Comment by rtpg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rtpg | Hacker News Reader

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I feel like there _is_ some daylight between what people hear when someone says "Firefox is selling your data" and, for example, Firefox using your IP address to put you in a rough country-level geoblock to determine whether to show you an ad that was sold to all users in a country.

Yet the second one, which I think would be very much considered close to harmless from my perspective (compared to an alternative of "an ad is shown to everyone across the world"), would, I think, still fit into this metric of your data being sold.

Though maybe I'm misinterpreting what the CCPA's breadth would be.

I have been a bit disillusioned by FF for some time, and would like for them to figure out some version of a business model in order to survive, and so we can know the contours of that business model. Trying to play "we do not do business things at all" with them constantly shipping weird ad-ful features and stuff like Pocket... let's see if we can make this honest!

I chose firefox because I don’t want my browser to build an ad network to sell targeted ads.

And I definitely don't want this:

> You give Mozilla the rights necessary to operate Firefox. This includes processing your data as we describe in the Firefox Privacy Notice. It also includes a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license for the purpose of doing as you request with the content you input in Firefox. This does not give Mozilla any ownership in that content. [0]

[0] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/legal/terms/firefox/#you...

Exactly.

Why is my browser serving me advertising in the first place? Because Mozilla is an advertising company now.

Yes, ad first company, with a browser product to capture ad audience.

There are only two ways to generate revenue: direct and indirect. Nobody will pay for a browser.

I don’t use Firefox and this whole thing is distasteful, but I’m not sure how they’re supposed to cover operating expenses without indirect monetization, or what for of indirect other than ads would work.

In the meanwhile, people are asking how to donate to Firefox not to Mozilla and it's CEOs whims and personal salary.

> Nobody will pay for a browser.

Speak for yourself.

Give me a browser that clearly and unambiguously does not sell my usage of it in any way, and I will give you a monthly subscription.

Well yeah and I do pay for Kagi but would still say “nobody will pay for a search engine” using “nobody” in the “not enough people to scale a mass market business” sense.

Horse Browser? https://gethorse.com

Built on top of chrome (electron actually). Same issues as every other chrome form. Also, doesn't support extensions.

> There are only two ways to generate revenue: direct and indirect. Nobody will pay for a browser.

There's a third way: screw revenue, dump all staff not related to browser development and documentation (MDN) and look for government grants to fund that.

Especially the EU may be a target for a well-written proposal, given the political atmosphere it would make sense to have at least one browser engine that is not fundamentally tied to the US and its plethora of bullshit like NSLs.

> Nobody will pay for a browser.

I would, if they offered a payment-only access to Firefox with no added services and no telemetry whatsoever. I'd pay 50€ a year for that.

It’s a weird term, but I’m not sure how “for the purpose of doing as you request” is terrible. To me that means that when you type a url, they have the right to do a DNS lookup for it.

Is there some interpretation where “for the purpose of doing as you request” means any purpose they want?

The problem is that I'm not requesting Mozilla do anything. Firefox isn't a "service" it's a web browser. When I input a seach query, _I_ am acting on my behalf, not Mozilla.

I don't want any language where they get to insert themselves into that chain of behavior. Curl doesn't need a TOS, why does Firefox?

Very much this. The browser already have all the features to do what I want it to do. Why does Mozilla insists of being a middleman? It's my computer, Firefox code, and someone's server.

I agree. The very fact that they added a Terms of Service is weird. I don't want Firefox to be a service in any way. It's a tool.

When I drill a hole in my wall, DeWalt don't tell anyone who I am, how large a hole it is, what material I drilled into or even the fact that I actually drilled anything. They don't know any of that, and neither should Mozilla know when my local copy of the browser makes a DNS, HTTP or any other request.

And they should use the system DNS services for that, not their own partners.

this is why I use librewolf

And I chose Librewolf because I didn't want that, either.

> Firefox using your IP address ... to show you an ad

Why do you imply that Firefox showing ads is acceptable ?

They have been doing for at least a decade by now (e.g Amazon). So why imply it suddenly isn’t acceptable to show ads (in any form)?

> They have been doing for at least a decade by now (e.g Amazon). So why imply it suddenly isn’t acceptable to show ads (in any form)?

Because it isn't acceptable.

The first thing I've done (for years now) when configuring Firefox is to turn off many of the defaults. Advertisements, pocket, search engine, online spell checker, translator, blah blah blah.

I mean they integrated pocket right? They sold the default search engine position for billions. That’s something! Not all money making efforts are created equal, though. We judge based on what the effort is in context!

> let's see if we can make this honest!

They're beholden to who gives them money, which is not us.

It could be us, either directly with money, or even just indirectly by “being the product” but being able to just walk away.

FF exists off of good will and the search deal. The more people stop using the browser the less they’re going to pull in from the deal.

> FF exists off of good will and the search deal

Firefox exists off of google and their antitrust deal.

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