22 ms·

Mozilla Rally

155 points by heresie-dabord 5y ago

perihelions 5y ago
>"Big tech has built its success by exploiting your data. When you join Mozilla Rally studies, your data helps us uncover Facebook's tracking network, understand search engine choice, and help local news find sustainability." Understand search engine choice? That's an absurd thing to say; 90% of their revenue comes from default-search-engine contracts... https://www.pcmag.com/news/mozilla-signs-lucrative-3-year-google-search-deal-for-firefox https://www.pcmag.com/news/mozilla-signs-lucrative-3-year-go... >"The majority of Mozilla's income (over 90 percent) is generated from relationships with search engines and Google has always been top of the list."
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- rcktmrtn 5y ago
  Yeah, what I see here is a moralistic attacks on the "Facebook tracking network" from an organization that's 90% bankrolled by one of their largest competitors. No doubt they'll report some true and nasty stuff about Facebook, but this is straight out of the "Big Tobacco/Oil" research funding playbook.
capableweb 5y ago
> Each study has a clear focus, unique data needs, and specific goals. Before you enroll, we’ll tell you exactly who we’re working with, which data is being collected, where it’s going, and how it’s being used. Ironically, the page loads JS from https://cdn-3.convertexperiments.com https://cdn-3.convertexperiments.com (seems to belong to convert.com) and Twitter, without disclosing the fact that Mozilla is sharing your browser data with those two entities. I'm a daily Firefox user myself, but I can't help to feel that each political effort they try to execute either backfires, or draws resources from what really has to be done: developing and maintaining a excellent user agent for the open web.
- perihelions 5y ago
  >"Ironically, the page loads JS from https://cdn-3.convertexperiments.com https://cdn-3.convertexperiments.com (seems to belong to convert.com) and Twitter, without disclosing the fact that Mozilla is sharing your browser data with those two entities." This is why (for the narrow demographic that bothers to care) uMatrix is such an awesome tool. This page is completely functional without loading either of those domains' shovelware -- and it saves laptop battery life too. This is true for most pages. Ironic indeed that it's mozilla.org illustrating this point. Block everything by default! Block all the things!
  - capableweb 5y ago
    uMatrix and it's cousin is truly a miracle for the web! I've run it (or a variant of it) for as long as I can remember. The requests were blocked in my browser, but the reason I checked in the first is the same reason I check every time some service claims to be pro-privacy or other similar things like this landing page: Are you actually living up to your words? In this case, they didn't, and honestly, there is not a cases where they do live up to their word 100%.
    - justaj 5y ago
      Though unfortunately uMatrix is no longer maintained: https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix
ent101 5y ago
This doesn't make sense at all. Isn't Mozilla mostly financed by their agreements with Google and other search engines?!
- dralley 5y ago
  Or maybe the premise that Mozilla is beholden to Google because of their income stream is false? It seems like every other month there's a thread complaining about how Mozilla would never really do anything against Google's interests because of their income stream, and then every other month in between those rant threads Mozilla launches some new tracking protection [0] or privacy initiative directed specifically against Google. [0] https://twitter.com/__jakub_g/status/1365400306767581185 https://twitter.com/__jakub_g/status/1365400306767581185
  - ent101 5y ago
    Yes, the premise might be false but Mozilla is not doing a great job clarifying this.
  - errantmind 5y ago
    It is disingenuous when they, themselves, collect so much data about users by default.
  - forgotmyoldacc 5y ago
    Isn't it a funny coincidence that Firefox offers a Facebook container, but not a Google one, despite both companies having the same amount of tracking across the web? https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/facebook-container-prevent-facebook-tracking https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/facebook-container-prev...
    - nerdponx 5y ago
      Facebook is a boogeyman and a distraction from the huge and shady ad-tech industry as a whole. Zuck takes a few on the chin in front of an inept US Congress, who eventually proposes some weak legislation that doesn't actually protect anyone, and the industry chugs happily along making money and not giving a shit about the repercussions. Pretty much the same as oil & gas, big pharma, big ag, etc.
thesausageking 5y ago
I've lost faith in Mozilla over the last decade and this initiative is a great example. The web is in a rough state but doing research on user data isn't going to solve anything. The way it gets fixed is new technologies that allow new apps and social networks that replace the old ones. This is what Mozilla should working on.
chrisseaton 5y ago
Brought to you by a company that abused their experiment system to install an advert for some TV show into your browsers.
- syshum 5y ago
  That is far from their only Anti-User violation. To me Mozilla is barely distinguishable from Google at this point
  - 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
    Firefox sends search queries to Google by default, by agreement, and derives almost all of its revenue from that business partnership with Google ("Big Tech"). Mozilla is Google's ally. Rally purports to uncover the tracking network of Google's main competitor, Facebook, as well as to "understand search engine choice" (no pun intended), Google's formidable competitors for web search market share.
- MikusR 5y ago
  It was worse. They abused their emergency security system to do that.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
gkoberger 5y ago
There was a time when Mozilla really did fight big tech. I loved working there. Internally the phrase "we fight for the user" was used, and it felt true. Now they're just using that same war-cry as marketing to get you to sign up and fill out surveys for their market research. They're doing exactly what they're mad big tech is doing (collecting data), but with a dose of moral superiority. It's sad that they've taken a message that resonates and just haphazardly use it for messaging anything they're building.
- colordrops 5y ago
  I installed firefox focus which is a privacy first mobile browser that advertises that it cuts out phoning home. I was irate when I dug into the settings and found out that "Studies" is on by default. Research data collection should always be opt-in rather than opt-out, especially for privacy focused software.
  - scrollaway 5y ago
    Being mad about something like this is just choosing the wrong hill to die on, honestly. Studies (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/shield https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/shield) are clearly just a/b testing of features for the browser. Doing this opt-in creates selection bias which corrupts the whole idea of running a/b tests. So instead of saying "you should run your a/b tests opt-in only", what you really mean is "in order to fight for privacy, you should never run a/b tests", which, again, totally wrong hill to die on. Why is it so important they not be allowed to try different features to figure out which ones work and which ones don't? Mozilla has made so many missteps they circled a small planet with them. This isn't one of them.
    - zdragnar 5y ago
      If you advertise a browser as being all about privacy, you absolutely should not be a/b testing users without their explicit consent. It is amazing to me that this needs to be said.
      - 5y ago
andrewguenther 5y ago
So rather than fighting mass data harvesting, Mozilla just wants a piece of the pie and is trying to claim the moral high ground? Mozilla's positioning as a privacy advocate while consistently pushing projects that are antithetical to privacy is just nauseating.
- jancsika 5y ago
  Just in general... I'm not sure we can meaningfully advocate for privacy atm without having a better understanding of what data big tech collects, what inferences they can glean from even limited data sets, what changes in behavior their customers can nudge users toward, and the worst-case hazards that extant algos can create. Honestly, I wouldn't mind joining an "Evilcorp" social media network run by FSF, EFF, or some such, if it were done in a way where the insights gleaned about big tech dangers were to be made public in a responsible way. It's one thing to watch a documentary that provides a vignette with actors showing how social media might nudge a teen away socializing to instead check their status updates. It's quite another to find out that a single, seemingly trivial change to the "Evilcorp" feed caused an average of 2 hours less sleep for its userbase. I'd also want to know-- what's the worst case sleep loss average? It's important to have detailed answers to these kinds of questions if we want to meaningfully protect our privacy online. And we don't even have something as crucial as `git blame` for these types of things. And given the ubiquity of data mining today, the dangers of creating such a dataset must be a drop in the bucket by comparison.
- Barrin92 5y ago
  >pushing projects that are antithetical to privacy is just nauseating this is a research tool. People voluntarily and with their own consent contribute data to understand how tech companies and algorithms use data. If privacy now apparently entails that voluntarily collected data for scientific purposes is illegitimate we better close every university and business on earth down. These complaints are getting a little bit ridiculous.
captainredbeard 5y ago
The art style on that page makes me think of Soviet bloc propaganda.
- baal80spam 5y ago
  Of course it's subjective but I also find it hideous.
- maze-le 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_realism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_realism
  - perihelions 5y ago
    Sovietology jokes aside, it's actually "Corporate Memphis" (I think!): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27107820 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27107820 ("Why does every advert look the same? Corporate Memphis (wired.co.uk)") [189 comments] >"The illustration style is flat, geometric, figurative, and usually made up of solid colours... It’s an aesthetic that’s often referred to as ‘Corporate Memphis’, and it’s become the definitive style for big tech and small startups, relentlessly imitated and increasingly parodied. It involves the use of simple, well-bounded scenes of flat cartoon figures in action, often with a slight distortion in proportions (the most common of which being long, bendy arms) to signal that a company is fun and creative."
- CollinEMac 5y ago
  That's kind of always been Mozilla's thing. https://www.jwz.org/blog/2016/10/they-live-and-the-secret-history-of-the-mozilla-logo/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2016/10/they-live-and-the-secret-hi...
cryptoboy2283 5y ago
What a joke. Obvious controlled opposition sponsored by Google
artificialLimbs 5y ago
From "How we use your data": >> ...put the power to create a positive change in the right hands. No way would I touch something like this with your pole. This is langauge that paves a clear path for abuse. This isn't even modern day virtue signaling, it's been around for ages. I can't manage to see Mozilla as standing on integrous ground, with their constant spewing of 'woke' bs and muddy objectives/chasing of butterflies. Create something new to love, rather than fighting against what you hate.
petermcneeley 5y ago
Related: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplatforming/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplat...
henning 5y ago
Doesn't Mozilla's main source of revenue come from putting Google in their browser? I.e., they are dependent on Big Tech partnerships for their continued existence.
- dralley 5y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30062081 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30062081
beebmam 5y ago
Anytime someone uses "big" as an adjective like a pejorative, the argument should be obviously weak to anyone with a critical mind. Why should the size of a company have any relevance to its unethical or abusive actions? If a company engages in monopolistic, anti-competitive, or abusive behavior, call it that.
- jonquark 5y ago
  There is an argument that the larger the company, the less human - the more admin and beholdenness to anonymous shareholders after short term profits and therefore it correlates to the type of anti-social behaviour you reference even if it will vary from company to company.
  - nerdponx 5y ago
    More practically: larger means more power, which means greater market asymmetry and general power asymmetry in society. Such situations should always IMO be viewed with skepticism at best.
- nix0n 5y ago
  I agree that small evil companies exist. But, large non-evil companies do not exist.
  - beebmam 5y ago
    Do you genuinely believe in the existence of an "evil"? Like as in, Satan, bad spirits, other supernatural phenomena?
    - crabmusket 5y ago
      Why must evil be supernatural?
      - beebmam 5y ago
        The term "evil" came from some of the oldest written languages and was originally used in a religious/supernatural context, and almost always is used in a religious/supernatural context today. If you intend on using it without a supernatural context, you could say "bad". "But, large non-bad companies do not exist." I hope this helps you realize how unbased in reality this statement is. Maybe you could give me some basis as to how you justify this opinion?
kodah 5y ago
I'm kind of surprised they got two people to let them stick their faces with quotes that are so irrelevant to the pages content, other than being some kind of endorsement. > “Mozilla Rally has the potential to be the Hubble Space Telescope of the Internet.” > David Lazer, University Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Computer Sciences, Northeastern University and > “Mozilla Rally is a revelatory tool that seeks to fix the information imbalance created by tech platforms at the public’s expense.” > Julia Angwin, Editor-in-Chief and Founder of The Markup
adamnemecek 5y ago
Mozilla should go ham on Rust. Make a Rust GUI and then an app store and a cloud hosting service. Become the one stop shop for building anything Rust and make money that way.
- errantmind 5y ago
  That ship has sailed. They have abandoned any pretext of caring about Rust with that last big round of layoffs. Their poor decision making, including Pocket integration, started after they forced Brendan Eich out.
  - pipeline_peak 5y ago
    They had to fire him to relieve PR.
    - fzzzy 5y ago
      They didn't fire Eich. He resigned.
  - fzzzy 5y ago
    The poor decision making started far earlier than when Eich was CEO.
    - errantmind 5y ago
      Like what? I'm just curious, I didn't really notice any major bullshit before 2014.
      - fzzzy 5y ago
        Starting Firefox OS and expecting it to be viable in less than a year?
- fzzzy 5y ago
  They laid off most of the people that work on Rust and Servo.
phendrenad2 5y ago
This is nonsense. The Firefox user base is narrow, self-selecting, and small. They won't be able to "uncover Facebook's tracking network, understand search engine choice, and help local news find sustainability" with that limited instrument. How many Firefox users actually use Facebook? Maybe 100 total?
jebronie 5y ago
I wish there was something like an "unmozilla'ed firefox".
- shmde 5y ago
  Have you tried Waterfox ?
  - nerdponx 5y ago
    Didn't Waterfox get purchased by some sketchy company? Or was that a different Firefox fork.
    - commoner 5y ago
      Waterfox was acquired by System1. Here's their description of what they do: https://system1.com/what-we-do https://system1.com/what-we-do
      - nerdponx 5y ago
        > We combine our best-in-class technology & data science to operate one of the world’s most advanced Responsive Acquisition Marketing Platforms (RAMP). RAMP enables us to build powerful brands across multiple consumer verticals, develop & grow our suite of privacy-focused products, and deliver high-intent customers to our advertising partners.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- fsflover 5y ago
  You are talking about IceCat.
- kuratkull 5y ago
  Iceweasel?
  - 5y ago
iqanq 5y ago
Left fist raised... Yeah, I know where this is going.
guidovranken 5y ago
Brave is the new Mozilla. Mozilla is a husk. Brave launched a new search engine (which works great. try it!), have built-in Tor support, Wayback Machine support, experiment with new revenue models and unlike Mitchell "we need more than deplatforming" Baker, Eich actually seems to have the visceral inclination for the things that Mozilla claims to stand for.
- pl0x 5y ago
  - henriquez 5y ago
    You can turn off the Brave Rewards if you don't want them. If you want to cut off your access to technologies because the man who invented them doesn't meet your puritanical world-view then you should also disable JavaScript since Brendan Eich invented JavaScript. As a gay man I could give two shits about his opinion on gay marriage. In my opinion marriage is inherently a religious institution and the state has no business regulating it whatsoever. From the state's standpoint any combination of genders should be considered a civil union for taxation purposes and if you want to have your union blessed by the religion of your choice, go ahead. They can call it marriage, they can call it a ham sandwich. "Gay marriage" shouldn't legally exist because neither should "marriage." But nuance doesn't exist in a world of anger-driven online lynch mobs.
    - micromacrofoot 5y ago
      You're calling equal rights for gay people puritanical? You're playing a lot of mental gymnastics here. Eich isn't anti-marriage, he specifically supported excluding gay people from marriage. He gave money to one of the most vocal prop 8 supporters and a group that fund-raised on prop 8 specifically. Where's the nuance?
      - soundnote 5y ago
        No. What he's calling puritanical is an attitude where you won't touch things made by people who disagree with you on something. What your position on gay marriage is is largely irrelevant.
blibble 5y ago
this site could easily be of parody of Mozilla but no... it's real
tootie 5y ago
I'm honestly not getting what this does. Is it a qualitative research tool of some sort?
- soundnote 5y ago
  Seems to be about providing data for academic research projects at least at the moment.
catears 5y ago
You have to scroll to the bottom to see what kind of studies they are performing with Rally. For example tracking facebooks tracking pixels (https://rally.mozilla.org/current-studies/facebook-pixel-hunt/ https://rally.mozilla.org/current-studies/facebook-pixel-hun...). I can't determine if this is "fighting big tech with their own weapon" or "adding more tracking to the problem of too much tracking".
errantmind 5y ago
I'm now waiting for this to be installed by default, 'a la' Pocket. It is yet another feature the users are not asking for. Give me privacy and, after that, speed. I don't want ANY data collection that is not opt-in. As it is I have to go out of my way to use a custom `user.js` to get this instead of it coming out of the box.
- dleslie 5y ago
  Pocket is a weird thing. It integrates with my Kobo, and that makes it useful for reading long-form articles on my e-reader. But it should have been opt-in.
  - nerdponx 5y ago
    Wouldn't it have been fine as a regular browser extension then? I assume it's only integrated into Firefox for revenue.
    - dleslie 5y ago
      Yup, it would have been better as an officially-maintained extension.
simion314 5y ago
I dislike Rust the community but Rust the language was a good fit for an alternative browser, IMO Mozilla could afford to hire competent developers outside high paid cities and have them continue doing developer work then just putting more money in side-projects. A faster and safer browser would make a larger difference then some marketing and a giant difference then poor side projects.
agust 5y ago
Really disturbing that there is not even a word on Apple browser engine ban on iOS, holding the mobile web back for years. Mozilla can't ship their own browser on a billion devices worldwide and they're just fine with it.
bitwize 5y ago
Can we just accept that Mozilla is a social justice organization now, not a software development organization? A place where bigcos can donate to, to make their ESG numbers look good to investors.
- none_to_remain 5y ago
  It's gonna be awkward when the browser's market share drops below Lynx but they have to keep working on it as a fig leaf
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
natch 5y ago
Isn’t Mozilla hand in glove with Google? Paid for search traffic, for example. And those Pocket ads. And why isn’t there an easy reader view at one click? And why do they make it so hard to disable JavaScript? In Safari it’s just one easy key combo.
- commoner 5y ago
  Firefox has had a one-click reader view for years, on desktop, Android, and even iOS: - Reader view (desktop): https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-reader-view-clutter-free-web-pages https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-reader-view-clu... - Reader view (Android): https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/view-articles-reader-view-firefox-android https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/view-articles-reader-vi... - Reader view (iOS): https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/view-web-pages-reader-view-firefox-ios https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/view-web-pages-reader-v... A Firefox support page recommends using the NoScript extension for quickly toggling JavaScript, which works on both desktop and Android: - JavaScript support page: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/javascript-settings-for-interactive-web-pages https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/javascript-settings-for... - NoScript: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/noscript/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/noscript/
  - natch 5y ago
    I was looking for Reader view on Linux though…
    - commoner 5y ago
      Does it not work for you on Linux? When I use Firefox on Linux, the reader view icon shows up for me at the right end of the address bar on supported sites. - Guide: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-reader-view-clutter-free-web-pages https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-reader-view-clu... It even works on HN discussion pages (though HN is such a simple site that there's no benefit). You can test it on this discussion (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30061672 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30061672) or any Wikipedia page.
rllearneratwork 5y ago
whoever is in charge of Mozilla needs to go. They are no longer "fighting for the user" but virtue signal while doing the same things so-called "BigTech" does.
pipeline_peak 5y ago
Rust seems to be the only positive thing out of Mozilla these days. I don't know how much of that was a coincidence. They've become some sort of an ethics firm that they front with their dying browser. A little like AOL being reduced to a web portal long after their Netscape days. It's unfortunate because they really can't afford to compete with Google and continue with Servo or anything innovative. They lost the race in browser performance and usershare. The only way I could imagine Firefox regaining the latter would be a political event of the popularity and significance of Net Neutrality "scaring straight" non-technical users into FOSS.
yosamino 5y ago
Dear Mozilla, We want you to make a browser that is so good, that it can function independenty of Google and Chrome financially and technologically. This is not an end in itself. Google is just not a very trustworthy steward of the marketshare that they have on the browser market. You are in a unique position to make this possible. Please double down on it instead of throwing away your hundreds of millions of monies that you have on unfocused, irrelevant bullshit that noone will remember in two years. You made a whole browser engine that actually improved on current engines in Rust and then you basically threw it away. What on earth was that about ? Mozilla we want you to make Firefox without any tracking, and without and advertizing shit in it , and we want it fast and secure, and we love your extensions. Some of us here are even willing to pay you subscription fees to support the browser! But keep in mind that you have millions of dollars already. We loved you all the way from when your product was still called phoenix, Mozilla suite even, and everyone was so excited to have this excellent browser. We pooled money to take out full page ads in a paper newspaper for Firefox. Because we believed in your product so much. I still have the page here. Do you remember ? Please. Stop with this stupid bullshit. Focus, Mozilla, Focus! From the depth of our hearts, PS: and if you find some time, go fix that bug that makes the active tab so difficult to differentiate if lighting conditions or eyesight aren't perfect.
- torstenvl 5y ago
  > PS: and if you find some time, go fix that bug that makes the active tab so difficult to differentiate if lighting conditions or eyesight aren't perfect. https://github.com/torstenvl/userChrome.css https://github.com/torstenvl/userChrome.css
- bee_rider 5y ago
  > PS: and if you find some time, go fix that bug that makes the active tab so difficult to differentiate if lighting conditions or eyesight aren't perfect. Is it possible that this is just a theme issue?
  - kevincox 5y ago
    It is, but it is an issue with the default theme.
ricardobayes 5y ago
I would like a web browser to be a web browser, not a platform of activism.
hartator 5y ago
By accepting even more Google money?
macilacilove 5y ago
After reading Mitchell Baker's "deplatforming isn't enough" rant pushed at me by Firefox, I expect nothing good out of Mozilla under the current leasership, sorry. This really is the kind of thing that could uncover some very shady practices by Facebook and others, but I expect it to produce the same kind of bullshit as the recent "Facebook whistleblower" who worried that facebook is not abusing its power sufficiently to censor and unperson people.
agentdrtran 5y ago
It's sad but not unsurprising to see HN nitpicking this page. Normal website tracking and what companies like facebook, google, or amazon can do aren't comparable. The three partner organizations listed are extremely trustworthy and I know the Markup in particular has done very similar studies in the past, been excellent about informed consent and user data, and uncovered unique data on how social networks display content by doing so.
caycep 5y ago
How "open-sourcey" is Firefox these days? i.e. is there a health community contributing commits a la the linux kernel or are most of the development done in-house these days?
- jatone 5y ago
  redhat contributes to firefox, and firefox contributes a bunch downstream in the form of bug fixes and reporting due to their error telemetry.
pantulis 5y ago
Great! Another "phone home" feature that will bring the browser to its knees in case of some unexpected infrastructure bruhaha!
nickvincent 5y ago
I understand there seems to be a lot of pent-up frustration in these comments, some of it related to this specific initiative and some not. I'd like to highlight a few reasons why this could be exciting and, indeed "pro-user". * The core value proposition in my view, though not spelled out on the linked page (I think because it's targeting a broader-than-HN audience), is that data collection can produce answers to empirical questions about "Big Tech" that would otherwise likely never be answered by anyone except in-house Big Tech data analysts. E.g., empirical questions about the impacts of search engine design choices, how newsfeeds influence behavior, etc. Of course, these studies will face issues with selection bias, but that's not insurmountable, and probably better than nothing. For instance, publicly shared data about Pixel tracking, even from a biased sample, is better than having no data on that topic, IMO! * The collaboration with academics and journalists is important because it means the results of each study will be shared. It's in the incentive systems of both groups to publish results. Best case, individual users, people who build browser extensions, etc. can use findings about search engines and newsfeeds to change their behavior or build new tools. Policy discussions would also benefit from some quantitative grounding. * The alternative ways to answer these questions: academics and journalists run scrapers, data-collection browser extensions, etc. on their own. Harder to do, especially post-Cambridge Analytica and more recently, NYU's ad observatory getting shut down (https://cyber.nyu.edu/2021/08/21/facebook-disables-ad-observatory-academicians-and-journalists-fire-back/ https://cyber.nyu.edu/2021/08/21/facebook-disables-ad-observ...). Or, the state forces tech co.'s to publish answers. Or, we just never know! * A weaker point: This project is trying to set new standards about data management, e.g. providing a true "one click to opt out" option. I see this as an experiment, that other projects can follow if it works. This is a bit more of a stretch than the previous two points. My bias: I'm an academic who wants to see the results of the various studies being conducted, so I'm very hopeful!
- JacobThreeThree 5y ago
  >The collaboration with academics and journalists is important It's not important to me. Projects like this make me want to choose a browser other than Mozilla.
  - 5y ago
beefee 5y ago
Mozilla is big tech. They are funded by big tech and they support big tech's censorship ideology. If they want to actually break with big tech, they can retract and apologize for this pro-censorship advocacy piece: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplatforming/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplat...
azernik 5y ago
The title is editorialized; the phrase in quotes ("fight big tech") appears nowhere on the linked page.
maxclark 5y ago
Umm stop taking money from big tech?
luhego 5y ago
I think this is one of the main reasons why Firefox keeps decreasing in popularity. They focus so much on activism instead of building a great browser. The best activism they could do is to improve Firefox so the Chrome market share decreases. After using Firefox for many years, I recently switched to Brave which has everything I wish in a browser(minus the Crypto stuff which you can disable).
- Markoff 5y ago
  why brave though? It lacks even basic customization options compared to Vivaldi, been Firefox user for years, then I used for year or two Edge, but got sick being afraid of every new update messing things up, now I moved to Vivaldi, tried also Brave but lack of options was horrible, if I wanted barebone browser i would go for Chromium woolys
- jatone 5y ago
  its almost like they have different departments.....
  - iakov 5y ago
    I never understood this argument. Yeah they have different departments, but wouldn’t it be better (for us, Firefox users) to fire the virtue signaling marketing types and funnel the money into developing their dying browser? Oh wait, that’s exactly the opposite of what Mozilla is doing - they fired a hundred of engineering people some time ago. I guess the activist talking heads stayed though.
    - jatone 5y ago
      I wasn't making an argument. I was simply pointing out different groups have different priorities even within a single organization. I wish firefox would focus on getting the browser up to snuff for daily usability things like basic profile switching and better defaults for privacy. but c'est la vie.
    - twelve40 5y ago
aftergibson 5y ago
Even putting aside the usual (valid) complaints against Mozilla, what even is this? Uncover Facebook tracking. For what outcome? Help local news find sustainability. What does this even mean? What meaningful outcome comes from this Mozilla either for myself as a user or the wider community? Give me a tangible example of the benefits, please!
goodusername 5y ago
To me, this seem like a fine initiative, all things considered. There's a bit of a false dichotomy in some comments, where Mozilla Rally is preventing or hampering Mozilla from improving Firefox. They can and should do both at the same time, especially if both are positive things. It doesn't mean all their initiatives are equally good, and that we shouldn't still criticize the bad ones. But this seems benign at worst, and could possibly do some good. it's completely opt in, transparent, and with very strong user control over the data. Instead of chastising them for all their other shortcomings yet again, I prefer to be happy that this might benefit ethical research.
sleepingadmin 5y ago

>"Big tech has built its success by exploiting your data. When you join Mozilla Rally studies, your data helps us uncover Facebook's tracking network, understand search engine choice, and help local news find sustainability." Understand search engine choice? That's an absurd thing to say; 90% of their revenue comes from default-search-engine contracts... https://www.pcmag.com/news/mozilla-signs-lucrative-3-year-google-search-deal-for-firefox https://www.pcmag.com/news/mozilla-signs-lucrative-3-year-go... >"The majority of Mozilla's income (over 90 percent) is generated from relationships with search engines and Google has always been top of the list."

deleted 5y ago
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rcktmrtn 5y ago
Yeah, what I see here is a moralistic attacks on the "Facebook tracking network" from an organization that's 90% bankrolled by one of their largest competitors. No doubt they'll report some true and nasty stuff about Facebook, but this is straight out of the "Big Tobacco/Oil" research funding playbook.

capableweb 5y ago

> Each study has a clear focus, unique data needs, and specific goals. Before you enroll, we’ll tell you exactly who we’re working with, which data is being collected, where it’s going, and how it’s being used. Ironically, the page loads JS from https://cdn-3.convertexperiments.com https://cdn-3.convertexperiments.com (seems to belong to convert.com) and Twitter, without disclosing the fact that Mozilla is sharing your browser data with those two entities. I'm a daily Firefox user myself, but I can't help to feel that each political effort they try to execute either backfires, or draws resources from what really has to be done: developing and maintaining a excellent user agent for the open web.

perihelions 5y ago
>"Ironically, the page loads JS from https://cdn-3.convertexperiments.com https://cdn-3.convertexperiments.com (seems to belong to convert.com) and Twitter, without disclosing the fact that Mozilla is sharing your browser data with those two entities." This is why (for the narrow demographic that bothers to care) uMatrix is such an awesome tool. This page is completely functional without loading either of those domains' shovelware -- and it saves laptop battery life too. This is true for most pages. Ironic indeed that it's mozilla.org illustrating this point. Block everything by default! Block all the things!
- capableweb 5y ago
  uMatrix and it's cousin is truly a miracle for the web! I've run it (or a variant of it) for as long as I can remember. The requests were blocked in my browser, but the reason I checked in the first is the same reason I check every time some service claims to be pro-privacy or other similar things like this landing page: Are you actually living up to your words? In this case, they didn't, and honestly, there is not a cases where they do live up to their word 100%.
  - justaj 5y ago
    Though unfortunately uMatrix is no longer maintained: https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix

ent101 5y ago

This doesn't make sense at all. Isn't Mozilla mostly financed by their agreements with Google and other search engines?!

dralley 5y ago
Or maybe the premise that Mozilla is beholden to Google because of their income stream is false? It seems like every other month there's a thread complaining about how Mozilla would never really do anything against Google's interests because of their income stream, and then every other month in between those rant threads Mozilla launches some new tracking protection [0] or privacy initiative directed specifically against Google. [0] https://twitter.com/__jakub_g/status/1365400306767581185 https://twitter.com/__jakub_g/status/1365400306767581185
- ent101 5y ago
  Yes, the premise might be false but Mozilla is not doing a great job clarifying this.
- errantmind 5y ago
  It is disingenuous when they, themselves, collect so much data about users by default.
- forgotmyoldacc 5y ago
  Isn't it a funny coincidence that Firefox offers a Facebook container, but not a Google one, despite both companies having the same amount of tracking across the web? https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/facebook-container-prevent-facebook-tracking https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/facebook-container-prev...
  - nerdponx 5y ago
    Facebook is a boogeyman and a distraction from the huge and shady ad-tech industry as a whole. Zuck takes a few on the chin in front of an inept US Congress, who eventually proposes some weak legislation that doesn't actually protect anyone, and the industry chugs happily along making money and not giving a shit about the repercussions. Pretty much the same as oil & gas, big pharma, big ag, etc.

thesausageking 5y ago

I've lost faith in Mozilla over the last decade and this initiative is a great example. The web is in a rough state but doing research on user data isn't going to solve anything. The way it gets fixed is new technologies that allow new apps and social networks that replace the old ones. This is what Mozilla should working on.

chrisseaton 5y ago

Brought to you by a company that abused their experiment system to install an advert for some TV show into your browsers.

syshum 5y ago
That is far from their only Anti-User violation. To me Mozilla is barely distinguishable from Google at this point
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
  Firefox sends search queries to Google by default, by agreement, and derives almost all of its revenue from that business partnership with Google ("Big Tech"). Mozilla is Google's ally. Rally purports to uncover the tracking network of Google's main competitor, Facebook, as well as to "understand search engine choice" (no pun intended), Google's formidable competitors for web search market share.
MikusR 5y ago
It was worse. They abused their emergency security system to do that.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

gkoberger 5y ago

There was a time when Mozilla really did fight big tech. I loved working there. Internally the phrase "we fight for the user" was used, and it felt true. Now they're just using that same war-cry as marketing to get you to sign up and fill out surveys for their market research. They're doing exactly what they're mad big tech is doing (collecting data), but with a dose of moral superiority. It's sad that they've taken a message that resonates and just haphazardly use it for messaging anything they're building.

colordrops 5y ago
I installed firefox focus which is a privacy first mobile browser that advertises that it cuts out phoning home. I was irate when I dug into the settings and found out that "Studies" is on by default. Research data collection should always be opt-in rather than opt-out, especially for privacy focused software.
- scrollaway 5y ago
  Being mad about something like this is just choosing the wrong hill to die on, honestly. Studies (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/shield https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/shield) are clearly just a/b testing of features for the browser. Doing this opt-in creates selection bias which corrupts the whole idea of running a/b tests. So instead of saying "you should run your a/b tests opt-in only", what you really mean is "in order to fight for privacy, you should never run a/b tests", which, again, totally wrong hill to die on. Why is it so important they not be allowed to try different features to figure out which ones work and which ones don't? Mozilla has made so many missteps they circled a small planet with them. This isn't one of them.
  - zdragnar 5y ago
    If you advertise a browser as being all about privacy, you absolutely should not be a/b testing users without their explicit consent. It is amazing to me that this needs to be said.
    - 5y ago

andrewguenther 5y ago

So rather than fighting mass data harvesting, Mozilla just wants a piece of the pie and is trying to claim the moral high ground? Mozilla's positioning as a privacy advocate while consistently pushing projects that are antithetical to privacy is just nauseating.

jancsika 5y ago
Just in general... I'm not sure we can meaningfully advocate for privacy atm without having a better understanding of what data big tech collects, what inferences they can glean from even limited data sets, what changes in behavior their customers can nudge users toward, and the worst-case hazards that extant algos can create. Honestly, I wouldn't mind joining an "Evilcorp" social media network run by FSF, EFF, or some such, if it were done in a way where the insights gleaned about big tech dangers were to be made public in a responsible way. It's one thing to watch a documentary that provides a vignette with actors showing how social media might nudge a teen away socializing to instead check their status updates. It's quite another to find out that a single, seemingly trivial change to the "Evilcorp" feed caused an average of 2 hours less sleep for its userbase. I'd also want to know-- what's the worst case sleep loss average? It's important to have detailed answers to these kinds of questions if we want to meaningfully protect our privacy online. And we don't even have something as crucial as `git blame` for these types of things. And given the ubiquity of data mining today, the dangers of creating such a dataset must be a drop in the bucket by comparison.
Barrin92 5y ago
>pushing projects that are antithetical to privacy is just nauseating this is a research tool. People voluntarily and with their own consent contribute data to understand how tech companies and algorithms use data. If privacy now apparently entails that voluntarily collected data for scientific purposes is illegitimate we better close every university and business on earth down. These complaints are getting a little bit ridiculous.

captainredbeard 5y ago

The art style on that page makes me think of Soviet bloc propaganda.

baal80spam 5y ago
Of course it's subjective but I also find it hideous.
maze-le 5y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_realism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_realism
- perihelions 5y ago
  Sovietology jokes aside, it's actually "Corporate Memphis" (I think!): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27107820 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27107820 ("Why does every advert look the same? Corporate Memphis (wired.co.uk)") [189 comments] >"The illustration style is flat, geometric, figurative, and usually made up of solid colours... It’s an aesthetic that’s often referred to as ‘Corporate Memphis’, and it’s become the definitive style for big tech and small startups, relentlessly imitated and increasingly parodied. It involves the use of simple, well-bounded scenes of flat cartoon figures in action, often with a slight distortion in proportions (the most common of which being long, bendy arms) to signal that a company is fun and creative."
CollinEMac 5y ago
That's kind of always been Mozilla's thing. https://www.jwz.org/blog/2016/10/they-live-and-the-secret-history-of-the-mozilla-logo/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2016/10/they-live-and-the-secret-hi...

cryptoboy2283 5y ago

What a joke. Obvious controlled opposition sponsored by Google

artificialLimbs 5y ago

From "How we use your data": >> ...put the power to create a positive change in the right hands. No way would I touch something like this with your pole. This is langauge that paves a clear path for abuse. This isn't even modern day virtue signaling, it's been around for ages. I can't manage to see Mozilla as standing on integrous ground, with their constant spewing of 'woke' bs and muddy objectives/chasing of butterflies. Create something new to love, rather than fighting against what you hate.

petermcneeley 5y ago

Related: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplatforming/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplat...

henning 5y ago

Doesn't Mozilla's main source of revenue come from putting Google in their browser? I.e., they are dependent on Big Tech partnerships for their continued existence.

dralley 5y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30062081 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30062081

beebmam 5y ago

Anytime someone uses "big" as an adjective like a pejorative, the argument should be obviously weak to anyone with a critical mind. Why should the size of a company have any relevance to its unethical or abusive actions? If a company engages in monopolistic, anti-competitive, or abusive behavior, call it that.

jonquark 5y ago
There is an argument that the larger the company, the less human - the more admin and beholdenness to anonymous shareholders after short term profits and therefore it correlates to the type of anti-social behaviour you reference even if it will vary from company to company.
- nerdponx 5y ago
  More practically: larger means more power, which means greater market asymmetry and general power asymmetry in society. Such situations should always IMO be viewed with skepticism at best.
nix0n 5y ago
I agree that small evil companies exist. But, large non-evil companies do not exist.
- beebmam 5y ago
  Do you genuinely believe in the existence of an "evil"? Like as in, Satan, bad spirits, other supernatural phenomena?
  - crabmusket 5y ago
    Why must evil be supernatural?
    - beebmam 5y ago
      The term "evil" came from some of the oldest written languages and was originally used in a religious/supernatural context, and almost always is used in a religious/supernatural context today. If you intend on using it without a supernatural context, you could say "bad". "But, large non-bad companies do not exist." I hope this helps you realize how unbased in reality this statement is. Maybe you could give me some basis as to how you justify this opinion?

kodah 5y ago

I'm kind of surprised they got two people to let them stick their faces with quotes that are so irrelevant to the pages content, other than being some kind of endorsement. > “Mozilla Rally has the potential to be the Hubble Space Telescope of the Internet.” > David Lazer, University Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Computer Sciences, Northeastern University and > “Mozilla Rally is a revelatory tool that seeks to fix the information imbalance created by tech platforms at the public’s expense.” > Julia Angwin, Editor-in-Chief and Founder of The Markup

adamnemecek 5y ago

Mozilla should go ham on Rust. Make a Rust GUI and then an app store and a cloud hosting service. Become the one stop shop for building anything Rust and make money that way.

errantmind 5y ago
That ship has sailed. They have abandoned any pretext of caring about Rust with that last big round of layoffs. Their poor decision making, including Pocket integration, started after they forced Brendan Eich out.
- pipeline_peak 5y ago
  They had to fire him to relieve PR.
  - fzzzy 5y ago
    They didn't fire Eich. He resigned.
- fzzzy 5y ago
  The poor decision making started far earlier than when Eich was CEO.
  - errantmind 5y ago
    Like what? I'm just curious, I didn't really notice any major bullshit before 2014.
    - fzzzy 5y ago
      Starting Firefox OS and expecting it to be viable in less than a year?
fzzzy 5y ago
They laid off most of the people that work on Rust and Servo.

phendrenad2 5y ago

This is nonsense. The Firefox user base is narrow, self-selecting, and small. They won't be able to "uncover Facebook's tracking network, understand search engine choice, and help local news find sustainability" with that limited instrument. How many Firefox users actually use Facebook? Maybe 100 total?

jebronie 5y ago

I wish there was something like an "unmozilla'ed firefox".

shmde 5y ago
Have you tried Waterfox ?
- nerdponx 5y ago
  Didn't Waterfox get purchased by some sketchy company? Or was that a different Firefox fork.
  - commoner 5y ago
    Waterfox was acquired by System1. Here's their description of what they do: https://system1.com/what-we-do https://system1.com/what-we-do
    - nerdponx 5y ago
      > We combine our best-in-class technology & data science to operate one of the world’s most advanced Responsive Acquisition Marketing Platforms (RAMP). RAMP enables us to build powerful brands across multiple consumer verticals, develop & grow our suite of privacy-focused products, and deliver high-intent customers to our advertising partners.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
fsflover 5y ago
You are talking about IceCat.
kuratkull 5y ago
Iceweasel?
- 5y ago

iqanq 5y ago

Left fist raised... Yeah, I know where this is going.

guidovranken 5y ago

Brave is the new Mozilla. Mozilla is a husk. Brave launched a new search engine (which works great. try it!), have built-in Tor support, Wayback Machine support, experiment with new revenue models and unlike Mitchell "we need more than deplatforming" Baker, Eich actually seems to have the visceral inclination for the things that Mozilla claims to stand for.

pl0x 5y ago
- henriquez 5y ago
  You can turn off the Brave Rewards if you don't want them. If you want to cut off your access to technologies because the man who invented them doesn't meet your puritanical world-view then you should also disable JavaScript since Brendan Eich invented JavaScript. As a gay man I could give two shits about his opinion on gay marriage. In my opinion marriage is inherently a religious institution and the state has no business regulating it whatsoever. From the state's standpoint any combination of genders should be considered a civil union for taxation purposes and if you want to have your union blessed by the religion of your choice, go ahead. They can call it marriage, they can call it a ham sandwich. "Gay marriage" shouldn't legally exist because neither should "marriage." But nuance doesn't exist in a world of anger-driven online lynch mobs.
  - micromacrofoot 5y ago
    You're calling equal rights for gay people puritanical? You're playing a lot of mental gymnastics here. Eich isn't anti-marriage, he specifically supported excluding gay people from marriage. He gave money to one of the most vocal prop 8 supporters and a group that fund-raised on prop 8 specifically. Where's the nuance?
    - soundnote 5y ago
      No. What he's calling puritanical is an attitude where you won't touch things made by people who disagree with you on something. What your position on gay marriage is is largely irrelevant.

blibble 5y ago

this site could easily be of parody of Mozilla but no... it's real

tootie 5y ago

I'm honestly not getting what this does. Is it a qualitative research tool of some sort?

soundnote 5y ago
Seems to be about providing data for academic research projects at least at the moment.

catears 5y ago

You have to scroll to the bottom to see what kind of studies they are performing with Rally. For example tracking facebooks tracking pixels (https://rally.mozilla.org/current-studies/facebook-pixel-hunt/ https://rally.mozilla.org/current-studies/facebook-pixel-hun...). I can't determine if this is "fighting big tech with their own weapon" or "adding more tracking to the problem of too much tracking".

errantmind 5y ago

I'm now waiting for this to be installed by default, 'a la' Pocket. It is yet another feature the users are not asking for. Give me privacy and, after that, speed. I don't want ANY data collection that is not opt-in. As it is I have to go out of my way to use a custom `user.js` to get this instead of it coming out of the box.

dleslie 5y ago
Pocket is a weird thing. It integrates with my Kobo, and that makes it useful for reading long-form articles on my e-reader. But it should have been opt-in.
- nerdponx 5y ago
  Wouldn't it have been fine as a regular browser extension then? I assume it's only integrated into Firefox for revenue.
  - dleslie 5y ago
    Yup, it would have been better as an officially-maintained extension.

simion314 5y ago

I dislike Rust the community but Rust the language was a good fit for an alternative browser, IMO Mozilla could afford to hire competent developers outside high paid cities and have them continue doing developer work then just putting more money in side-projects. A faster and safer browser would make a larger difference then some marketing and a giant difference then poor side projects.

agust 5y ago

Really disturbing that there is not even a word on Apple browser engine ban on iOS, holding the mobile web back for years. Mozilla can't ship their own browser on a billion devices worldwide and they're just fine with it.

bitwize 5y ago

Can we just accept that Mozilla is a social justice organization now, not a software development organization? A place where bigcos can donate to, to make their ESG numbers look good to investors.

none_to_remain 5y ago
It's gonna be awkward when the browser's market share drops below Lynx but they have to keep working on it as a fig leaf

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

natch 5y ago

Isn’t Mozilla hand in glove with Google? Paid for search traffic, for example. And those Pocket ads. And why isn’t there an easy reader view at one click? And why do they make it so hard to disable JavaScript? In Safari it’s just one easy key combo.

commoner 5y ago
Firefox has had a one-click reader view for years, on desktop, Android, and even iOS: - Reader view (desktop): https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-reader-view-clutter-free-web-pages https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-reader-view-clu... - Reader view (Android): https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/view-articles-reader-view-firefox-android https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/view-articles-reader-vi... - Reader view (iOS): https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/view-web-pages-reader-view-firefox-ios https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/view-web-pages-reader-v... A Firefox support page recommends using the NoScript extension for quickly toggling JavaScript, which works on both desktop and Android: - JavaScript support page: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/javascript-settings-for-interactive-web-pages https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/javascript-settings-for... - NoScript: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/noscript/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/noscript/
- natch 5y ago
  I was looking for Reader view on Linux though…
  - commoner 5y ago
    Does it not work for you on Linux? When I use Firefox on Linux, the reader view icon shows up for me at the right end of the address bar on supported sites. - Guide: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-reader-view-clutter-free-web-pages https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-reader-view-clu... It even works on HN discussion pages (though HN is such a simple site that there's no benefit). You can test it on this discussion (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30061672 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30061672) or any Wikipedia page.

rllearneratwork 5y ago

whoever is in charge of Mozilla needs to go. They are no longer "fighting for the user" but virtue signal while doing the same things so-called "BigTech" does.

pipeline_peak 5y ago

Rust seems to be the only positive thing out of Mozilla these days. I don't know how much of that was a coincidence. They've become some sort of an ethics firm that they front with their dying browser. A little like AOL being reduced to a web portal long after their Netscape days. It's unfortunate because they really can't afford to compete with Google and continue with Servo or anything innovative. They lost the race in browser performance and usershare. The only way I could imagine Firefox regaining the latter would be a political event of the popularity and significance of Net Neutrality "scaring straight" non-technical users into FOSS.

yosamino 5y ago

Dear Mozilla, We want you to make a browser that is so good, that it can function independenty of Google and Chrome financially and technologically. This is not an end in itself. Google is just not a very trustworthy steward of the marketshare that they have on the browser market. You are in a unique position to make this possible. Please double down on it instead of throwing away your hundreds of millions of monies that you have on unfocused, irrelevant bullshit that noone will remember in two years. You made a whole browser engine that actually improved on current engines in Rust and then you basically threw it away. What on earth was that about ? Mozilla we want you to make Firefox without any tracking, and without and advertizing shit in it , and we want it fast and secure, and we love your extensions. Some of us here are even willing to pay you subscription fees to support the browser! But keep in mind that you have millions of dollars already. We loved you all the way from when your product was still called phoenix, Mozilla suite even, and everyone was so excited to have this excellent browser. We pooled money to take out full page ads in a paper newspaper for Firefox. Because we believed in your product so much. I still have the page here. Do you remember ? Please. Stop with this stupid bullshit. Focus, Mozilla, Focus! From the depth of our hearts, PS: and if you find some time, go fix that bug that makes the active tab so difficult to differentiate if lighting conditions or eyesight aren't perfect.

torstenvl 5y ago
> PS: and if you find some time, go fix that bug that makes the active tab so difficult to differentiate if lighting conditions or eyesight aren't perfect. https://github.com/torstenvl/userChrome.css https://github.com/torstenvl/userChrome.css
bee_rider 5y ago
> PS: and if you find some time, go fix that bug that makes the active tab so difficult to differentiate if lighting conditions or eyesight aren't perfect. Is it possible that this is just a theme issue?
- kevincox 5y ago
  It is, but it is an issue with the default theme.

ricardobayes 5y ago

I would like a web browser to be a web browser, not a platform of activism.

hartator 5y ago

By accepting even more Google money?

macilacilove 5y ago

After reading Mitchell Baker's "deplatforming isn't enough" rant pushed at me by Firefox, I expect nothing good out of Mozilla under the current leasership, sorry. This really is the kind of thing that could uncover some very shady practices by Facebook and others, but I expect it to produce the same kind of bullshit as the recent "Facebook whistleblower" who worried that facebook is not abusing its power sufficiently to censor and unperson people.

agentdrtran 5y ago

It's sad but not unsurprising to see HN nitpicking this page. Normal website tracking and what companies like facebook, google, or amazon can do aren't comparable. The three partner organizations listed are extremely trustworthy and I know the Markup in particular has done very similar studies in the past, been excellent about informed consent and user data, and uncovered unique data on how social networks display content by doing so.

caycep 5y ago

How "open-sourcey" is Firefox these days? i.e. is there a health community contributing commits a la the linux kernel or are most of the development done in-house these days?

jatone 5y ago
redhat contributes to firefox, and firefox contributes a bunch downstream in the form of bug fixes and reporting due to their error telemetry.

pantulis 5y ago

Great! Another "phone home" feature that will bring the browser to its knees in case of some unexpected infrastructure bruhaha!

nickvincent 5y ago

I understand there seems to be a lot of pent-up frustration in these comments, some of it related to this specific initiative and some not. I'd like to highlight a few reasons why this could be exciting and, indeed "pro-user". * The core value proposition in my view, though not spelled out on the linked page (I think because it's targeting a broader-than-HN audience), is that data collection can produce answers to empirical questions about "Big Tech" that would otherwise likely never be answered by anyone except in-house Big Tech data analysts. E.g., empirical questions about the impacts of search engine design choices, how newsfeeds influence behavior, etc. Of course, these studies will face issues with selection bias, but that's not insurmountable, and probably better than nothing. For instance, publicly shared data about Pixel tracking, even from a biased sample, is better than having no data on that topic, IMO! * The collaboration with academics and journalists is important because it means the results of each study will be shared. It's in the incentive systems of both groups to publish results. Best case, individual users, people who build browser extensions, etc. can use findings about search engines and newsfeeds to change their behavior or build new tools. Policy discussions would also benefit from some quantitative grounding. * The alternative ways to answer these questions: academics and journalists run scrapers, data-collection browser extensions, etc. on their own. Harder to do, especially post-Cambridge Analytica and more recently, NYU's ad observatory getting shut down (https://cyber.nyu.edu/2021/08/21/facebook-disables-ad-observatory-academicians-and-journalists-fire-back/ https://cyber.nyu.edu/2021/08/21/facebook-disables-ad-observ...). Or, the state forces tech co.'s to publish answers. Or, we just never know! * A weaker point: This project is trying to set new standards about data management, e.g. providing a true "one click to opt out" option. I see this as an experiment, that other projects can follow if it works. This is a bit more of a stretch than the previous two points. My bias: I'm an academic who wants to see the results of the various studies being conducted, so I'm very hopeful!

JacobThreeThree 5y ago
>The collaboration with academics and journalists is important It's not important to me. Projects like this make me want to choose a browser other than Mozilla.
- 5y ago

beefee 5y ago

Mozilla is big tech. They are funded by big tech and they support big tech's censorship ideology. If they want to actually break with big tech, they can retract and apologize for this pro-censorship advocacy piece: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplatforming/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplat...

azernik 5y ago

The title is editorialized; the phrase in quotes ("fight big tech") appears nowhere on the linked page.

maxclark 5y ago

Umm stop taking money from big tech?

luhego 5y ago

I think this is one of the main reasons why Firefox keeps decreasing in popularity. They focus so much on activism instead of building a great browser. The best activism they could do is to improve Firefox so the Chrome market share decreases. After using Firefox for many years, I recently switched to Brave which has everything I wish in a browser(minus the Crypto stuff which you can disable).

Markoff 5y ago
why brave though? It lacks even basic customization options compared to Vivaldi, been Firefox user for years, then I used for year or two Edge, but got sick being afraid of every new update messing things up, now I moved to Vivaldi, tried also Brave but lack of options was horrible, if I wanted barebone browser i would go for Chromium woolys
jatone 5y ago
its almost like they have different departments.....
- iakov 5y ago
  I never understood this argument. Yeah they have different departments, but wouldn’t it be better (for us, Firefox users) to fire the virtue signaling marketing types and funnel the money into developing their dying browser? Oh wait, that’s exactly the opposite of what Mozilla is doing - they fired a hundred of engineering people some time ago. I guess the activist talking heads stayed though.
  - jatone 5y ago
    I wasn't making an argument. I was simply pointing out different groups have different priorities even within a single organization. I wish firefox would focus on getting the browser up to snuff for daily usability things like basic profile switching and better defaults for privacy. but c'est la vie.
  - twelve40 5y ago

aftergibson 5y ago

Even putting aside the usual (valid) complaints against Mozilla, what even is this? Uncover Facebook tracking. For what outcome? Help local news find sustainability. What does this even mean? What meaningful outcome comes from this Mozilla either for myself as a user or the wider community? Give me a tangible example of the benefits, please!

goodusername 5y ago

To me, this seem like a fine initiative, all things considered. There's a bit of a false dichotomy in some comments, where Mozilla Rally is preventing or hampering Mozilla from improving Firefox. They can and should do both at the same time, especially if both are positive things. It doesn't mean all their initiatives are equally good, and that we shouldn't still criticize the bad ones. But this seems benign at worst, and could possibly do some good. it's completely opt in, transparent, and with very strong user control over the data. Instead of chastising them for all their other shortcomings yet again, I prefer to be happy that this might benefit ethical research.

sleepingadmin 5y ago