It’s strange to me that one of the most popular requests on Mozilla Connect is Startpage as a default search engine, but Mozilla opted for Ecosia.

I have nothing against Ecosia in theory, but it’s notable that the company will only plant trees based on clicked advertisements, and the privacy policy isn’t quite as great as Mozilla has suggested in its promotional material.

So we agree Mozilla only chose to promote Big Tech options.

The built-in AI staff [sic]… is… an accelerator to integrate with 3rd-party or self-hosted LLMs.

Users are only shown Big Tech “3rd-party” options. Mozilla made this choice intentionally.

Since Mozilla is clearly capable of developing an add-on that is not forcefully installed on user’s devices, they should remove the built-in thing that endorses the highly unethical chatbots run by Google, OpenAI, etc.

I appreciate the option to not install it.

Now if only Mozilla could migrate their built-in AI stuff to this optional extension so it doesn’t come pre-installed, that’d be great

Technically it’s a server operated by Google, leased by Mozilla. Mistral 7b could technically work locally, if Mozilla cared about doing such a thing.

I guess you can basically use the built-in AI chatbot functionality Mozilla rushed out the door, enable a secret setting, and use Mistral locally, but what a missed opportunity from the Privacy Browser Company

1. Firefox has recorded a drop in active users too.
2. Ex-CPO Steve Teixeira stood up to Mozilla laying off people in his department, even though it was turning a profit. Ex-CPO.

I agree that Mozilla should act like a non-profit, which is in contrast to people in this thread who say Mozilla should be ranked alongside for profit corporations. But I don’t see Mozilla practicing what they preach

Not all the people laid off by Mozilla Corporation thanks to their indecisiveness.

Corporations aren’t people

You missed their AI sidebar feature, which only feeds your data to corporations by default. Or their Orbit extension, which ditto. (The latter also points to the Mozilla FakeSpot privacy policy, which is clear about selling your browsing and location data to advertisers. No, I’m not joking. It’s not clear whether Orbit is FakeSpot adjacent…)

Fakespot itself is an AI powered Mozilla subsidiary that has a history dabbling with NFTs.

Mozilla has even dumped money into Hugging Face (a company that’s been given hundreds of millions from other corpos like Salesforce and Nvidia).

That salary could have been redistributed among the employees Mozilla laid off in the Advocacy division, especially right before they published a report claiming Mozilla needed to be known for advocacy and not Firefox. Or put towards Firefox. Or any combination.

Just removing Mitchell Baker’s bonus would already be the majority of that.

To wit, the very next sentence sure does seem to say that Ecosia is private.

Ecosia goes beyond data protection by addressing environmental concerns.

I was waiting for the 2023 forms to drop.

I’m shocked to find out Mitchell Baker has taken a pay cut of ~$600,000, now struggling at a much more relatable $6.2 million instead of $6.9 million

(ETA $600,000 is also her “base” salary, the rest of the $6.2m is her “bonus.” She lost one base salary worth of bonuses last year.)

“Ecosia Chat is powered by OpenAI”

ffs

Whether you prioritize privacy*, climate protection, or simply want a search experience tailored to your preferences, we’ve got you covered.

Ecosia goes beyond data protection by addressing environmental concerns…

Together, Mozilla, Firefox and Ecosia are contributing to a web that is more open and inclusive, but above all — one where you can make an informed choice about what tech you use and why. Your tech choices make a difference.

Someone should tell Mozilla about the AI-sized environmental concern in their browser?

* ETA: Ecosia doesn’t mention privacy as a feature anywhere on its homepage. (I’m not counting the link to its unimpressive privacy policy.) They call themselves “Google, but greener”, and I believe them.

Today is the day Mozilla.social shuts down. Everybody on the instance is saying their goodbyes.

Web: taken back

You’d probably have to write custom JavaScript or find a solution on a per-site basis, because it’s the same loading JavaScript that also performs the unloading.

It looks like GPC spec creates the same sort of tracking signal that DNT did, but it requests less protection: there is specifically a carve-out in GPC that says websites can track you, including for advertising purposes.

GPC is also not intended to limit a first party’s use of personal information within the first-party context (such as a publisher targeting ads to a user on its website based on that user’s previous activity on that same site).

I see the problem: [anything] after the website domain is redirected to profile/[anything]. Imagine running that redirect repeatedly. It will keep on adding “profile” to the beginning. To stop it, you have to make sure the URL after the domain doesn’t start with “profile”, otherwise you’re in danger of a loop.

about:about

Hopefully, this rebrand turns things around, as we need organizations like this to survive. Otherwise, we will be left with the greedy Big Tech ones, who aren’t really concerned with people or their rights.

Suggested Read 📖

Mozilla Boots Staff Yet Again, Advocacy Unit Shut Down

Subtle shade detected.