I don’t understand how they are supposed to “sell your data” if you just never use a Mozilla account and uncheck all the telemetry. Its not like they can secretly steal your data, since its Open Source.
It seems to me like just more FUD that Google is spreading to undermine our trust in free software.
Ughh, don’t make me switch my browser again…
There was a post made my Mozilla years ago (I’m too lazy to find it). It was in the shadow of Chrome getting more scummy. Anyway, paraphrasing horribly, the idea was that the humble web browser was starting to become an increasingly personal decision. It represents you in ways that many people may not fully appreciate, comprehend, or understand. Your browser history tells people what you like, what you are afraid of. Increasingly, it tells corporations and governments who you talk to, where you’re going, and what you’re up to.
It’s why it’s important for a browser to be built for people, not for corporations.
It’s so sad to see how far Mozilla has gone from that stance.
So I get how challenging and annoying changing a browser is because in many ways, it’s you. It’s who you are. But, like in life, sometimes we must choose to leave the friends who bring us down. It hurts, it sucks. But it’s the way of life.
I’ve spent a good part of this morning switching things over to Waterfox. It’s not perfect. There are gaps and for some reason, I can port over Chrome and Edge profiles but NOT firefox profiles. But sometimes a fresh start is good too.
Ironically, I just made !waterfox@programming.dev last night, haha.
Subbed! And made the first post!
Why this not librewolf
Because I am but one man. 😂
Waterfox was what I noticed first. If waterfox didn’t work out, it’s next. Followed by ladybird.
I think the painful reality is, is that the availability of good honest, privacy focused browsers are narrowing. Mozilla just had to go and make it harder. I’m personally using LibreWolf myself.
LibreWolf my dude. Everything still works as if in FireFox.
First, mostly as if in Firefox. Go open Netflix, just for the laugh of it.
Second, a fork that depends on Mozilla’s power to develop the upstream is not really in the clear. From a licensing perspective, sure. But let’s assume the worst (because it’s 2025 after all). Firefox is no longer open source. Sure, we can fork from where they left. But building, maintaining, and evolving a browser engine (and the browser itself) requires substantial work. Which means, developers/maintainers, and money. And staying on a “bare” browser might not be viable as long as standards keeps evolving and 95% of people will not care about that stuff.
All that to say, a fork is an option for now. A more tangible solution for the future is needed. A new “Mozilla” without the $millions CEO and structure, Mozilla splitting Firefox into a clean base and a commercial product, something else. But not a fork that just follow Firefox source.
😩 Fuck, I know right?
I found it ironically frustrating that converting from Firefox to LibreWolf is harder than from literally any other browser, because there’s no import mechanism.
It wouldn’t be that hard to make a standalone tool to import bookmarks, passwords, and config settings, and would make LibreWolf a seamless transition for Firefox users. Instead, it’s a frustrating process in re-creating years of tweaks.
It uses the same profiles and configuration as Firefox. Should just have to rename the configuration folder to
.librewolf?