Regarding "better water resistance", there have been a ton of phones released in the past that have had water resistance standards of at least IP 67 and that had a user replaceable battery. That part of your argument doesn't hold water.
Just yesterday I had noticed that, "Suggestions from sponsors" in the address bar had been turned back on after a recent Firefox update, and then installed Librewolf. I really want to use it as my main browser, but certain use cases such as online banking (at least with my credit union) doesn't seem to work properly, so I re-disabled "Suggestions from sponsors" in Firefox and went on with my day. Seriously, changing user settings with updates is a major dick move and something I'd expect from Microsoft and not Mozilla.
Edit: Turning off the anti-fingerprinting feature in LibreWolf is needed for online banking to work.
Mozilla has been frustrating, at least to me lately. I want to support them, but very little of the money given to them goes to the browser itself or even their research projects, and the "phoning home" aspect also annoys me. On top of that they are also heavily funded by Google. My personal theory on why they do that is so they don't get hit with an antitrust. Its concerning to me though because that means Google has influence in Firefox, so "using the alternative" still means being affected by Google's decision making. They have stood against some of Google's decisions like their web DRM, which is great! But I do wonder if any lower-profile changes might have been pushed through on Google's request.
>but very little of the money given to them goes to the browser itself or even their research projects
They can't take money given to a 501c3 charitable organization and use it to fund the expenses of a for-profit corporation (Mozilla Corp). That would be tax fraud. On the other hand the Mozilla Corp has to exist because otherwise it would be legally challenging to do a lot of things they need to do such as business deals. Exceedingly few Foundations work that way without doing something akin to what Mozilla does.
>Its concerning to me though because that means Google has influence in Firefox, so "using the alternative" still means being affected by Google's decision making. ... They have stood against some of Google's decisions like their web DRM, which is great! But I do wonder if any lower-profile changes might have been pushed through on Google's request.
HNers say this often but nobody has ever freaking pointed to anything. It's nothing but FUD at this point and it's incredibly tiring.
I disagree that its FUD. The fact of the matter is that Google is their biggest financial contributor, and that means by proxy Google can influence them. I don't have any examples right off the bat, but that doesn't discount the fact that it's a clear conflict of interest.
>The fact of the matter is that Google is their biggest financial contributor, and that means by proxy Google can influence them. I don't have any examples right off the bat,
Exhibit A.
Fine, it's a potential conflict of interest. But there's still a step between having a potential conflict of interest and being compromised by Google / influenced by proxy. You don't get to jump from point A to point B. That's FUD.
There are near-monthly examples of Mozilla going against Google on big-ticket items, and nobody seems to be able to point to any examples otherwise, but we're supposed to criticize them for being too dependent on Google while ALSO criticizing them for profitable side-projects or cross-marketing that diversifies their revenue (like VPN, Pocket, the Disney movie thing, etc.)
Simultaneously:
* "how dare they work on something other than Firefox even if it makes money" and
> Simultaneously: "how dare they work on something other than Firefox even if it makes money" and "how dare they monetize Firefox" and "how dare they take so much money from Google"
Yes. Perhaps you've heard of the concept of a non-profit? Specifically a foundation, organized and operated exclusively for charitable purposes?
okay, and Librewolf is a fork of Firefox. even if I was worried, I'm not exactly reassured that Librewolf would be peachy if Mozilla got hit hard by something.
I'd rather Google does pull that trigger so we can get some anti-trust going. They've been overdue for years on that front.
not him. but there's this person whose paycheck is 7digits. pretty sure the person in question doesn't know a lick about rendering engine or other nitty gritty details of how browser works.
I am saying the IT workers receiving low pay or being outright fired while non-tech gets paid more has precedent under the current CEO. Besides its not Firefox thats being smeared, its the CEO who is, and should be smeared for acts such as this. Firefox the software is still mostly fine.
Am I misreading the financial statement linked by your sibling comment? It looks like they spent in the $250,000 or so range on all salaries combined in a given year, but maybe I’m misreading it.
That thing is so minuscule and more of an everyday feature that I really don't see all the fuss about it.
Also, it is a game theory "both would lose if stopped" situation with google, so no, google has no way to affect Mozilla directly. If they were to stop it, Firefox might stop being developed and Google definitely gets sued, and it is basically free money for Firefox, setting the default search engine is no big deal.
I’ve had problems with e-commerce as well. Recently I tried this with Nike & the checkout phase was trying to read all my sensors, canvas, etc. were all being hit & failing according to the console. Disabling fingerprinting let me get ‘further’ but even disabling uBlock, something on my network was blocking some other piece of tracking spyware & I couldn’t complete the checkout. I reported it to customer service & later got an no-reply email response from their technical teams saying I should “disable your anti-virus, then proceed with the checkout, and reenable when the purchase was complete”. Funny since I don’t run an anti-virus on Linux just being careful but already having a lot of malware blocked by my system/router/DNS. What’s also funny is that you don’t need to fingerprint me to prove its me since I’m already on an authenticated account, so what are they doing with that fingerprint? Ultimately, I traded a Hong Kong pie to a friend to do the purchase on my behalf as he doesn’t care about his online privacy—and I got to add noise to his purchase history with my own.
When are we going to get e-commerce & e-banking to stop being so hostile towards consumers?
> When are we going to get e-commerce & e-banking to stop being so hostile towards consumers?
"We" won't because the vast majority of internet users don't care about privacy. It sucks, but that's the way it is.
You and I, however, are free to vote with our wallets. I literally will not buy from a company or brand that tries to take advantage of me in some way, even if the alternatives are worse somehow. It's a drop in the bucket, but it's all I can do.
(And before someone mentions it, no, shouting about it on social media is not a valid action to take, because social media is where everybody shouts about everything all the time.)
Don’t care or are ignorant about why they should care (even when they “have nothing to hide”)? I think this part of the these conversations get lost. Consumers care about privacy, even if just at a surface level as we’ve seen the megacorps change their messaging to trick folks into feeling they are safer. These consumers just don’t know what is at stake when they do something ‘foolish’ like running not using an ad blocker, browsing with Google Chrome, emailing with GMail, chatting in Discord, hosting code with Microsoft GitHub, sharing their contacts with WhatsApp, tweeting on X/x-ing on Twitter, etc. When it comes to e-commerce, often it’s the only way to get items now & when it comes to banks, they’re all blocking root “for our safety” but users not understanding their value doesn’t mean there is no value.
The amount of stuff (personal preference) I have to disable in firefox such as Telemetry, Studies/Normandy, Pocket, Advertising and such makes LibreWolf worth it.
I do keep a user.js around to speed things up when doing a new install, but it's still annoying to have to read reddit or here to see if an update adds something new to disable.
Mullvad browser is another option for those who enjoy Mullvad. Note that it can be used without Mullvad service.
I use both Firefox and Librewolf to achieve browser isolation. Librewolf is my default browser for all anonymous browsing such as news sites. I use Firefox for all my real name ID account logins such as banking. This way your Librewolf browser fingerprint is never associated to your real ID.
Yeah, I get the concept of using different browsers for different things to compartmentalize, and I've tried it, but to me it just seems like I'm making my life more complicated switching back and forth, and I feel like it's cluttering up my system. I love how Librewolf takes privacy to another level, but honestly, all I want is Firefox without all the BS and the ability to disable things I don't want (and not having them turned back on).
It used to be really easy to search about:config for 'http' and just delete all URL's to quiet things down. More recently the about:config search only searches attributes not values so you have to "show all" and it's quite tedious to find them all. Even then there are some things you have to block with a hosts file entry.
That said it is possible to have firefox start cleanly with absolutely no network traffic except for sites you visit.
Browser isolation is smart, and Firefox+Librewolf is better than Firefox+somethingelse.
Don't forget about Firefox profiles though. You can have unlimited, 100% isolated browsers with profiles. I use a few dozen Firefox profiles.
For isolation of cookies but not preferences, you can use Multi-Account Containers within a single Firefox profile. I use this for admin-vs-user accounts at AWS, GitHub, etc.
I still think it's better to use Firefox containers on either of these browser, and combine them with temporary containers to isolate different aspects of your online life. By default all browser sessions are ephemeral, so no cookies are stored, just like incognito mode. Only when you whitelist a site to use a named container do they gain the ability to use your local storage. Using different containers appear to change fingerprints, it seems.
You can just disable the anti-fingerprinting features in LibreWolf and it'll work fine with online banking and stuff if you just want de-cluttered Firefox.
Thank you! I just fired up Librewolf and turned off Fingerprint Resisting and my online banking now loads my transaction history. This had been a big annoyance and why I hadn't completely switched. The recommendation I got 6 months ago was "just use Firefox for banking". Much appreciated!
I've lived here (in Austin) for three years. My partner and I decided to move to smaller city in Washington state come November. There is a lot of things to like about Austin (and even Texas), but as someone who was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, I don't think I can live here longterm.
It's not just the heat, but there's definitely more unnecessarily oversized vehicles on the road with only a single occupant driving. I'll admit it may be all in my head and I only notice these things because I'm in a different environment, but it seems many people here don't user turn signals, run red lights, and are regularly looking down at their phone while driving their truck or SUV, all while driving 10-15mph over the speed limit in a residential area. /rant
I don’t think it’s in you’re head. I’ve driven across most of the U.S. and have lived in major cities that are known for their traffic/bad drivers, and Texas, by a long shot, had some of the worst drivers I’ve seen across the U.S. Same experience as you, reckless speeding, drivers running red lights and making unsafe lane changes in massive pick up trucks.
This might have to do with an old law that was changed around 2008-2010ish that allowed permitted drivers to skip the physical driver’s test if they opted to learn through the parent taught driver’s ed program (the driver’s parents could essentially just sign a form saying the driver had enough hours of driving experience which would allow them to waive the in person driving test).
I've lived in the DC area, the Bay Area, visited NYC, and various other cities in the US. I lived in Brussels, Belgium for almost eight years, and in that time we visited many countries in Europe, including London, Edinburgh, Berlin, Paris, Rome, and Naples, among many others. I've also lived in Austin since 2006.
I wouldn't say the drivers here are the worst in the US. In my experience, that would be DC, NYC, and the Bay Area. The bigger cities seem to attract the worse drivers, and those are like bad apples that spoil the bunch. Because Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio drivers are all worse than Austin drivers.
But US drivers are not anywhere remotely as close to the bad drivers in Europe. My skills learned the hard way in Brussels stood me in good stead when we went to Paris and Rome, the two places where I've seen the worst drivers I've ever encountered.
Yes, Texas is the land that inspired the Canyonero, and other giant size SUVs. Today, I'd be terrified to drive anything that wasn't nearly the same height, even if it's not nearly as long. And yes, Austin has the worst stretch of Highway in the country, known as I-35. Anyone who has driven in Austin for any reasonable period of time knows to avoid I-35 like the plague. But MoPac and 360 aren't all that much better -- especially with all the construction that is and will continue to be happening on 360 for the next several years.
IMO, the drivers aren't the big problem here in Austin. The big problem would be the combination of the extreme temperatures (both hot and cold) and the continuing piss poor performance of ERCOT, the organization responsible for running the Texas electric grid.
There are plenty of good things to do here, except when things like SXSW comes to town. That's when you want to make sure to take your vacation and get at least 50-100 miles away. And good live music is happening all over town, not just down on the tourist-happy 6th street.
My dad lived in a Memphis, and his parents lived in Murfreesboro. I've done extensive driving in both of those areas, and the stretch of I-40 between them. My dad passed away a couple of years ago, but I haven't seen crazy drivers in TN that are as bad as the ones I've seen here in Texas.
Regarding driver behavior, I feel the same way about the SF Bay Area for the past three years. I think the pandemic really did something strange to us. Whether it gave us faulty memories of a better time, or caused a regression in civic-mindedness, it is hard to tell...
Ehh I dunno about that. I’ve lived in Austin for 15 years and in Spokane before that. A lot of people in eastern Washington drive pointless gigantic trucks just like Texas lol, especially because of the snow.
The author mentioned them already, but didn't recommend for violating the GPL, but I have an Onyx Boox Poke 3 and Boox Leaf that run Android that I've rooted. They're not very cheap (the Poke runs about $180). They're pretty fun devices to tinker with. https://chuck.is/rooting-onyx/
Edit: I also experimented with the Poke 3 by creating a sort of "writerdeck" setup with a bluetooth keyboard and termux, then attaching everything together with velcro and magnets: https://chuck.is/writerdeck/
This is the exact CAPTCHA that led me to delete my AirBnb account. I was just trying to log in and finally gave up after 5 or 6 attempts. The next day I tried again and was able to log in after the 3rd try. From what I understand, this CAPTCHA is also time based too. I was so frustrated at what they made me go through to just log in, that I just deleted my account.
Counting dice should be a task for a computer, not a human.
That said, a custom homescreen launcher like O-Launcher and using ADB to manually uninstall/disable certain system apps, the stock browser, and app store would get you a similar outcome, but with a bit more flexibility.
Same. Soy is great source of protein that's far less resource intensive and generally cheaper than factory farming. And the only times I've heard of people eating insects are from people attacking/insulting another group of people.
I'm using Thunderbird on Linux with an Outlook work account. Granted, I have to pay for 'Owl for Exchange' for it work, but I absolutely hate the Outlook program, I'm willing to fork out the $10/yr of my own money just to avoid it.
If you still have IMAP access, thunderbird supports OAuth2 for connecting to O365 IMAP. tbsync for calendar access. Seems to work pretty well currently.
That blog post strongly implies (though doesn’t explicitly say) he’s the author, and links to a git repo for the site on SourceHut that is under his own account.
Wait…it’s his own blog on his own website… isn’t writing about your own projects kind of the point in that context? What about this is “self-serving” in a way that requires disclosure???
Not sure how this comes across as self-serving or what the nature of this protest is, but if you explain it in more detail perhaps I can make a correction.
Sorry if this came off as a protest. It is not a protest. Maybe I am overthinking this but creating this page (which is a great idea) and then have a link from it point back to sourcehut (which is an open source business of yours IIRC) seems a bit off. It wouldn't be a lot of trouble to disclose the connection between the author of this page and the owner of sourcehut, would it? I think it'd be nice to do it so that it does not look like you are using the agenda of promoting free software to also promote your own open source business.
I dunno, it's just a place to store the code, and SourceHut is itself free software. I could put it on Codeberg or something, I guess, but it doesn't really seem like a big deal. Never heard anyone criticize the FSF or GNU for their use of savannah.gnu.org.
