Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
I have always used Mullvad Leta as my search engine, but after changing smartphone and download Fennec, I ended up leaving DuckDuckgo that comes standard for now. However, after the last Fennec update (140.0.0), I was surprised to have Google as a standard search engine. What do you think of this? Someone with this same experience?
Fennec is just upstream firefox with a few patches applied during build afaik, so they probably forgot to remove what upstream added. Nothing to worry about imo.
Yeah. I was annoyed by this, but wouldn't assume bad faith on the part of the Fennec devs.
not bad faith, but overriding your selected search engine is just plainly very fucked up for firefox to do.
and this it not only on mobile. I had the same experience on desktop some time ago.
try out ironfox
I have been using Ironfox to replace Mull for a while, but for some specific cases I also use Fennec, but I alert, as well as Fennec, Ironfox is not coming with the Fingerprint Resistance enabled by default, although it has proposed as an alternative to Mull. So stay tuned and always activate this in the developer settings.
I tought it was just an issue with the update.
Just change it back.
It seems, yes!
Happened to me too, I was so confused. I hope it is a bug... EDIT: Found the report: https://gitlab.com/relan/fennecbuild/-/issues?show=eyJpaWQiOiIxMjAiLCJmdWxsX3BhdGgiOiJyZWxhbi9mZW5uZWNidWlsZCIsImlkIjoxNjk5MTU5NTd9
Thanks for the link!
I wasn't paying that much attention, I hope I am not badmouthing mozilla, but I believe I had the same experience with snap install of Firefox on current xbuntu. Maybee a month ago? I am using DDG by default and always remove Google from the search engine list. The thing updates, I do a random search and get the google screen asking me all the questions about cookies and privacy I simply don't know how to answer. I go into settings and find google set as default search engine. What is even stranger, I can no longer remove google from the list! This seems to me so ridiculous I decide it has to be a bug I am happy to report that when I've noticed next update (becase those annoying tabs informing about new features) - I was again able to remove google from the search engine list.
Mozilla acts pretty scary nowadays - maybe naively - I am pinning my hopes on Ladybird.
I mean they get a bajilliontrillion dollars from google every year to set it as the default search engine, so idk why people here are surprised at all. But yes, firefox needs a hard fork by some organization with more neutral funding.
Firefox on Ubuntu's repository is now managed fully by Mozilla, while in the past it wasn't. Mozilla has had a deal with Google for years to be the default search engine that has massively helped them stay alive as a company.
You are simply now getting an official build instead of a modified one, and official builds don't let you remove Google from the main interface due to this contract.
Had the same problem but the search engine wasn't only switched, startpage was completely removed.
I hope, this was an exception. Glad to see an already opened issue
Yes, Starpage I use sometimes has also been removed among other search engine. I did not mention this in the post. It really must be a mistake.
Just change it.
Defaults are extremely important, we can't babysit every app update in the devices of a tech illiterate person we help or simply suggested Firefox to
Exactly!
True but wouldn't also literacy be about knowing what defaults are and how to change them?
Helping others is nice but if it's babysitting rather than raising them up, then they can't in turn help others.
Glad to see this. A bit ago I saw I was searching with Google and was surprised
Huh, mine was changed too.
If that was changed what else was changed that went unnoticed
yeah i was a little grossed out last night when i saw that. so fuck em. iron fox?
switched from iron fox to fennec recently because it became painfully slow to load webpages
I have always used Mullvad Leta as my search engine,
always? Isn't mullvad leta online for ± 2 years?
Seriously, man?! So much relevant question to be addressed and you will pay attention to it? hahahaha. But let's go! I do not speak English, so I use translator. If the translator has chosen "Always" and is not suitable, it is not my fault. I mentioned that "Always Used" to use Mullvad Leta since the beginning of its recent operating period and everyone knows. Explained? So let's go to what matters, privacy!
😁
Only a few months really
I know Google is bad and all, but in the case of Fennec, is it really that big of a deal? I say that because someone who knows how to get Fennec on their phones will also be aware on what search engine they use, so it's not like the maintainer is advertising Google or anything IMO
🔄 Repost of the comment of our community partner @pipes@sh.itjust.works on this post ⬇️
"Defaults are extremely important, we can't babysit every app update in the devices of a tech illiterate person we help or simply suggested Firefox to"
Note: Standards are also important to show whether developers and organizations are actually privacy in their products and services. It is not a matter of having knowledge to modify your taste. But as it seems that it was simply a problem in updating Fennec, everything is ok. They must correct soon.
It's a fair take, but even still, someone who goes out of their way to get to fdroid and install Fennec should very well be aware of alternatives to Google.
An argument that discards knowledge as a factor only makes sense to me in a context of a tech illiterate installing Firefox directly from the Play Store.
Also, from my own knowledge (correct me if I'm wrong) the point of Fennec is to be as FOSS as possible, and not to have all the provacy-oriented defaults, if that were the case, I presume it would come with uBlock preinstalled, for example.
It's also worth mentioning that Fennec never changes what defaults you set with updates (at least in my personal experience, would like to hear if anyone had a different story) EDIT my own default settings was changed to Google later that day. So can't argue on that 😂