OK, so what version of Firefox are you talking about?
Firefox v128+
OK, but Iām 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).
Are you talk about url searching?
Iām 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 donāt 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.)
I think this is quite an aggressive stance.
If someone states an uninformed opinion, thatās not trolling if it is their true, real, uninformed opinionā¦ right?
As an example, I heard that Firefox makes 80% of their revenue from Google - because itās 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 ā 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 happeningā¦ Isnāt thatā¦ 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 codeā¦ because it did indeed outsmart meā¦ was I ever a troll for predicting it to have existed?
It feels honestly rather hostile, almost like trolling itself, to want to disqualify someoneās 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?