15 ms·

Louis Rossmann opines on the Firefox debacle [video]

80 points by kristjank 2y ago

zb3 2y ago
It's not that you can just install LibreWolf and forget about it forever. If everyone does this, Mozilla won't be able to monetize your data and they will fight back for their survival. Someone needs to fund the actual browser development.. it's possible to avoid your data being used, but it only works because data of others is monetized.
- db48x 2y ago
  > If everyone does this, Mozilla won't be able to monetize your data and they will fight back for their survival. So the whole thing is kinda weird, because the new terms of use _do not_ give Mozilla any ability to monetize your data. All they do is state that if you give the browser some data the browser can use that data to follow your instructions. For example, I am using Firefox right now as I type this message in. Firefox will save what I type in my profile so that if my power goes out (or Firefox crashes, which is rare these days but wasn’t always) then it can recover this text when it restarts. It’s always done this but apparently Mozilla’s lawyers now think that this requires an explicit mention in the terms of use. I disagree, frankly, and I think the lawyers who forced this issue are milking it.
  - nickthegreek 2y ago
    Your statements do not align with the reality of Firefox’s own words. They are trading/selling your data and they updated their ToS to reflect that. “ In order to make Firefox commercially viable, there are a number of places where we collect and share some data with our partners, including our optional ads on New Tab and providing sponsored suggestions in the search bar” https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/update-on-terms-of-use/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/update-on-terms... This has been discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43213612 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43213612
    - db48x 2y ago
      But that has nothing to do with the new language that was added to the ToS, which states: > You give Mozilla the rights necessary to operate Firefox. This includes processing your data as we describe in the Firefox Privacy Notice. It also includes a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license for the purpose of doing as you request with the content you input in Firefox. This does not give Mozilla any ownership in that content. This new license to the data that you enter into the browser is only for local operation of the browser itself, not for ads or sponsored suggestions. In addition to that license, they also use the words that you type into the urlbar or search box to customize the ads and search suggestions that you see. It is important to keep these two things separate, because only one of them is new. The other has been there for years.
      - joeyh 2y ago
        Nothing in the ToU says this is local only or not for ads.
        db48x 2y ago
        Of course it does. It explicitly says that the license is for “operating Firefox” and “for the purpose of doing as you request”. Not for improving it, or serving you ads, or for understanding your usage. Just for Firefox to follow your instructions. You type in a url, and it navigates to the url for you and saves it in your history. You type in some form data, and it submits it for you and saves it for later.
        nickthegreek 2y ago
        > It explicitly says that the license is for “operating Firefox” and “for the purpose of doing as you request”. Not for improving it, or serving you ads, or for understanding your usage. It does not. That is explicitly stated as a subset of their rights. Before that sentence you might notice: “This includes processing your data as we describe in the Firefox Privacy Notice.” So check the privacy notice and you find… “How we use data We use data to keep Firefox running smoothly, improve features and help sustain our business” So they can use the data in anyway that helps sustain the business.
  - Dwedit 2y ago
    Typing on your own computer, and having the draft stored into local storage requires absolutely no policy at all. If anyone else's computer is involved with that, then it's a problem. Also it makes no sense for a program that runs on your own computer to have "Terms of Use".
    - db48x 2y ago
      I agree with you, but it seems that a lot of lawyers do not. Most of the other browsers have the same language in their ToS, as do many programs like Microsoft Office.
    - zb3 2y ago
      Exactly, Mozilla just tries to mislead people that their "web services" are indivisible parts of Firefox, but they're not, for me it's a software running on my computer.
      - db48x 2y ago
        I don’t think that they are trying to mislead at all. At no point do they call Firefox a service. Instead they call Pocket a service, and their VPN a service, and so on.
    - eipi10_hn 2y ago
      Yes, we all know that. But the ones that "don't want" to know that are the lawyers and the legal entities. Whatever we scream down here, Mozilla Corporation is the one who will face those legal confrontations, and whatever we agree implicitly here with the softwares won't hold candles to those lawyers and courts without explicit legal wordings.
  - joeyh 2y ago
    When did you request that firefox back up the content to your profile? Bear in mind that a nontechnical user has no idea it does this, and a technical user only realizes it does this after reading the code or experiencing a crash. You "requested" this behavior implicitly by using firefox. So any behavior firefox has, now, or in the future with data you input is implicitly something you requested. If firefox starts backing up your profile to a mozilla server, encrypted, you requested it. If there is an additional encryption key that lets mozilla decrypt it and sell it to OpenAI, you requested it. Also, I am requesting that firefox send this post to HN by pressing the reply button. By the terms of firefox's ToU, this gives Mozilla a license to this content. That license is not limited to the duration of the http call if other firefox behavior that I have "requested" uses that content later. Perhaps they will scrape my comments from HN and use their content in targeted ads that firefox will display to me later. All allowed by the ToU.
    - gruez 2y ago
      >When did you request that firefox back up the content to your profile? When you enable firefox sync or whatever? Is there any evidence they're backing up stuff behind users' backs? >Bear in mind that a nontechnical user has no idea it does this, and a technical user only realizes it does this after reading the code or experiencing a crash. You "requested" this behavior implicitly by using firefox. So any behavior firefox has, now, or in the future with data you input is implicitly something you requested. The crash reporter has a checkbox that says "Tell Mozilla about the crash so they can fix it". I'm not sure how it can get more clear than that. https://assets-prod.sumo.prod.webservices.mozgcp.net/media/uploads/images/2023-03-02-19-43-28-d8c53f.png https://assets-prod.sumo.prod.webservices.mozgcp.net/media/u...
  - mrayycombi 2y ago
    You may be literally correct, but the purchase of an ad company makes that literal assumption likely wrong. The ambiguous nature of the changes favor some shady self dealing. Sorry.
- mzajc 2y ago
  As far as I know, Mozilla is funded primarily by Google. From their 2023 financial report[0]: > Approximately 85% and 81% of Mozilla’s revenues from customers with contracts were derived from one customer for the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively. Google is not named, but to my understanding the "one customer" refers to them. Their aggressive monetization strategies are neither effective nor work to retain what little users they have left. This money is also being spent on crap like executive bonuses and acquiring adtech firms, so no wonder people feel alienated. [0]: https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2024/mozilla-fdn-2023-fs-final-short-1209.pdf https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2024/mozilla-fdn-202...
  - zb3 2y ago
    For me, the best option would be to be able to donate to Firefox engineers directly, but not to Mozilla, they do too many things, I don't stand for those, just the Firefox browser...
    - notpushkin 2y ago
      This. I’m starting to wonder if it could be possible to raise some funds and hire people to work on Firefox (and Firefox only). Maybe partner with the FF forks to help raise money? I don’t really know how that would work.
    - gruez 2y ago
      Money is fungible. Every dollar you donate earmarked to "Firefox engineers" can theoretically be offset by the Mozilla foundation/corporation moving one dollar to something else. This eventually breaks down if the sums are large enough, but at the scales that individual donations can muster, it'll probably hold.
      - anonymousiam 2y ago
        Right. Governments have used the same tricks with lotteries and bonds allocated to specific programs. People vote for these revenue generating methods to fund the programs, and the governments can then divert the money that was previously funding the programs into less popular sinkholes.
- saghm 2y ago
  I think the question here is around how much money is actually needed to develop the browser features that people want without everything else that Mozilla does. At minimum, people would presumably want security fixes, new browser features that get standardized that websites will expect to be able to be used, and probably some amount of support/bugfixes for issues that people run into that aren't vulnerabilities but still might be annoying. It seems like a substantial amount of work, but I don't have a good sense of exactly how much would be needed for that. My understanding is that Mozilla makes its money primarily from deals to make certain search engines enabled by default, and secondarily from donations (with "selling user data" being somewhat of an unknown right now given that they seem to be claiming that they _don't_ make money from it because they're not "selling" it under what most people would consider to be selling, but it's not clear whether that's because they're claiming that "anonymized user data" isn't actually "user data" or whether they're not "selling" it). The key factor to me is whether that poorly specified extra stuff is actually necessary as part of funding the development or not. As far as I can tell, getting a search engine deal is actually not out of the question for one of these forks; Waterfox's documentation[0] indicates that it has a deal like this (with Bing, from what I can tell from trying it out yesterday), and presumably a large migration of users to a fork could lead to an increase in the funding in the future, in addition to any individual donations. I don't know whether this would result in enough money in the long run to be able to continue developing a browser indefinitely, but Mozilla also is doing other things than just developing Firefox and has costs associated with that, and I don't think there's any other obvious revenue source, so the two most likely scenarios are that they're either making money off of selling user data (or something derived from it that they're claiming isn't user data but aren't willing to bet on the law agreeing with them) or they're actually incurring costs from those other things that could otherwise be spent on Firefox. If it's the former, I think that being vague and quibbling over semantics has lost them the presumption of good faith, and I'd reluctantly conclude that having browser focused on user privacy is no longer tenable and we might as well just all switch to Chrom{e,ium}. If it's the latter, then focusing solely on the browser would _reduce_ the incentive to sell user data for funding, and the fact that Mozilla doesn't seem able or willing to do this means that we're all better of moving to an alternative. [0]: https://www.waterfox.net/docs/faq/#6-how-does-waterfox-make-money https://www.waterfox.net/docs/faq/#6-how-does-waterfox-make-...
- 999900000999 2y ago
  A very tiny percentage of people will switch. No body wants to pay say 20$ a month for what they can have for free. I suspect you'd need a few hundred million in annual revenue to actually fund a full browser that doesn't rely on existing engines.
- wruza 2y ago
  Someone needs to dismantle the system that clings onto a standard that requires $^6+/mo to implement. This is much more realistic than playing chase me game with someone who makes the rules. They managed to convince everyone that a browser is naturally a hypercomplex app which requires so much maintenance, support and whatever. But in fact, a browser is an app mostly for rendering text, images and videos, and an embedded scripting language, which all wastes lots of memory and crawls on moderate loads. You can make an app like this in a month, solo, you just can’t fit it to the standard. Before web was a thing, people regularly made much more complex software that “web” heavily sucked compared to. This has to be done. No $200M/mo org can exist without naturally destructive interests in it. The lesson should be recognized, learned and never “feature update”d again. We learned everything we needed in these 30+ years, time to rip it out of corp hands, revisit, settle and put it into maintenance. Add: to be clear, this is not a tech problem. It must be recognized and done at the antimonopoly level, crushed by the law.
- hakfoo 2y ago
  I wonder if this could be a "money where your mouth is" thing for the EU. If controlling a browser engine was considered strategic-- and for the love of the darkness, anything that gathers that much information and is owned by American techbros should be-- then they could provide a fair bit of a backstop to finance a dev team. EU backing could also provide general street cred for the project-- it's both "financially resourced enough to not go poof" and "backed by an authority that both has a strong history of privacy protections, and is in a geopolitical scenario where they can't afford insecurity".
hk1337 2y ago
> Video unavailable > This video is restricted. Please check the Google Workspace administrator and/or the network administrator restrictions. Not really sure why but I cannot load the video.
- Waterluvian 2y ago
  Are you trying to watch from a corporate managed account? That happens to me on occasion when I forget I’m in work mode.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
TheWoodsy 2y ago
Moved from Firefox Dev Edition to Librewolf. No deal breakers yet. Procedure to transfer over painlessly: Install and run Librewolf. On both browsers go Help > More troubleshooting information > profile folder > Open. Close both browsers. Delete everything inside the librewolf profile. Copy everything from Firefox Dev profile directory into Librewolf profile directory. Run Librewolf with "--allow-downgrade" once. First run was a tad slow with extensions doing some 'recombobulation'. You can now run Librewolf normally without the above allow downgrade option. Enjoy. per-site zoom and auto-dark detection disabled unless about:config > privacy.resistFingerprinting set to false
- xeonmc 2y ago
  Is it possible to keep resist fingerprint enabled and only add an exception for dark mode?
  - TheWoodsy 2y ago
    Dark mode will be remembered if cookies are remembered. Resist blocks the website from knowing if your OS is light/dark so auto-dark/light, will be disabled unless resist is disabled. It's all better explained at https://librewolf.net/docs/faq/#what-are-the-most-common-downsides-of-rfp-resist-fingerprinting https://librewolf.net/docs/faq/#what-are-the-most-common-dow... Having a look at about:config and searching 'resist' exposes a few other interesting options to customise like whitelisting etc.
  - mzajc 2y ago
    Yes, set privacy.fingerprintingProtection.overrides='+AllTargets,-CSSPrefersColorScheme', set privacy.fingerprintingProtection='true', and set privacy.resistFingerprinting='false'. As far as I know, privacy.resistFingerprinting and privacy.fingerprintingProtection behave the same with these overrides (minus enforced light mode), but I haven't found much documentation on this, so please let me know if they don't.
- nickthegreek 2y ago
  When I installed LibreWolf via the Microsoft App Store (to easy auto updates) it would not let me into a profile file. It would state a directory in the dialog. I would try to then manually go to the directory and it would not exist. I don’t know if that was a result of a sandbox AppStore design or what. Anyway, I uninstalled and am trying Zen out. So far, so good and it has vertical tabs like I used Sidebery for in FF.
vlovich123 2y ago
Im really disappointed by Rossman criticizing the CCPA as if it’s the best problem and then goes on to list all the ways Firefox had been selling the data. I’m not sure Google paying for placement is the only way that happens AND I’m not sure that runs afoul of the CCPA. Sometimes raised awareness is a feature not a bug and I don’t think it’s a “it depends on what your definition of is is”. Moreover, the main reason Firefox runs afoul of the CCPA is that it requires a single “opt-out” button for all privacyware but they have a dark pattern (like chrome) of having 50 different settings to manage. That’s another reason why I think the Google search bar placement isn’t the reason they’re having issues with the CCPA.
hk1337 2y ago
Installing LibreWolf on Apple Silicon seems to require disabling the macOS Gatekeeper.
- JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 2y ago
  No, remove the quarantine flag on the command-line (find how on Google).
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - hk1337 2y ago
    Remove it or use it? If I don't use it, it will not work.
    - zitterbewegung 2y ago
      You can go into system settings and then privacy and security to allow the app to run also. Attempt to start the App once and click cancel and then go into system settings.
  - fragmede 2y ago
    You don't remember xattr -d com.apple.quarantine the_file off the top of your head? What do you mean the command line is obtuse and hard to use?
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
If you have a Mac, try Kagi [1]. (And pay for it!) (And if you donated to Mozilla in the past by credit card, consider a chargeback.) [1] https://kagi.com/orion/ https://kagi.com/orion/
- Spivak 2y ago
  Fair warning it's beta quality but it's been my daily driver on ios and I've been happy with it.
  - CubsFan1060 2y ago
    Can you speak to some of the issues you've run into?
    - Spivak 2y ago
      They're nothing too major— some extensions don't work or only partially work, it locks up occasionally and needs to be force quit, the integration with iOS password managers seems wonky and sometimes targets the wrong field. But overall it's very usable.
      - CubsFan1060 2y ago
        Awesome. I'm thinking about making it my daily driver everywhere, but wasn't sure if there was anything big that would make me avoid it. Thanks!
- gruez 2y ago
  >(And if you donated to Mozilla in the past by credit card, consider a chargeback.) ??? A chargeback isn't supposed to be some sort of ultra bad review. It can only be invoked for specific reasons, like the merchant failing to deliver goods/services as expected, or an unauthorized payment. A donation is by definition a payment without expectation for anything in return, so you're going to have a hard time claiming the former. You might be more successful with the latter, but you'd also be committing wire fraud in the process.
rochacon 2y ago
If looking for alternatives that uses Firefox as a base, check out Zen Browser: https://zen-browser.app https://zen-browser.app
- batperson 2y ago
  +1, a nicer looking ff experience, more customizable too.
beebaween 2y ago
As a long-time Louis fan it's sad to me he basically just complains even after leaving New York City. Also, when I met Louis IRL at one of his meetups he was actually super rude. Hopefully he finds a way to be happy.
- rafram 2y ago
  He’s just a kvetcher. I wish that kind of content didn’t do so well on YouTube/reddit - he’s rewarded handsomely for being like this, so he has no incentive to change.
- mrayycombi 2y ago
  Isn't this the "New York keeping it real" 'tude they are so proud of? Not being flippant, I'm serious. That's what I've heard. In peesonal experience, I found New Yorkers to be far friendlier than 99% of Bay Area baristas, so there's that.
  - beebaween 2y ago
    > In peesonal experience, I found New Yorkers to be far friendlier than 99% of Bay Area baristas, so there's that. VERY accurate haha (also why I'm still single)
- zagrebian 2y ago
  There are more than enough things to complain about. If somebody wants to have a YouTube channel where they just complain, why is that a problem?
  - RamRodification 2y ago
    If you are a fan for other reasons than the complaining it might be a problem for you if all his content, over time, has turned into complaining. Personally, I have never seen anything other than complaining from him, so I'm not sure why you would be a fan and also have a problem with the amount of complaining (which afaik has always been close to 100% of the content).
  - 2y ago
mrayycombi 2y ago
No librewolf for android. Any suggestions O wise ones?
- RamRodification 2y ago
  Waterfox, which some prefer over LibreWolf, seems to have an Android app. Haven't tried either of these alternatives on any platform though.
geor9e 2y ago
Its interesting that most of Hacker News seems to use Firefox, which is such an obscure browser at this point, with just 3% market share. Now they're fleeing to even more obscure browsers. It's noble of them to incubate the competition, for the sake of genetic diversity in the software space, as I selfishly use chromium browsers.
- fsflover 2y ago
  You're surprised that hackers don't use mainstream tools?
- Brian_K_White 2y ago
  ublock origin, tampermonkey, etc.
  - geor9e 2y ago
    Oh, right. I've always had developer mode enabled to just sideload any extension without the store, so I forget about the current store V3 only drama.
fsflover 2y ago
Related discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43229267 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43229267
cirrus3 2y ago
I've tried to watch Louis many times.. can't do it. He is just so whiny and annoying, it is really off putting to what might be otherwise interesting topics.
1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
https://codeberg.org/librewolf/source https://codeberg.org/librewolf/source What are system requirements and time needed to compile If it is easy then where is LibreWolf for Android

80 points by kristjank 2y ago

zb3 2y ago

It's not that you can just install LibreWolf and forget about it forever. If everyone does this, Mozilla won't be able to monetize your data and they will fight back for their survival. Someone needs to fund the actual browser development.. it's possible to avoid your data being used, but it only works because data of others is monetized.

db48x 2y ago
> If everyone does this, Mozilla won't be able to monetize your data and they will fight back for their survival. So the whole thing is kinda weird, because the new terms of use _do not_ give Mozilla any ability to monetize your data. All they do is state that if you give the browser some data the browser can use that data to follow your instructions. For example, I am using Firefox right now as I type this message in. Firefox will save what I type in my profile so that if my power goes out (or Firefox crashes, which is rare these days but wasn’t always) then it can recover this text when it restarts. It’s always done this but apparently Mozilla’s lawyers now think that this requires an explicit mention in the terms of use. I disagree, frankly, and I think the lawyers who forced this issue are milking it.
- nickthegreek 2y ago
  Your statements do not align with the reality of Firefox’s own words. They are trading/selling your data and they updated their ToS to reflect that. “ In order to make Firefox commercially viable, there are a number of places where we collect and share some data with our partners, including our optional ads on New Tab and providing sponsored suggestions in the search bar” https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/update-on-terms-of-use/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/update-on-terms... This has been discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43213612 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43213612
  - db48x 2y ago
    But that has nothing to do with the new language that was added to the ToS, which states: > You give Mozilla the rights necessary to operate Firefox. This includes processing your data as we describe in the Firefox Privacy Notice. It also includes a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license for the purpose of doing as you request with the content you input in Firefox. This does not give Mozilla any ownership in that content. This new license to the data that you enter into the browser is only for local operation of the browser itself, not for ads or sponsored suggestions. In addition to that license, they also use the words that you type into the urlbar or search box to customize the ads and search suggestions that you see. It is important to keep these two things separate, because only one of them is new. The other has been there for years.
    - joeyh 2y ago
      Nothing in the ToU says this is local only or not for ads.
      - db48x 2y ago
        Of course it does. It explicitly says that the license is for “operating Firefox” and “for the purpose of doing as you request”. Not for improving it, or serving you ads, or for understanding your usage. Just for Firefox to follow your instructions. You type in a url, and it navigates to the url for you and saves it in your history. You type in some form data, and it submits it for you and saves it for later.
        nickthegreek 2y ago
        > It explicitly says that the license is for “operating Firefox” and “for the purpose of doing as you request”. Not for improving it, or serving you ads, or for understanding your usage. It does not. That is explicitly stated as a subset of their rights. Before that sentence you might notice: “This includes processing your data as we describe in the Firefox Privacy Notice.” So check the privacy notice and you find… “How we use data We use data to keep Firefox running smoothly, improve features and help sustain our business” So they can use the data in anyway that helps sustain the business.
- Dwedit 2y ago
  Typing on your own computer, and having the draft stored into local storage requires absolutely no policy at all. If anyone else's computer is involved with that, then it's a problem. Also it makes no sense for a program that runs on your own computer to have "Terms of Use".
  - db48x 2y ago
    I agree with you, but it seems that a lot of lawyers do not. Most of the other browsers have the same language in their ToS, as do many programs like Microsoft Office.
  - zb3 2y ago
    Exactly, Mozilla just tries to mislead people that their "web services" are indivisible parts of Firefox, but they're not, for me it's a software running on my computer.
    - db48x 2y ago
      I don’t think that they are trying to mislead at all. At no point do they call Firefox a service. Instead they call Pocket a service, and their VPN a service, and so on.
  - eipi10_hn 2y ago
    Yes, we all know that. But the ones that "don't want" to know that are the lawyers and the legal entities. Whatever we scream down here, Mozilla Corporation is the one who will face those legal confrontations, and whatever we agree implicitly here with the softwares won't hold candles to those lawyers and courts without explicit legal wordings.
- joeyh 2y ago
  When did you request that firefox back up the content to your profile? Bear in mind that a nontechnical user has no idea it does this, and a technical user only realizes it does this after reading the code or experiencing a crash. You "requested" this behavior implicitly by using firefox. So any behavior firefox has, now, or in the future with data you input is implicitly something you requested. If firefox starts backing up your profile to a mozilla server, encrypted, you requested it. If there is an additional encryption key that lets mozilla decrypt it and sell it to OpenAI, you requested it. Also, I am requesting that firefox send this post to HN by pressing the reply button. By the terms of firefox's ToU, this gives Mozilla a license to this content. That license is not limited to the duration of the http call if other firefox behavior that I have "requested" uses that content later. Perhaps they will scrape my comments from HN and use their content in targeted ads that firefox will display to me later. All allowed by the ToU.
  - gruez 2y ago
    >When did you request that firefox back up the content to your profile? When you enable firefox sync or whatever? Is there any evidence they're backing up stuff behind users' backs? >Bear in mind that a nontechnical user has no idea it does this, and a technical user only realizes it does this after reading the code or experiencing a crash. You "requested" this behavior implicitly by using firefox. So any behavior firefox has, now, or in the future with data you input is implicitly something you requested. The crash reporter has a checkbox that says "Tell Mozilla about the crash so they can fix it". I'm not sure how it can get more clear than that. https://assets-prod.sumo.prod.webservices.mozgcp.net/media/uploads/images/2023-03-02-19-43-28-d8c53f.png https://assets-prod.sumo.prod.webservices.mozgcp.net/media/u...
- mrayycombi 2y ago
  You may be literally correct, but the purchase of an ad company makes that literal assumption likely wrong. The ambiguous nature of the changes favor some shady self dealing. Sorry.
mzajc 2y ago
As far as I know, Mozilla is funded primarily by Google. From their 2023 financial report[0]: > Approximately 85% and 81% of Mozilla’s revenues from customers with contracts were derived from one customer for the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively. Google is not named, but to my understanding the "one customer" refers to them. Their aggressive monetization strategies are neither effective nor work to retain what little users they have left. This money is also being spent on crap like executive bonuses and acquiring adtech firms, so no wonder people feel alienated. [0]: https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2024/mozilla-fdn-2023-fs-final-short-1209.pdf https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2024/mozilla-fdn-202...
- zb3 2y ago
  For me, the best option would be to be able to donate to Firefox engineers directly, but not to Mozilla, they do too many things, I don't stand for those, just the Firefox browser...
  - notpushkin 2y ago
    This. I’m starting to wonder if it could be possible to raise some funds and hire people to work on Firefox (and Firefox only). Maybe partner with the FF forks to help raise money? I don’t really know how that would work.
  - gruez 2y ago
    Money is fungible. Every dollar you donate earmarked to "Firefox engineers" can theoretically be offset by the Mozilla foundation/corporation moving one dollar to something else. This eventually breaks down if the sums are large enough, but at the scales that individual donations can muster, it'll probably hold.
    - anonymousiam 2y ago
      Right. Governments have used the same tricks with lotteries and bonds allocated to specific programs. People vote for these revenue generating methods to fund the programs, and the governments can then divert the money that was previously funding the programs into less popular sinkholes.
saghm 2y ago
I think the question here is around how much money is actually needed to develop the browser features that people want without everything else that Mozilla does. At minimum, people would presumably want security fixes, new browser features that get standardized that websites will expect to be able to be used, and probably some amount of support/bugfixes for issues that people run into that aren't vulnerabilities but still might be annoying. It seems like a substantial amount of work, but I don't have a good sense of exactly how much would be needed for that. My understanding is that Mozilla makes its money primarily from deals to make certain search engines enabled by default, and secondarily from donations (with "selling user data" being somewhat of an unknown right now given that they seem to be claiming that they _don't_ make money from it because they're not "selling" it under what most people would consider to be selling, but it's not clear whether that's because they're claiming that "anonymized user data" isn't actually "user data" or whether they're not "selling" it). The key factor to me is whether that poorly specified extra stuff is actually necessary as part of funding the development or not. As far as I can tell, getting a search engine deal is actually not out of the question for one of these forks; Waterfox's documentation[0] indicates that it has a deal like this (with Bing, from what I can tell from trying it out yesterday), and presumably a large migration of users to a fork could lead to an increase in the funding in the future, in addition to any individual donations. I don't know whether this would result in enough money in the long run to be able to continue developing a browser indefinitely, but Mozilla also is doing other things than just developing Firefox and has costs associated with that, and I don't think there's any other obvious revenue source, so the two most likely scenarios are that they're either making money off of selling user data (or something derived from it that they're claiming isn't user data but aren't willing to bet on the law agreeing with them) or they're actually incurring costs from those other things that could otherwise be spent on Firefox. If it's the former, I think that being vague and quibbling over semantics has lost them the presumption of good faith, and I'd reluctantly conclude that having browser focused on user privacy is no longer tenable and we might as well just all switch to Chrom{e,ium}. If it's the latter, then focusing solely on the browser would _reduce_ the incentive to sell user data for funding, and the fact that Mozilla doesn't seem able or willing to do this means that we're all better of moving to an alternative. [0]: https://www.waterfox.net/docs/faq/#6-how-does-waterfox-make-money https://www.waterfox.net/docs/faq/#6-how-does-waterfox-make-...
999900000999 2y ago
A very tiny percentage of people will switch. No body wants to pay say 20$ a month for what they can have for free. I suspect you'd need a few hundred million in annual revenue to actually fund a full browser that doesn't rely on existing engines.
wruza 2y ago
Someone needs to dismantle the system that clings onto a standard that requires $^6+/mo to implement. This is much more realistic than playing chase me game with someone who makes the rules. They managed to convince everyone that a browser is naturally a hypercomplex app which requires so much maintenance, support and whatever. But in fact, a browser is an app mostly for rendering text, images and videos, and an embedded scripting language, which all wastes lots of memory and crawls on moderate loads. You can make an app like this in a month, solo, you just can’t fit it to the standard. Before web was a thing, people regularly made much more complex software that “web” heavily sucked compared to. This has to be done. No $200M/mo org can exist without naturally destructive interests in it. The lesson should be recognized, learned and never “feature update”d again. We learned everything we needed in these 30+ years, time to rip it out of corp hands, revisit, settle and put it into maintenance. Add: to be clear, this is not a tech problem. It must be recognized and done at the antimonopoly level, crushed by the law.
hakfoo 2y ago
I wonder if this could be a "money where your mouth is" thing for the EU. If controlling a browser engine was considered strategic-- and for the love of the darkness, anything that gathers that much information and is owned by American techbros should be-- then they could provide a fair bit of a backstop to finance a dev team. EU backing could also provide general street cred for the project-- it's both "financially resourced enough to not go poof" and "backed by an authority that both has a strong history of privacy protections, and is in a geopolitical scenario where they can't afford insecurity".

hk1337 2y ago

> Video unavailable > This video is restricted. Please check the Google Workspace administrator and/or the network administrator restrictions. Not really sure why but I cannot load the video.

Waterluvian 2y ago
Are you trying to watch from a corporate managed account? That happens to me on occasion when I forget I’m in work mode.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

TheWoodsy 2y ago

Moved from Firefox Dev Edition to Librewolf. No deal breakers yet. Procedure to transfer over painlessly: Install and run Librewolf. On both browsers go Help > More troubleshooting information > profile folder > Open. Close both browsers. Delete everything inside the librewolf profile. Copy everything from Firefox Dev profile directory into Librewolf profile directory. Run Librewolf with "--allow-downgrade" once. First run was a tad slow with extensions doing some 'recombobulation'. You can now run Librewolf normally without the above allow downgrade option. Enjoy. per-site zoom and auto-dark detection disabled unless about:config > privacy.resistFingerprinting set to false

xeonmc 2y ago
Is it possible to keep resist fingerprint enabled and only add an exception for dark mode?
- TheWoodsy 2y ago
  Dark mode will be remembered if cookies are remembered. Resist blocks the website from knowing if your OS is light/dark so auto-dark/light, will be disabled unless resist is disabled. It's all better explained at https://librewolf.net/docs/faq/#what-are-the-most-common-downsides-of-rfp-resist-fingerprinting https://librewolf.net/docs/faq/#what-are-the-most-common-dow... Having a look at about:config and searching 'resist' exposes a few other interesting options to customise like whitelisting etc.
- mzajc 2y ago
  Yes, set privacy.fingerprintingProtection.overrides='+AllTargets,-CSSPrefersColorScheme', set privacy.fingerprintingProtection='true', and set privacy.resistFingerprinting='false'. As far as I know, privacy.resistFingerprinting and privacy.fingerprintingProtection behave the same with these overrides (minus enforced light mode), but I haven't found much documentation on this, so please let me know if they don't.
nickthegreek 2y ago
When I installed LibreWolf via the Microsoft App Store (to easy auto updates) it would not let me into a profile file. It would state a directory in the dialog. I would try to then manually go to the directory and it would not exist. I don’t know if that was a result of a sandbox AppStore design or what. Anyway, I uninstalled and am trying Zen out. So far, so good and it has vertical tabs like I used Sidebery for in FF.

vlovich123 2y ago

Im really disappointed by Rossman criticizing the CCPA as if it’s the best problem and then goes on to list all the ways Firefox had been selling the data. I’m not sure Google paying for placement is the only way that happens AND I’m not sure that runs afoul of the CCPA. Sometimes raised awareness is a feature not a bug and I don’t think it’s a “it depends on what your definition of is is”. Moreover, the main reason Firefox runs afoul of the CCPA is that it requires a single “opt-out” button for all privacyware but they have a dark pattern (like chrome) of having 50 different settings to manage. That’s another reason why I think the Google search bar placement isn’t the reason they’re having issues with the CCPA.

hk1337 2y ago

Installing LibreWolf on Apple Silicon seems to require disabling the macOS Gatekeeper.

JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 2y ago
No, remove the quarantine flag on the command-line (find how on Google).
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- hk1337 2y ago
  Remove it or use it? If I don't use it, it will not work.
  - zitterbewegung 2y ago
    You can go into system settings and then privacy and security to allow the app to run also. Attempt to start the App once and click cancel and then go into system settings.
- fragmede 2y ago
  You don't remember xattr -d com.apple.quarantine the_file off the top of your head? What do you mean the command line is obtuse and hard to use?

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

If you have a Mac, try Kagi [1]. (And pay for it!) (And if you donated to Mozilla in the past by credit card, consider a chargeback.) [1] https://kagi.com/orion/ https://kagi.com/orion/

Spivak 2y ago
Fair warning it's beta quality but it's been my daily driver on ios and I've been happy with it.
- CubsFan1060 2y ago
  Can you speak to some of the issues you've run into?
  - Spivak 2y ago
    They're nothing too major— some extensions don't work or only partially work, it locks up occasionally and needs to be force quit, the integration with iOS password managers seems wonky and sometimes targets the wrong field. But overall it's very usable.
    - CubsFan1060 2y ago
      Awesome. I'm thinking about making it my daily driver everywhere, but wasn't sure if there was anything big that would make me avoid it. Thanks!
gruez 2y ago
>(And if you donated to Mozilla in the past by credit card, consider a chargeback.) ??? A chargeback isn't supposed to be some sort of ultra bad review. It can only be invoked for specific reasons, like the merchant failing to deliver goods/services as expected, or an unauthorized payment. A donation is by definition a payment without expectation for anything in return, so you're going to have a hard time claiming the former. You might be more successful with the latter, but you'd also be committing wire fraud in the process.

rochacon 2y ago

If looking for alternatives that uses Firefox as a base, check out Zen Browser: https://zen-browser.app https://zen-browser.app

batperson 2y ago
+1, a nicer looking ff experience, more customizable too.

beebaween 2y ago

As a long-time Louis fan it's sad to me he basically just complains even after leaving New York City. Also, when I met Louis IRL at one of his meetups he was actually super rude. Hopefully he finds a way to be happy.

rafram 2y ago
He’s just a kvetcher. I wish that kind of content didn’t do so well on YouTube/reddit - he’s rewarded handsomely for being like this, so he has no incentive to change.
mrayycombi 2y ago
Isn't this the "New York keeping it real" 'tude they are so proud of? Not being flippant, I'm serious. That's what I've heard. In peesonal experience, I found New Yorkers to be far friendlier than 99% of Bay Area baristas, so there's that.
- beebaween 2y ago
  > In peesonal experience, I found New Yorkers to be far friendlier than 99% of Bay Area baristas, so there's that. VERY accurate haha (also why I'm still single)
zagrebian 2y ago
There are more than enough things to complain about. If somebody wants to have a YouTube channel where they just complain, why is that a problem?
- RamRodification 2y ago
  If you are a fan for other reasons than the complaining it might be a problem for you if all his content, over time, has turned into complaining. Personally, I have never seen anything other than complaining from him, so I'm not sure why you would be a fan and also have a problem with the amount of complaining (which afaik has always been close to 100% of the content).
- 2y ago

mrayycombi 2y ago

No librewolf for android. Any suggestions O wise ones?

RamRodification 2y ago
Waterfox, which some prefer over LibreWolf, seems to have an Android app. Haven't tried either of these alternatives on any platform though.

geor9e 2y ago

Its interesting that most of Hacker News seems to use Firefox, which is such an obscure browser at this point, with just 3% market share. Now they're fleeing to even more obscure browsers. It's noble of them to incubate the competition, for the sake of genetic diversity in the software space, as I selfishly use chromium browsers.

fsflover 2y ago
You're surprised that hackers don't use mainstream tools?
Brian_K_White 2y ago
ublock origin, tampermonkey, etc.
- geor9e 2y ago
  Oh, right. I've always had developer mode enabled to just sideload any extension without the store, so I forget about the current store V3 only drama.

fsflover 2y ago

Related discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43229267 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43229267

cirrus3 2y ago

I've tried to watch Louis many times.. can't do it. He is just so whiny and annoying, it is really off putting to what might be otherwise interesting topics.

1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago

https://codeberg.org/librewolf/source https://codeberg.org/librewolf/source What are system requirements and time needed to compile If it is easy then where is LibreWolf for Android