To be fair. Mozilla foundation is shady. They keep pushing things that don’t follow their core mission. That try to expand their brand.
You can use Mozilla to build solid privacy respecting systems, but Firefox out of the box not so much. They’re better than Google, but that’s a low fucking bar.
Mullvad browser, Tor browser, mull for Android - all use the core Firefox open source engine, to make privacy respecting programs that work out of the box with privacy respecting defaults.
So I would say Mozilla is a good guy in this conversation, but not a saint.
The Mozilla telemetry, pocket, Mozilla synchronization, experiments, the new tab page basically being an advertisement page. That leaves the sour taste in my mouth, so I don’t trust them because of that… Shady good guy vibes:)
They’re doing what they think they need to justify their existence, and although I personally believe being just a great browser would be enough I appreciate their communication around their ventures. It’s not great, but it’s not like they’re installing malware in the background.
And may I point out that just being a great browser hasn’t worked out so well for Firefox so far. Unfortunately in today’s day and age you have to promote yourself to stand out. Chrome is an abject piece of crap that actively spies on you and yet Google’s PR has managed to convince the vast majority to use it.
It’s also worth noting that Chrome’s security model is much more robust than Firefox’s. Acting like Firefox is superior in every regard only serves to undercut Mozilla’s pleas for more contributors and funding.
They get pretty close sometimes. I respect their mojo, but I don’t install vanilla Firefox anymore. On anything. For any reason. I don’t trust them anymore.
I wish them the best, if I could donate directly to Firefox development I would, but it’s impossible with them. So I don’t. I donate to mullvad, I donate to the Tor project, and I donate to servo. That’s what I can do to make sure we maintain an open and free web
This is an old issue, I was just linking to it to reference why I have friendly relations with Firefox but I doubt they’re intentions, or at least I consider them an ally but one that needs to be double checked.
The date on that post is clearly wrong. Maybe they got some weird content management system that’s updating the date and correctly or they made an edit or something
I’ve always liked the idea of pocket and have tried to get into using it multiple times but sadly I’m a savage who hates even using bookmarks for some reason. I just keep all of it in my brain (which tends to mean I do not keep it at all).
The problem is Mozilla advertises themselves as this last bastion of privacy but a cursory glance at their own privacy policy makes it very clear that they’re blowing smoke up your ass.
Yes, you can change some settings and add extensions to make it private but out of the box it is anything but.
The sad truth is that, despite being a basic necessity, there are no “good” browsers. It’s very difficult to have a monetization model that is privacy-respecting.
Yes you can use something like Mullvad that is totally privacy-respecting out of the box, but it’s so far down the scale that it will break a lot of sites.
Brave is just the flavor of shit that I choose to eat.
It’s mainly NoScript that breaks sites for me, and there’s no way to disable it.
Actually currently my Mullvad browser is not working at all. I have no idea why. My other 4 browsers continue unfettered but Mullvad won’t load a single webpage.
Plus not being unable to be set as the the default browser means I often forget it’s even there.
You can open up the no script options and click on disable globally.
Sorry to hear mullvad’s not loading anything. Seems like a weird bug
Setting the default browser, is a problem on Windows, there is a workaround I could dig up for you if you want. But basically you have to make a script and then modify the registry to point to that script as the default browser. It’s a pain in the butt but it works. Thankfully on Linux, and Mac OS it just works as the default browser
To be fair. Mozilla foundation is shady. They keep pushing things that don’t follow their core mission. That try to expand their brand.
You can use Mozilla to build solid privacy respecting systems, but Firefox out of the box not so much. They’re better than Google, but that’s a low fucking bar.
Mullvad browser, Tor browser, mull for Android - all use the core Firefox open source engine, to make privacy respecting programs that work out of the box with privacy respecting defaults.
So I would say Mozilla is a good guy in this conversation, but not a saint.
Though they are transparent with the fact that they are doing it. I’m not a fan of it either, but it’s not too shady when they’re open about it IMO.
Fair enough, they aren’t evil to be sure.
The Mozilla telemetry, pocket, Mozilla synchronization, experiments, the new tab page basically being an advertisement page. That leaves the sour taste in my mouth, so I don’t trust them because of that… Shady good guy vibes:)
They’re doing what they think they need to justify their existence, and although I personally believe being just a great browser would be enough I appreciate their communication around their ventures. It’s not great, but it’s not like they’re installing malware in the background.
And may I point out that just being a great browser hasn’t worked out so well for Firefox so far. Unfortunately in today’s day and age you have to promote yourself to stand out. Chrome is an abject piece of crap that actively spies on you and yet Google’s PR has managed to convince the vast majority to use it.
It’s also worth noting that Chrome’s security model is much more robust than Firefox’s. Acting like Firefox is superior in every regard only serves to undercut Mozilla’s pleas for more contributors and funding.
https://itsfoss.com/firefox-looking-glass-controversy/
They get pretty close sometimes. I respect their mojo, but I don’t install vanilla Firefox anymore. On anything. For any reason. I don’t trust them anymore.
I wish them the best, if I could donate directly to Firefox development I would, but it’s impossible with them. So I don’t. I donate to mullvad, I donate to the Tor project, and I donate to servo. That’s what I can do to make sure we maintain an open and free web
Mullvad are a for profit company . Why do u donate to them ?
That’s a great point. I totally thought they were non-profit. They’re just so on brand with my personal ethos I just assumed.
But yeah checking they’re not. Totally wrong about that. Thanks for pointing it out
The blog post is pretty recent but the version he’s talking about is 57 ! I’m confused, is this the ESR version ?
This is an old issue, I was just linking to it to reference why I have friendly relations with Firefox but I doubt they’re intentions, or at least I consider them an ally but one that needs to be double checked.
The date on that post is clearly wrong. Maybe they got some weird content management system that’s updating the date and correctly or they made an edit or something
I dont get why everyone bitches about Pocket, tbh. Ive been a Pocket user for years and Mozilla’s purchase of them has made them better if anything.
I’ve always liked the idea of pocket and have tried to get into using it multiple times but sadly I’m a savage who hates even using bookmarks for some reason. I just keep all of it in my brain (which tends to mean I do not keep it at all).
It took me a long time to get used to pocket, not gonna lie. But once I did, I can’t live without it.
They keep trying to make money so they don’t go under if/when Google pulls the plug on their easy money.
The problem is Mozilla advertises themselves as this last bastion of privacy but a cursory glance at their own privacy policy makes it very clear that they’re blowing smoke up your ass.
Yes, you can change some settings and add extensions to make it private but out of the box it is anything but.
The sad truth is that, despite being a basic necessity, there are no “good” browsers. It’s very difficult to have a monetization model that is privacy-respecting.
Yes you can use something like Mullvad that is totally privacy-respecting out of the box, but it’s so far down the scale that it will break a lot of sites.
Brave is just the flavor of shit that I choose to eat.
Fair enough. I’m glad it works for you.
For what it’s worth mullvad browser works for all of my use cases, I haven’t found anything it doesn’t work for.
It’s mainly NoScript that breaks sites for me, and there’s no way to disable it.
Actually currently my Mullvad browser is not working at all. I have no idea why. My other 4 browsers continue unfettered but Mullvad won’t load a single webpage.
Plus not being unable to be set as the the default browser means I often forget it’s even there.
You can open up the no script options and click on disable globally.
Sorry to hear mullvad’s not loading anything. Seems like a weird bug
Setting the default browser, is a problem on Windows, there is a workaround I could dig up for you if you want. But basically you have to make a script and then modify the registry to point to that script as the default browser. It’s a pain in the butt but it works. Thankfully on Linux, and Mac OS it just works as the default browser
It does not work on Linux. Not for me.
On Qubes it just worked after I did --register-app
Their GitHub has an issue open for it in Linux, I see that the tor project is working on a solution as well to make it more elegant.
But since it doesn’t load any web pages for you, you don’t want to make it your default anyway.
“Command not found”. This is exactly why I don’t even bother anymore.