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Address bars already forced users urls into search engines and now mozilla wants in on the action with a new update.
Some people are mentioning that it's not that bad and they are catching up with other search engine stealing privacy through
web browsers while others disagree.

We also have complaints about the settings being misleading.
I'm sure Firefox developers read Hacker News, so I'm going to talk here.
I have "Provide Search Suggestions" disabled. All 3 of the options underneath them are disabled, because search suggestions are disabled. This makes sense.

THEN, I click "change settings for other address bar suggestions" and in *THERE* everything is in there, INCLUDING "Contextual suggestions".

What do you think the first disabling of suggestions meant? You're searching without my consent. If I would have consented, it would have been in that first check box. What are you guys doing? What happened to the Firefox I trust and choose over Google to avoid the monoculture?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28804588
Any suggestions for alternatives, if you don't mind me asking?
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_Auster_: Any suggestions for alternatives, if you don't mind me asking?
Search about Brave Browser, see if it fulfill your needs.
There's also a Linux version.

It's based on Chrome, though. You can deactivate browser ads completely and also use no-script, ClearURLs, etc.
Post edited October 12, 2021 by .Keys
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_Auster_: Any suggestions for alternatives, if you don't mind me asking?
https://brave.com/
https://www.palemoon.org/
https://www.waterfox.net/
About Waterfox, I was reading their privacy policy and this bothers me:

What do we mean by "personal information?"

For us, "personal information" means information which identifies you, like your name or email address.

Any information that falls outside of this is "non-personal information."

If we store your personal information with information that is non-personal, we will consider the combination as personal information. If we remove all personal information from a set of data then the remaining is non-personal information.
For example, none of my messages in the past 20 minutes included anything that could directly identify me, aka "non-personal information", but they give a pretty clear idea to sponsors about what I could be consuming. Since they only mention about "non-personal information" in that part of their privacy policy, what do they do with what they deem "non-personal information"? Could they create a cross reference sheet with everything "non-personal" they might be logging from me to make a "profile" about me?

Not saying the browser is bad, but they give themselves a pretty big loophole to work with.
Post edited October 13, 2021 by _Auster_
From the article:

Update, 10/12/21 11:49 am Eastern: As of Firefox 93’s release, Mozilla’s documentation stated that Firefox would be sending queries to Mozilla’s servers when Firefox Suggest’s contextual suggestions were enabled, as explained below. However, it appears that Mozilla did not properly explain how this feature worked.

Mozilla has since posted an update explaining that keystrokes (in other words, queries sent as you type) will not be sent to Mozilla with the default settings and that these “smarter suggestions” are instead an opt-in experience.

In other words, with Firefox 93’s default settings, Firefox will show you suggestions and ads
--but it will source them from a local offline database in Firefox itself rather than sending your queries to Mozilla’s servers.
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§pec†re: THEN, I click "change settings for other address bar suggestions" and in *THERE* everything is in there, INCLUDING "Contextual suggestions".

What do you think the first disabling of suggestions meant?
I don't have any "Contextual suggestions" option anywhere.
The Search category of the preferences has settings for search suggestions, i.e. what your default search engine suggests when you type into the address bar.
The Privacy & Security section has settings for what Firefox suggests out of your bookmarks, history, and so on. (In that section, unchecking "Search engines" simply means Firefox won't suggest the "Search with <search engine name>" entry when you type into the address bar).

Edit: Good grief, this forum software is in desperate need of an update. Two links on the same line or a single non-Latin character is enough to mangle an entire post.
Attachments:
search.png (40 Kb)
privacy.png (17 Kb)
Post edited October 13, 2021 by Ice_Mage
When everyone else uses Chrome or Safari it leaves Firefox with too small a user base and income but the expenses are still the same. What Firefox needs, aside from more users, is a rich donor who stipulates no $2M/year (maybe too little?) from me unless you remove the underhanded methods of bringing in money.
https://digdeeper.neocities.org/ghost/browsers.html
I use and recommend ungoogled
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_Auster_: Any suggestions for alternatives, if you don't mind me asking?
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Pouyou-pouyou: https://www.palemoon.org/
yup. though will still need firefox or something else for sites that specifically block it from working properly (wankers!).
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Ice_Mage: Mozilla has since posted an update [..]
I don't have any "Contextual suggestions" option anywhere. [..]
Thank you, that was helpful.
Btw I don't have the extra option too.
Did you add the DisableTelemetry or DisableFirefoxStudies policies too, by chance?
Post edited October 13, 2021 by phaolo
I also vouch for Brave. Great browser, but it blocks video site DRM by default, and some sites logins don't work for it so keep Chrome or something for those occasions.
I've been using Firefox since like forever. There have been many changes, some a little controversy but for me, the last straw was forcing auto-updates. Not realy the very last since I still use Firefox but is stuck on a older version and when some weirdo website states my browser is too old to be supported, just switch UserAgent to Safari and every thing works.

My second browser have been Palemoon for quite a while but the add-block is not very powerfull and up to date and some websites seem a little too slow to open, like youtube.

Opera was a fine way to use a free VPN with on/off button but is way too intrusive.

Now my main browser have been Vivaldi, can't believe how good and configurable it is. Is fast, smooth and the only problem so far is some PDF's don't download properly, maybe some incorrect configuration. Also available on Linux.
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Ice_Mage: Mozilla has since posted an update explaining that keystrokes (in other words, queries sent as you type) will not be sent to Mozilla with the default settings and that these “smarter suggestions” are instead an opt-in experience.
As most things Mozilla, once the option is there, it's a matter of time to be the default settings, like studies, telemetry and forced auto updates.
Post edited October 13, 2021 by Dark_art_
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_Auster_: Any suggestions for alternatives, if you don't mind me asking?
Tor browser, if you want a Firefox-based solution, designed for a privacy protection.

Vivaldi, if you are looking for a privacy-respecting browser with highly-customizable settings.

I have been using both of them myself for years.)
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tyl0413: https://digdeeper.neocities.org/ghost/browsers.html
I use and recommend ungoogled
Really good documentation. Thanks for sharing.
Also, since I did recommend Brave, I gotta say this is true:

"but is actively working against your privacy by whitelisting Facebook and Twitter trackers."

There was a situation recently in the community because people found out that they white-listed Facebook in the source for a function inside the browser related to logins, unfortunately. But you can deactivate that. Also, as the site says, you can use chrome extensions for more privacy and don't use Brave tools at all. (No-Script, ClearURLs, etc)

Can't say nothing about the donation problem though, because I don't use their custom ads criptocurrency-based payment system.
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Ice_Mage: I don't have any "Contextual suggestions" option anywhere.
The Search category of the preferences has settings for search suggestions, i.e. what your default search engine suggests when you type into the address bar.
The Privacy & Security section has settings for what Firefox suggests out of your bookmarks, history, and so on. (In that section, unchecking "Search engines" simply means Firefox won't suggest the "Search with <search engine name>" entry when you type into the address bar).

Edit: Good grief, this forum software is in desperate need of an update. Two links on the same line or a single non-Latin character is enough to mangle an entire post.
You should also dig into about:config input suggest and set the settings to false. For instance: browser.urlbar.suggest.quicksuggest.sponsored
browser.urlbar.suggest.topsites
etc.

I attached a screenshot with my settings.
Attachments:
suggest.jpg (276 Kb)
Post edited October 13, 2021 by Mori_Yuki