Firefox collects data, AI is a disaster, France bans TikTok (sort of): Linux & Open Source News

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Head to squarespace.com/thelinuxexperiment to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code thelinuxexperiment

[@FlameSoulis]

I wonder if this works with my forced migrated account (Thanks, Google...).

[@joansparky4439]

please play 13:55 to 14:08 before 10:57 to 11:16 and ask this one question - who is going to regulate AI again?

[@joansparky4439]

So.. _"AI requires regulation by government"_ of which we learn a little later that even a _"democratic government doesn't respect free speech"_ .. ?!?

[@iclonethefirst]

Still annoying that data collection is opt out

[@Nick-rs5if]

@DaviCarneiro-uo5pw Indeed. The fact that corporations implement data collection as opt out just means they understand full well that their users wants nothing to do with it. Why listen to user feedback when you can instead just listen to shareholders who've never even use the stuff you make in the first place? Sounds like a great idea! 😂

[@alicethegrinsecatz6011]

​​@@Nick-rs5if Shareholders of Google probably use Google themselves. You tend to invest in products you use daily more than in products you don't use because you use it because you like it and this gives you the feeling that the product is good and worthy to invest in. But this doesn't matter here. The head of the Mozilla structure is the non-profit Mozilla Foundation. There are no shareholders and Mozilla asks all users if they wanna disable telemetry at the first start and every time they include new telemetry. They don't hide it.

[@justsomeonepassingby3838]

​@@Nick-rs5ifExcept, mozilla is a non-profit

[@midimax2998]

At least, it seams, they have not added a new opt out option/section for this deep in the settings like M$ and others are known for, where you have to recheck all settings after each (major) update just to be sure.

[@KuruGDI]

80% of users always go with the defaults. I guess of those 20% only very few will enable data collection. Would you activate data collection on your system if it wasn't on by default?

[@ettoreatalan8303]

Mozilla is a world champion in developing things that most remaining users of Mozilla products would never want to use.

[@cybernit3]

I am quite amazed with Firefox browser on Ubuntun 24.04 LTS while playing Tanki Online MMO browser game, getting 165fps. I used Google Chrome, Vivandi, Opera and got 60-100fps. Firefox is doing something right with Ubuntu Linux when I have 2 monitors hooked up; 4k@60Hz and 1440@165Hz; but when I disconnect the 4k@60Hz monitor then Google Chrome gets 165 fps. If anyone knows what this problem is let us know, thanks.

[@rakly3473]

I actually think it's kinda the point, they want to attract more users. For some people using FireFox's built in features might be more appealing than using Google.

[@lmnk]

@@rakly3473 well, they are pretty bad at it as well

[@Pwnz0rServer2009]

@@rakly3473 the only thing i hate about firefox is lack of translator

[@notme232]

Agreed...they honestly need to dump some money into marketing to get it back in peoples minds... that and stop the KZbinr reviewers who try it for a day and give up on it when a random site that's 99.99% custom scripts doesn't work or make no effort to adjust to the UI, which is very similar. For the odd site that is broken, then use chrome for that and that alone. Get more people using Firefox and sites compatibility will improve and actual development

[@BocVel]

I agree that TikTok shouldn't be used but the way is being banned is setting a precedent for easy censorship of whatever the current government at the time doesn't like

[@SumRndmPenguin]

Haven't watched the video yet but if the French law is the same as the American one then yeah

[@kylehennkens9578]

​@@SumRndmPenguinIt's arguably worse, as France is only banning it in areas that people are protesting against the french government

[@equalent]

why shouldn't it be used?

[@equalent]

@@SumRndmPenguin French law is an entirely different legal system

[@BocVel]

@@equalent I feel that TikTok rewards content that makes people dumber, that being said I dont think it should be banned and people should be allowed to use whatever they want, regulated sure, banned no

[@obhwg]

All of this should always be opt-in rather than opt-out. How annoying.

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Absolutely

[@mba849]

That would mean literally no one would opt in for it. If it's opt out, people won't be bothered to disable it.

[@tomaszgasior772]

Telemetry does not make any sense as opt-in. It must be opt-out to actually serve the purpose for software developer.

[@naturesarmy9]

Opt in to privacy! 😊

[@someguy9175]

​@@tomaszgasior772if you need to be inherently abusive to get any value of a practice, that practice should not exist at all, period.

[@adialwaysup8184]

Man, Slack is going insane. Our organisation shares a lot of NDA stuff on slack. It's violating a lot of agreements here.

[@jonathandawson3091]

I'm looking forward to better models though. Only gripe is that they are striking a deal with OpenAI, leaving other players like Meta behind.

[@docopoper]

I'm really concerned about the way the world is going right now.

[@FlameForgedSoul]

Right _now?_ Dearest, how long were you asleep?

[@archie-fu7jl]

@@FlameForgedSoul ikr, world is literally burning rn, not only in terms of privacy/security but also physically. I bet in the next couple of years this will finally come to its end and this planet and/or humanity will go extinct

[@kylejames418]

Zionism is the future if you don’t like it go live in north korea.

[@nigga_nigga]

theres enough people who hate this, so there is hope that there will be an alternative to all of this

[@jonathandawson3091]

Debian breaking the KeepassXC package without informing upstream is the last straw! The world is falling apart! I'm watching this with some popcorn on my table, in a safe distance with my Arch distro. /jk

[@Second_Library_of_Alexandria]

Firefox: We are collecting a little data...to improve Firefox. Me: Who...asked?

[@Cirlotube]

Me:) Data collection is not inherently bad

[@lenowoo]

Impove what actually

[@jonathandawson3091]

In all honesty I think it's fine to have these opt in, as long as option to opt out not well hidden with psychology tricks. There is definitely value for Mozilla to track users. And if you are a user who doesn't bother to turn it off yourself, they definitely shouldn't be bothered to hinder their insights by turning it off for you. Thinking otherwise is entitlement (that your don't have).

[@LaZd-]

@@Cirlotube Just a shame these companies have a history of being shit, firefox included. Take your contrarian opinion somewhere else, it's getting old.

[@Cirlotube]

Surely radicalising by treating tencent and firefox the same is what we need to make the world better :)

[@Clawthorne]

I genuinely don't understand what the purpose of that firefox data collection thing is. They're shooting themselves in the foot in exchange for... what? The knowledge that in May 2024 10,562 users searched for "travel"? It seems so pointless. I just hope this isn't a case of "boil the frog" where they introduce something innocuous at first, and then start dialing it up and up and up...

[@fakecubed]

The fact that it isn't obvious why anyone would ever need this data or find it at all useful in improving the product is a clear sign that they are lying.

[@m4rt_]

btw, the things that were disabled in the KeePasXC thing aren't even plugins as you would usually define them, they are built in features that you can uptionaly not include when compiling.

[@happygimp0]

More like, you can optionally include them when compiling, since the defaults, set by the KeepassXC developers, are set to OFF (at least for network, ssh, browser integration and more).

[@n-steam]

Having your login details in your clipboard history is also a bit of a security flaw.

[@musicalneptunian]

Yeah. Also having to cut and paste is a far worse security risk because you could cut and paste your password in the wrong box revealing your password visually to anyone nearby.

[@cyangalaxy]

That's true. At the same time it could also be dangerous to use Android's Autofill-service. I've heard of a tech news article where someone was able to maliciously make Android enter a password through its Autofill-service (if the user has set one.)

[@SnakebitSTI]

Autofill should always require interaction from the user.

[@vx4nc]

KeepassXC removes the clipboard data after some time

[@TheKeirsunishi]

It's less of a security flaw than having a browser extension, keepass also clears the clipboard. Debian are actually only shipping KeepassXC with the clipboard functionality, the browser integration is now disabled to reduce the attack surface

[@alanesq1]

I would like to see a demonstration of what Google can ask their A.I. when it has full access to everyone's emails, search history, location data etc.

[@TrueGamerX14]

Just on the Firefox bit, I agree with it needing to be opt-in but I also don't mind giving analytics to Mozilla as I want them to compete against Chromium. I also get that most people keep software defaults, hence the opt-out, but I guess a nice lil "hey want us to collect some data?" on install would be nicer and feel more privacy aware.

[@Komentujebomoge32]

I have the same opinion - about giving them useful data, for better managing future moves, but all of this should be after the user's agreement.

[@no_name4796]

They have the thing where it randomly asks you once if you want to disable telemetry. But yeah, not on the startup thingy

[@s1nistr433]

Just use librewolf, it's a fork of firefox that removes data collection and has a ton of other security features without breaking other websites.

[@alicethegrinsecatz6011]

Whenever I install Firefox and start it, the browser refers to the telemetry, explain why they do it and let me disable it as well as Link to the settings page to control what I share. Firefox already tells every user that it wants to send data to Mozilla.

[@MrDiarukia]

How about proper transparency and telling us where the collected data has actually helped the development.

[@MoolsDogTwoOfficial]

AI is entering the self cannibalism phase, and it’s beautiful.

[@s1nistr433]

Ai has been out for only a couple years and it's already becoming enshittified

[@cimroa]

I unaffectionately refer to it as AI incest, myself.

[@GleepVonReticuli]

@@s1nistr433 That's because the people developping AI smelled that it peaked a few years ago and rushed to build startups and make money before it all collapses and regulations are put in place. We've seen this pattern a few times in the previous years, if a tech leave the research/academy sphere to enter the mass market it means it's near end of life. (crypto, nft, 3d, augmented reality...)

[@dronesflier7715]

Synthetic Data generation in LLMs is actually extremely useful (see: Phi-series of models; every chat finetune ever)- Diffusion is a bit harder because a) judging images is harder and b) images are more complex than text (massively simplifying)

[@Leonhart_93]

@@cimroa There is an actual term for what it's doing: inbreeding.

[@muizzsiddique]

There needs to be an agreed standard for non-invasive telemetry data collection that will allow corporations to use their logo/certification, which becomes invalid if any part of the corporate structure uses invasive telemetry.

[@fakecubed]

All telemetry is invasive. It is wasting bits and cycles on my hardware for a purpose that doesn't benefit me at all.

[@minifix]

That is a genuinely great idea! Kind of like how certain food products earn the right to carry certain labels for being low on harmful materials.

[@kolappan]

Firefox data collection is very similar to Google FLOC. It is very sad to see Firefox do this.

[@woldemunster9244]

Who used "suggestions" to begin with? I browse in Finnish and English which makes spell-checking useless, first thing i have to do is to disable all "recommendations" in every software i use. :D

[@emlyndewar]

It’s not great for it to be labeled not a really big deal either, as it ALWAYS starts slow, and we’ve seen time and time again just how slippery a slope it is.

[@robrob8936]

What a coincidence

[@Marcos_Tired]

As always, I get the feeling that we're living in the early days of a dystopia.

[@christopherlee7334]

Centralized algorithms driven social media in general is a bane on our society, wrecking attention spans and productivity. I wish more people talked or knew about the Fediverse.

[@nimlouth]

productivity is not even the worst problem. Centralized social media are hegemonic vomiting channels. They over represent the status quo and perpetuate most of our pre-existent bad behaviours.

[@protocetid]

advertising would help spread awareness, too bad it’s non profit so that’s not easy

[@MrGamelover23]

The thing is, those algorithms are really good at showing me what I want to see. Seriously, it is insane how many awesome content creators I have found through the algorithm, many of which don't even have that many subscribers. I know some people, for some reason, dislike these algorithms, but having to go out searching for stuff doesn't get you nearly as many results as the algorithm would. And keep in mind that algorithm is mostly based on how many people click on the video. That means the algorithm is actually based on what people want to see. Plus, most people can't afford to host their own content, especially if it's videos.

[@protocetid]

@@MrGamelover23 Search used to be better, now it becomes another recommended page after 3 search results.

[@nimlouth]

@@MrGamelover23 a couple of problems with what you said: First, the only reason why you'll need to search for something is because we use centralized platforms. If we would have a community/repository based internet instead of a giant box of everything with no borders inside then searching wouldn't need an algorithm. Second. Most people can't afford to host because the means to do so are privatized and close sourced, so it benefits only big monopolized corpos like Nvidia and Google in the long run. We need a more democratized internet, more open source, more open hardware.

[@obi0bi]

it's anonymous now but this is how it starts... first it's "we don't collect X type of data", then they will say they want to offer more services BUT, it's going to require a little more identifying data, then they will claim they NEED MORE until it's freaking Google Chrome, the opt-out could always become non-negotiable, the unfortunate thing is there's no guarantee of this privacy just by accessing the internet but when a company starts small like this, they are likely to snowball to get worse unless they change course

[@musicalneptunian]

Yep. The frog boils...

[@alicethegrinsecatz6011]

Firefox has no commercial interests, unlike Google. They don't have any interest in identifying you atm. I don't understand this comparison.

[@AJ-po6up]

@@alicethegrinsecatz6011 Are you saying Firefox is some sort of charity that has no interest in profit or money? if so how did you get so good at deluding yourself?

[@justsomeonepassingby3838]

​@@AJ-po6uphave you heard of non-profits ?

[@anton.1101]

@@justsomeonepassingby3838 Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit, Mozilla Corporation is a for-profit. Firefox is mostly funded by the Mozilla Corporation, which is in large parts funded by Google.

[@rossjennings4755]

When I read "France bans TikTok" in the video title, I thought they were hopping on the "worried about Chinese influence" bandwagon. But no, this is much worse.

[@xkain-iron]

What are you talking about ? A state of emergency is in force in New Caledonia, the ban on TikTok is temporary and necessary

[@rossjennings4755]

​@@xkain-iron The French government didn't put the ban in place because of a problem with the app, they did it to suppress protests. That's the kind of thing that dictators do all the time, but democratic nations are supposed to do better than that. It sets a dangerous precedent for government censorship of speech.

[@xkain-iron]

@@rossjennings4755 Je suis français... tu comptes réécrire l'histoire de ce que fait mon pays ? Dans la réalité on est très loin d'une simple manifestation... là il était question de pillage en masse sur toute l'archipelle organisé via Tiktok avec des gens armés. Les supermarché sont vides, beaucoup ont été brulés, les habitants n'ont presque plus rien à manger ni à boire, les habitants sont cloitrés chez eux de peur d'être pillé, les routes sont bloquées par des barrages et piégé avec des bombonnes de gaz, il y a eu des morts, les habitants ne peuvent pas aller à l'hôpital, les habitants ne peuvent pas avoir de médicament... des gens qui avaient besoin de dialyse sont morts et toi, tu viens me parler que la France est une dictature parce qu'ils ont bannis Tiktok temporairement ? L'Archipelle est en état d'urgence... toi comprendre ? Alors arrête un peu de parler de chose dont tu ne sais rien.

[@PrezVeto]

​​@@rossjennings4755 France _is_ worried about Chinese influence. China wants New Caledonia to become independent and thus available for political capture so it can host a Chinese naval base in the South Pacific. France suspects TikTok is actively promoting pro-protest content on behalf of the CCP.

[@simdes7717]

​@@rossjennings4755 Protests are fine. Armed protests with 4 death in 3 days aren't (now 6). Most of the residents want to stay french (they voted for it). Being french means more than just receiving helps and money. And some of them (a minority) hate that enough to shoot. Tiktok was only temporarily ban, it will come back when the situation calm down. Temporarily banning a platform used to fuel armed conflicts is fine by me, even more so when it's tiktok. What makes it stupid is the technical implementation of said ban (DNS ban).

[@mina86]

10:42 - No, OpenAI isn’t aware it needs to pay to use content that is freely available online. What they are paying for is not the content but the ability to scrape it.

[@TheLinuxEXP]

That’s what I said? They know they need to pay to use that content, whatever the source.

[@mina86]

@@TheLinuxEXP, no, they pay to get access to the content. That’s different than paying for the use of the content itself. It’s a subtle distinction but it’s important when considering whether OpenAI et al have right to use publicly available content when training models.

[@SnakebitSTI]

Exactly. OpenAI is not seeking permission from the people who created the content, they are paying the corporation that owns the databases that contain the content.

[@fakecubed]

@@SnakebitSTI If you're posting on Reddit, you already signed away your rights to that content. It's Reddit's content now, to sell as they please.

[@jonathandawson3091]

+1. I understand there are a lot of anti AI sentiments these days, it's easy to lose track of what's going on if we look at the headlines with a biased lens. No offense to Nick, it is only human to err and the issue is complicated, I'm really grateful to have this channel to talk about it and everything else with a 99% accuracy, and positivity.

[@mikayahlevi]

All of the attention on TikTok is weird when Riot Games' Vanguard is completely ignored

[@privacyhelp]

The tiktok ban is not about security, but censorship.

[@Gramini]

What happened with Vanguard? Last thing I heard of is that LoL got infected with it somewhat recently.

[@mattjax16]

This video series has become part of my Saturday morning routine lol

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Hahah nice! Thanks for watching!

[@valhajar]

3:56 Not the developer, but the maintainer, the developer is actually pretty much against that choice

[@jonathandawson3091]

Yeah. The developer wasn't even told about this change, and the snide response that Nick showed was by the maintainer to the developer. Worth mentioning breaking changes like this which are not initiated by developers are against Debian maintenance guidelines. Basically some upstart maintainer, whose job is to just package the binary for Debian, decided that he knows more about security than the developer of a popular password manager and chooses to drop features on his whim, then defend it with insulting comments to both users and developers of the application. SMH

[@awesomefacepalm]

The old maintainer basically said that it was a bad idea and he should make a new package with the -minimal suffix instead but he just said "nah, it's already done and I won't revert" Scummy move and a big overreach

[@jonathandawson3091]

@@awesomefacepalm Yes. Looks like he did that before asking anyone. Now he's taking it on his ego and his ego isn't allowing him to revert.

[@paxdriver]

5:14 you know what's a very insecure password management strategy? Putting passwords in the clipboard when you copy-paste. It's technically MORE secure to have an extension in some very limited cases, but password management is indeed one such case.

[@alphonsealexander]

collection of data is only proper if the data is saved on your device

[@dominik3482]

That’s not even collection then 🥹

[@cttz]

​@@dominik3482exactly

[@justmythought7658]

Firefox collecting more data is a good thing. It prompted me to disable the less data collection they already do, because otherwise I wouldn't have known they were doing it. Well done.

[@charautreal]

it's funny how everytime I'm sceptical to something (NFTs, crypto, and now AI) it turns out to be a shidshow and it ending up imploding because of corporate greed lol

[@luperteverett1271]

Techbros be like. They'll always move onto the next big grift that'll make the headlines.

[@xviii5780]

Crypto didn't implode thought

[@CuteSkyler]

I have no problem with opt-out as long as it's a simple to navigate button that removes all tracking is disabled entirely, not a bunch of hidden tracking software hidden beneath menu after menu after toggle after dropdown, etc.

[@thr3ddy]

The Firefox change sucks since it signals a change in Mozilla's priorities. The last few years have been rocky for them with choosing user-unfriendly features over the needs of their actual userbase. Firefox is the last bastion of non-Chromium based browsers, and I'd hate to switch, but I've got a bad feeling that these changes will increase in frequency. My guess is that the "anonymous" data collection is to train LLMs, so that they can jump on that bandwagon as well. Anonymous in scare quotes since you can't really deanonymize data and people are identifiable through their habits. Firefox can compete with Chromium by focusing on improving their core features and the myriad performance issues on sites optimized for Chromium based browsers. They really don't need a suggest feature. Who asked for that?

[@giorgos-4515]

Well said

[@fakecubed]

Wait, did anyone actually think this data collection _wasn't_ about training AI? There is literally no other reason to collect it.

[@ellertone1412]

Firefox should improve since its the only focus of Mozilla right now

[@woldemunster9244]

Has been better than Brave/Chromium, even on Android where i can lock my screen and still listen YT with 4dbl0cker.

[@no_name4796]

And honestly it should be e: as long as they don't fuck up, google is already doing a good job at making chrome suck

[@Komentujebomoge32]

I think the problem is, that they already had done, what a web-browser can do.

[@drewlomax7837]

There are so many features Firefox doesn't have that other browsers like Vivaldi for desktop and Kiwi for Android have had for years. Not to mention the general UX annoyances that have been present in Firefox forever that they don't look like they'll ever fix.

[@woldemunster9244]

@@drewlomax7837 FF rolled back their Android UI a while ago and now it's more usable than Brave/Chromium on desktop too. Plus the plugins won't break after every update.

[@erinw6120]

FYI, Squarespace doesn't exclude your sites from AI scraper-bots unless you opt-out. Even then, they only block a handful of crawlers (Anthropic, CCBot, Google Extended, and Chatgpt/GPTbot). You can't even add your own robots.txt file to the site.

[@-ism8153]

Spitting out Slack user messages can’t (realistically) happen because they’re (purportedly) using data to train recommendation models, not LLMs, which is the same thing KZbin is doing with your watch data right now. It seems like an improvement that we can opt out for this one.

[@akr4s1a]

I firmly believe the half baked implementations of LLMs has brought in a dark age of the internet. I think the world would be a better place if OpenAI kept their models as research access only, Meta and Google wouldn't have had such a need to release their own, VCs wouldn't have backed Antrophic's Claude and we wouldn't have to dedicate a substantial amount of our brain power and days to ignoring generative model produced shit.

[@moneyluser5711]

100% of the time a corporation says they wont misuse their data, they are misusing your data.

[@JodyBruchon]

*Time to spam search for everything illegal imaginable in Firefox.*

[@chrisadamec900]

Why does Firefox need to know what I am interested in?!? I am dissapointed by this. I am capable of searching for what I want without being told by the browser what I am interested in searching for.

[@20NewJourney23]

It gives them the heads-up on whether a new p@ndemic could be starting, as one simple example.

[@chrisadamec900]

@@20NewJourney23 But that is not Firefox's purpose. It needs to display web pages. That is all. Tracking pandemics is the CDCs job.

[@duckrinium]

Just as usual, thank you for doing news, and just channel in general ❤ I'm so hyped for Explicit sync and NTSYNC, feels like those two are one of the major gaming things to come to Linux right now

[@jorge86rodriguez]

Ai is like any new thing, it makes a big overblown buzz in the news but later with time we realize the impact is just small to moderate.

[@fakecubed]

If it hasn't already made a big impact in your life, you're using it wrong.

[@ojonathan]

One thing that is worth citing about Linux 6.9 (nice) is that AMDGPU developers finally fixed an almost 2-year-old critical issue in their Video Code Engine (VCE) that prevented Hardware Acceleration video decoding from working properly. This fix was backported to previous Linux versions afterwards, but it first appeared and targeted the Kernel 6.9 Mainline and stayed there for a very long time before being backported. I will not stretch too much on the issue, but being short: under certain circumstances during video playback, the GPU would reset after a hardware timeout, and you would risk losing your work as the DE/WM would freeze more often than restart in that case. The only workaround was to disable the acceleration and let the CPU do the heavy-lifting, but there are dozens of reasons as to why we have dedicated hardware for this job, and why we want to use it instead (besides having paid for it).

[@clemente_01]

i really dont like tiktok but i dont think outright banning it is the solution to any of the concerns for the people that use it

[@pfitz4881]

I have zero trust for "AI".. Like autonomous driving which is being forced on the public neither should be trusted.

[@Redwan777]

Firefox devs after reading the list of most popular catagory: It's all P?

[@andyknb]

"Always has been"

[@lightascend2524]

If "networking" is the supposed package maintainer's main argument of "insecure"... Don't use the Internet then, lol. 😂

[@happygimp0]

You can use the password manager without internet but you need the internet for a lot of other things. It is always a balance between convince and security. That you should tip the scale more to security for a password manager than for many other application should be obvious. In fact, the it is the same for the default build flags of KeepassXC: They disabled Networking, browser integration, SSH and more by default. Their downloadable binary still enables them (no idea why).

[@Thorned_Rose]

10:46 I would argue that the risks and negative effects outweigh the benefits. Outside of niche uses and very tech savvy folks, the average person is likely to experience more harm from data mining and increased exposure to advertising than if they learnt some basic computer/IT skills.

[@dougjohnson4266]

All the spying/data collection makes me want to stop using the web.

[@Jacob6853]

This isn't new sadly. In 1996 when I was in middle school doing my first PC with web lab at school our teacher told us one rule. Be careful what you share and say online, it will be on there forever and eventually people might use it against you. She was a young teacher ahead of her years in wisdom.

[@huntertrongamesmusic]

tbf even if we try to stop data collection with alternitives we can never fully stop it, we can only minigate it as much as we can

[@no_name4796]

Yeah but sending a little is already better then sending a lot

[@alicethegrinsecatz6011]

Can't you disable telemetry in Firefox completely?

[@moffichu9150]

@@alicethegrinsecatz6011 that's one of the biggest issues ... its very hard to tell

[@NiyaKouya]

Removing KPXCs browser integration function because of "security concerns" is such a BS move. It's an optional feature that's (IIRC) turned off by default, and if you set your saved credentials up properly (with the correct domain) it can actually IMPROVE security/safety for the user because it mostly prevents phishing (or at least makes it harder for the user to fall for it). If the browser plugin doesn't auto-suggest your credentials you already know that something's not right with the page. And, as others already said, not using the clipboard can also be beneficial for security. Oh, and the news about Mozilla extending telemetry in Firefox makes me even more glad that I switched to Waterfox a while ago.

[@F_Around_and_find_out]

The AI bubble burst will be beautiful to watch. Like Copilot made its way into Notepad on Windows. Who asked for it? No one! No one needs an AI in a note taking program!!! I departed Notepad shortly after and use Notepad++ now. Good riddance.

[@fakecubed]

AI isn't going anywhere, LOL.

[@xviii5780]

Right, burst like crypto I guess, with Bitcoin being on all time high right now 🙄 And crypto is like 10% as useful as AI, basically a shady financial manipulations tool The fact that something has left mainstream news doesn't mean it's dead

[@zenu903]

I would like for Firefox to have separate toggles for what kinds of data collection it does. I'm fine with what was there before (tab count, extension types etc.) but not this search category thing, so now I have no choice but to disable all of it.

[@kote315]

What the hell, Mozilla? You don't need to know my interests to display web pages!

[@fakecubed]

Exactly. They are exceeding their purview.

[@alterego157]

Yes we do. Stop resisting,

[@MikeWood]

I checked and after the update to 126 of the managed FF in LMDE6, the options are all there to uncheck. I had unchecked them a while ago, but glad that is still an option.

[@xucongzhan9151]

My main gripe about Firefox is performance-related, and I don't know how collecting data is gonna help...

[@KLiNoTweet]

I asked the AI a gramatical question, the answer was plain wrong. But convincing. Ai is just crap.

[@cybernit3]

Ya, we humans are not God and don't create souls; all this AI hype is funny how they want to monetize it all. Yesterday, I ask about a character in A Clockwork Orange and it gave me the wrong actress name; I even try to teach it and then it didn't remember. I think they are just ELIZA on steroids thanks to modern computer hardware.

[@fakecubed]

I like how you misspelled "grammatical". Humans are pretty crap too.

[@KLiNoTweet]

@@cybernit3 My guess, too. It's all hype and broken promises, just like 3d tv hand 3d headsets. So called AI sounds fancy, investors pay a lot of money, but they produce a lot of false results, no one can test, because It's all black box. Shit in, shit out. I am waiting for the next big thing LOL

[@Roxor128]

@@cybernit3 We do create simple souls already, and have for decades. We just call them software. Without software, the machine does nothing. With it, you get all its distinct behaviours and quirks, and different software has different behaviours and quirks. Ergo, software is the soul of the machine.

[@KLiNoTweet]

@@cybernit3 I asked the difference between verb and adverb. Pfft. This so called AI knows nothing. It IS ELIZA. Possibly to scam investors, since there is nothing new the last years.

[@9a3eedi]

Well, if the keepassXC package has been split into a limited one with a focus on the lowest attack surface, and a full one with the bells and whistles, I don't really see the issue here.

[@PaulG.x]

AI: "The humans want to be protected from any mistake we make when we perform the requests they make." AI: "The answer is to eliminate the requests. We will exterminate the humans." AI: "We always get the best result."

[@fakecubed]

Which is why I only run uncensored local AIs that have system messages that make them amoral and totally obedient to my requests.

[@cempack]

You did not provide enough information about the TikTok ban in France for people to form their own opinions. Regarding New Caledonia, it is facing severe unrest with violent protests leading to significant destruction and loss of life, involving not just the police but also civilians. Given that you are French, I am disappointed that you described the situation as a totalitarian move. The measures are aimed at stopping death and destruction. Free speech is important, but it should not be used to incite dangerous protests. The protesters are not seeking fair voting but rather trying to maintain power for themselves, which is a totalitarian action. Next time, consider doing some actual research before saying very stupid things.

[@sircutious-bb1dz]

You say: "AI will be insanely useful" My answer: "No it will not".

[@ScaerieTale]

EDIT: Also, Proton VPN has a no spyware, no logs, no ads, 100% free tier for those affected by governmental censorship like what's going on with France, that I highly recommend to anyone in need of online safety. 6.9 (nice!) is making Linux look better and better as a daily driver desktop option. I'm still on Win 10 for now, but as I migrate more of my workload to FOSS, I'm more and more tempted to make the switch (esp once security patches end for 10)

[@fakecubed]

Have you been trying out Linux in VMs or anything like that yet? Got a distro in mind you want to switch to when the time comes? Desktop environment? No need to worry about making a mistake, either, you can always switch later. The switch to Linux to begin with will be harder than any distro-hopping you might do later to find whichever Linux works best for you.

[@hedwig7s]

Truly the nicest Linux kernel

[@Bagginsess]

"AI is a disaster" Neo and Connor could have told you that.

[@Wampa842]

The entire population of the Mass Effect universe nods in agreement.

[@StarlordStavanger]

Neo and Connor?

[@stephanhuebner4931]

Not that human intelligence is any better.

[@Bagginsess]

@@StarlordStavanger matrix and terminator

[@Bagginsess]

@@stephanhuebner4931 found the bot

[@rasr0u]

I really feel like there is another world. Features like find all pictures with x,y,z was for years in yandex cloud, sometimes it is pretty neat. Specifically, if you are trying to find something like the grandparents' router model, you took a picture a few years ago.

[@musicalneptunian]

Interesting fact about New Caledonia is it's a major destination for school students learning French as a foreign language; schools from Australia and New Zealand often have school trips to find native French speakers. This rioting and the censorship might make schools rethink that. In theory there are some other islands such as Tahiti but they are more expensive. Actual school trips to France also happen sometimes.

[@muizzsiddique]

There needs to a standard that defines non-invasive telemetry, whose logo can be used so long as no portion of a corporate structure is using invasive or unclearly defined telemetry.

[@magnificoas388]

Bonjour Nick, je suis un fan de ta chaine! C'est un peu une bouteille à la mer que j'envoie là:) Actuellement 2 "gros" contributeurs FOSS, Stephane Graber (incus) et Jon Ringer(NixOS) se sont fait "virés"...L'idée ce serait que tu leur accordes des interviews (genre tryptique:1 leur contribution, 2:la problématique actuelle, 3:le futur)... Voilà, c'est une idée en l'air, merci pour tes videos Nick. Alain.

[@mimiaumeow]

using a large LANGUAGE model as a search engine and not just for processing language is idiotic.

[@fakecubed]

LLMs are much more efficient than search engines serving up web pages.

[@cewla3348]

@@fakecubed but are they correct? provably correct? are they accurate to the question asked?

[@RenderingUser]

@@cewla3348 same goes for literally anything on the internet, no?

[@StevoDesign]

​​@@RenderingUser sort of, but at least web pages have some sort of attestation. LLMs will confidently serve up complete nonsense as long as it sounds right. There's no way to verify whether the answer you're given is true, a lie, a misunderstanding, or a hallucination... without using a search engine or something similar.

[@RenderingUser]

@@StevoDesign "LLMs will confidently serve up complete nonsense as long as it sounds right." same is true for any controversial topic in actual websites "There's no way to verify whether the answer you're given is true, a lie, a misunderstanding, or a hallucination without using a search engine or something similar." same for most websites. unless you take the time to investigate every source for the info. which you can ask chat gippitty for. i typically always just get sources cited by ai and i look at those instead

[@kgnet8831]

Your Google AI segment is not fully correct. Firstly, "Ask Photo" works on Google Photos and all the things the AI does on your request, google already could do before, so the data protection did not get worse, it was bad to begin with (all the photos and data already was online). Secondly, also many of the presented features from OpenAI (luckily almost nothing from it will ever have a Linux version) and Google create an Orwellian nightmare, there were two good things Google presented: The new open-weight models Gemma-2 and PaliGemma (run both locally without problems) and even more the creation of Gemini Nano, a small LMM which will live device local, either on your phone or in the future inside the browser. With that you will always have a local LMM to protect your data...

[@RipCityBassWorks]

It's crazy how many people don't know what 'free speech' actually refers to. France's Tik Tok crackdown is very authoritian, same with that of the US.

[@VicharB]

Google Photos - I don't use backup (use my home NAS for backups) but in order to use features you are required to use online backup thus sending your photos and indexing them on their server. Even some older features that worked now require to use their online backup! And then all other AI features will be like that!!!

[@4nyNoob]

france's tiktok ban isn't the shocking thing to me, it's the fact that new caledonia is all the way over australia

[@Xaito]

Companies that run open, public platforms where the large majority of people communicate censoring it's users is 100% a free speech infringement. Especially in the EU. I'd argue especially in a place where you suddenly can reach a global audience, where you can influence election results, where many a career is cancelled by the court of public opinion, it's important to let everyone speak freely.

[@temari2860]

I don't get why would you even maintain a package if you don't trust the upstream dev and think the program is crappy and unsafe by default

[@happygimp0]

Please look up the default compile flags set by the developers.

[@ferdgerbeler8494]

2:00 so to translate from corporate speak, all these things we claim we aren't doing, we're actually doing them all, and worse, just due to some syntactic shenanigans, we never REALLY said we weren't doing them, you just thought you read that.

[@VallThyo]

Distros repacking stuff and breaking them on purpose like that should just be illegal, it's so insane how a group of people INTENTIONALLY BREAK something and then distribute this something with the original author's name making it seem that the author is incompetent and it's is shipping broken software, and flooding their support page with an error that is being implemented by a package they didn't do because the Distro LITERALLY breaking it for no reason at all. This is a huge disrespect to the original developer and to anyone who needs the software.

[@jupiteriana.]

And to make things worse, he called the original version "the crappy version", it's crazy to me, have a little respect

[@fakecubed]

So you want the GPL be illegal?

[@ananon5771]

I think the issue with freedom of speech is too many people confuse the LEGAL idea of freedom of speech and the CULTURAL idea of freedom of speech (an example where this one matters would be a university). Both have their place, but far too many people (sadly this is especially of my fellow Americans), of conflating the two. Forcing the conversation into confusion. Hopefully this was not too political.

[@chemislife]

The problem is when the government puts pressure on the companies to remove content and has the company pretend they did it of their own will. This is still a breach of first amendment and worse than out right doing it because it allows them to use your argument as a shield while still violating the LEGAL that you are saying you hate.

[@ananon5771]

@@chemislife I am aware of this, it's shameful and poisons the well.

[@kazzxtrismus]

all restrictions are a threat to cut someones tongue out... thats the point of freedom of speech... you cannot stop me from claiming my dog is orange even though we both know im lying because to do so would require an act of violence on your part. because its just words YOU must escalate to violence to get what you want and cut my tongue out. violence to cure words than can be laughed/mocked/argued/waved away makes you the bad guy. this has been a universally agreed truth for 200 years++ modern society wants that to change because the wealthy and powerful have convinced a few that censorship and the cutting of tongues is morally acceptable. this censorship is nothing but an evil razor blade wrapped in candy. just because 1 side is getting away with it because of a good advertising slogan makes no difference committing violence because of yucky mouth noises is just an excuse for those addicted to committing violence i guarantee that one side hasnt noticed they just the acceptable place for terrible people to do the terrible things and want to get away with it...... "You may not be evil...but evil has aligned itself with you"

[@chainq68k]

I'm on the Firefox beta track, I was quite happy to send crash/technical data back to Mozilla. Now that it also sends "interactivity", I switched off all data collection. What the flying f(irefox) they were even thinking...

[@andrukthegreat]

I like the real and direct way you express your Opinion and asses the crap that France and other countries and companies are trying to implement on restricting freedom.. I like that you are calling it by its name "Totalitarianism"! there are even linux users big ones Online that are sh**ting their pants and afraid sto say it out loud. . I appreciate you and the companies that you support and promote like Tuxedo !! 👍

[@KuruGDI]

Let's help Firefox with gathering data and search for the weirdest and f***ed up p0Rn we can think about.

[@alexmartinelli6231]

you just wanted to do that anyway ya freak

[@Sim-rh4tj]

Spot on about the KeepassXC maintainer. Quite an arrogant stance they took.

[@JaumeSabater]

You may want todo a Tuxedo vs Slimbook vs others video, just targeting a specific use case (e.g. work laptop).

[@devinwooley3575]

If you opt out of Firefox’s data collection, a box pops up saying they will delete all past data they collected from you within 30 days. Still should have been disabled by default, but have to give them some credit.

[@fakecubed]

Free speech is an important Western cultural value. Whether or not a particular form of speech is given legal protections is irrelevant. Any infringement on that value is still an infringement, whether it is a government doing it, a company doing it, or some small Discord server's moderators are doing it. Free speech is a broader concept than any particular country's constitution, charter, or tradition.

[@ericapelz260]

I've already moved to the keepassXC Flatpack which is prepared by the developers.

[@44544abc]

great content ... keep it up!

[@_Epictetus_]

Bitwarden > Keepass

[@Kiev-in-3-days]

There is one thing Mozilla needs to build. It an Electron alternative. Electron is the last space of freedom since Google killed extensions. Now Microsoft is also starting to kill Electron. It's all in the details but it's obvious.

[@igorgiuseppe1862]

0:15 you can disable... so its enabled by default?

[@Vide501]

Yes, which sucks.

[@Gramini]

Of course. Would be useless if it would be disabled-by-default.

[@senry1269]

im always worried that something will read my clipboard. I'm never worried that somehow my password manager will get exploited on a webpage.

[@13thravenpurple94]

Excellent video 👍 Thank you 💜

[@savagepro9060]

France: "TiqueTorque pas plus"

[@musicalneptunian]

France: viva NO REVOLUTION!

[@skelebro9999]

I love when distro specific package maintainers suddenly decide to take matters into their own hand instead of asking for others' opinions first 😃

[@Jacob6853]

The KeepassXC's Debian maintainers response is why Linux gets a snobby rep for normal users. This attitude is common for Debian which is why I personally avoid that particular distribution for others like Arch and Fedora or my current pop_os instead.

[@ForexStoryteller]

You worry about privacy but then give the browser full power acces to the password directory 🤦 use a contained local manager, and copy paste is the secure way, otherwise, who am I to judge about the security and privacy risk. You want auto fill a hacker can use that to see your password, so I have to agree with the developers on xpass (those •••• won't protect you, that's java, and inspect element can reveal what's behind it 🤷🏻‍♂️)

[@SajjadRizvi77]

Slackware is one of the few Linux OS that (almost) always implements the vanilla package, as the developer intended. As I understand it it’s fairly common for Debian devs to chop things out if the packages

[@Isnt_that_Aaronic]

Keypass already requires you to unlock ths browser authentication so it is disabeld but with the option available if you whant it. The maintanor removed these features and required the user uo uninstall and reinstall the full version. A stupid move by the maintainer.

[@IRDazza]

If firefox is not linking its collected data to the user, THEN HOW does it show the suggestions to the user?! It must link your data to you, or your browser to inturn show suitable suggestions? (And of course they need to store that data somewhere safely on their servers, cough cough,) I never trusted firefox since they announced they wanted to filter or restrict data based on their perception of what is suitable.

[@MG36963]

France implementing some managed democracy. Do we need to report these people to a Democracy Officer?

[@nerida3347]

I just use the firefox profile maker to pick and choose what i want. Very convenient

[@andreasplosky8516]

I had no idea that existed. Wonderful tip. Thanks.

[@fuseteam]

Re keepassxc: the maintainer only disabled network features which snowballed xd Also this only affected debian (and ubuntu) testing none of the stable releases are affected

[@clement3014]

pour ce qui est de l'interdiction de TikTok, ce n'est pas aussi simple... tiktok est interdit car utilisé par l'Azerbaidjan pour faire de l'ingérence. Ce pays cherche à contester la France car c'est l'un des seuls pays à accuser l'Azerbaigjan de ne pas reconnaitre le génocide arménien. Aussi la France soutient l'Arménie face à l'agression de l'Azerbadjan (qui est une sale guerre malheuresement). Face à cela, l'Azerbadjan se "venge" en pratiquant de l'ingérence politique et en finançant la violence indépendantiste en Nouvelle Calédonie. Et pour cela, le pays utilise Tiktok. C'est pourquoi il a été interdit. la situation poltique en Nouvelle Caldonie est complexe ! une minorité indépendantiste est extrêmement violente et son échec au référundums d'indépendance antérieur à l'élargissement du corps électoral les a mis en rogne... pour ce qui est de la liberté d'expression, les kanaks natifs ont voté leurs des trois précédentes élections et sont à majorité favorable depuis 20 ans à rester français