This absolutely is the ad we need out there.
For us here on fedi, yes we all use librewolf or something. And the idea that the internet is going to shit is a daily conversation.
But for Joe Shmoe and his grandma, oftentimes how do you even begin to explain all that? This they can relate to and maybe snap them out of the endless big tech scroll.
I mean, it most definitely isn’t, no matter what browser you use. The old internet is dead and never coming back. the closest thing we have to it is the fediverse, but even then corpos are starting to take notice.
The old internet is dead and never coming back
It’s never coming back because it never went anywhere. Fedi is cool but it’s very firmly modern web2. The older ways of webrings, forums, and personal websites, are still as present as ever. I don’t know if there are more or fewer of these, but I would guess more than ever before. Certainly more than you could ever consume in 10 lifetimes.
People come across a dead forum and think we didn’t have dead or slow forums back in 200X. That’s just normal for small, decentralised communities that aren’t all stuffed into the same noisy domain.
As someone who grew up on that old web, I am grateful that the board game hobbyist community is still using Board Game Geek. That site is just a reskin of a pile of PHPbb forums.
The older ways of webrings, forums, and personal websites, are still as present as ever. I don’t know if there are more or fewer of these, but I would guess more than ever before.
This, but it does depend on the subject matter. Certain message boards and forum communities are still very active and are the best places for like minded people to go to. Whereas other niche forums took a hit and those subjects tend to be discussed more on places like Reddit or Facebook groups.
Web-rings aren’t really a thing anymore. Sure, some websites might still have them at the bottom of the page but comon, when was the last time you used one?
I’d say the private community forums are shrinking but there are still a few areas where they thrive (not going to give away my hobbies on here but there are a few relevant subjects that have their own active message boards…many were communities on Yahoo groups that migrated to other systems.)
The replacement sites and their “communities” are flooded with bots and people from India (not necessarily a bad thing but they aren’t always the best participants. They often seem to be their for negative reasons or don’t really contribute much other than engagement for the metrics.) Reddit and Facebook are the noteworthy examples of this.
There are some alternatives to internet like Yggdrasil that is smaller there is not corps…
Yggdrasil doesn’t scale to Internet size.
Sounds like another thing to recommend it.
Yes but there isn’t much bigger alternatives. Maybe hyphanet…
There can’t be that big because internet is simply very very popular
Routing there becomes unstable at already modest scale. Particularly ephemeral nodes are a problem.
Call me cynical, but the corpos have a vested interest to keep the Fediverse around - as a fig leaf to point to when people complain about the mall-ification of the internet and the big platforms’ control of what speech is allowed on the internet. Mind, that does not mean they want it to thrive or easily accessible…
It’s weird to me that the only thing Mozilla says about AI in the ad, besides the fact it’s optional to use, is that people are creeped out by it.
If they only present a thing as bad, isn’t the natural next step to simply remove it? Nobody is forcing them to ship it.
two-faced mozilla is trying very much to chase the newest trends and play the both sides, showing off whichever fits them at the moment. now these chatbots are creepy and no one wants them but at the same they have to add them to firefox because they’re the future and everyone wants them. just like all that times they talked about how personalized ads are bad and then added a preselected toggle to send performance data to advertisers. or when they talk about giving users more power and choice and then implement widevine’s cdm.
they want a userbase but also want the money to keep flowing, so they’ll tell the users what they want to hear and then implement the newest fad to keep in good terms with the big tech.
There’s a switch, it’s that simple.
I’m willing to bet my ass that if they didn’t offered AI at all, half of the community would complain they’re missing the boat or something.
The world is currently rule by a bunch of pedo-oligarchs, can’t we just stop complaining about the smallest things and appreciate the fact that we still have a strong alternative to chromium and Google browser? Mozilla isn’t perfect but it isn’t the bad guy.
half of the community would complain
Nobody asked for AI in Firefox. Seriously, go look. I have.
The world is currently rule by a bunch of pedo-oligarchs
It’s very ironic that they’re all riding the same AI train. What’s to say that pedo-oligarchy isn’t The Inevitable Future too? Should Mozilla just support that?
…dammit Mozilla.
Okay I actually love this ad!
I just wish they would take their own words into account and ship with DDG or qwant as default instead of the default Google search engine…
DDG won’t pay them what Google does to remain the default search. It’s trivially easy to change it, though.
As long as Google pays most, it will stay as default search engine.
It made me feel happy and I had to watch it twice in a row.
Also, i never left you, Firefox.
Google haunting everywhere. A horror movie scenario. 🤭 The more we try to deGoogle, the more unexpectedly it unsurfaces through different holes of the web. 🤭
Why is ddg advertising lately? They seem to be doing alright.
The search engine in the movie Mars is a legally distinct parody of DDG.
I think it’s a good sign when media isn’t copying google.
“The line needs to go up” - DDG, probably
They have profits?
Never left. Great browser and other utilities. I’d love to see them reboot Netscape Navigator!
Not netscape navigator but the mozilla suscessor still lives on in the Seamonkey Suite.
I’m on Firefox since very early days, when I was on Windows XP. I even remember Firefox had a different name in the beginning, need to lookup honestly… I think it was Phoenix maybe?
Yep, the standalone Firefox browser’s codename was Phoenix. I was also on it back in the day. From the Firefox Wikipedia page:
Firefox is the spiritual successor of Netscape Navigator, as the Mozilla community was created by Netscape in 1998, before Netscape’s acquisition by AOL.[14] Firefox was created in 2002 under the codename “Phoenix” by members of the Mozilla community who desired a standalone browser rather than the Mozilla Application Suite bundle.
It was also called Firebird for a while, that was when I started using it.
You’re right. From here :
http://www-archive.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/firefox-name-faq.html
It was Phoenix from 0.1 to 0.5 however Phoenix bios already had Phoenix name.
It was Firebird for 0.6, 0.6.1, 0.7, 0.7.1 (for Mac) however the open source Firebird sql had Firebird name first.
Firefox started at version 0.8 and continues to be the name since.
Awesome ad. 10/10, but I already use LibreWolf, and it’s even better for privacy.
LibreWolf gives me everything Firefox promised.
This makes me uncomfortable, and I already use Firefox
So clearly it’s not meant for you.
A gentle reminder that Firefox executable is no longer open source. It’s source available.
Firefox executable is now governed by a Terms of Use (instead of the Mozilla License) that allows your telemetry to be used for any reason.
Switch to Ironfox or Waterfox if you want all the benefits of Firefox without giving your data to Mozilla.
It’s obviously still open source or the various downstream forks of it wouldn’t be able to exist.
It’s why I differentiated the Firefox executable vs Firefox the application code.
Firefox the application code is still open source. The executable binary is not.
How would distribute the open source of a binary?
That’s true, but it just seems like a silly distinction cooked up by some overly paranoid lawyer working for firefox, that has no practical effect.
You mean LibreWolf?
I’m fragmented. I have Firefox and ironfox on my desktop, and librewolf on my phone.
You mean the other way around
I do? I don’t think I do. I’m running 3 different forks, so that seems fragmented…
Librewolf is for your PC, Ironfox is for mobile
Oh. Well I’m also running weblibre :-D
Huh, I never heard of that one, how is your experience so far compared to Ironfox?
I personally would have switched to LibreWolf, but they don’t have a builtin password manager. And its a bit too restrictive too. I guess Waterfox would be a better alternative, but don’t know how fast they update when Firefox updates.
Just curious - why is the built in password manager a deal breaker? I’ve always used a 3rd party solution because I am looking for the ultimate in password manager portability because I use different browsers for work and personal.
FYI, Firefox still has a profile manager, good for separating work and personal life. That makes the password manager very portable as you can sign into different Mozilla accounts in each one, to keep distinct sets of sync data. It’s easy to create a separate shortcut/launcher file that starts up a secondary profile by adding these arguments to the command:
-P yourprofilenameHowever, I gave up on the inbuilt password manager. It’s too simple, you can’t edit entry labels, edit URLs (e.g. when site’s main domain changes), or store anything other than usernames and passwords (e.g. notes).
Its the most easy way for me and I don’t want to deal with a third party tool for every day use. I use a third party password manager, but it is annoying in daily usage for me. I use it to store all passwords, so it has its use.
A gentle reminder that Firefox executable is no longer open source. It’s source available.
What does that mean? What do you mean by the executable is not Open Source? Firefox project is hosted online and can be used to build Firefox. Or do you suggest that Firefox builds include binary blobs?
Mozilla follows the same model is Microsoft Code with Firefox that the source code is FOSS but it’s bineries are not.
Firefox, the executable application, is not open source and is considered “source available” because the Terms of Service contains exclusions that are against the tenants of freedoms that must exist in open source software.
Firefox, the source code, is still licensed via Mozilla Public License and is open source. If you compile it yourself, you must call it something other than Firefox.
Firefox, its logo, etc are trademarked and therefore restrictions apply when re-distributing, and that has been the case for as long as I remember. There’s nothing stopping you from compiling it yourself, calling it Firefox, or using their branding, as long as you don’t redistribute your build and modifications to others while still using their branding.
Ah, I see he was talking about the branding and trademark. Yeah, that has nothing to do with Open Source.
I don’t think that is how Open Source works. Terms of Service in the build doesn’t change Firefox being Open Source. If the Source code is open Source, then so is the Firefox build, if nothing else is added that is not Open Source. Also according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Public_License the license is compatible with GPL v2 and Debian FSG, is approved by FSF and OSI.
If the Source code is open Source, then so is the Firefox build
If that’s the case, Mozilla wouldn’t have spent so much publicity and gotton so much shit a year+ ago for removing the MPL from their executable and developing their TOS.
And even if it did, their TOS contains provisions that they can use your telemetry for any reason and they initially said they wouldn’t use it to train AI and then they admitted that they use it to train AI. So even you give them the broadest interpretation of OSS, there are still reasons not to use Firefox executable and use an alternative instead.
That is not the broadest interpretation of OSS, if it is GPLv2 compatible and the FSF and OSI approve it to be Open Source conform. Collecting telemetry has nothing to do with a project being Open Source or not.
Your arguments are baseless, unless you can point to what you exactly mean. Can you point to something specific in the license that I can check? Does the Firefox contain anything proprietary? How is the MPL removed, if that is the license of the project? You need to be specific.
I don’t recall anything about the MPL being removed from the executable. It’s also absolutely possible (and has frequently happened) to get a lot of publicity about something minor or irrelevant.
Yeah I use ironfox on graphene and librewolf on debian
Tried Ironfox on my mobile. Many websites just don’t work and i have to launch Vanadium on my GOS
Tried Waterfox, but it sadly couldn’t sync tabs between devices.
Cool ads, but my Firefox based browser blocked it ;)
Changed to LibreWolf.
Well I think we can identify their target demographic.
Of course I can identify it. It’s me.
“It’s time to suck less. The users who left you are still waiting.”
Kind of have to agree with this. I’m still using Firefox, but I’ve very seriously considered changing. Because it’s just managing to piss me off more and more all the time.
Just as an example, I have two websites that I visit on a fairly frequent basis that Firefox absolutely loves to go to the previous page when I click the next page button over and over and over again. And it’s like, okay, you are getting really, really annoying now.
It’s bad enough that I’m just like, has Blink won the web. But there is WebKit, and of course there’s Ladybird and Servo. But Ladybird and Servo aren’t ready yet.
I still use it, is that bad now?
I haven’t used a lot of different browsers, but when I have tried to use others I have despised them (Chrome, Edge, a few others I can’t recall).
Waterfox is a neat, well-maintained Firefox fork.
I’m in love with Overly Attached Girlfriend. Again.
I hope that girls doing well after her mental break.
