The Heavy Element Forum

Why do some Linux users and FOSS advocates not trust Mozilla

Kocytean

Basilisk may be worth a look - It is based on the Goanna layout and rendering engine (a fork of Gecko) and builds on the Unified XUL Platform (UXP), which in turn is a fork of the Mozilla code base without Servo or Rust. It is also free and FOSS

https://www.basilisk-browser.org/

Adam-Stambaugh

Kocytean Basilisk is more of a testing ground for Pale Moon. It is FOSS, but there's no guarantee for stability. The only part of Pale Moon that isn't FOSS is its branding.

If that's enough to deter you but you're still interested in a browser like that, I recommend just grabbing the source-code and compiling it unbranded. Firefox also has their branding locked down as well.

MrSatan

There were just too many incidents to not believe there will be more.
Out of top of my head there was that one time when they were collecting date from people in Germany.
Recently they put commercials somewhere (I think in the browser, but don't remember).

And then there's political stuff. First there was whole Rise Up fiasco (I'm totally fine with platform itself doing what it want to do. It's Mozzila backing them up when their goals are quite different from what they rise the money for that bothers me). And blocking Dissenter.

Funny thing, while writing this post another thing happened:

B101

Everything MrSatan has said sums it up nicely. I have 3 sons. If the middle one, whom sometimes tries to blame his brothers, points his fingers at them...I'm generally just a little skeptical of him.

Lazy_Irish_Dude

I do feel like Mozilla genuinely strive for a free and open web...

Their competence and ability to make sensible decisions that align with those goals are another matter entirely.

gbryant

Lazy_Irish_Dude I do feel like Mozilla genuinely strive for a free and open web...

Their competence and ability to make sensible decisions that align with those goals are another matter entirely.

This. This exactly.

Mozilla is a non-profit organization that makes questionable decisions... Which sometimes seem motivated by profit--or worse--thought up by some marketing team or executive board who have little-to-no investment in FOSS efforts or the Open Web.

Deblad

gbryant I honestly have to disagree with you on this. (P.S @Adam-Stambaugh my Iceweasel Package on Debian never lost a single Extension). Mozilla as a US-501c nonprofit organization cannot be motivated by profit, and I don't think they are either. Mozilla, advocates for a free and open web, and while some of that includes privacy, privacy isn't what they claim to be about. I trust Mozilla. Here is why. I can go to about:config and disable pocket completely, disable WebRTC, and disable anything that I do not like about Firefox. That is open. No other browser lets you fully aware that WebRTC is disabled unless you read the source code. Speaking of, the source code of Firefox is Free and Open. Mozilla has an option for me to disable their telemetry too. Yes, they said that you could allow Firefox to run studies in order to re-enable your extensions, but think about it from this angle. My first thought is that that is sketchy, but what if it said "allow Firefox to enable experimental features" instead. That is why they said that you should enable the studies option in this case. Of course, it says allow them to run studies...that is because they are honest with their wording. Mozilla advocates for a Free and Open web, not a private browsing experience. Yet they are honest and open enough to allow you to access a private one though. It is their belief that part of a free and open web (as I am sure that most people can agree here) is that there should be competition in the browser-space. Mozilla Firefox has been suffering from lack of user market share, so I believe that they are trying to claim some of that back by appealing to the masses. Since Google has a monopoly on Web DRM and video codecs, they have to implement that stuff to appeal to the masses. Furthermore, DRM is disabled by default - at least on Linux - which keeps Firefox 100% Free and Open [Sourced] by default. Even better, you can completely disable this stuff in about:config. Why is everyone hating on Mozilla again?? They're doing what they promise.

Deblad

P.S. Mozilla isn't a corporation. They are an organization.

Wyndle

I think there is too much political motivation within Mozilla. I haven't been comfortable with their decisions for quite some time. Then I came across this interview, which isn't proof but it certainly adds more smoke to indicate a probable fire. It may have coincided with other activities or it may be intentional. I think I'm going to stick to Brave for now.

Adam-Stambaugh

Mozilla may not be for-profit, but I do remember something about them accepting large donations from companies like Google. That doesn't mean Google gets to tell them what to do, but that kind of money can have a bit of influence on most people.

MrSatan

About political stuff. I'd say, it's not bad by itself. Hell, free software itself is a political movement.
The problem with Mozilla on this regards is the fact, that they "hide" some of their political agenda behind something completely different, event contradictory, like embracing censorship of their platform while claiming to fight for free web.

It would be much less of an issue if Mozilla were open about it.

Generic-Eric

As stated above, they have done some things to kind of make me question. As a freedom seeking individual, I wince at most things that are opt-out instead of opt-in. It's one of the reasons I've been working for a while to rid myself of google in my life. Transparency should be the ultimate goal to combat assumptions. I'm unfortunately unfamilliar with the extension for free speech, but maybe there is a good reason it's been rejected? That said, they do allow you to configure the browser in pretty much any way you want still.

MrSatan

Generic-Eric I'm unfortunately unfamilliar with the extension for free speech, but maybe there is a good reason it's been rejected?

Sort of, but I'd say not really.

It is true that people who use it tend to more right-leaning. Which is only to be expected, because goal of it is to be able to comment outside of moderators reach and people in question often do get banned, so they are the people who are more likely to use it.

That being said, majority of comments I've seen stays within range of normality. Stuff you might not necessarily like or agree with but not something that I believe should be banned. Not all of them though. I've seen few really racist ones.

Wyndle

Allow despicable speech or kiss all free speech goodbye. As long as it does not lead to actual harm, speech should not be controlled by anyone other than the speaker. That doesn't mean there will not be consequences for using speech for the individual, but limiting speech has worse consequences for everyone.

Deblad

I trust Mozilla enough to continue using Firefox, and there is the fact that nonprofit organizations are very limited with what they can do regarding profit. That being said, I can see many of you guys' very valid points. Like the one about Mozilla and the opt-out features instead of being opt-in. Yet, for me, Firefox-esr on Debian mitigates much of the problems with Firefox (i.e you aren't allowed to opt-in for studies and telemetry). I remember switching from Chrome though, and the customize-ability and Freedom of Firefox is like a breath of fresh air. I reckon many of you old FOSS advocates never switched because you always used Firefox... And comparing the two - Mozilla vs Google and Firefox vs Chrome - Mozilla is already very open about what they do. Heck I still find myself using Chromium-based browsers for school and I hate the lack of options for settings customization and especially the lack of privacy settings.

PS something that made me laugh so much was when I contacted HP support for my printer (Isn't it nice that you don't need to mess with support when it comes to FOSS software...). Luckily I had the foresight to use Windows for this endeavor (I have a Windows partition for DRM controlled media and also to play with the ultimately useless WSL among other reasons that make Windows a toy). So anyway, she sent me this little applet to allow her to remotely control my pc. I didn't like it, but I thought hey, as long as she doesn't mess with my Linux partition, it will be fine. The first thing that idiot woman did was search for Chrome using the Cortana-less search bar and then look for it in the start menu. It was so funny watching her poke around my system looking for Chrome for about 3 minutes before she gave up and opened Edge... like wtf. A perfectly good Firefox is already opened. I closed Edge and showed her that I already had the website opened in Firefox.

PPS. I found it very interesting that the default settings for Firefox when I downloaded it for Windows were worse than they were for Firefox on Linux. For one, DRM was enabled by default among a bunch of other things. So they do have a lot more opt-in options for those of us on Linux.

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