[HN Gopher] Firefox removed Yandex search option
___________________________________________________________________
Firefox removed Yandex search option
Author : leosarev
Score : 177 points
Date : 2022-03-14 14:37 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (bugzilla.mozilla.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (bugzilla.mozilla.org)
| perihelions wrote:
| Here's the workaround to add an arbitrary non-blessed search
| engine as the _default_ (i.e. what the omnibar points to):
|
| https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/add-or-remove-search-en...
|
| Note that in Firefox, the "Search bar", is a separate widget from
| the "Address Bar" (omnibar). If you're can't find it, here's the
| docs for that UX flow:
|
| https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/customize-firefox-contr...
|
| If you do this, you can (of course) revert your change in
| about:preferences#search; the new search engine will persist
| there as an alternate choice.
|
| (Tested and confirmed this works with e.g. Yandex in release
| version 98.0.1. This patch only removed, essentially, Firefox'
| promoted or sponsored search engines -- not core functionality.
| (It also erased and reset user preferences, but that's a separate
| problem)).
| thriftwy wrote:
| dotcoma wrote:
| I wish they removed Google...
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Hard to pass up $500M/yr
| dotcoma wrote:
| Do they really need all that money?
|
| They could perhaps get good money, even if considerably less,
| from DDG.
| stu2b50 wrote:
| Well, yes. It's almost all of their annual revenue and
| Mozilla already had huge layoffs[0], so presumably they're
| not exactly on amazing footing financially. Duckduckgo
| could not provide anything near that much - ddg has 100m in
| annual revenue and Google is giving 500m to Mozilla. 5x
| their entire company's annual revenue.
|
| [0] https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/11/21363424/mozilla-
| layoffs-...
| SturgeonsLaw wrote:
| If an organisation can be in financial trouble with an
| annual income of half a billion then it's poorly run.
| That's ample resources even for something as complex as a
| browser.
| 37 wrote:
| Just for the record, what is it that Google is paying them
| $500M/yr to do? I haven't installed Firefox for while, is
| Google the default search engine or something?
|
| edit: Upon more searching, I find passages like this:
|
| >in 2020, Mozilla Corporation's revenue was $466 million from
| its search partnerships (largely driven by its search deal
| with Google), subscriptions and advertising revenue. [0]
|
| as well as a fine from France for 500M Euros.
|
| [0] https://techcrunch.com/2021/12/13/mozilla-expects-to-
| generat...
| Crash0v3rid3 wrote:
| Can you explain why you feel that way?
| xanaxagoras wrote:
| Search results aren't that good anymore and Google
| consistently shovels woke crap down my throat anytime I
| search for anything more controversial than pizza toppings.
| [deleted]
| jehy wrote:
| ogurechny wrote:
| My submission was flagged because of the phrase "golden shower",
| huh. Copying it here:
|
| https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-release/shortlog/35f...
|
| Basically, Firefox 98.0.1 is a point release only concerned with
| removing Yandex search for users in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia,
| and Turkey, and switching them all to Google by default. Some old
| promotions from mail.ru and ok.ru were blocked, too, but these
| have been dead as a doornail and irrelevant.
|
| Note the smoking gun: regular Google links were used in
| configuration file on 11 March, and then were switched to
| firefox-tagged (sponsored) ones on 13 March ("part 2"). Why
| couldn't Mozilla switch Yandex search users to regular Yandex
| links the same way if they reportedly had "troubles" with their
| agreement, which supposedly would be the best for the users, and
| best for Mozilla, apparently? Imagine their wet faces when they
| beg on their knees for more after successful extension of
| Google's sponsorship agreement onto 4 big countries, and you'll
| know why.
|
| The changelog for 98.0.1 is currently absent. The changelog for
| 98 has a vague note about search engines. The relevant code-
| related bugs have zero explanations. Bug 1748923 is private. The
| UI that alerts the user about the removed search engine was
| introduced two weeks ago (and had it text changed to be more
| vague). There is a specific (and vague) help article about the
| switch:
|
| https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/search-engine-removal
|
| However, the first signs were noticed about a month ago (in
| Russian):
|
| https://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=56721
|
| As usual with Mozilla, there were bugs. Users of previous version
| of Firefox that automatically update the list of search engines
| but have no UI to warn them about the changes got it removed
| silently.
|
| I personally don't use Yandex, its results for IT-related English
| language queries have been quite shitty, in all honesty, for many
| years, most likely because of the supposed full-on focus on
| keeping the existing (mostly non-English-speaking) users.
| However, it's another nice example of treating people like swine
| by those who have even a tiny bit of power over them. Oh, we're
| used to that, thank you very much.
| ogurechny wrote:
| It wouldn't be a problem if there was a clear statement from
| Mozilla, or from Yandex. However, both declined to comment (as
| of now) because, obviously, the talk might give the users the
| revelation they have been sold and resold like cattle. So
| because of the corporate handling of the matter now we have a
| shitstorm among common computer users because something has
| seriously changed with their "internet".
|
| I've been installing Firefox with useful extensions on all
| computers of friends and relatives (if only because it's not
| fucking Google Chrome Cage), and now they got a shovelful of
| shit straight from Mozilla.
| ogurechny wrote:
| It also affected Firefox ESR (unless, I guess, there is a
| custom policy for search engines). Because, you know, system
| administrators simply love self-destructing software.
|
| Tomorrow they will disable mouse input, and tell everyone
| that those who need it should've had a specific rule.
| kragen wrote:
| I've found datasheets on Yandex I couldn't find anywhere else
| because of the SEO spam.
| RobertMiller wrote:
| I've found niche uses for Yandex; translation specifically,
| which can do OCR on images you upload to it. Google translate
| won't do that, last I checked. If anybody knows of an
| alternative, I'd like to hear about it.
| charcircuit wrote:
| Google translate's mobile app supports it along with realtime
| translation from your phone's camera.
| verdverm wrote:
| The Google Translate app has OCR and translation overlay,
| both live and static. Pretty slick imho
| RobertMiller wrote:
| I'm aware of that, but it's not suitable for me. I'm
| looking for this functionality on my real computer, not my
| phone.
| [deleted]
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Not too long ago, Yandex's Latin translation feature was
| leaps and bounds ahead of Google's. Just as one anecdata
| point.
|
| You can still access Yandex in Firefox, it just won't show up
| as a supported provider choice.
| jtriangle wrote:
| Their reverse image search is also often more useful than
| anyone else. Google in particular has gone downhill as of
| late, not entirely sure why. My gut says that their indexes
| were purged at some point.
| ksec wrote:
| >My submission was flagged because of the phrase "golden
| shower",
|
| In 99.9% of cases HN dont accept editorialised headline.
| Although I have no idea why this current post is also flagged
| as well. Firefox removed Yandex is a perfectly valid
| description. May be it should get rid of the latter part.
| MarkLowenstein wrote:
| This is why I haven't let my Firefox update itself for the last
| 1.5 years. The kids are in charge; you can't trust the product.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| nix0n wrote:
| The release notes for 98.0.1[0] are more clear:
|
| > Yandex and Mail.ru have been removed as optional search
| providers in the drop-down search menu in Firefox.
|
| [0]https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/98.0.1/releasenotes/
| ogurechny wrote:
| Note that is the first ever straightforward announcement of the
| removal accessible to the end user, and it wasn't even
| available when release happened (about 12 hours ago). It's like
| giving a hard hat to a man that has already got to the
| emergency room.
| saghm wrote:
| That seems a bit overdramatic; it's not like people couldn't
| still access those search engines at all in Firefox; they
| just would have to go directly to the website instead of
| using the dropdown menu. I'd imagine that typing the name of
| one of them into Google or DuckDuckGo would lead to their
| site pretty easily
| ogurechny wrote:
| It's easy to fix. However, Mozilla gets a boatload of money
| each year for specific handling of those who don't
| understand that.
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| In theory, they get it for that reason. In practice, the
| actual reasons is that if Mozilla went under, Google
| would potentially have an anti-monopoly case on their
| hands. Or at least they think it's cheaper to pay Mozilla
| than to maybe find out if it's the case.
| ogurechny wrote:
| I believe Google knows better than anyone that market
| dominance is achieved not by "code quality", or
| "features", or "ease of use", etc., but by attacking the
| clueless user with ads and press releases, and bundling
| the browser with crap like _Ultimate Super Image
| Converter 2011_ , and paying generously for other sources
| of traffic. (Sorry, Google engineers doing incredible
| high-tech stuff, you're at most playing the role of
| exotic animals in the zoo attracting people who then
| proceed to sad low-tech data swindling.)
|
| It might be less noticeable in the West, where Google
| hasn't really been challenged, but it was different in
| Russia. When Yandex had to switch to "defend the user
| share" mode, it stopped announcing interesting things (it
| used to please the public with nice stuff here and cool
| stuff there, and implemented some of that long before
| Google), and double downed on all that dumb crap (having
| the browser you fully control, having three ads to
| install it on a single page, pushing it into everything,
| and so on).
| dataflow wrote:
| Off-topic, but Firefox is on 98 already? isn't Chrome on 99
| too? Was their goal to "catch up" or something?
| behnamoh wrote:
| I remember Mozilla were pretty pissed off at Chrome's
| inaccurate versioning that induced a feeling of "chrome is 60
| but ff is still on 3.5 so chrome has to be better ".
| infamouscow wrote:
| I always wondered how SCOTUS went along with letting the US put
| Japanese-Americans into internment camps during WWII. It starts
| with things like this and only ramps up.
| nickysielicki wrote:
| I've been using yandex as my open-source/public/spam-heavy email
| provider for a handful of years. Ignoring the current conflict,
| the yandex product is pretty good. Their search is, IMO, second
| only to Google, at least for technical queries.
|
| Edit: probably going to just buy a domain and protonmail as a
| contingency plan, though. Don't want to lose access.
| ogurechny wrote:
| Sadly, search quality for "the rest of the world" has been
| neglected for years, and it's a miracle yandex.com still works.
| Mail is one of the services that is kept up to date, with
| translations and stuff, and it's nice.
|
| As for the global issues,
|
| a) Iron curtain for the Internet (i. e. absolutely everything
| not working properly) would be a sure way to get every
| commoner, currently soothed with entertainment, on the street.
|
| b) This won't last long anyway. I would be more worried about
| sudden drop of funding and technical issues.
| Destiner wrote:
| Definitely consider migrating off Yandex. If (when) it will be
| required by gov to choose either staying in russia or outside
| of russia, it will choose the former.
| nickysielicki wrote:
| Literally took me 15 minutes. Now to begin the process of
| changing the email on a few dozen accounts...
|
| me@nslick.com
| amingilani wrote:
| I made the mistake of posting an email address on HN. I get
| a lot of spam on it now. I know it's because of HN because
| the email address is hackernews@domain.
|
| It's like a tsunami of spam and phishing emails.
| nickysielicki wrote:
| bring it on, it'll give me the opportunity to tweak my
| notmuch filtering
| thbw wrote:
| Throwaway for obvious reasons.
|
| This is hypocrisy of Western democracy. I can't recall when
| Google was removed after US invaded so many countries. Why do
| Western companies oppress free speech when it doesn't match their
| narrative (Julian Assange, now Russian media)?
|
| Why not give Russian "propaganda" tell its narratives and let
| people decide? Are you afraid of their truth/"truth" or are you
| afraid people will follow them? If you think people are stupid to
| decide, why do you allow them to even vote for a President of a
| country?
|
| Why US thinks it is ok to expand NATO to the borders of Russia,
| but didn't think Soviet military in Cuba is ok?
|
| Where are all liberals fighting for human rights and free speech?
|
| * US invasion - good guys killing bad guys
|
| * Russian invasion - bad guys killing good guys
|
| * China human right violations - "west" only condemns, because we
| are too much dependent on cheap products.
|
| * US tells Iraq has biological weapons - yeah let's start the
| war.
|
| * Russia tells Ukraine has biological weapons - yeah, propaganda
| as usual.
|
| I have so many questions, but pretty sure no one is going to
| answer them constructively thanks to cancel culture (and the
| reason for throw away account) where "liberals" cancel you if
| they don't agree with you, responses I might get "whataboutism"
|
| I am anti-war in all countries, because at the end of the day
| ordinary people suffer. But why people are demanding protests
| from Russian people to overthrow Putin (which I doubt they can,
| unless their military people decide to support) when they weren't
| able to stop war in Iraq, Afghanistan or any other US invaded
| country by protesting? Do you think you have moral rights to ask
| Russian people to do something when you were silent, when you
| couldn't even save Julian Assange? (by the way I am not Russian)
|
| Stop pretending you are right!
|
| Give other side chance to speak!
|
| As a long time Firefox user, this saddens me!
| lizardactivist wrote:
| Well said. We here in the west have to stop pretending we are
| at the absolute center of truth and justice, and stop silencing
| all the sensible voices that try to bring attention to our own
| hypocrisy.
| zmmmmm wrote:
| I think there are a lot of moral compromises, contradictions,
| and hypocrisy as you outline.
|
| However, the alternative to throwing everything non-violent at
| Russia, is actual military intervention. Essentially, very high
| risk of real WW3.
|
| The Iraq invasion was a huge mistake. Russia's invading Ukraine
| is a huge mistake. Generally, war is a huge mistake.
|
| If there is anything non-violent left to try, I can't blame
| anybody for trying that. This is one tiny, tiny small thing.
| ribosometronome wrote:
| In general, it sounds like you're suggesting that if everyone
| can't be punished for doing something bad, no one should be.
| I'm not sure that logic would really fly with other situations.
| Ex. A murderer was able to flee to a country without an
| extradition treaty, so punishing Jeffrey Dahmer would be
| hypocritical.
|
| The US being less likely to do things like, you know, lie about
| biological weapons as a pretense for an invasion of a country
| that murders tens to hundreds of thousands of innocents and
| destabilizes an already not-so-stable part of the world would
| be a good thing. That the rest of the world wasn't able to
| rally together at the time to say "Yo, not cool" doesn't mean
| that they wouldn't have been right to. That it didn't happen
| then doesn't mean it shouldn't happen next time. Or now, in the
| case of Russia re: Ukraine.
| Paianni wrote:
| The world isn't that simple.
| millzlane wrote:
| How is Mozilla choosing which search engines to show in their
| browser oppressing of free speech?
|
| "Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of
| an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and
| ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal
| sanction" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech
|
| Are they blocking users from going to those sites? No. Are they
| preventing those sites from loading in the browser? No. Are
| they stopping anyone from creating a website and saying
| whatever they want? No.
|
| Just because you don't agree with Mozilla on this action
| doesn't make it oppression of free speech. This is simply one
| organization deciding not to have a relationship with another
| organization. Not everything is an attack on free speech or
| expression.
| thbw wrote:
| > How is Mozilla choosing which search engines to show in
| their browser oppressing of free speech?
|
| Because similar action wasn't taken against Google when US
| invaded so many countries!
|
| > Just because you don't agree with Mozilla on this action
| doesn't make it oppression of free speech. This is simply one
| organization deciding not to have a relationship with another
| organization.
|
| In this case taking away choice from Russians not from
| organization. Of course they are going to use just website,
| but still there is clear signal to selectively support one
| side, even though action of other parties were equally bad.
| Why open source software is making decisions based on
| politics happening around.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| can we recognize the difference between civilians (people) and
| armed participants in conflict (military) in this discussion?
| mantas wrote:
| sure, right after we recognize how a society is related to it's
| government and military.
| asveikau wrote:
| Sorry to go there, but reports are that the Russian Federation
| is not currently making this distinction in Ukraine right now.
| [deleted]
| nelsondev wrote:
| Two wrongs don't make a right.
| asveikau wrote:
| That's correct. And we can't draw false equivalences
| either; we should consider the scale of the wrong. For
| example, I would consider loss of life to be quite a bit
| worse than loss of Yandex.
| thway0987 wrote:
| We should indeed. But we shouldn't use that to justify,
| excuse or dismiss any wrongs done that isn't at the scale
| of other wrongs.
| smt88 wrote:
| The deal is simple: when Russia stops slaughtering Ukrainian
| civilians, the rest of the world will stop isolating their
| economy. It's much like the shipping blockades that were used
| against the European Axis countries in WWII.
|
| Russian civilians should consider themselves lucky that the war
| is only economic for them.
| kubav wrote:
| I do not think that it is that easy. It is more like Russia
| does not respect international law so they will be cut from
| world economy as soon as it is possible.
|
| Sanctions cannot stop this war unless they will lead to coup
| or state collapse (both are unlikely in near future).
| Sanctions put pressure on Russian elites and together with
| foreign aid also probably will prevent Russian victory in
| Ukraine.
|
| I hope that no one is so stupid to resume business with
| Russia if they end the war quickly. They need to completely
| change their mindset from imperialism first. Otherwise it is
| similar to doing business with North Korea.
| BuckRogers wrote:
| While sure to be a very controversial view, as an American
| I'm tempted to support a fullscale Russian invasion to
| decapitate their government. Install anyone else that's not
| insane, say Navalny. He's still a proud Russian nationalist
| but not the so-nationalist-he-destroys-the-country sort. I
| think there's a good chance someone else does the important
| part of nation building that Putin disregards, a democratic
| system with checks and balances on power. He just wants the
| Russian Empire back, not interested in an actually healthy
| and functioning society.
|
| This would've never crossed my mind prior to seeing how much
| of a paper tiger the Russian military is. I read they have
| 50% of their total combat brigades in Ukraine now. Russia is
| very vulnerable. If there's an answer to shooting down
| nuclear warheads at all, given the ground they'd have to
| defend I'd say they're nearly on their knees already.
|
| Installing a leader that is open to integrating with the
| west, along with India, we could encircle China and force
| them into peaceful deescalation. There's opportunity here for
| another 500+ years of world dominance by western powers.
| Which from Greco-Roman ideals and the Renaissance have been
| true advances for humanity. There's resentment for that, but
| there always is for everything. Given how strong immigration
| to the US and Europe is still, I think people vote in
| agreement with me with their feet.
| smt88 wrote:
| I don't think it's controversial that Putin deserves to be
| ousted by a foreign military as much as anyone. He's
| certainly much more powerful and dangerous than Stalin or
| Hitler because he can unilaterally end human life on earth
| at any moment of any day.
|
| > _Install anyone else that 's not insane, say Navalny._
|
| Well, we definitely couldn't install anyone. We'd have to
| administrate an open election.
|
| > _I read they have 50% of their total combat brigades in
| Ukraine now._
|
| This is a pretty antiquated assessment of military power.
| Boots on the ground show only that Russia wants to take
| Ukraine rather than completely destroy it. They can level
| the entire country with tactical nukes if they want.
|
| > _Installing a leader that is open to integrating with the
| west, along with India, we could encircle China and force
| them into peaceful deescalation._
|
| I think it's more likely that we'd make China very
| dangerous and hostile, and we'd also re-open the world to
| the possibility of foreign regime change.
|
| If we can decapitate Russia, why couldn't someone say,
| "Hey, this Biden guy stole the election, we should murder
| him for the good of the American people!"
|
| Biden didn't steal the election, but I think you see where
| I'm going with it.
| BuckRogers wrote:
| > _I don 't think it's controversial that Putin deserves
| to be ousted by a foreign military as much as anyone.
| He's certainly much more powerful and dangerous than
| Stalin or Hitler because he can unilaterally end human
| life on earth at any moment of any day._
|
| Agreed, other than I do think actually sending in troops
| into Russia is definitely controversial. Pretty big move.
| We'd be fighting them in the streets, bombing their
| cities, just to get special forces to Putin and
| assassinate him. That said, other than an occupation
| being a horrible idea, defeating them would be easy, the
| US can do it alone. And we should. Very few people must
| die at end of a sniper's barrel, Vladimir Putin is one.
| This idea needs to be in the US public media, so the
| reality and fear sets in for Mr. Putin that we're more
| dangerous than he is, by a longshot.
|
| We were good to him and his regime in general until this,
| and we have a history of murdering unfriendly regimes
| that turn on us like Saddam. Our (including our allies)
| display of power there on the other side of the globe
| absolutely dwarfs the pathetic planning that Moscow has
| displayed while invading a next-door neighbor. Russian
| military power was all a ruse. Just yet another eastern
| European corruption / ponzi scheme.
|
| I say all this as someone that has traveled alone and
| spent time in Moscow. Just to learn about them. Those
| people have been put into fear for 100 years, the time
| has come to liberate them.
|
| > _Well, we definitely couldn 't install anyone. We'd
| have to administrate an open election._
|
| Agreed, and I've written it that way elsewhere. Though I
| think anyone like Putin or worse would indeed be stopped
| by us if we facilitated an election. Navalny is a true
| Russian patriot, as much or more than Putin, and would
| probably be aggressive enough towards us.
|
| > _This is a pretty antiquated assessment of military
| power. Boots on the ground show only that Russia wants to
| take Ukraine rather than completely destroy it. They can
| level the entire country with tactical nukes if they
| want._
|
| That was a US general talking. If that's antiquated, I
| honestly can't argue with him, or apparently you. I don't
| know your qualifications, and I have none. I just repeat
| what domain experts are saying.
|
| edit- I can't find my original source now, but I found
| another. Supposedly 75% of their conventional forces are
| in Ukraine and 50% of their ground forces.[0]
|
| > _If we can decapitate Russia, why couldn 't someone
| say, "Hey, this Biden guy stole the election, we should
| murder him for the good of the American people!"_
|
| That coup was already attempted and failed. The rise of
| MAGA terrorism is a serious issue that needs confronted.
| If it continues to thrive and get more violent (not that
| the pipebombs at the RNC+DNC weren't violent enough to
| justify this), we'll have to have the Feds start shooting
| back. Trump also needs charged with whatever he's guilty
| of, which is definitely _something_. I was never a big
| Mueller investigation guy, I called it a farce from the
| start, an attempt to tempt him into doing something
| stupid. But there 's something that guy has done that
| warrants charges for sure.
|
| [0] https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ukraine-
| russia-news...
| dhdjjd wrote:
| Thanks god Russia has nukes, otherwise American
| liberators would have already liberated us. (I don't
| justify Ukrainian conflict, it's another issue).
| dTal wrote:
| You do seem to be having some difficulty liberating
| yourselves.
| dhdjjd wrote:
| Living without free press is better than being dead. And
| it doesn't matter to me whether good or bad guys kill me.
| BuckRogers wrote:
| I don't believe in liberating anyone from
| authoritarianism that doesn't want to have a free and
| democratic system. That's why mideast liberation hasn't
| worked. No one was asking. The Russians want a better
| life, just ask the ones that come here to study, find
| mates, and never go back. I know plenty of them from my
| university, happily married to whoever from wherever, and
| residing in the US or Canada, working and living
| peacefully as contributors to society. Russians are quite
| intelligent people too.
|
| The Russians are probably the least likely to want
| liberating from what I've seen of all Europeans, but I do
| think a _plurality_ of Russians would want this. Which
| justifies it. That said, without this invasion of Ukraine
| and the danger I feel it presents to my homeland (the
| US), I wouldn 't even be bringing this up. The Russian
| Federation would be on their own. It's just that the
| leadership over there is now a danger to everyone else.
| dTal wrote:
| Well I think in an ideal world "liberating" would not
| involve mass murder of the "liberated" population. I am
| aware that this is a historical weak spot.
|
| Even still - I don't see a problem with countries
| rescuing other countries from despotism, in principle. I
| eagerly include my own country in this - if a Putin-like
| figure arose and I was not permitted to speak out or face
| death, it would comfort me to know that help was coming.
| The terror of an oppressive regime is its inescapability.
| dhdjjd wrote:
| Today is just a large prisoner's dilemma/tragedy of
| commons.
| xtian wrote:
| You probably won't take this advice, but you should
| really start making peace with the fact that the US is
| completely incapable of accomplishing any of these warped
| fantasies of yours.
|
| The vast majority of the world is celebrating the self-
| evident decline of US-centric unipolarity. But those of
| us who live here have some hard years ahead.
| kelnos wrote:
| That's the thing. Even if we were to suggest that the
| parent's ideas had merit (big "if"), it's pretty
| laughable to think that the US is capable of doing this
| properly. Looking back, it's hard to find American
| successes in this sort of meddling, all the way back to
| WWII.
| xtian wrote:
| True, and the US didn't even properly defeat the Nazis
| (see, for instance: Adolf Heusinger, Operation Paperclip,
| and the many Nazis who happened to find themselves in
| positions of power in West Germany).
| mistrial9 wrote:
| > We were good to him and his regime in general until
| this
|
| see the Clinton Foundation/Soros Foundation, their
| actions and their talk, two completely different paths..
| its an addictive drug to talk online like either of us
| actually have any say-so at all, whatsoever
| BuckRogers wrote:
| The ideas have to be out there or they'll never get
| traction. We have major influence recently. The path of
| the world was changed dramatically with the election of
| Biden over Trump. I can't imagine how emboldened Putin
| would be had Trump won. I realize others say everyone was
| scared of the rich man's son, but I don't see it. He
| withheld 400 million in military aid from Ukraine, says
| it all as far as the path we'd be down.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| from my understanding of the development of the
| international oil trade in the 20th century, one of the
| key advancements by multinational oil in the West was to
| learn lessons from the British, and do two important
| things on foreign soil: always back a leader that can
| hold on with local support; always pay the
| Nationalist/Military oil interests very well, in addition
| to making trade rights built-in.
|
| Unfortunately, it seems that the "wild west" behavior of
| the USA in South America, in the wake of the brutal
| Spanish conquest long ago, made some enemies (that have
| oil) that are not easy to talk to now.
| sarma912 wrote:
| Do you have a good book rec around British oil and
| lessons learnt?
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| _Oil, Power, and War : A Dark History_ should be close
| enough ?
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42527868-oil-power-
| and-w...
| waffleiron wrote:
| >He's certainly much more powerful and dangerous than
| Stalin or Hitler because he can unilaterally end human
| life on earth at any moment of any day.
|
| This is Biden too. Literally can unilaterally start a
| nuclear war.
| smt88 wrote:
| > _This is Biden too. Literally can unilaterally start a
| nuclear war._
|
| So what? What does that have to do with anything?
|
| Biden has never threatened nuclear war and has nothing to
| gain from it. Putin has threatened it repeatedly in the
| last few weeks.
|
| Biden is more _powerful_ than Putin, Stalin, or Hitler,
| but he is not as _dangerous_.
| dTal wrote:
| True, it's an extremely dangerous situation for nuclear
| weapons to exist at all.
|
| Biden, however, has not threatened to use them. Nor does
| he rule over his subordinates on pain of extrajudicial
| murder, so there's a few checks and balances there. Alas
| the same cannot be said for Putin.
| sarma912 wrote:
| Do those 500+ years included the enlightened white man's
| burden? Or is it just that the White man invented
| everything under the sun the rest of us and the rest of us
| are heathen fools naked around a fire?
| BuckRogers wrote:
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| You're not helping.
| sarma912 wrote:
| I'm sorry but comments that harken back to ye old Rome
| are infuriating and it leaves a sour taste in ones mouth.
| I know this war is bad, but man people need to just own
| up, otherwise none of us can more forward. Pax Americana
| is fine, but you don't get to kill people and then turn
| back and tell me to wave a flag because grand old Europe
| is having it's "freedom" threatened.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| ckp95 wrote:
| nlqtr wrote:
| The first Iraq war (occupation of Kuwait) was legitimate.
| The second one was started under the (known) false
| premise of the presence of WMD:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War
|
| "The Iraq Body Count project documents 185,000-208,000
| violent civilian deaths through February 2020 in their
| table. All estimates of Iraq War casualties are
| disputed."
|
| The official civilian casualties count in Ukraine so far
| is 600, according to the UN. Both wars are horrible.
| sarma912 wrote:
| I don't think you understand what I'm saying,
|
| > back to ye old Rome
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| "Pax Americana is fine but you don't get to kill people."
|
| I don't think _you_ understand what you 're saying.
| sarma912 wrote:
| You can downvote me and make it seem like I'm an idiot
| who doesn't know any better, but again, I doubt you'll
| understand how the majority of the world feels. I'm from
| a former British colony, and if you're from one let's
| talk. If not, good day.
| jwmhjwmh wrote:
| > Comparing what Russia is doing in Ukraine to anything
| the US has done in the last 100 years is an exercise in
| false equivalence. One so blatant that it defies any
| attempt to interpret in good faith.
|
| Are you fucking kidding me? Are you completely ignorant
| of history? What about Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia,
| and Iraq?
| BuckRogers wrote:
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| The wars and embargo in Iraq ?
|
| (Hopefully we'll be careful this time about what is being
| embargoed, the Russian population is now the best shot of
| getting rid of Putin, once the horror of what is
| happening in Ukraine to their friends and family filters
| through Putin's propaganda.)
|
| It _might_ also help, if it makes a politician think
| twice next time before calling to invade, sorry
| "bringing democracy" to a country... (USA, thank you for
| giving democracy a bad name by the way.)
| roenxi wrote:
| > ... a fullscale Russian invasion to decapitate their
| government.
|
| > ... encircle China and force them into peaceful
| deescalation.
|
| While you have used the word "peaceful" I suspect a Chinese
| planner, if by some strange path they read your comment,
| would start preparing for wild escalations. Because it
| looks like the strategy is to wait for a moment of weakness
| then invade.
|
| That doesn't sound like a path to peace.
| BirAdam wrote:
| An invasion of Russia would risk the destruction of the
| entire globe by nuclear weaponry. Ousting Putin and
| destabilizing Russia would increase the risk of nuclear
| weaponry making its way to more violent regimes. I do not
| think either of those is particularly wise.
| klausjensen wrote:
| More violent regimes than Russia??
|
| I am not sure they exist right now. Nobody else is
| threatening nuclear war, while invading a peaceful
| neighbouring country, slaughtering civilians.
| smt88 wrote:
| Xi and Kim have killed far more people than Putin has (so
| far). There may be up to 2 million Uyghurs in camps, and
| it's not a stretch to assume that at least 10% are going
| to die of natural causes.
| ckp95 wrote:
| BirAdam wrote:
| So, by your moral standard, the entire Earth should have
| isolated the US economy when the US government/military was
| killing Iraqi and Afghani civilians and destroying non-
| military targets, right? The entire planet should also be
| isolating Saudi Arabia for its genocidal war in Yemen? These
| things are done without the consent of the governed, and
| these things are often done without even the knowledge of the
| general public. Economic warfare kills people just as much as
| bullets and bombs. Poverty is associated with higher death
| rates and economic warfare creates and worsens poverty.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| Please point me to where the Us made it their policy to
| terror bomb civilians.
| scarmig wrote:
| Never policy; just accidentally launching a drone strike
| against the occasional wedding party.
| sarma912 wrote:
| As a brown person I keep asking myself this everyday, it
| doesn't seem fair at all. If you raise the point you're
| making you'll be drowned out with "don't bring me your
| whataboutism, lives are being lost as we speak". Brown
| lives have been lost for quite a while now ...
| AniseAbyss wrote:
| Well I have the balls to admit that yes the public cares
| less about Arabs in a far away desert then fellow Euros.
|
| But I think you already know that and your righteous
| indignation isn't going to change that. Life is not fair.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| It _is_ unfair. And we _should_ raise this point - while
| being careful not to make it sound like a defense of
| Putin.
| waffleiron wrote:
| People are dying in Yemen every single day, and the world
| doesn't exclude Saudi Arabia from everything. The double
| standard happens right now even.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Once the war in Ukraine is over, maybe there's an
| opportunity here to focus a boycott on them ?
| asveikau wrote:
| Whataboutism. I did not agree with the Iraq war but it
| doesn't justify the current conflict.
|
| The US political system did also make an eventual course
| correction on Iraq. Eg. Republicans lost the congress in
| 2006 mostly as a result of that. George W. Bush was term
| limited out of office. The next proposed unnecessary
| invasions will probably be greeted by politicians not
| wanting to repeat Iraq. That is slow progress but it's more
| than I expect from Putin, with his wars in Chechnya,
| Georgia, Ukraine, Ukraine again, who knows what is next?
| Not to mention his disrespect of term limits.
| SturgeonsLaw wrote:
| So if there are Russians who don't agree with the war
| (there are) and if Russia eventually makes a course
| correction (it will) then they're off the hook, right?
| sophacles wrote:
| Not OP, but yes to all those sanctions. I was out
| protesting those wars in the early 2000s (and often in the
| years after) and called for sanctions that would have hurt
| me economically. I still believe it should be done and our
| leaders involved in those wars should be made to answer for
| warcrimes.
|
| Economic warfare does kill people, but it's kind of foolish
| to say "just as much" as bullets and bombs. I highly doubt
| the number of dead Russians from these sanctions is
| anywhere near the number of dead Ukrainian civilians - will
| need some serious data to back your claim.
| dralley wrote:
| >So, by your moral standard, the entire Earth should have
| isolated the US economy when the US government/military was
| killing Iraqi and Afghani civilians and destroying non-
| military targets, right? The entire planet should also be
| isolating Saudi Arabia for its genocidal war in Yemen?
|
| Probably, yes. That never would have happened, but that
| would indeed be the logical conclusion. And I'm fine with
| that.
| dionian wrote:
| That's good of you to admit, it means you have a moral
| consistency here. Interestingly, most of the US
| politicians supported by the MSM (right and left) were
| all for the Iraq War and its dubious justifications
| (Yellowcake), republican or democrat. With a few
| exceptions such as POTUS 45
| lalaland1125 wrote:
| > With a few exceptions such as POTUS 45
|
| Trump was for the Iraq war at the time. See
| https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/29/politics/fact-check-trump-
| fal...
|
| Just 6 months before the invasion there is a recording of
| an interview where he said he was for the war.
|
| > "Are you for invading Iraq?" Howard Stern asked him,
| and Trump answered, "Yeah, I guess so."
| krisoft wrote:
| > So, by your moral standard, the entire Earth should have
| isolated the US economy when the US government/military was
| killing Iraqi and Afghani civilians and destroying non-
| military targets, right?
|
| It is not hard to convince me that yes, that should have
| happened. Where does that lead us? Should I feel different
| now about this particular agression because there were
| agressions we did not respond appropriately?
| smt88 wrote:
| > _when the US government /military was killing Iraqi and
| Afghani civilians and destroying non-military targets_
|
| The US should not have invaded Iraq for any reason. I would
| have supported sanctions against the US for those crimes if
| any country could afford them.
|
| That said, Saddam Hussein's government is not Zelenskyy's
| government. They're apples and oranges. Ukraine was a
| functioning democracy that never antagonized Russia.
|
| The war in Afghanistan is a lot more complicated because it
| was arguably provoked by 9/11 and they didn't (and don't)
| really have a functioning central state.
|
| > _The entire planet should also be isolating Saudi Arabia
| for its genocidal war in Yemen?_
|
| Yes, absolutely.
|
| > _Economic warfare kills people just as much as bullets
| and bombs._
|
| Speaking only about Russia and Ukraine for the last few
| weeks: bullshit. Russians aren't having pieces of their
| loved ones sprayed on them by bombs, watching their cities
| be destroyed, or leaving their lives behind.
|
| Every death, whether in Russia or out, is the fault of its
| dictator, Vladimir Putin. He is very popular and probably
| genuinely won his last few elections. It is perfectly fair
| to blame the Russian people, even though many are
| brainwashed.
|
| But even if they were all innocent Putin-haters, this
| lopsided war (economic on one side, violent on the other)
| is preferable to an all-out war that would kill far more
| people.
| older wrote:
| No. Not until this changes: https://www.levada.ru/en/ratings/
| curiousgal wrote:
| _[Laughs in Iranian]_
| leosarev wrote:
| Why this even relevant? I want to talk about Mozilla Firefox
| removing control from the user, which was their promise for
| years. I don't see difference between them doing it for
| political message, or Google doing it for profit.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| bastawhiz wrote:
| > Mozilla Firefox removing control from the user
|
| Did they? You can still add Yandex back manually (and
| trivially), it's just not included with the stock install.
| ogurechny wrote:
| It was not "just not included", it was removed for
| everyone, no matter whether they wanted to use it or not.
| Maybe lizardmen from Mozilla are so detached they consider
| that all users just suck up and eat what's on the plate
| today, but some regular people use Yandex search because
| they have mail there, keep themselves logged in, have
| configured other services, need something for their work
| daily, yada yada. So they open the browser and see a tiny
| panel stating "FUCK YOU". And it's not tech-savvy users
| (responding with "fuck you too" and fixing the problem) who
| get bitten and poached, it's the regular people.
|
| There is a reason to think the actual goal of all that
| radio silence was preventing people from trivially
| switching to Yandex manually _in advance_ of the change.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| OpenSearch is a standard. Visit Yandex in Firefox today,
| and you'll see Firefox happily offer to add Yandex to
| your search dropdown. The green plus shows you that it's
| an option.
|
| https://imgur.com/BVlfEIz
|
| It's also in the right click menu for the address bar.
|
| Why does Mozilla need to include Yandex as a default
| option?
| ogurechny wrote:
| I know that. The whole thing started for me today when I
| advised a user on some web forum this exact way of
| bringing it back. Then, out of interest, I dug into the
| code and the bug tracker, only to find that absolutely
| nothing was stated about the changes, even though they
| have been cooking for a month1. My first real browser was
| steel-gray Mozilla Suite, back then I opened as many
| forum topics in tabs as it was possible during a free
| promotional 5 minute modem connection.
|
| The problem is not inclusion by default, the problem is
| unwarranted unconditional removal, whether it is default
| or not, and whether it is needed or not. Mozilla has
| decided the pretend it happened "by itself", but it was
| their decision, and they had an option to switch people
| to non-sponsored Yandex search.
|
| 1) http://web.archive.org/web/*/https://support.mozilla.o
| rg/en-...
| MisterSandman wrote:
| Can't you just, like, manually add Yandex as a search option?
| vbezhenar wrote:
| You would need to have some skills for that. My grandma
| wouldn't be able to do that and this change would disrupt
| her workflow. Not the end of the world, but this is user
| hostile change. I'm fine with removal of this engine for
| new installs, but pulling the rag under existing users is
| wrong. This anti-Russian madness gone completely out of
| control. I bet this change alone will drive a significant
| chunk of Russian Firefox users to Yandex Browser. Unlikely
| the intention of Firefox developers but here we go.
| throwmeariver1 wrote:
| Are they? Do you know about their contract with yandex? You
| are emotional about something that is 100% financial in
| nature. If it wouldn't be you can bet that with the Mozilla
| Foundation being the way they are in the last years would
| ponder themselves with a blog post or at least a tweet. Money
| talks or in this case it doesn't anymore.
| leosarev wrote:
| I'm ok with them cancelling contract with Yandex and
| changing defaults. I'm not ok with them removing this
| OPTION from browser.
| throwmeariver1 wrote:
| Do you really believe the options provided are provided
| without the services paying for it?
| ogurechny wrote:
| Back in the days of sane version numbers, localized
| bookmarks and other stuff relied on local community
| input. Promotions were solitary and visible, just from
| their URL parameters. It changed when browser started to
| be seen as only a muzzle that sucks the meat source into
| data processing pipeline.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| I doesn't matter why, what and how are damning enough on
| their own.
|
| A legit change in some deal does not explain several
| aspects of this update.
|
| When something doesn't add up, you are _supposed_ to
| scrutinize it, not just assume it 's fine. If it was fine,
| then why wasn't there an honest explanation?
|
| Mozilla did a bad thing. If our speculations about the why
| are wrong, it doesn't change anything about what is wrong
| with this update.
|
| But even the speculation is fair game in this case because
| the update lacks all the normal and expected justification
| and explaination of any other merge request. Feel free to
| explain the above-board reason they made quite this nature
| of update in quite this peculiar way.
|
| What _other_ updates to your browser should be ok to just
| take blindly with no explanation? The immagination
| staggers.
| throwmeariver1 wrote:
| It's their browser not yours if you don't trust them use
| something else. I keep away from defaults especially
| search because they are usually paid for and not in good
| faith. They also dropped yandex two times already and you
| guessed it right... because of monetary reasons. This is
| not the smoking gun you want it to be.
| ogurechny wrote:
| "Their" browser is useless pile of code when it's not
| being run on someone's computer. My own computer, for
| example. Which is not their computer at all.
|
| You people seem to be totally brainwashed by corporate
| bullshit.
| throwmeariver1 wrote:
| ogurechny wrote:
| That statement was not Firefox-specific. Marketing
| bullshit about saints above blessing lowly ignorant
| masses incapable of independent action with fad-of-the-
| year software (with a not so nice user agreement) should
| not be tolerated.
|
| We can all laugh at people who can't change a search
| engine, and call them dumb, but when something like
| Mozilla decides "these users are dumb, they get used to
| it", it's a tad different story.
| AniseAbyss wrote:
| I vaguely recall that Yandex is based in the Netherlands
| for tax reasons (like many Russian companies and
| oligarchs) but Russian money is no longer good.
|
| All contracts signed with Russians are up for review and
| likely annulment.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _It's their browser not yours if you don't trust them
| use something else._
|
| That's... not how things work. If you're not happy about
| something, you should complain about it. That's the only
| way that people's preferences become known, and changes
| can be made. If we all constantly hopped from product to
| product when the product we're currently using does
| something we didn't like, we'd very quickly run out of
| options.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _Do you know about their contract with yandex?_
|
| I frankly don't care. I don't use Yandex, but if I did, I'd
| be really pissed off at this move. Firefox shouldn't be
| including only search engines that pay a fee; they should
| be including all search engines that their users might find
| useful.
| floatboth wrote:
| The browser is provided for free. Selling search
| defaults/inclusions is by far the least intrusive way to
| make money to fund the development of the browser.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Least? Least would be fundraising in Hollywood not
| selling out default preferences to the highest bidder.
|
| Almost all browsers are free. All major and minor ones
| are free.
| clucas wrote:
| I suspect that if Firefox got most of its funding from
| Hollywood, it would be even more susceptible to the
| politics-du-jour. Why do you think high-profile
| fundraising would make Firefox more independent?
| thbw wrote:
| Let me repeat Firefox vision:
| https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/VisionStatement#Product_vis...
|
| > Discover, experience and connect with apps, websites and people
| _on your own terms, everywhere._
|
| Why do you not give people choice on their own terms, everywhere?
| rvz wrote:
| Who pressurized Mozilla this time for this virtue signaling move?
|
| Surely they should have removed Google search by now and replaced
| it with a privacy friendly alternative since Google has been
| known to be involved with mass surveillance and having contracts
| and actively working with the three-letter agencies and simply
| handing over your data to them? Once again, they still can't move
| on from Google nor can they get rid of them since they are on
| life support with their money.
|
| Firefox is compromised, even with DuckDuckGo. Might as well
| switch to Brave Browser and use Brave Search.
| moltke wrote:
| Might as well use elinks honestly. I can't remember the last
| site I went to that really _needed_ a modern browser and wasn
| 't just a replacement for an "app." Firefox is there for my
| bank account, my brokerage, and Discord. Everything else is
| either handled by open source tools or elinks.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| Firefox was going off the rails for a while now.
|
| Notice, the worse they become the more they will indulge in
| politics, censorship, emotional blackmail instead of doing their
| jobs: building a better browser.
| raintrees wrote:
| Maybe they just need a better slogan... like... build browser
| better ;)
| fithisux wrote:
| Firefox takes sides based on politics not justice.
|
| I may need to seek a more "free" alternative
| kevingadd wrote:
| What you're looking for is not "free", it is still free
| software even if they change the default search engines that
| come pre-configured in their software. You are looking for
| software aligned with your politics (which is fine!)
| Tagbert wrote:
| This seems to be solidly on the side of justice.
| m0ngr31 wrote:
| Should they have blocked Google and Bing after the invasion
| of Iraq?
| kazinator wrote:
| Bing didn't exist in 2003 (launched in 2009), and I don't
| think that Firefox ("Firebird" at the time) had a search
| bar with search engines.
| Dunedan wrote:
| That got me curious, so I fired up some old versions of
| Mozilla Phoenix and checked that out. Turns out already
| Mozilla Phoenix 0.2
| (https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/phoenix/releases/0.2/),
| released on October 1, 2002, which was the version which
| originally introduced the search bar, offered the ability
| to select different search providers.
| kazinator wrote:
| Hey, that's interesting. Thanks for looking into it!
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| MS: *changes the user's search engine*
|
| Everyone: *gasps*
|
| Mozilla: *changes the user's search engine*
|
| Everyone: *claps*
|
| IMHO: messing with the user's settings (especially without a
| proper warning and a cause) should not be condoned.
| fleddr wrote:
| Never before was the open internet challenged this hard, and
| never before has it failed so hard. Under pressure, every single
| thing is subject to politics and cancellation: browsers, search
| engines, search results, social media, cloud infrastructure,
| payment systems and even money itself.
|
| None pass the test of being open or neutral.
|
| At this rate, your much hated crypto folks may actually start to
| have a point. Kind of like a lunatic sometimes being accidentally
| right.
|
| Note the downvotes, for my sin of even mentioning the word
| "crypto".
| notavalleyman wrote:
| Yandex is hardly a politically neutral web service, though
| dionian wrote:
| We used to be able to say AP, Reuters, NYTimes aren't
| partisan, and we used to be able to joke about RU news being
| Pravda-style propaganda. Unfortunately, we can no longer
| really mock the Russians this way with a straight face, as we
| have now started to look more like Soviet Russia.
| kannanvijayan wrote:
| > We used to be able to say AP, Reuters, NYTimes aren't
| partisan, and we used to be able to joke about RU news
| being Pravda-style propaganda.
|
| Who is this "we"? I'm Canadian now, but understanding media
| bias was something I was taught in American public school,
| with example from historical American media, and
| discussions on how bias can be engineered by selective
| reporting, etc.
|
| > Unfortunately, we can no longer really mock the Russians
| this way with a straight face, as we have now started to
| look more like Soviet Russia.
|
| Please feel free to inform the appropriate western
| authorities that I am guilty of visiting the RT website
| just now. I'll await the consequences.
| pasquinelli wrote:
| > We used to be able to say AP, Reuters, NYTimes aren't
| partisan
|
| that must've been cool, but it was before my time...
| dTal wrote:
| Please. Let me know when people start getting sent to
| gulags - or simply killed - for publicly rejecting the
| official (single) party line of the United States. The
| false equivalence is getting out of control.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in
| _...
| nelsondev wrote:
| This just happened. (In Canada, not the US, but similar
| countries.)
|
| Here is a story about police rounding up protestors and
| sending them to jail.
|
| https://news.yahoo.com/police-arrest-dozens-blockading-
| canad...
|
| > Police chief: "Last night we began to take additional
| actions towards implementing our operation. We moved
| officers and equipment into key positions throughout the
| city and took up 100 checkpoints around the downtown
| core. We began making arrests of key individuals who were
| responsible for organizing these unlawful activities.
| (flash) As of 3pm today we've arrested 70 people. They've
| been charged with multiple various offenses including
| mischief."
|
| Here is a story about accounts of protestors being
| frozen, preventing them from paying bail to get out of
| jail.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/world/americas/canada-
| pro...
|
| > But for one protest organizer who was arrested last
| week, the effect was more immediate. The organizer,
| Tamara Lich, said she had been frozen out of all of her
| accounts and could come up with only 5,000 Canadian
| dollars for bail.
| dTal wrote:
| Forgive me if I fail to see the connection to murdering
| journalists.
| pasquinelli wrote:
| if i want to use it, why should my browser get the veto?
| cowvin wrote:
| You can still use it. It's just not a default.
| fleddr wrote:
| And yet somehow it was fine all this time?
|
| Virtually nothing in "user land" is politically neutral but I
| would think/hope that the underlying technology and protocols
| have a large degree of neutrality.
|
| Case in point, I'd see something like AWS as a neutral
| utility, kind of like electricity. You can do lots of bad
| stuff with electricity but your electricity provider doesn't
| care.
|
| That idea of separation of concerns is now completely broken
| down, the entire stack, top to bottom, is political.
| Krasnol wrote:
| You "get along" until you don't. What better moment would
| be for that than a war?
| gurkendoktor wrote:
| A neutral web browser is not one that only lets me access
| politically neutral websites (all five of them), but one that
| doesn't care what I look at.
|
| In fact, the few times that I've used Yandex were _because_
| it is not politically neutral. I was curious whether the
| results for some queries look different when they 're not
| being filtered through the lens of the American empire. That
| use case should make Yandex more relevant these days, not
| less.
|
| (Although, to be honest, the search results were quite boring
| and normal.)
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| So why can't we just build our own infrastructure? It's not as
| though you need spectacular sums of money to run a search
| engine or a social media platform. You need a few decent
| engineers for sure and you probably won't get rich from it, but
| most of this is demonstrably doable even without clouds.
| _-david-_ wrote:
| Well Parler tried to start their own social media and that
| didn't turn out to them. Three of the largest tech companies
| kicked them out. How do you compete when you aren't allowed
| to compete?
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| At the same time, sites like 8chan and kiwifarms manage to
| get hosting.
|
| Perhaps the lesson is to stop dealing with big tech
| companies.
| _-david-_ wrote:
| You pretty much have to deal with big tech to have an app
| and no social media site can really be big without it. (I
| know side loading exists on android).
|
| Parler hosting on Amazon was an incredibly dumb decision
| though.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| An app is basically just an HTML widget. Do you really
| need an app?
|
| Like the main reason you typically build one is because
| it's much harder to spy on your users when they're in a
| browser.
| walrus01 wrote:
| go work for few years for a facilities-based last mile and
| middle mile ISP that runs things at the OSI layer 1 and 2
| level of the internet and then tell me if you think your
| statement is accurate.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| I don't mean we should build a parallel internet, I mean we
| should build enough redundancy into the Internet's public
| services that they become effectively impossible to exert
| control over.
| mpfundstein wrote:
| how do you build all the underlying infra?
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Barring a complete shut-down of the Internet, simply making
| these applications cheap enough to operate would make them
| virtually impossible to control or stamp out.
|
| They've been trying to shut down BitTorrent almost two
| decades, without much failures. They nailed the TPB guys to
| a cross, but that did all of nothing to actually shut bit-
| torrent itself down.
| kevingadd wrote:
| How does crypto fix this? The problem is not with their claim
| that this is a vulnerability - people have been shouting about
| this vulnerability long before crypto was invented - the
| problem is the claim that they will somehow fix this with
| tokens or DAOs
| fleddr wrote:
| Well, optimistically we can at least say that some crypto
| projects _attempt_ to decentralize functionality and assets.
|
| You're quite right though that the devil is in the details,
| and that most of the time, these projects are not immune to
| politics or ad hoc regulation.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| It allows for decentralized payment systems. The problem is
| that the downsides so far make it not worth it, usually.
| rvz wrote:
| > The problem is that the downsides so far make it not
| worth it, usually.
|
| How so?
|
| Could you please elaborate? We already know that Bitcoin
| and Ethereum are not the only cryptocurrencies that exist
| for payments and there are better ones that are used for
| payments.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| Looking at the diff[1], this seems to remove Yandex-,
| Odnoklassniki-, and Mail.Ru-related bundled bookmarks and
| extensions (that apparently exist in some build configurations?),
| if this removes the search option as well it does not seem
| obvious.
|
| (The editorialized submission title is obviously against HN
| guidelines, but it's unclear what should be done about it if the
| original page title is purposefully obscure--and it does seem to
| be, even given what I said above. Wait for independent reporting
| to use a more straightforward one?..)
|
| [1] https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/a03a9c72d1db
| leosarev wrote:
| I understand that editorializing title is bad. How can I make
| it less editorialized? I'm open for suggestions.
| fredoliveira wrote:
| Removing the statement in parens would help.
| ksec wrote:
| Yes. Firefox removed Yandex Search Option is a fact, what
| is in the parens is OP's personal opinion. Unfortunately
| the submission has been flagged already. Not sure why
| though, I think some users are flagging it.
| dblohm7 wrote:
| I flagged it because of the editorializing in the title.
| dang wrote:
| Ok, I've done that above. Submitted title was "Firefox
| removed Yandex search option (and used misleading bug name
| to hide)".
|
| Submitters: if you want to say what you think is important
| about an article, that's fine, but do it by adding a
| comment to the thread. Then your view will be on a level
| playing field with everyone else's: https://hn.algolia.com/
| ?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
| leosarev wrote:
| Yes, it's does remove search option. See this article (sorry,
| in Russian) but s-shot is missing yandex
| https://vc.ru/services/379414-poiskovik-yandeksa-propal-iz-n...
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| Not sure it's the right patch though. (Does a search engine
| need an extension to support being used for omnibox search?
| It might.) In any case, the two ultimate sources of the
| linked report seem to be:
|
| Grigory Bakunov[1] (ex-Yandex) observes Yandex has been
| removed (but e.g. OZON is still there):
| https://t.me/addmeto/4782 (ru, but basically amounts to a
| screenshot)
|
| Mozilla posts a vague note saying the "default search engine"
| (NB: omnibox default, not just installation default) may
| change in Firefox 98, no specific engines are named:
| https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/search-engine-removal
| (en)
|
| [1] https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4076123
| fotta wrote:
| > Does a search engine need an extension to support being
| used for omnibox search? It might.
|
| No, IIRC it just needs to have an appropriate OpenSearch
| xml file to have support for omnibox. I use a third-party
| engine that isn't bundled in FF and it works fine in
| omnibox.
| fortnum wrote:
| Have been a strong(!) advocate for Firefox for years.
|
| Now it is time to switch. Not sure where to yet, Chrome is not
| any better, Palemoon is not exactly well supported. Maybe Brave,
| Vivaldi, or Opera, though they are all Chrome-based as well.
|
| Difficult decision and not very happy about it, as I do think we
| need more than just one browser engine, but I can't support
| Mozilla any more.
| jtriangle wrote:
| I've been on vivaldi for awhile, and I've found it to be fairly
| suitable for my needs. It's more or less chrome with added
| features, and at least a little less google spyware, and at
| most none.
|
| Though, you are forced to either manually install extensions,
| or use the chrome store, which will require you to use _some_
| google features, but there 's no real way around that.
| xanaxagoras wrote:
| I'm curious to see if LibreWolf will bring this FF change in.
| ratsmack wrote:
| I'm waiting to see what Debian does.
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| Have you tried Librewolf?
| iorrus wrote:
| I moved to brave when they made _that_ blog post [1]. I'm very
| happy although I agree it's better to have competition in the
| browser space.
|
| I've also moved to brave search recently after DuckDuckGo
| announced they were downgrading Russian sites. I might try
| Yandex too as I don't like the brave search layout.
|
| [1] https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-
| deplat...
| bobmichael wrote:
| Why? Honest question.
| fortnum wrote:
| Honest answer :)
|
| Because I do not condone that move.
|
| It will be difficult because I have been using Firefox for
| years and tried to avoid anything Chrome-based and I am not
| very happy with Google's Manifest v3 approach, but Mozilla
| just crossed a red line for me.
| krisoft wrote:
| > Because I do not condone that move.
|
| Thank you for your answer. Could you elaborate on it?
|
| Is it a software freedom question to you? Or perhaps a free
| speech one?
| fortnum wrote:
| That's a perfectly valid question and I'd usually be
| happy to answer it, however considering that my comment
| is being downvoted, I will abstain from further comments,
| as a proper discourse is apparently not desired. Not
| referring to you krisoft, don't get me wrong please.
| krisoft wrote:
| No worries, perfectly understandable. Emotions are high
| now. Have a nice day!
| sharikous wrote:
| I agree with the grandparent comment. And it is because
| of separation of concerns. You can put it in the same
| basket as freedom of speech, but it's a bit different.
|
| A browser is a browser. It does not have to promote a
| moral view. In fact it has to provide ways to find
| information. Not to limit purposefully ways to find
| information.
| aufhebung wrote:
| Can't you just manually put yandex search in? Seems like an
| odd place to be putting a red line.
| h0h0h0h0111 wrote:
| Not OP (and not yet uninstalling firefox, but it feels
| ever closer), but it feels like mozilla have done
| something sneaky and questionable every quarter now for
| the past 2 years. For OP, this is possibly the straw that
| broke the camel's back
| stonewareslord wrote:
| Did it really cross a red line for you? I feel like Firefox
| is judged much more harshly than Chrome and it's unfair.
|
| Mozilla the company has made some terrible decisions that I
| strongly disagree with (update page featuring a movie ad,
| pocket integration, removing a search engine from the
| defaults, nerfing android addons for no reason)
|
| But compared to every other browser, I don't understand how
| people think it's even a comparison. Chrome (user history
| tracking, targeted advertising, FLOC, manifest v3, strong-
| arming due to market share, etc etc), Edge (same as chrome
| but replace G with M), and Brave (referral link injection,
| cryptocoin adware).
|
| To me, no single thing on FF's list is worse than any
| single thing in the other list. And together it's out of
| the question which is better.
|
| I don't think it's useful to tell regular people not to use
| Firefox either unless you tell them they _really_ shouldn
| 't be using the other three (which I doubt many are doing).
| Am I missing something? Honest question - do you really
| think the negatives of having someone use not-firefox
| outweigh the negatives of Firefox?
| fortnum wrote:
| You make valid points, but unfortunately I am not going
| to address them either, as it seems to be impossible,
| based on the fact how my comment is downvoted, to have a
| reasonable discourse here - again, not addressed at you.
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