Discussions

(116 points, 1 day ago, 38 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43187423

(162 points, 15 hours ago, 131 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43194536

(252 points, 5 hours ago, 142 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43200065

I'm shocked when in 2025 the term "you stay in control" regarding browser emerges as something exclusive.

When a web page or a program is downloaded to my computer I cannot imagine anything else, yet every major company tries to do something opposed - take the control from me as soon as possible.

My mental model of a browser is the same as of any tool, as a hammer, purely defined by its technical capabilities to do a job, like to display a website and offer basic functionality like for saving a bookmark.

The very idea of an entity called "we", an anonymous and ever-changing cast of people managing "responsible defaults" and "simple tools to manage your data" and communicating it on their terms, making me try and keep up, is alien to this idea. They lay their hands on our data; want to know how exactly? Follow several links to this page:

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/#notice

The page in its tone trivializes the entire deal and is just another EULA and as such could just as well be presented in a small textbox in all-caps. It's more than the average user will ever read, and way too vague anyway.

"Be informed about what data we process about you, why and who it’s shared with (that’s this Notice!)" they say, but

...how about you show the entire dataset compiled about any user with information who is using it and for what exactly (excluding truly secret law enforcement requests). Everyone involved would be mortified with shame.

I consider a browser as similar as a complicated curl with GUI. Therefore:

- when I see that browser does not allow playing video in the background (youtube on mobile phones)

- when my browser disallows me blocking certain things

- when my browser prevents me from taking screenshot of things I can see on it

... it really angers me, as I feel betrayed. Of course, nowadays, web applications tend to get complicated and hide everything behind 'obscurity-security'; however, this should still be code that is a guest on my device, not me being a guest on their device running their code. I consider it extremely impolite behaviour.

You can actually play YouTube in the background with Firefox on Android. There is two ways, 1. Put the video in full screen mode and then press the system home button, this enabled PiP. 2. Start the video, click onto another tab in Firefox (this will pause the video) but then with that second tab active, open the tab switcher and press the play button beside the other tab with the video. Then it will play in the background until you interact with the tab again.

Or install an add on that blocks the api yt uses to detect if it's in the background. It wrecks my charge though.

Disagree

It is your device and you are free to not run that code. You can leave

Of course this changes if it is something you specifically fund like government websites

Ah, the good old Internet Libertarian.

If only free and enlightened individuals could, through their choices in a market in which everything is allowed, spawn such a diverse set of solutions, or allow true self-help, that every need is met...

...rather than everything consolidating under a few big players who leave few realistic alternatives, who confront users and customers with conflicting and hard to identify or quantify problems. There might just be 3 unreconcilable goals like:

- not allowing Google/Chrome to own the internet outright - have privacy for oneself and others who don't "opt out" - have a browser that is established enough to work on most websites

and you can't tell me what browser to use.

The same issue is present almost everywhere you look: All products have such massive permutations of health, energy, waste, sustainability, ethicical and economical parameters that making a decision is almost impossible for any well-informed individual, let alone for enough people to steer change in any meaningful way.

If you maintaing this sort of "Libertarian" view, make sure you're not inadvertendly serve the interest of corporations that would like to not be criticized nor regulated.

Mozilla needs to pay their developers. Donations alone don't cover the wages. The way money is divided is rather suboptimal at the moment in my opinion, but most of that money comes from Google, which may be ruled illegal in the coming months if the antitrust case against Google pans out well, leaving a hole where 86% of Mozilla's funding used to be. They _need_ to make money.

Developing browsers is very expensive. Currently, the only people doing that are Google+Microsoft (Blink), the megacorps in it for the ad money, Apple, in it for their own independence, and Mozilla, trying to be a third party. Forks are made constantly by individuals or small teams, and are often lagging behind in quality, maintenance, and security; Palemoon simply cannot keep up with Firefox, KHTML is effectively broken, and even the maintained Gnome fork of WebKit has tons of issues that make it hard to use it as a daily driver.

Everyone wants a super duper privacy friendly browser that only does browser things and preferably only works on their personal requirements, but nobody wants to actually spend time and money to develop one. I hope Ladybird turns out well, or maybe Servo will get revived into a functional browser, but how those browsers will be developed and distributed is entirely up to those browser vendors.

You can use whatever browser you like, but unless you're paying a significant sum for it or are part of the dev team, you'll have to succumb to the terms under which the browser is made available. I'd rather have parties like Mozilla funded by donations or independent government funds than by big tech, but nobody is willing to spend the millions necessary to catch up to Chrome just yet.

> Donations alone don't cover the wages

> but unless you're paying a significant sum for it

In fact, zero donations cover wages, and AFAIK nobody is paying for it, because Mozilla does not provide any way for users to give money to Firefox. You can't blame users for not taking an option that was never given.

> - when I see that browser does not allow playing video in the background (youtube on mobile phones)

The browser supports it just fine. Youtube itself disables that functionality (to try to push you to Youtube Premium). You can install an addon from the recommended addons to fix that.

> - when my browser disallows me blocking certain things

The only thing I remember Firefox blocking from meddling with is pages like mozilla.org and their addon store. Which, for security reasons, makes a lot of sense.

> - when my browser prevents me from taking screenshot of things I can see on it

That's a setting, though, isn't it? Unless you mean the optional DRM support Firefox has. You can disable that permanently if you don't like it, though you won't be able to visit many DRM-based websites. I've configured my browser to request permission before playing DRM based content and you'll be surprised how often the permission prompt pops up on websites that host normal (non-TV) media.

Have you tried to watch YouTube in Chrome on android? It will turn off once switched to a other app or tab and it can be prevented. Prevented only on Firefox (with add-on). While other web pages like sound cloud will still play in background.

The only reason YouTube premium's background playing is possible as an additional feature are the limitations imposed by the Google company on the android and Chrome themselves. In other words Google built up the "open source" environment to make this exactly possible. They limited us from our phones and now they are selling features that never have been features - they were normal behaviour

Browsers are becoming SmartTVs.

Either you control the software, or the software controls you, yadda yadda...

We're entering the end days now. Stallman showed us the light and then ESR closed the blinds.

People really don't get it.

I'm simplifying: Stallman told us that free software was the only way. ESR said open source was the way with business in mind.

We've ended up with businesses taking advantage of open source. The slew of licence changes to not compete, having special paid versions, and generally shitting on the open source community.

The only thing free, is the labour companies are exploiting.

>UPDATE: We’ve seen a little confusion about the language regarding licenses, so we want to clear that up. We need a license to allow us to make some of the basic functionality of Firefox possible. Without it, we couldn’t use information typed into Firefox, for example. It does NOT give us ownership of your data or a right to use it for anything other than what is described in the Privacy Notice.

From their blog post[1]. Smells like bullshit to me. You haven't had this license for the last 30 years and I've had no trouble browsing. What's changed that you suddenly need it?

[1]: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/firefox-terms-o...

I have no idea what I am talking about but could it be related to future AI related features that process user data locally and/or on their servers? At least that would make some sense to me.

“process user data locally”

Ha! As if slowing down browsing and your computer would have a good result.

Definitely.

There's a hidden motive, or utter incompetence in managing this side of the licensing and communication (either by beginners "better cover you ass" MBA or lawyers thinking, which could mean it's the result of some consulting firm operation).

Either way, the sudden change without proper communication is suspicious.

They are removing all the text about how they do not sell personal data as well.

My suspicion is that this is somehow related to Mozilla Anonym: https://www.anonymco.com/

If you haven't already configured "Firefox Data Collection and Use" and "Website Advertising Preferences" to not share data you should do so immediately.

Absolute bullshit.

What basic functionality are they talking about? Do they list it anywhere? Or is "basic functionality" the new "security reasons" for justifying every stupid rule or policy.

Tactical vagueness.

Mere speculations: they might have been contemplating the integration of their Orbit add-on into the browser. For that, they might need some extra legal fluffs.

They're covering their asses for something. That could also just mean that the old license/terms/privacy policy doesn't actually cover the data processing they're already doing (i.e. the opt-out telemetry, the account sync mechanism, etc.). If they publicly admit that their previous agreements didn't provide enough legal cover to allow their basic data processing, the class action lawsuit vultures would be all over them.

Something something malice something incompetence.

> What's changed that you suddenly need it?

That lawyers are spooked. That's all there is. California changed the rules and that made every lawyer in an organization that can't have a portrayed legal battle with the state very nervous. Nothing in the language says that they can do things that they couldn't do before.

Can't wait for Ladybird to become usable. To be fair, it already is fairly usable, but I'd need history syncing / Keychain sync to make it a daily driver.

Do you really? Seems you can wait, as do many of us. By waiting, what behavior do we encourage in software makers?

I suppose I could manually copy paste things, but it's not a great user experience. I'm fine with using beta software, but pre-alpha even is a bit too hard for me to swallow.

if i want to block data collection by Mozilla, what do i configure in pi-hole?

I was pretty confused about why this even exists (it's weird to read a bunch of paragraphs that are semantically valid but don't seem to convey information), and then I read the [Privacy Notice](https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox). Looks like there's a decent amount of surveillance / ad tech built in to Firefox.

From "How is your data used?":

> Firefox also shows its own search suggestions based on information stored on your local device (including recent search terms, open tabs, and previously visited URLs). These suggestions may include sponsored suggestions from Mozilla’s partners

> Mozilla's partners receive de-identified information about interactions with the suggestions they've served.

> Depending on your location, Mozilla derives the high level category (e.g., travel, shopping) of your search from keywords in that query, in order to understand the types and number of searches being made. We utilize privacy preserving technologies such that Mozilla only learns that someone, somewhere, performed a search relating to a particular category, without knowing who.

> Mozilla may also receive location-related keywords from your search (such as when you search for “Boston”) and share this with our partners to provide recommended and sponsored content. Where this occurs, Mozilla cannot associate the keyword search with an individual user once the search suggestion has been served and partners are never able to associate search suggestions with an individual user.

> You may be able to opt into an enhanced search experience, which will result in Mozilla processing additional personal data, including your technical data, location and search data. Some of that information may be shared with our partners on a de-identified and/or aggregated basis.

> We use technical data, language preference, and location to serve content and advertising on the Firefox New Tab page in the correct format (i.e. for mobile vs desktop), language, and relevant location. Mozilla collects technical and interaction data, such as the position, size, views and clicks on New Tab content or ads, to understand how people are interacting with our content and to personalize future content, including sponsored content. This data may be shared with our advertising partners on a de-identified or aggregated basis.

> In some instances, when ads are enabled on New Tab, additional browsing data may also be processed locally on your device to measure the effectiveness of those ads; such data will only be shared with Mozilla and/or our advertising partners via our privacy-preserving technologies on an aggregated and/or de-identified basis.

> When you allow us to do so, Firefox sends Mozilla data about the website domain or specific advertising campaign (if any) that referred you to our download page to help us understand and improve our marketing efforts. Firefox also shares information with our marketing partners to measure and improve these campaigns; what information is specifically shared varies (depending on how you discovered Firefox and your operating system) but generally includes how you were referred to our download page and whether you actively use Firefox. Where Firefox is pre-installed on your device, technical and interaction data (your device type and whether Firefox is used) will be sent to our marketing partners, and shared with Mozilla.

It’s just sad that everything eventually comes to this.

Is it an inevitable law that everything eventually enshittifies? Firefox has had a good run, but it still pisses me off.

Yes. Even biological cells do this. It is called cancer.

Comments moved to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43185909.