MX Linux Forum

Video of "Firefox New CRAZY Terms of Use" that Tom from Switched to Linux posted on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB61dwUIijE
I personally find this disturbing and is why I butchered my Firefox installation for privacy.
Here is the official Terms of Use from Mozilla. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/leg ... s/firefox/

This is what makes some other browsers attractive.

What say you?

you can shut off "sending data to mozilla with two key clicks and no, I dont find an of this "disturbing"... disturbing is what happens when you use Chrome or Edge .

I suspect that you didnt read their Privacy notice, and I find it VERY refreshing that they put transparency FIRST in their privacy notice!.

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/

@Mauser
Maybe you could detail what you find so capital letter crazy? I'm not going to watch a half hour random dude youtube rant.

Mauser wrote: Thu Feb 27, 2025 6:37 pm This is what makes some other browsers attractive.

What say you?

Who knows what they do I went with Floorp a forked browser based on it I had been testing out signed into my FF account and everything synced fine and is there. So far so good today with more than a few sites the FF butchers working perfectly fine, makes me wonder what they do with all the money they spend there when volunteers can put out better product. I am going with it for the future until I see how this and the other enshitifications I have put up for far to long play out... I have used it since the Netscape fork days and have not been impressed with the direction it has taken for quite some time.

Things are not crazy only because you don't understand them.

Who is this imbecile and why should we waste our time for his rant when he clearly doesn't understand what he's talking about?

Melber wrote: Thu Feb 27, 2025 7:42 pm @Mauser
Maybe you could detail what you find so capital letter crazy? I'm not going to watch a half hour random dude youtube rant.

+1
I was hoping to see the cliff notes of the video. I use LibreWolf and it comes bundled with uBO and telemetry/pocket/ff sync disabled.

Btw, this guy has a video titled Too Many Linux Distros. There's never too many.

"Cliff notes" are easy to find on Mozilla's web site. It's all there in their own words. To sum up, it says "All your data are belong to us. We are an advertising company now. Ask about next year's summit: Advancing LGBTQIA Against Colonialism and Climate Change Using Artificial Intelligence." No joke, Mozilla hosted such an event last year. Look at the new motto and purpose: Global activism. Firefox just isn't the noble crusader it once was for FOSS and open access to the internet for all.

Artim wrote: Thu Feb 27, 2025 8:58 pm "Cliff notes" are easy to find on Mozilla's web site. It's all there in their own words. To sum up, it says "All your data are belong to us. We are an advertising company now. Ask about next year's summit: Advancing LGBTQIA Against Colonialism and Climate Change Using Artificial Intelligence." No joke, Mozilla hosted such an event last year. Look at the new motto and purpose: Global activism. Firefox just isn't the noble crusader it once was for FOSS and open access to the internet for all.

Ah... this starts to smell more and more like political hitjob on Mozilla. "All your date are belong to us" is just regular legalese that they need for using what you type it in the address bar to bring in the result. They made the "mistake" to clarify that, if this forum has a term of service it should probably have the same verbiage that you grant the copyright of what you time to be used on this site globally (because the site is accessible globally) and that people can quote what you write without infringing your copyright. It's nothing nefarious, just legal speech that people either don't understand or misuse the potential lack of understanding to score points against an organization that they don't see aligned politically with them --- as your own post indicates. That doesn't strike me as unbiased honest commentary, it's FUD.

Adrian wrote: Thu Feb 27, 2025 8:38 pm Who is this imbecile and why should we waste our time for his rant when he clearly doesn't understand what he's talking about?

This imbecile is Tom Murosky, a Linux YouTuber, avowed Christian, self-published memoirist, and far right hatemonger. You can figure out a lot about an artist when you look at his work: Trafotin - "Tom Murosky & Switched To Linux: Misinformation, Hate, & Sadness".

The problem is Mozilla has first lost it's google funding (imagine being the official opposition but having the party in control pay your salaries) and then it lost it's sketchy USAID funding. On the other hand yes a lot of people object to ESG agenda's on a deeply personal and sometimes employment grounds because it means that they will be fired because they don't fit into the right quota boxes... and don't bother to try and say it cannot happen because it always happens when discrimination gets privatized... it's just new to a lot of the Westen World because it was largely prototyped in the Third World for the last half century.

Now they are desperate for money so they did among other things this change where both in FIrefox and Thunderbird enabled spyware by default, sure you can disable it but not everyone will know to and like M$ they can simply re-enable it with updates while no one is looking. This was done months ago, now what they did is they introduced new fine print so broad that it basically means they can interpret it any way they want to enabling them in practice to use your data any way they want to.

For now it seems that forks are safe... either way even with it's drama Brave seems like a safer default option but personally I am mostly still sticking to LibreWolf (with all the annoying scorched earth upon close toggles disabled) because it's too much effort ATM to migrate once again. Betterbird seems the best alternative to Thunderbird but I am not particularly enthused about using a flatpak for email....

I have to say I find it very weird (and probably telling) for people coming up for Mozilla when the they likely were just as vehement against Ubuntu when they started getting telemetry hungry.

Just as a reason people prefer MX to Ubuntu is their hunger for spying on you.... the same has now happened to Mozilla possibly forever tainting them. This is a much bigger turning of the worm than people seem to want to admit.

Ok.. making it really simple: change browsers. Take measures security wise, if you're worried.

Also: nobody is that important to them, not even I or you.

Melber wrote: Thu Feb 27, 2025 7:42 pm @Mauser
Maybe you could detail what you find so capital letter crazy? I'm not going to watch a half hour random dude youtube rant.

Thank you @Melber!

The at least information about "every" video should always be described.

I was just about to post about this.

For those who want specific sources, here's one:

In the Firefox Terms of Use, it says, "Your use of Firefox must follow Mozilla’s Acceptable Use Policy". In the AUP, it says, "You may not use any of Mozilla’s services to … Upload, download, transmit, display, or grant access to content that includes graphic depictions of sexuality." So, I hope all of you are perfectly chaste men and women. Now the AUP does say "services", but the Terms of Use are clear that you must abide by the AUP regardless.

For those who are asking why this is a big deal for MX:

Firefox is the default browser for both MX and antiX. Technically, these terms don't apply to MX/antiX users since Firefox in MX/antiX is built, not downloaded. Nevertheless, the fact that this even in the ToU/AUP leaves a kinda bad taste in my mouth. I don't really have a good alternative browser in mind that works for every use case though, so I'm not sure what the solution is. Maybe LibreWolf, but they don't offer a 32-bit version for building to my knowledge.

EDIT: It looks like LibreWolf DOES have 32-bit versions for Debian. https://gitlab.com/librewolf-community/ ... -/releases

CharlesV wrote: Thu Feb 27, 2025 7:06 pm I suspect that you didnt read their Privacy notice, and I find it VERY refreshing that they put transparency FIRST in their privacy notice!

transparancy....? Not at all.
But use these settings and you will get a safer browser
https://www.privacyguides.org/en/deskto ... s/#firefox

"Mozilla’s services" -- that's not even about Firefox, Firefox is not a service. If you are not OK with that don't use their services.

Adrian wrote: Fri Feb 28, 2025 8:10 am "Mozilla’s services" -- that's not even about Firefox, Firefox is not a service. If you are not OK with that don't use their services.

It says explicitly in Firefox's Terms of Use that you must abide by the AUP.

Arnox wrote: Fri Feb 28, 2025 8:31 am

Adrian wrote: Fri Feb 28, 2025 8:10 am "Mozilla’s services" -- that's not even about Firefox, Firefox is not a service. If you are not OK with that don't use their services.

It says explicitly in Firefox's Terms of Use that you must abide by the AUP.

That part doesn't refer to Firefox, it refers to Mozilla services. I know that legalize sounds complicated to people, but that's pretty clear. If not, use common sense, do you really think Mozilla stops you from watching porn on Firefox?

I read Firefox's new terms of service and I came to the conclusion that the person in the linked video read the words but didn't grasp the meaning. The gist is that this new T.O.S. is an attempt by Mozilla to absolve themselves from liability when their users access questionable sites.

Arnox wrote: Fri Feb 28, 2025 6:25 am In the Firefox Terms of Use, it says, "Your use of Firefox must follow Mozilla’s Acceptable Use Policy". In the AUP, it says, "You may not use any of Mozilla’s services to …

Adrian wrote: Fri Feb 28, 2025 8:49 am

Arnox wrote: Fri Feb 28, 2025 8:31 am

Adrian wrote: Fri Feb 28, 2025 8:10 am "Mozilla’s services" -- that's not even about Firefox, Firefox is not a service. If you are not OK with that don't use their services.

It says explicitly in Firefox's Terms of Use that you must abide by the AUP.

That part doesn't refer to Firefox, it refers to Mozilla services. I know that legalize sounds complicated to people, but that's pretty clear. If not, use common sense, do you really think Mozilla stops you from watching porn on Firefox?

Agree with Adrian. The way I understand it, Firefox itself is not a Mozilla service. Mozilla services are things like Mozilla VPN, Firefox Relay, Firefox Monitor, Firefox Notes, Firefox sync, Pocket.

Pretty Vacant wrote: Fri Feb 28, 2025 6:31 am

CharlesV wrote: Thu Feb 27, 2025 7:06 pm I suspect that you didnt read their Privacy notice, and I find it VERY refreshing that they put transparency FIRST in their privacy notice!

transparancy....? Not at all.
But use these settings and you will get a safer browser
https://www.privacyguides.org/en/deskto ... s/#firefox

Precisely how I have run FF for years.

Adrian wrote: Thu Feb 27, 2025 9:06 pm Ah... this starts to smell more and more like political hitjob on Mozilla. "All your date are belong to us" is just regular legalese that they need for using what you type it in the address bar to bring in the result. They made the "mistake" to clarify that, if this forum has a term of service it should probably have the same verbiage that you grant the copyright of what you time to be used on this site globally (because the site is accessible globally) and that people can quote what you write without infringing your copyright. It's nothing nefarious, just legal speech that people either don't understand or misuse the potential lack of understanding to score points against an organization that they don't see aligned politically with them --- as your own post indicates. That doesn't strike me as unbiased honest commentary, it's FUD.

If this forum at any point officially clarifies it has the right to sell the data it collects as a term of using it's service.... you will have a lot less users.

Adrian wrote: Fri Feb 28, 2025 8:49 am That part doesn't refer to Firefox, it refers to Mozilla services. I know that legalize sounds complicated to people, but that's pretty clear. If not, use common sense, do you really think Mozilla stops you from watching porn on Firefox?

There is nothing legalese about it. In https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/leg ... s/firefox/ it says, verbatim, "Your use of Firefox must follow Mozilla’s Acceptable Use Policy". It doesn't say your use of our services with Firefox, or just use of our services must follow the Acceptable Use Policy. None of that. And in the directly linked Acceptable Use Policy, it says, again verbatim, "You may not use any of Mozilla’s services to: ... Upload, download, transmit, display, or grant access to content that includes graphic depictions of sexuality"

Now, yes, it is true that the AUP says "services", and it is also true that Firefox would have an incredibly hard time trying to enforce this regardless, if they would ever do it, and it might also be true that this is just a legal mistake, but one thing you cannot say is that the AUP doesn't apply to Firefox, because the Firefox Terms of Use say directly that it does. And let's be quite honest here. It would not even be close to the first time a corporation made some completely idiotic and ridiculous anti-consumer move.

it says, again verbatim, "You may not use any of Mozilla’s services to: ... Upload, download, transmit, display, or grant access to content that includes graphic depictions of sexuality"

It only requires you to understand the words to understand the meaning of the sentence. Do you know what "service" mean? Firefox is not a service. That part is about Mozilla services.

Now, yes, it is true that the AUP says "services"

Well, yes, exactly, because it's about Mozilla services not about Firefox.

FUD, FUD, and FUD, and people who don't understand the meaning of words.

Topic Locked. It has run its course.