Linux Mint signs a partnership with Mozilla (Firefox)

As far as I know, the most discussed recent developments of Mozilla have been the following:
  • An open letter / manifesto stating that people planting disinformation(*) should be held liable, and not just the platforms they use to spread it (which they are liable as well).
    • I agree to it. To the last letter.
  • Support the trans rights
    • I couldn't agree more to it.
  • Accepting Cryptocurrency donations
    • I disagree. They are reconsidering.
  • Some product decisions may cause some discomfort, like telemetry
    • Neutral to it. It's fine in most cases. And their transparency is fair (open about:telemetry)
Not everybody disagree to some decisions, some people make balances for making the decisions pertaining to their projects, and one is not a blatant ignorant just because it doesn't follow what we would like them to.

(*) Understood as a subset of propaganda and false information that is spread deliberately to deceive.
 


And it turns out they have been accepting cryptocurrency donations since 2014: that's not recent. That is (my) ignorance and I knew thanks to JWZ on twitter.
 
Time will tell what happens now. But for the immediate future I have no plans to dump Mint over this. I Don't have to use FF if I choose not to and most of the time I choose not to. So the Browser wars continue. Maybe in the end something good will come of it. Mint is still one of the best Distros around. JMHO.
 
So the Browser wars continue.

Yup. In and of itself, that's probably a good thing in the long-term.

As they say, "Racing improves the breed." That's true for everything from horses to automobiles. The competition between them helps the users as they're forced to make continued improvements.
 
Clem
January 10, 2022 at 6:07 pm
We cancel almost all of our changes (you can see what these are by looking at /usr/lib/firefox/distribution/distribution.ini) so we end up with the same configuration as in other distributions or other operating systems, Mozilla’s defaults.
We’re keeping just the following:
browser.shell.checkDefaultBrowser=false
intl.locale.requested=””
widget.content.gtk-theme-override=”#”
browser.backspace_action=0
The patches are available upstream, they’re part of the Ubuntu packaging: http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/po..._95.0.1+build2-0ubuntu0.20.04.1.debian.tar.xz.

That is never good we wouldn't want the same config as win 10 for example and a few people have said that the update turned on telemetry (A way for Mozilla to get info) without asking that is as low as Microsoft.

Clem
January 10, 2022 at 6:46 pm
Hi Paul,
Not necessarily. Predictions are good but it’s too early to say. We just don’t know how many people already run Google (which is currently monetized by neither Mozilla nor Mint). We’ll lose revenue from Yahoo and DuckDuckGo but we’ll get revenue from Google.
The partnership is in place because we’re both happy with the outcome. Without the partnership we would have had to stop using the Mozilla brand if we wanted to continue to monetize the traffic with our search partners. I think people weren’t already keen with our customization, and I think losing the name “Firefox” would have been detrimental to our project long-term. Forking the browser or even continuing to adapt to changes when it comes to search is also very costly in terms of development. So no matter what, we couldn’t continue the way we did. Not having to spend resources on the Web browser is a huge plus for us. The Mozilla and Google brands are also extremely popular. Even if we lose money on search performance we think the change will make people happy, bring Google users in the Mint community back to monetization and attract more people long term to our distribution.

The problem with this is that just cause people are using this doesn't mean taking a deal is good I mean think about it this way google gets X amount of dollars per search with advertised links and gives 1/3 to Mozilla which in turn gives a 1/3 of that to Linux mint. Google makes Y profit in turn that gives them more budget to spend on Chromebook development taking Linux share from mint and when not openly advertising it as Linux but as chrome os in commercials that screws the whole linux community over.
 

Firefox in Celena

AUGUST 28, 2007 BY CLEM·4 COMMENTS
Starting with Celena Linux Mint will maintain its own Firefox package. Based on the Ubuntu package it will include Linux Mint’s own modifications and prevent Ubuntu rebranding when Firefox gets a security upgrade.
For the user this means:
– The default Firefox homepage won’t be impacted when Firefox gets upgraded any more.
– There might be a slight delay between the moment when Ubuntu releases an upgrade for Firefox and the moment when Linux Mint does the same.
For this to work the Mint package will use a different versionning scheme, removing dots between minor numbers. For instance Firefox 2.0.0.6-ubuntuX in Ubuntu will correspond to Firefox 2006-mintX in Linux Mint.


2007 Mint started shipping with its own firefox package which they chose to end early this year.
 

Mint Devs Announce Partnership with Mozilla to Improve Firefox in Mint​


Linux Mint’s lead developer Clement Lefebvre announced today a partnership with Mozilla, the maker of the popular Firefox web browser, to improve Firefox in the Linux Mint distribution.

According to Clement Lefebvre, this is both a commercial or a technical partnership in an attempt to improve the Firefox web browser in Linux Mint. Firefox will still be distributed as a .deb package in Linux Mint, but starting with the Firefox 96 release, it will receive better support for rounded corners for its own window decorations.

But, what’s most important is the fact that the default Firefox configuration in Linux Mint will change due to this partnership to provide users with a configuration almost identical to the version of the web browser distributed by Mozilla.


 
I got Firefox 96.0 update today I'm using EndeavourOS and I guess it's directly from Firefox.

I've never had no complaints using Firefox.
Like every other browser and bit of software it has had it hiccups.
Firefox seems to have their stuff together and seems to run great.

I'll keep using Firefox until it's dead and gone or until I'm dead and gone whichever comes first.
 
Merged some posts, if there's any confusion as to why stuff is repeated.
 
I got Firefox 96.0 update today I'm using EndeavourOS and I guess it's directly from Firefox.

I've never had no complaints using Firefox.
Like every other browser and bit of software it has had it hiccups.
Firefox seems to have their stuff together and seems to run great.

I'll keep using Firefox until it's dead and gone or until I'm dead and gone whichever comes first.

The only thing I see that changed in FF 96 is that it switched my default search engine from DuckDuckGo back to Google. I'm starting to get sick of Brave's crypto crap and have switched back to FF as my primary browser.
 
None of my settings changed when Firefox updated to Firefox 96 in either EndeavoursOS Xfce or PCLinuxOS LXQT.

I didn't notice any differences in the new Firefox 96 update.

As for being icky don't know anything about that other than some users are always going to complain about something.

Not me it's free can't complain when stuff is free and if ya don't like it then don't use it.
 
I'm starting to get sick of Brave's crypto crap and have switched back to FF as my primary browser.
You should be able to disable all of that crypto crap somewhere in the settings I remember when trying Brave Browser.

I didn't care for Brave Browser it seemed to work okay but reminded me to much of Google Chrome go figure huh. :rolleyes:
 
You should be able to disable all of that crypto crap somewhere in the settings I remember when trying Brave Browser.

I didn't care for Brave Browser it seemed to work okay but reminded me to much of Google Chrome go figure huh. :rolleyes:

You can on Windows and Linux machines. For some reason I can't get rid of the annoying BAT icon in the address bar on a Mac. The only difference, I think, is that on Apple's OSes browsers are wrapped around WebKit somehow. Have no idea how that all works.
 
As far as I know, the most discussed recent developments of Mozilla have been the following:
  • An open letter / manifesto stating that people planting disinformation(*) should be held liable, and not just the platforms they use to spread it (which they are liable as well).
    • I agree to it. To the last letter.
  • Support the trans rights
    • I couldn't agree more to it.
  • Accepting Cryptocurrency donations
    • I disagree. They are reconsidering.
  • Some product decisions may cause some discomfort, like telemetry
    • Neutral to it. It's fine in most cases. And their transparency is fair (open about:telemetry)
Not everybody disagree to some decisions, some people make balances for making the decisions pertaining to their projects, and one is not a blatant ignorant just because it doesn't follow what we would like them to.

(*) Understood as a subset of propaganda and false information that is spread deliberately to deceive.
  • While I'm all for these platforms removing those who engage in legitimately inappropriate behavior (pedophiles, cults, terrorism, etc), where it becomes a slippery slope is when they remove anyone who dares to engage in wrongthink, and that's exactly what Mozilla has been advocating (here's a video of Christopher Hitchens explaining that:
    ). The ironic thing is for a company well-known for creating and promoting FOSS (meaning the person or people using it can do so for ANY purpose whatsoever), them wanting to censor the web flies in the face of all of that.
  • As DistroTube has said "Keep politics out of the Free Software Movement unless it has something to do with free software itself". Topics like political extremism, racism, or sexual orientation have nothing to do with free software, as they're completely separate and unrelated issues. This is why the rules in the off-topic section make it very clear to NOT talk about politics.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Making disinformation authors, promoters and spreaders visible (not even accountable) doesn't mean removing them, means pointing at them and to how much they invest in spreading it. And that's not political, it's plain ethical.

What is political are many second hand interpretations of that post. In the "terrible" blog post, Mozilla wasn't advocating for the deplatforming, but rather questioning the unilateral deplatforming (by the platforms) as dangerous, and not as useful as one may have thought (source: mozilla blog). What they were advocating was for more transparency and more counter-disinformation sources available.

Now that you mention distrotube, I remember watching his video, and then reading the post, and thinking that we may have had read different posts. So there's that. I really wonder how many actual people read the actual post in its entirety and mindfully, but anyway.

I think this is already off topic so I will respect this thread by leaving it.
 

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