this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2025
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The answer to "what is Firefox?" on Mozilla's FAQ page about its browser used to read:

The Firefox Browser is the only major browser backed by a not-for-profit that doesn’t sell your personal data to advertisers while helping you protect your personal information.

Now it just says:

The Firefox Browser, the only major browser backed by a not-for-profit, helps you protect your personal information.

In other words, Mozilla is no longer willing to commit to not selling your personal data to advertisers.

A related change was also highlighted by mozilla.org commenter jkaelin, who linked direct to the source code for that FAQ page. To answer the question, "is Firefox free?" Moz used to say:

Yep! The Firefox Browser is free. Super free, actually. No hidden costs or anything. You don’t pay anything to use it, and we don’t sell your personal data.

Now it simply reads:

Yep! The Firefox Browser is free. Super free, actually. No hidden costs or anything. You don’t pay anything to use it.

Again, a pledge to not sell people's data has disappeared. Varma insisted this is the result of the fluid definition of “sell” in the context of data sharing and privacy.

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[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 6 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

It also now is against the terms of service to use Firefox for illegal activity or to use it to watch porn.

[–] s38b35M5@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago

It also now is against the terms of service to use Firefox for illegal activity or to use it to watch porn.

I've seen this mentioned a few times in the past week, but I don't see anything about pornography in the ToS.

Can you link me a source?

[–] JulyTheMonth@lemmy.ml 2 points 10 hours ago

Does this actually surprise anyone?

The split between non-profit and for profit corporation and the amount the ceo earns should have warned anyone that they are not saints and will sell out their community if it makes them money.

Until now it was just smart for them to be the wolf in disguise. I guess selling the data makes them more money than keeping false front.

[–] qwerty@discuss.tchncs.de 21 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Soon the only private option left will be to curl the website, read the html and picture it in my head.

[–] ruplicant@sh.itjust.works 14 points 21 hours ago

stallman was right

[–] letsgo@lemm.ee 21 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Are there any specifics about this? It all seems fairly theoretical to me. What do they [want to] do that contradicts "doesn't sell your personal data" within the context of the fluid definition of "sell"? Do they sell my personal data or don't they? What definitions of "sell" are relevant here?

It's all sounding a bit Bill Clinton to me: "it depends on your definition of 'is'."

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 2 points 11 hours ago

They get access to everything to do in Firefox

[–] taanegl@lemmy.world 26 points 1 day ago

The ambiguity is the smoking gun.

[–] HappyTimeHarry@lemm.ee 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

One thing to keep in mind is thar mozilla is now an ad company and can use this data itself for whatever advertising it wants to sell, so they dont even need a third party they can just sell targeted ads directly to companies while not technically "sharing" the info they gather to anyone.

Basically, why sell the data to other people when you can profit from using it directly?

[–] Avenging5@sh.itjust.works 21 points 1 day ago (8 children)

Now that Mozilla's fucked. What's the next option that's not Chromium?

[–] blind3rdeye@lemm.ee 38 points 1 day ago (1 children)
  • Mozilla is sliding down a slippery slope to enshitification; but they're still near the top of that slide. The bad stuff hasn't actually come yet. So Firefox is still top-tier in the short term.
  • In the medium term, we can look towards a fork such as Librewolf or Waterfox.
  • And in the long term, we'll probably turn to a new project using Ladybird or Servo.

It do be a slippery slope though

[–] wittycomputer@feddit.org 2 points 20 hours ago

Librewolf, degoogled chromium, private windows. If you don't want your data to be sold, don't give out your data.

[–] dai@lemmy.world 17 points 1 day ago

Ladybird in a few years, forks of Firefox for now.

[–] SirHery@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago (4 children)

A different fork from firefox like librewolf

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[–] free@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Disable tor in tor browser.

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[–] RejZoR@lemmy.ml 108 points 2 days ago (35 children)

In Firefox, type about:config in address bar, search for "sponsored" and "telemetry" and set all the paremeters you see from TRUE to FALSE. Done.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 126 points 2 days ago (10 children)

We shouldn't have to do workarounds like that in the first place. It's getting to be like the Stockholm syndrome people have about Windows abuses. I didn't put up that shit, and I'm not gonna put up with this either.

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[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 64 points 2 days ago

said Ajit Varma, veep of Firefox Product

Pack up your shit, and get the FUCK out. You're a fucking disgrace.

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 48 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (14 children)

Given that this is a privacy community, I would think that it would go without saying, But I just like to point out, We should probably disable Firefox sync if were using it. Log out of Firefox accounts in the browser. Even if you're not giving them telemetry they have all that data.

~~You can use the x bookmarks sync plugin, Don't make an account with them just use the un-logged in plugin to backup and restore your bookmarks between browsers. On the upside it'll even let you copy bookmarks from Firefox derivatives to Chrome derivatives.~~

Go down a comment or two and use Floccus, Just converted it's wonderful

at their location. However the want it

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