this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2025
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Privacy

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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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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (9 children)

Well, now, I guess all the people who like to lecture me every time the topic of Brave comes up will just chill the f*** out now.

[–] [email protected] 69 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Discovering that arsenic ingestion is bad for you doesn't make your ingestion of cyanide better.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Are you saying that Brave does not sell you out?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

No, they're saying that people have been shittong on them for years for using Brave, now that the Firefox people are in the same boat maybe they'll stop shitting on them.

Looks at thread Nope, people are just going to shit harder.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The thing is: it's going to happen to Firefox, it has been happening to Brave.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It has always been the case with brave it's not that it happened or didn't happen They never alluded that it wouldn't so we knew not to put anything there. People have been adding stuff to Firefox for ages and now the business model is changing.

Hell if anything that puts Firefox a little worse off at the moment

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

While Mozilla is in a worse place at the moment, Firefox has been forked many times.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

As has Chrome. Right now it's a simple matter to undo any telemetry changes done, But just like Chrome, what's the code basis diverge as they try to make it more complicated to keep the telemetry going it'll be harder for the forks to patch.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Which then begs the question: what is so special about Brave, isn't it just another Chromium fork?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago (2 children)

no, see, while mozilla may be monetizing its user base, we know brave is.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

They both are pretty bad.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

But we've always known that Brave is and if we put any information into it it was because we were okay with that.

Now you've got a whole lot of people that have a whole lot of information swimming around and MOZ changes their business plan....

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Its a sad day for sure, when the example of privacy and user respect just... Isn't anymore.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

People are just largely naive. Your privacy, at least since 2001, has always been in your own hands. (Not unlike how, if you don't want to get a virus, you're stuck moderating your own behavior, as the community around you is largely careless.)

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago

A comparison to malware isn't quite accurate because in this case, the software itself is already attacking you when it ideally should be neutral.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago

Nah, fuck brave.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Or we could just not use either? Just a thought.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

I've just learned not to say the B word on Lemmy.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Naw brother (or friend if I'm being too presumptuous), they're just going to double down on being hypocritical.

Now theyll pull out all the things that Brave did most of a decade ago to stay afloat and laud it over you like it's not something mozilla's got on the table right now.

But their crypto... but their search... But that seven-million dollar moz CEO isn't going to pay for himself either.

Brave is going to sell my shit. That was never in question. But knowing that up front I don't give them anything that I want to play close to the heart.

Firefox has a fuckton on everone that they've had for ages that they can now sell because they changed their business model.

And sure we can turn telemetry off if we haven't already, But how long do you think that feature is going to work as intended once it's the only thing paying their top man to stay.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It would be hypocritical if they said something is not an issue when Firefox does it, that they criticise Brave about.

What I'm seeing here is everyone is up with pitchforks against Firefox, so looks like they are applying their rules consistently.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I see so that's why this person has negative 30 upvotes for mentioning they hope people will leave them alone for using a different browser...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

My guess is that they got downvoted because their comment makes no sense, while being angry about it.

If people were criticising their usage of Brave, why would they stop now? It makes no sense. Firefox getting worse doesn't make Brave any better. People who disliked it will still dislike it and people who liked it will still like it.

He is right to be annoyed about getting lectured, but it's silly to think that this news about a different, unrelated browser has any bearing on it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Person A->Person B: Doing X is stupid you shouldn't do X you should do Y

Person A: Y is now X. Person A is now doing X.

Person B:-> I can finally stop having people bitch about me doing X

Person A: Nuh uh X is stupid

How's that comment makes no sense break down in logical terms?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

It's not what happened. If the original comment was "I hope people will stop lecturing me about Firefox being great" it would make sense, but it didn't mention Y, or Firefox, at all.

Even then, your breakdown still doesn't seem logical to me. Person B can expect people to stop recommending them Y, but they have no reason to expect people will stop criticising X, as nothing changed about X.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

How Brave of you