Found this notification this morning on my pixel 6.
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Even if this isn’t entirely true, you know Google wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to reduce Firefox market share to scare everyone back to Chrome.
Like chrome does something different?
Yes, chrome is doing something different. It is even worse!
That’s not the point they’re trying to make I think. It’s more of an attack on perfection. Like “the alternative is not perfect either so why not just stay with Chrome”. It’s not a very strong argument in general but it might be enough to keep people from switching.
exactly, when confronted with cognitive dissonance people look for any shitty excuse to avoid changing their minds.
No but where are you going to go. The options are shrinking.
Fennec on mobile. LibreWolf on desktop.
Waterfox works great on Android.
Zen browser is great on desktop
Zen, at least from the few times that I’ve tried it, also has some major issues that I personally find to be deal-breakers. Like forgetting tabs in a window that has just been closed. If you accidentally close a window that you’re working, without quitting the browser, you lose everything in it. As someone who is prone to doing that when closing a tab, it’s not ideal.
It integrates into the Google ecosystem well, and if that has value to a person it may just be enough to bring them back to chrome.
Who would use the Google ecosystem? Yuck. 🤮
I wonder if they say people should be careful with Chrome 😂
they don’t have to! they microsoft explorered that shit
There’s no need to reduce Firefox marketshare. Most people don’t even consider using anything else than whatever is default in their device.
Also, it’s not a Google scare tactic or a flex. Every application on the Play Store must disclose the general outlines of their data policy, including the sharing of data. Lying with those checkbox is not a good idea but they are completely informative and put there by the publishing party, so the people responsible for publishing Firefox on mobile just updated these, and this is what is shown when an app publisher say their app is sharing data with third parties.
tl;dr: it’s very likely that not a single soul at Google even looked at this, as this is just the regular behavior of the Play Store with apps that changes their data policy or indicate sharing user data with third parties.
Why the dichotomy between the chrome listing on the store then?
No idea, I’m not that obsessed with it. But do note that “The developers of these apps provided info about their data sharing practices to an app store. They may update it over time.” and “Data sharing practices may vary based on your app version, use, region, and age.”
The recent changes to Firefox terms of use (well, their introduction really) was supposedly meant to appease some regional lawmakers. Maybe it is a regional thing. Maybe they changed it again. Maybe it’s, as often with store page update, rolled out progressively to people (in either direction, whether it’s adding or removing these terms).
The point is, that’s neither a “Google” operation to put Firefox in a bad light, nor a Mozilla operation to… do whatever it is they’re doing these days. It’s just a regular message. Which, reading a lot of the replies here, is something that have to be said.
There isn’t to much to reduce. I don’t think Google is scared or afraid by Firefox, like at all.
Lol if Google really wanted to kill FF they would just stop paying them half a billion a year.
So you’re advocating that Google shouldn’t broadcast that firefox is broadcasting your current location? Even though they do this for every other app available on Android, you’re saying they shouldn’t do this for firefox?
Why?
This notice is effectively added by the Firefox developers when they select the ability to enable location services and also tick a box thay they collect data.
They want to scare people to stay on Chrome now that they discontinued support of uBlock (not that it was ever supported on Chrome for Android anyway)
So they do this for all apps. Every single app that is in the Android ecosystem. But in your mind they’re specifically targeting firefox with this to make people “scared” huh?
Must be nice to live in denial.
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The story I heard was that by of California’s definition of selling data, doing anything with user data that could benefit the company was considered selling data. So they updated their FAQ to be in line with that definition. But I could be wrong, if someone could point me to a good article I’d appreciate it.
Here’s Louis Rossmann’s wiki where he details it. I hope that helps.
Thanks! Sounds like limiting risk from the California bill is a plausible reason, but it isn’t confirmed.
Legal Definitions of “Selling Data” Under the CCPA Are Broad: As noted above, the CCPA’s definition encompasses many data-sharing practices that may not align with common understanding of “selling data”.[16] Even if Mozilla was not directly selling user data, its search partnerships, telemetry data sharing, & sponsored content could have been interpreted as data sales if Mozilla received any financial benefit from them, all of which were actions that Mozilla has already been transparent & upfront about.
Mozilla’s Search Engine Deals Could Be Considered Data Sales: As mentioned earlier, these partnerships could legally qualify as data sales under the CCPA definition, despite being an existing part of Mozilla’s business model that consumers are already aware of.[1]
Sponsored Content in Firefox’s New Tab Page Involves Data Exchange: Mozilla dReferencesisplays sponsored content and ads on the Firefox New Tab page, which may involve user interaction data being shared with advertisers.[11] Even if the data is anonymized, the CCPA considers certain types of aggregated data as personal information if it can be linked back to users.[16]
You’re saying “exploiting” user data might have been more precise than “selling”. Either way I don’t want them doing it.
terrible choice of link. There was a stack of reporting from various tech-news sites and blogs; but you’ve given as the nazi site.
Google warning you about Mozilla is just peak fucking irony
God damn why’s the world so shit
It really is. Literally everything is shit and I’m so fucking over it.
God damn why’s the world so shit
Society empowers and encourages shitty people that only care about their own kind/tribe, is why.
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My understanding is this is due to regions broadening the definition of “sell” to include any form of personal data transfer. So Mozilla giving location info (with consent if you enable “ask every time” in the permissions) to websites to look up local store hours or whatever is “selling data.”
AFAIK, nothing has changed in Firefox.
“Quick! Jump to chrome instead!” - Google spokesperson
That’s a regular notification, which would happen for any application whose data policy is changed on the Play Store page. These policy are as declared by the app publisher. This would be the same for any application that didn’t check that “sharing data with third party” box earlier, then checked it later on.
Isn’t that just because Firefox got access to location data because some site asked for it?
commenting cus I also have the same question
As of the latest Chrome update on PC, they have dropped support for uBlock. You can still technically enable it, but they disabled it by default once you update.
That got me back to Firefox with breakneck speed.
Hopefully soon Librewolf, Fennec F-droid and other forks will become mainstream.
I haven’t switched to Librewolf on pc yet; hoping that turning off the telemetry/etc options in ff is enough, but I’m starting to think it might not be long.
I switched over to LibreWolf recently. I discovered Vivaldi just a few hours before I learned about the Manifest v3 stuff for Chromium (which is a shame because I actually LOVED Vivaldi). I really want to try Zen Browser, but I’m using old, 2011-era Macs (running Ubuntu 24.04 on one) and it won’t install. LibreWolf is great because of its clean, minimal design and absolute privacy-forward thinking. I’ve enjoyed it so far (and I’m only running it on the Ubuntu machine).
I want to switch over further but so far I’ve had so much else going on that data privacy hasn’t taken a priority. Things are getting weird now so it is time for a priority change.
Frankly speaking, calling out Google and Chrome, then moving to Firefox while Mozilla have been doing it’s best Google impression for years now is not that great of a plan.
I wonder how long Firefox will be ok with all that, since Mozilla bought that advertisement business a while ago.
The main problem is that building a web browser is extremely difficult and everyone else uses Google’s version of WebKit. So there’s no alternatives: it’s either Google or Mozilla. Forks don’t count because if some functionality that end users need is deprecated, nobody will maintain it and it will just disappear once it’s removed from the main codebase
Yes, I agree. That’s why I’m weirded out by people saying “Firefox bad, use Librewolf” and the like.
I still think a solution that relies on donation (maybe with some corporate support) would be very good for everyone involved. Unfortunately, Mozilla is not a player in this, so we’re stuck with basically three engines, one that can’t be used, one that’s openly hostile, and one that’s becoming hostile.
Not great.
You just described Servo. It will happen. The Linux Foundation is backing it up now… after Mozilla dropped it.
Servo
Hm. Did not know about that. Interesting, thanks.
Hopefully Servo will change that
building a web browser is extremely difficult and everyone else uses Google’s version of WebKit
To be fair it is based on KHTML. One of projects KDE can spend that extra money on and resurrect.
Bring back Konqueror too while at it!
Edit: Apparently it still exists, it just isn’t the default on any mainstream distros anymore
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I know, right, the fucking balls of Google to fucking say this
Because they are legally obligated to mention it?
Are they? What law?
This is not at all a pot kettle situation, there is no reason to warn about Firefox.
Google: “Forcing us to divest Chrome could have impacts on our ability to support Mozilla and their high executive salaries as we own the space with Chrome.”
Also Google:
Wait a second. You’re expecting Google to not FUD? Ha ha ha oh wow. I mean I didn’t actually expect them to do so, but yeah.
Wth is fud?
Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt. It’s more commonly used in crypto communities.
[stern stare]
Forgotten the history, have we? I was referring to Microsoft’s tactics in the early 2000s.
Crypto bros have watered down the term and made it a laughing matter. They ruin everything they touch. Goddamn it.
Huh. I wasn’t even aware of it having that much of a history to begin with.
Oh the term has rich history! First used in modern tech sector sense in 1975 about IBM.
Elmer
Fucking Ultra Demon
Expected, no. Surprised, also no.
Pretty easy to disable the location app permission or set it to ask every time. Firefox hasn’t asked me to enable it since turning it off.
Yeah I’m pretty sure Firefox won’t ask for or use your location, unless a website wants it for some reason (which is almost never a good one).
and even then, for me at least, the dialog that pops up is broken and lot of times the “Allow” button literally does nothing
Didn’t they also elude to collecting telemetry recently? I know it’s up for some debate but, if true, I’m not sure that’s a thing we can turn off.
Deactivate from settings Have https always on, protection against tracking on strict, data collection and daily ping on off.
And that’s it.
Get ironfox?
fennec vs ironfox opinions?
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I would love to see a real comparison.
- Fennec - Firefox build with some proprietary stiff removed; repo
- IronFox - Firefox fork (forked from Mull) with a bunch of hardening changes (notably
resistFingerprintingenabled); repo
IronFox is more ambitious, which means higher maintenance load and more likely to fall behind. Fennec is much simpler, so less likely to fall behind, but also doesn’t change much from Firefox.
Friendship ended with Firefox. Waterfox is my new best friend ❤️
IceCat.
Unfortunately I am primarily an android user, as I always have my phone with me.
I shall give it a go for desktop at some point though
Waterfox is on Android too! I just installed it on both Mt PC and phone.
Ironfox seems to work well on Android.
So does Waterfox. :)
Firefox engines have telemetry since old ages. Do you know what even crazier ??? even other firefox browser like fennec has Mozilla telemetry.
PSA : disable it with Blocker (ROOT) for more privacyIt has a mozilla telemetry component, but that doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily reporting to mozilla - which wouldn’t make much sense anyway - nor that it actually functions at all. Most telemetry components in Firefox can’t simply be deleted because it causes stuff to break, so they are replaced with stubs that don’t actually do anything.
Assuming that’s all it’s really doing.
For a novice, what exactly is Blocker (ROOT)? Is it an app, a setting, or a configuration?
Its app that you can downloaded in F-Droid, basically it’s a app that can control other app components. But before that you must Root/Unlock bootloader
Thanks very much for the info!
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