
Mozilla’s plan to fix internet privacy - DvdGiessen
https://www.protocol.com/mozilla-plan-fix-internet-privacy
======
walrus01
Firefox on Android has become my go to choice now, because it supports the
full set of desktop firefox plugins, including the essential ublock origin. I
can't even imagine mobile browsing without full adblock functionality anymore.

~~~
cobalt60
AdguardHome/PiHole on DoT/DoH? Android 9+ supports private DNS.

~~~
zaarn
DNS blockers don't block all ads, uBlock on top is very effective.

------
ilitirit
> Mozilla lost the browser wars

Honest question... who did they lose to? Google Chrome?

For me personally, Firefox has been better than Chrome for several years now.
The only reason I still load up Chrome is when I want to stream to my
Chromecast.

~~~
nathanyukai
Yes, statistically the majority of people are using Chrome

~~~
mirthandmadness
The majority of people are not digitally literate enough to care about what
they're using. How do people preserve social justice if they're not aware that
it is being violated in the first place? Who would deliberately step sideways
and do something that requires effort when they have no incentive to? Most
people just do what is convenient, without bothering to think twice about it.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
"People made a different decision than I did, therefore those people must be
ignorant."

~~~
rcMgD2BwE72F
Google used a lot of its gigantic resources and ad spaces to advertise Chrome
everywhere. It's been installed and enabled by default on most mobile devices
for years. Google paid software publishers to have Chrome distributed through
other software installs (it also bundled it with its own software like Picasa
and Google Earth). It also paid my local (state-owned) public transport
operator to display gigantic banners in my train station. It organized events
in my work community to promote its software and services, including Chrome of
course. For years, its search engine told me to install Chrome every time I
access google.com from another browser. Google stills serves old and ugly
results page when I do search from Firefox (e.g no chart shown when searching
from Firefox, although every other financial websites is able to perfectly
display their stock charts in non-Chrome browsers). They've even been fined
billions(!) of EUR for illegal practices involving the distribution of
Chrome)[0].

People may have made different decisions to chose their browser for good
reasons, but Google also built a monopoly for very good reasons, too. Users
were and are still constantly pushed and incentivized to use Chrome, because
of extensive, multi-year PR campaign, digital and outdoor ads, but also
technical tricks.

[0]
[https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_18_...](https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_18_4581)

------
mehdix
As a FF user I'll also share my experience.

Since Firefox switched to Quantum, I am exclusively using it on my work, home
and portable computers. Chromium on my Arch Laptop was buggy, had a memory
leak, and would consume all my 16G of RAM after keeping tabs open for a while.
Firefox solved that for me.

With uBlock, Privacy Badger, Cookie AutoDelete and FF's built-in blocker I
have a functional defense-line against privacy violating practices (not
totally immune against fingerprinting yet).

The reader mode helps me to get rid of the clutter and read the text, very
happy with that.

I also use Firefox and Firefox Preview on Android. The latter is specially
superior in performance and has less bugs. For example on Firefox Android I
had non-finishing download bars, not any more in the Preview. The performance
is obviously superior. Nighly builds support uBlock now.

The "Send Tab" feature is also very practical (I have a FF account for syncing
purposes). I send tabs to my other devices which helps me to follow things on
my other machines and also to memorize things by seeing them in a short while
on another machine.

There are two things about FF that I dislike. First thing is the massive
amount of outdated articles and ancient support tickets online. Good luck with
searching for a technical solution for a FF problem!

Next thing is the source code. I have compiled it many times in order to fix a
niche bug. I even bought a better PC to compile it faster. This aside, it is
hard to understand the code. There are zillions of moving pieces, and ad-hoc
bug fixing is not an option. You have to follow things for weeks if not months
to get to the right information. This probably can be improved by better docs
explaining the code to contributors and new comers.

Overall I'm happy with it. Moreover, it is important to have alternatives
otherwise we might lose the open web as we know it.

Edit: add paragraphs

~~~
rbritton
Another FF plugin you might like is Multi-Account Containers [0]. It lets you
isolate one or more websites from others to minimize their tracking ability.

[0]: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-
account...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-
containers/)

------
ocdtrekkie
The aforementioned Facebook Container was an excellent step, but if they
really were serious about fixing Internet privacy regardless of their
financial backers, they'd ship an official Google Container as well. (A third
party developer ships one as a fork of Facebook Container, but it'd be far
preferable for a Mozilla shipped one.) They capitalized on the Cambridge
Analytica scandal with the launch of that extension, but won't follow up with
the Google equivalent.

The code is already written, I just think they are still too scared to ship an
extension that works against their primary sponsor.

~~~
zzzcpan
That's the problem with Mozilla's privacy propaganda, their funding depends on
violating privacy, so they can only talk and pretend, but not actually do
anything about it. Which makes them look bad, dishonest and fake, when they
are talking about privacy.

~~~
wayneftw
You’re not allowed to say anything bad about Firefox or Mozilla around these
parts without being heavily censored in case you hadn’t noticed :)

~~~
JohnFen
Sure you are. I often criticize both. But what you have to say needs to be
based in something resembling actual fact, and it helps a lot if you avoid
stating opinion as fact.

It also helps to be even-handed and call out when Mozilla and/or Firefox does
something right as well as when they do something wrong.

~~~
wayneftw
No, this is incorrect. I was down-towned for simply pointing out that Firefox
nags you to sign in. I detailed each UI measure they took. Nothing but pure
facts that are easily verifiable.

~~~
JohnFen
My comment was tailored toward blowski's remark at the top of this thread, not
anything you said. I'm not sure what comment you're talking about, so I can't
speak to that.

------
RabbiPires
All this talk about openness and freedom, and Mozilla's builds still ship with
the proprietary Pocket extension by default. I really hope they don't have to
rely on the revenue from Pocket at some point.

Not only that, but it also connects to Google's SafeBrowsing servers. Is that
required by their search engine contract with Google? Shouldn't be turned on
by default.

~~~
thawaway1837
You know they own Pocket right?

Pocket is basically their version of Read Later, etc...And it’s completely
optional whether you want to use it or not. So I’m not sure I understand this
complaint.

Mozilla’s first integration of Pocket was poorly done, and rightfully raised
complaints. But since they have purchased it, a lot of those complaints have
been resolved.

~~~
groovybits
<< it also connects to Google's SafeBrowsing servers. >>

As a privacy enthusiast, what's wrong with Google's SafeBrowsing service? It
provides protection from low-hanging fruit with anonymized data (hashes of
URLs).

~~~
heartbeats
It's not very anonymized. Google already has a list of URLs, so they can just
hash them all and see what matches. And if they have URL 1, 2, and 4, odds are
they can interpolate to find out what #3 is.

~~~
tialaramex
> so they can just hash them all and see what matches

Matches _what_ ? Firefox doesn't send hashes to Google Safe Browsing. This
would not only be a privacy problem it would also make the browser much too
slow. Instead Firefox periodically downloads a summary of what might be
unsafe, and then it compares hashes to that summary. If there's a match in the
summary (rare but it happens) it fetches more detailed parts of the total Safe
Browsing map to make a decision.

As a rule of thumb I'd say when a person complains about Safe Browsing without
any clue how it actually works I'm confident they're exactly the type of
"power user" who most needs Safe Browsing to keep them out of trouble because
they're falsely confident in their own abilities.

~~~
throwaway2048
It does however request hash prefixes, then google sends to the client all bad
URLs that match, that is what can be brute forced with relative ease, if you
already have a stream of previous they are visiting (via google analytics,
google captcha, and other matched hashes). Especially if you know most every
URL on the internet already. (hash them, then look it up in a table).

Anonymization is a very tricky subject, and there is a lot of techniques that
get trumpeted but are absolutely not effective assuming a bad faith actor.

~~~
tialaramex
> It does however request hash prefixes, then google sends to the client all
> bad URLs that match

IF the prefix is a match, which is relatively unusual then the browser
requests the full list for that prefix. But also, no, Google just sends back a
list of full hashes and not URLs.

> that is what can be brute forced with relative ease

OK. 1f6866 is a hash prefix, quick "brute force" it with this supposed
relative ease, what am I looking at?

How about 0aebaf? Ah, trick question, that's just noise stirred in
automatically by Firefox (yes their implementation silently does this,
typically the noise drowns out signal by a ratio of 4:1 but it's
configurable).

Or wait, maybe the first one was noise and this isn't. Google neither knows
nor cares.

Still, you'll just use "relative ease" to brute force every 24-bit number and
then er, more brute force to figure out which ones are bogus. You can do the
same with my phone number. One of the digits is a "five" \- quick, brute force
the whole number and tell me what it is to show how great "brute force" is at
hand-waving impossible problems!

> if you already have a stream of previous they are visiting

I know this trick. Hey, pick a number, then add two to that number, then take
away the number you first thought of. The number you're now thinking of is two
- tada!

Yes, if I know where you are then I can "magically" tell where you are using
seemingly unrelated information, by simply discarding it and already knowing
where you are.

But this "technique" works perfectly well without Safe Browsing and so it has
no bearing on whether Safe Browsing is in fact safe.

> Anonymization is a very tricky subject

Brain surgery is also a tricky subject. But Google's Safe Browsing project
doesn't do Brain surgery either.

------
CivBase
> Baker wrote on Mozilla's blog that in the last decade, the world had seen
> "the power of the internet used to magnify divisiveness, incite violence,
> promote hatred, and intentionally manipulate fact and reality." Baker then
> added four new manifesto principles calling for equality, discourse and
> diversity online in an addendum called "Pledge for a Healthy Internet."

"Equality, discourse, and diversity" are the very principles that enable
people to "magnify divisiveness, incite violence, promote hatred, and
intentionally manipulate fact and reality." Any attempt to promote freedom of
expression while simultaneously silencing the worst of humanity is inherently
at odds.

Hatred is a naturally occuring phenomina, not a learned behavior. You can't
just quarantine it to make it go away. That only makes it worse.

The internet is not a breeding ground for hatred. It's just a reflection of
how bad we can really be.

------
DrScientist
Ex-Mozillian Brendan Eich agrees that privacy is the battle for the future
[http://www.brave.com](http://www.brave.com)

The question is - do you need to re-write the internet economy as Brave are
trying to to achieve it, and not just block trackers?

The third element is that governments are becoming addicted to the vast trove
of information gathered - will they be willing to give that up if a
technical/business model solution takes off.

Interesting times.

~~~
catalogia
I want no part of Brave's weird cryptoish scheme. I know the feature is opt-
in, but I don't see the point in supporting an organization unable to find a
source of revenue I find agreeable.

Even something as simple and obnoxious as donation nagging, like Wikipedia,
seems preferable to what Brave has proposed.

~~~
prepend
It’s not perfect, but I like it better than the alternatives (selling user
data, non profit).

Technically the browser is nice, but there’s something nice about a for profit
org whose incentives are aligned with mine. For now, I use a FireFox for
similar reasons, but I like Brave’s mode for the web better than the “bad ad”
model that google and Facebook push.

I used to like Opera for similar reasons.

~~~
hvis
What could one find disgreeable in a company being a non-profit?

~~~
luckylion
In a "we depend on the biggest enemy of privacy for funding" kind of way?

~~~
hvis
Being a non-profit doesn't imply any of that.

And nobody has ever demonstrated that this ostensible "dependence" has any
adverse effects on Mozilla's policy.

~~~
luckylion
It's hard to demonstrate anything if you don't have a control group and can't
turn the thing in question on and off. Conflicts of interest are real, you
don't need to demonstrate that they are, though it's not clear how much they
sway Mozilla's decisions.

And you're right, the non-profit-status doesn't imply that, they could just as
well do the same as a commercial enterprise. It would be more obvious that
way.

Would Mozilla make the step to ship an adblocker with Firefox? It would
certainly be what their users want (the most popular extension by far being
uBlock Origin), but it would pretty much decrease their worth to Google to
zero, hence kill the funding. And there's your conflict of interest.

~~~
hvis
It's a difficult problem. Unless a majority-marketshare browser does that as
well (and we know that Chrome certainly won't), a lot of websites might choose
to block all Firefox users instead.

And perhaps you and I know how to disable an ad blocker selectively. An
average user might simply see problems with websites and uninstall Firefox as
"not working", tanking its marketshare even more.

So Google doesn't necessarily factor into that decision, really.

~~~
luckylion
True, though I think that would be a short (and just!) war that would get us
to a much better place: hiding the type of user agent you're using from the
site means less finger printing opportunities.

It very much could lead to the opposite too. "Oh hey, the web works when
you're using Firefox". My mother has become a missionary (for adblockers, not
firefox) since she's once witnessed how websites look on a friend's PC. She
told her "I think your computer is broken", which lead to confusion & a
presentation on my mother's PC... which lead to them calling me asking how to
make her friend's PC do that too.

It might, ironically, also be a great signal for Google's bots. I've never
seen a quality site that tried to block me for using an adblock, and even
"hey, please turn adblock on" is a strong signal for me that it's SEO content
and I should go on looking for something else.

~~~
hvis
> hiding the type of user agent you're using from the site means less finger
> printing opportunities

There are other (maybe a bit more complex) ways to tell what browser you're
using, and whether you block ads.

> I've never seen a quality site that tried to block me for using an adblock

...yet. This is starting to change, and a lot of websites still have ads as
their main source of revenue. Either that, or subscriptions, and the latter
(for online newspapers, for example) is taking off very slowly.

Again, our usage patterns are in the minority, so whatever tough choices we
might want to make are not necessarily to everyone's benefit right now.

At least in theory, I support the Better Ads initiative by Adblock Plus. Even
though I've mostly been using uBlock Origin lately...

~~~
luckylion
> There are other (maybe a bit more complex) ways to tell what browser you're
> using, and whether you block ads.

Yes, and doing so will escalate the arms race. I believe that browsers will
come out as the winners, and that's a good thing for privacy.

> This is starting to change, and a lot of websites still have ads as their
> main source of revenue.

Sure, but then again, most sites I see on a daily basis in Google are pure
shit - made only to display ads, with the same content that is also on a
million other pages, slightly rewritten so Google considers it unique. Nothing
of value will be lost if the all burn up and go away.

I'm sure you're right, there will be unforeseen consequences, but I feel like
appeasing the adtech industry by not stopping their surveillance is not going
to be helpful.

Better Ads focuses only on perception: A flashy, dumb static banner is bad, a
stalking text-ad that sends information back to its creepy owner where it is
then correlated with MasterCard payment data, your location, the interests of
your friends etc and saves all of that into a shadowy profile that follows you
around is fine, because it's text only and is labeled "advertisement". I can't
decide whether it was just an extortionist cash-grab or a smart way to
redirect the attention from the actual problem to the surface problem ("it's
bright, and it's animated").

~~~
hvis
> believe that browsers will come out as the winners, and that's a good thing
> for privacy

Even if I agree with you on the rest, we're back to Firefox not having a
majority marketshare.

Mozilla _could_ make a choice to only serve our particular niche, to the
exclusion of less-technical users, but I don't think it's a good choice for
it, or for the whole web.

------
gfody
Using uMatrix really raised my awareness of how bad things are - spyTech is
utterly everywhere. I still take the time to micromanage my matrix every time
I encounter a new site and it’s ridiculous how long it can take to get a
random infested page back to an acceptable level of usability.

~~~
nsomaru
uMatrix is better than nothing but I want more micromanagement. I want to be
able to block on a per script basis because some sites will load 49 scripts
from some other domain and only 1 or 2 will actually be needed to make the
page work properly.

~~~
gfody
agree, I'd love to see uMatrix get more sophisticated.. there are already a
lot of sites that simply cannot be fixed

------
badrabbit
Can they focus on making it perform as well as Chrome?

I mean, I support their efforts and all but I am forced to use a chrome based
browser because FF has poor windows/sso integration and absolutley horrible
memory management. A tab of any tool's webui that does a lot of work with a
lot of data will not only bring firefox to a halt but the entire system. I can
at least try to use it for soft workloads but you never know when visiting the
wrong page will cause this issue again. Why can't it manage it's impact on the
rest of the system?

My job performance would tank dramarically if I used firefox exclusively!

Why can't they work to make it better than Chrome? They were throwing Rust at
it a few years ago,so what happened? Do they just not test against the right
sites?

I mean, the mozilla foundation is not poor. They have money. Is it just
politics or do they think getting gmail and youtube to work is all that is
needed? I am only saying all this because i like firefox. Mozilla needs a wake
up call. Do they not get the problems at hand or do they not care or do they
lack some resource or motivation? I mean I will be happy to even buy a license
for firefox if they get it to even come close to Chrome's performance. Maybe
they have too many well intended fanboy's cheeeing them on?

~~~
justinph
Maybe this is a windows thing? I use Firefox on MacOS and it is more
performant than Chrome. I rarely have to restart Firefox. Chrome needs a
restart at least twice a day (I use Chrome for google hangouts a lot).

This changed recently with Firefox Quantum, which was v69 or v70. I noticed a
significant speedup at that point.

~~~
rebelwebmaster
Firefox switched to CoreAnimation in v70, which made a big difference.

[https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2019/10/22/dramatically-
red...](https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2019/10/22/dramatically-reduced-
power-usage-in-firefox-70-on-macos-with-core-animation/)

------
kup0
I'm finally back to Firefox for good. Feels good to be _home_.

I keep 'Edge-ium' around if I encounter any rare use cases that necessitate
it, but that's relatively rare

------
mark_l_watson
I liked the wrap up where the position is that it is OK when other browsers
adopt some of Mozilla’s privacy features.

I just about exclusively use FireFox with nine containers on my Linux and
macOS laptops. Being able to segregate data is a game changer.

On my iOS devices, I feel stuck with Safari since other browsers sit on top of
Safari. I appreciate the privacy features in Safari but still feel the need to
frequently remove all cookies and use private tabs when using sites like
FaceBook. I just wrote about this yesterday [https://mark-
watson.blogspot.com/2020/02/protecting-oneself-...](https://mark-
watson.blogspot.com/2020/02/protecting-oneself-from-surveillance.html)

Because I like to sometimes use my Chromebook, I am stuck using the Chrome web
browser. Deleting all cookies frequently helps.

~~~
move-on-by
Private tabs are the only way I use Safari. I found that I rarely use websites
that I need to be logged in to, as those type of services generally have an
App that I'm already using. For the odd case where I need to login, with my
password vault, its only a couple extra clicks.

~~~
mark_l_watson
+1 that is excellent advice.

When non-tech friends ask how much of a hassle it is deleting all cookies, I
point out that the passwords are saved and reliving in is quick.

All private tabs is obviously better, and I will do that more often.

------
h91wka
It's funny how Mozilla preaches privacy, but if you open `about:config' and
count

1) parameters that include word "telemetry"

2) everything that looks like a unique token

3) "mozilla.org" URLs

you'll see that the sum is steadily going up with every release. It leaves me
under impression that Mozilla is trying to follow Facebook and Google. Lately
they removed setting to use a custom page for the new tabs, leaving only
choice between blank page and Mozilla-provided "interest based" homepage. I am
still using it as the main browser, though, as "lesser evil", but discrepancy
between Mozilla's slogans and actual features is pretty chilling.

~~~
jfk13
telemetry ≠ tracking

~~~
throwaway2048
Telemetry is absolutely a polite word for tracking. It is fundamentally about
sending information about your system, your usecase, your software and your
data to a remote party (usually without notification).

Calling it anything except tracking is super bullshitty.

~~~
phases
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------
dependenttypes
How ironic. Firefox is the browser that calls home the most on the first run
[https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/11658588961766604...](https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/1165858896176660480)

They also disabled the ability for extensions to work on mozilla pages and
things like about:addons by default, where mozilla uses google analytics.

They add new tracking crap on the browser in every release, so you are at a
loss what to disable first in about:config as the online guides tend to get
outdated easily.

> that's good for trolls and surveillance organizations and violent groups

Only "surveillance organizations" is relevant to privacy. The others make me
think of centralisation and censorship.

The only real way to browse privately is to use a browser with javascript
disabled and only a subset of css enabled over tor/isp. (but then you have to
deal with cloudflare and broken sites)

~~~
jamienicol
What is the relevance of "number of calls home on first run"? Surely the
contents of said calls, and over an extended time period, is a much more
important measurement?

~~~
dependenttypes
I think that the number of calls home on first run is more important because
you don't get an option to disable them.

------
davidy123
The concept of the browser is a universal vehicle for information. One of the
greatest breakthroughs for browsers, aside from increasing front end
application rendering and interactivity, is extensions. They put the user as
the primary, where they can access, control, organize the information accessed
as they wish using extensions. Of course, there is a wild west aspect to this,
and over time extension facilities are becoming closer to app stores, with
ratings and permissions being primary. Chrome has had some of the best support
for extensions, making it easy to create them and offering most features
through them, which is one reason I use it instead of Firefox day to day. But
no browser properly supports extensions on mobile. Chrome just doesn't, the
Kiwi fork is supposed to but in my experience doesn't really, Firefox says
they will but the signals are it will only be select extensions, at least for
now. Extensions are one of the best markers and facilities of a free, user
first web, that isn't just about accessing opaque, absolutely controlled
services, where hobbyists and principled organizations can work directly in
the space of privacy and trust as information is processed, so I hope they
pick up some priority.

~~~
dexen
_> Firefox says they will [properly support extensions on mobile]_

The most relevant extension - uBlock Origin - works just fine on mobile
Firefox.

It's a real game changer, especially with screen real estate and energy usage
being quite important on mobile.

That extension alone is why I have and use Firefox on mobile phones (aside of
the usual compatibility testing on other browsers for certain web projects).

------
jeffrufino
Brilliant, I'll be moving to Firefox.

------
us000538
Specifically for mobile divices mozilla's performance is too good you can feel
it just try to open blogger html codes in crome it will hang but for mozilla
it's fine [https://www.boringworld.org](https://www.boringworld.org)

------
mariushn
I'd love to have a Gmail-like alternative, both with a Mozilla domain
(personal) and custom domains (business), for a small yearly subscription.
Maybe have ad-supported as an alternative.

------
SergeAx
The momemt Google pull the plug for Ublock Origin and other similar plugins -
we'll see how "Mozilla lost the browser wars".

------
wnevets
The moment ublock origin is limited or broken in chrome is the moment I
abandon chrome completely and switch to firefox full time.

------
tonfreed
> namedropping Cambridge Analytica

And opinion discarded

------
einpoklum
Mozilla destroyed their own platform - by removing its most significant
feature, which was deep extensibility, instead of fixing it to keep that
feature.

> That's how Mozilla works: slowly, collaboratively, trying to speak for
> everyone.

I don't remember Mozilla works collaboratively. By the way - remind me where
they publish their income sources again?

> "the power of the internet used to magnify divisiveness, incite violence,
> promote hatred, and intentionally manipulate fact and reality."

Yeah, well, so has the printing press. When someone suggests we should keep a
"healty press", that's oligarchic censorship. Reminds me of the US Comics
Code.

> Mozilla has spent the last several years fighting harder and louder than
> ever for the future of the internet.

Must not have been loud enough, because I believe few people have noticed
this.

> the company's vision of a more user-centric, privacy-conscious web.

"user-centric" web? Don't know what that means. It's like "reader-centric
books". As for privacy - when something like uBlock Origin and EFF Privacy
Badger is installed by default, and when TOR is an easily-accessible option,
and when Mozilla funds some TOR endpoint routers (in countries outside US
reach of course), then we'll talk.

> But what if people could also use them to keep Facebook from snooping as
> they traveled the web?

If Facebook was prevented from snooping entirely, that would not be that much
of an issue.

> Firefox has long held the not-entirely-flattering distinction of being the
> most popular browser not made by a huge corporation

It's bankrolled by huge corporations. IIRC it was mostly Google for a while.
Also, see below about their new VP.

I am reminded how Mozilla had, for years, neglected its email client in favor
of the browser, thus effectively helping to promote webmail, stored and spied
on by these corporations. It certainly did nothing to promote end-to-end
encryption of email, which has been quite possible with Thunderbird, and would
have prevented (some of the) spying on users.

> So far, Firefox has blocked 1.6 trillion tracking requests

That means it doesn't block most tracking requests.

> Alan Davidson ... new VP of policy ... has been working ... at Google and
> then as President Barack Obama's director of digital economy

So one of the top people at the spying-B-us corporation and the "can't have
privacy and security" administration is the new VP who'll help protect us from
his former colleagues and bosses? Uh-huh.

------
throwaway8291
I'm using Firefox for years, after Chrome started to ask me for a login (at
around version 40). Never looked back. One day I woke up to a chart showing
browser market share of FF at around 4%, which surprised me - as I thought
many people would understand the implications and directions.

Maybe I'm too optimistic.

Update: Loved chrome, used it for years, I also love most Chrome engineering
and all the innovation they added to the field - it's just good to have
alternatives.

~~~
avian
> I'm using Firefox for years, after Chrome started to ask me for a login

It's funny because Firefox has been pushing their login thing pretty hard (the
yellow "oh no" exclamation mark icon if you're not logged in, the account icon
that keeps placing itself back onto my toolbar, occasional full-page ad/nag
screen, ...).

~~~
blackearl
I've never seen the exclamation mark and I'm never signed in on my work
computer. Meanwhile, Chrome signs you into the browser profile if you sign
into any Google site and it's opt-out.

~~~
wayneftw
They've got it plastered around the UI. It's the very top menu item. It's also
in the Pocket address bar button right under where they advertise to you to
"Sign up for Pocket. It's freeeeeee!"

Not only that, but on new installs and after some updates Firefox nags you to
sign up whenever it can, for instance when you log into a website - right
after you save the password it will show some animated crap in the address bar
to nag you to "Sign in to sync..."

I just opened Firefox (on Linux no less) to confirm every single one of these
things.

Chrome (my default browser) actually nags me less and in less annoying ways.

~~~
dao-
> Chrome (my default browser) actually nags me less and in less annoying ways.

Because they just log you in without asking, as noted in the comment you're
replying to. It also has more severe implications in Chrome privacy-wise,
directly linking your Chrome profile with all kinds of other privacy-sensitive
Google services. Since Google is in the business of making money from the data
they have on you (and hence collects as much as it can), I'd be much more
concerned about this than I am about my Firefox account.

~~~
wayneftw
I opted out of that once in Chrome and I never saw it again.

I see no way to opt out of all the nags Firefox gives me.

------
cousin_it
1) Thirteen banner ads, most of them animated

2) Tracking from Google and Facebook

3) Cookie warning with no way to opt out

4) You can only opt out if you live in California:

> _Opting out of the sharing of your personal information by Protocol with
> marketers: Please send an email to privacy@protocol.com with the following
> information: -Name -Email -Confirmation of California residency_

~~~
tclover
I often forget how does the internet look like without the adblocker

~~~
hobofan
Not using a dedicated ad blocker (just Firefox) and the article looks very
clean to me.

------
inviromentalist
If anyone can figure out why Firefox doesn't work on my computer, let me know.

It's at least 30 times slower than chrome. So somethings wrong Right?

~~~
jeltz
Yeah, that is not normal at all. Firefox should be about as fast as Chrome on
most workloads.

------
fmajid
Their shabby treatment of Brendan Eich discredits their self-proclaimed
commitment to diversity and open discourse.

------
arkitaip
Maybe the ultimate move would be to create a Tor alternative that goes beyond
slapping on some privacy on the pig that has become the Internet.

~~~
OmarShehata
Why would that be better than current solutions, which at best users don't
really notice when they work, and at worse dislike because they make many
things less convenient?

> Making private browsing more private was a success, which is to say less
> data was collected and users didn't notice the difference.

> The same trackers, though, help users log into sites and pay for goods, and
> blocking them would break the internet for lots of users.

------
beardedman
I've been using Brave these days. Really like it. IMO: Firefox doesn't seem to
know what sort of company they are anymore. Their product arsenal is
expanding, yet core features of their flagship product is still stuck in the
2000's.

~~~
jeltz
How is Firefox stuck in the 2000s? They recently switched to an entirely new
modern renderer, switched to a modern fast layout engine and implement new web
strandards very quickly, sometimes faster than Chrome.

~~~
beardedman
I said core features, not the entire browser. Their bookmark manager hasn't
changed for many many years.

------
heartbeats
If they want to do something, there's a simple three-step plan.

1) block all ads, by default

2) do not unblock Google's ads,

3) receive Adblock Plus-style bribes from Yandex or whoever to whitelist them,
provided they don't harm privacy

This would kill several birds in one stone. First, break Mozilla free of
Google funding. Second, hurt Google. Third, increase Firefox' market share.
Fourth, help users' privacy.

As things stand today, Mozilla just exist so that Google can pretend they
don't have a monopoly. Follow the money - who pays?

(A: Google pays nearly all of their budget, and they have next to no rainy day
fund)

~~~
ComodoHacker
>from Yandex or whoever to whitelist them, provided they don't harm privacy

I doubt you can find one that doesn't harm privacy. And particulary Yandex
will raise other concerns.

~~~
move-on-by
Seriously, why would anyone trust the Russian controlled Yandex any more then
Google? Might as well be advocating for Baidu as well.

~~~
ComodoHacker
On the other hand, there aren't many Yandex served ads in US, so most people
won't care.

------
ecmascript
Mozilla essentially did a "get woke, go broke". They fired Brendan for
ridicolous reasons, they focused on products that were useless and were really
focused on spreading propaganda for woke causes.

I still use Firefox everyday since it's the best browser for linux but I also
use Brave. Mozilla as a company in my eyes are a bit lost and they need more
focus on their technology. It seems like they have realized this in the last
two years or so and I hope that trend will continue. Firefox is awesome, focus
on privacy is awesome. MDN is awesome. If they need money from other sources
than Google, why not create some kind of subscription service for their MDN
docs?

There is a bunch of things they actually need to fix like lack of PWA support
in firefox (still) which is pretty bad that they don't have that enabled by
default.

Focus on what matters, no one cares about your woke politics in the long run.

~~~
Angostura
> hey fired Brendan for ridicolous reasons

Marriage equality isn't a particularly ridiculous reason.

~~~
ecmascript
So because you're a CEO you can't believe whatever you want in your spare
time? Or does the same rules apply for everyone that works at Mozilla? If so,
how the fuck does anyone know what is a fireable opinion? It's not like he
used company resources to promote his beliefs or enforced his beliefs on
others. What Mozilla did to Brendan is essentially to enforce thought crime on
their own staff. It's kind of hard to take them seriously when they say they
value integrity after that.

This idea of an outrage culture is what makes Mozilla go down the shitter. No
one cares about that shit except a very small minority in SF.

It's not like Google or most other for-profit company cares about marriage
inequality either. Just because they don't explicitly say it out loud doesn't
mean they care. They care about profits and market dominance only. If Google
would make more money being anti same sex marriage, then they would most
likely oppose same sex marriage and spend a lot of money on lobbying for the
opposing view.

I'm certain that firing Brendan was probably one of the worst decisions
Mozilla has taken so far. I trust Brave and Brendan far more on privacy issue
since they only care about that and don't shove woke politics onto my face.
I'm convinced that Brave will be larger than Firefox in market share sooner
rather than later mostly because of this reason alone.

~~~
Angostura
> So because you're a CEO you can't believe whatever you want in your spare
> time?

Clearly, if you a CEO and publicly supporting causes, your support for those
causes will have an impact on the reputation of the organisation.

Now, I sure you can think of examples of more extreme spare-time beliefs that
you might think _were_ incompatible with being CEO, so its a question of where
you particularly draw the line. (Or perhaps you can't and you think that any
extreme free-time campaigning is fine).

FWIW, I'm not in San Francisco.

Now Mozilla has, whether you like it or not decided to build its brand values
and ethos around equality and inclusivity - it is written all through its
positioning and marketing material. Similarly Apple pitched privacy. If it was
discovered that Tim Cook had a part time gig with Cambridge Analytica etc. I
doubt he would last that long.

Regarding Google et al:

> Just because they don't explicitly say it out loud doesn't mean they care.

That's correct they don't say it out loud, they don't explicity campaign on
the issue and their CEO doesn't donate money towards it.

> I trust Brave and Brendan far more on privacy issue since they only care
> about that and don't shove woke politics onto my face.

If Brendan started donating to an organisation campaigning to give law
enforcement and marketing companies access to your personal data, do you think
it would be compatible with his position at Brave? Bear in mind that,
apparently when it comes to privacy, very few people care about that shit (as
can be seen from Chrome's market share) and there is good money to be made
selling data.

~~~
ecmascript
> Now Mozilla has, whether you like it or not decided to build its brand
> values and ethos around equality and inclusivity

Yes I know, this is why I use Brave and why Mozilla is not relevant anymore.
At my company we don't really make a lot of effort to test that our product
works in Firefox anymore because they have such a low market share. I am
basically the only one wanting to fully support firefox, testing every feature
in it, but even I am having a hard time defending that position when Mozilla
as a company is being so incredible short-sighted and pushes bullshit.

Their wokeness killed Firefox and I'm very upset about that. I hate the people
who ruined Mozilla which was for the longest time the only sane option in the
browser market.

I believe they will sooner or later discontinue Firefox unless something
extraordinary happens because they won't have enough users to support it.

> If Brendan started donating to an organisation campaigning to give law
> enforcement and marketing companies access to your personal data, do you
> think it would be compatible with his position at Brave?

No I don't think so. But his beliefs in that theoretical case woule oppose
what the product Brave is all about. Supporting same sex marriage or not has
nothing to do with browsers, the internet or even technology.

It's just an unpolular opinion that get you fired for the same company that
pretend they value privacy, freedom and integrity. Which to me is now just
bullshit I do not believe. In fact there is even evidence to support it, they
are sending data to google even when you start a private tab in firefox so
evidently they give away data to the same tech giants they claim to oppose.

~~~
Angostura
I’d love to see your worked examples of why having brand values based around
inclusivity has lead to a drop in market share.

Do you have any evidence for that? Or are you assuming that Brendan’s superior
execution skills would have avoided it?

~~~
ecmascript
It's easy, people don't like getting politics shoved in their faces when
they're using some product that has nothing to do with poltiics. Especially
when they disagree with the message.

Of course, in the Mozilla case it's more than their pander to wokeness that
made them become unrelevant. It's their focus on shitty products that no one
asked for or wanted. For example, Pocket. Such a waste of money, I'm sure they
have some users and so on but come on.

There is no way of donating to the development of Firefox. You can only donate
to Mozilla and the money won't be used for development but rather for pushing
woke politics.

They have used a lot of money afaik on that purpose alone. To be more
inclusive, which basically translates to excluding white men (because that is
what it's always about).

But if you want some concrete list, check this one out:

[https://www.oneangrygamer.net/get-woke-go-broke-the-
master-l...](https://www.oneangrygamer.net/get-woke-go-broke-the-master-list/)

I'm sure Brendan wouldn't have spent millions on shit products and woke
politics but rather to have improved on the core products and stuff like
privacy which people actually care about.

This is why Brave will be bigger than Firefox in the long run, because they
care about what actually matters. Which is the product they offer.

~~~
Angostura
> It's easy, people don't like getting politics shoved in their faces when
> they're using some product

How many people using Firefox do you think have even _heard_ of Brendan? Not
many, I'd wager. The community who contribute? robably significantly more.

I love this bit: "I'm sure Brendan wouldn't have spent millions on shit
products and woke politics"

How much did they spend on 'woke politics'?

