But I'm software engineer, and I didn't know about it. I don't think most (as in 95%+, even in tech) people would know difference to care. My point is visibly – firefox seem to be just as ad-hungry as competition.
They could be better behind the scenes, but customer wouldn't know it.
Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm just grumpy.
You know what I wonder? Where's the hatred threshold for ordinary people? When you see an ad in a middle of something and you're so pissed that you'll go out of your way to specifically avoid the product that's shoved in your throat. I know mine's been reached, but, hey, I'm just an grumpy asshole ;)
This was released in Chrome 69 and rolled back in Chrome 70: https://www.blog.google/products/chrome/product-updates-base...
(Disclosure: I work for Google, speaking only for myself)
Guess what Mozilla's response is when Google lists something they shouldn't? "Take it up with Google". And you think Google supports those who they defame better than their usual customers? No. This is not a hypothetical scenario.
This said, of course, I hate this "feature" and I'll make sure I disable it.
Placing ads in the search bar and datamining everything you search for is failing at this mission.
"When contextual suggestions are enabled, Mozilla receives your search queries. When you see or click on a Firefox Suggest result, Mozilla collects and sends your search queries and the result you click on to our partners through a Mozilla-owned proxy service. The data we share with partners does not include personally identifying information and is only shared when you see or click on a suggestion."
Doesn't sound like "datamining everything you search for".
This, right here. They get those regardless of whether you click on anything. What happens with those queries afterwards?
> "No new data is collected, stored, or shared to make these new recommendations."
If that's true, it would imply search queries were already being sent to Mozilla. I hope it isn't true. I feel incredibly dumb that I never bothered to verify it, that I trusted them. If it turns out the queries were sent, I'll look into filing a GDPR complaint, because I sure as hell didn't give consent for my queries - intended for the search engine of my choice, and which might contain PII - to be processed by Mozilla.
https://blog.mozilla.org/data/2021/09/15/data-and-firefox-su...
> Mozilla approaches handling this data conservatively. We take care to remove data from our systems as soon as it’s no longer needed. When passing data on to our partners, we are careful to only provide the partner with the minimum information required to serve the feature.
> A specific example of this principle in action is the search’s location. The location of a search is derived from the Firefox client’s IP address. However, the IP address can identify a person far more precisely than is necessary for our purposes. We therefore convert the IP address to a more general location immediately after we receive it, and we remove the IP address from all datasets and reports downstream.
That's hogwash without access to details of actual cases. What is the definition of "minimum" for a given partner here?
Reminds me of the UX of Android a couple years ago:
- Android: "I'm a better system than desktops, I offer fine-grained permissions that ensure apps only have access to what they need, nothing more."
- Every single app, upon installation: "I need every single permission enumerable in the current SDK version."
>> A specific example of this principle in action is the search’s location. (...)
Oh, that's nice, I feel a bit more relaxed - this means they can't enable this feature for me at all, because they first have to seek informed consent from me for this kind of processing. They'd better remember to ask.
I wonder how containers affect this behavior? Since the same history seems to pop up regardless of which container I'm in, I wonder if this effectively makes containers permeable?
Mozilla needs reform as an institution, it needs new leadership. But its raison d'être is still very much there.
Basically a open source project were the downstream is considered hostile.
There is an institutional problem at Mozilla, we should focus on fixing that rather than trying to come up with even more complex sticking plasters.
Basically what nature does when the elder generation acquires to many parasites and dna damages, spawn a new generation and die, taking most of the parasites with them.
How do you fix that from the outside if not by forking or at least using a different Browser to make it clear that the current behavior is unacceptable.
That said, I don't understand, why would somebody use Firefox instead of Chrome, Edge, or Safari if they ad in-browser ads.