The troubling part in the post is that telemetry (about AI features) begins before the user can rush to disable either of them.
It's a response to the Mozilla CEO saying[0] "Trust is earned. Consent is asked. AI skipped both," which promised to ameliorate this issue, and apparently did not.
If the CEO of the company behind my browser of choice gave me an AI slopped response after criticism of integrating AI into the browser I'd never touch that product again unless he got fired.
That's not ever how it should be done, and the average person certainly won't work around that.
However, I'm fine with telling Mozilla once per install that I'm not interested in using the generative AI, or summaries, etc. On-device translation is quite useful.
It's somewhat cathartic to go through the settings and JS parts, using the source as a guide, and rip out/disable all the spyware, which you can do even without having to build the whole thing from source.
Since I do my content filtering at the proxy level, all I want is just a browser .
I'm always baffled by vitriol like this. The alternatives you mention wouldn't even exist without Firefox, and what bloody swamp? What forced extensions?
I just started a two fresh profiles to test your claim (one in Firefox, one in Dev Edition), the opt-out for telemetry is present in the very first dialogue box and costs 2 clicks. There's a daily usage ping that's still on, and I'm happy to keep it on, because I believe that usage stat is valuable. It's easily disabled.
There are zero extensions by default, and one video decoding plugin. There is a skippable 'recommended add-ons' step on first run, so skip it if you want, easy.
The AI controls are all set to Available but none are automatically used, one must intentionally do so, at which point one is reminded these can be entirely disabled. Even opening the AI chat sidebar doesn't actually connect to a bot, it offers a list of bots, beneath which is a Close button, though that's not the only way to close it.
If you prefer Waterfox, great, you're not the primary target demographic for Firefox, but you can still use it without all the pain you complain of.
> I just started a two fresh profiles to test your claim (one in Firefox, one in Dev Edition), the opt-out for telemetry is present in the very first dialogue box and costs 2 clicks.
And now I'm confused. Firefox 153 on Linux, new profile.
First screen:
> You’re in safe paws
> We protect your data and block companies from spying on your clicks — automatically.
> Set Firefox as default browser
> Import from previous browser
Second screen:
> Give your browsing a boost
> Extensions are tiny apps that let you customize Firefox. They can power up your privacy, enhance productivity, change the way Firefox looks, and so much more.
> Explore staff recommended extensions
Third screen:
> Go anywhere. Sync everything.
> Grab bookmarks, passwords, and more everywhere you’re signed in to Firefox. Plus, your data is encrypted so only you can see it.
> Sign up or sign in
And that's it; after that it dumps out to the page of ads that is the new tab screen. If I click to Settings > Permissions and data > Firefox data collection and use, it appears that everything is default enabled except automatically sending crash reports.
Above the "safe paws" screen I get a "Welcome to Firefox" dialogue (in-browser not a system window) where it asks to agree to terms, the bottom of that allows disabling telemetry before continuing. Those screens you list as individual are all part of the welcome flow in a single tab, and you can just close that without doing any of it, and start browsing.
I cant stand firefox for browsing, and now rarely access the web through a lap/desk top
and just usb transfer files I create onto my phone, from where they get sent via whatever service is required.
The web is dead anyway, so any random browser is good enough,as the whole fucking thing is a giant scam me baby honey pot if anything and one of these days a bunch of mega scraper operations are going to get stuck to each other and litteraly catch on fire, which would be interesting, remember that?, interesting things, ha!, now the reaction is to look over your shoulder to see if anyone noticed you bieng had.
There shouldn't be any telemetry in free software, end of. There are other ways to estimate the number of active users, e.g. through downloads and browser fingerprints.
Mozilla does not need more money than it already has. Ladybird has shown that you don't need a huge team to build a browser from scratch, so clearly Mozilla isn't spending all the money it gets from Google for development.
This, absolutely. I used to publish free software for download, and I had absolutely zero idea how it was used, nor did I care.
The problem is that the surveillance mindset has infected developers these days so now you have a bunch of telemetry apologists and advocates influencing the narrative. Unfortunately they are themselves fine with being spied on... although the inevitable leak happens and hopefully some of them start to worry.
This is like saying you shouldn't have a computer because you can do addition yourself. Okay, what about all of the other use cases? Besides, collecting stats based on downloads/updates/etc is still telemetry.
I'm perfectly fine with telemetry in any software, free or paid. Just make it opt-in and don't turn into cookie notice style malicious compliance about that.
> There are other ways to estimate the number of active users
The point of telemetry is not to estimate the number of active users, and focusing on "telemetry" is the wrong bogeyman. Things like crash reports are telemetry, and are perfectly acceptable as long as the user remains in control over whether or not to send them. Software should respect user privacy and user control.
At some point, the pervasive unethical behavior of having telemetry on by default instead of opt-in, not just in proprietary software but also in open-source software and even from Mozilla itself becomes overwhelming enough that "telemetry=bad" becomes a reasonable summary of the situation. We need a new word specifically for ethical opt-in data collection.
> There shouldn't be any telemetry in free software, end of.
Don't install it if you dont want it, that is where you choice lies. Telemetry inclusion is up to the author. Good ones will make it opt-in if it is truly necessary to include.
> Ladybird has shown that you don't need a huge team to build a browser from scratch
Like with any software, you can't ever really be sure if they share this data with other entities. That's part of why I don't let software phone home, FOSS or not.
Because it's useful in aiding in development. "Telemetry" is not "spying" or "collecting personal information" or whatever else uninformed people like this blog author try to dramatize it as. Telemetry is anonymous crash reports, how many users are using vertical vs horizontal tabs, how many people engaged the AI killswitch, etc. If it's NOT anonymized/bucketized usage date, then it's NOT telemetry. People need to stop conflating the two.
Ironically, it's the people who disable all telemetry out of ignorance and paranoia that end up crying every time a developer deprecates their favorite feature or they have an issue with a new release. If you don't vote you don't get to complain. Mozilla's PM's in particular have repeatedly published and cited telemetry data in their decision making, and have referenced crash reports in proactively filed bugs.
> "Telemetry" is not "spying" or "collecting personal information" or whatever else uninformed people like this blog author try to dramatize it as.
Whether or not telemetry counts as spying depends on whether or not informed consent was obtained before data is sent. If any data is collected about me, my machines, or my use of my machines, and I have not explicitly been told about and agreed to it first, then I'm being spied on.
Well, at least it's not the closing sentence.
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