Mozilla Firefox is getting a free built-in VPN, with a catch

https://www.xda-developers.com/mozilla-firefox-is-getting-a-free-built-in-vpn-with-a-catch/

68 points · 25 comments · view on lemmy.world

25 Comments

eleijeep@piefed.social · 78 pts · 173d (2 replies)

max 50Gb is the catch

XLE@piefed.social · 37 pts · 173d

The bigger catch is that the VPN will be routed through Mozilla servers - a company that has not built a reputation for offering their own VPN service (their previous offer just resold Mullvad, which does have a good reputation)...

teyrnon@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 173d

So, that's not a lot? I want to use vpn's, but don't know if I can trust any of the free ones. I hear many sell your information to data brokers. I use tor occassionally, but I get endless captchas on firefox afterwards from cloudflare when I do, and a lot of sites refuse to let you one when using tor.

icerunner_origin@startrek.website · 30 pts · 173d (2 replies)
  • Firefox will get a built-in free VPN in v149, rolling out March 24 to the US, France, Germany, and the UK.
  • It routes only browser traffic through a Mozilla proxy for privacy protection, with no extra downloads.
  • Free use is capped at 50GB per month — enough for casual browsing, but Mozilla doesn't say what happens if you go over.
Zer0_F0x@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 173d

Great, now.i have to get a VPN to appear in Germany so that I can use the Firefox VPN

Korkki@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 173d

Mozilla doesn’t say what happens if you go over.

uses your saved credit card info to charge you in secret, of course.

fodor@lemmy.zip · 14 pts · 173d

OK, maybe better than nothing. Until they start selling more of your data lol.

XLE@piefed.social · 12 pts · 173d (3 replies)

Firefox’s desktop marketshare has dropped from 6.3% to 4.2% in the past year.

Ouch.

signup@sh.itjust.works · -40 pts · 173d (2 replies)

brave is better

snowykitty@piefed.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 173d

I love crypto slop being enabled by default in my browser

XLE@piefed.social · 2 pts · 173d

Interestingly Brave just landed on the charts. Previously it was unrecorded or difficult to see. In the same time period, it now accounts for 1.37% of all desktop browser usage, 0.91% of all browsers.

That's not far off from Firefox (which enjoys 2.29% overall). That's nearly 40% the reach of Firefox across all browsers, almost 33% as successful on desktops alone.

MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip · 10 pts · 173d

So they know it's you all the traffic comes from?

sturmblast@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 173d

More features I won't use!!

elucubra@sopuli.xyz · -1 pts · 173d (12 replies)

Vivaldi has had a "light" proton VPN for a while.

stoy@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 173d (11 replies)

And this is relevant how?

If I wanted Blink trash, I would not be using Firefox

RejZoR@lemmy.ml · 8 pts · 173d (8 replies)

I consider Vivaldi as my backup choice if there is ever something to happen to Firefox. I've tried it several times and it's fine, but I still just prefer Firefox. It just works better.

What annoys me is that Vivaldi entirely depends on Google's extensions store and that sucks. For that I actually like Opera more as they have their own that is not controlled by Google, but the browser has few really dumb issues and design choices, like why is fucking Google Search the only option in Start page?

So, yeah almost no matter what I try there's just always something dumb and I then return to Firefox.

HuudaHarkiten@piefed.social · 9 pts · 173d (4 replies)
[ removed ]
ptu@sopuli.xyz · 6 pts · 173d (2 replies)

+1 for Librewolf. I couldn’t load Google Earth but that was no surprise. They also don’t allow telling websites to use dark mode to prevent fingerprinting, which sounds neat after getting used to it.

teyrnon@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 173d (1 reply)

Wait what? They don't allow websites to use dark mode to prevent fingerprinting? I had firefox warn me Lowes was asking for my biometrics back in 2020 or so. Wtf? Are these websites grabbing my iris scans and fingerprints without me knowing it?

ptu@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 173d

Fingerprinting refers to a technology which can identify you via multiple attributes without explicitly logging in. Like if you use a niche browser with dark mode on, preferred language lithuanian, keyboard layout russian and screen resolution full hd. Combined those and many attributes like installed plugins can be used to identify, and its called fingerprinting.

elucubra@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 173d

I'm testing Librewolf, but I think having a Chromium based plan B is a good idea.

elucubra@sopuli.xyz · 3 pts · 173d (1 reply)

Isn't opera chinese?

PancakesCantKillMe@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 173d

It is and I wouldn’t use it. Librewolf for primary use and Waterfox for less rigid browsing seems to work okay for me. FF (w/UBO) for a third opinion if needed.

XLE@piefed.social · 1 pts · 173d

In my experience, Vivaldi buckles under a heavy load. It feels clunky, like the team tried to develop a browser within a browser*, and all the added features like an email client inside of it probably don't help.

* I'm pretty sure the whole UI is like an Electron app in there, which might explain the bizarre behavior that's usually handled decently by other forks: Tab handling, keyboard shortcuts, etc

elucubra@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 173d (1 reply)

Blink trash?

stoy@lemmy.zip · 8 pts · 173d

Technically, no, but I don't want a world with just one browser engine.

I remember the dark days of IE6