FireFox (new terms of services) - avoid using it!

[RedFox]

Just a heads up to say anyone who is still using the FireFox browser, you should probably avoid it going forward.

"When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information," says Mozilla. Considering Mozilla is now an advertising company and a "Global Crew of Activists" this is especially concerning.

The two other key points (other than being able to use any data/information/text/images/passwords you upload or interact with being 'owned' by them), are that you cannot use FireFox to "spread misinformation" and the company is "woke" means they could conceivably block your internet access And use your passwords to log in/shut down other online accounts. They are also an advertising agency now, and will be recording every click/interaction in order to sell that to advertisers.

So - advertisers and activists, who (if you agree to the new terms of service) will have unrestricted access to everything you do online, and will decide if what you are doing online is 'misinformation' or not.

 

[Joe]

Thanks. What's a good alternative?

 

[Ricardo]

Just changed to Brave . first try though, easy to import settings from firefox at least.

 

[dredger]

Thanks. What's a good alternative?

I switched to Brave in my little company, and of course personally. I have a colleague who worked, 2 months before, on the portable version of Brave to install on my colleagues workstations, in 2 variants : the blue one (color of the company) for all the business activities, with security set to moderate, and a red version for more personal website surfing with high level security set. For both versions we prepared we deactivated automatic-updates (better to do it for any application, windows being the first !).

So far we did not install it on all machines but just the new ones, but with this news i think i'll accelerate the decomission of Firefox and that all my colleagues go on Brave.

For information : when one use a portable version of a browser, this means that you can have X installation of the same browser on one system, which can be useful. At this time I have 6 browsers installed on my machine : 2x Brave, 2x Maxxthon, 1x Chromium and 1x an old version of Firefox i did not update since ages. I'm almost using only the 2 Brave.

The Maxxthon browser is rather unknown, or well under the radar. I do not often use it but it's doing well its job. But Brave browser remains, at least i think, more security/privacy oriented, it was developped for this purpose.

In summary : if you want just one browser, I suggest the default Brave distribution. If you want more than one browser, whether use X installation of Brave, in this case, opt for the portable version of it which can be found here. And you can try and test Maxthon too, or Chromium (not to confound with Chrome).

 

[Scottie]

Mozilla is just doing what Google has already been doing for years. And yes, Mozilla is super-woke, but then so is Google.
The official quote from their site:

Firefox: About Your Rights

www.mozilla.org

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.

The end of the quote is kind of important. It's pretty standard legalese. They may have changed it, tho... Now their site also says:

UPDATE: We’ve seen a little confusion about the language regarding licenses, so we want to clear that up. We need a license to allow us to make some of the basic functionality of Firefox possible. Without it, we couldn’t use information typed into Firefox, for example. It does NOT give us ownership of your data or a right to use it for anything other than what is described in the Privacy Notice.

 

[dredger]

Can't edit my post so posting a new one : I think we can draw a parallel between what happened to Wikipedia and what happened to Mozilla.

 

[LieroSK]

I switched from firefox to vivaldi about half year ago after update that crashed firefox that hard that i lost all history and saved passwords. Im very satisfied with result. Its future proof with built in adblocker, quite faster loading, and have tabs in sidebar, which was my main requirement.

 

[Navigator]

Argh! Surprising, but not so surprising I guess, those guys depend monetarily on Google and have been struggling with usage for years. I've been using FF religiously since version 2.0 in 2006!

 

[broken.english]

Thanks. What's a good alternative?

There are several firefox based browsers with strong focus on privacy, for example Tor browser, Floorp, LibreWolf. The first two are pretty much up to date concerning security updates. LibreWolf lags a little bit behind but not much.

Aside from that I agree with Scottie. So far the whole thing looks like business as usual to me.

I will stick with firefox/derivates. It is the only browser that I can tweak to my liking and needs.

 

[SOTTREADER]

Is Duckduckgo less evil?

 

[Meg]

I use Brave. The browser that puts you first | Brave

 

[dredger]

Argh! Surprising, but not so surprising I guess, those guys depend monetarily on Google and have been struggling with usage for years. I've been using FF religiously since version 2.0 in 2006!

Worst : maybe they were receiving money from USAID !

Is Duckduckgo less evil?

I would have answered that DDG is just a search engine, but they visibly released a browser on smartphones in 2020, and since a few months they released a Windows/Mac (visibly not unix, or not yet) version. Should be tested. I won't give the link because it directly download the small exe install file. From the main duckduckgo search engine page, click on the 3 bars button top right, from this menu you can select to download the browser for a couple of iOS, Android, Mac & Windows.

 

[broken.english]

I would have answered that DDG is just a search engine, but they visibly released a browser on smartphones in 2020, and since a few months they released a Windows/Mac (visibly not unix, or not yet) version.

Here in Germany the DDG search engine all of a sudden wanted me to register with them before doing any more searches. There goes my privacy! I have since then used the Brave search engine and have some others including Yandex on standby. So I can easily switch between search engines just by a click on the search bar.

 

[Uperios]

So - advertisers and activists, who (if you agree to the new terms of service) will have unrestricted access to everything you do online, and will decide if what you are doing online is 'misinformation' or not.

I just deleted Firefox on my phone and for some good measure I updated the passwords for some sites (to wrong ones).
When I will use the laptop, my intention is to the same.

Thanks. What's a good alternative?

Brave is also my main web browser.
I started to use for some websites Firefox due to advice from "SwitchedtoLinux" channel on Bitchute (various web browsers, each for different activities).

 

[987baz]

Yeah switched a while ago .. currently I use a combo of brave, Vivaldi and opera, depending on what I am doing .. and the end of the day .. if “they” want to see what you’re doing they will .. but it’s worth trying out a few to see what features work with your own style .. personally I find the work spaces and ad blocker in Vivaldi is great for organisation and YouTube ad blocking ..