Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Firefox tracks users with Google Analytics in the add-on settings

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–179 of 179 posts

Re: Firefox tracks users with Google Analytics in the add-on settings

#171

Post by sleeksorrow »

Charismatic wrote: post #138

Without elaborating on opt-in or opt-out, there is one clear fact: A user that has telemetry disabled has clearly stated that he does NOT want to "Share performance, usage, hardware and accusation data about your browser with Mozilla". https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/share-telemetry-data-mo... If you do this add-on tracking despite this option is turned off, this is a clear breach of trust. If I have this option…

Thank you for spreading my opinion. Tho next time I would appreciate proper credits and the source link. (https://github.com/mozilla/addons-frontend/issues/2785#issue...) Also: Please better highlight your edits on my words.

Re: Firefox tracks users with Google Analytics in the add-on settings

#172

Post by kuschku »

gcp wrote: post #167
kuschku wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I changed the wording of my post, but generally, the Tor Browser uses NoScript to block Google Analytics anywhere to improve security, and this page circumvents that, allowing Google Analytics to be loaded. This provides significantly more tracking information than if no GA script was ever loaded. Additionally, that page has special access to allow installing addons, or removing them, and the Google Analytics script…

You'd still see an installation doorhanger. Fore sure, this will leak info you'd rather not, but I see no evidence it allows de-anonymization. If it did, any custom tracking NoScript doesn't know about would defeat Tor. And that's not the case.

The issue is less random tracking, but that from 57 on no addon can block this, and that it runs in a privileged context.

Re: Firefox tracks users with Google Analytics in the add-on settings

#173

Post by kuschku »

gcp wrote: post #67
kuschku wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For --some people-- all firefox users that won't be enough. The only reason people use Firefox nowadays is because they don’t trust Google. The intersection between "Trusts Google not to abuse data they get access to" and "uses Firefox" is the empty set.

Nah, as is evident by the amount of Firefox users that still have Google as their search engine. It's a false equivalence. There is a difference between trusting Google not to abuse data they legally guaranteed not to abuse (Firefox), versus, well, pretty much plainly saying your data will be used, and knowing that the product has many features which make the tracking more pervasive and invasive (Chrome, Google Accou…

Maybe because Firefox ships Google as default?

Re: Firefox tracks users with Google Analytics in the add-on settings

#174

Post by GrayShade »

lucideer wrote: post #71
gcp wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"performance, broad compatibility with websites" These are things which are greatly helped by having good analytics (Telemetry for the browser, analytics on your sites). You have to realize that to some extent these goals aren't mutually compatible. Developer resources don't appear out of thin air, even for open source software. Note how in the threads Mozilla explicitly acknowledges alternatives to GA.

I opt(ed) in to Firefox Telemetry for this reason (and will in future if this bug is satisfactorily fixed). I did not expect that would mean sending my data to 3rd parties I don't trust. Your comparison is a false equivalence, because it's not about telemetry vs privacy, it's about consent. If Mozilla devs adhered to the ethos of the company they took a job at they simply would not have implemented this feature.

Maybe the solution is for everyone bothered by this to disable Firefox Telemetry on their computers. There's also the "submit feedback" menu option.

Re: Firefox tracks users with Google Analytics in the add-on settings

#175

Post by slizard »

kuschku wrote: post #163
stinkytaco wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check that issue again. Before you posted this they agreed and pushed the issue to the add-ons team. Do not track should turn off Analytics. But that's not my point. As I said, they could well be wrong, but it's over the top to argue that it's Mozilla's fault for disclosing this in the privacy policy (which apparently no one reads). If you are so privacy conscious that this bothers you that much, the privacy policy s…

> If you are so privacy conscious that this bothers you that much, the privacy policy should be required reading. No, this is something that by law I have to be informed about. And Mozilla has a reputation of working for their users, so I actually trusted them. I do agree with you after this, the trust was misplaced, Mozilla is not any better than Google, NSA, MfS/Stasi or GeStaPo, just not giving a single fuck about…

There goes yet another example of Goodwin's law in action, but I'm not so glad for the arguably rash, overly emotional, and definitely not balanced analogy.

Re: Firefox tracks users with Google Analytics in the add-on settings

#176

Post by slizard »

kuschku wrote: post #163
stinkytaco wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check that issue again. Before you posted this they agreed and pushed the issue to the add-ons team. Do not track should turn off Analytics. But that's not my point. As I said, they could well be wrong, but it's over the top to argue that it's Mozilla's fault for disclosing this in the privacy policy (which apparently no one reads). If you are so privacy conscious that this bothers you that much, the privacy policy s…

> If you are so privacy conscious that this bothers you that much, the privacy policy should be required reading. No, this is something that by law I have to be informed about. And Mozilla has a reputation of working for their users, so I actually trusted them. I do agree with you after this, the trust was misplaced, Mozilla is not any better than Google, NSA, MfS/Stasi or GeStaPo, just not giving a single fuck about…

There goes yet another example of Goodwin's law in action, but I'm not so glad for the arguably rash, overly emotional, and definitely not balanced analogy.

Re: Firefox tracks users with Google Analytics in the add-on settings

#177

Post by mattab »

> We won't use Piwik. Mozilla uses Google Analytics for website analytics. Hosting our own is more work for a worse product.

Hi Mozilla, Piwik team here. Would you mind explaining what you found worse in Piwik VS Google and reporting your feedback to us, so we have a chance to improve and in the future to see Mozilla use Piwik to track users, rather than Google?

Re: Firefox tracks users with Google Analytics in the add-on settings

#179

Post by mutant77 »

snakeanus wrote: post #63
drdaeman wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like not implementing cookies, LocalStorage, screen resolution info, font enumeration, canvas, WebGL, WebRTC, etc etc? It's probably realistically possible to disable those with the existing browsers. Problem is, that will also break sites that expect you to have all those available. And it's said that there are too many of those (I never saw a proper analysis, though) Just consider: there are sites (one of my favori…

Cookies are still needed for site logins so it would be quite difficult to get rid of them, it would be possible however to enable them only for the sites that you are planing to log into. As for local storage, I only needed it for some greasemonkey extensions. Do legit sites actually use it? > font enumeration, canvas, WebGL, WebRTC I have all of these disabled for the last 2 years or so actually and I don't feel li…

You need localStorage to login in your mozilla account - I block it and lost access to my account.
Post reply on HN