Mozilla, Gecko Archive
Mozilla’s actions have been rubbing many Firefox fans the wrong way as of late, and inspiring them to look for alternatives. There are many choices for users who are looking for a browser that isn’t part of the Chrome monoculture but is full-featured and suitable for day-to-day use. For those who are willing to stay in the Firefox “family” there are a number of good options that have taken vastly different approaches. This includes GNU IceCat, Floorp, LibreWolf, and Zen. ↫ Joe Brockmeier It’s a tough situation, as we’re all aware. We don’t want the Chrome monoculture to get any worse, but with Mozilla’s ever-increasing number of dubious decisions some people have been warning about for years, it’s only natural for people to look elsewhere. Once you decide to drop Firefox, there’s really nowhere else to go but Chrome and Chrome skins, or the various Firefox skins. As an aside, I really don’t think these browsers should be called Firefox “forks”; all they really do is change some default settings, add in an extension or two, and make some small UI tweaks. They may qualify as forks in a technical sense, but I think that overstates the differentiation they offer. Late last year, I tried my best to switch to KDE’s Falkon web browser, but after a few months the issues, niggles, and shortcomings just started to get under my skin. I switched back to Firefox for a little while, contemplating where to go from there. Recently, I decided to hop onto the Firefox skin train just to get rid of some of the Mozilla telemetry and useless ‘features’ they’ve been adding to Firefox, and after some careful consideration I decided to go with Waterfox. Waterfox strikes a nice balance between the strict choices of LibreWolf – which most users of LibreWolf seem to undo, if my timeline is anything to go by – and the choices Mozilla itself makes. On top of that, Waterfox enables a few very nice KDE integrations Firefox itself and the other Firefox skins don’t have, making it a perfect choice for KDE users. Sadly, Waterfox isn’t packaged for most Linux distributions, so you’ll have to resort to a third-party packager. In the end, none of the Firefox skins really address the core problem, as they’re all still just Firefox. The problem with Firefox is Mozilla, and no amount of skins is going to change that.
The hits just keep on coming. Mozilla not only changed its Privacy Notice and introduced a Terms of Use for Firefox for the first time with some pretty onerous terms, they also removed a rather specific question and answer pair from their page with frequently asked questions about Firefox, as discovered by David Gerard. The following question and answer were removed: 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. ↫ David Gerard detailing what has been removed This promise is now gone from the website, a removal which tells you all you need to know about what Mozilla has in mind. Combine it with the much broadened data collection and buying and claiming to be an online advertising company, and what I have been predicting and warning everyone about has come to pass: Firefox has become a mere tool to collect user data, user data to be sold by Mozilla for the purposes of advertising. For years I’ve been warning about this inevitable outcome, and for just as many years people told me I was overreacting, that it wouldn’t happen, that I was crazy. The problem is especially dire for the desktop Linux world, who soon might not have a browser they can safely include in their ISOs and base installations. A desktop Linux installation with Chromium where you have to manually drag and drop extensions to install them, and set up a Google API key just to get browser sync, isn’t exactly a great experience. At this point I have no idea where to go. Chrome and its various skins are a no-go, obviously, and relatively soft forks like LibreWolf are still dependent on Firefox and Mozilla. Alternatives like Falkon also use the Chromium engine deep down, and have their own set of issues and lack of manpower to deal with. Apple users are somewhat lucky to have the WebKit-based Safari to work with, but I’d rather publish my personal data in The New York Times than trust Apple and Tim Cook. We’re right back where we started. Lovely.
I guess my praise for Mozilla’s and Firefox’ continued support for Manifest v2 had to be balanced out by Mozilla doing something stupid. Mozilla just published Terms of Use for Firefox for the first time, as well as an updated Privacy Notice, that come into effect immediately and include some questionable terms. The Terms of Use state: When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox. ↫ Firefox’ new Terms of Use That’s incredibly broad, and it could easily be argued that this gives Mozilla the right to use whatever you post or upload online through Firefox, which is clearly insane. However, it might also just be standard, regular, wholly unenforceable legalese, but the fact it’s in the Firefox Terms of Use now that you have to accept is disconcerting. Does this mean that if an artist uses Firefox to upload a new song they made, Mozilla now has a license to use that song in whatever way they deem fit? You’d hope not, but that does seem what the terms are stating here. Moving on to the new Privacy Notice, and it seems Mozilla intends to collect more data in more situations. For instance, Mozilla is going to collect things such as “Unique identifiers” and “Browsing data” to “Market services”, consent for which Mozilla will only ask for in jurisdictions where such consent is required, and it’s opt-out, not opt-in. I would hazard a guess that even in places where strict privacy regulations are in place, the wording of such consent will probably be obtuse, and the opt-out checkbox hidden somewhere deep in settings. Mozilla also intends to collect “all data types” to “comply with applicable laws, and identify and prevent harmful, unauthorized or illegal activity”. Considering how fast, I don’t know, being trans or women’s health care is criminalised in the US, “illegal activity” can cover a lot of damn things once you have totalitarians like Musk and Trump in power. An organisation like Mozilla shouldn’t be collecting any data types, let alone all of them, and especially not in places where such data types can lead to real harm to innocent people. The backlash to the new Terms of Use and updated Privacy Notice is already growing, and it further cements my worries that Mozilla is intending to invest more and more into becoming an advertising company first, browser maker second. The kinds of data they’re going to collect now from Firefox users are exactly the kinds of data that are incredibly useful to advertisers, and it doesn’t take a genius to see where this is going.
Mozilla has officially reiterated that it’s going to keep offering support for both Manifest v2 and Manifest v3 extensions in Firefox. Google is removing support for Manifest v2 from Chrome, and with it a feature called blockingWebRequest that is used by ad blockers like uBlock Origin. Google’s replacement for that feature is more restrictive and less capable, and as such, uBlock Origin no longer works on Chrome. Firefox, however, will continue supporting both blockingWebRequest and declarativeNetRequest — giving developers more flexibility and keeping powerful privacy tools available to users. ↫ Scott DeVaney and Ed Sullivan There’s a lot to be worried about when it comes to Mozilla’s future, but on this matter, at least, they’re taking the correct stance that genuinely puts users first. It’s no surprise Google is using Manifest v3 as an excuse to nerf adblocking in Chrome, since adblocking cuts into Google’s most important source of revenue. If you’re still using Chrome, this alone should be more than enough reason to switch to Firefox, so you can retain the most optimal form of adblocking. The various Chromium skins will most likely all lose support for Manifest v2 as well once the code is actually removed from Chromium in June 2025. Vivaldi announced as such, and unless any of the other Chromium skins out there decide to fork Chromium and maintain their own version, you can expect all of them to lose support for Manifest v2 around the same date. Safari is harder to pin down, since Apple doesn’t make any statements about future product. For now, it supports both Manifest v2 and v3, and I don’t really see a reason why Apple would remove v2 support.
We’ve recognized that Mozilla faces major headwinds in terms of both financial growth and mission impact. While Firefox remains the core of what we do, we also need to take steps to diversify: investing in privacy-respecting advertising to grow new revenue in the near term; developing trustworthy, open source AI to ensure technical and product relevance in the mid term; and creating online fundraising campaigns that will draw a bigger circle of supporters over the long run. Mozilla’s impact and survival depend on us simultaneously strengthening Firefox AND finding new sources of revenue AND manifesting our mission in fresh ways. That is why we’re working hard on all of these fronts. ↫ Mark Surman on the Mozilla blog None of this is new to anyone reading OSNews. I’ve been quite vocal about Mozilla’s troubles and how it intends to address those troubles, and I’m incredibly worried and concerned about the increasing efforts by Mozilla to push advertising and “AI” to somehow find more revenue streams. I think this is the wrong direction to take, and will not make up for the seemingly inevitable loss of the Google search deal – and my biggest fear is that Firefox will get a lot worse before Mozilla realises advertising and “AI” just aren’t compatible with their mission and the morals and values of the last few remaining Firefox users. I don’t have any answers either, of course. Making a competitive browser is hard, and clearly requires a lot of people and a lot of time. Donations are fickle, nobody will pay for a browser, and relying on corporate sponsoring in other forms than the Google search deal will just mean Firefox will become like Chrome even faster, with more and more exceptions for “allowed” ads and additional roadblocks for adblockers to try and work around. In essence, I strongly believe that it is impossible to both earn money from online ads and make a good browser. It’s one or the other – not both. There’s basically no competition in the browser space, and if we lose Firefox, the only other option is Chrome and its various skins. Not a future I’m looking forward to.
Mozilla isn’t just another tech company — we’re a global crew of activists, technologists and builders, all working to keep the internet free, open and accessible. For over 25 years, we’ve championed the idea that the web should be for everyone, no matter who you are or where you’re from. Now, with a brand refresh, we’re looking ahead to the next 25 years (and beyond), building on our work and developing new tools to give more people the control to shape their online experiences. ↫ Lindsey Lionheart O’Brien at the Mozilla blog I have no clue about marketing and branding and what investments in those things cost, but all I could think about while reading this massive pile of marketing wank is that the name “Firefox” only occurs once. How many Firefox bugs could’ve been squashed with the money spent on this rebrand literally nobody is going to care about because nobody uses Firefox as it is? Is a new logo and accompanying verbal diarrea really what’s going to turn this sinking ship around? I’ve already made my choice, and I’ve left Firefox behind on all my machines, opting for an entirely different browser instead. I’m writing about that experience as we speak, so you’ll have to wait a bit longer to find out what choice I made, but rest assured I know I’m not the only one who is leaving Firefox behind after two decades of loyal service, and I doubt an expensive new logo is going to change anybody’s mind.
The moment a lot of us has been fearing may be soon upon us. Among the various remedies proposed by the United States Department of Justice to address Google’s monopoly abuse, there’s also banning Google from spending money to become the default search engine on other devices, platforms, or applications. “We strongly urge the Court to consider remedies that improve search competition without harming independent browsers and browser engines,” a Mozilla spokesperson tells PCMag. Mozilla points to a key but less eye-catching proposal from the DOJ to regulate Google’s search business, which a judge ruled as a monopoly in August. In their recommendations, federal prosecutors urged the court to ban Google from offering “something of value” to third-party companies to make Google the default search engine over their software or devices. ↫ Michael Kan at PC Mag Obviously Mozilla is urging the courts to reconsider this remedy, because it would instantly cut more than 80% of Mozilla’s revenue. As I’ve been saying for years now, the reason Firefox seems to be getting worse is because of Mozilla is desperately trying to find other sources of revenue, and they seem to think advertising is their best bet – even going so far as working together with Facebook. Imagine how much more invasive and user-hostile these attempts are going to get if Mozilla suddenly loses 80% of its revenue? For so, so many years now I’ve been warning everyone about just how fragile the future of Firefox was, and every one of my worries and predictions have become reality. If Mozilla now loses 80% of its funding, which platform Firefox officially supports do you think will feel the sting of inevitable budget cuts, scope reductions, and even more layoffs first? The future of especially Firefox on Linux is hanging by a thread, and with everyone lulled into a false sense of complacency by Chrome and its many shady skins, nobody in the Linux community seems to have done anything to prepare for this near inevitability. With no proper, fully-featured replacements in the works, Linux distributions, especially ones with strict open source requirements, will most likely be forced to ship with de-Googled Chromium variants by default once Firefox becomes incompatible with such requirements. And no matter how much you take Google out of Chromium, it’s still effectively a Google product, leaving most Linux users entirely at the whim of big tech for the most important application they have. We’re about to enter a very, very messy time for browsing on Linux.
More bad news from Mozilla. The Mozilla Foundation, the nonprofit arm of the Firefox browser maker Mozilla, has laid off 30% of its employees as the organization says it faces a “relentless onslaught of change.” Announcing the layoffs in an email to all employees on October 30, the Mozilla Foundation’s executive director Nabiha Syed confirmed that two of the foundation’s major divisions — advocacy and global programs — are “no longer a part of our structure.” ↫ Zack Whittaker at TechCrunch This means Mozilla will no longer be advocating for an open web, privacy, and related ideals, which fits right in with the organisation’s steady decline into an ad-driven effort that also happens to be making a web browser used by, I’m sorry to say, effectively nobody. I just don’t know how many more signs people need to see before realising that the future of Firefox is very much at stake, and that we’re probably only a few years away from losing the only non-big tech browser out there. This should be a much bigger concern than it seems to be to especially the Linux and BSD world, who rely heavily on Firefox, without a valid alternative to shift to once the browser’s no longer compatible with the various open source requirements enforced by Linux distributions and the BSDs. What this could also signal is that the sword of Damocles dangling above Mozilla’s head is about to come down, and that the people involved know more than we do. Google is effectively bankrolling Mozilla – for about 80% of its revenue – but that deal has come under increasing scrutiny from regulars, and Google itself, too, must be wondering why they’re wasting money supporting a browser nobody’s using. We’re very close to a web ruled by Google and Apple. If that prospect doesn’t utterly terrify you, I honestly wonder what you’re doing here, reading this.
In ancient Greek mythology, Kassandra, priestess of Apollo and daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy, was granted the gift of prophecy by Apollo, in return for “favours”. When Kassandra then decided to, well, not grant any “favours”, Apollo showcased that as a good son of Zeus, he did not understand consent either, and cursed her by making sure nobody would believe her prophecies. There’s some variations to the story from one author or source to the next, but the general gist remains the same. Anyway, I’ve been warning everyone about the fall of Mozilla and Firefox for years now, so here’s another chapter in the slow decline and fall of Mozilla: they’re now just flat-out stating they’re an online advertising company. As Mark shared in his blog, Mozilla is going to be more active in digital advertising. Our hypothesis is that we need to simultaneously work on public policy, standards, products and infrastructure. Today, I want to take a moment to dive into the details of the “product” and “infrastructure” elements. I will share our emerging thoughts on how this will come to life across our existing products (like Firefox), and across the industry (through the work of our recent acquisition, Anonym, which is building an alternative infrastructure for the advertising industry). ↫ Laura Chambers Pretty much every one of my predictions regarding the slow downfall of Mozilla are coming true, and we’re just waiting around now for the sword of Damocles to drop: Google ending its funding for Mozilla, which currently makes up about 80% of the former browser maker’s revenue. Once this stream of free money dries up, Mozilla’s decline will only accelerate even more, and this is probably why they are trying to get into the online advertising business in the first place. How else are you going to make money from a browser? In the meantime, the operating system most reliant on Firefox existing as a privacy-respecting browser, desktop Linux, still seems to be taking no serious steps to prepare for this seeming inevitability. There’s no proper Firefox fork, there’s no Chromium variant with the kind of features desktop users expect (tab sharing, accounts, etc., which are not part of Chromium), nothing. There’s going to be a point where shipping a further enshittified Firefox becomes impossible, or at the least highly contentious, for Linux distributions, and I don’t see any viable alternative anywhere on the horizon. I’m sure things will turn out just fine.
And the hits just keep on coming. After buying an ad tech company and working with Facebook to weaken Firefox’ privacy features, Mozilla is now integrating AI chatbots straight into Firefox with the recent release of Firefox 130. People are understandably big mad about this, and as such the calls for switching to alternatives is growing stronger. Considering the only true alternative to Firefox is Chrome and its various skins, those of us looking to send Mozilla a message are kind of relegated to trying out Firefox skins instead. Switching to what are essentially “Firefox distros” to collectively try and nudge Mozilla back to making more sensible decisions instead of AI hype chasing is an eminently reasonable one. There’s more reasons than just that. Part of the reason I use Firefox-based browsers rather than Chromium browsers is because I want to preserve some choice and diversity in browser engines. The existence of a choice of different Firefox derived browsers may allow space for experimentation in designing better browsers. In Chromium land, Arc has shown that there’s an opportunity for quite radically rethinking how browsers work. Same for Orion in Mac/iOS-land. This isn’t a detailed review of the different browsers, just a few comments and observations having tried them. ↫ Tom Morris I have my reservations about using Firefox skins, mostly because no matter what you do, you’re still entirely dependent on the choices Mozilla makes during the development of the venerable browser. If Mozilla keeps deviating from the traditional goals more and more, the amount of work these Firefox skins need to perform to reign the browser back in will start to increase, and who knows if they have the manpower, experience, and skills to do so? More worryingly, will they be able to keep up with Mozilla’s release schedule, including important bugfixes and security patches? My worries go beyond those basic things, though. Considerably fewer eyes will be going over any code changes these Firefox-based browsers make, and as recent history has shown us, infiltrating a small, understaffed open source project for nefarious purposes is a thing that happens. Another issue to consider is nebulous ownership of such Firefox versions, as are questions around who financially supports such efforts. Your browser is a massively important and crucial piece of software that holds and has access to a lot of your personal data, and you should be particularly careful about who owns your browser. This is not to say each and every one of them is bad – just that you have to be careful about who you trust. Several Chrome skins, like Brave and Opera, have time and time again shown to be shady, untrustworthy companies pushing crypto bullshit, ripping off websites, have shady owners, and more – don’t use Brave, don’t use Opera – and there’s no guarantees the same won’t happen with Firefox skins riding the wave of unhappiness with Mozilla. Please be mindful. I don’t have an answer for this issue, either – I just want to caution against throwing the browser out with the bath water and switching to a project you might not know a lot about.
Not too long ago, Mozilla announced it was going to extend its support for Windows 7, and was mulling over extending support for Windows 8.x as well, without providing any time frames or details. Well, we’ve got the details now. According to the Firefox Release Calendar website, Firefox 115 ESR, the latest Firefox version with support for Windows 7, 8, and 8.1, will continue receiving updates until April 1, 2025. Firefox 115.21 ESR is expected on March 4, 2024, which means users with old Windows versions have at least seven more months of support from Firefox. ↫ Taras Buria at Neowin The same extension to March 2025 for Firefox 115 ESR also covers macOS 10.12-10.14. The reasoning behind the extension is simple: there’s still enough users on these older operating system version for Mozilla to dedicate resources to it, despite how difficult backporting security fixes to 115 ESR has become. Firefox is pretty much the only mainstream browser still supporting Windows 7 and 8, and that’s definitely commendable.
I’ve long been warning about the dangers of relying on just one browser as the bullwark against the onslaught of Chrome, Chrome skins, and Safari. With Firefox’ user numbers rapidly declining, now stuck at a mere 2% or so – and even less on mobile – and regulatory pressure possibly ending the Google-Mozilla deal with makes up roughly 80% of Mozilla’s income, I’ve been warning that Mozilla will most likely have to start making Firefox worse to gain more temporary revenue. As the situation possibly grows even more dire, Firefox for Linux would be the first on the chopping block. I’ve received quite a bit of backlash over expressing these worries, but over the course of the last year or so we’ve been seeing my fears slowly become reality before our very eyes, culminating in Mozilla recently acquiring an online advertising analytics company. Over the last few days, things have become even worse: with the release of Firefox 128, the enshitification of Firefox has now well and truly begun. Less than a month after acquiring the AdTech company Anonym, Mozilla has added special software co-authored by Meta and built for the advertising industry directly to the latest release of Firefox, in an experimental trial you have to opt out of manually. This “Privacy-Preserving Attribution” (PPA) API adds another tool to the arsenal of tracking features that advertisers can use, which is thwarted by traditional content blocking extensions. ↫ Jonah Aragon If you have already upgraded to Firefox 128, you have automatically been opted into using this new API, and for now, you can still opt-out by going to Settings > Privacy & Security > Website Advertising Preferences, and remove the checkmark “Allow websites to perform privacy-preserving ad measurement”. You were opted in without your consent, without any widespread announcement, and if it wasn’t for so many Firefox users being on edge about Mozilla’s recent behaviour, it might not have been snuffed out this quickly. Over on GitHub, there’s a more in-depth description of this new API, and the first few words are something you never want to hear from an organisation that claims to fight tracking and protect your privacy: “Mozilla is working with Meta”. I’m not surprised by this at all – like I, perhaps gleefully, pointed out, I’ve been warning about this eventuality for a long time – but I’ve noted that on the wider internet, a lot of people were very much unpleasently surprised, feeling almost betrayed by this, the latest in a series of dubious moves by Mozilla. It’s not even just the fact they’re “working with Meta”, which is entirely disqualifying in and of itself, but also the fact there’s zero transparency or accountability about this new API towards Firefox’ users. Sure, we’re all technologically inclined and follow technology news closely, but the vast majority of people don’t, and there’s bound to be countless people who perhaps only recently moved to Firefox from Chrome for privacy reasons, only to be stabbed in the back by Mozilla partnering up with Facebook, of all companies, if they even find out about this at all. It’s right out of Facebook’s playbook to secretly experiment on users. This is what I wrote a year ago: I’m genuinely worried about the state of browsers on Linux, and the future of Firefox on Linux in particular. I think it’s highly irresponsible of the various prominent players in the desktop Linux community, from GNOME to KDE, from Ubuntu to Fedora, to seemingly have absolutely zero contingency plans for when Firefox enshittifies or dies, despite everything we know about the current state of the browser market, the state of Mozilla’s finances, and the future prospects of both. Desktop Linux has a Firefox problem, but nobody seems willing to acknowledge it. ↫ Thom Holwerda It seems my warnings are turning into reality one by one, and if, at this point, you’re still not worried about where you’re going to go after Firefox starts integrating even more Facebook technologies or Firefox for Linux gets ever more resources pulled away from it until it eventually gets cancelled, you’re blind.
Among them, Byron Jourdan, Senior Director, Product Management of Mozilla, under the Reddit username ComprehensiveDoor643 revealed that Mozilla plans to support Firefox on Windows 7 for longer. When asked separately about whether it also included Windows 8 and 8.1 too, Jourdan added that it was certainly the plan, though for how long the extended support would last was still undecided. ↫ Sayan Sen at Neowin Excellent move by Mozilla. I doubt there’s that many new features and frameworks in Windows 10 or 11 that are absolutely essential to Firefox working properly, so assuming it can gracefully disable any possible Windows 10/11-exclusive features, it should be entirely possible to use Firefox as an up-to-date, secure, and capable browser on Windows 7/8.x. Windows 7 and 8.x users still make up about 2.7% of Windows users worldwide, and with Windows’ popularity, that probably still translates to millions and millions of people. Making sure these people have access to a safe and secure browser is a huge boon, and I’m very happy Mozilla is going to keep supporting these platforms as best they can, at least for now. For those of us who already consider especially Windows 7 a retrocomputing platform – I sure do – this is also great news, as any retro box or VM we load up with it will also get a modern browser. Just excellent news all around.
Mozilla has announced it’s adding easy access to tool like ChatGPT, Gemini, and so to Firefox. Whether it’s a local or a cloud-based model, if you want to use AI, we think you should have the freedom to use (or not use) the tools that best suit your needs. With that in mind, this week, we will launch an opt-in experiment offering access to preferred AI services in Nightly for improved productivity as you browse. Instead of juggling between tabs or apps for assistance, those who have opted-in will have the option to access their preferred AI service from the Firefox sidebar to summarize information, simplify language, or test their knowledge, all without leaving their current web page. Our initial offering will include ChatGPT, Google Gemini, HuggingChat, and Le Chat Mistral, but we will continue adding AI services that meet our standards for quality and user experience. ↫ Ian Carmichael My biggest worry is not so much Mozilla adding these tools to Firefox – other browsers are doing it, and people clearly want to use them, so it makes sense for Firefox, too, to integrate them into the browser. No, my biggest worry is that this is just the first step on the way to the next major revenue agreement – just as Google is paying Mozilla to be the default search engine in Firefox, what if OpenAI starts paying to be the default AI tool in Firefox? Once that happens, I’m afraid a lot of the verbiage around choice and the ability to easily disable it all is going to change. I’m still incredibly annoyed by the fact I have to dive into about:config just to properly remove Pocket, a service I do not use, do not want, and annoys me by taking up space in my UI. I’m afraid that one or two years from now, AI integration will be just another complex set of strings I need to look for in about:config to truly disable it all. It definitely feels like Firefox is only going to get worse from here on out, not better, and this AI stuff seems more like an invitation for a revenue agreement than something well thought-out and useful. We’ll see where things go from here, but my worries about Firefox’ future are only growing stronger with Mozilla’s latest moves. As a Linux user, this makes me worried.
One of my biggest concerns regarding the state of the web isn’t ads (easily blocked) or machine learning (the legal system isn’t going to be kind to that), but the possible demise of Firefox. I’ve long been worried that with the seemingly never-ending downward marketshare spiral Firefox is in – it’s at like 3% now on desktop, even less on mobile – Mozilla’s pretty much sole source of income will eventually pull the plug, leaving the already struggling browser effectively for dead. I’ve continuously been warning that the first casualty of the downward spiral would be Firefox on platforms other than Windows and macOS. So, what do we make of Mozilla buying an online advertising analytics company? Mozilla has acquired Anonym, a trailblazer in privacy-preserving digital advertising. This strategic acquisition enables Mozilla to help raise the bar for the advertising industry by ensuring user privacy while delivering effective advertising solutions. ↫ Laura Chambers They way Mozilla explains buying an advertising network is that the company wants to be a trailblazer privacy-conscious online advertising, since the current brand of online advertising, which relies on massive amounts of data collection, is unsustainable. Anonym instead employs a number of measures to ensure that privacy is guaranteed, from anonymous analytics to employing differential privacy when it comes to algorithms, ensuring data can’t be used to tack individual users. I have no reason to doubt Mozilla’s intentions here – at least for now – but intentions change, people in charge change, and circumstances change. Having an ad network integrated into the Mozilla organisation will surely lead to temptations of weakening Firefox’ privacy features and ad-blocking abilities, and just overall I find it an odd acquisition target for something like Mozilla, and antithetical to why most people use Firefox in the first place. What really doesn’t help is who originally founded Anonym – two former Facebook executives, backed by a load of venture capital. Do with that little tidbit of information as you please.
Two days ago, I broke the news that Mozilla removed several Firefox extensions from the add-on store in Russia, after pressure from Russian censors. Mozilla provided me with an official statement, which seemed to highlight that the decision was not final, and it seems I was right – today, probably helped by the outcry our story caused, Mozilla has announced it’s reversing the decision. In a statement sent to me via email, an unnamed Mozilla spokesperson says: In alignment with our commitment to an open and accessible internet, Mozilla will reinstate previously restricted listings in Russia. Our initial decision to temporarily restrict these listings was made while we considered the regulatory environment in Russia and the potential risk to our community and staff. As outlined in our Manifesto, Mozilla’s core principles emphasise the importance of an internet that is a global public resource, open and accessible to all. Users should be free to customise and enhance their online experience through add-ons without undue restrictions. By reinstating these add-ons, we reaffirm our dedication to: – Openness: Promoting a free and open internet where users can shape their online experience.– Accessibility: Ensuring that the internet remains a public resource accessible to everyone, regardless of geographical location. We remain committed to supporting our users in Russia and worldwide and will continue to advocate for an open and accessible internet for all. ↫ Mozilla spokesperson via email I’m glad Mozilla reversed its decision, because giving in to a dictatorship never ends well – it starts with a few extensions today, but ends up with the kind of promotional tours for China that Tim Cook goes on regularly. Firefox is a browser that lives or dies by its community, and if that community is unhappy with the course of Mozilla or the decisions it makes, especially ones that touch on core values and human rights, it’s not going to end well for them. That being said, this does make me wonder what would’ve happened if the forum thread that started all this died in obscurity and never made its way to the media. Would Mozilla have made the same reversal?
A few days ago, I was pointed to a post on the Mozilla forums, in which developers of Firefox extensions designed to circumvent Russian censorship were surprised to find that their extensions were suddenly no longer available within Russia. The extension developers and other users in the thread were obviously not amused, and since they had received no warning or any other form of communication from Mozilla, they were left in the dark as to what was going on. I did a journalism and contacted Mozilla directly, and inquired about the situation. Within less than 24 hours Mozilla got back to me with an official statement, attributed to an unnamed Mozilla spokesperson: Following recent regulatory changes in Russia, we received persistent requests from Roskomnadzor demanding that five add-ons be removed from the Mozilla add-on store. After careful consideration, we’ve temporarily restricted their availability within Russia. Recognizing the implications of these actions, we are closely evaluating our next steps while keeping in mind our local community. ↫ Mozilla spokesperson via email I and most people I talked to already suspected this was the case, and considering Russia is a totalitarian dictatorship, it’s not particularly surprising it would go after browser extensions that allow people to circumvent state censorship. Other totalitarian dictatorships like China employ similar, often far more sophisticated methods of state control and censorship, too, so it’s right in line with expectations. I would say that I’m surprised Mozilla gave in, but at the same time, it’s highly likely resisting would lead to massive fines and possible arrests of any Mozilla employees or contributors living in Russia, if any such people exist, and I can understand a non-profit like Mozilla not having the means to effectively stand up against the Russian government. That being said, Mozilla’s official statement seems to imply they’re still in the middle of their full decision-making process regarding this issue, so other options may still be on the table, and I think it’s prudent to give Mozilla some more time to deal with this situation. Regardless, this decision is affecting real people inside Russia, and I’m sure if you’re using tools like these inside a totalitarian dictatorship, you’re probably not too fond of said dictatorship. Losing access to these Firefox extensions through the official add-store will be a blow to their human rights, so let’s hope the source code and ‘sideloaded’ versions of these extensions remain available for them to use instead.
Linux distributions running on ARM have had to roll their own Firefox builds for the architecture since forever, and it seems that Mozilla has taken this to heart as the browser maker is now supplying binary ARM builds of Firefox. They come in either a tarball or a .deb package installable through Mozilla’s apt repository. Do note, though, that Mozilla does not give the same kinds of guarantees for the ARM build of Firefox as they do for the x86 builds. We want to be upfront about the current state of our ARM64 builds. Although we are confident in the quality of Firefox on this architecture, we are still incorporating comprehensive ARM64 testing into Firefox’s continuous integration and release pipeline. Our goal is to integrate ARM64 builds into Firefox’s extensive automated test suite, which will enable us to offer this architecture across the beta, release, and ESR channels. ↫ Gabriel Bustamante These new builds won’t mean much for the average ARM Linux user since distributions built Firefox for the architecture already anyway, but it does offer users a direct line to Firefox they didn’t have before.
Proton is Firefox’s new design, starting from Firefox 89. Photon is the old design of Firefox which was used until version 88. Proton’s overall feel is good, but there were a few things I didn’t like and wanted to improve.That’s why this project was born, and Lepton to denote light theme layer. Lepton’s photon styled is preserve Photon’s feeling while keep Original Lepton’s strengths. ↫ Firefox UI Fix GitHub page I do not like the current Firefox user interface, because even with the ‘compact’ layout re-enabled in about:config, I find it just too bulky and wasteful of my screen real estate. I’ve been using the above Firefox user interface mod for ages now, and I can’t imagine using Firefox without it. The GitHub pages and guides are a bit of a mess and difficult to follow due to the project consisting of several overlapping different styles, but I just use the script listed here, selecting the style “2” when running the script. It won’t be for everyone, but for me, it makes Firefox nice and compact, turning it into a mouse-first interface without trying to accommodate touch. This is also by far not the only project with this goal, so if you’re using something else – feel free to list them.
The nonprofit organization that supports the Firefox web browser said today it is winding down its new partnership with Onerep, an identity protection service recently bundled with Firefox that offers to remove users from hundreds of people-search sites. The move comes just days after a report by KrebsOnSecurity forced Onerep’s CEO to admit that he has founded dozens of people-search networks over the years. On March 14, KrebsOnSecurity published a story showing that Onerep’s Belarusian CEO and founder Dimitiri Shelest launched dozens of people-search services since 2010, including a still-active data broker called Nuwber that sells background reports on people. Onerep and Shelest did not respond to requests for comment on that story. ↫ Brian Krebs It’s good that Mozilla has immediately responded properly to this discovery, but it does make one wonder – how did this happen in the first place? It seems like a service provider like this would be thoroughly vetted, especially considering Mozilla’s stated mission and types of users. My worries about Firefox’ future are no secret, and this gaffe certainly doesn’t help reduce my worries. It’s clear something went horribly wrong here, and my hope is that it’s a random fluke, and not a sign of more structural problems in Mozilla’s vetting process for potential partners.
