I was trying to alter the settings in my Firefox/Mozilla profile and out of the blue it seems like Firefox turned on its syncing service and started syncing literally all of my personal data.
Of course, I’ve turned the sync service off now, but is there anyway to delete this data that was already uploaded to the Mozilla servers?
Does anyone here dare to use the Mozilla sync service? I’m researching it now as to whether my data is safe or not.
My understanding is Firefox Sync is it is both E2EE and open source (and from a reputable organization you are already placing trust in) so I wouldn’t worry that much.
That said, general piece of advice since this is your second "holy shit I screwed up"post in a few days, you should be more deliberate and careful about what you do on your system. If you spend a few seconds thinking through your decisions before and a few minutes researching things before enabling them, I think you will have a lot fewer panicked moments like these.
Also as @anon4510900 said, it shouldn’t be possible to accidentally turn on sync nor should it be possible for FIrefox to turn it on without your consent as it requires you to set up an account before you can use it.
With the default state of Firefox, sync is disabled and there is no Mozilla Account attached to your browser profile. In order for sync to be enabled you’d have to
Create an account
Sign in to the account you created
Enable Sync
I can understand how 2 and 3 could possibly be done accidentally, but 1 would definitely have to have been a deliberate action.
I’ve used Firefox since the early 2000’s and never used sync or needed an account (based on the way I use the Browser, I see the value in Firefox Sync for other people). In any case, I wouldn’t worry, Firefox Sync is privacy-preserving and privacy-respecting from what I’ve read, just disable sync, delete any stored data if any exists, and you should be good to go. Disable your account or sign out if you don’t use/need it.
I think what happened is that I have a Mozilla/Firefox account for the Mozilla Community Support Forum and I also had a Mozilla account that included everything…
If I delete my Mozilla account I may also delete my mozilla/Firefox account for the Mozilla Community Support Forum and that would suck…
If you get value from having an account, no need to delete it. Just disable sync and delete your data if you need/want to (idk if it is stored remotely or just synced device to device).
