In IT context local is a well establised term. It’s either hosted locally, i. e. on machine running the browser or not. A datacenter or cloud are remote machines also by the same well established definition.
The language is confusing, and Mozilla should fix it themselves.
The important takeaway is: data is sent over an IP address controlled by Google, to a remote server, running Google software. No processing is taking place on someone’s local computer.
This is a FAQ for end users, about a feature in software running on end users’ computers.
It is absolutely doublespeak to call it “local”. Are we supposed to invent an entirely new term now to distinguish between remote and local? Please do not accept this usage. It will make meaningful communication much harder.
Edit: I mean seriously, by this token OpenAI, Google, Facebook, etc. could call their servers “locally hosted”. It is an utterly meaningless term if you accept this usage.
“Locally hosted” means it’s running on the local host. In this case, that would mean on the same computer running Firefox.
Calling something that is only accessible over the internet “locally hosted” is outrageous doublespeak.
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Why does local mean local? I’m not sure I understand your question.
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In IT context local is a well establised term. It’s either hosted locally, i. e. on machine running the browser or not. A datacenter or cloud are remote machines also by the same well established definition.
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Huh? What is there to do? Datacenter, cloud computing?
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The language is confusing, and Mozilla should fix it themselves.
The important takeaway is: data is sent over an IP address controlled by Google, to a remote server, running Google software. No processing is taking place on someone’s local computer.
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Address owner: Google LLC?
https://dnschecker.org/domain-ip-lookup.php?query=prod.orbit-ml-front-api.fakespot.prod.webservices.mozgcp.net%2F&dns=cloudflare
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Then that would also be an oxymoron.
Local is the opposite of remote. This is a remote server. Remote servers are not local. This is not a matter of interpretation.
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This is a FAQ for end users, about a feature in software running on end users’ computers.
It is absolutely doublespeak to call it “local”. Are we supposed to invent an entirely new term now to distinguish between remote and local? Please do not accept this usage. It will make meaningful communication much harder.
Edit: I mean seriously, by this token OpenAI, Google, Facebook, etc. could call their servers “locally hosted”. It is an utterly meaningless term if you accept this usage.
We actually do have better terminology for “local to Mozilla” and “remote to Mozilla”… It’s first party and third party.
And, from the looks of it, Mozilla is indeed using Google Cloud Services as a third party, according to their privacy policy.
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