271–280 of 352 posts
According to F-Droid [1], it contains `com.google.android.gms:play-services-analytics`. [1]: https://gitlab.com/fdroid/rfp/issues/171#note_30410376
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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.
But sometimes it is true and sometimes it is not. The difference matters.
Collecting aggregate usage statistics does not have the same consequences as building detailed personal profiles and storing them indefinitely.
I wish open source projects publish the compiled .apk file not just the source code. If I want to install this on my Fire HD I either have to download the .apk from some dodgy mirror site or install Google Play with some workaround on the Fire HD. Cause Firefox Focus is not available in the Amazon App Store. I mean yeah I can do both in the end, not a big deal, but I just want the .apk nothing else.
Same issue for every Chinese user... just pray its on Fdroid or get shady apps from the Xiaomi store
As an aside, I only use FDroid on my devices to install APKs (the only exception being Signal which now provides bare APKs[3]).
[1]: https://f-droid.org/packages/org.mozilla.klar/ [2]: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/focus-android/releases [3]: https://signal.org/android/apk/
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> 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.
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> news? They launched the android version not too long ago. This is probably just a push to get the word out to people who may not have heard. Fair enough in my opinion. > From my history I guess I don't think it's from your history. It seems like many common websites are preset to autocomplete; stackoverflow.com for example. Because it doesn't save history this seems like a nice way to reduce friction for users. I c…
>> From my history I guess > I don't think it's from your history. It seems like many common websites are preset to autocomplete; stackoverflow.com for example. Because it doesn't save history this seems like a nice way to reduce friction for users. I could be wrong though. In my experience, your statement is correct. Firefox Focus does not store history. It does have a long list of sites that it autocompletes. Whene…
I've just tested it again and indeed it haven't occurred again.
A good thing so :)
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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.
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Telemetry/FAQ
It collects things like "how slow is rendering" or "do you use feature X?". It's all anonymized, and you can verify this from the source (you can also turn it off). Folks are very careful if adding new telemetry metrics.
This isn't trackable data.
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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 :)
Also, Mozilla's privacy policy explains what Mozilla can do with the data. Generally it's not a matter of trusting the company as much as it is believing they'll follow their own privacy policy, which IMO is a reasonable assumption for most companies (including Facebook and Google, which use your data but do tell you about it)
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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?
So, yes, you give data to Google. The Google analytics dependency you include could literally be malware, and you could not test, or know. And you never know if it doesn’t just decide to steal your data and transmit it all, be it by Google’s decision or because an NSL was issued to demand Google do that.
So, yes, as soon as you include this dependency, the entire browser has to be considered compromised, and you might as well just use Google Chrome.
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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.
Sure, this example is contrived. But in some cases features make app development more complicated (ALSA support in desktop firefox might be a better example, but I'm not super familiar with that case). Knowing that a feature isn't used makes it easy to accurately remove crufty/complicated features without negatively impacting a lot of users. And makes it possible to justify retaining complex features that happen to be useful to many users.
Same story with crash reports (typically users have to explicitly confirm sending crash reports in many applications, no idea what kind of system Focus uses though). You need to know which issues are actually important, developers don't have infinite time (as much as we wish we did).
(I used to be sceptical too... but you're sailing blind without this kind of data, and ultimately hurting both yourself and your users.)
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Reading that link it says nothing about disabling Google analytics, which is what the parent post implies is at play here. It is not clear that is the case, but if it is, the disable button does nothing to help you. Firefox's about:config does not seem to work on FF Focus either.
Focus does not use Google Analytics. I dont understand how people came to that conclusion. Focus does not talk to any Google services at all. There is no Google Analytics in Focus. Check the source code please to verify this.
Ergo, Focus uses com.google.android.gms:play-services-analytics.
Ergo, Focus talks to certain Google Services.
If you recursively import a proprietary binary, it still ends up in the resulting apk. I’ve checked the APK, the Google Analytics libary ends up in it, and it is not in any way sandboxed from the rest of the browser.