
Mozilla and Firefox could be about to change the VPN and privacy market - libab
https://www.techradar.com/news/mozilla-and-firefox-could-be-about-to-change-the-vpn-and-privacy-market-forever
======
mirimir
> Firefox Send allows you to share large files securely (but not store them).
> The caveat being that you need to have a Firefox account to use all of the
> above ...

There's no requirement for a Firefox account, for Send. And it works well via
Tor, with no CAPTCHA bullshit.

~~~
hellcow
I cannot express how much I love this service. Firefox Send is flat out the
best way to send files securely over the internet by giving someone a URL (and
optionally a password).

~~~
SubiculumCode
I use it all the time for its convenience and simplicity.

------
Zak
As an aside, Firefox for Android is great for power users because it has
extensions. It's much closer to feature-parity with desktop browsers than
Chrome is, and offers more significant advantages over Chrome on Android than
desktop as a result.

~~~
nfriedly
Yes! Firefox for Android is one of the primary reasons I haven't switched to
an iPhone.

(There is a Firefox for iOS, but it's basically a skin on Safari because of
Apple's restrictions.)

------
Mindless2112
I wish Mozilla would get into the email service market. I could really go for
a reasonably-priced, ad-free, Gmail-sized, bring-your-own-domain email
service.

~~~
kradeelav
... thunderbird?

(I'm aware they're no longer maintaining it(?) but it's posed as a genuine
option.)

~~~
maverick74
Not only they're maintaining it again, but the number of developers assigned
as been increased!

However, they intent the community picks its development up, eventually.

However, for now, thunderbird is being developed by Mozilla again, afaik

(i guess they understood there was the need for an e-mail client and that
thunderbird was in a good place for competing.)

I, honestly, see KDE's Kontact as the ONLY decent OS alternative. Too bad it's
not of easy install & support on windows... It would be a great e-mail
client...

------
achingtooth
It'd be interesting to see 'super private browsing mode' which has Tor
integration be shipped with Firefox. Making Tor easier to use and more
accessible for normal people is a huge win for privacy.

~~~
pseudosavant
I know it isn't Firefox, but Brave is a Chromium-based browser that has Tor
built-in with their 'Private Tabs'. It is a really nice privacy focused
browser. Everything good about Chrome, without everything bad about Google.

~~~
jraph
> Everything good about Chrome, without everything bad about Google.

Except, of course, its use of the chromium engine, which is something I think
we should fight against. So, basically, one of the biggest anti-features of
Chrome from Google.

Not to speak about Brave's business model, around basic attention tokens (my
attention is not available, sorry). This is incompatible with privacy. Brave
is an ad company! It may be in a nice phase where ads are opt in but it may
not be like that forever.

The obvious browser closest to Firefox including Tor is Tor browser, based on
Firefox, provided by the Tor project itself.

~~~
onyva
The only added value that’s important is respecting users rights online and
privacy. Brave is as bad as any of them, and being Eich’s new business venture
doesn’t inspire any trust none what so ever.

~~~
jraph
> being Eich’s new business venture doesn’t inspire any trust none what so
> ever.

Why?

------
jumbopapa
If you're using Firefox go to about:config and set media.autoplay.allow-muted
to false.

Blocks all of those pesky autoplay videos!

~~~
Zenbit_UX
This is a default feature as of the latest version.

~~~
jumbopapa
The default feature is to mute autoplay videos that _have_ audio, so you need
to enable this to prevent all autoplay.

------
lettergram
I already use Thunderbird with the ProtonMail bridge and ProtonVPN on my phone
and computers (combined with my self rolled VPNs).

I would welcome FireFox into the mix, they'd do quite well together -- plus
maybe they can make the bridge unnecessary (which IMO is the most annoying
part of ProtonMail).

------
chrisseaton
I wonder if they're seeing an opportunity here to ride on other people's
advertising - with so many VPN providers sponsoring content creators heavily
on YouTube, maybe the public will actually know the term and understand the
idea of the feature without Mozilla having to do much work.

------
mikeyhew
>However the surprise announcement throws in more questions that it answers

Does anyone know what announcement they're talking about? There's no link.

------
hackerbabz
What is the redacted company that might own Proton?

~~~
borumpilot
Tesonet.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17254113](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17254113)

------
MR4D
The should buy DuckDuckGo.

------
kabwj
Isn’t this what Opera already does for free?

~~~
chupasaurus
Opera had been acquired by a Chinese company and after that the browser went
full on telemetry and IIRC same privacy policy works for their "VPN" too.

