Firefox Goes to the Dark Side

19 Mar, 2025

I haven't used Firefox in a long time outside of Linux installs. I'm a little late with this news but I feel that it is important to post here. As noted by The Verge on February 28, 2025, Firefox revised its new Terms of Service that it released on February 26. The original text in the Terms of Service stated:

When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox.

The updated text reads:

You give Mozilla the rights necessary to operate Firefox. This includes processing your data as we describe in the Firefox Privacy Notice. It also includes a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license for the purpose of doing as you request with the content you input in Firefox. This does not give Mozilla any ownership in that content.

Uh, why do you need a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license for whatever I upload or input into the browser? Why haven't you needed that up until this point? Also, I don't think the updated text really changes much other than rearranging the words. Yes, it throws in the "This does not give Mozilla any ownership in that content." sentence, but I don't see how that makes it any better. They got rid of the word upload, however, so I guess if you were to upload a photo through the browser they no longer need a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to process that information? So why still need it for something typed in?

Let's see what some other browsers have to say for themselves.

Microsoft Edge:

However, by posting, uploading, inputting, providing or submitting ("Posting") your Submission you are granting Microsoft, its affiliated companies and necessary sublicensees permission to use your Submission in connection with the operation of their Internet businesses (including, without limitation, all Microsoft Services), including, without limitation, the licence rights to: copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, translate and reformat your Submission; to publish your name in connection with your Submission; and the right to sublicense such rights to any supplier of the Services.

Google Chrome:

This license is:

• worldwide, which means it’s valid anywhere in the world
• non-exclusive, which means you can license your content to others
• royalty-free, which means there are no monetary fees for this license

Safari:¹

E. To the extent that you upload any content through the use of the Services, you represent that you own all rights in, or have authorization or are otherwise legally permitted to upload, such content and that such content does not violate any terms of service applicable to the Services.

I find it interesting that similar language exists in Edge and Chrome but not Safari. It also doesn't seem to exist in any other browsers I use such as DuckDuckGo, Waterfox and Orion doesn't even have a TOS.

It's time to throw Firefox into the garbage can with Edge, Chrome, Brave, Opera, and Vivaldi. (This is a new blog and this is the first post. In a future post I will go over why I wouldn't use any of these browsers.) If these new TOS weren't enough for you, the original post from The Verge I mentioned also made this point:

Mozilla says that “there are a number of places where we collect and share some data with our partners” so that Firefox can be “commercially viable,” but it adds that it spells those out in its privacy notice and works to strip data of potentially identifying information or share it in aggregate.

If that's not enough to stop you from using Firefox, I don't know what else is.