Mozilla: Difference between revisions

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'''[[Wikipedia:Mozilla|Mozilla]]''' is a [[Wikipedia:Free software|free software]] community which develops, publishes and supports open-source software. The community is supported institutionally by the [[Wikipedia:Nonprofit organization|non-profit]] [[Wikipedia:Mozilla Foundation|Mozilla Foundation]] and its tax-paying subsidiary, the [[Wikipedia:Mozilla Corporation|Mozilla Corporation]].  

Mozilla has published the community Manifesto, with 10 key principles:<ref>https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/details/</ref><blockquote>

#The internet is an integral part of modern life—a key component in education, communication, collaboration, business, entertainment and society as a whole.

#Magnifying the public benefit aspects of the internet is an important goal, worthy of time, attention and commitment.

</blockquote>

===Removing the "We don't sell your data" promise (''Feb. 2025'')===

In February 2025, Mozilla started to delete references to their "We don't sell your data" promise from the source code, as first reported on [https://www.haiku-os.org/ Haiku operating system] by developer ''waddlesplash'' on the forum thread for their Firefox/Iceweasel port.<ref>https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/iceweasel-telemetry-acceptible-for-firefox-trademarks/16106/51</ref><ref>https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/commit/d459addab846d8144b61939b7f4310eb80c5470e</ref>

They also switched the wording from "The best privacy" to "Always protected".

===Introducing TOS for Firefox (''Feb. 2025'')===

{{Main|Mozilla introduces TOS to Firefox}}

In February 2025 Mozilla introduced [[terms of use]] (TOS) for the Firefox browser for the first time as well as an updated [[privacy policy]]. The new privacy policy has caused concern among the browser's user revolving around the way the section that describes the rights Mozilla has over their data is phrased.

===Privacy-preserving attribution (''Jul. 2024'')===

'''Privacy-preserving attribution (PPA)''' is an experimental feature introduced in Firefox version 128, designed to help advertising sites measure the performance of their ads while maintaining user privacy. It is marketed as an alternative method for performing attribution without relying on online tracking of users' browsing activity, which is incompatible with privacy. The functionality is explained on the Mozilla support page as follows:<ref name=":0">https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/privacy-preserving-attribution#w_how-can-i-disable-ppa</ref><blockquote>

#Websites that show you ads can ask Firefox to remember these ads. When this happens, Firefox stores an “impression” which contains a little bit of information about the ad, including a destination website.

#Your results are combined with many similar reports by the aggregation service. The destination website periodically receives a summary of the reports. The summary includes noise that provides differential privacy.

</blockquote>Browsing activity information is not sent to anyone, not even Mozilla. Users with PPA enabled, however, must rely solely on the company to honor principle number 4 in its Manifesto.<ref name=":0" /><blockquote>PPA does not involve sending information about your browsing activities to anyone. This includes Mozilla and our DAP partner (ISRG). Advertisers only receive aggregate information that answers basic questions about the effectiveness of their advertising.</blockquote>This feature does not allow users to make an informed decision and choose whether to opt in or not, as it is enabled by default and requires that the user actively opt out.<ref>https://cybernews.com/privacy/firefox-data-collection-feature-sparks-backlash/</ref> This goes against principle number 8 of the Manifesto.

===Anonym acquisition (''Jun. 2024'')===

In June 2024, Mozilla became an advertiser by acquiring Anonym, a company claiming to be a privacy-preserving digital advertiser, potentially going against its mission of being a proponent of privacy.<ref>https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-anonym-raising-the-bar-for-privacy-preserving-digital-advertising/</ref>

===Mr Robot promotional web extension (''Dec. 2017'')===

In December 2017 Mozilla, in collaboration with the Mr Robot team, created and included by default a web extension in [[Firefox]] called Looking Glass.<ref name=":1">Mozilla addressing the Looking glass incident

[https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/retrospective-looking-glass/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/retrospective-looking-gla]

[https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/retrospective-looking-glass/ ss/]</ref> While the extension was disabled by default, many users were confused and worried to discover a unknown extension installed in their browser with a cryptic description "MY REALITY IS JUST DIFFERENT THAN YOURS".<ref>Firefox's users worried about the looking glass extension  https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/7jh9rv/what_is_looking_glass/</ref> This description was later expanded to include references to Mozilla's collaboration.<ref>Locking glass extension description changed https://github.com/mozilla/addon-wr/commit/21ff53d2d5baab591d29b4ea5847d74cb6901b2c</ref>

When activated, the extension executes code on all websites visited by the user, searching for all words matching a list. Every match is then wrapped in HTML span tags,<ref>looking glass extension injecting HTML https://github.com/mozilla/addon-wr/blob/da464ac8f1c3b089405ca96fc68b999d2b624ef4/addon/webextension/content-script.js#L27</ref> and tooltips are injected to be displayed when the user hovers over these matches. CSS code is injected to make the words appear upside down and the tooltips work.<ref>Looking glass extension injecting CSS https://github.com/mozilla/addon-wr/blob/da464ac8f1c3b089405ca96fc68b999d2b624ef4/addon/webextension/background.js#L78</ref> Also three specific websites did have their headers changed to have a value "x-1057"  injected.

 

 

<blockquote>'''A SHIELD study must be designed to answer a specific question.'''

We evaluated Looking Glass based on whether or not it upheld user privacy. Since it did not collect any data, we felt that it was safe. In retrospect, not capturing data was a strong indicator that this was not a good SHIELD study candidate, so we’re making sure we’re going to specifically evaluate future studies based on this criteria to ensure that we don’t repeat our mistake.</blockquote>

There are other browsers using the same browser engine as Firefox, but with the telemetry and data gathering removed and privacy-friendly preferences set by default. For desktop operating systems, these include [https://librewolf.net/ LibreWolf], [https://mullvad.net/browser Mullvad Browser] and the [https://www.torproject.org/download/ Tor Browser]. On Android, [https://f-droid.org/packages/org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid/ Fennec] is available through the F-Droid store.

*Thunderbird (2003-Present)

*[[Firefox]] (2004-Present)

*Pocket (2017-2025)<ref name="shutdown">{{Cite web|url=https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/building-whats-next/|title=Investing in what moves the internet forward|date=2025-05-22|author=Mozilla|work=Distilled: Mozilla Blog|access-date=2025-08-20|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250730024535/https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/building-whats-next/|archive-date=2025-07-30|url-status=live}}</ref>

*Fakespot (2021-2025)<ref name="shutdown" />

[[Category:Mozilla]]