You’re right that being opensource doesn’t mean the binaries don’t include extra stuff.
However, are you seriously suggesting no one would notice Firefox transmitting telemetry? Seems unlikely.
Comment on Why's everyone freaking out about Firefox Terms of Service? Isn't it Open Source?
Nithanim@programming.dev 2 days ago
I would like to point out that they are free to modify the source code before building the binary they distribute. Being open source does not mean protection from secretly stealing data.
With chrome it is obvious because the closed part is called chrome and the open is chromium. But it is certainly possible to not make “stealing” magic on top public.
null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
JPAKx4@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
As someone else said, reproducible builds is a great mitigating factor for this secret changes. Firefox does have telemetry, but is very transparent and lets you turn it all off (as far as I can tell anyway). Don’t want ads? Easy. Don’t want Mozilla services? Simple.
cley_faye@lemmy.world 2 days ago
We notice. They’re not hiding. The (numerous) endpoints are all presents in the about:config page. The actual content, though, is not that obvious to get. If we assume the binaries are compromised (I don’t believe they are for now, for the record), an outsider would only see a TLS session. At best we could get the vague amount of data exfiltrated, not really the content. But that’s hypothetical. For now.
2lama@lemmy.world 2 days ago
So what you’re saying is that I should compile Firefox from source?
jagged_circle@feddit.nl 2 days ago
This is mitigated by “reproducible builds”
lemminator@lemmy.today 2 days ago
Does Firefox do reproducible builds? This bug report makes me think it doesn’t (at least for Linux): bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=885777
But maybe they do for Windows/Apple/Android?
jagged_circle@feddit.nl 2 days ago
Not sure. But you can change that, if not