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Comment by jamesy0ung | Hacker News Reader

Mozilla literally chose the worst possible time to change the Firefox terms.

They could be scooping up disgruntled Chrome users, yet all they did was generate a load of negative noise.

Unless it's actually the "best" time, because they didn't want disturbed Firefox users switching the other way...

Interesting conspiracy theory, but it would imply they were directly bribed by Google because their normal salary depends on the popularity of Firefox so frankly, it makes little sense.

I hate to break it to you, but their normal salary depends directly more on Google.

Google paid Mozilla $600M in 2022 for making Google the default search engine in Firefox.

Mozilla is directly bribed by Google.

I think OP meant that they only receive the allowance because they are popular enough.

mozilla is bribed by google on a regular basis and officially at that :)

I switched to LibreWolf a few days ago and the UX has been great so far!

Adding a random voluntary maintainer in your browser supply chain sounds like bad idea though.

Its not that scary because their patch sets form part of several other browser forks (ie cachybrowser but also several others) so they get a decent amount of scrutiny

I have no idea how random the librewolf maintainers are but the next iteration raising the bar for high-impact open source projects should definitely have a checkbox for "has a key maintainer with a active public profile/streetcred in industry" on the checklist.

Is there a particular reason LibreWolf doesn't have automatic updates? It does seem a little inconvenient. I'm currently using Safari + AdGuard, which updates with the OS and from the App Store.

In Windows there's an optional updater service you can install at least. But I think the reason for this is that some people want to make 100% sure the browser doesn't make any connections on its own, even if it's simply for checking if there are new updates.

What remains unclear is why anyone who cares enough about their privacy to use LibreWolf would still be on Windows in the first place. Microsoft is easily ten thousand times worse than Mozilla.

When you need Adobe for work, you don't have option to abandon Windows completely. At least we have IoT LTSC version of Win.

To play games obviously.

Linux can play most games now, it's quite viable as a gaming OS.

Many games only work on Windows because their anti-cheat is kernel-level, and even if you ignore these games, you will still run into all sorts of issues with proton or rendering APIs. I would even go as far as asking how many games from the top 100 played games on Steam actually run on Linux natively, without compatibility layers. So no, Linux is not quite viable.

Only AAA games with that anti-cheat crap don't work on Linux, most stuff does. Whether or not it needs compatibly layers is irrelevant, many Windows games also use compatibly layers to some extent, you just don't notice it.

There's no shortage of games you can install through Steam on Linux. You need windows for GTA6 or the latest CoD or whatever, but saying Linux isn't viable at all is silly.

Linux won’t be viable for me until I can play all my games seamlessly.

Some people prioritize freedom and privacy over being able to play the latest mindless clone game of what came before with slightly better graphics, but for those that don't, Windows and needlessly invasive AAA games are indeed a good option.

Take this: if you wanna play on Linux with decent fps, you still need proprietary Nvidia drivers.

That's not true at all. AMD cards and drivers exist and are often competitive with Nvidia cards. Not to mention, the difference in FPS is often not as noticeable as you probably think.

Poor argument.

AMD might be "competitive" but it's objectively worse. Also some games don't even support AMD's equivalent of DLSS. Also AMD sucks at inference, not even close.

> AMD might be "competitive" but it's objectively worse.

Nonsense. Their drivers are better and there cards have beaten Nvidia cards depending on the generation.

> Also some games don't even support AMD's equivalent of DLSS. Also AMD sucks at inference, not even close.

I don't think you really know what you're talking about here, and I don't think you would notice the things you think you would in practice. In short, you're making very poor excuses.

It's OK to say you're scared to make the leap and/or don't care about privacy so much as you do being able to play the latest crappy CoD installment.

I couldn't get Baldur's Gate 3 to run on Linux.

A quick search shows plenty of people running it fine since 2022. When was the last time you tried? Did you try it via Steam?

If you're installing untrustworthy, closed source, proprietary third party kernel modules into your untrutworthy, closed source, proprietary operating system, why even bother with LibreWolf? You have a unambiguous revealed preference of not caring about your privacy or your security at all, regardless of what your stated preference is.

Firefox gets your data sold, LibreWolf doesn’t. My operating system is irrelevant.

> Firefox gets your data sold, LibreWolf doesn’t.

You assume.

> My operating system is irrelevant.

No, it shows your priorities are screwed.

You seem to care about privacy to the point you risking Firefox selling your data based on a misinterpretation of a badly worded TOS, but have no problem letting random closed source binaries hook into the lowest level of your closed source OS which itself is known to be a privacy nightmare and not at all trustworthy.

You game on the same computer you use for everything else?

Yes, I only have one computer.

For what it's worth, the included uBO extension's blocklists do get updated automatically, even though LibreWolf doesn't. What LibreWolf does offer is a slick Docker-based build tool/suite that's nearly easy enough for the typical Windows user to figure out: https://codeberg.org/librewolf/bsys6

Why would an app have automatic updates? The OS package manager handles this just fine.

AFAIK, it does have automatic updates if you install it from Microsoft Store.

This policy?

> 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.

https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/update-on-terms...

I'm not seeing a real issue here, just FUD.

Google is killing the most effective ad blocker for Chrome. That ad blocker still works on Firefox.

Why wouldn't users switch?

The issue is that Mozilla Corp has a license over what private videos people upload to their Nextcloud for example, which doesn't make sense because it's not Mozilla themselves processing your input but the locally installed copy of Firefox. Mozilla doesn't need my permission to use my own content I'm about to send online just to provide basic functionality present for decades.

The explicit disclaiming of ownership is definitely good (the previous version didn't have that), but it's not enough. Mozilla should just nuke that section completely like they did with the AUP part if they're doing this ToU in good faith.

Given the reality of Google's own TOS, privacy policies and history of privacy violations, I'm not seeing a reason to pass up switching to a browser where the most effective ad blocking will continue to work (even on YouTube).

Do you have anything to cite?

In 2008, Matt Cuts posted Google does not want rights to things you do using Chrome, which suggests they are not trying to claim or vet what you use Chrome for.

Even if there are privacy violations, that seems much less scary than what Firefox has suddenly decided to do. They're seemingly not only watching, but claiming rights! And or will kick you out suddenly if they decide your activity on the web doesn't meet their standards.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43217309 https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/google-chrome-license-agreeme...

> They're seemingly not only watching, but claiming rights!

Did you miss their clarification in the grandparent post?

> 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.

> And or will kick you out suddenly if they decide your activity on the web doesn't meet their standards.

Google literally tried to have parents locked up for using an Android device to seek medical assistance for their child during lockdown.

Google was spying on the photos they took to send to their doctor, and Google's AI, based on a single false positive, decided they were guilty of kiddie porn.

Even after the police cleared them, Google refused to restore access to their account.

> Mark appealed his case to Google again, providing the police report, but to no avail.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveil...

Well, I'm addressing the "real issue" part of your comment. Whether people switch over it is their choice (I've already switched to another browser as my primary years ago, and it's not Gecko, Blink, or WebKit). But just because other bad, worse stuff exist doesn't mean Mozilla gets a pass on trying to sneak in a license over people's own content as well as going back on their promise of not selling users' data. Or the history of terrible decisions they made.

> going back on their promise of not selling users' data

Given that Google's CEO previously testified before Congress that the company wouldn't use information gleaned from your use of Google services to build out your advertising profile, I don't see "broken privacy promises" as a differentiation between Google and Mozilla.

Especially since Mozilla's post, linked above, says that their legal team now interprets selling ads as technicslly selling personal data in some jurisdictions.

They do have ads on new tabs, even if you can turn that off.

Again, I'm not seeing any reason not to switch to a browser where effective ad blocking will still work.

I thought mozilla reversed course?

They posted an apology but the general consensus in the comment section was that Mozilla is still going to sell your data.

ty, appreciate the clarification.

Not really. They responded with a blog post "clarifying" some things but the only thing they actually reversed course on was applying their Acceptable Use Policy to Firefox as a whole. They're still putting a weird copyright license clause in their terms of use which only makes sense for Mozilla-operated cloud services but is written to apply to anything you do with the browser, and their Privacy Notice still enumerates many ways in which they track user data and sell it—to which their only argument is that they shouldn't have to call it "selling data" if they try to anonymize it. They're not going to back down on collecting user data; they will continue with actions that prevent them from legally saying they don't sell user data.

ty, appreciate the clarification.

So many bad news about wasting funds, BS activism, at this point I'm expecting mozilla to go out theranos style.

It's been lost in the weeds since Brendan Eich left.

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