I mean I mostly agree that telemetry is different, but how can we be sure Mozilla isn't sharing their telemetry information with ad networks to help fingerprint you?
It seems the only way to be truly sure is if we could verify the browser sent no information at all, right? Or else it's just about trust, same as any other browser.
It's mostly about trust, but we have more reasons to trust Mozilla than other browser vendors - they consist of a community of people who care about their values, they've staked their reputation on those values, they are transparent, they're a legal non-profit, etc. Their financial statements are also public, and I don't think any income from ad networks has been found there.
And I think putting those at the same level as Google's and Microsoft's shenanigans, especially considering the other properties I mentioned and how they influenced how those incidents were dealt with, is grossly exaggerating.
1) Aforementioned companies don't market themselves as "privacy-centered"
2) If you re-read the original post, you'll notice that I was talking about trends. Increasingly aggressive telemetry and "interest-based" features is a relatively recent trend in Firefox, so give it some time before comparing it with megacorps that developed such stuff for years.
1) I'm not going to go with a browser vendor that violates my privacy more just because it doesn't say it tries not to violate my privacy.
2) Sure, and like the rest of the Mozilla community, I'll keep an eye on those trends. I'll revisit my choice of browser once they're actually worse than the others. Or more likely, work with the rest of the community to prevent that from happening.
I mean I mostly agree that telemetry is different, but how can we be sure Mozilla isn't sharing their telemetry information with ad networks to help fingerprint you?
It seems the only way to be truly sure is if we could verify the browser sent no information at all, right? Or else it's just about trust, same as any other browser.