When a web page or a program is downloaded to my computer I cannot imagine anything else, yet every major company tries to do something opposed - take the control from me as soon as possible.
The very idea of an entity called "we", an anonymous and ever-changing cast of people managing "responsible defaults" and "simple tools to manage your data" and communicating it on their terms, making me try and keep up, is alien to this idea. They lay their hands on our data; want to know how exactly? Follow several links to this page:
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/#notice
The page in its tone trivializes the entire deal and is just another EULA and as such could just as well be presented in a small textbox in all-caps. It's more than the average user will ever read, and way too vague anyway.
"Be informed about what data we process about you, why and who it’s shared with (that’s this Notice!)" they say, but
...how about you show the entire dataset compiled about any user with information who is using it and for what exactly (excluding truly secret law enforcement requests). Everyone involved would be mortified with shame.
- when I see that browser does not allow playing video in the background (youtube on mobile phones)
- when my browser disallows me blocking certain things
- when my browser prevents me from taking screenshot of things I can see on it
... it really angers me, as I feel betrayed. Of course, nowadays, web applications tend to get complicated and hide everything behind 'obscurity-security'; however, this should still be code that is a guest on my device, not me being a guest on their device running their code. I consider it extremely impolite behaviour.
The browser supports it just fine. Youtube itself disables that functionality (to try to push you to Youtube Premium). You can install an addon from the recommended addons to fix that.
> - when my browser disallows me blocking certain things
The only thing I remember Firefox blocking from meddling with is pages like mozilla.org and their addon store. Which, for security reasons, makes a lot of sense.
> - when my browser prevents me from taking screenshot of things I can see on it
That's a setting, though, isn't it? Unless you mean the optional DRM support Firefox has. You can disable that permanently if you don't like it, though you won't be able to visit many DRM-based websites. I've configured my browser to request permission before playing DRM based content and you'll be surprised how often the permission prompt pops up on websites that host normal (non-TV) media.
The only reason YouTube premium's background playing is possible as an additional feature are the limitations imposed by the Google company on the android and Chrome themselves. In other words Google built up the "open source" environment to make this exactly possible. They limited us from our phones and now they are selling features that never have been features - they were normal behaviour
It is your device and you are free to not run that code. You can leave
Of course this changes if it is something you specifically fund like government websites
If only free and enlightened individuals could, through their choices in a market in which everything is allowed, spawn such a diverse set of solutions, or allow true self-help, that every need is met...
...rather than everything consolidating under a few big players who leave few realistic alternatives, who confront users and customers with conflicting and hard to identify or quantify problems. There might just be 3 unreconcilable goals like:
- not allowing Google/Chrome to own the internet outright - have privacy for oneself and others who don't "opt out" - have a browser that is established enough to work on most websites
and you can't tell me what browser to use.
The same issue is present almost everywhere you look: All products have such massive permutations of health, energy, waste, sustainability, ethicical and economical parameters that making a decision is almost impossible for any well-informed individual, let alone for enough people to steer change in any meaningful way.
If you maintaing this sort of "Libertarian" view, make sure you're not inadvertendly serve the interest of corporations that would like to not be criticized nor regulated.
Developing browsers is very expensive. Currently, the only people doing that are Google+Microsoft (Blink), the megacorps in it for the ad money, Apple, in it for their own independence, and Mozilla, trying to be a third party. Forks are made constantly by individuals or small teams, and are often lagging behind in quality, maintenance, and security; Palemoon simply cannot keep up with Firefox, KHTML is effectively broken, and even the maintained Gnome fork of WebKit has tons of issues that make it hard to use it as a daily driver.
Everyone wants a super duper privacy friendly browser that only does browser things and preferably only works on their personal requirements, but nobody wants to actually spend time and money to develop one. I hope Ladybird turns out well, or maybe Servo will get revived into a functional browser, but how those browsers will be developed and distributed is entirely up to those browser vendors.
You can use whatever browser you like, but unless you're paying a significant sum for it or are part of the dev team, you'll have to succumb to the terms under which the browser is made available. I'd rather have parties like Mozilla funded by donations or independent government funds than by big tech, but nobody is willing to spend the millions necessary to catch up to Chrome just yet.
> but unless you're paying a significant sum for it
In fact, zero donations cover wages, and AFAIK nobody is paying for it, because Mozilla does not provide any way for users to give money to Firefox. You can't blame users for not taking an option that was never given.