Firefox's AI Switch Is Off. Telemetry Isn't

38 pointsposted 7 hours ago
by speckx
(marius.blog)

30 Comments

jasonvorhe

6 hours ago

> To be clear, I know that the AI kill switch does not claim to disable telemetry or advertising.

Well, at least it's not the closing sentence.

mossTechnician

5 hours ago

The troubling part in the post is that telemetry (about AI features) begins before the user can rush to disable either of them.

It's a response to the Mozilla CEO saying[0] "Trust is earned. Consent is asked. AI skipped both," which promised to ameliorate this issue, and apparently did not.

[0]: https://aed.me/articles/turn-it-off/

userbinator

an hour ago

before the user can rush to disable either of them

You download, disconnect from the network, and then edit the settings file before even starting the app for the first time.

Walf

an hour ago

That's not ever how it should be done, and the average person certainly won't work around that.

However, I'm fine with telling Mozilla once per install that I'm not interested in using the generative AI, or summaries, etc. On-device translation is quite useful.

Farmadupe

6 hours ago

Thankyou! that title was painful, I spent 20 seconds term rewriting it in my head..

* Firefox's AI Switch Is Off. Telemetry Isn't

* Firefox's AI Switch Is Off. Telemetry Isn't off [complete second clause]

* Firefox's Telemetry Isn't Off [remove negative clause]

* Firefox's Telemetry Is On [remove double negative]

----

Admittedly I didn't read past the first two paragraphs, but I assume it is a several hundred word repetition of its tautologous title.

userbinator

6 hours ago

It's somewhat cathartic to go through the settings and JS parts, using the source as a guide, and rip out/disable all the spyware, which you can do even without having to build the whole thing from source.

Since I do my content filtering at the proxy level, all I want is just a browser .

anonymous344

5 hours ago

how? i used pihole, but it slows down everything

nubinetwork

an hour ago

Pihole is DNS, if it's making you slow, you've got other problems... the DNS server on your home router probably has about the same performance.

overflowy

5 hours ago

I love Firefox but I don't understand why anybody would use it without a custom config like BetterFox[1].

[1] https://github.com/yokoffing/Betterfox

bsian

5 hours ago

Because my browser is an extremely sensitive piece of software and I don’t trust just anybody to provide it for me.

kbelder

3 hours ago

Least of all, a browser publisher.

overflowy

5 hours ago

That's literally just a configuration file. You can adapt it to your needs and create something even more tailored than the browser's default version.

VCFundedGenYer

3 hours ago

Vanilla Firefox is a swamp of user-hostile defaults, telemetry, useless AI features, and forced addons that try to upsell you.

The most sensible way to get around this is to use LibreWolf or Waterfox. They aggressively rip all of this out.

user

6 hours ago

[deleted]

metalman

3 hours ago

I cant stand firefox for browsing, and now rarely access the web through a lap/desk top and just usb transfer files I create onto my phone, from where they get sent via whatever service is required. The web is dead anyway, so any random browser is good enough,as the whole fucking thing is a giant scam me baby honey pot if anything and one of these days a bunch of mega scraper operations are going to get stuck to each other and litteraly catch on fire, which would be interesting, remember that?, interesting things, ha!, now the reaction is to look over your shoulder to see if anyone noticed you bieng had.

drnick1

6 hours ago

There shouldn't be any telemetry in free software, end of. There are other ways to estimate the number of active users, e.g. through downloads and browser fingerprints.

Mozilla does not need more money than it already has. Ladybird has shown that you don't need a huge team to build a browser from scratch, so clearly Mozilla isn't spending all the money it gets from Google for development.

userbinator

an hour ago

This, absolutely. I used to publish free software for download, and I had absolutely zero idea how it was used, nor did I care.

The problem is that the surveillance mindset has infected developers these days so now you have a bunch of telemetry apologists and advocates influencing the narrative. Unfortunately they are themselves fine with being spied on... although the inevitable leak happens and hopefully some of them start to worry.

demibabs

6 hours ago

I don’t get this take. There’s good reasons to have telemetry in any software. Doesn’t really have to do with whether it’s free or not.

Of course, it’s also good to have the option to disable it.

ginko

6 hours ago

Telemetry should be opt-in.

zamadatix

5 hours ago

This is like saying you shouldn't have a computer because you can do addition yourself. Okay, what about all of the other use cases? Besides, collecting stats based on downloads/updates/etc is still telemetry.

I'm perfectly fine with telemetry in any software, free or paid. Just make it opt-in and don't turn into cookie notice style malicious compliance about that.

nickthegreek

6 hours ago

> There shouldn't be any telemetry in free software, end of.

Don't install it if you dont want it, that is where you choice lies. Telemetry inclusion is up to the author. Good ones will make it opt-in if it is truly necessary to include.

> Ladybird has shown that you don't need a huge team to build a browser from scratch

Ladybird has done no such thing.

sourthyme

6 hours ago

Does Firefox sell this data? That would be bad and should be able to turn off. But there's other uses for telemetry that can help free software.

JohnFen

6 hours ago

Like with any software, you can't ever really be sure if they share this data with other entities. That's part of why I don't let software phone home, FOSS or not.

throwa356262

5 hours ago

Why gather this much data if you are not monetizeing it?

It has a cost and can also become a liability. You don't do it just for fun.

coldfloor

2 hours ago

Because it's useful in aiding in development. "Telemetry" is not "spying" or "collecting personal information" or whatever else uninformed people like this blog author try to dramatize it as. Telemetry is anonymous crash reports, how many users are using vertical vs horizontal tabs, how many people engaged the AI killswitch, etc. If it's NOT anonymized/bucketized usage date, then it's NOT telemetry. People need to stop conflating the two.

Ironically, it's the people who disable all telemetry out of ignorance and paranoia that end up crying every time a developer deprecates their favorite feature or they have an issue with a new release. If you don't vote you don't get to complain. Mozilla's PM's in particular have repeatedly published and cited telemetry data in their decision making, and have referenced crash reports in proactively filed bugs.

kibwen

6 hours ago

> There are other ways to estimate the number of active users

The point of telemetry is not to estimate the number of active users, and focusing on "telemetry" is the wrong bogeyman. Things like crash reports are telemetry, and are perfectly acceptable as long as the user remains in control over whether or not to send them. Software should respect user privacy and user control.

wtallis

4 hours ago

At some point, the pervasive unethical behavior of having telemetry on by default instead of opt-in, not just in proprietary software but also in open-source software and even from Mozilla itself becomes overwhelming enough that "telemetry=bad" becomes a reasonable summary of the situation. We need a new word specifically for ethical opt-in data collection.