Lokjo - EU's Gmaps replacement (@[email protected])
mstdn.social
Attached: 1 image Firefox is just another US-corporate product with an 'open source' sticker on it. Their version 128 update has auto checked a new little privacy breach setting. If you still use a corporate browser, at least do some safety version! We mainly use @[email protected] based on firefox. (yes, we know, a stable european or even non-US browser is still considered 'futuristic' in europe) #eu #browser #firefox #meh

… I mean, WTF. Mozilla, you had one job …

Edit:

Just to add a few remarks from the discussions below:

  1. As long as Firefox is sponsored by ‘we are not a monopoly’ Google, they can provide good things for users. Once advertisement becomes a real revenue stream for Mozilla, the Enshittification will start.
  2. For me it is crossing the line when your browser is spying on you and if ‘we’ accept it, Mozilla will walk down this path.
  3. This will only be an additional data point for companies spying on you, it will replace none of the existing methodologies. Learn about fingerprinting for example
  4. Mozilla needs to make money/find a business model, agreed. Selling you out to advertisement companies cannot be it.
  5. This is a very transparent attempt of Mozilla to be the man in the middle selling ads, despite the story they tell. At that point I can just use Chrome, Edge or Safari, at least Google has expertise and the money to protect my data and sadly Chrome is the most compatible browser (no fault of Mozilla/Firefox of course).
  6. Mozilla massively acts against the interests of their little remaining user base, which is another dumb move made by a leadership team earning millions while kicking out developers and makes me wonder what will be next.
  • Skull giver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl
    16·
    4 months ago

    The data is still collected, it’s just being collected by Mozilla now. For this system to work, Mozilla will need to filter out bots and click farms at the very least. If they don’t, they may as well not collect this stuff at all. Without bot analysis, a cheap botnet can easily take out a competitors entire marketing budget by simply sending fake ad impressions.

    I don’t see why I should trust Mozilla to collect all of this data to be honest. I trust them more than most advertisers, but they did acquire an advertising company, so who’s to say they’re not going to data mine this stuff and turn into the thing they promised to defeat? It happened to Adblock Plus and Ghostery, it can happen to Mozilla too.

    The CEO’s explanation (“it’s too complicated to explain so we just silently enabled it”) sucks. Firefox has tons of data collection stuff where they just show a little top bar with a quick description and a button to go to the settings, they could’ve done the same here. The way they approached it feels like an attempt to smuggle it into non-techie Firefox installs in my opinion. Not being able to explain the benefits of this new form of data collection to the end user is no reason to make the feature opt out. Every update, Firefox opens a new tab to collect telemetry on browser update stats (and to inform me about “great new features”), if they can push a full screen explainer about “we added some coloured themes” they can also push an explainer about the ad tracking feature they just added.

    • sunbeam60@lemmy.one
      54·
      4 months ago

      Ask yourself this: Would you rather trust this data with Google or with Mozilla? Because if Mozilla needs income to maintain a libre alternative, they need to have a measured audience. Doing it in an anonymous way we can verify is better than letting Google and ad agencies do their level best to deanonymize you.

      • Skull giver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl
        1·
        4 months ago

        I’ll take Mozilla before Google, but I still don’t like them moving towards advertising. Mozilla is struggling to find independent income, but I’d rather see them continue to build up subscription services (like their email forwarding system, their VPN service, and so on) rather than join the advertising world.

        I don’t quite trust Mozillas’s leadership after rounds of layoffs without any significant reduction in executive pay. They’re the best browser company around, but it’s painful to see the way the organisation seems to be moving.

      • wolf@lemmy.zipOPEnglish
        12·
        4 months ago

        Ask yourself: Has Firefox even the expertise/man power to pull this off in a secure way or not? I’d rather have Google collect data, because they know how to protect their crown jewels and have a track record.

        Mozilla demonstrated in the last decade that most of their projects are failures and they have neither the expertise nor manpower to pull something like this off.