3 ms·

Remember that we’ve argued for thousands of hours over multiple years about this stuff internally. I’m not involved directly with the teams, but I’ve been part

Remember that we’ve argued for thousands of hours over multiple years about this stuff internally. I’m not involved directly with the teams, but I’ve been part of their discussions. These are not actions taken lightly, and they are absolutely and wholeheartedly in service of improving the experience of all users.

Gracana 9y ago
That's what Lenovo said about Superfish. Nobody wants a product like that.
- yorwba 9y ago
  I guess some people would want those recommendations, but only very few will voluntarily and consciously trade their data for it.
  - floatingatoll 9y ago
    Your assertion about people is very incorrect. Do a study and see what results you get back. It’ll horrify you.
    - musage 9y ago
      No matter, because the argument made by a non-fool to a non-fool that there are fools who think X makes sense is void regardless of the amount of fools.
IgorPartola 9y ago
I totally get that, but this is a pretty classic example of what the road to hell is paved with. Sending my browsing history to a remote server is not a thing a browser should do. How did the discussion not end when this was brought up? I was literally today getting ramped up to switch to Firefox. Now I have to be on a constant lookout for stuff like this? I think this may actually do enough damage to kill Firefox. And for what? Better search? Firefox is a browser, not Google/Bing/DDG/whatever. Honestly, if you guys wanted to know where to find good porn on the internet, why didn’t you just ask?
- clan 9y ago
  Same here. Trust is hard to earn but easy to loose.
- methodin 9y ago
  From which browser?
  - floatingatoll 9y ago
    Definitely not Chrome, I hope!
    - kuschku 9y ago
      Why? Thanks to this move, Firefox and Chrome have the same privacy – all your data is shipped to untrustworthy servers – and Chrome gives you a better UI, faster browsing, and compatibility with more pages. There is ZERO reason anyone would still use Firefox after this. ZERO.
      - fwn 9y ago
        You can not possibly claim that Google and "cliqz" are equals regarding trust and data security. In addition to that is Chrome only syncing your history if you are logged in.
        kuschku 9y ago
        Well, the Burda Media Group, one of Europe’s largest publishing houses is behind CliqZ. They’re about as shady as Google, but also about as useful. It’s a tradeoff.
        chopin 9y ago
        There is a Burda Maps? IMO they are more shady than Google and by far not that useful.
imron 9y ago
> and they are absolutely and wholeheartedly in service of improving the experience of all users. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
eadmund 9y ago
I don't particularly care how much thought went into the decision: it's still the wrong decision, an utterly wrong decision. This is much like how Mozilla completely broke the security of its Sync protocol: sure, they thought about it and had what they believed to be convincing reasons, but they were still completely wrong. Why Mozilla why?
- floatingatoll 9y ago
  Your view is the one we launched with, but our users made it very clear that it wasn’t sufficient. IIRC the most-requested Sync feature for multiple years was “let me login at the library and view my open tabs and bookmarks”. Should we have rejected our users’ real-world needs, or honored their most frequent request? There’s no compromise path with the crypto - either the former, or the latter, period.
  - d7C2 9y ago
    Your users are a group of individuals, not some anonymous mass. People don't have a problem with Mozilla implementing new features, people have a problem with losing control over their personal data. It's really arrogant to believe that you are entitled to making this decisions on behalf of your users. Just make it opt-in with a huge warning-sign an a message detailing how the data sharing works. Problem solved!
  - yjftsjthsd-h 9y ago
    > “let me login at the library As opposed to, "automatically log me in and sync everything without asking" (I use Sync; you have to explicitly enable it and choose what to sync). > There’s no compromise path with the crypto I hope you aren't really promising that your crypto has no weaknesses and never will.
musage 9y ago
> Remember that we’ve argued for thousands of hours over multiple years about this stuff internally. Yeah, and then they summarize it as "We want to provide recommendations from new and diverse places, make space for innovation in discovery and navigation, and above all build experiences our users love." If there are all these deep thoughts and reasons, where are they? "You had to be there" is all we get? Because until the fruit of those thousands of hours of discussion are shared, mentioning that it took all these people all this time doesn't exactly make it better. I'm sure there are also people who discussed thousands of hours over the artistic merits of "Basic Instinct", but I'm still going with Bill Hicks' take on it. Just accept that Mozilla lost something in the eyes of many today it will not get back. I'll still use Firefox, even like I might still buy things I need at a shop after the shopkeeper I genuinely respected dropped a racist slur or something. Get in, grab things, pay, get out. No attachment, no relationship. > absolutely and wholeheartedly in service of improving the experience of all users. Intended to be in service, maybe. In service of all users, no. I've know Firefox since 2000 and use it as main browser since Opera went to crap. For all intents and purposes, I am a user. Wholeheartedly on your behalf doesn't fit with how much it is in actual service of actual me. If you ask random FF users what top 5 things they would like to see in FF, how often do suggestions in the address bar come up? Why not use the search bar for that? Have you ever worked in customer service? An address bar not being a pure address bar is one of the major Verschlimmbesserungen (a supposed improvement that just makes things worse) I can think of. (Though in CS it was never was bad when trying to help my mother before we started using Teamviewer. But man, the pain that caused. And I can't think of one moment of joy it caused to make up for that.) You know why cars don't just have four lights indicating standstill, moving slowly, moving fast and moving too fast? Because we take that stuff seriously. As opposed to browsers and operating systems and other things that are regressing. And while plenty of car accidents happen, any random fool and their brother can use a car like virtuoso in comparison to how many people still just stumble through the web, on a machine where they stumble through icons and windows. There are reasons for that, and the time will come when just turning the back on all of it, making a CPU with some tape and boogers and writing applications for that will be more efficient (not to mention fun) than a lifetime in the coming artificial womb keeping people in stasis. Sorry for getting all dark on you there, but saying I spent thousands of hours thinking about this would be selling myself short.

Gracana 9y ago

That's what Lenovo said about Superfish. Nobody wants a product like that.

yorwba 9y ago
I guess some people would want those recommendations, but only very few will voluntarily and consciously trade their data for it.
- floatingatoll 9y ago
  Your assertion about people is very incorrect. Do a study and see what results you get back. It’ll horrify you.
  - musage 9y ago
    No matter, because the argument made by a non-fool to a non-fool that there are fools who think X makes sense is void regardless of the amount of fools.

IgorPartola 9y ago

I totally get that, but this is a pretty classic example of what the road to hell is paved with. Sending my browsing history to a remote server is not a thing a browser should do. How did the discussion not end when this was brought up? I was literally today getting ramped up to switch to Firefox. Now I have to be on a constant lookout for stuff like this? I think this may actually do enough damage to kill Firefox. And for what? Better search? Firefox is a browser, not Google/Bing/DDG/whatever. Honestly, if you guys wanted to know where to find good porn on the internet, why didn’t you just ask?

clan 9y ago
Same here. Trust is hard to earn but easy to loose.
methodin 9y ago
From which browser?
- floatingatoll 9y ago
  Definitely not Chrome, I hope!
  - kuschku 9y ago
    Why? Thanks to this move, Firefox and Chrome have the same privacy – all your data is shipped to untrustworthy servers – and Chrome gives you a better UI, faster browsing, and compatibility with more pages. There is ZERO reason anyone would still use Firefox after this. ZERO.
    - fwn 9y ago
      You can not possibly claim that Google and "cliqz" are equals regarding trust and data security. In addition to that is Chrome only syncing your history if you are logged in.
      - kuschku 9y ago
        Well, the Burda Media Group, one of Europe’s largest publishing houses is behind CliqZ. They’re about as shady as Google, but also about as useful. It’s a tradeoff.
        chopin 9y ago
        There is a Burda Maps? IMO they are more shady than Google and by far not that useful.

imron 9y ago

> and they are absolutely and wholeheartedly in service of improving the experience of all users. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

eadmund 9y ago

I don't particularly care how much thought went into the decision: it's still the wrong decision, an utterly wrong decision. This is much like how Mozilla completely broke the security of its Sync protocol: sure, they thought about it and had what they believed to be convincing reasons, but they were still completely wrong. Why Mozilla why?

floatingatoll 9y ago
Your view is the one we launched with, but our users made it very clear that it wasn’t sufficient. IIRC the most-requested Sync feature for multiple years was “let me login at the library and view my open tabs and bookmarks”. Should we have rejected our users’ real-world needs, or honored their most frequent request? There’s no compromise path with the crypto - either the former, or the latter, period.
- d7C2 9y ago
  Your users are a group of individuals, not some anonymous mass. People don't have a problem with Mozilla implementing new features, people have a problem with losing control over their personal data. It's really arrogant to believe that you are entitled to making this decisions on behalf of your users. Just make it opt-in with a huge warning-sign an a message detailing how the data sharing works. Problem solved!
- yjftsjthsd-h 9y ago
  > “let me login at the library As opposed to, "automatically log me in and sync everything without asking" (I use Sync; you have to explicitly enable it and choose what to sync). > There’s no compromise path with the crypto I hope you aren't really promising that your crypto has no weaknesses and never will.

musage 9y ago

> Remember that we’ve argued for thousands of hours over multiple years about this stuff internally. Yeah, and then they summarize it as "We want to provide recommendations from new and diverse places, make space for innovation in discovery and navigation, and above all build experiences our users love." If there are all these deep thoughts and reasons, where are they? "You had to be there" is all we get? Because until the fruit of those thousands of hours of discussion are shared, mentioning that it took all these people all this time doesn't exactly make it better. I'm sure there are also people who discussed thousands of hours over the artistic merits of "Basic Instinct", but I'm still going with Bill Hicks' take on it. Just accept that Mozilla lost something in the eyes of many today it will not get back. I'll still use Firefox, even like I might still buy things I need at a shop after the shopkeeper I genuinely respected dropped a racist slur or something. Get in, grab things, pay, get out. No attachment, no relationship. > absolutely and wholeheartedly in service of improving the experience of all users. Intended to be in service, maybe. In service of all users, no. I've know Firefox since 2000 and use it as main browser since Opera went to crap. For all intents and purposes, I am a user. Wholeheartedly on your behalf doesn't fit with how much it is in actual service of actual me. If you ask random FF users what top 5 things they would like to see in FF, how often do suggestions in the address bar come up? Why not use the search bar for that? Have you ever worked in customer service? An address bar not being a pure address bar is one of the major Verschlimmbesserungen (a supposed improvement that just makes things worse) I can think of. (Though in CS it was never was bad when trying to help my mother before we started using Teamviewer. But man, the pain that caused. And I can't think of one moment of joy it caused to make up for that.) You know why cars don't just have four lights indicating standstill, moving slowly, moving fast and moving too fast? Because we take that stuff seriously. As opposed to browsers and operating systems and other things that are regressing. And while plenty of car accidents happen, any random fool and their brother can use a car like virtuoso in comparison to how many people still just stumble through the web, on a machine where they stumble through icons and windows. There are reasons for that, and the time will come when just turning the back on all of it, making a CPU with some tape and boogers and writing applications for that will be more efficient (not to mention fun) than a lifetime in the coming artificial womb keeping people in stasis. Sorry for getting all dark on you there, but saying I spent thousands of hours thinking about this would be selling myself short.