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Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

#251

Post by chippy »

mozoldie wrote: post #230
progval wrote: post #7

According to F-Droid [1], it contains `com.google.android.gms:play-services-analytics`. [1]: https://gitlab.com/fdroid/rfp/issues/171#note_30410376

Focus (for Android) doesn't use Google analytics directly, but it's an indirect dependency - see below. Focus does have: - Mozilla telemetry: enabled by default in Focus, disabled by default in Klar. This only sends data to Mozilla servers, and only concerns what features people use (i.e. do people use share, do people use custom tabs, do people clear using the bin button or the notification). This stuff is used for…

What is Klar? edits- from anothe comment:

"Firefox Klar is a version of Firefox Focus for Germany, Austria and Switzerland with user activity tracking disabled by default."

Re: Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

#252

Post by cmrx64 »

newscracker wrote: post #234
goodplay wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla can solve this problem the right way by doing what debian does when it wants to collect statistics: Ask users if they want to donate their information to Mozilla on first run or during the installer. Recording users' behavior by default with informing the user clearly and giving him the option to opt-out is abhorrent, regardless of the benignity of the reason behind it. Disclosure: I use firefox, but periodic…

> Mozilla can solve this problem the right way by doing what debian does when it wants to collect statistics: Ask users if they want to donate their information to Mozilla on first run or during the installer. > Recording users' behavior by default with informing the user clearly and giving him the option to opt-out is abhorrent, regardless of the benignity of the reason behind it. (Even as a Firefox/Mozilla fan,) I…

I dunno. The stats are really super useful for insight into how REAL PEOPLE (not self-selected do-gooders) use the software, and also how new things (like Stylo!) interact with the many unique hardware, driver, software environments people run Firefox on.

Re: Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

#253

Post by TekMol »

mozoldie wrote: post #230
progval wrote: post #7

According to F-Droid [1], it contains `com.google.android.gms:play-services-analytics`. [1]: https://gitlab.com/fdroid/rfp/issues/171#note_30410376

Focus (for Android) doesn't use Google analytics directly, but it's an indirect dependency - see below. Focus does have: - Mozilla telemetry: enabled by default in Focus, disabled by default in Klar. This only sends data to Mozilla servers, and only concerns what features people use (i.e. do people use share, do people use custom tabs, do people clear using the bin button or the notification). This stuff is used for…

    This stuff is used for deciding what
    features to prioritise
This is exactly what every company tells you why they collect data. "To serve you better ...".

The hypocrisy to advertise "tracking protection" as a key feature and then send tracking data to your own servers is hillarious.

Re: Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

#254

Post by nsomaru »

TekMol wrote: post #253
mozoldie wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Focus (for Android) doesn't use Google analytics directly, but it's an indirect dependency - see below. Focus does have: - Mozilla telemetry: enabled by default in Focus, disabled by default in Klar. This only sends data to Mozilla servers, and only concerns what features people use (i.e. do people use share, do people use custom tabs, do people clear using the bin button or the notification). This stuff is used for…

This stuff is used for deciding what features to prioritise This is exactly what every company tells you why they collect data. "To serve you better ...". The hypocrisy to advertise "tracking protection" as a key feature and then send tracking data to your own servers is hillarious.

I'm okay with telemetry, if it makes Firefox better. It's a way of 'paying' for Firefox. Your trust has to go somewhere eventually, and Mozilla doesn't seem like a bad option.

Anonymised data would make me happier though :)

Re: Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

#255

Post by ghh »

Focus does not seem to erase your history in a way you may expect. Try this on Android:

- Erase your history.

- Go to HN, click any link you haven't clicked before.

- Wait for it to load.

- Erase your history. Make sure you see the notification "Your browsing history has been erased".

- Go to HN again, and see the link you've just clicked still highlighted as 'visited'.

Re: Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

#256

Post by st3fan »

TekMol wrote: post #253
mozoldie wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Focus (for Android) doesn't use Google analytics directly, but it's an indirect dependency - see below. Focus does have: - Mozilla telemetry: enabled by default in Focus, disabled by default in Klar. This only sends data to Mozilla servers, and only concerns what features people use (i.e. do people use share, do people use custom tabs, do people clear using the bin button or the notification). This stuff is used for…

This stuff is used for deciding what features to prioritise This is exactly what every company tells you why they collect data. "To serve you better ...". The hypocrisy to advertise "tracking protection" as a key feature and then send tracking data to your own servers is hillarious.

The kind of intrusive cross-site “we want to know evetyrging you do on the internet” style tracking that focus blocks is completely different than the minimal application usage telemetry that it collects.

Focus increments a counter if you search. With no way of knowing who you are, what you searched for or any way to correlate it to other telemetry.

Re: Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

#257

Post by st3fan »

dheera wrote: post #229
yeukhon wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As people below have already added their comments, I just want to give my two cents. This is not PR bullshit, but the Focus team can consider asking users on first run. This private browser, having been using it since beta on iOS, is nothing more than just a private browsing window like the one offered in Desktop version (I am not here to debate the technical implementation since I do not know). Telemetry does not br…

Part of the problem is when Mozilla gives data to Google, there is no way of knowing what Google does with it. If you want to trust Mozilla AND Google AND trust that no gag orders have been issued to the above companies by the NSA, CIA, FBI et al, fine. That's the way 99% of apps work. They all have privacy policies, and people generally trust them. The whole point of explicitly "private" or "anonymous" software is t…

Mozilla does not give data to Google. Why do you think that? Can you be more concrete?

Re: Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

#258

Post by st3fan »

diggernet wrote: post #217
st3fan wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is that it is a dependency of the Adjust SDK that Focus uses. See https://github.com/adjust/android_sdk/blob/master/README.md

Wait... Focus doesn't use Google Analytics because they don't meet your very high standards for privacy. But it does use Adjust, which means Adjust does meet your very high standards, even though it uses Google Analytics?

This is a misunderstanding. Adjust does not use google analytics. You are connecting unrelated things. The existence of a library, which actually is not a google analytics library, does not mean at all this app talks to google servers.

AFAIK Focus and Adjust make no connections to google. Check the source?

Re: Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

#259

Post by st3fan »

rhaps0dy wrote: post #250
diggernet wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait... Focus doesn't use Google Analytics because they don't meet your very high standards for privacy. But it does use Adjust, which means Adjust does meet your very high standards, even though it uses Google Analytics?

But Adjust only comes into play when the app is installed by clicking on a Google ad campaign. So at that point, Google already knows you've clicked on the ad and installed the app (because that's how they bill Mozilla).

I don’t think Adjust is for Google ad campaigns actually. It is used for links we put in our emails or in Firefox desktop. Or for ads that we buy on Facebook. I don’t think there is any connection to google.

Re: Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

#260

Post by st3fan »

nfriedly wrote: post #184

Using Firefox on iOS is kind of frustrating - I can have either tabs or ad blocking, but not both. I want Firefox and Firefox Focus to merge on iOS.

Sign up for the beta at https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/channel/ios/ - Firefox will get the same blocks lists as Focus pretty soon.
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