16 ms·

Firefox search update

229 points by murillians 2y ago

resource_waste 2y ago
I installed firefox on my new computer and it reminded my of Microsoft Windows. Lots of ads. Its just a glimpse into the future of this company. We are past the peak.
formerly_proven 2y ago
[flagged]
parrellel 2y ago
Welp, thanks for telling me what to turn off right now Mozilla.
- mst 2y ago
  Providing a link to their own comprehensive guide to turn everything off definitely earns style points in my book.
- UberFly 2y ago
  Turning off telemetry has always been easy in Firefox settings. If I'm reading it correctly, the same checkbox we've all be clicking off for years now also disables this too same as always.
mtmail 2y ago
"list of categories we’re using: animals, arts, autos, business, career, education, fashion, finance, food, government, health, hobbies, home, inconclusive, news, real estate, society, sports, tech and travel." "This helps us [...] providing a browsing experience that is more tailored to your needs" How would my browsing experience be different in any of the categories? Unless it's about showing me ads yet again.
- cflewis 2y ago
  Yeah, this is the rub of it. I don’t want my browser to know about me. It’s not necessary. What are they gonna do, release a gaming-aesthetic browser like Opera did? Can’t this data be gleaned some most definitely not identifiable way like download number for particular platforms (“hey, we’re getting a lot of use on Steam Deck”) or something? Mozilla is supposed to be better than this. I don’t really see anywhere else to go though if you want a web experience that works out of the box (non-free codecs and the like).
  - JohnFen 2y ago
    > I don’t want my browser to know about me. It’s not necessary. This. It's not necessary, and I consider it dangerous. Even if the browser maker is 100% on the same privacy page as I am, browsers are too complex to trust with personal data.
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  It's about showing you ads.
- mjw1007 2y ago
  Right. If the categories were things like "using search as the most convenient way to find a well-known website", "entering a term that's likely to appear in a news headline", and "asking a fully-formed question", I'd find the claim that this is about ways to make a better "browser experience" more convincing.
mrbluecoat 2y ago
DuckDuckGo for the win!
- lordofgibbons 2y ago
  This has nothing to do with what search engine you're using. It collects data about what you type in the search/URL bar.
  - jmkb 2y ago
    I guess it's time to stop searching from the url bar (sorry, "awesomebar") and create a local html file as the startup and new tab page, with search boxes for all your fav engines. Just like the good old days.
    - medstrom 2y ago
      You could even paste all your bookmarks into that page!
    - SoftTalker 2y ago
      I did that for years, then it became difficult as browsers didn't want to let you set a local file as your default home page (for "security reasons"). I now just have "Blank Page" set for my Homepage, new windows, and new tabs. I just tried setting a local file in Firefox and it seems to work again, so I may go back to that.
      - autoexec 2y ago
        about:blank is the new tab nothing else loads faster!
      - prophesi 2y ago
        I was able to set a local file for new windows, but it looks like there's no built-in way to set a custom URL for new pages, not even in about:config (v125.0.3, Fedora). :/ I may have to simply use the URL bar with data collection opted-out, as I'd rather not bother with vetting and installing a custom open source extension to override the new tab behavior.
mst 2y ago
Title feels a little bit misleading - they're not collecting 'categorised search data' so much as 'categorising searches and then collecting an aggregate of only the categories.' I'm not entirely sure how to phrase it better while keeping it pithy but the current wording reads to me like they're collecting the searches as well as the categories, and they deliberately aren't doing that. (I entirely understand that some people will reasonably have an issue with what they -are- doing, but it's at least worth understanding what that actually is before deciding whether you're one of them :)
atomicfiredoll 2y ago
Just a shortcut for anybody trying to find it. "Remember, you can always opt out of sending any technical or usage data to Firefox. Here’s a step-by-step guide [0] on how to adjust your settings." --- 1. Click the [hamburger menu button] and select Settings. 2. Select the Privacy & Security panel. 3. Scroll down to the Firefox Data Collection and Use section. 4. Check or uncheck the box next to Allow Firefox to send technical and interaction data to Mozilla. [0] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/share-data-mozilla-help-improve-firefox https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/share-data-mozilla-help...
- stronglikedan 2y ago
  I wonder if you'll have to remember to do this after each update, like you have to do for most of Chrome's unwanted and unwelcomed features.
  - Ennea 2y ago
    Probably not. These settings have been around for a long time already anyway, and they never get overwritten once set, at least in my experience.
    - wewxjfq 2y ago
      When you haven't used Firefox for a while it shows a prompt that tricks you into resetting your profile.
  - atomicfiredoll 2y ago
    Only time will tell, but I don't think I've ever had that issue with Firefox so far.
  - saganus 2y ago
    Apparently not, at least for this update. I had the settings disabled, then updated to the latest version ("126.0 (64-bit)") and settings were kept disabled. So at least for now it looks like it respects your current settings.
  - 2y ago
yborg 2y ago
Isn't this exactly what Google does in Chrome?
- braiamp 2y ago
  No. Your queries aren't send to Mozilla, just the broad categories. Chrome is sending full queries to Google.
  - CaptainOfCoit 2y ago
    If you're using Google for searches, it also doesn't matter if you use Firefox or Chrome, obviously they have access to the full queries you do on their properties.
    - antiframe 2y ago
      It does matter becauae you can use an anonimizer for seach on Firefox just fine, but if you use Chrome then Google can collect everything you enter in a form and see where it's sent. Not sure if they do, but they could. One element of security is comparmentalization: avoid using a client and server from the same adversary, if you can, to minimize correlations.
      - deleted 2y ago
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  - add-sub-mul-div 2y ago
    Also you can opt out of this, unlike (I believe, correct me if I'm wrong) the Chrome telemetry.
CaptainOfCoit 2y ago
> Innovation and privacy go hand in hand here at Mozilla [...] Rest assured, the way we gather these insights will always put user privacy first [...] Remember, you can always opt out of sending any technical or usage data to Firefox Wouldn't actually putting "user privacy first" lead to the conclusion that gathering insights like this shouldn't be done on a opt-out basis and instead be opt-in, at the very least? Personally, I'd see "privacy first" as not needing to sell any user data at all, in the first place, but we're clearly beyond that already.
- SllX 2y ago
  Privacy first is just not collecting the data. Everything else is just a compromise and an excuse.
  - dylan604 2y ago
    I don't have a problem if the server side is tracking metrics on what queries are being made. When it becomes a problem is trying to associate the queries based on a single user regardless on anonymization attempts. Of course there's no money in that.
    - stevenicr 2y ago
      Wasn't like 15? years ago with the AOL search data anonymized release that people found multiple ways to connect dots to whittle it down to just one person or a small subset of people? Wasn't this also shown with anonymized taxi-cab data (released in NY?) many moons ago? Would it not be possible with knowing that you are tracking this data to funnel people into doing searches in a way that would reveal things? Directions to the out of state reproductive health clinic, combined with card data would be all it takes to do serious things to people in some states. Defaults matter. A lot. Anonymized data is not always anonymous, collected server side or otherwise.
      - salawat 2y ago
        Anonymization is effectively not achievable. Limited anonymoty may be possible within the scope of a particular dataset, but all it yakes is one enrichment pipeline to strip that all away. If you don't think that's what places like insurers do on a regular basis, you're a fool.
romanows 2y ago
Seems like this is in support of "Firefox Suggest", which seems to show sponsored links. I really don't like advertising so I really don't like going down that road. Can't they just take Google's yearly $600,000,000 payment and build the best browser "for the user" while also addressing technical debt and organizational issues so it can continue as an open source project if/when the money ever dries up?
- not2b 2y ago
  Antitrust actions in the US and EU may force Google to cut off those payments (to Mozilla and Apple), and if that happens, Firefox needs to survive somehow.
  - kjkjadksj 2y ago
    Somehow open source browsers still get made without a $600 million “rich uncle.” Mozilla is pretty bloated. This can buy like 1200 good engineers. People make browsers with a couple people sometimes.
    - camkego 2y ago
      It’s possible to repackage Chromium with a couple people. It’s not possible to build a browser from the ground up with a couple people.
      - marginalia_nu 2y ago
        Why not? Ladybird seems like it is coming along very well.
        zamadatix 2y ago
        Ladybird is frickin awesome but give it 10 more years and it still won't be an equivalent to 2024 Safari/Firefox/Chrome without a lot more funding than it's already getting (~100-200k/year in sponsorships).
      - 2y ago
lordofgibbons 2y ago
> We’re ramping up our efforts to enhance search experience by developing new features like Firefox Suggest, which provides recommended online content that corresponds to queries. So, they need to collect data about my search habits so they can show me relevant ads in Firefox Suggest? At this point why do I even bother using Firefox? I seriously might as well just use Chromium.
- CaptainOfCoit 2y ago
  Only reason I still use Firefox is because of TreeStyleTabs/Sideberry, still nothing like it for Chrome so on Firefox I remain.
  - jedisct1 2y ago
    Try Arc. You won't be looking back.
    - CaptainOfCoit 2y ago
      I'd love to but it not being available on Linux and invite-only both makes it very difficult to even give it a try :)
    - lars_francke 2y ago
      Arc being such a generic term it'd be helpful to include a link or explanation what that is.
      - beretguy 2y ago
        Just search for “arc browser”. https://arc.net/ https://arc.net/
    - beretguy 2y ago
      Why? It’s based on chromium anyways. Might as well use Vivaldi instead.
    - int_19h 2y ago
ravivyas 2y ago
I wonder if they are planning to get ads, there is little reason to collect behaviour data for anything else.
fallingsquirrel 2y ago
Stuff like this makes me wonder why I still cling to Firefox instead of switching to one of the actually privacy-focused Chromium forks. I've been using Arkenfox to turn off all the telemetry/etc but it increasingly feels like a game of whackamole. https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js
- medstrom 2y ago
  Really? Arkenfox user too and it seems to have stabilized the last couple of years. The moles have been whacked.
  - fallingsquirrel 2y ago
    I didn't mean to imply Arkenfox is unstable, it's great. I meant the Arkenfox maintainer is playing whackamole with FF. Every so often FF adds a spying feature (like this one), then Arkenfox has to react and turn it off and cut a release, then everyone has to run the updater script. My system auto updates Firefox, but not Arkenfox. So if I don't want any windows of vulnerability I'm stuck having to pay attention to updates and make sure I run the updater script at just the right time.
- falcolas 2y ago
  For me, it's the support for ad-blockers that actually work, plus greasemonkey. But it's been awhile, and maybe I need to look again.
- roughly 2y ago
  I still use Firefox because I'd like there to be more than one web browser in the world, but boy oh boy they're trying as hard as they can to get me to quit.
  - mdaniel 2y ago
    It's also much easier to compile, and thus hack upon since it doesn't require a datacenter-scale distcc setup for all the <s>CVE-generation code</s> C++
callroomlamp 2y ago
Librewolf* seems to be the answer
- UberFly 2y ago
  Who's watching the watchers?...
ekianjo 2y ago
nobody knows how to read a room like the Mozilla folks. They know quite a few Firefox users hate telemetry with passion yet they always go back at it like it does not matter.
- fifteen1506 2y ago
  They've reached peak power users usage.
rabbits_2002 2y ago
[flagged]
- Andrex 2y ago
  When Epiphany got extension support it finally seemed to check all my boxes, personally. Wish there were an Android version with bookmark sync but watchagonnado
- deleted 2y ago
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deleted 2y ago
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poszlem 2y ago
One thing that annoys me more than data collection is corporations pretending they do it for my benefit while "respecting my privacy." Stop with the gaslighting, it's absolutely insufferable. Not to mention, the way the text is written makes me think it's ai generated and that makes it somehow even worse.
- exitzer0 2y ago
  This. I invite everyone to go and look at the amount settings that must be turned OFF in Windows 10/11, Firefox, Chrome, whatever app from companies that claim to respect user privacy. For Windows it is literally dozens of toggles, and unsoliticed apps. Then there are the so called security features like malware scanning of URLs/file downloads, etc. Then the DNS replacements which, ya know, still see the URLs that you are asking for. Every company that claims to respect your privacy is full of shit. There is too much money to made in not respecting it and this is the sole reason that they exist.
  - deleted 2y ago
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callalex 2y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago
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Timber-6539 2y ago
You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain...
flipbrad 2y ago
Historically it was always interesting and quite challenging legal work, reconciling some things a bit like this with privacy, lawful intercept and anti-remote-exploitation-tool (anti-trojan) laws, especially in Europe (think: the cookie rule, which goes beyond cookies and PII). Then again, more recently mobile apps and operating systems (on all platforms, e.g. desktop OSs) seem to be doing quite a lot of it, so maybe those legal concerns were overblown.
- autoexec 2y ago
  > Then again, more recently mobile apps and operating systems (on all platforms, e.g. desktop OSs) seem to be doing quite a lot of it, so maybe those legal concerns were overblown. I think its possible that the laws are still being violated, but good luck suing companies like MS or Google as an individual. Governments won't go after them because their spy agencies love the constant stream of data they can collect from it.
red_admiral 2y ago
As far as I can tell, this is about collecting aggregate data - they say at the country level - for example "U.S. users search a lot more for 'government' but less for 'education' than Mexican ones". This particular initiative doesn't seem to be about profiling individuals. And, of course, you can turn it off (even if you're not in a country covered by the GDPR). If you want to do some kind of high-level data collection, this seems like a fairly ethical way of doing it? It's certainly better by miles than what all of chrome, android and edge have been pushing recently. I have firefox suggest turned off on my machine (at least the one I have firefox as my main browser on), but that's just me.
- mrob 2y ago
  The ethical way of doing this is opt in. It could be done like Debian's Popularity Contest[0], where you're offered a chance to install the data collection software, with the default being don't install. Firefox could do this with an extension. [0] https://popcon.debian.org/ https://popcon.debian.org/
VancouverMan 2y ago
Anyone who uses Firefox with the belief that it offers "privacy" should really read the Firefox Privacy Notice: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/ Quite a few company and organization names are referenced. These include well-known ones like "Google" and "Microsoft", but also others that (at least to me) are far more obscure, such as "our third-party ad platform Kevel" and "AdMarketplace (a third-party referral platform)". Questionable words like "send", "sends", "sending", "share", "shares", and "sharing" also appear quite a few times. More broadly, the notice is quite long. A software product that truly respects its users' privacy should have a short privacy policy, mainly because it isn't collecting data to begin with, it isn't sending data to third parties, and so forth. I know some people will claim that the data collection and sending that Firefox does is somehow acceptable because some of it can be disabled, or because it might be less than what other browsers do. I don't buy into those arguments. A privacy-respecting browser would have users opt in to enable any functionality that might transmit user data, or just not even include such functionality at all by default (it would have to be voluntarily added via an extension, for example).
bloopernova 2y ago
I don't want to be given a "browsing experience". I don't want to be treated as a product, sold to data brokers without my knowledge. My browsing experience is already tailored to me by my own actions. I guess I'll be migrating to LibreWolf.
- lxgr 2y ago
  How does having a browsing experience imply being a product? Is it possible to use Firefox without having a browsing experience? It is a web browser! Seems like Mozilla really is fighting a losing battle: Whenever they as much as think about doing 1% of the monitoring that their competitors do (often for user research to guide and focus their development efforts; unclear if that's what's happening here though), they alienate a vocal part of their user base; when they don't, their software drifts further and further from what users actually want and need.
  - kjkjadksj 2y ago
    The base they alienate just wants a web browser. You don’t need to iterate forever on a good tool that does the job. Software can be feature complete. Anyone wishing for a complete overhaul update for something like cp? Absolutely not, people want tools that work the same for years.
    - lxgr 2y ago
      But a browser is never "done", for better or worse, nor are user expectations static. Stopping to iterate on a web browser is like stopping to iterate on an operating system: It'll go well for a while (and users even might love you for it for a year or two, since you can focus your effort on fixing bugs and not introduce new ones with new features), and then you'll slowly but steadily lose users to other browser that do adapt. Losing users for a web browser, means losing search referral revenue in the short term (literally Mozilla's lifeblood), and losing web developers in the long term, which will break the experience even further. Just one example that almost made me switch browsers: Web site translation. I was regularly using Chrome in parallel for that, but now Firefox fortunately supports it too (and in a privacy-preserving local way at that – a true innovation), so they keep me as a user.
mr_machine 2y ago
The browser is, at this point, like a public utility. You can't get by without one. How is it okay to bake in privacy compromises?
- medstrom 2y ago
  Don't ask Mozilla that. Ask the others.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
    Mozilla is a browser vendor; the question is appropriate for them. It may also be a good question for every other browser vendor, but it's still valid for Mozilla.
usernamed7 2y ago
Here we go again. This is why i use waterfox. I switched when they put ads in the address bar.
d_503 2y ago
[flagged]
beretguy 2y ago
I’d rather they make Firefox subscription based. I’d rather pay $5 a month and have no ads or tracking of any kind. They can even run a separate fork of Firefox or something for this purpose. If Firefox goes down Google will lock internet behind a DRM and we gonna need another rms or Torvalds to deliver us from this hell. Can you imagine a world without Linux, with Windows and Mac pretty much the only mainstream alternative? I’d rather pay a small fee not to have that.
- fifteen1506 2y ago
  No subscription for me tyvm. I do donate on average €2/month for various projects, though.
  - beretguy 2y ago
    Yes, I understand.
- Marsymars 2y ago
  Paid web browsers have been tried... Opera and OmniWeb probably the most notable examples, and it just doesn't seem like there's a workable market there.
  - beretguy 2y ago
    Yeah, but I don’t think we had Google trying to lock internet behind a DRM at the time.
  - int_19h 2y ago
    Things have changed. We have paid search engines now, and they don't seem to be having a problem finding customers.
- xnyan 2y ago
  >Windows and Mac pretty much the only mainstream alternative That's not the world we live in today?
Woodi 2y ago
So, there is MS servers ip lists to block, now where is Mozilla's ?
mrob 2y ago
I don't even want my browser to support searching from the browser UI. If I want to send information to Google I'll visit their web page directly. I don't want to do it by a misclick. It's surprisingly difficult to disable searching from the browser UI in Firefox. Firefox insists you have at least one search engine enabled at all times. The best option I know of is to set the undocumented setting "browser.urlbar.update2.engineAliasRefresh" to "true" in about:config, which enables an "Add" button in the Search preferences for adding custom search engines. You can then add a fake search engine on localhost that will always fail, and set this to be the only enabled search engine.
- lagniappe 2y ago
  >You can then add a fake search engine on localhost that will always fail, and set this to be the only enabled search engine. YES! My friend, you have found my holy grail, thank you
- crtasm 2y ago
  I achieved this by turning off a handful of config options for the address bar's suggestions; setting the search input to be separate from the address bar, and hiding it via Customize Toolbar. I think these were the most important: keyword.enabled browser.fixup.alternate.enabled browser.urlbar.suggest.searches
  - mrob 2y ago
    For many versions now, removing the separate search bar via Customize Toolbar reverts to combined URL bar and search bar. It also leaves the search option in the right-click menu.
    - crtasm 2y ago
      That may be the case, but typing into my address bar does not trigger or suggest searches. Good point about the right click.
    - JohnFen 2y ago
      Oooh! That explains why I haven't been able to disable that stuff from the omnibar. I hate the omnibar -- I just want text entered there to be interpreted as a URL and nothing else -- but at some point, I wasn't able to configure it to be that anymore. If this is why, you've just made Firefox better for me! Thank you!
wavemode 2y ago
I would respect the announcement more if they just came out and said it - "we need cash to keep running and Google is offering to pay us a bajillion dollars for some anonymized search data. Sorry folks."
- lxgr 2y ago
  Is that actually what's happening? Why would Google need this information? Don't they already get all of that and more in the queries themselves? Or is this about supplying Google with a user profile that persists beyond incognito tabs, cleared cookies/history etc.? I read it more as "we, Mozilla, want to know what Firefox users use their browsers for" rather than "we want to hand this data to Google on a per-query level". That said, it is incredibly vaguely worded.
- kevincox 2y ago
  I don't know why they didn't say it in this article, but in https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/126.0/releasenotes/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/126.0/releasenotes/ they said: > This data will not be associated with specific users and will be collected using OHTTP to remove IP addresses as potentially identifying metadata. No profiling will be performed, and no data will be shared with third parties. So it seems they aren't selling it directly. But I wouldn't be surprised if aggregated numbers could be used for sales deals. (Hi Bing, we have 137M "travel" searches a month, I'm sure that you could put some big juicy ads next to those if you purchase the default search engine status)
  - sunnybeetroot 2y ago
    Good catch
- jasonlotito 2y ago
  I'm sorry, but "Support Firefox with occasional sponsored suggestions." isn't good enough? More importantly: "Google is offering to pay us a bajillion dollars for some anonymized search data" Citation needed here. Your head isn't good enough.
spiffytech 2y ago
I posted this on another story 6mo ago: Every time I hear "anonymous data", I think of that time AOL published anonymized search logs (for academic research). The anonymization was negligent, and an NYT reporter de-anonymized and tracked down one of the users with the local & personal info present in the search queries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_search_log_release https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_search_log_release https://web.archive.org/web/20130404175032/http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/09/technology/09aol.html?_r=1 https://web.archive.org/web/20130404175032/http://www.nytime...
- deleted 2y ago
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blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
Maybe this is okay to help support it but only if there is a clear modal dialog asking users to consider donating or consider staying opted in. But a default opt in is deceptive.
pixxel 2y ago
I have all Firefox/Mozilla URLs blocked at network level. I get Firefox install/updates from a Linux repo. Firefox is constantly pounding my network attempting to dial home. Thank you maintainers for giving me privacy.
autoexecbat 2y ago
Is there a white-label firefox that I can install that has sane defaults?
- itscrush 2y ago
  Arkenfox, Librewolf, Waterfox among others might be the best bet, plenty of trade offs like updater scripts at times.
braiamp 2y ago
How can Mozilla guarantee some privacy? Well, they would be using separation of content and the source. The content is "broad categories" of search queries. They take your query, match it to a category (this is important, because it has to be local matching to make sense), encrypt it with the public key and send it to a broker. The broker knows where it is coming from, but not what it says. The broker then forward to Mozilla, which decrypts it with their private key. I don't see a problem as long as there's not enough bytes of information that can infer a person. Aggregating the data in the client would allow this, so I see some kind of time shifting to protect the activity patterns.
michelangelo 2y ago
Interesting to see this post has no author or signature...
- manifoldgeo 2y ago
  It was written by Moe Zilla, obviously /s
JohnFen 2y ago
I'm unclear about what search data they're collecting. Are they only talking about searches done through the omnibar, or are they including searches done by navigating to a search engine website and using that?
PreInternet01 2y ago
Suggestion for a future 'Show HN': Send Mozilla an hourly (GDPR|CCPA) data request and notify you if there are any results. I'd pay a monthly recurring EU$ 0(.|,)99 for that!
wopwops 2y ago
Is Firefox being sabotaged from within?
- abcd_f 2y ago
  Sure feels like that. For years now actually.
- pixxel 2y ago
  Highly paid executives paid by… [checks notes]…Google. Surely not!
roughly 2y ago
Whoever is writing these press releases for Firefox needs to reconsider their style. By this point in the product cycle, the only people left using Firefox are sophisticated enough to read through this level of corporate bullshit. Either take "privacy first" seriously or take it out of the mission statement, but don't piss on our leg and call it rain.
cassepipe 2y ago
The main reason I use Firefox is because it lets you deactivate search suggestions and the "awesome bar" will suggest only from history and bookmarks. Not having to go through a search engine for basic navigation is a killer feature, and better for the planet. Chrome does not let you do that for obvious reasons. Now I am afraid of enshittification, that they will try to shove search suggestions one day and hide/remove the option to deactivate them.
ribhu97 2y ago
So I guess they're building their own index, just like Brave, Perplexity, Exa, and others. A much smaller arms race that seems to be going under the radar of most folks.
cess11 2y ago
Thank you Mozilla for categorising me for my own good, really appreciate the effort I need to put in to try and shut it down. 'By the way, these values have come out in other contexts. I remember in an earlier war General Westmoreland saying “We had to destroy the village in order to save it”. But it was not an irony. He meant it. I mean, so did the early Christian communities that settled into this country mean it. That for a witches own good one had to dunk her repeatedly in water. Now we have come a long way since then haven’t we[?]' <https://rickroderick.org/106-nietzsche-knowledge-and-belief-1990/ https://rickroderick.org/106-nietzsche-knowledge-and-belief-...>
parasti 2y ago
Come on, Mozilla. I just want a browser. I type in an address, the browser shows me the page. You need money? Let me donate to Firefox so I don't have to continuously opt out of crap like this.
doublepg23 2y ago
I didn’t expect there to be a privacy side effect of mostly migrating to Apple products. I use Safari on everything now.
deleted 2y ago
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binkHN 2y ago
Wow. Another write-up on how Firefox is planning on monetizing. How about a write-up on how Firefox plans to stay competitive and integrate/innovate on some of the best features from competing browsers?
AzzyHN 2y ago
Reading just the blog post... these feel like useless metrics. Why do you care what percentage of your users are searching about animals. What do you possibly have to gain from this? Are they planning to introduce animal-based features? And if it's not for their own metrics, but to sell... who's going to buy? Facebook tracking pixels and other statistics cookies are so much more valuable that this kind of data
- kevincox 2y ago
  I suspect it is mostly for selling things like default search engine and ads via Firefox Suggest. Some search categories are far more valuable than others for ads.
  - deleted 2y ago
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elric 2y ago
Maybe we should just go back to the 1990s where we just pay a one time fee to buy a piece software and own it forever? Without any data collection, without constant enshittification, without endless ads? Buy it, get a couple of yeard worth of security updates, and be done with it. It's clear that libre browsers have failed. They are not sustainable. They are too big, too complex, and apparently only two organizations are really capable of keeping one going. One is an ad company, the other is a patsy for the ad company. I don't see a way out of this that is at all sustainable.
proactivesvcs 2y ago
"Mozilla Connect is a collaborative space for ideas, feedback, and discussions that will help shape future product releases. Whether you’re a longtime Mozilla fan or new to our products—welcome! This community is for you. Please use this space to share ideas, give constructive feedback, and participate in meaningful conversations so we can work together to build a better internet" https://connect.mozilla.org/ https://connect.mozilla.org/ When you make a comment here, do a quick search beforehand to check the topic doesn't already exist, and do abide by the spirit of the guidelines.
thepaulmcbride 2y ago
Anyone know why this is only available in the US?
- abcd_f 2y ago
  Because it's inherently anti-consumer (not something that anyone would voluntarily opt into) and the EU would have their balls in vices instantaneously?
multimoon 2y ago
I was a chrome user for over a decade and just last year switched to Firefox when googles decision to just flat share my data with ad brokers and call it a security feature finally pushed me over the edge and I switched to Firefox. I still think chrome is the better browser both in functionality and performance, but at least Firefox was 90-95% of the way there, and respected my desire to not sell my data. While this in of itself isn’t super egregious and has an easy opt out, what alternatives are there? I know there’s a bunch of chrome clones, but at that point why not just use raw chromium?
daft_pink 2y ago
What could go wrong?
Fervicus 2y ago
Might be unrealistic, but I can't wait for the the day when Ladybird browser becomes a viable alternative. Librewolf it is till then.
jdlyga 2y ago
I miss when Firefox was this forward thinking project to make a better browser with a better UI. It’s similar to what happened to Canonical with Ubuntu. Both projects are extremely solid, and are easy to recommend, but neither has been pushing the envelope in a long time.
chatmasta 2y ago
> Remember, you can always opt out of sending any technical or usage data to Firefox Why isn’t this opt-in? Seems to give away the plot.
remram 2y ago
Oblivious HTTP is such a joke. The idea that an "independent organization" is your "partner" is a non-starter for me. How can you put those words in the same sentence? And then base the entire security of the whole feature on this premise?
remram 2y ago
I still can't get search in my own bookmarks most of the time, because they pushed bookmark tags hard, then have not implemented them on mobile after a decade. But at least they have a state-of-the-art snooping mechanism...
ezoe 2y ago
Why is the web browser try to act like SNS web service? You are an user agent for SNS web service, not the SNS itself. Now be a good boy and fetch a SNS web page like a good little dog.
err4nt 2y ago
There's a saying that web developers I know have been repeating for years: "Friends don't let friends use Firefox"
- hostyle 2y ago
  That says more about the web developers that you know than it does about Firefox. Its anecdotal I know, but would have to say that I know more web devs who use Firefox as their daily driver (or use more than one browser), than those who use just Safari or Chrome only. The better web developers (better able to solve bugs, and write less error prone code) are the ones who don't use Chrome for everything.

229 points by murillians 2y ago

I installed firefox on my new computer and it reminded my of Microsoft Windows. Lots of ads. Its just a glimpse into the future of this company. We are past the peak.

formerly_proven 2y ago

[flagged]

parrellel 2y ago

Welp, thanks for telling me what to turn off right now Mozilla.

mst 2y ago
Providing a link to their own comprehensive guide to turn everything off definitely earns style points in my book.
UberFly 2y ago
Turning off telemetry has always been easy in Firefox settings. If I'm reading it correctly, the same checkbox we've all be clicking off for years now also disables this too same as always.

mtmail 2y ago

"list of categories we’re using: animals, arts, autos, business, career, education, fashion, finance, food, government, health, hobbies, home, inconclusive, news, real estate, society, sports, tech and travel." "This helps us [...] providing a browsing experience that is more tailored to your needs" How would my browsing experience be different in any of the categories? Unless it's about showing me ads yet again.

cflewis 2y ago
Yeah, this is the rub of it. I don’t want my browser to know about me. It’s not necessary. What are they gonna do, release a gaming-aesthetic browser like Opera did? Can’t this data be gleaned some most definitely not identifiable way like download number for particular platforms (“hey, we’re getting a lot of use on Steam Deck”) or something? Mozilla is supposed to be better than this. I don’t really see anywhere else to go though if you want a web experience that works out of the box (non-free codecs and the like).
- JohnFen 2y ago
  > I don’t want my browser to know about me. It’s not necessary. This. It's not necessary, and I consider it dangerous. Even if the browser maker is 100% on the same privacy page as I am, browsers are too complex to trust with personal data.
SoftTalker 2y ago
It's about showing you ads.
mjw1007 2y ago
Right. If the categories were things like "using search as the most convenient way to find a well-known website", "entering a term that's likely to appear in a news headline", and "asking a fully-formed question", I'd find the claim that this is about ways to make a better "browser experience" more convincing.

mrbluecoat 2y ago

DuckDuckGo for the win!

lordofgibbons 2y ago
This has nothing to do with what search engine you're using. It collects data about what you type in the search/URL bar.
- jmkb 2y ago
  I guess it's time to stop searching from the url bar (sorry, "awesomebar") and create a local html file as the startup and new tab page, with search boxes for all your fav engines. Just like the good old days.
  - medstrom 2y ago
    You could even paste all your bookmarks into that page!
  - SoftTalker 2y ago
    I did that for years, then it became difficult as browsers didn't want to let you set a local file as your default home page (for "security reasons"). I now just have "Blank Page" set for my Homepage, new windows, and new tabs. I just tried setting a local file in Firefox and it seems to work again, so I may go back to that.
    - autoexec 2y ago
      about:blank is the new tab nothing else loads faster!
    - prophesi 2y ago
      I was able to set a local file for new windows, but it looks like there's no built-in way to set a custom URL for new pages, not even in about:config (v125.0.3, Fedora). :/ I may have to simply use the URL bar with data collection opted-out, as I'd rather not bother with vetting and installing a custom open source extension to override the new tab behavior.

mst 2y ago

Title feels a little bit misleading - they're not collecting 'categorised search data' so much as 'categorising searches and then collecting an aggregate of only the categories.' I'm not entirely sure how to phrase it better while keeping it pithy but the current wording reads to me like they're collecting the searches as well as the categories, and they deliberately aren't doing that. (I entirely understand that some people will reasonably have an issue with what they -are- doing, but it's at least worth understanding what that actually is before deciding whether you're one of them :)

atomicfiredoll 2y ago

Just a shortcut for anybody trying to find it. "Remember, you can always opt out of sending any technical or usage data to Firefox. Here’s a step-by-step guide [0] on how to adjust your settings." --- 1. Click the [hamburger menu button] and select Settings. 2. Select the Privacy & Security panel. 3. Scroll down to the Firefox Data Collection and Use section. 4. Check or uncheck the box next to Allow Firefox to send technical and interaction data to Mozilla. [0] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/share-data-mozilla-help-improve-firefox https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/share-data-mozilla-help...

stronglikedan 2y ago
I wonder if you'll have to remember to do this after each update, like you have to do for most of Chrome's unwanted and unwelcomed features.
- Ennea 2y ago
  Probably not. These settings have been around for a long time already anyway, and they never get overwritten once set, at least in my experience.
  - wewxjfq 2y ago
    When you haven't used Firefox for a while it shows a prompt that tricks you into resetting your profile.
- atomicfiredoll 2y ago
  Only time will tell, but I don't think I've ever had that issue with Firefox so far.
- saganus 2y ago
  Apparently not, at least for this update. I had the settings disabled, then updated to the latest version ("126.0 (64-bit)") and settings were kept disabled. So at least for now it looks like it respects your current settings.
- 2y ago

yborg 2y ago

Isn't this exactly what Google does in Chrome?

braiamp 2y ago
No. Your queries aren't send to Mozilla, just the broad categories. Chrome is sending full queries to Google.
- CaptainOfCoit 2y ago
  If you're using Google for searches, it also doesn't matter if you use Firefox or Chrome, obviously they have access to the full queries you do on their properties.
  - antiframe 2y ago
    It does matter becauae you can use an anonimizer for seach on Firefox just fine, but if you use Chrome then Google can collect everything you enter in a form and see where it's sent. Not sure if they do, but they could. One element of security is comparmentalization: avoid using a client and server from the same adversary, if you can, to minimize correlations.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- add-sub-mul-div 2y ago
  Also you can opt out of this, unlike (I believe, correct me if I'm wrong) the Chrome telemetry.

CaptainOfCoit 2y ago

> Innovation and privacy go hand in hand here at Mozilla [...] Rest assured, the way we gather these insights will always put user privacy first [...] Remember, you can always opt out of sending any technical or usage data to Firefox Wouldn't actually putting "user privacy first" lead to the conclusion that gathering insights like this shouldn't be done on a opt-out basis and instead be opt-in, at the very least? Personally, I'd see "privacy first" as not needing to sell any user data at all, in the first place, but we're clearly beyond that already.

SllX 2y ago
Privacy first is just not collecting the data. Everything else is just a compromise and an excuse.
- dylan604 2y ago
  I don't have a problem if the server side is tracking metrics on what queries are being made. When it becomes a problem is trying to associate the queries based on a single user regardless on anonymization attempts. Of course there's no money in that.
  - stevenicr 2y ago
    Wasn't like 15? years ago with the AOL search data anonymized release that people found multiple ways to connect dots to whittle it down to just one person or a small subset of people? Wasn't this also shown with anonymized taxi-cab data (released in NY?) many moons ago? Would it not be possible with knowing that you are tracking this data to funnel people into doing searches in a way that would reveal things? Directions to the out of state reproductive health clinic, combined with card data would be all it takes to do serious things to people in some states. Defaults matter. A lot. Anonymized data is not always anonymous, collected server side or otherwise.
    - salawat 2y ago
      Anonymization is effectively not achievable. Limited anonymoty may be possible within the scope of a particular dataset, but all it yakes is one enrichment pipeline to strip that all away. If you don't think that's what places like insurers do on a regular basis, you're a fool.

romanows 2y ago

Seems like this is in support of "Firefox Suggest", which seems to show sponsored links. I really don't like advertising so I really don't like going down that road. Can't they just take Google's yearly $600,000,000 payment and build the best browser "for the user" while also addressing technical debt and organizational issues so it can continue as an open source project if/when the money ever dries up?

not2b 2y ago
Antitrust actions in the US and EU may force Google to cut off those payments (to Mozilla and Apple), and if that happens, Firefox needs to survive somehow.
- kjkjadksj 2y ago
  Somehow open source browsers still get made without a $600 million “rich uncle.” Mozilla is pretty bloated. This can buy like 1200 good engineers. People make browsers with a couple people sometimes.
  - camkego 2y ago
    It’s possible to repackage Chromium with a couple people. It’s not possible to build a browser from the ground up with a couple people.
    - marginalia_nu 2y ago
      Why not? Ladybird seems like it is coming along very well.
      - zamadatix 2y ago
        Ladybird is frickin awesome but give it 10 more years and it still won't be an equivalent to 2024 Safari/Firefox/Chrome without a lot more funding than it's already getting (~100-200k/year in sponsorships).
    - 2y ago

lordofgibbons 2y ago

> We’re ramping up our efforts to enhance search experience by developing new features like Firefox Suggest, which provides recommended online content that corresponds to queries. So, they need to collect data about my search habits so they can show me relevant ads in Firefox Suggest? At this point why do I even bother using Firefox? I seriously might as well just use Chromium.

CaptainOfCoit 2y ago
Only reason I still use Firefox is because of TreeStyleTabs/Sideberry, still nothing like it for Chrome so on Firefox I remain.
- jedisct1 2y ago
  Try Arc. You won't be looking back.
  - CaptainOfCoit 2y ago
    I'd love to but it not being available on Linux and invite-only both makes it very difficult to even give it a try :)
  - lars_francke 2y ago
    Arc being such a generic term it'd be helpful to include a link or explanation what that is.
    - beretguy 2y ago
      Just search for “arc browser”. https://arc.net/ https://arc.net/
  - beretguy 2y ago
    Why? It’s based on chromium anyways. Might as well use Vivaldi instead.
  - int_19h 2y ago

ravivyas 2y ago

I wonder if they are planning to get ads, there is little reason to collect behaviour data for anything else.

fallingsquirrel 2y ago

Stuff like this makes me wonder why I still cling to Firefox instead of switching to one of the actually privacy-focused Chromium forks. I've been using Arkenfox to turn off all the telemetry/etc but it increasingly feels like a game of whackamole. https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js

medstrom 2y ago
Really? Arkenfox user too and it seems to have stabilized the last couple of years. The moles have been whacked.
- fallingsquirrel 2y ago
  I didn't mean to imply Arkenfox is unstable, it's great. I meant the Arkenfox maintainer is playing whackamole with FF. Every so often FF adds a spying feature (like this one), then Arkenfox has to react and turn it off and cut a release, then everyone has to run the updater script. My system auto updates Firefox, but not Arkenfox. So if I don't want any windows of vulnerability I'm stuck having to pay attention to updates and make sure I run the updater script at just the right time.
falcolas 2y ago
For me, it's the support for ad-blockers that actually work, plus greasemonkey. But it's been awhile, and maybe I need to look again.
roughly 2y ago
I still use Firefox because I'd like there to be more than one web browser in the world, but boy oh boy they're trying as hard as they can to get me to quit.
- mdaniel 2y ago
  It's also much easier to compile, and thus hack upon since it doesn't require a datacenter-scale distcc setup for all the <s>CVE-generation code</s> C++

callroomlamp 2y ago

Librewolf* seems to be the answer

UberFly 2y ago
Who's watching the watchers?...

ekianjo 2y ago

nobody knows how to read a room like the Mozilla folks. They know quite a few Firefox users hate telemetry with passion yet they always go back at it like it does not matter.

fifteen1506 2y ago
They've reached peak power users usage.

rabbits_2002 2y ago

[flagged]

Andrex 2y ago
When Epiphany got extension support it finally seemed to check all my boxes, personally. Wish there were an Android version with bookmark sync but watchagonnado
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

poszlem 2y ago

One thing that annoys me more than data collection is corporations pretending they do it for my benefit while "respecting my privacy." Stop with the gaslighting, it's absolutely insufferable. Not to mention, the way the text is written makes me think it's ai generated and that makes it somehow even worse.

exitzer0 2y ago
This. I invite everyone to go and look at the amount settings that must be turned OFF in Windows 10/11, Firefox, Chrome, whatever app from companies that claim to respect user privacy. For Windows it is literally dozens of toggles, and unsoliticed apps. Then there are the so called security features like malware scanning of URLs/file downloads, etc. Then the DNS replacements which, ya know, still see the URLs that you are asking for. Every company that claims to respect your privacy is full of shit. There is too much money to made in not respecting it and this is the sole reason that they exist.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

callalex 2y ago

[flagged]

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

Timber-6539 2y ago

You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain...

flipbrad 2y ago

Historically it was always interesting and quite challenging legal work, reconciling some things a bit like this with privacy, lawful intercept and anti-remote-exploitation-tool (anti-trojan) laws, especially in Europe (think: the cookie rule, which goes beyond cookies and PII). Then again, more recently mobile apps and operating systems (on all platforms, e.g. desktop OSs) seem to be doing quite a lot of it, so maybe those legal concerns were overblown.

autoexec 2y ago
> Then again, more recently mobile apps and operating systems (on all platforms, e.g. desktop OSs) seem to be doing quite a lot of it, so maybe those legal concerns were overblown. I think its possible that the laws are still being violated, but good luck suing companies like MS or Google as an individual. Governments won't go after them because their spy agencies love the constant stream of data they can collect from it.

red_admiral 2y ago

As far as I can tell, this is about collecting aggregate data - they say at the country level - for example "U.S. users search a lot more for 'government' but less for 'education' than Mexican ones". This particular initiative doesn't seem to be about profiling individuals. And, of course, you can turn it off (even if you're not in a country covered by the GDPR). If you want to do some kind of high-level data collection, this seems like a fairly ethical way of doing it? It's certainly better by miles than what all of chrome, android and edge have been pushing recently. I have firefox suggest turned off on my machine (at least the one I have firefox as my main browser on), but that's just me.

mrob 2y ago
The ethical way of doing this is opt in. It could be done like Debian's Popularity Contest[0], where you're offered a chance to install the data collection software, with the default being don't install. Firefox could do this with an extension. [0] https://popcon.debian.org/ https://popcon.debian.org/

VancouverMan 2y ago

Anyone who uses Firefox with the belief that it offers "privacy" should really read the Firefox Privacy Notice: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/ Quite a few company and organization names are referenced. These include well-known ones like "Google" and "Microsoft", but also others that (at least to me) are far more obscure, such as "our third-party ad platform Kevel" and "AdMarketplace (a third-party referral platform)". Questionable words like "send", "sends", "sending", "share", "shares", and "sharing" also appear quite a few times. More broadly, the notice is quite long. A software product that truly respects its users' privacy should have a short privacy policy, mainly because it isn't collecting data to begin with, it isn't sending data to third parties, and so forth. I know some people will claim that the data collection and sending that Firefox does is somehow acceptable because some of it can be disabled, or because it might be less than what other browsers do. I don't buy into those arguments. A privacy-respecting browser would have users opt in to enable any functionality that might transmit user data, or just not even include such functionality at all by default (it would have to be voluntarily added via an extension, for example).

bloopernova 2y ago

I don't want to be given a "browsing experience". I don't want to be treated as a product, sold to data brokers without my knowledge. My browsing experience is already tailored to me by my own actions. I guess I'll be migrating to LibreWolf.

lxgr 2y ago
How does having a browsing experience imply being a product? Is it possible to use Firefox without having a browsing experience? It is a web browser! Seems like Mozilla really is fighting a losing battle: Whenever they as much as think about doing 1% of the monitoring that their competitors do (often for user research to guide and focus their development efforts; unclear if that's what's happening here though), they alienate a vocal part of their user base; when they don't, their software drifts further and further from what users actually want and need.
- kjkjadksj 2y ago
  The base they alienate just wants a web browser. You don’t need to iterate forever on a good tool that does the job. Software can be feature complete. Anyone wishing for a complete overhaul update for something like cp? Absolutely not, people want tools that work the same for years.
  - lxgr 2y ago
    But a browser is never "done", for better or worse, nor are user expectations static. Stopping to iterate on a web browser is like stopping to iterate on an operating system: It'll go well for a while (and users even might love you for it for a year or two, since you can focus your effort on fixing bugs and not introduce new ones with new features), and then you'll slowly but steadily lose users to other browser that do adapt. Losing users for a web browser, means losing search referral revenue in the short term (literally Mozilla's lifeblood), and losing web developers in the long term, which will break the experience even further. Just one example that almost made me switch browsers: Web site translation. I was regularly using Chrome in parallel for that, but now Firefox fortunately supports it too (and in a privacy-preserving local way at that – a true innovation), so they keep me as a user.

mr_machine 2y ago

The browser is, at this point, like a public utility. You can't get by without one. How is it okay to bake in privacy compromises?

medstrom 2y ago
Don't ask Mozilla that. Ask the others.
- yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
  Mozilla is a browser vendor; the question is appropriate for them. It may also be a good question for every other browser vendor, but it's still valid for Mozilla.

usernamed7 2y ago

Here we go again. This is why i use waterfox. I switched when they put ads in the address bar.

d_503 2y ago

[flagged]

beretguy 2y ago

I’d rather they make Firefox subscription based. I’d rather pay $5 a month and have no ads or tracking of any kind. They can even run a separate fork of Firefox or something for this purpose. If Firefox goes down Google will lock internet behind a DRM and we gonna need another rms or Torvalds to deliver us from this hell. Can you imagine a world without Linux, with Windows and Mac pretty much the only mainstream alternative? I’d rather pay a small fee not to have that.

fifteen1506 2y ago
No subscription for me tyvm. I do donate on average €2/month for various projects, though.
- beretguy 2y ago
  Yes, I understand.
Marsymars 2y ago
Paid web browsers have been tried... Opera and OmniWeb probably the most notable examples, and it just doesn't seem like there's a workable market there.
- beretguy 2y ago
  Yeah, but I don’t think we had Google trying to lock internet behind a DRM at the time.
- int_19h 2y ago
  Things have changed. We have paid search engines now, and they don't seem to be having a problem finding customers.
xnyan 2y ago
>Windows and Mac pretty much the only mainstream alternative That's not the world we live in today?

Woodi 2y ago

So, there is MS servers ip lists to block, now where is Mozilla's ?

mrob 2y ago

I don't even want my browser to support searching from the browser UI. If I want to send information to Google I'll visit their web page directly. I don't want to do it by a misclick. It's surprisingly difficult to disable searching from the browser UI in Firefox. Firefox insists you have at least one search engine enabled at all times. The best option I know of is to set the undocumented setting "browser.urlbar.update2.engineAliasRefresh" to "true" in about:config, which enables an "Add" button in the Search preferences for adding custom search engines. You can then add a fake search engine on localhost that will always fail, and set this to be the only enabled search engine.

lagniappe 2y ago
>You can then add a fake search engine on localhost that will always fail, and set this to be the only enabled search engine. YES! My friend, you have found my holy grail, thank you
crtasm 2y ago
I achieved this by turning off a handful of config options for the address bar's suggestions; setting the search input to be separate from the address bar, and hiding it via Customize Toolbar. I think these were the most important: keyword.enabled browser.fixup.alternate.enabled browser.urlbar.suggest.searches
- mrob 2y ago
  For many versions now, removing the separate search bar via Customize Toolbar reverts to combined URL bar and search bar. It also leaves the search option in the right-click menu.
  - crtasm 2y ago
    That may be the case, but typing into my address bar does not trigger or suggest searches. Good point about the right click.
  - JohnFen 2y ago
    Oooh! That explains why I haven't been able to disable that stuff from the omnibar. I hate the omnibar -- I just want text entered there to be interpreted as a URL and nothing else -- but at some point, I wasn't able to configure it to be that anymore. If this is why, you've just made Firefox better for me! Thank you!

wavemode 2y ago

I would respect the announcement more if they just came out and said it - "we need cash to keep running and Google is offering to pay us a bajillion dollars for some anonymized search data. Sorry folks."

lxgr 2y ago
Is that actually what's happening? Why would Google need this information? Don't they already get all of that and more in the queries themselves? Or is this about supplying Google with a user profile that persists beyond incognito tabs, cleared cookies/history etc.? I read it more as "we, Mozilla, want to know what Firefox users use their browsers for" rather than "we want to hand this data to Google on a per-query level". That said, it is incredibly vaguely worded.
kevincox 2y ago
I don't know why they didn't say it in this article, but in https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/126.0/releasenotes/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/126.0/releasenotes/ they said: > This data will not be associated with specific users and will be collected using OHTTP to remove IP addresses as potentially identifying metadata. No profiling will be performed, and no data will be shared with third parties. So it seems they aren't selling it directly. But I wouldn't be surprised if aggregated numbers could be used for sales deals. (Hi Bing, we have 137M "travel" searches a month, I'm sure that you could put some big juicy ads next to those if you purchase the default search engine status)
- sunnybeetroot 2y ago
  Good catch
jasonlotito 2y ago
I'm sorry, but "Support Firefox with occasional sponsored suggestions." isn't good enough? More importantly: "Google is offering to pay us a bajillion dollars for some anonymized search data" Citation needed here. Your head isn't good enough.

spiffytech 2y ago

I posted this on another story 6mo ago: Every time I hear "anonymous data", I think of that time AOL published anonymized search logs (for academic research). The anonymization was negligent, and an NYT reporter de-anonymized and tracked down one of the users with the local & personal info present in the search queries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_search_log_release https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_search_log_release https://web.archive.org/web/20130404175032/http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/09/technology/09aol.html?_r=1 https://web.archive.org/web/20130404175032/http://www.nytime...

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago

Maybe this is okay to help support it but only if there is a clear modal dialog asking users to consider donating or consider staying opted in. But a default opt in is deceptive.

pixxel 2y ago

I have all Firefox/Mozilla URLs blocked at network level. I get Firefox install/updates from a Linux repo. Firefox is constantly pounding my network attempting to dial home. Thank you maintainers for giving me privacy.

autoexecbat 2y ago

Is there a white-label firefox that I can install that has sane defaults?

itscrush 2y ago
Arkenfox, Librewolf, Waterfox among others might be the best bet, plenty of trade offs like updater scripts at times.

braiamp 2y ago

How can Mozilla guarantee some privacy? Well, they would be using separation of content and the source. The content is "broad categories" of search queries. They take your query, match it to a category (this is important, because it has to be local matching to make sense), encrypt it with the public key and send it to a broker. The broker knows where it is coming from, but not what it says. The broker then forward to Mozilla, which decrypts it with their private key. I don't see a problem as long as there's not enough bytes of information that can infer a person. Aggregating the data in the client would allow this, so I see some kind of time shifting to protect the activity patterns.

michelangelo 2y ago

Interesting to see this post has no author or signature...

manifoldgeo 2y ago
It was written by Moe Zilla, obviously /s

JohnFen 2y ago

I'm unclear about what search data they're collecting. Are they only talking about searches done through the omnibar, or are they including searches done by navigating to a search engine website and using that?

PreInternet01 2y ago

Suggestion for a future 'Show HN': Send Mozilla an hourly (GDPR|CCPA) data request and notify you if there are any results. I'd pay a monthly recurring EU$ 0(.|,)99 for that!

wopwops 2y ago

Is Firefox being sabotaged from within?

abcd_f 2y ago
Sure feels like that. For years now actually.
pixxel 2y ago
Highly paid executives paid by… [checks notes]…Google. Surely not!

roughly 2y ago

Whoever is writing these press releases for Firefox needs to reconsider their style. By this point in the product cycle, the only people left using Firefox are sophisticated enough to read through this level of corporate bullshit. Either take "privacy first" seriously or take it out of the mission statement, but don't piss on our leg and call it rain.

cassepipe 2y ago

The main reason I use Firefox is because it lets you deactivate search suggestions and the "awesome bar" will suggest only from history and bookmarks. Not having to go through a search engine for basic navigation is a killer feature, and better for the planet. Chrome does not let you do that for obvious reasons. Now I am afraid of enshittification, that they will try to shove search suggestions one day and hide/remove the option to deactivate them.

ribhu97 2y ago

So I guess they're building their own index, just like Brave, Perplexity, Exa, and others. A much smaller arms race that seems to be going under the radar of most folks.

cess11 2y ago

Thank you Mozilla for categorising me for my own good, really appreciate the effort I need to put in to try and shut it down. 'By the way, these values have come out in other contexts. I remember in an earlier war General Westmoreland saying “We had to destroy the village in order to save it”. But it was not an irony. He meant it. I mean, so did the early Christian communities that settled into this country mean it. That for a witches own good one had to dunk her repeatedly in water. Now we have come a long way since then haven’t we[?]' <https://rickroderick.org/106-nietzsche-knowledge-and-belief-1990/ https://rickroderick.org/106-nietzsche-knowledge-and-belief-...>

parasti 2y ago

Come on, Mozilla. I just want a browser. I type in an address, the browser shows me the page. You need money? Let me donate to Firefox so I don't have to continuously opt out of crap like this.

doublepg23 2y ago

I didn’t expect there to be a privacy side effect of mostly migrating to Apple products. I use Safari on everything now.

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binkHN 2y ago

Wow. Another write-up on how Firefox is planning on monetizing. How about a write-up on how Firefox plans to stay competitive and integrate/innovate on some of the best features from competing browsers?

AzzyHN 2y ago

Reading just the blog post... these feel like useless metrics. Why do you care what percentage of your users are searching about animals. What do you possibly have to gain from this? Are they planning to introduce animal-based features? And if it's not for their own metrics, but to sell... who's going to buy? Facebook tracking pixels and other statistics cookies are so much more valuable that this kind of data

kevincox 2y ago
I suspect it is mostly for selling things like default search engine and ads via Firefox Suggest. Some search categories are far more valuable than others for ads.
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elric 2y ago

Maybe we should just go back to the 1990s where we just pay a one time fee to buy a piece software and own it forever? Without any data collection, without constant enshittification, without endless ads? Buy it, get a couple of yeard worth of security updates, and be done with it. It's clear that libre browsers have failed. They are not sustainable. They are too big, too complex, and apparently only two organizations are really capable of keeping one going. One is an ad company, the other is a patsy for the ad company. I don't see a way out of this that is at all sustainable.

proactivesvcs 2y ago

"Mozilla Connect is a collaborative space for ideas, feedback, and discussions that will help shape future product releases. Whether you’re a longtime Mozilla fan or new to our products—welcome! This community is for you. Please use this space to share ideas, give constructive feedback, and participate in meaningful conversations so we can work together to build a better internet" https://connect.mozilla.org/ https://connect.mozilla.org/ When you make a comment here, do a quick search beforehand to check the topic doesn't already exist, and do abide by the spirit of the guidelines.

thepaulmcbride 2y ago

Anyone know why this is only available in the US?

abcd_f 2y ago
Because it's inherently anti-consumer (not something that anyone would voluntarily opt into) and the EU would have their balls in vices instantaneously?

multimoon 2y ago

I was a chrome user for over a decade and just last year switched to Firefox when googles decision to just flat share my data with ad brokers and call it a security feature finally pushed me over the edge and I switched to Firefox. I still think chrome is the better browser both in functionality and performance, but at least Firefox was 90-95% of the way there, and respected my desire to not sell my data. While this in of itself isn’t super egregious and has an easy opt out, what alternatives are there? I know there’s a bunch of chrome clones, but at that point why not just use raw chromium?

daft_pink 2y ago

What could go wrong?

Fervicus 2y ago

Might be unrealistic, but I can't wait for the the day when Ladybird browser becomes a viable alternative. Librewolf it is till then.

jdlyga 2y ago

I miss when Firefox was this forward thinking project to make a better browser with a better UI. It’s similar to what happened to Canonical with Ubuntu. Both projects are extremely solid, and are easy to recommend, but neither has been pushing the envelope in a long time.

chatmasta 2y ago

> Remember, you can always opt out of sending any technical or usage data to Firefox Why isn’t this opt-in? Seems to give away the plot.

remram 2y ago

Oblivious HTTP is such a joke. The idea that an "independent organization" is your "partner" is a non-starter for me. How can you put those words in the same sentence? And then base the entire security of the whole feature on this premise?

remram 2y ago

I still can't get search in my own bookmarks most of the time, because they pushed bookmark tags hard, then have not implemented them on mobile after a decade. But at least they have a state-of-the-art snooping mechanism...

ezoe 2y ago

Why is the web browser try to act like SNS web service? You are an user agent for SNS web service, not the SNS itself. Now be a good boy and fetch a SNS web page like a good little dog.

err4nt 2y ago

There's a saying that web developers I know have been repeating for years: "Friends don't let friends use Firefox"

hostyle 2y ago
That says more about the web developers that you know than it does about Firefox. Its anecdotal I know, but would have to say that I know more web devs who use Firefox as their daily driver (or use more than one browser), than those who use just Safari or Chrome only. The better web developers (better able to solve bugs, and write less error prone code) are the ones who don't use Chrome for everything.