russell Reynolds Associates, that one of Mozilla Corporation’s hiring criteria for the CPO role was an executive that could succeed Mitchell Baker as CEO. > > Also, shortly after being hired, Mr. Teixeira had conversations with Ms. Baker about being positioned as her successor.
After taking medical leave to deal with cancer, Mozilla swiftly moved to replace CEO Mitchell Baker with someone else.
> Shortly before Mr. Teixeira returned from leave, Mozilla board member Laura Chambers was appointed Interim CEO of Mozilla and Ms. Baker was removed as CEO and became Executive Chair of the Board of Directors.
After returning, Teixeira was ordered to lay off 50 preselected employees, and he objected due to Mozilla not needing to cut them and their disproportionate minority status.
> In a meeting with Human Resources Business Partner Joni Cassidy, Mr. Teixeira discussed his concern that people from groups underrepresented in technology, like female leaders and persons of color, were disproportionately impacted by the layoff. > >... Ms. Chehak verbally reprimanded Mr. Teixeira, accusing him of violating [a] non-existent “onboarding plan” and threatening to place Mr. Teixeira back on medical leave if he did not execute the layoffs as instructed.
Mozilla's lack of inclusivity was a known problem
>In February 2022, Mozilla commissioned the firm of Tiangay Kemokai Law, P.C. to assess its performance in providing a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace culture. > > The report delivered in 2023 from Tiangay Kemokai Law, P.C. states in part: “MoCo falls into the Cultural Incapacity category based on leadership’s inadequate response to the needs of a diverse culture or else the need to create a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive culture, which is reflected in current systems, processes and procedures, policies and practices, or the lack thereof, and are incongruent with MoCo’s stated values and goals.”
Steve Teixeira has been put on leave.
> On May 23, 2024, Mozilla placed Mr. Teixeira on administrative leave. > > Mr. Teixeira requested a reason for being placed on administrative leave. > >Mozilla did not provide Mr. Teixeira with a reason why he was placed on administrative leave. > >Mozilla cut off Mr. Teixeira’s access to email, Slack messaging, and other Mozilla systems. > >Mozilla instructed employees not to communicate with Mr. Teixeira about work-related matters. > >Upon information and belief, an investigation into Mr. Teixeira’s allegations was finally conducted in late May 2024, but Mozilla did not do so under its internal policies and procedures regarding managing complaints of discrimination. Mr. Teixeira was not contacted to participate in the investigation into his complaint of unlawful treatment.
Coverage online so far
I say "alleged" because there appears to be no consensus on the veracity of this document.
Update: this appears to be confirmed.
This has received no "news" coverage besides one angry loudmouth (Bryan Lunduke) whose entire commentary career has been shaped by his political beliefs, regardless of truth.
I recently downloaded Firefox Nightly and noticed some new settings that were enabled by default:
> * Suggestions from Firefox Nightly Get suggestions from the web related to your search > * Suggestions from sponsors Support Firefox Nightly with occasional sponsored suggestions > > Learn more about Firefox Suggest
The link in the UI doesn't mention sponsorships anywhere. But this page does:
> Who are Mozilla’s partners for sponsored suggestions? > >We partner with organizations to serve up some of these suggestion types... For sponsored results, we primarily work with adMarketplace, while also providing non-sponsored results from Wikipedia.
This page links to the adMarketplace Privacy Policy which makes it pretty clear this company is okay with collecting your IP address and passing it to further unnamed entities.
Elsewhere, they say Firefox sends them "the number of times Firefox suggests or displays specific content and your clicks on that content, as well as basic data about your interactions with Firefox Suggest", and then will share interaction information "in an aggregate manner with our partners".
-----------------
Update: Switched the link from the Desktop to the Mobile version. Added more quotes from FF, and bolded info about their one named AdTech partner.
deleted
I have a Samsung phone, which allows 3 profiles to simultaneously be active:
- The default ("Personal") profile
- The Secure Folder
- Through an app like Shelter, a Work profile
I only recently noticed, when using the browser in Secure Folder, that searching "my IP address" returns my non-VPN address, even though I was running a VPN app in my main profile. So I cloned my VPN app to the Secure Folder, logged in, and connected to a different server. To my surprise, it actually worked.
Then I tried the same procedure in my Shelter-provided Work folder, with the same result. I am simultaneously connected to three different VPN servers.
If you happen to be like me, and you like using a VPN and secondary profiles simultaneously, make sure to protect your secondary profiles by copying over your VPN app and turning it on!
Use code zoebee at https://incogni.com/zoebee to get an exclusive 60% off an annual Incogni plan!Public education is under attack, and it feels like the atta...
Done in Boost.
Today, when I navigated to amazon\.com on Firefox for Android, I received a jarring message that I could "try" a new service, Fakespot, on the app.
Fakespot is littered with privacy issues.
Among other things, FakeSpot/Mozilla was forced to admit: "We sell and share your personal information"
Fakespot's privacy policy allows them to store and/or sell:
- Your email address
- Your IP address
- "Protected chacteristics" ie gender, sexuality, race...
- Data scraped from across the web
- Account IDs
- Things you bought (This is sold to advertisers)
- Things you considered buying (This is sold to advertisers)
- Your precise location (This is sold to advertisers)
- Inferences about you (This is sold to advertisers)
Right before Mozilla acquired them, Fakespot updated their privacy policy to allow transfer of private data to any company that acquired them. (Previous Privacy Policy here. Search "merge" in both.)
People donate to Mozilla because they believe in the company's stated goals. Why were the donations put into an acquisition of a company with this kind of privacy policy? And why has Mozilla focused on bundling it as bloat into their browser? Now that Brave is in hot water for becoming bloated, Mozilla should buck the trend, not follow it.
Today, when I navigated to amazon.com on Firefox for Android, I received a jarring message [https://i.imgur.com/fp2pigl.png] that I could “try” a new service, Fakespot, on the app. What’s Fakespot? A review-checking, scammer-spotting service Fakespot for Firefox [https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023...
Today, when I navigated to amazon\.com on Firefox for Android, I received a jarring message that I could "try" a new service, Fakespot, on the app.
What's Fakespot? A "review-checking, scammer-spotting service for Firefox."
Among other things, FakeSpot/Mozilla was forced to admit: "We sell and share your personal information"
Fakespot's privacy policy allows them to collect and sell:
- Your email address
- Your IP address
- Account IDs
- A list of things you purchased and considered purchasing
- Your precise location (which will be sent to advertising partners)
- Data about you publicly available on the web
- Your curated profile (which will also be sent to advertising providers)
Right before Mozilla acquired them, Fakespot updated their privacy policy to allow transfer of private data to any company that acquired them. (Previous Privacy Policy here. Search "merge" in both.)
Who asked for this? Who demanded integration into Firefox, since it was already a (relatively unpopular) browser extension people could have used instead?