Category: News

Firefox

Mozilla updated its Terms of Use again to address concerns

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Wow, this week has to be one of the worst for the people over at Mozilla. There has been tremendous backlash to the organization’s updated Terms of Use.

Maybe not has big of a deal to Mozilla’s Mr. Robot blunder or the announcement to drop Firefox’s custom extensions system for that of Chromium, but still.

To recap: Mozilla announced terms of use and an updated privacy notice for Firefox on Wednesday. These were worded in lawyer-speak and included the following sentence:

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.

Tech sites wrote about it and users were up in arms over the wording. Mozilla tried to calm users in an update, stating that the new terms did not give it ownership over user data or the right to use it for anything, even things not mentioned in the privacy notice.

It appears to have helped little. Mozilla published a new statement yesterday saying that it has updated the wording in the new terms of use to make things clearer for users.

The new wording includes the following paragraph now:

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. 

Mozilla says it has also removed the “reference to the Acceptable Use Policy” because it seemed “to be causing more confusion than clarity”.

The Privacy FAQ was updated as well to better provide information on terms like “sells” according to the update.

This is a fairly common statement. Google, for example, has a big section of its terms of service dedicated to the worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license that users give it.

If you check the terms of other browsers, you probably encounter something similar.

Was it an overreaction? Even with all the explaining, it seems likely that Mozilla won’t convince everyone that it was.

What is your take on this? Do you use Firefox currently? Let everyone know in the comment section below.

Microsoft is shutting down Skype: wants you to use this software instead

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

The writing has been on the wall for a long time: Microsoft plans to shut down the communication software Skype in May 2025.

While Microsoft has yet to formally announce the end of the once-popular communication software, a notification about the end of Skype was found in the latest preview of the software.

The discovered string says: “Starting in May, Skype will no longer be available. Continue your calls and chats in Teams.”.

Microsoft wants to move customers to Teams, the video conferencing, calling, and meetings software that it favors now.

Skype has been around for quite some time. It was launched in 2003, but Microsoft did not acquire it until 2011. Paid a pretty sum for it, $8.5 billion at the time.

Microsoft discontinued Windows Live Messenger a few years later and tried to make Skype its next billion users product by integrating it in the-then new version of Windows, Windows 10.

This did not work out too well and the launch of Microsoft Teams in 2017 put Skype on the backburner soon thereafter.

As Microsoft has not confirmed the end of Skype yet, there is a theoretical chance that Skype could once more jumping off a scaffold. Microsoft has a few months left to make an announcement either way.

Even if Skype is put to rest, there is a good chance that it could stay around for a while to make sure most users and businesses migrate to Teams in an orderly fashion.

On a personal note, I never warmed up to Skype and have not used it much, even though I had an account for what seems forever.

Now it is your turn. Do you use Skype or have you used it in the past? Feel free to leave a comment down below about that.

Google Translate may get an AI infusion soon: here is what it does

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Millions of Internet users use Google Translate as their daily driver for translations. Google has integrated the service into its Chrome browser and it is also available as an application for Android.

Soon, Google may introduce new AI functionality in Google Translate. Here is what you need to know about that.

The details:

  • The new functionality was discovered during a code analysis of the Android Google Translate APK by Android Authority.
  • It is not available yet.

Good to known: Google Translate is a cloud-based service. Means, you need an active Internet connection to use the service. This means as well that Google is informed about your translations. If you want a privacy-friendly option, check out the Firefox Translate feature instead, as it runs locally.

Main AI feature: Ask a follow-up question

At the center of the new AI functionality is the ask a follow-up option. This enables users to interact with AI to use a range of different options.

These include the following:

  • Get information about the translation. Google Translate informs you about translation nuances for instance, according to Android Authority.
  • Ability to get the translation modified, e.g., to take regional variations into account or changing the tone or style.
  • Listen to the translated text with a click on the sound icon.
  • Ability to provide feedback using thumbs-up and thumbs-down icons.
  • Additional insights, e.g., cultural notes or grammar explanations.

Some of these features could be interesting to some users, provided that features like support for regional variants truly work. With AI, it could be difficult to tell whether there is an error in the regional variant or not.

Android Authority found the functionality in Google Translate 9.3.78.731229477.7 for Android. While included, it appears that it has not started to roll out yet or only to some users.

Closing Words

Some users of Google Translate will certainly like the new functionality. The ability to ask follow-up questions could give users a better understanding of the translation, especially if some things are unclear.

Google has not announced the new feature yet officially.

Facebook changes Live Video policy to the detriment of its users

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Facebook users have plenty of options to communicate with friends, other Facebook users, and the entire world via the platform.

One of these options is via live video. These are recorded and shown on Facebook. The recorded videos were stored by Facebook indefinitely, but this changes with the new policy.

Here are the details:

  • Live video is stored for 30 days only on Facebook.
  • Any Live video that is older than 30 days will be deleted.
  • This applies to all live videos retroactively.

In other words: Facebook will soon start deleting old live videos from its users en masse.

Thankfully for users, this is not done automatically. Facebook says that it will inform users with live videos about the new ruling by email and in the app. Facebook users have 90 days from that day to download or transfer their content for safekeeping.

Facebook explains that users have several options to save videos. There is a single download option, which is listed under the three-dots menu when selecting Menu > Activity log > Live videos.

This is probably not very practical for most users, unless only a few videos need to be saved.

There is also a bulk download option according to Facebook. Note that this requires the notification that informs you about the deletion of the videos.

Here is how that works:

  1. Click or tap on the notification to get started.
  2. Select “Download live videos”.
  3. Pick a location to download and a date range for the live videos.
  4. Select “Create File”.

There are other options, including transferring videos, e.g., to Google Drive, and to convert parts of live videos to reels.

Facebook explains both options on its website.

Why is Facebook making the change?

    Facebook has a simple explanation for limiting storage of live video on its network:

    People all over the world use Facebook Live to share their experiences with their communities in real time. Because most live video views occur within the first few weeks of broadcasting, we’re updating how long live videos can be stored on Facebook.

    In short: storing live video indefinitely is not financially viable. Facebook has to pay for storage and the earnings from the videos do not justify indefinite storage.

    Closing Words

    If you do broadcast live on Facebook and want to keep your videos, you may want to start downloading or transferring them as soon as you get the notification that the content will be deleted.

    Facebook does not really say when content will get deleted, only that it can be deleted at any time after day 91. Users may also request an extension.

    In about a week, Amazon is removing the ability to download Kindle ebooks to non-Amazon devices

    Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

    Ebooks can be a great alternative to traditional books. They do not weight anything, which means that you can carry around hundreds if not thousands of books effortlessly. They also come with extra features, like the ability to search books.

    If you have bought ebooks in the past, you may know that you do not really own the books. Like most digital content, you get a license to use the book. This license can be revoked at any time and you do not have any say in the matter. If you are lucky, you get a refund. Besides outright removal, rightsholders may also update books at any time.

    You are probably wondering what this has to do with Amazon. Well, Amazon is taking away a fundamental feature of its ebook store that existed for a long time: the ability to download your ebooks to your PC, Mac, and other devices that are not owned by Amazon.

    Here is why that is bad. Currently, you have an option to download any ebook you bought from Amazon to a computer, say, a Windows PC. When you do that, you store the book in a place that Amazon has no control over. It cannot remove the book from the computer nor can it updated the book. Even if the book gets removed from Amazon’s ebook store, you retain that copy on your device.

    This option is removed on February 26, 2025. Means, you only get the option to load ebooks onto Amazon Kindle devices. Amazon does have control over these. It can remove books from Kindle devices or push updates to the devices.

    Another example of why that is bad for you. If you get locked out of your Amazon account, close it, or get banned by Amazon for whatever reason, you will lose access to all of the books that you bought.

    So, if you own Kindle ebooks, you may want to download them before February 26 to a device that Amazon has no control over. You can do that by accessing the Content Library on Amazon’s website, selecting the “more actions” option, and then download & transfer via USB.

    Note that you cannot do so anymore when you buy books after February 26th, as Amazon is removing it.

    Now it is your turn. Do you buy digital content or prefer to buy physical content, if possible? Let us know in the comments.

    Reddit

    Reddit plans to improve search with AI-powered answers

    Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

    Search engines were among the first to push AI answers. These use artificial intelligence to generate answers for user queries and are often placed prominently.

    If you ask me, these are hit or miss. Sometimes, they provide answers that are dead on. At other times, they recommend to eat one rock per day.

    Reddit, which calls itself the homepage of the Internet, has launched its own AI-tool Answers some time ago.

    Answers works like other AI communication tools. You write something and get a response. You may then refine or ask follow-up questions, and get another response.

    In its latest earnings call, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman announced that the company was working on AI-powered search results.

    Reddit’s integrated search feature does not use AI currently. It returns subreddits and posts based on the user’s query. Since it works so-so, some users prefer to use regular search engines instead to find content on Reddit.

    Techcrunch reports that Reddit plans to launch an “upgraded search experience” this year. This is achieved by integrating Answers into search.

    For Huffman, the integration is just the first step to go head-to-head with search engine giant Google.

    He said:

    I think helping the user be able to search directly on Reddit, refine their queries on Reddit, eventually come directly to Reddit for those types of queries, and even integrating search into something like onboarding over time..

    So, instead of going to Google, Bing, or another search engine to find answers, Reddit users might start their searches on Reddit and stay on Reddit. That seems to be the vision of Reddit’s CEO.

    How search engines will react to this remains to be seen. Reddit may be a massive site, but it still pales in comparison to the traffic that Google or Microsoft gets.

    I expect more AI integration in more search tools and more communities going forward. Good news is that these can be ignored largely or removed.

    What is your take on AI-powered search? Something that you use, are interested in, or ignore? Feel free to leave a comment about it below.

    Stellantis testing annoying ads in infotainment systems of cars

    Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

    Most modern cars come with infotainment systems. These control a variety of functions, including the radio, calls, navigation and more.

    It was only a matter of time before some car manufacturers started to play with the idea of displaying ads on those screens to their customers to increase their profit margin.

    Stellantis, the fourth-largest manufacturer of cars, owns brands such as Jeep, Fiat, Maserati, Opel, Peugot, or Chrysler. It seems that someone at Stellantis must have that idea of displaying ads to customers, as owners of Jeeps are now flocking to social media to report that their car’s infotainment system is pestering them with ads.

    Here is what happens: ds are displayed whenever the car stops. They display on the screen and may be closed with a tap on the close icon. Problem is, there does not appear to be a setting to disable the display of ads entirely.

    This means that, whenever an affected owner stops at a red light, an ad is shown. Drivers who want to look a the navigational map or make changes to the radio cannot, unless they close the ad first.

    The ad, interestingly named “Purchase Peace of Mind”, is always shown. There is no variance, and there is no option to get rid of it by saying “no”. The reason for that is simple: the ad uses dark patterns. There is no “I do not want to, please do not bother me again” option.

    The response would probably be better if Stellantis would sell an adblocker called “Peace of Mind” to its customers.

    You can only close it, only to see the exact same thing again on the next stop of the car. Talk about frustrating experiences.

    Here is a video in which the issue is discussed in detail:

    This development may lead to the rise of adblockers for cars or specialized services that block ads in cars or disable online connectivity.

    What is your take on this? Would you buy a car that had an infotainment system with these kind of ads? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

    Brave Browser gets support for injecting scripts into websites

    Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

    Remember userscripts? These little scripts are a useful alternative to browser extensions. They can be used for lots of things, most often for changing something on websites, like removing elements.

    Brave Software announced support for scriplets in the company’s Brave Browser today. These work similarly to userscripts. Users of the browser may add scriptlets to Brave so that they run on selected sites automatically.

    The new feature has landed in Brave 1.75, the current stable version of the browser.

    Good to known: the process is fiddly right now. You need to enable developer mode, add the scriptlets yourself, and assign websites to these scriplets using custom filters.

    Here is how it works in detail:

    1. Load the Content Filters section of the settings. The easiest option is to load this URL: brave://settings/shields/filters
    2. Toggle Developer Mode to turn it on.
    3. Activate the “add new scriplet” button on the same page after enabling developer mode.
    4. Type a name for the scriptlet. You may want to avoid spaces.
    5. Type or paste the code of the script.
    6. Select the Save button.
    7. Now use the following syntax to assign the scriptlet to specific websites: example.com##+js(name-of-your-scriptlet.js)
    8. Select the save changes button.

    Notes:

    • Replace example.com with the hostname of the website, e.g., chipp.in.
    • Replace name-of-your-scriptlet.js with the name that you have specified during creation.

    Brave will execute the script whenever the matching domain is visited.

    You can check out the technical documentation of the feature here.

    Userscripts or Scriptlets?

    Userscript extensions offer some advantages. They may load userscripts easily from various sources, and they may also update them. They also work in all browsers, which is great if you use multiple browsers.

    Brave’s solution supports pasting scripts, but it is still fiddly to link them to specific sites and maintain them.

    With that said, it may be interesting to advanced users who prefer to avoid extensions whenever possible.

    I cannot really say how Brave’s integrated solution compares to userscripts. It is more powerful, equally powerful, or less?

    What is your take on the integration? Good move by Brave?

    Google Chrome is getting an automatic picture-in-picture mode

    Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

    Google plans to roll out an automatic picture-in-picture mode in Chrome 134. The browser will be released next month. When it does, Chrome may continue to show video content on certain sites when the user scrolls away from the video content.

    This feature works for the most part identical to that of Mozilla Firefox, which has had the feature for some time now.

    Google has added a few safeguards to the feature. In particular, automatic picture-in-picture kicks only in if..

    • The site uses a secure connection (https).
    • Media is playing in the active window / tab.
    • Media played with sound for at least two seconds.
    • The media player needs to have set a handler for picture-in-picture.
    • Google uses heuristics next to that using media engagement, unless you explicitly allow a site to enable the mode.

    Chrome users may allow or disallow automatic picture-in-picture mode, which gives them control over the feature.

    Enable or disable Chrome’s auto picture-in-picture feature

    You can give it a try in Chrome 134 or newer by following these instructions:

    1. Load chrome://flags/#auto-picture-in-picture-for-video-playback in the Chrome 134 or newer address bar.
    2. Set the value of the feature to enabled.
    3. Restart Google Chrome.

    Note: the feature won’t be available on all sites at the time of writing. It does not work on YouTube for instance.

    If you do not need the feature, you could set the value of the experimental flag to disabled to block it. This flag will be removed in the future though, which means that you do need to make changes to the settings in Chrome at that point to disable automatic picture-in-picture mode in Google Chrome.

    Since it launches in Chrome, it is likely that it will also launch in other Chromium-based browsers in the future.

    What is your take on this feature in general? Do you use it in another browser already? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

    Hide Gemini removes Google AI features on the Internet

    Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

    Google, just like Microsoft, puts lots of effort into adding its Gemini AI to its products. AI is changing the Internet as we know it.

    There is the AI Overviews feature, which gives searches an AI generated answer on Google Search. Other examples include the Gemini button on properties such as Gmail or Google Docs.

    Hide Gemini is a browser extension that removes Google AI features on Google sites. It does away with AI Overviews and most / all Gemini buttons that Google has added to its services.

    The extension is available for Chromium-based browsers, including Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Brave, Vivaldi, and Opera, and also Mozilla Firefox and Firefox-based browsers such as Mullvad Browser or Tor Browser.

    Hide Gemini works automatically in the background. All you have to do is install it in your browser of choice. It either removes the AI content or uses CSS to hide it, so that it is not visible anymore when you access Google services such as Search or Gmail.

    The developer notes that some AI content may still show up. One example is the “help we write” feature on Google Docs, which shows up in the canvas area. Temporary promotions that Google adds to its services may also be visible, even with the extension installed.

    Extensions like Hide Gemini work well most of the time, but they work only when code is not changed by Google. Any change that Google makes to its sites may result in AI content being shown again, even with the extension installed.

    This is only a temporary nuisance, provided that the developer reacts quickly and updates the extension to take the changes into account.

    What is your take on AI features plastered on the web? Is that something that you use regularly or try to avoid as best as you can? Feel free to leave a comment down below.