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Related ongoing thread:
An update on Mozilla's terms of use for Firefox - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43213612 - Feb 2025 (119 comments)
The other WTF is here:
Your use of Firefox must follow Mozilla’s Acceptable Use Policy, and you agree that you will not use Firefox to infringe anyone’s rights or violate any applicable laws or regulations.
Acceptable Use Policy links to https://www.mozilla.org/about/legal/acceptable-use/ which says "You may not use any of Mozilla’s services to[...]Upload, download, transmit, display, or grant access to content that includes graphic depictions of sexuality or violence"
It's against the Terms of Use to use Firefox to... watch porn?
Either their legal team made a mistake, in which case they should correct it and issue an apology ASAP, or they really do intend to own you, in which case I recommend switching to an alternative browser which is only a browser, like Dillo, Ladybird, or Netsurf.
> It's against the Terms of Use to use Firefox to... watch porn?
Firefox isn't a Mozilla service. The Mozilla services are things like account sync, or the review tool they use.
Welp, they stopped being open source, then. From the OSD:
6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.
Mozilla's management and legal has always been amazing when it comes to unforced errors. These changes are actually pretty normal, but they're also worded more scarily by being more encompassing than they need to be. Mozilla has always sucked when it comes to communicating with the outside world.
We are under an attack by Puritanism that is quite astounding actually. And no one is doing anything. Everyone just keeps bending the knee.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1hqqpbt/newest_ver...
Some of the things that are happening are just from the threat of “something bad might come down from the new administration”. It’s so ridiculous.
> Either their legal team made a mistake, in which case they should correct it and issue an apology ASAP
I don't think it is a mistake but more the translation of a vision and strategy that took hundreds of meetings to be laid down very precisely.
I have nothing to back what I am gonna say but I am wondering if their strategy might be to truly become the default browser of governments who are uncomfortable having Chrome or Edge as the default browser. Especially since now they get augmented by a lot of AI.
Firefox has it largest market share in Europe and Germany it seems and with the concerns with are hearing over there about Big tech I wouldn't be surprised at some point some govs try to make their workstations Firefox only.
Also some governments are trying hard to restrict access to porn, violence and social media for children but we know it is almost impossible to do it at the network level. So they might try at the browser level with the help of Mozilla and some "sanctioned Internet AI safety" inside the browser?
I really don't know but think about it, Mozilla is a dead man walking with it's 2% market share and huge cost of maintaining one of the most complex piece of software. They have to do something about it.
What just tipped me off is reading on Wikipedia [0]:
> On February 8, 2024, Mozilla announced that Baker would be stepping down as CEO to "focus on AI and internet safety"[2] as chair of the Mozilla Foundation.
> Acceptable Use Policy links to https://www.mozilla.org/about/legal/acceptable-use/ which says "You may not use any of Mozilla’s services to[
So the text of the policy itself limits its scope to Mozilla Services.
But the purpose of that section is unclear to me. If it just means you have to comply with that policy when using features that use Mozilla services, why is that section necessary, since the license for the services should already apply.
If it is trying to mean that all the terms for Mozilla services also applies to any use of Firefox... that is really clumisily written, and also just generally terrible.
I'm pretty sure this is about Mozilla services. AFAICT, Firefox itself is licensed under the https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Public_License and as such doesn't put any restrictions on how you use the software.
> I recommend switching to an alternative browser which is only a browser, like Dillo, Ladybird, or Netsurf.
Did not know any of those alternatives thanks for sharing.
After a quick online search, I see they could work for casual browsing and it's great that they don't rely on Chromium
But do you think these can be a full browser replacement without extension ecosystems like ublock origin et al.?
Dillo is only sporadically developed. They even lost control of the dillo.org domain a long time ago, which pretty much spells amateur hour.
Ladybird would be a better choice, but it's not even fully baked yet. Coming sometime in 2026, supposedly.
I'd recommend the Brave browser for people concerned about recent bad news from Mozilla.
I might have differed with Brendan Eich on a few matters, but he was a good steward of Firefox in my book.
When Mitchell Baker took the reins, Mozilla became rather more heavy-handed towards us - the irony being that Waterfox was once proudly displayed on the Mozilla website under their "Powered By" banner.
I appreciate the constant existential wobble Firefox faces, but they've made some peculiar decisions as of late.
On one hand, they're finally implementing features users have been clamouring for ages (tab groups, vertical tabs and the likes) - on the other, rather odd policy choices.
I should point out, it seems daft to me when others suggest using forks with no well-established governance of their own, essentially shifting trust from an organisation at least answerable to certain regulations, to individuals with no proper framework or guidelines.
I've done my best with Waterfox over the years to have it represented by a proper legal entity with policies to follow; so if anyone is interested take a look.
Edit: FWIW I've written some more thoughts on it here: https://www.waterfox.net/blog/a-comment-on-mozilla-changes/
To Mozilla: if your intentions are indeed good as you claim in your post[1], then update the ToS accordingly.
Chrome is removing µBlock origin, I and probably a lot of other users saw this as a good moment to promote Firefox to our relatives, you are missing a chance and alienating your user base here.
[1] https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/firefox-news/fi...
An interesting implication of this is that it would point to Firefox being considered a service from Mozilla (hence why they need a license to facilitate your use of the program).
If we now look at their "Acceptable Use Policy", we can find this:
> You may not use any of Mozilla’s services to [...] Upload, download, transmit, display, or grant access to content that includes graphic depictions of sexuality or violence, [...]
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/legal/acceptable-use/
And to corroborate the applicability of the Acceptable Use Policy to the Firefox browser:
> Your use of Firefox must follow Mozilla’s Acceptable Use Policy, [...]
("Acceptable Use Policy" is hyperlinked to the aforementioned page)
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/legal/terms/firefox/
So one could interpret this all to say that you're not allowed to view or download porn via Firefox. Additionally, "graphic depictions of violence" could extend to things like the sort of bodycam footage and reporting from war zones frequently seen in news reports.
>UPDATE: We’ve seen a little confusion about the language regarding licenses, so we want to clear that up. We need a license to allow us to make some of the basic functionality of Firefox possible. Without it, we couldn’t use information typed into Firefox, for example. It does NOT give us ownership of your data or a right to use it for anything other than what is described in the Privacy Notice.
From their blog post[1]. Smells like bullshit to me. You haven't had this license for the last 30 years and I've had no trouble browsing. What's changed that you suddenly need it?
[1]: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/firefox-terms-o...
> Mozilla can suspend or end anyone’s access to Firefox at any time for any reason, including if Mozilla decides not to offer Firefox anymore.
On what planet is that free, open source?
Can you imagine: "The Free Software Foundation (FSF) can suspend anyone's access to GNU Emacs at any time for any reason, including if the FSF decides not to offer GNU Emacs any more".
The problem I have with these kinds of hot-takes is that they often don't tell the full story, and it's seemingly for the purpose of generating rage. For some inexplicable reason, this guy truncates the paragraph from the Terms of Use, repackaging the information without a key part of the final sentence: "....to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox."
I'm not saying that this definitely makes a material difference, but it certainly changes the framing of it. The way he has framed it makes it sound like Mozilla has given itself carte blanche to do what it wants -- but the little caveat at the end of the sentence really does change the narrative a little bit. So why cut off a sentence half-way through it -- is it maybe to make it sound worse? For that reason alone, I can't take this guy seriously.
I am, unfortunately, looking at alternative browsers because of this. Firefox was the best fit. Big enough that they could reasonably keep up but not one of the corporate browsers that I have 0 trust in. It wasn't perfect but it was better than chrome for sure.
Browsers are like cars now. It is becoming impossible to buy a new(er) car and have your privacy respected, but it is unreasonable to expect any normal life (at least in most of the US) without using cars or browsers. So, things like cars and browsers should have strong protections because there is no avoiding them. Unfortunately that is obviously not the case. You should never be forced to sign an adversarial TOS to earn a living or live a normal life, but here we are. TOS that are effective without you even reading them, that say they own you, everything you type, everything you do, that change and bind you without your consent or knowledge and what are you going to do about it? Given any reasonable choice I will take it, but the reasonable choices are dwindling.
> You give Mozilla all rights necessary to operate Firefox
Wait, now Mozilla operates Firefox for me and I can just lean back while they do the browsing?
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/legal/terms/firefox/
> When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license
Really the whole document looks like it was copy-pasted from some SaaS template.
Does Mozilla not have a lawyer that reviewed this who knows what a browser is?
This made me look into Firefox forks/alternatives:
Librewolf [1] seems to be fairly active (last commit on Codeberg was last week) and up-to-date with the latest upstream releases (mirrors FF's versioning scheme and matches their latest). Has a nice focus on privacy and no-telemetry.
Floorp [2] also looks active (last commit last week), also claims focus on privacy. Based off FF's extended support releases so it may lag behind in latest features.
Waterfox [3] is also active (last commit a few hours ago), also big focus on privacy, but it uses a custom versioning scheme so I can't tell how closely it follows FF's releases.
GNU IceCat's [4] latest release was in November 02023, so it looks like it may be abandoned.
Does anyone have any experience with any of these, good or bad? With all of them more or less promising the same things it's hard to tell which one may be the better option.
> When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information,
Taken literally it means that when I use Firefox to upload a file to a customer's web site Mozilla is getting that file too, which does not seem likely. They could get a copy of the text I'm typing right now in Firefox or it means that the browser could do some local processing on those data. But if the results of that processing would stay local why would they ask the permission? It's not that emacs, vim, grep, sed, awk etc have to ask me the permission to use the information I'm inputting into them. So they are definitely sending information back home or they plan to do it.
The point becomes how to block any calls from Firefox to Mozilla. Note that don't have a Firefox account because I never trusted that the data in transit from them would stay private. I'm not logged in into Google as well. Maybe I have to finally install a Pi Hole and route all my traffic through it. Hopefully Blockada will take care of that for my Android devices.
Since Mozilla removed all mention of not selling my data in a recent PR and seems hellbent on an ad-based future, I've deleted my Firefox account and moved to Librewolf across my devices, and I'll encourage everyone I know to do the same.
It's a sad end to my literal decades of support for them.
Link directly to the Github commit: https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/commit/d459addab846d8144b..., which links to the following issue: https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/issues/16016
There are a bunch of locked Google docs linked in the issue, probably internal privacy guidelines.
I can't say that this surprises me, perhaps they are looking for alternate revenue streams in case Google cuts them out?
To HN: Will you be quitting firefox over this change, or is there simply no better place to leave for?
It's all so strange. I would happily buy Firefox, either as a one off, or as an annual license, and be done with all the weird license nonsense - presumably they want to sell data to pay the bills.
But instead the choice, realistically, seems to be between giving all my browsing data to Google and to Mozilla. And Chrome works marginally better... :/
I'm shocked when in 2025 the term "you stay in control" regarding browser emerges as something exclusive.
When a web page or a program is downloaded to my computer I cannot imagine anything else, yet every major company tries to do something opposed - take the control from me as soon as possible.
> When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox.
It's bad that it says that, because the "us" in this sentence should absolutely not be doing anything that requires such a license, and should not have a copy of it in order to do so; but "Mozilla owns" is also not a correct summary of it.
> Your use of Firefox must follow Mozilla’s Acceptable Use Policy, and you agree that you will not use Firefox to infringe anyone’s rights or violate any applicable laws or regulations.
I'm no expert, but this seems to imply that if your government bans accessing the internet (for you, for a subset of people, or for everyone), using Firefox through a VPN is unacceptable to Mozilla? Why would Mozilla proactively side with autocrats?
The "acceptable use" policy they are talking about ( https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/legal/acceptable-use/ ) lists heinous actions such as to "send unsolicited communication" and to "display ... content that includes graphic depictions of ... violence". Is Mozilla targeting journalists here?
I sometimes suspect that there is a strong correlation between the effortlessness with which an organisation receives funding and how out of touch it is with reality.
folks, this is NOT good. i guess we're generally at the mercy of big tech day to day, but with firefox in particular -- i use it almost more than any other software, and these terms seem particularly nasty.
i do think we can exert some pressure on mozilla here -- HN users are like 60% of the firefox user base. i recommend writing to legal-notices@mozilla.com to object to this policy. do it right now.
here's what i wrote, feel free to use it as a template:
Dear Mozilla,
I'm not just a long-time user of Firefox -- I'm a Firefox promoter. I've been recommending Firefox to all my friends, esp. since the Chrome privacy fiasco. I even pay for Mozilla Monitor just to support your organization.
I ABSOLUTELY object to your new Firefox terms of use. I DO NOT grant Mozilla any soft of license to information I "upload or input [...] through Firefox". This change is alarming and hostile. If you insist on rolling it out, there should be a clear opt-out in the browser itself. I strongly urge you to reconsider. Otherwise, I will be moving to forks, and urging others to do the same.
Sincerely,
> Mozilla grants you a personal, non-exclusive license to install and use the “Executable Code" version of the Firefox web browser, which is the ready-to-run version of Firefox from an authorized source that you can open and use right away.
Does this mean these Terms of Use apply only to precompiled binaries downloaded from Mozilla, and not to copies built from source code by linux distributions?
> When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox.
Does this mean they're allowed to collect data that we transmit through Firefox to the sites we visit, so long as they can come up with some justification that they're using it to "help" us?
> Every once in a while, Mozilla may decide to update these Terms. We will post the updated Terms online. We will take your continued use of Firefox as acceptance of such changes.
This kind of one-sided nonsense is something I have come to expect from the likes of Google or Facebook.
I don't know how all this will shake out, but my initial impression leaves me with waning respect for Mozilla.
For the last 10 years or so I've pendulum swung between the positions "privacy at all cost!" and "what's the point, you can't win". Well, I'm tired now and the pendulum is stuck on the latter. All I care about now is blocking ads. Go ahead Mozilla, Google, Apple, whoever, if you can hoover up my worthless browsing data without me noticing, you can have it. I hope my reading HN and watching inane Youtube videos is worth something to you.
>You give Mozilla all rights necessary to operate Firefox, including processing data as we describe in the Firefox Privacy Notice, as well as acting on your behalf to help you navigate the internet. When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox.
Emphasis added.
Debian feature request: A system-wide switch to disable all telemetry and "cloud integration" features that make any network connection to the developers' or developers' partners' servers, applied to all software distributed in the official repositories.
Relevant discussion: https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/information-about...
> Remember that to display, edit, transform (underline, italicize, fonts) the documents you write in MacWrite necessarily requires copying your document data from disk to memory to cpu to memory to display – lots of copying. Did Claris need the rights to your copyright to allow you to edit your documents in its software?
This analogy doesn't hold water in the context of giving the coparty access to your intellectual property and detracts from the point the author is trying to make. The answer is no, obviously, because Claris never had the information. The only place that information existed was in some software that lived on and only on your machine did that processing at your request.
Previous version: https://web.archive.org/web/20250219051713/https://www.mozil...
New version: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/
> Firefox also shares information with our marketing partners to measure and improve these campaigns; what information is specifically shared varies (depending on how you discovered Firefox and your operating system) but generally includes how you were referred to our download page and whether you actively use Firefox. Where Firefox is pre-installed on your device, technical and interaction data (your device type and whether Firefox is used) will be sent to our marketing partners, and shared with Mozilla. Learn more about what is collected and shared, and how to opt out.
This is new (There's no link or further reference for that "learn more" in context)
Remember the time, when browsers were competing who will load website fastest or who will render Acid2 test correctly? Those were the days.
Mozilla needs to learn that when you're an operation running honestly as a non-profit and no one's getting rich (comfortable != rich, btw), there's nothing wrong with the donate nag in a blank new tab.
Wikipedia figured that out long ago. They probably wouldn't be around without that nag box asking for donations.
We're entering the end days now. Stallman showed us the light and then ESR closed the blinds.
Firefox's blog post in the change[1] has an update:
> UPDATE: We’ve seen a little confusion about the language regarding licenses, so we want to clear that up. We need a license to allow us to make some of the basic functionality of Firefox possible. Without it, we couldn’t use information typed into Firefox…
Uh, yeah, that's exactly the problem. Mozilla shouldn't be allowed to use all the information I type into Firefox at all. Mozilla doesn't need any rights for Firefox to process my data locally on my behalf, or even for Firefox to send my data to third parties on my behalf (ex. instant search suggestions). Those aren't Mozilla using my information; those are me using my information using Firefox.
They would only "need" extra rights to collect data and process it on their servers for unspecified purposes. They do legitimately process some data on their servers, such as Firefox Sync data, but that's already covered under the Mozilla account terms of service. There's no need for a broad license for all data going through Firefox.
[1]: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/firefox-news/fi...
Since it's mostly just people who care about this privacy who still use Firefox, these changes seem particularly tin eared.
This is pure speculation, but what are the chances this change is simply an attempt to provide legal cover what they might have started doing 50 versions ago?[1]
Firefox's own about:license page (reachable through the about firefox dialog) says the sources are available under a wide variety of open source licenses. Does that mean only Mozilla distributed binaries are governed by the "Firefox Terms of Use"? If I download Firefox through my distro package manager, and the distro infrastructure compiled and distributed it undet the terms of the open source licenses, presumably I may use the software solely under the terms of those open source licenses.
Does Mozilla take this into account, or do they act as if they have the rights they assert in the ToU, regardless of what license a Firefox user is using the software under?
This is concerning.
From the new Tos:
> We need a license to allow us to make some of the basic functionality of Firefox possible. Without it, we couldn’t use information typed into Firefox, for example.
I do not want Mozilla to use or have information I type into Firefox except when I explicitly give them such information. I disable all the settings I can to keep Mozilla from getting any such information.
From what I understand, this crap is only for the Mozilla distributed binaries. So I will now be using third party builds.
Been using Firefox as main browser since it was called Mozilla.
It's the only desktop application I've consistently installed on every desktop for that long. This is the end of that era and ends the streak.
It's as frustrating as it's sad.
It's fascinating how any Firefox thread here inevitably devolves into accusations that Mozilla has abandoned users and a push to switch to alternatives, despite Mozilla working in the interest of users to a infinitely greater degree than any other major browser vendor.
My dream team of execs would send lawyers back to the drawing table on at least one of these clauses.
"Imagine that someday we get taken over by bad people. Write this as if our today selves want to protect everyone against our future selves."
ELI5: how is any of this legal? Let’s say my distro receives Firefox source code under the terms of MPL, builds it and distributes it to me under the same terms. At no point any of us agreed to any additional terms. Does this apply only to Mozilla-built binaries?
I have been wanting to love Mozilla for a while, but let's be honest: I use Firefox because Mozilla is the least shitty of those companies. I don't like Mozilla, I just hate them less than the alternatives.
Please see this helpful clarification post:
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/update-on-terms...