Firefox now has Terms of Use! This'll go over like a lead balloon

It's frustrating that the last bastion of hope against total Google dominance of the browser market has no sense of direction at all and is constantly tripping over rakes.

I know, I have stopped using Google many years ago, when it forgot his "Don't Be Evil." Since then I have used a huge amount of different browsers in Windows and Linux, to stay 9 years ago with Vivaldi, why, apart was the one that offered the most, I was also impressed by the ethics and respect for the user, which is a European cooperative, owned by its employees, actively fighting for a freer and more private Internet, not dominated by large corporations, against the practices of Surveillance Advertising (initiative where organizations of consumers and companies such as DDG and others participated and where Mozilla shine for his absence). But yes, as you say, it's hard to change believes, even if you prove that they are wrong.

Personally, i still belive in not giving Google market dominance but that's mainly because I want the web to thrive, and competition breeds innovation.

With that said, these ToS are making me leave FF, although I am going to Librefox and Fenec now

I personally wouldn't trust them with an email service myself. They have been known to accept sponsorships through Google and as of late seems to be heading more and more in the direction of more tracking services in favor of a monetary profit. I don't trust their email service would be any different

Vivaldi use default Bookmarks and search engines (Startpage, DDG, Ecosia, Qwant and some others), which pay an revenue if the user optional use these (anonym), apart accept donations and there is also an Merch Store. So it avoid third party investors, ads and tracking and so it stay independent, no needs to share user data with third parties. You can delete all these bookmarks and Search engines if you don't use these, using others to your like (easy to add with the context menu). All this permits to support the additional services which has the user with his account, own Webmail (5GB), Blog page, Calendar, Feed, mail client, sync ee2e of all browser data, settings, bookmarks, extensions...., apart permit to participate in the Vivaldi instance in Mastodon.

Check out Fenec

I was on the verge of deleting everything online, including my email address, because I'm with you, but at what point does the privacy movement start intruding on enjoyment of daily activity. I've accepted that my information will be had in exchange for a good product.

It's not exactly how I want to operate, but also, life is too short. Ultimately, I'm on the verge of using Mullvad Browser, Mullvad VPN, and probably getting my email hosted out of some small shared hosting platform somewhere.

I think about this type of stuff daily and it's just exhausting. The Internet has transformed into what we'd hoped it wouldn't over the past five years.

Bring back ham radios.

Ah shit I'm too introverted to use my voice...

Data packets through radio?

Btw: Rattlegram is a Android/iOS app that can convert text to audio, which you can then play over a ham radio. You can use encryption before you paste the ciphertext into Rattlegram. (Encryption over radio is illegal in many jurisdictions tho... 🏴‍☠️)

Yes, but even more important to avoid sync with an Mozilla account, if you need the sync function (maybe Filen?) (Vivaldi has an own sync EE2E)

This doesn't make any sense to me either. Why do they need a license for what you type into Firefox if that data never gets shared with Mozilla?

I don't know a single application that you need to give a license to so they can handle your data locally.

We’ve seen a little confusion about the language

Tastes like "I'm sorry you feel that way"

The privacy notice document lists how each data type is used. It includes in-browser ads on the new tab page, AI chatbots, and "to market our services".

Or why do they have a world wide right for anything entered into Firefox.

Why don't they use the official fdroid repo?

Capital is the problem, not nationality.

That website actually promotes Firefox, you know. Not sure it fits this thread.

I’m really glad this exists! Thanks for sharing it!

do you mean you use a more privacy oriented fork like Librewolf, or instead some chrome/chromium derivative or fork?

Librewolf it comes with uBlock installed.

There is only firefox, chrome, or safari to chose from. I just use a firefox fork.

If you're sticking to Firefox-based browsers, Waterfox seems to be the fork closest to Firefox without being controlled by Mozilla.

I'll be moving to https://github.com/schizofox/schizofox on my x86 machines.

Mobile will be a fork of Firefox.

https://github.com/LadybirdBrowser/ladybird is a project I'm keeping an eye on, will be a while off being a daily driver.

I use Vivaldi (EU), it has an inbuild adblocker. In chromium browsers Mv3 means that Mv2 Extensions are eliminated from the Chrome Store in June this Year. Mv3 adblockers are still there, there is uBO light (same as uBO, but without element picker) and Adblock Plus, which is pretty equivalent to uBO. The inbuild ad/trackerblocker (customizable with own filterlists or those from uBO, DDG, AdBlock plus and others) in Vivaldi isn't affected by Mv3 and pretty effective (>99% in the test). In extensions other than those related to security and privacy, it's irrelevant for the user if they are Mv2 or Mv3 and mostly redundant in Vivaldi.

If you prefer Gecko browsers, the only one from the EU is the Mullvad Browser (Sweden), which can still use uBO, but also Gecko Browser will not support Mv2 all eternity because the related different cookie management used by most webpages with Google APIs, also apart from the will of the devs to continue developing MV2 for a minority engine, such as Gecko (~ 4% Market Share).