WTF Mozilla? I'm hoping they just forgot to delete this verbiage from their terms of service, which suggests they are still working with the personal data removal service OneRep.

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/legal/terms/subscription-services/

Last year, Mozilla said it was dropping its partnership with OneRep after a story I published showed its founder had created dozens of people-search services and was even running one of the larger ones whilst selling services to help people remove their information from these sites.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2024/03/mozilla-drops-onerep-after-ceo-admits-to-running-people-search-networks/

Mozilla Subscription Services

Mozilla
@briankrebs General user here. Based on what I've been reading the past few months on Mastodon, I've ben backing away from Firefox and using DuckDuckGo. Is the Duck the right way to go?
@AskPippa @briankrebs I don't see anyone answering you, I'm sorry to say that the DDG browser is based in Blink, ergo Chromium (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuckDuckGo_Private_Browser) and also has a history of containing tracking scripts that were not blocked by the browser.
DuckDuckGo Private Browser - Wikipedia

@AskPippa @briankrebs So far DDG hasn't done anything unconscionable, and their hearts seem roughly the right number of sizes big, but they are a private company, so that can change at any time. DDG browser is based on Chromium, so it kinda depends how you feel about that. Chromium doesn't have any Google telemetry in it (other than usage/breakage reporting) I believe, so it's not like using Google Chrome itself. I prefer to use something Firefox derived, because I already lived through one browser monoculture, and I'd rather not live through another (arguably worse) one. That, and even though I'm pretty disappointed in Mozilla, I've been a lot more than just disappointed in Google for a lot longer.

So it depends. If you do want to stick with something Firefoxy that isn't going to send data to Mozilla, Waterfox and Librewolf are good options. But DDG is a perfectly cromulent browser (I don't love the search engine though, personally) and you might also appreciate the also Chromium-based Ecosia browser (my s/o's been using it for at least a few months now, and has zero complaints).

@gordoooo_z @briankrebs So, how about Firefox with Privacy badger added. Does that solve some of the key problems?

@AskPippa @briankrebs Honestly, Firefox is pretty light on data collection, and unlike Chrome's Omnibox (idk if that's still what they call it, but the functionality is still there) you can easily opt out of all of it, so you really don't need any extensions to protect you from Mozilla themselves, and you can just as easily use a fork that removes telemetry, but there's so much more data collection and tracking just out on the open internet, so something like Privacy Badger most definitely wont hurt, and while I'm always weary of even privacy-focused products when they don't charge for their work (am I the product?), the fact that it's from the EFF makes me feel pretty good about that one. I don't actively use it, but I do have Firefox's (Waterfox in my case, but it's a stock feature) built-in Tracking Protection (see attached).

My beef with Firefox is less that I feel my browser is spying on me, and more that Mozilla's actions are increasingly misaligned with their own mission statement, in a way that makes me feel that one day in the future, they will completely alienate their comparatively small but committed userbase, and the only real browser vendor left will be Google (and that truly terrifies me).

@gordoooo_z @briankrebs Great, thanks! I learned something today. :)
@AskPippa @briankrebs There are definitely many people infinitely more knowledgable than me when it comes to online security (anyone whose instance is @infosec.exchange, for example, lol), but regardless, happy to help!