OK, so what version of Firefox are you talking about?
1 Like
Firefox v128+
1 Like
OK, but Iâm running Firefox 131. And it let me avoid Google as the default search engine provider and it then let me remove Google as a search engine provider (so that accidents are not even possible).
If Google / Firefox were truly evil and all of the above is just theatre (e.g. a search pretends to go via Wikipedia or Bing, but actually just goes to Google) then eventually I would notice it in my DNS logs (and, sure, I understand that if they were truly truly evil, they could bypass my DNS server without telling me).
2 Likes
Are you talk about url searching?
1 Like
Iâm talking about
Edit/Settings
Search
Default Search Engine and Search Shortcuts
and their effect on the Address bar (where you type a URL or a search) and on the Search bar (where you type a search). Some (most?) users donât even enable the Search bar, which I believe is not enabled by default.
(If I had my choice, I would completely remove all search functionality from the Address bar. So Address bar is for addresses and Search bar is for searches.)
2 Likes
I think this is quite an aggressive stance.
If someone states an uninformed opinion, thatâs not trolling if it is their true, real, uninformed opinion⌠right?
As an example, I heard that Firefox makes 80% of their revenue from Google - because itâs so important to Google to control the default search provider - and so that money is given in the name of changing default search.
So although I did not read the source code of Firefox in any great depth, when I learned to understand 80% of Firefox revenue is from Google, I then anticipate from a distance that now Firefox would have a big incentive to cater to Google, both publicly and privately. Google might have more money than I do, and thus more manpower to hide security holes in plain sight via contributions to Firefox in the name of gain-of-feature.
And I can state this uninformed opinion â that Google might be doing this and might be outsmarting me with their superior manpower.
If I then make this declaration, that I see this likelihood for an abuse of their influence, and I have concerns it might be happening, and almost at times feels likely to me that it would be happening⌠Isnât that⌠not trolling at all? It feels to me that this is very far from trolling. It is a form of sharing a legitimate concern. Or stated differently, I may be legitimately concerned even if you believe that the basis for my concerns was not founded upon legitimate evidence. (So, it seems right and reasonable that I be allowed to tell the story that I was legitimately concerned, even if it was based upon bad reasoning that I became concerned.)
And if you ask me to point to Firefox line 1472 in code where it says, if (dlonk) { outsmart(dlonk); }, and I do not find it and fail to identify the location of this line of code⌠because it did indeed outsmart me⌠was I ever a troll for predicting it to have existed?
It feels honestly rather hostile, almost like trolling itself, to want to disqualify someoneâs concern and try to encourage moderation action against it because you believe them to be uninformed or incorrect.
Is that a hot take? Did you not interpret @carlosgonz opinion in the same manner as me?
3 Likes
The forum rules are not strictly followed anyways:
In particular, necrobumping/posting along with double posting are widely ignored in practice, so it is clear that they are merely guidelines.
3 Likes
It depends on how itâs stated. A statement of âMozilla now work for Google which is enabling privacy holesâ with no real explanation seems absolutely like bait to me.
2 Likes
Why? I was under the impression that this is a simple statement of what carlosgonz actually believes.
2 Likes
Thatâs not correct. In the URL bar you can shut off searches completely. I mentioned it as âan annoyanceâ maybe 6m-1y ago and someone here (irvinewade?) pointed out how to change that.
I understand the power that defaults have to ânudgeâ people.
At the same time, I have written a lot of software and I realize that there are always different options. Setting the default options is not as clear-cut as people make it out to be.
Thus: itâs still my view that if I can change settings to get an appropriate experience for me then itâs acceptable.
2 Likes
Youre a fancy programmer and know what going on to revert it, however this things are different for innocent end user which Firefox will take advantage of the innocence users.
1 Like
You cut off the âwith no real explanationâ. Did you do that intentionally?
Making a strong accusatory statement [e.g. an accusation made as a statement of fact rather than an opinion] with no real explanation is absolutely setting bait in my opinion. He didnât couch his statement as an opinion, did he? And to do that without offering a âwhy I think thatâ doubles-down on him stating it as a fact rather than an opinion.
2 Likes
If you need a Firefox that actually cares, get Librewolf, the Flatpak runs well on basically anything
2 Likes
I donât have a clue either.
1 Like
Posting in an inactive/dead topic. What is deemed inactive or dead varies between forums, along with enforcement, if any. For example, here is the relevant rule in the Lock Picking 101 Forum topic:
Lock Picking 101 Forum ⢠How to Pick Locks, Locksport, Locksmithing, Locks, Lock Picks.
Other similar terms are gravedigging and resurrecting.
3 Likes
I like this metaphorical term!
3 Likes
So I havenât personally used Librewolf but I found myself reading one of their GitHub issues that was linked a while back. The users on this forum were discussing how you can IP trace that Firefox was connecting to a node in Google Cloud whenever it opened, and leaving the connection open until Firefox closes - for the lifetime of the process - even if we do not visit any Google-based website.
And in the context of that discussion, there was this GitHub issue linked where someone confronted the Librewolf developer about it, and asked why they do not remove this constant connection to Google Cloud that opens before we visit any site, to make Librewolf better than Firefox for privacy, so weâre not essentially telling Google metadata about whenever we use the browser.
And the developer got kind of hostile about this. He was saying that anybody who doesnât want to connect to Google in this way is an idiot who doesnât know what theyâre talking about, and who doesnât understand that we connect to many things in many ways for our technology to operate and therefore nothing matters and these details donât matter.
The way it was written seemed so flagrantly contrary to how I would want to approach the problem that I honestly wondered if whoever this âLibrewolf devâ was, if perhaps he was under duress from the U.S. government, forced to say what he was saying, because from a distance it felt like it didnât make any sense.
Does not - at all - make me want to use Librewolf, though.
1 Like
I have been hearing about LibreWolf for many years but i have never been interested in trying it and to the date from today i have never tried it as it looks like a âLibreâ Opensource Honeypot.
Personally when i see phrases like Open Source or FLOSS in Software/Programmers it is a Red Flag(warning) for me.
1 Like
Citation:
The LibreWolf team mirrored the (now archived) GitLab repository issues to Codeberg using a bot. The Codeberg issue itself is still open.
7 Likes