Ariel Millennium Thornton @arielmt@computerfairi.es

@mcc @leo You’re welcome.
Sponsored and nonsponsored suggestions can be disabled in about:config.

browser.urlbar.quicksuggest.sponsored
browser.urlbar.quicksuggest.nonsponsored

If those are set to true, then double-click to change to false.

Also, I changed this to false:

browser.preferences.experimental

I didn’t check the code so I’m not sure if it was removed or disabled, but Firefox Labs, including the AI chatbot junk, is gone now.

Two additional, minor notes:

- Firefox appears to have some problems with preferences occasionally resetting to defaults. I've spoken to two people who encountered this (and I believe one is maus I linked above). I am going to assume this is a regular bug and not an anti-privacy policy decision.

- If you are outside the USA, and want to preemptively disable address bar "sponsored suggestions" in case they're ever turned on in your area, instructions are here https://mas.to/@FizzyDaisies/113099538496041942

Goddamn she was absolutely fucking right when she wrote this, and people keep demonstrating JUST how right she was

Really impressed with how good Infinite Mac is these days. Being able to just drag an ISO onto my browser desktop and have it be mounted in a way that just works is really, really impressive. https://infinitemac.org

Seriously though: I want (okay, demand) a version of Firefox with the "AI chatbot" functionality removed. Not disabled. Removed. I want all code which is specifically designed to connect to OpenAI removed from my computer completely. I do not care if the vampires have promised not to suck my blood. I do not want the vampires in my house in the first place. https://mk.nyaa.place/notes/9xvolkux40ok0n1m

Universal Cereal Bus

I say this not to say that Google Chrome is better than Firefox but to say that something is *deeply sick* at Mozilla and that Mozilla is failing us at a deeply critical moment¹.

¹ That is, Google this year simultaneously trying to one, add ad-blocker-blockers to YouTube; and two, demanding the right via Manifest v3 to pre-approve every single adblock rule uBlock Origin wants to add. It's not very subtle that they're intending to use the second thing to enable the first.

I really need to stress that at this point, Firefox is much more aggressively and maliciously adware than Google Chrome, and this is *even given* that Google Chrome is trying to prevent you from being able to run an effective adblocker. Google Chrome and Firefox will both send information about your browsing to advertisers via a backchannel, but Chrome will warn you first. Chrome has features that drive you toward sites with ads but does not have ads *in the address bar*
https://mastodon.social/@onelson/113098330602369680

“We created a self-opening fridge with an AI camera that tracks what you put in and take out.”

Please for the love of any and all deities I am PROSTRATE on the floor begging you for fair energy prices and accessible public transport I do not need a fridge incorrectly guessing what is in my 17 Tupperware containers and refusing to open because I haven’t paid my monthly £24.99 subscription of “Fridge Door Lock Plus”

This makes me feel a lot less hardcore about my blank charcoal keycaps. https://hackaday.com/2024/02/14/inputs-of-interest-the-svalboard-could-be-your-salvation/

What the actual fuck The Verge?! You have over 500 partners who need access to my "essential" cookies?

I mean, thanks for showing me the numbers on how insane data sharing is, but really? And those are the ones I can't opt out of?

Do they count like every employee as a partner, or is my data really being shared with hundreds of other businesses?

#Cookies #Data #DataPrivacy #DataBrokers #OptOut

@catsalad a healthy furry population keeps pray animals in check.

@darkrat