Fun fact: Cliqz also developed a search engine, which later got purchased by Brave and renamed Brave Search.

Standard Notes went out of their way to make it harder to self-host extensions a couple years ago, which IMO was pretty tasteless on its own. They could have charged for the convenience of providing a syncing server with extra storage, but instead they were basically repackaging and selling subscriptions to JavaScript code which was mostly made by third parties who weren’t even aware Standard Notes was using their stuff.

And then, more recently, they decided to shut off web app access to third-party servers entirely.

“FOSS” only means so much when they dictate what goes into the source code. Unfortunately.

Recently, I’ve been getting a lot of ads injected in one particular Firefox profile. All I have to do to make it go away (for now) is to switch to a different tab container.

But this is Google rolling out anti-ad-blocking technology and testing the waters. So your mileage may vary.

Yes, but it’s not very easy. I used ViolentMonkey with this userscript.

Edit: your method is really cool too

Personally I disagree with the conclusions stated by the blog post, but I can respect the reasoning for getting there, and I can draw my own conclusions from it myself.

All I can do is tap on the little graphic I made from their last buyout (that literally made Mozilla into an data broker):

FakeSpot privacy lowlights (I can’t tell if the image is linking correctly)

The wing of Mozilla that puts out press releases about invasive car companies seems to have no influence on the wing of Mozilla acquiring and injecting random crap into Firefox.

All that being said, if you don’t want to tweak Firefox with Arkenfox user.js (or tweak it yourself), and you can live with the fact that Librewolf makes these outgoing connections [to update uBlock Origin and its lists], Librewolf is currently one of the most privacy respecting browsers out there.

It’s in my “good enough for me” list because the alternative is dealing with Firefox myself

LibreWolf is pretty good too. It’s less like Tor than Mullvad Browser is, at least out of the box.

My hopes are not high. Right before FakeSpot got bought out by Mozilla, they changed their privacy policy to add a “we will sell your data if we get bought out” clause.

(As a Mozilla product now, FakeSpot still retains private data and the right to sell it to advertising companies. So, at least to me, Mozilla has been an adtech company since 2023.)

For maximum humor, run the bullshit.js bookmarklet.

https://mourner.github.io/bullshit.js/

This sounds a whole lot like privacy sandbox.
You know, Google Topics.
The thing nobody wanted.

And honestly, reading through the article here, I don’t see many ways that it’ll be much better. If advertisements are matched on your local machine, then data is still being amalgamated somewhere. This is similar to Google Topics and Microsoft Recall, two things people complain about. For good reason.

The online advertising industry is undergoing a significant transformation. With growing consumer concerns and increasing scrutiny from regulators, it’s evident that current data practices are excessive and unsustainable.

It’s strange that Mozilla, a company that constantly positions itself as the ethical alternative to big tech, is saying “companies are being mandated out of unethical advertising.”

Secure Environment: Data sets are matched in a highly secure environment

Without any further information, this means so very little. Is it done locally? On their servers? Who knows.

By combining Mozilla’s scale and trusted reputation with Anonym’s cutting-edge technology, we can enhance user privacy and advertising effectiveness, leveling the playing field for all stakeholders.

When advertising is the business, your attention is the product. Maybe I’m being too unkind to Mozilla here, but it’s their press release and they can be as specific as they choose.

Anonym was founded with two core beliefs: First, that people have a fundamental right to privacy in online interactions…

This is the sort of meaningless fluff that you see at the front of every privacy policy, including that of the most invasive companies.

… and second, that digital advertising is critical for the sustainability of free content, services and experiences.

That’s the only way to offer free services?! What about donation-based models? Maybe Mozilla could have set up something like what Brave has, except not based around a sketchy cryptocurrency.

In fact, GNU Taler exists for this very purpose.

Anonym was founded in 2022 by former Meta executives

Meta. The company known for loving user privacy.

I was hoping Mozilla would finally shut up about putting AI into everything, but in retrospect, maybe they should go back to that.

I’m reading through the Anonymco privacy policy. Some standouts:

We collect… IP address, social media user names, passwords and other security information,

Passwords?!

…your browsing and click history, including information about how you navigate within our Site and Services…

…We collect and verify resumes, employment eligibility, education, and employment history from job applicants. This includes information about your skills and qualifications for the position…

Okay, great, they know how employable you are

We may disclose Personal Information and any other information about you to government or law enforcement officials or private parties… to prevent or stop any illegal, unethical, or legally actionable activity…

They are leaving the door open to disclose your data to private mercenaries to prevent… Pre-crime, I think.

We use Google Analytics on the Site and Services to analyze how users use the Site and Services, and to provide advertisements to you on other websites.

THEY USE GOOGLE ON YOUR DATA.

This really sounds like Mozilla snapped up the first company with the right buzzwords that they could find, rather than looking for the best one. It sounds like a repeat of the OneRep privacy disaster, when they partnered with a corporation that sold people’s data and used their ownership of it to basically demand ransom payments for its removal.

Mozilla: Say hello to our biggest AI moments!

That’s an interesting connection.

The sparkle emoji is infamous for being associated with AI now.

Orion is a Kagi product, and Kagi is an AI company made to look like a search/browser/T-shirt company.

I have to assume a lot of people don’t understand how deep the AI rabbithole for Kagi goes, because I have seen people recommend Kagi to people frustrated with Google’s own AI bullshit… They’re launching AI features left and right, and they have fully bought into AI being the future of search.

Correct, and that is bad. Very bad. The fact that in BitMessage, “every message gets sent to everyone” is something nobody wants or asked for.

Seems self-evident to me why the protocol has been languishing and mostly ignored for the past decade or so.

Why would you want to store messages, even encrypted ones, on a publicly accessible distributed database with no delete function?

Bitmessage was created well before the concept of post quantum encryption was widely discussed, so it is not safe for that use case.

If you see something that says it uses blockchain to store your data, run away from it. Blockchain is used to make records permanent, not private. The only way to delete data from a blockchain is to erase the blockchain from existence, which cryptocurrency bros will never want to do (because that’s where all their money is).

I miss the good old days when crypto meant cryptography and not cryptocurrency.

The biggest criticism I have seen of announcements-only signal groups is that every member can see every other member. This might be inconvenient for members who use their single phone number for purposes outside of activism.

Can you upload and share a copy of your telemetry data or at least a copy of the search topics that have been associated with your Firefox browser?

I’m interested in perusing what kind of topics are collected.

Mozillas Telemetry docs and Privacy Notice

These both appear to be the same link, and neither of them mention “topics” or “search” as far as I can tell.

I hate to break it to you, but right now, AI is being pushed by Tesla, Microsoft, Apple, Google. Pretty much every major megacorporation.

The environmental impacts are staggeringly horrible.

But sure, AI good.

Tor is Firefox, why are you calling it “a shit-quality browser” while defending Mozilla so hard