this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2024
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Grab some popcorn, get a nice drink, and sit down, guys gals and non binary pals, because oh boyyyyyy, have I got a story for you.

Section one: """"private"""" advertising. Modzilla decided to incredibly stupid recently, you wanna know how? They added checks notes """"privacy"""" preserving advertising in their browser, which is the exact same thing that brave has got hate for, for obvious reasons.

Privacy cannot be achieved while advertisements are being shoved down our throats. This theory, that ads can be privacy friendly, is what corporations want us to believe and it is a disgusting view that goes against the very reality we find ourselves living in.

Direction to an advertiser isn't privacy friendly, as the advertisers themselves are not. Why is Modzilla adding advertisements to Firefox? Because they are getting desperate. They want to make sure that their big daddy CEO gets millions while we have to put up with the the bullshit that we all moved away from Chrome because of.

Section two: a telemetry and moral nightmare, teaming up with zionist bastards. Firefox turns on telemetry by default that goes straight back to Google. Guess what Google is doing about the war in Gaza right now? Funding it, the genocide of innocent people and making sure they are being killed. By allowing this telemetry we are thereby allowing Google to make money off of it and as such: Israel, the worst enemy of anyone with common sense, money.

Section three: teaming up with vladdy daddy (vladimir putin). You heard me right. Firefox is teaming up with the Russian Federation to stop people from forming their own opinion on the Ukraine war, therefore proving that they are extremely pro censorship. They've already stated before that they're willing to collaborate with western shills, but this is just the cherry on top of the cake.

Section four: the mortal enemy of the revolution must be avoided. Modzilla is a corporation, corporations are the enemy of the revolution. Modzilla abuses their developers and they have been found bullying disabled people behind closed doors. If we want a revolution to happen, then the least we can do is avoid the companies with blood on their hands, and like it or not, Modzilla is one of them.

Section five: what should I use instead? Glad you asked, if it isn't already obvious, I personally recommend only one browser: Librewolf. For a DeGoogled android operating system, I recommend you use Vandium, it's a browser made by the people over at the GrapheneOS project and it's amazing. For iOS? You aren't private, but I would recommend using Snowhaze.

Section six: wait, what does Modzilla have to do with politics? Ironically, a lot of things. They perhaps unintentionally, but still do fund the zionist project, by aiding Google. They are an extremely disgusting company that has hopped on the AI trend that silicon valley has adopted. They are joining Chrome in becoming a monopoly in themselves, and Modzilla is a corporation that has major donations from some of the most evil companies in the world.

Regardless of this negative rant, I hope you enjoyed the post, and please consider using another browser since it will be much better for you!

Sources (Beware of trackers! Nothing I can do about that unfortunately :(( ): https://www.heise.de/en/news/For-advertising-Firefox-now-collects-user-data-by-default-9801345.html https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/privacy-preserving-attribution https://miloslav.website/blog/2020/10/26/firefox-privacy/

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[–] DirtyPair@hexbear.net 42 points 2 months ago (2 children)

lmao calm down firefox is fine

[–] crafted_104@hexbear.net 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The way Mozilla is handling Firefox is heading in the wrong direction. I mean, it's easy to tell by looking at whatever search engine Firefox uses by default. Mozilla is compensated by Google every year and actively collaborates with Google, which also helps Israel. Why bother using it when there are many better forks available, such as Librewolf, Floorp, and even Waterfox?

[–] gila@lemm.ee 5 points 2 months ago

How does Mozilla making Google the default search engine in exchange for Google money help Israel? It helps Mozilla, by giving them an income stream not directly related to advertising.

If anything, using Firefox and switching to an alternative search engine harms Google, because they have to pay Mozilla all the same without getting any benefit in exchange.

[–] PurpleCreation@hexbear.net 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

No it is not. Any company that claims to be "private" while advertising and working with Google is not fine.

[–] Edie@hexbear.net 35 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Section three: teaming up with vladdy daddy (vladimir putin).

This one is... weird. I feel there is too little information just "they are doing it". They also don't feel like the kinda people to do that. Westerners, most likely libs, pro-diversity (not trying to say this in a chuddy way. And at least outwardly). Unless I'm completely off, it just doesn't feel right.

[–] Zvyozdochka@hexbear.net 17 points 2 months ago (2 children)
[–] hello_hello@hexbear.net 32 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

oof the russophobia in that comment section is going off. Corporations have to comply with a country's internet regulations or risk getting banned altogether. Mozilla is not compelled to host every Firefox compatible extension on their store. One of the extensions was libre and hosted on GitHub so users could access it from there, it's not like they programatically blocked the extension.

[–] PurpleCreation@hexbear.net 1 points 2 months ago

That's what I was referring to, yes. Modzilla only added this back due to extreme backlash and the situation should not be understated.

[–] sovietknuckles@hexbear.net 28 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Modzilla decided to incredibly stupid recently, you wanna know how? They added checks notes """"privacy"""" preserving advertising in their browser,

They opened an Origin Trial for it, which means: "It will only be available for certain sites. Note that because Mozilla is paying the DAP aggregation service costs, so participation is by invitation only."

The only site so far is MDN. It does not do anything on websites that are not MDN.

which is the exact same thing that brave has got hate for, for obvious reasons.

From the Intent to Experiment: "Chrome ships similar functionality with their Attribution Reporting API (the Summary Reports, not Event-Level Reporting), but with effectively no privacy protections. See https://github.com/WICG/attribution-reporting-api"

Safari has another version of this, which is also not privacy-friendly.

To contrast, PPA is an open standard published by the W3C PATCG and cryptographically vetted by the IETF Network Working Group, never mind that its implementation in Firefox is only a temporary, origin-restricted research prototype.

Why is Modzilla adding advertisements to Firefox?

Mozilla's CTO did a reddit-logo AMA yesterday to give the community answers, with respect to Private Attribution. He's also not just some executive, he's a former Servo dev and long-time Firefox dev, his words carry technical weight. One of the things he said: "There's no tracking involved here because nobody outside the local machine gets any individualized data, just aggregate counts."

Because they are getting desperate. They want to make sure that their big daddy CEO gets millions while we have to put up with the the bullshit that we all moved away from Chrome because of.

As the CTO said, "There's no partnership or money changing hands. This is an engineer-to-engineer collaboration at the W3C."

The real reason for Mozilla doing this is stated in their original Intent to Experiment: "Use of PPA effectively eliminates one key justification advertisers use for tracking people online."

They're trying to get Chrome and Safari to use it instead of the privacy-invading alternatives they currently use. Needless to say, if you use uBlock Origin, your Firefox install will not use PPA anyway.

For a DeGoogled android operating system, I recommend you use Vandium, it's a browser made by the people over at the GrapheneOS project and it's amazing.

"Stop using Firefox because you should use this Chromium reskin instead"

[–] WhyEssEff@hexbear.net 26 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

>'new browser' dead-dove-1

>dead-dove-2

>tricked-out chromium again dead-dove-3

[–] ashinadash@hexbear.net 15 points 2 months ago
[–] Zvyozdochka@hexbear.net 21 points 2 months ago (2 children)

"Stop using Firefox because you should use this Chromium reskin instead"

Right? I swear, every time I see a "new browser" mentioned it's either Firefox w/ a config applied out of the box (usually Arkenfox's user.js, as in the case of LibreWolf and Waterfox) and some new branding, or Ungoogled Chromium with some new branding. Really gives off the same feeling as all those "g*mer Linux distributions" like Garuda, use this thing that is supposedly better because vague hand waving motions, trust me!

Just install Firefox, head to about:config and turn some things off and call it a day.

[–] hello_hello@hexbear.net 3 points 2 months ago

You can also use policy templates and ffprofile to quickly set sane Firefox defaults and forget about it.

[–] Minnesocialism@hexbear.net 3 points 2 months ago

Just install Firefox, head to about:config and turn some things off and call it a day.

Seriously this. Im tired, I don't have the physical or mental energy to keep up with all these new reskin browsers. I already left Chrome, Firefox can be "good enough" with the right settings.

[–] ashinadash@hexbear.net 23 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Section three: teaming up with vladdy daddy (vladimir putin). You heard me right. Firefox is teaming up with the Russian Federation to stop people from forming their own opinion on the Ukraine war,

putin-wink

If this "disinformation" sways western libs into not supporting NATO's goofy territory war for which thousands of Ukrainians have died, that's a net good

EDIT: I see this is about Mozilla removing a "russian censorship remover" addon from their store. They are beholden to governments in the countries they operate in shrug-outta-hecks should they just not operate in Russia? If yes, they should also not operate in the US lol

To me, it depends on what's gettin censored on russian net. Nato propaganda? Rad, fuck em. Queer webpages? Not so rad.

[–] edge@hexbear.net 21 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

They are joining Chrome in becoming a monopoly in themselves

This makes no sense, what does Mozilla have a monopoly over?

[–] PurpleCreation@hexbear.net 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

In laymans terms; Modzilla knows what they're doing, it's like the Chromium virus (think about all the forks) but on a slightly smaller scale. The best thing we could do would be to make a new engine, but this would just inevitably lead into a new monopoly itself (unless it was non profit, which Modzilla is not, and neither is Firefox). I choose to still use a firefox fork that is actually DECENT because it is one of the only options left for privacy preservation, and I'd prefer to go with the smaller one of two evils.

[–] edge@hexbear.net 21 points 2 months ago (1 children)

None of that in any way makes them a monopoly. They don’t have a dominating share of any market.

But if you’re that concerned, there’s Ladybird.

[–] PurpleCreation@hexbear.net 3 points 2 months ago

When new engines become usable, I'll use them. For now I need to do more research in to how they work. I'll probably use Servo when it becomes more usable as I like the sound of it.

[–] PurpleCreation@hexbear.net 2 points 2 months ago

Modzilla used to be good, they used to be non profit and now they aren't. They've just turned into a new version of Brave. The least we can do is use a browser that actually respects our privacy by default and is non profit instead of wasting time using a for profit piece of software.

[–] RION@hexbear.net 21 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

Some counterpoints:

  1. Turn it off in the settings. It's shitty that it's on by default, but you can turn it off and not worry about it again.

  2. See Above

  3. ??? Point taken, they shouldn't be doing this but phrased very weirdly

  4. Point taken, but worth noting that Mozilla Foundation is a nonprofit that owns the nominally for-profit Mozilla Corporation, although they claim to reinvest all profits made back into their projects. Make of that what you will.

  5. Librewolf is good for desktop. Vanadium is currently unavailable outside GrapheneOS unless you build it yourself, and even still it will lack critical security features outside GrapheneOS. Privacyguides recommends specially configured Brave and Mull for Android, although Chromium browsers like the former are actually preferred due to site isolation. ~~Bromite~~ Cromite is also thrown around as another Chromium based option.

  6. I'd push back against this a guilt-by-association a little. In 2022, 81% of Mozilla Corp's revenue came from Google. They are basically being held hostage and propped up by Google so no one gets any ideas about coming after them for browser monopoly.

Also what's the deal with "Modzilla"? is this a "Micro$$$oft WinBlow$$$" type thing I'm not FOSSist-Maoist enough to understand?

[–] combat_brandonism@hexbear.net 22 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] hello_hello@hexbear.net 3 points 2 months ago

An average Richard Stallman essay /j.

[–] Luna@hexbear.net 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Just coming here (interrupting) to say that Bromite is no longer receiving updates. For a browser similar to Bromite, Cromite is a great option. Additionally, those who can't use Vanadium always have Mulch (by Divest OS dev) as an option, it uses as much as it can from the Vanadium code and makes it available to all android devices.

[–] RION@hexbear.net 6 points 2 months ago

ya I meant to list the maintained fork but got the names mixed up blob-no-thoughts

[–] PurpleCreation@hexbear.net 4 points 2 months ago

Although I personally believe that GrapheneOS reigns supreme as the best android rom out there, I can understand why others would use for example CalyxOS. But remember buckos, make sure to check the privacy policy of all applications before using them! Open source browsers are the best, and always will be.

[–] PurpleCreation@hexbear.net 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Ok, counter points to your counter points:

  1. We shouldn't have to. Advertising as a browser as being privacy friendly means it should be like that by default, and there is no way to verify if firefox is still collecting telemetry without checking the source code (and I don't think anyone will waste their time doing that).
  2. No comment needed.
  3. I phrased it weirdly because it is weird, plus I just hate censorship in general so I'm going to shit on it as much as humanly possible.
  4. Incorrect, the CEO has a giant paycheck of millions which could go into building firefox itself, and yet he wonders why the project is so desperate.
  5. Recommending Brave is absolutely vile, please never do that again. If you can't use Vanadium then take a look at one of the many browsers on the F-Droid app store.
  6. This is an opinionated statement of mine and I won't bother trying to change yours, I just don't like my hands with blood on them, it's dirty.

Little extra: me calling mozilla "modzilla" was just a minor spelling mistake, no need to worry about that.

[–] RION@hexbear.net 5 points 2 months ago

Yeah, we shouldn't have to disable stuff, but we can, and unless it starts verifiably turning itself back on I don't mind a whole lot. I mean, I still mind, but not a dealbreaker.

Did look up the CEO's compensation and it is grotesque. Technically that's not considered profit and so they are abiding by their pledge but definitely shitty.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I get Brave has some ick associated with it but PrivacyGuides has been around for a while and has a pretty robust set of criteria for recommendations, so I'm inclined to trust them a bit. Frankly I have a hard time trusting random projects on F-Droid that haven't seen a lot of vetting and will be harder to troubleshoot/get support with due to smaller userbases. Also, in my cursory glance a lot of the browsers I saw were quite out of date, which is its own issue.

[–] brainw0rms@hexbear.net 16 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

jesse-wtf by allah you people need to touch grass, i will go on as usual.

[–] Luna@hexbear.net 15 points 2 months ago (2 children)

May Servo save us all when it actually finishes development inshallah

[–] mustGo@hexbear.net 8 points 2 months ago

It's got some way to go. kitty-birthday-sad inshallah

[–] PurpleCreation@hexbear.net 6 points 2 months ago

I wholeheartedly agree with this statement normal

[–] nothx@hexbear.net 10 points 2 months ago

I exclusively browse the internet from the command line now.

[–] Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

So if you used Google at any point you supported every war and proxy war USA had a stake in (so every war).

I dont disagree with that. But note that Google is like pollution, it's everywhere, and even to lower that pollution within a controlled area costs effort (with diminishing returns).

[–] coolusername@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Third point is good though? Russia's comments about the war have been all quite factual.

[–] farting_weedman@hexbear.net 6 points 2 months ago

bmf posting is back baby!

[–] gila@lemm.ee 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

checks notes """"privacy"""" preserving advertising in their browser, which is the exact same thing that brave has got hate for

No it isn't. Brave replaces ads with those that companies have directly paid Brave to advertise. Their privacy-preserving nature is predicated on trusting Brave. Once landed on the advertisers page, there's no system in place to preserve your privacy. Mozilla's implementation sends deindentified data to a 3rd party unrelated to Mozilla. I'm not saying this is good but saying it's exactly the same thing is fundamentally incorrect and misleading.

If you want to boycott Google, you can easily do so while using Firefox. And Mozilla still gets paid, so this doesn't help Google at all (for users that don't want it to)

There's no action to substantiate your 3rd point which hasn't also been retracted.

The rest is conjecture. There is very little reason to introduce potential vulnerabilities to my system by using a Firefox fork when there's nothing really wrong with the upstream releases.

[–] OR3X@lemm.ee 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, no. I'm not going to use some sketchy "privacy" browser over Firefox.

[–] RION@hexbear.net 9 points 2 months ago

Librewolf is very well regarded FOSS. There are real arguments not to use it, but being "sketchy" isn't one of them

[–] GalaxyBrain@hexbear.net 1 points 2 months ago

So I gotta side B to get back on stage now? That does nerf an overused character but in a really weird way