this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2025
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Mozilla drops new Privacy Note and Terms of Service; People are saying it is Bad News (blog.mozilla.org)
submitted 1 day ago by whydudothatdrcrane@lemmy.ml to c/opensource@lemmy.ml
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Not a good look for Firefox. Third partners and device fingerprinting clearly mentioned in the documents.

The move is the latest development in a series of shifts Mozilla has undergone over the past year.

The gecko engine and Firefox forks, such as Tor, Mullvad, Librewolf, and Arkenfox, are stables of private, open source web browsing.

In fact, Mozilla's is one of the few browser engines out there, in a protocol-heavy industry that many say only corporate or well-funded non-profits can reliably develop.

What is more, daily driving the more hardened-for-privacy Firefox derivatives can be frowned upon by many sites, including your bank and workplace.

Mozilla's enshittification leaves the open source community without a good alternative to Firefox, after years of promoting it as a privacy-friendly alternative to spyware-cum-browser Chrome.

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[–] domi@lemmy.secnd.me 17 points 1 day ago (6 children)

Which Firefox fork do people recommend? Ideally it should be available as Flatpak, keep the Firefox version number and not have a separate user-agent.

LibreWolf seems to be the best on first glance? https://flathub.org/apps/io.gitlab.librewolf-community

[–] easily3667@lemmus.org 8 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

Zen seems to have picked up a lot of privacy improvements but it's a pretty small team doing a lot of ambitious work. I like it, but it's got a lot of (minor, mostly aesthetic) bugs.

I use mullvad for stuff I really don't want a record of (for as much as that's possible)

On the chrome side, Vivaldi (former opera before they sold out to china) is a good browser, but even more ambitious and even more buggy than zen. It has a built in email client. Like, who does that?

[–] Manbart@beehaw.org 4 points 9 hours ago

It has a built in email client. Like, who does that?

Like Seamonkey! 😂

[–] petroskoi@sopuli.xyz 5 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

I switched to LibreWolf after seeing these news. It's been working just as well as firefox and you can adjust the privacy functions as much or as little as you want.

[–] UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 5 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

I appreciate the recommendation. I've been using Firefox for many years but I admit it's time in the sun is over. It hurts to leave it behind but I guess nothing lasts forever.

Goodbye old friend

[–] petroskoi@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 hour ago

Yeah, I've been using firefox for as long as I can remember. Sad to see it go this way.

[–] HurlingDurling@lemm.ee 2 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

I wish librefox would come to android

[–] analoghobbyist@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

I'm using Fennec on mobile and it seems to be working fine.

[–] cavemeat@beehaw.org 0 points 10 hours ago

Hm, I might switch to this, this article worried me a bit

[–] Uebercomplicated@lemmy.ml 21 points 1 day ago

Librewolf is the best ✅

[–] crmsnbleyd@sopuli.xyz 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I started using Zen today, it seems fine. If you're privacy conscious librewolf is definite the best

[–] domi@lemmy.secnd.me 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I installed Zen a while ago when Flathub recommended it to me. Didn't really like the minimalist design, especially with the auto-hide title bar.

[–] crmsnbleyd@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 hours ago

No way to change that?