Any Firefox user who is concerned about privacy should definitely read the Firefox Privacy Notice:

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/

The name "Google" appears multiple times, sometimes within the phrase "data to Google".

There are also currently references to "third-party ad platform" and "a third-party referral platform", along with other companies/organizations.

Some people will claim that it doesn't matter because some of this Firefox functionality that involves data collection and/or third-parties can be disabled, or that it's fine because it has been disclosed, or it's somehow acceptable because Firefox maybe doesn't send as much info as some of its competitors do, and so on.

I don't buy into those arguments. If Firefox was truly privacy-respecting, it would never collect nor send any data beyond that necessary to provide its core web browsing functionality.

Any functionality that might compromise a user's privacy should not be bundled by default, and would have to be explicitly opted into by manually installing an extension that provides such functionality. This would include Firefox's/Mozilla's own "telemetry".

> (sells?)

An accusation like this would benefit from some evidence.

By not offering any evidence, you get all the benefits of sowing doubt without having put in any of the work necessary to have an actual discussion about it.

Here: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/

     Firefox by default also sends marketing campaign data to Adjust, our analytics vendor, which has its own privacy policy. Campaign data includes a Google advertising ID or Android ID, IP address, timestamp, country, language/locale, operating system, and app version.

Smells like a sale, but by not using the word sell, they get all the benefits of sowing doubt without having put in any of the work necessary to have an actual problem about selling it.

I use to be a supporter and I am a customer of Mozilla Relay, but I refuse to use their browser while they are financed by Google. It makes them nothing but controlled opposition.

I do appreciate the moral consistency of at least supporting alternative revenue models.

does that apply to installations from apt?

It does not. Those binaries are signed by your distribution and the same for everyone.

Can you explain the process by which Mozilla gives the unique identifier to Google?

The article quotes Mozilla saying they can correlate the two, but it doesn't state how.

That's bad. But not as bad as a binary blob from Google that is the browser.

Since I use Linux I don't download FF manually.

I'm honestly curious why they don't also track the FTP server downloads.

My best guess: <1% so statistically not relevant.