4 ms·

Why is this being hated on? It's a revenue model for them to make the competitive browser we want... Having these large branded cosmetic additions to firefox i

by AnEro 5y ago

Why is this being hated on? It's a revenue model for them to make the competitive browser we want... Having these large branded cosmetic additions to firefox is kinda a genius non-intrusive or at least less intrusive way to do advertisements.

marginalia_nu 5y ago
I'm frustrated with Mozilla because they talk really big, but their actions time and time again fail to line up with what they are actually saying. They can't open their mouths without talking about how much they care about privacy, but at the same time making it nearly impossible to opt out of their telemetry. For Mozilla, invasion of privacy only appears to be bad when other people are doing it. This just comes off as sanctimonious and hypocritical. What's really frustrating is that they absolutely could do good. If they actually managed to live up to even half their words, they'd be amazing. But for some reason, they just... don't.
- yoasif_ 5y ago
  > but at the same time making it nearly impossible to opt out of their telemetry It is one checkbox in the settings. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/share-data-mozilla-help-improve-firefox https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/share-data-mozilla-help... Two if you don't want to be put into studies - I don't think Origin Trials in Chrome can be opted out of at all (if you know how, it'd be nice to tell us).
  - marginalia_nu 5y ago
    No, that only disables some telemetry. Here are some of the options you need to disable: https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxquestions/comments/joef72/is_there_any_way_to_disable_firefox_telemetry/ https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxquestions/comments/joef72/is_t... Be sure to read the top comment. They are also doing this bullshit, which isn't even a little bit OK: https://mozilla.github.io/normandy/index.html https://mozilla.github.io/normandy/index.html > Two if you don't want to be put into studies - I don't think Origin Trials in Chrome can be opted out of at all (if you know how, it'd be nice to tell us). What Chrome does is completely irrelevant. I don't want a browser that is less bad than Chrome, I want one that is good.
    - yoasif_ 5y ago
      From what I recall, the reason for the telemetry opt out telemetry is because they wanted to know whether the telemetry data was actually representative. Personally, I think it is totally fair to open a bug or submit an idea revisiting whether this is necessary anymore. I would assume that they now have a pretty good idea of what the opt out rate is in the wild. If you file a bug, please post it, because I'd be curious to follow what happens afterwards.
      - marginalia_nu 5y ago
        I honestly don't care how they rationalize it, either they respect their users' privacy, or they don't. They have demonstrably chosen the second option. Having opt-out telemetry and experiments is really bad. Not actually disabling the telemetry when you opt out of it is absolutely inexcusable. There is just no other way of interpreting it than that they don't give a flying fuck about what their users want. The fact that they want the data is enough to disregard any choices made by the users. Pretty much every single violation of privacy can be rationalized with someone feeling like they need the data for some reason or another. Mozilla does not get special dispensation to spy on their users.
        yoasif_ 5y ago
        I feel like you are just ranting at this point. You can try to be part of the solution by making your case to the project - your choice.
        marginalia_nu 5y ago
        Mozilla's actions not living up to their lofty words is not a bug in the software. Half of the problematic features have little to no legitimate reason to exist in the first place.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  > They can't open their mouths without talking about how much they care about privacy Agreed. Besides telemetry, merely achieving privacy when it comes to browsing requires manually turning up the tracking protection level to the strictest and installing a third-party add-on: uBlock Origin. This gives a false sense of security to less tech-savvy users who (reasonably) believe that they'll actually have privacy by installing a privacy-focused browser from a company that claims to be on their side in all their marketing.
brimble 5y ago
Firefox's closest competition, feature-wise, in early versions was Opera, which was adware with a pay-to-remove-ads option and already did pretty much everything that Firefox brought to the table, and then some. I loved Phoenix/Firebird/early-Firefox, but it's hard to make the case it was better than Opera for ordinary users at the time—except that it didn't have ads, and was a little smaller/leaner. Firefox became far more successful than Opera, at least outside the embedded market. Maybe the adware browser model can make a comeback and be super-successful this time because things have changed, but it didn't work very well the first time. ("But these aren't ads, they're optional themes" true, but you wanna bet they won't advertise it with one or more pop-ups and/or focus-stealing-to-new-advertising-tab thingies, like they do with everything else? Which is funny because one of their big selling points originally was automatically blocking pop-up ads)
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  I used phoenix/firebird/early-firefox too. It was never really smaller than the mozilla suite, they just simplified the UI. This is not intended as an insult, it was exactly what was needed and worked out really well for everybody, it's just amazing how much the reality got lost. In particular, Opera while going the opposite way with their "everything and the kitchen sink" interface for the power user market were legendary for small, fast and nimble code, which is how they ended up running on the Wii and Nintendo DS around this time. I'd be very suprised if they weren't always a smaller download, even with bitorrent, email, ftp clients and whatever other crazy nonsense they had built in. I'm going to check though, just in case it's me that's mistaken. Pheonix 0.1 was double the size of the Opera download at the time.
  - brimble 5y ago
    0.5's installer is a little over half the size of Mozilla 1.0 (~6Mb vs. ~11Mb, for the Win32 versions, both from 2002) which fits with my recollection that it was noticeably faster to download than Mozilla (on, say, Dial Up). I wanna say the on-disk install footprint saw an even bigger difference, but I don't have a great way to test that out quickly. I think we'd definitely class a browser [edit: a modern browser, that is, I'm making the comparison to illustrate that 5Mb wasn't a small difference back in 2002] with an install size a little over half that of Chrome's as notably lighter-weight—though, sure, they did get there largely by just cutting stuff out. You're probably[1 EDIT] right that I'm mis-remembering Opera's download size. I recall it feeling heavier in use, but that was probably something to do with the feel of its particular (non-native) UI, and maybe the extra system resource strain from loading and displaying banner ads for the ad-supported version (there were still some really weak computers in wide use in 2002). [1] I only wrote "probably", originally, because I didn't bother to verify it—not because I don't believe you on that point. I didn't express that very well.

by AnEro 5y ago

marginalia_nu 5y ago

I'm frustrated with Mozilla because they talk really big, but their actions time and time again fail to line up with what they are actually saying. They can't open their mouths without talking about how much they care about privacy, but at the same time making it nearly impossible to opt out of their telemetry. For Mozilla, invasion of privacy only appears to be bad when other people are doing it. This just comes off as sanctimonious and hypocritical. What's really frustrating is that they absolutely could do good. If they actually managed to live up to even half their words, they'd be amazing. But for some reason, they just... don't.

yoasif_ 5y ago
> but at the same time making it nearly impossible to opt out of their telemetry It is one checkbox in the settings. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/share-data-mozilla-help-improve-firefox https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/share-data-mozilla-help... Two if you don't want to be put into studies - I don't think Origin Trials in Chrome can be opted out of at all (if you know how, it'd be nice to tell us).
- marginalia_nu 5y ago
  No, that only disables some telemetry. Here are some of the options you need to disable: https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxquestions/comments/joef72/is_there_any_way_to_disable_firefox_telemetry/ https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxquestions/comments/joef72/is_t... Be sure to read the top comment. They are also doing this bullshit, which isn't even a little bit OK: https://mozilla.github.io/normandy/index.html https://mozilla.github.io/normandy/index.html > Two if you don't want to be put into studies - I don't think Origin Trials in Chrome can be opted out of at all (if you know how, it'd be nice to tell us). What Chrome does is completely irrelevant. I don't want a browser that is less bad than Chrome, I want one that is good.
  - yoasif_ 5y ago
    From what I recall, the reason for the telemetry opt out telemetry is because they wanted to know whether the telemetry data was actually representative. Personally, I think it is totally fair to open a bug or submit an idea revisiting whether this is necessary anymore. I would assume that they now have a pretty good idea of what the opt out rate is in the wild. If you file a bug, please post it, because I'd be curious to follow what happens afterwards.
    - marginalia_nu 5y ago
      I honestly don't care how they rationalize it, either they respect their users' privacy, or they don't. They have demonstrably chosen the second option. Having opt-out telemetry and experiments is really bad. Not actually disabling the telemetry when you opt out of it is absolutely inexcusable. There is just no other way of interpreting it than that they don't give a flying fuck about what their users want. The fact that they want the data is enough to disregard any choices made by the users. Pretty much every single violation of privacy can be rationalized with someone feeling like they need the data for some reason or another. Mozilla does not get special dispensation to spy on their users.
      - yoasif_ 5y ago
        I feel like you are just ranting at this point. You can try to be part of the solution by making your case to the project - your choice.
        marginalia_nu 5y ago
        Mozilla's actions not living up to their lofty words is not a bug in the software. Half of the problematic features have little to no legitimate reason to exist in the first place.
Nextgrid 5y ago
> They can't open their mouths without talking about how much they care about privacy Agreed. Besides telemetry, merely achieving privacy when it comes to browsing requires manually turning up the tracking protection level to the strictest and installing a third-party add-on: uBlock Origin. This gives a false sense of security to less tech-savvy users who (reasonably) believe that they'll actually have privacy by installing a privacy-focused browser from a company that claims to be on their side in all their marketing.

brimble 5y ago

Firefox's closest competition, feature-wise, in early versions was Opera, which was adware with a pay-to-remove-ads option and already did pretty much everything that Firefox brought to the table, and then some. I loved Phoenix/Firebird/early-Firefox, but it's hard to make the case it was better than Opera for ordinary users at the time—except that it didn't have ads, and was a little smaller/leaner. Firefox became far more successful than Opera, at least outside the embedded market. Maybe the adware browser model can make a comeback and be super-successful this time because things have changed, but it didn't work very well the first time. ("But these aren't ads, they're optional themes" true, but you wanna bet they won't advertise it with one or more pop-ups and/or focus-stealing-to-new-advertising-tab thingies, like they do with everything else? Which is funny because one of their big selling points originally was automatically blocking pop-up ads)

ZeroGravitas 5y ago
I used phoenix/firebird/early-firefox too. It was never really smaller than the mozilla suite, they just simplified the UI. This is not intended as an insult, it was exactly what was needed and worked out really well for everybody, it's just amazing how much the reality got lost. In particular, Opera while going the opposite way with their "everything and the kitchen sink" interface for the power user market were legendary for small, fast and nimble code, which is how they ended up running on the Wii and Nintendo DS around this time. I'd be very suprised if they weren't always a smaller download, even with bitorrent, email, ftp clients and whatever other crazy nonsense they had built in. I'm going to check though, just in case it's me that's mistaken. Pheonix 0.1 was double the size of the Opera download at the time.
- brimble 5y ago
  0.5's installer is a little over half the size of Mozilla 1.0 (~6Mb vs. ~11Mb, for the Win32 versions, both from 2002) which fits with my recollection that it was noticeably faster to download than Mozilla (on, say, Dial Up). I wanna say the on-disk install footprint saw an even bigger difference, but I don't have a great way to test that out quickly. I think we'd definitely class a browser [edit: a modern browser, that is, I'm making the comparison to illustrate that 5Mb wasn't a small difference back in 2002] with an install size a little over half that of Chrome's as notably lighter-weight—though, sure, they did get there largely by just cutting stuff out. You're probably[1 EDIT] right that I'm mis-remembering Opera's download size. I recall it feeling heavier in use, but that was probably something to do with the feel of its particular (non-native) UI, and maybe the extra system resource strain from loading and displaying banner ads for the ad-supported version (there were still some really weak computers in wide use in 2002). [1] I only wrote "probably", originally, because I didn't bother to verify it—not because I don't believe you on that point. I didn't express that very well.