At a time when they could actually be pushing the Manifest issue and try to finally get a foothold, instead it feels like they have scattered rakes around the yard in the middle of the night and decided to go for a jog.

Yes, they're gearing up to sell your data.

Besides the privacy issue, the TOU is ridiculous. They supply a tool (the browser) and you use it. It's not a collaboration between you and them. You can use it whatever way you want.

Get ready for ads as well

https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/commit/d459addab846d8144b61939b7f4310eb80c5470e#commitcomment-153095625

They removed this:

            {

                "@type": "Question",

                "name": "Does Firefox sell your personal data?",

                "acceptedAnswer": {

                    "@type": "Answer",

                    "text": "Nope. Never have, never will. And we protect you from many of the advertisers who do. Firefox products are designed to protect your privacy. That’s a promise. "

                }

            },

i still like mozilla (and I donate to them monthly because i believe in the mission of an open internet) and, unlike most people, i don't think this is a very big deal.

however, i don't want to put all my eggs in one basket so... are there any other ethical pro open internet evangelist groups i should start to follow or contribute to? preferably an ethical foundation that isn't cryptofash or bigoted. i know there's the eff but they're not really focused on an open and free internet, they're more privacy (nothing against them; i love them).

bonus if they're not hq'd in the us.

You might not be using functions that require data to work. Are you using the AI options? Image to text? Translation? Saving passwords? Using search suggestions? Then you don't need to send any data.

Like it or not, most browsers do most of those things now. FireFox is no exception.

This seems like a lot of smoke and no fire to me.

Well shoot if Firefox goes I guess we’re back to carrier pigeons and smoke signals.

I have really high hopes that Ladybird picks up the slack

WHY DO YOU NEED MY DATA TO MAKE FIREFOX WORK???

They don't care about your actual data, they care about how Firefox is used. That's an incredible important piece of information every developer needs to know.
How else do you get to know, what's working right and what doesn't? How do you plan development for the next years if you don't know what to develop?

This is about throwing millions of $ at the right thing. If you miss you are fucked.

Used FF forever, even though the birth and rise of Chrome.

We're done. The company I IT for therefore is also done. As are friends and family I sort computers for.

The shit now stinks and must be taken out.

Time to switch to the Mullvad browser!

Oh no, does this mean that Mozilla doesn't give a damn about the privacy of their last twelve users? I.e. those who did not see that coming a decade ago?

There is the part where you interact with Forefox. Without your data, it just won't work. They need your timezone, your screen size,... I mean, that's for every browser around, even the most hardened system. This data can be used for fingerprinting so you should be aware and you should agree upon that usage or quit the internet.

i.e. using a browser is sending data towards that browser.