Steve have just touched the surface of the Firefox issue in SN1015. On such crucial issue we must dig deeper. I am in Academia and related tech field for my entire career. In this field OpenSource is the foundation. My almost exclusive browser usage was Netscape->Mozilla->Firefox. Any other browser usage was experimental, temporary. Yet, I was very concerned since Mozilla published their 25 yrs plan for future. Find it, read it. In no uncertain terms they identify new business plan, one of the browser as AI driven data brokering tool. Hence I looked at their recent actions and they confirmed 25yr plan: Advertising data broker company purchased by Mozilla. Several Data Brokering focused small AI firms acquired. Hence, explicit plan and actions to become something unacceptable. It is one aspect of privacy for browser to protect us from corporate espionage from the websites. It is whole another issue when the browser itself wants to harvest info and sell it. Intolerable. For me, change in TOU indicated signal that preparation phase is done and Firefox started to actually deliver on previously outlined plan. I ceased all usage of it, uninstalled it from all of my many modern systems, leaving it only on very old legacy systems in its last form for those platforms. I switched to Brave. Poorer than old Firefox as to protections from outside threats but, with explicit actions, plans and promises that they will never act as data broker, believable with respect to the former Firefox leader is now at Brave.
Sad times but by their own plans and actions Firefox is not to be trusted anymore in my opinion. Yes, they need funds, could have saved A LOT if not buying spying companies but also, if they took Brave type of "blind" and fully opt-in ads strategy they could have plenty to even gain users and grow.
Sad times but by their own plans and actions Firefox is not to be trusted anymore in my opinion. Yes, they need funds, could have saved A LOT if not buying spying companies but also, if they took Brave type of "blind" and fully opt-in ads strategy they could have plenty to even gain users and grow.
