Every time Mozilla steps on a rake regarding privacy or security, people come rushing out telling everyone to switch to Firefox forks. And I always feel bad about it, because if your main concern is privacy or security, there is no scenario where you would be better off on a Firefox fork

@jalefkowit Good point. If you have the IT skills to switch to a Firefox fork, you can probably do your own enterprise configuration management (easier in the long run than drilling down in settings or about:config because it covers all profiles and accounts) https://codeberg.org/dmarti/browser-adfraud-protection

(yes, someone please do Mac OS and MSFT Windows versions of this)

@dmarti True, but the problem here isn't so much a technical one as it is a legal one that seemingly could only be solved by creating a new binary, no?

There isn't any config switch to "decline TOS" is there?

No way my (or any) IT department is going to allow users' consent to involuntary MITM attacks.

#Mozilla #Firefox

@downey There are multiple levels here -- right now the Mozilla lawyers are apparently advising that they can run advertising features in the browser without #informedConsent that is required in EU and other jurisdictions. Not sure how they make that argument--they might be planning to update the ToS with some kind of "consent to processing" for ads

@dmarti @jalefkowit I wonder from time to time if some @noybeu involvement isn't part of the answer here.

@awoodland @jalefkowit @noybeu they're on it https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/25/mozilla-hit-with-privacy-complaint-in-eu-over-firefox-tracking-tech/

@jalefkowit Hi, I see your point, but here is the problem. The new Firefox Terms of Use, the one with unacceptable IP terms, contains this line:

"These Terms only apply to the Executable Code version of Firefox, not the Firefox source code."

Therefore, I must use a fork of Firefox (or at least an alternate build/distribution, such as Debian's) or I must switch to Chrome. Those are my only options. I am unable to take your thread as anything except an argument to switch to Chrome.

@mcc My argument isn't specific to the current ToS changes.

I agree that the current options suck. I don't like them any more than you do. I just don't see any existing Firefox forks that offer a compelling reason to believe they are a long term solution.

@mcc This is not to say that I couldn't imagine a Firefox fork that met that standard. It would just have to be a much more ambitious project than the ones that currently exist.

@jalefkowit @mcc The long-term solution is for Mozillans to organize and either (1) take over the Mozilla Foundation non-profit, or (2) start up a new one.

@aspensmonster @jalefkowit I am currently contributing to Servo. I am not opposed to contributing to, doing organizational work or, or working for, an entity that does nothing but preserve a fork of Firefox 128 in permanent maintenance mode, no new features except web standards support.

4) Because your Firefox fork is still 99.999% Mozilla code contributions, you're dependent on Mozilla fixing security bugs in your browser. But you don't get those fixes when Mozilla releases them; you only get them when the fork team merges them into their fork. You have no guarantees that will happen in a timely fashion. It may never happen at all.

@jalefkowit It is what I have thought of many times, but I could never express as well as you.
Maybe one day we have a real fork with a strong development team.

@jalefkowit

Can we get the Mozilla foundation to act more like the python software foundation where people who join as members get to vote for the board of directors?

I kind of feel like mozilla is facing a social problem that needs a social solution.

@jalefkowit ok, so we are trap here looking Firefox slowly enshitfication process?

Cc @rinze

Follow-up points, to answer frequently asked questions:

"Are you saying I should switch to Chrome?" No. I hate Chrome. I'm just saying no current Firefox fork is the silver bullet many people seem to think it is.

"Are Firefox forks inherently doomed?" No. I could imagine a Firefox fork that was a credible alternative. It would just require a lot more resources than any existing fork has.

"What's your suggestion then?" I don't have one. The current options all come with a long list of drawbacks. You have to choose which drawbacks you can live with.

"That sucks!" Yeah man. Everything sucks these days. I don't know what to tell you

@jalefkowit that just sounds like being alive....there are many choices we have to make as humans that involve some level of eating shit and smiling. There is no perfect.

@jalefkowit you forgot to say follow servo

@usul It would make me very happy to see a Servo-based alternative.

@jalefkowit have you looked at Vivaldi?

@jalefkowit I don't think your analysis is fair to #LibreWolf

That project literally just rips the intrusive telemetry out of FF and adds uBlock Origin and some good privacy defaults.

Yes, I trust them. Unlike Mozilla, the LibreWolf team just want a free open source browser that doesn't spy on its users.

@dragonsidedd @jalefkowit If that was all they did, I would be supportive. BUT they also have some kind of bug up their ass about resisting fingerprinting to the extreme, to the point that they force the time zone to GMT and don't allow users to change it.

That breaks web sites. And the first time a normal user goes to a web site they need to be able to access, say their bank or maybe the sites of companies that provide their utilities, and can't access them, back to #Firefox they will go - or worse yet they'll just use Google Chrome or one of its derivatives.

Honestly I hate what #Mozilla is doing but the idea of leaving Firefox is SO distressing to me that I am looking for ANY reason at all to ignore what Mozilla has done. But I tried #LibreWolf a few months ago and was quite distressed by the number of sites that were fully or partially broken in it, so I stuck with Firefox then. Even though I use Linux I am not a Linux geek or expert or anything, and I absolutely do not enjoy fixing problems created by the crazy choices of some development team.

(And no, I absolutely will not use #Vivaldi - tried it and HATED it, #1 reason was that fucking sidebar they use. Yeah, you can hide it but at some point you have to use it unless you want to memorize keyboard shortcuts, and I'm not going to do that even if I had that good a memory. And I just hated the look and feel of it anyway.)

@dragonsidedd @jalefkowit how quickly do they implement Firefox security updates though? I think the point raised about that and how little the devs can invest in the project concern me. Because it's great if the browser devs aren't spying on me, but it's even better if it's also hard for everyone else to spy on me

@maple @dragonsidedd @jalefkowit

Librewolf doesn't force ResistFingerprint. It's just on by default but when you want it disabled there is a toggle in the settings.

@sertonix @dragonsidedd @jalefkowit Not for the forcing GMT, there is no toggle for that.

@maple @sertonix @dragonsidedd @jalefkowit Check if the preference privacy.resistFingerprinting is on by default, and any setting in about:preferences changes it. They would have had to add their own UI for that because neither Firefox nor Tor Browser exposes this as a friendly toggle only through about:config

@jalefkowit 3. Because third party does not claim they magically have copyright agreement with me because I happen to run their piece of software. You can't force me to enter copyright agreement like that, and Mozilla's lawyers should know that. I trust Debian has non-crazy lawyers, and I trust Debian maintainers to audit Mozilla's code, and disable any spyware. I no longer trust Mozilla not to introduce spyware, when they lawyers say they did that.

@dmarti @downey There is a plan for a clickwrap:

>And actually asking you to acknowledge it is an important step, so we’re making it a part of the standard product experience starting in early March for new users and later this year for existing ones.

https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/firefox-news/firefox-terms-of-use/

@yoasif @dmarti @downey At the end it’s always on the ad’s (it seems) #office365 is all about collecting data and ad’s, browser edge and #chrome also. Search engines, ad’s. Etc.

@aks

Orion does. It even includes uBlock Origin in its list of ‘popular’ applications. This new Webkit browser is still in beta version, but it looks promising.

@mjog @jalefkowit

@jalefkowit

☝️ 👆

@mav @jalefkowit

We use browsers for everything, meaning it’s the single best source of info gathering companies have. Information / data = money. These companies and organizations know that and want that cash, and that automatically means our privacy is in jeopardy.

What we need is a truly independent browser, built and maintained by a non-profit like The Veilid Foundation that is dedicated to providing for privacy and security and restoring your data to…. You.

It’d help if it was fast and didn’t suck, too.

@Wrewdison @mav This is all true. It would also cost an absolutely eye-watering amount of money.

This is the nut of the problem. The browser has become an enormous platform. It's too big a project for a small team on a small budget to tackle. Creating a new browser from scratch requires a large team and a large budget.

Everyone wants that to happen, but nobody's figured out where the money to pay for it all would come from.

@jalefkowit @mav I’m kind of feeling like the “it’s too big and would cost too much” thing is more assumption than fact. That’s not to say it’s untrue, just that I think there may be some underestimation of what a small but focused team can accomplish with a fairly small budget.

Browsers are big - but they don’t necessarily need to be.

@Wrewdison @mav I mean, if you think you can compete with Chrome on a small budget, by all means do it. Prove me wrong! I would LOVE to be wrong.

I'm just going off what everyone I've heard talk about the subject who works on browsers has ever said. The modern Web platform is MASSIVE. It includes 3D graphics. It includes USB. It includes Bluetooth. Which of those bits do you leave out? How do you explain to users that they don't really need it, when they can get a browser that includes all those features from Google for free?

It's a hard problem.

@jalefkowit @Wrewdison @mav

Drew Devault has been telling that for years now:
https://drewdevault.com/2020/03/18/Reckless-limitless-scope.html

> I conclude that it is impossible to build a new web browser. The complexity of the web is obscene. The creation of a new web browser would be comparable in effort to the Apollo program or the Manhattan project.

> It is impossible to:
- Implement the web correctly
- Implement the web securely
- Implement the web at all

@esparta @jalefkowit @Wrewdison @mav Agree.
However, I am not at all happy that a web browser implements all these features. I don't WANT the Web to use it, because it offers way more control of my system than I'm willing to give to a web application. The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that

THE WEB MUST BE REDEFINED!

@jalefkowit i really feel uncomfortable seeing people recommend LibreWolf left and right to everyone as if it was a perfect drop-in replacement for everyone using Firefox

It's very much not

Most users will get a broken experience out of the box and will need to undo a lot of the config changes provided by LibreWolf to use the browser normally

At that point simply what's the point? You can just as well apply a custom configuration to your Firefox installation