Remove Mozilla Products

[Legion99]

Mozilla was founded on the idea of protecting internet freedoms and providing universal access to the internet. I have been a user of Firefox since its inception as Phoenix. Mozilla has now become just another big tech company, stifling freedom of speech and thought and, obstructing universal access to the internet. This has all been done under the current banner of prevention of hate speech, a platitude of the intolerant. I appreciate this is a political-esque post but that is not my intention. Whatever the politics of the current situation, censorship and suppression of thought are not the role of the open software community.
They are in fact the exact opposite of what open software and Linux stand for. If Mozilla continue in this manner they are as intolerant and hateful as that which they profess to suppress. A loathsome and intolerant position for those who used to champion freedoms in all manner. I would like to see all Mozilla products removed from any future releases until they return to a neutral position and truly protect internet freedom and access. Flame away.

[Pjotr]

Yes, the times are dark indeed. And rapidly darkening even more.

That said: this topic might be too political for this forum....

[antikythera]

Massive flame in the first post and this indeed probably won't be kept unlocked for long at all.

This nonsense is getting blown way out of proportion including what happened with the evidently widely misinterpreted Whatsapp policy changes recently.

I could care less about Firefox anyhow and Thunderbird is not actually a Mozilla maintained product. The Thunderbird user community maintains it these days, all Mozilla do is give them the infrastructure to communicate between themselves, automatically build and distribute the application with.

[t42]

I could care less

Do I feel angry when someone omits a negative in 'I couldn’t care less'? I'm not And not only because the meaning is the same...

[antikythera]

I used the modern form of the expression

[Moem]

I'm going to assume that it means that you care somewhat. I'm vintage like that.

As for the topic at hand:
I've searched and searched but found no proof that Mozilla is actually making any changes in their products. They have taken a political stance in a blogpost, which I will not link to, because it's... political. Those who want to know more, and make up their own minds, can easily find it on the Mozilla blog.

I can understand people wanting to stop using a product because the makers are taking a political stance. There's no need to make stuff up; that alone is a valid reason. You get to choose what you use and what you base your choices on.

But let's stick to the facts here. No actual changes in Firefox have been announced.

[antikythera]

I didn't think you were that vintage

EDIT - Also removing ALL Mozilla products would spell the end of Cinnamon Desktop. It relies on SpiderMonkey which is Mozilla's JavaScript

[cliffcoggin]

I used the modern form of the expression

You mean the American form which reverses the meaning.

[MurphCID]

Yes, but I want (and hope) they stay the heck out of politics, I despise politics. I use Chrome/Chromium since it works pretty much 100% on all websites, and Firefox sometimes has issues.

[AZgl1800]

I have read nearly all of the Anti-Firefox posts/threads over the years.

And yet, I see do not real side effects from all of the proposed "bad features" that folks claim for Firefox.
It is, and has been for a couple of decades now, my Default Browser of Choice.

Why? because it is stable, and it is the only Browser that properly handles Bookmarks and provides a 'Library' so that I can arrange my bookmarks the way I want them...

I categorize bookmarks by Topic/Sub-topic/Actual Problem
I do this because I moderate a Technical forum for motorcycle repairs...
No other browser that I have tried allows me to massage Bookmarks like Firefox does.

and down deep, I can use About:Config to exercise some control over how Firefox works.

Possibly others browsers have a way to do that, but as their GUI is useless to me, why bother to find out?

this is an example of how I can keep drilling down to find a Specific Problem by topics
Note that Firefox allows me to SORT TOPICS alphabetically.

[Moem]

I have read nearly all of the Anti-Firefox posts/threads over the years.

And yet, I see do not real side effects from all of the proposed "bad features" that folks claim for Firefox.
It is, and has been for a couple of decades now, my Default Browser of Choice.

Why? because it is stable, and it is the only Browser that properly handles Bookmarks and provides a 'Library' so that I can arrange my bookmarks the way I want them...

I categorize bookmarks by Topic/Sub-topic/Actual Problem
I do this because I moderate a Technical forum for motorcycle repairs...
No other browser that I have tried allows me to massage Bookmarks like Firefox does.

Waterfox does the exact same. I've told you that before and you would not believe me. Maybe a picture will help. Yes, the sort options are there too.

[Hoser Rob]

Not going to flame, too dullard a topic. Use whatever you like.

[Flemur]

Whatever the politics of the current situation, censorship and suppression of thought are not the role of the open software community.

I suppose the wretched comments made by Mozilla's CEO in Mozilla's official blog could be taken to represent their official stance, so, to sever a relationship with them, I recently dumped firefox and started using vivaldi (which has limited, difficult customization and overall seems a bit kludgy - but it has a bookmark sidebar!).

Wikipedia:

When his brother was jailed for three weeks in 1722 for publishing material unflattering to the governor, young [Ben] Franklin took over the newspaper and had Mrs. Dogood [Franklin's pseudonym] (quoting Cato's Letters) proclaim:

"Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech."

[antikythera]

Waterfox does the exact same. I've told you that before and you would not believe me. Maybe a picture will help. Yes, the sort options are there too.

So does chromium if you open the Bookmark Manager and use 'Sort by name'

[senjoz]

@Legion99

Sorry, but I do not understand what you are talking about in your first post. What is wrong with Mozilla software? Can you explain that more in detail, please? It looks like I missed something important.

Regards, Jože

[Moem]

What is wrong with Mozilla software? Can you explain that more in detail, please?

They (Mozilla) have taken a political stance in their blog (look up Mozilla blog and you'll find it) and some people are against that. It's not easy to explain that in detail because that is highly likely to turn political and we don't do that here, as per the forum rules.

Also, there is no definitive information available except for the Mozilla blogpost; people have drawn conclusions from that and believe that there will be changes in Firefox and/or other Mozilla products. But no such changes have been announced as yet. So that may happen, or it may not.

Speaking as a moderator:
Please be mindful of the forum rules in this thread, since it's about a potentially controversial subject. Thanks!

[karlchen]

Mozilla has now become just another big tech company, stifling freedom of speech and thought and, obstructing universal access to the internet.

Can you provide a single piece of evidence?
How does Mozilla fight against freedom of speech?
How would they be able to control your thoughts or mine? They cannot do so, even if they wanted.

This has all been done under the current banner of prevention of hate speech, a platitude of the intolerant.

It is those who spread disinformation and hate speech, who are intolerant.
Tolerating those who accept precisely one single point of view, their own, will result in the end of any tolerance finally.

censorship and suppression of thought are not the role of the open software community.

Where is your verifiable piece of evidence that Mozilla were on the side of censorship?

You are free to make claims. But you should be able to provide pieces of evidence to support your claims. You have provided none.

[Terryphi]

I assume we are referring to a recent post by a prominent individual at Mozilla making what is presumably a personal political view about social media which she might wish to be a collective Mozilla view. I find it hard to see this affecting the nature of software (Firefox or Thunderbird) which is all that I am interested in.

[kukamuumuka]

@Legion99

Sorry, but I do not understand what you are talking about in your first post. What is wrong with Mozilla software? Can you explain that more in detail, please? It looks like I missed something important.

Regards, Jože

+1

BTW. I cannot find any Mozilla software in this Mint 19.

Code: Select all

dpkg --get-selections | grep mozilla

[karlchen]

Why has the starter of this infamous thread nor anybody else managed togive the link to the blog post in question?
Instead we only find vague transcriptions like
- "a recent post by a prominent individual at Mozilla making what is presumably a personal political view about social media"
or
- "the wretched comments made by Mozilla's CEO in Mozilla's official blog"

May I conclude that people base their negative verdicts against Mozilla on a single blog post, which some of them or maybe all of them have not even read carefully?
OK, here is the link, which has triggered furious reactions before: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2021/01/08/we-need-more-than-deplatforming/.
Do not just read the title! Read the whole blog post. Read it carefully!
Try to find a single statement in favour of censorship. You will not be able to.

The essence of the blog, as I understand it, is more like this:
Deplatforming cannot be the right answer. Deplatforming happens only after the social damage has been done and hate, disinformation and FUD have already been spread.
It will be necessary to investigate independently how this happens and why this happens in social media and who makes money by letting it happen.
And it will be necessary to reflect on the challenge of preventing such things from happening.