Firefox to collect your (anonymized) search data

Importantly, if you have already opted out of sending data to Mozilla, this change will not affect you. It only sends data if you have the setting turned on. It takes just a few clicks to entirely disable it, and Mozilla deletes all record of your browser within 30 days from turning off this feature. If you're worried about it, do it now, it's just under Settings > Privacy & Security. Instructions are also linked in the blog post.

I'm not a fan of the telemetry being enabled by default but having the option to completely disable it makes it not that bad. Though Mozilla definitely doesn't need search history data (unless the law enforcements told them to collect it) so this change is kinda sus
- It seems like a profit-driven thing to me. Big piles of anonymized data are worth a pretty penny.
- From what I read in their blog post, nobody is keeping your search history data. It only tracks how often people in general search for things in specific categories, so nobody will be able to learn anything about you specifically from that data.
First thing I do on every Firefox installation on every device. 3 clicks and most of this nonsense stops.
I'd appreciate Mozilla not doing something like that in the first place, maybe don't try to build products and focus on the browser. 🤷‍♂️
- I’d just like for these things to be opt-in, not opt-out.

I'm on the "OK but keep an eye on it" train, here.

Devs need feedback to know how people are using the product, and opt-out tracking is the best way to do it. In this case, it seems like my personal data is completely unidentifiable.

I was coding in the IE6 era, so I'd really prefer to not end up in a browser engine monoculture again.

I don't need freaking suggestions from the browser, that's the job of the search engine of my choice.
- most search engines don't keep anonymous search data so that's what firefox is trying to fix.
- I want freaking suggestions from the browser though, in a way that respects my privacy

Its exactly this kind of bullshit that firefox should not do...

To disable it in about:config

browser.search.serpEventTelemetry.enabled = false

browser.search.serpEventTelemetryCategorization.enabled = false

like and subscribe!

This looks fine, the browser just puts your search into a category like "health" or "tech", then sends the amount of each category completely anonymously.

Also, if you've opted out of data collection already that setting applies to this too.

I agree. I am someone who values their privacy and often does not like opt-out style analytics however I also know opt-in skews analytics. The way the searches are only categorized, and they are using Oblivious HTTP keeping IP addresses private makes me A-OK with this.
- This is the best take so far, I totally agree

i know they're a company and they need to float, but this should be opt in not opt out

Yes but we really should be grateful to have a somewhat mainstream open-source browser with a great ecosystem of extensions and ability to turn off the telemetry. It could've been much worse
- We should really be grateful Google is providing a mainstream opensource browser with a great ecosystem of extensions
  I see no problem with this logic.
  Anti Commercial-AI license
Opt-in telemetry is useless telemetry, they make it opt-out because its the only way to get representative numbers
- Why do you need unwilling representing numbers in the first place? Just ask advanced users on the official forum about what they want to see added. You only really need error logs that are absolutely opt-in

All we want is 1990s Google, guys. That's really all we want. None of this AI BS that kind find a country in Africa that starts with a K, just Google without the evil enshitification layer on top.

I think people forget how awful google pre ~2008 was. Not in terms of the bullshit they do nowadays, just in quality of results really.
- I switched from Alta Vista at Google in the early 2000s because the Alta Vista index was stale and full of spam. Google search tools were comparatively primitive (av let you do things like word stem search) but the results were really good.
- Huh. I used it pretty much since the start and I certainly don't recall it being that bad? Like you got a lot of relevant content up front usually.

firefox develops an optional predictive search feature like every other search engine and browser has that actually protects user privacy that can easily be turned off so naturally the internet loses their mind over it and declares firefox dead.

don't worry, it's balanced out by the every other day threads of firefox shills screeching about how much more private it is and how it uses so much less ram.
people never want to admit that things aren't black and white.

The important part that you should know (and should already be using):

Remember, you can always opt out of sending any technical or usage data to Firefox. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to adjust your settings.

To improve Firefox based on your needs, understanding how users interact with essential functions like search is key.

Buddy, I just want to type a search term and get results. Stop spying on my search. Your only job is to transfer it to the server and then present the result. I don't need you to suggest some bullshit to me, or think of "ways to improve search".

This helps us take a step forward in providing a browsing experience that is more tailored to your needs, without us stepping away from the principles that make us who we are.

No. What the fuck? They are sounding more and more like Google. We need a new alternative that isn't built from Gecko or Blink or whatever the engines are called.

Anti Commercial-AI license

Buddy, I just want to type a search term and get results.
Telemetry can help them do better at providing that. Devs aren't magical beings, they don't know what's working and what's not unless someone tells them.
- That's like saying the window pane between me and the teller has to understand the conversation and dynamically modify the light between him and I. The window pane's only job is to let light through. Keep it at that.
  Anti Commercial-AI license
- Telemetry doesn't need topic categorization. This is building a dataset for AI.

As much as I hate to say it, Firefox is a privacy mess.

Pocket and Fakespot have very bad privacy policies. The Windows version has a unique Mozilla tracker if you download the installer from the website, and the android version has Google Analytics built in. The existing and new telemetry is a but heavy, but it's anonymised so it's really the lesser of the various evils.

My recommendation is LibreWolf & Fennec as alternatives.

sigh

Here’s the current list of categories we’re using: animals, arts, autos, business, career, education, fashion, finance, food, government, health, hobbies, home, inconclusive, news, real estate, society, sports, tech and travel.

No pr0n?

Inconclusive = pr0n is probably a pretty reliable mapping.

There are definitely 2 kinds of people commenting this post. The first one who supports telemetry (and Big Tech) and another one that supports freedom and opt-in. This is interesting to see on something like Lemmy. I think the ones who support telemetry are devs and it is a little bit concerning to me

I am a dev and I do not support telemetry
- Same. If It’s to exist at all, it should be opt-in and explicit about what it’s doing.
This isn't even telemetry, it's data collection for AI. That they refused to say that let's you know that they think what they're doing needs to be obfuscated.
- If they refused to say it how do you know its the case? Also how would the data described in the article be useful to an ai, genuine question.
I support anonymous telemetry collected by a small non-profit that helps protect our freedom. Not big tech.

Mozilla wants to be an AI company. This is data collection to support that. Telemetry to understand the user browsing experience doesn't need to be content-categorized.

- Unless they're going to publish their data, AI can't be meaningfully open source. The code to build and train a ML model is mostly uninteresting. The problems come in the form of data and hyperparameter selection which either intentionally or unintentionally do most of the shaping of the resulting system. When it's published it'll just be a Python project with some magic numbers and "put data here" with no indications of what went into data selection or choosing those parameters.

They should have put more emphasis on the possible usages for what they find out...

Will this affect libre wolf?

Nope, they cut all the Mozilla stuff out

Souds good to me overall, only if what they're saying is true. If they deviate from it, I guess we'll have to look for new browser.