Firefox maker Mozilla deleted a promise to never sell its users’ personal data and is trying to assure worried users that its approach to privacy hasn’t fundamentally changed. Until recently, a Firefox FAQ promised that the browser maker never has and never will sell its users’ personal data. An archived version from January 30 says:
Does Firefox sell your personal data?
Nope. Never have, never will. And we protect you from many of the advertisers who do. Firefox products are designed to protect your privacy. That’s a promise.
That promise is removed from the current version. There’s also a notable change in a data privacy FAQ that used to say, “Mozilla doesn’t sell data about you, and we don’t buy data about you.”
The data privacy FAQ now explains that Mozilla is no longer making blanket promises about not selling data because some legal jurisdictions define “sale” in a very broad way:
Mozilla doesn’t sell data about you (in the way that most people think about “selling data”), and we don’t buy data about you. Since we strive for transparency, and the LEGAL definition of “sale of data” is extremely broad in some places, we’ve had to step back from making the definitive statements you know and love. We still put a lot of work into making sure that the data that we share with our partners (which we need to do to make Firefox commercially viable) is stripped of any identifying information, or shared only in the aggregate, or is put through our privacy preserving technologies (like OHTTP).
Mozilla didn’t say which legal jurisdictions have these broad definitions.
Oh for fuck’s sake! List of Firefox alternatives:
Windows/Linux/MacOS:
Android:
iOS: ??
iOS browsers are all just skins around the safari engine.
Floorp?
There’s also Servo by the Linux Foundation and Ladybird.
These are actual different browsers and engines all together compared to FF spin-offs.
I’m still super waiting for Lady Bird. I cannot wait to give it a try, but it’s gonna be like 2026 before they start rolling out builds for general use.
I’m excited for these to mature but they are still developing and would not recommend them for regular use
I read somewhere that Librewolf is not recommended because they are a small team and slow to patch vulnerabilities / integrate security fixes from Firefox.
Is it true? (Sincere question)
Valid concern as I use their browser often. From their FAQ (link):
I’m giving Waterfox a test drive and like it so far. No issues.
I’m considering adding it to the alternatives list I posted. Can anybody else validate their privacy policy? Seemd ok but I’m a bit iffy regarding their use of telemetry. Maybe I’m overthinking it
No telemetry, allegedly.
Librewolf is mostly a autoconfig file for Firefox (which is a Firefox feature).
https://codeberg.org/librewolf/settings/raw/branch/master/librewolf.cfg
I doubt implementation of terms will be optional.
iOS: Safari with Wipr 2 is my current way to go. Every other browser is WebKit under the hood.
Why wouldn’t they be optional? Every other change like this has been before.
Sorry I hope for the best. We’re speaking of terms. Terms are legal facts.
Terms of Service (ToS) are regularly not upheld in court, and their terms are worded so poorly that as written, it would not be a difficult case to defeat.
The Firefox specific terms for the precompiled binary link to a more general terms page meant to be additional parts, but the additional parts they link to specify that the additional terms only apply to use of Mozilla “services” (sync, vpn, etc). The concerning shit on the ToS lies in the terms for their services.
It’s a clear contradiction of scope, and unfortunately not Firefox’s first fuckup of this kind. So far, with a multi decade history, none of these contradictions have been used to fuck over their users.
They already have separate terms for use of the source code. Those are what making forks, and what compiling the source yourself, fall under. They do not make any reference to the services ToS. Use of the source is not effected by any of this so far, on a technical (can the bad shit be removed) and on a legal (are forkers allowed to remove) level.
Hacker News has some deeper discussion about the finer points of the ToS mess.
And apparently Mozilla has clarified that the wording changes in their summary (not the actual ToS) are because California’s definition of “sale” of information includes just communicaring it to a third party as part of normal operations support. Thanks again to Hacker News discussion of Mozilla’s latest statement.
Ironfox for Android?
Too new to recommend, IMO.
Added
Also Zen Browser
Added
Brave is fine with for iOS with build in adblocker
Isn’t Librewolf tied to Firefox’ TOS?
No.
Librewolf is mostly a autoconfig file for Firefox (which is a Firefox feature). https://codeberg.org/librewolf/settings/raw/branch/master/librewolf.cfg I doubt implementation of terms will be optional.
I’m checking right now, but it’s kind of unclear. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems like Librewolf picks and chooses what to use from Firefox, yeah?
I’m also looking into the TOR browser.
All the forks pick and choose but features can be enabled or disabled, or removed entirely. Telemetry is always removed, whereas DRM or cookie settings can be turned off by default.
If you want some kind of Tor browser without all the Tor thing, Mullvad has its fork too from Tor (like the fixed display as a rectangle to prevent fingerprinting).
It’s free and open-source but it’s probably a bit annoying to use daily and it’s barebones: https://mullvad.net/en/browser
Mullvad needs to make an android version.
absolutely, all these hardened firefox forks on android are just as easy to fingerprint as the original. if you try creepjs, they are unique and easy to follow between visits. mullvad browser is also identified even if you clean identity and restart, but it at least blends in with some others. interestingly, i found out that cromite on android can fool creepjs. every time you refresh, it’s back to 1 visits. it doesn’t blend in like mullvad, but it seems like a different unique visitor every time.
The thing about open-source software is that if you fork the software, then your fork can have its own rules.
You can even make the fork of the software fully closed source except for the open source software that you used to originally develop it.
You can sell open source software as if it were proprietary.
You can basically do anything you want with it as long as you respect the original source from the code that you have taken.
Once the software is no longer in Mozilla’s hands, then Mozilla’s portion of the license no longer applies.
That’s what I thought, but there are many people in this very thread saying the opposite. From what I read on Librewolf’s site, it seems to back up what you are saying.
What @bizarroland@fedia.io is saying is not correct, because it depends on the license. For example, GPL software requires that ALL the source code that uses some GPL code to be released as GPL too. That’s why some people avoid GPL at all costs.
Other licenses, such as LGPL allow you to link your proprietary code with open source parts and only release the code of the open source part (along with any modifications you did to it).
So what license does librewolf have?
Ok, so I did some checking and Firefox uses a custom license from Mozilla, which says the open source code can be freely mixed with proprietary code, as long as you disclose and also distribute the open source files you’ re using.
This is much more permissive than some other open source licenses. LGPG, for example, only allows this mixing if you use the open source code as a library that needs to be separate from the main proprietary binary.
That said, Librewolf apparently licenses all its source code in the same Mozilla license, which means no issues here.
Librewolf is mostly a autoconfig file for Firefox (which is a Firefox feature). https://codeberg.org/librewolf/settings/raw/branch/master/librewolf.cfg I doubt implementation of terms will be optional.
It’s possible to disable the Tor from Tor browser.
Oh look, that’s four.
Librewolf is tied to however they implement the terms. Librewolf is mostly a autoconfig file for Firefox (which is a Firefox feature). https://codeberg.org/librewolf/settings/raw/branch/master/librewolf.cfg I doubt implementation of terms will be optional.
Five.