Oh, that last paragraph doesn't give me hope at all. Fucking AI chatbots.
this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2025
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The actual addition to the terms is essentially this:
- If you choose to use the optional AI chatbot sidebar feature, you're subject to the ToS and Privacy Policy of the provider you use, just as if you'd gone to their site and used it directly. This is obvious.
- Mozilla will collect light data on usage, such as how frequently people use the feature overall, and how long the strings of text are that are being pasted in. That's basically it.
The way this article describes it as "cushy caveats" is completely misleading. It's quite literally just "If you use a feature that integrates with third party services, you're relying on and providing data to those services, also we want to know if the feature is actually being used and how much."
The problem is the inclusion of the feature to begin with. It should be an opt in add install.
I agree to a point, but I look at this similar to how I'd view any feature in a browser. Sometimes there are features added that I don't use, and thus, I simply won't use them.
This would be a problem for me if it was an "assistant" that automatically popped up over pages I was on to offer "help," but it's not. It's just a sidebar you can click a button in the menu to pop out, or you can never click that button and you'll never have to look at it.
It's not a feature that auto-enables in a way that actually starts sending data to any AI company, it's just an optional interface, that you have to click a specific button to open, that can then interface with a given AI model if you choose to use it. If you don't want to use it, then you ideally won't even see it open during your use of Firefox.
Please let them not ruin Firefox with some bullshit AI. I can't take much more of this, Firefox is one of the last things I have left.
It's two things:
- Sidebar you can open from the hamburger menu that is basically just a tiny chat UI
- Right click to paste the selected text into the sidebar
If you don't want it, they don't seem to be pushing it any further than that. Just don't click the option in the menus and you'll be fine. (I believe you can also fully disable the option from appearing in settings too)
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That's good to know actually.
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Privacy policies should legally be called surveillance policies.
Or "Invasion of Privacy" Policy
The only acceptable privacy policy for a browser is "we won't fucking look into anything, take anything, nor send anything anywhere you didn't actually wish to send explicitly".
Firefox have an extension system. If mozilla wants to bloat it, they should do it via extension, so that they're not bloating the actually useful part. As it is, all they're doing is forcing more work on people to manage forks to remove all the shit every time they push a release.
Good thing LibreWolf and other forks exist, including hard forks like the Goanna browsers.
Overhyped AI is going to fail, and it can't happen soon enough. The Mozilla leadership really needs to pay attention to that reality.
Mozilla leadership needs to be removed
It just became bigger: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-leadership-growth-planning-updates/
There's never enough money to maintain the browser but there's always enough to dump more into executives pockets.
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It's not going to disappear, it has its place, but its not going to be shoehorned into every single thing.
Sorry, I realized I'm using my personal jargon in public again. When I said "AI," I meant this overhyped put-it-in-your-mouse garbage. When I'm talking about the actually useful stuff, I usually call it "ML."
Of course you have no reason to know that or care. My apologies.
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Well, we had a good run lads, enshitification is here.
Any recommendations for open source alternatives that are convenient and also have an android app supporting ublock origin.
librewolf on pc and ironfox on android. both forks of firefox.
+1 for LibreWolf. Dialy driver and not looking back.
Ice Raven on Android.
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Is this because some middle manager at Mozilla has to pretend to be productive?
Wtf is happening, why is now even Firefox going off the rails?
You missed the previous memo: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-leadership-growth-planning-updates/
The writing was on the wall when the Mozilla Corporation was setup under the Foundation. A bunch of SF venture capital types have places on the board, and are in operational leadership, and are slowly transforming Mozilla into a shitty for-profit tech venture. Ads, data collection, subscription services, and a chat bot.
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I've been willingly enabling data collection features for Mozilla but I guess that time is revolute, they don't feel trustworthy anymore.
Same here. Just turned off all data collection checkboxes. Fuck Mozilla!
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So now what the hell do we have to use to not be spied upon?
Well I suppose LibreWolf (or some other de-branded Firefox) will become more mainstream. Similar to what chromium is to chrome 🤷
That's not a real equivalence.
Chromium is the basis for Google Chrome, while Librewolf is nothing more than a leech to Firefox. It's just Firefox, rebranded.
Rebranded, pre-cleaned of all the forced stuff from mozilla, with the built-in integration of more privacy-enhancing features.
So, not "just firefox, rebranded" at all.
They aren't developing or maintaining the core browser though, they depend on Firefox still being looked after.
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ladybird can't come fast enough
Ladybird has a platinum sponsorship on their homepage from Shopify so not a good look already.
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Damn we really can't have anything nice.
This comment under the article gave me a chuckle.
Get ready for ads as well
They removed this:
{
"@type": "Question",
"name": "Does Firefox sell your personal data?",
"acceptedAnswer": {
"@type": "Answer",
"text": "Nope. Never have, never will. And we protect you from many of the advertisers who do. Firefox products are designed to protect your privacy. That’s a promise. "
}
},
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Man all this makes me want to just use Links2 for everything and being a luddite. Complete with cabin in the woods. So frustrating.
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